Almost True (26 page)

She takes my hand. She doesn't say anything. She opens her mouth a few times and closes it again, like a goldfish. Then she says, ‘I'm sorry, my darling, but it's never going to be that easy.'

Christ. She's twisted it round so I look like a stupid kid who's spinning fairy tales about Mummy and Daddy getting back together again. I'm not going to mess around being careful of her feelings any more.

‘Are you sleeping with him?'

‘No,' she says, but her mouth makes a funny sort of twisting movement.

‘You want to, though, you both want to.'

‘That,' she says firmly, ‘is really none of your business.'

There's a pause. Then she says, ‘Ty, why did you think he'd hit me?'

I'm cringing. Why does she have to bring this up? I don't want to remind her of the time she found out I'd slightly bullied Claire. What she said.

‘Because of what you said . . . to Claire . . . you said it's never acceptable . . . you said. . .'

‘Yes, but I never said your dad, did I?'

‘No but. . .' I trailed off. What does she mean? Someone else?

‘There was a guy,' she says. ‘Remember him? Chris the plumber? Nice looking? You were about four.'

‘Ye . . . esss. . .'

‘It was him,' she says, ‘But it wasn't me he hit – not at first, anyway. It was you.'

It makes no sense. It makes no sense what she's saying. I just about remember Chris the plumber. I'm sure I'd remember if he'd . . . if he'd. . .

‘Discipline,' she says. ‘That's what he called it. He said you were spoilt, a naughty boy, needing a firm hand. I didn't even realise what was going on. Then there was one day . . . in the car. . .'

I remember that day in the car. I remember. But he didn't hit me. She sorted everything out. She hid the wet patch, she took me to Gran, she saved me. Nothing bad happened.

She's looking at me. ‘Do you remember?'

I'm not sure what I do remember. But I'm not going to discuss it . . . much too embarrassing.

Nothing stops her, though. ‘You were making a mess
in his car – he was a neat freak, Ty, spent hours every week cleaning that frigging Ford Mondeo. He went ballistic. Shouted at you, stopped the car. Scared you so much you wet yourself. Poor little mite. I should've done something, should've stopped him. I'm so sorry, Ty. I was young and stupid and I kind of believed him when he said you needed a father figure. Anyway, he saw what you'd done and he stopped the car and he belted you. Wham, across the face. Horrific. You were so scared, you didn't even cry.'

What can you trust if you can't believe your own memories? How do you know what's true or not?

‘You don't remember, do you?' she says. ‘Thank God for that. I felt so guilty. After that you stayed at your gran's whenever I saw him—'

Unbelievable.
‘You went
on
seeing him?'

She blushes, ‘I said I was young and stupid, OK. I thought I was in love.'

I don't say anything. What can I say? But I feel like Jukes's knife carved out everything that was ever inside me.

‘And then he started getting jealous. Thought I was looking at other guys. And one day he lashed out at me, gave me a black eye. And that was it. Over. You were affected. You were very quiet for a while. But then you started school, and made friends with Arron,
and well . . . we moved on.'

‘Why didn't you tell me before?'

She shrugs, ‘When's the right moment to talk about something like that?'

I turn my head away from her. ‘You never told me anything.'

‘Ty,' she says. Her voice is soft and pleading. ‘Ty, darling, we all make mistakes. I just wanted to make a good life for you. Make things right. I tried my best.'

I blink hard. I don't want to have this conversation any more. ‘I know. It's OK,' I say.

‘There's other stuff I ought to talk to you about,' she says. Her voice is hesitant, unsure. I don't look at her.

The bell goes for the end of visiting time. She gets up to go. ‘You need to rest,' she says.

‘I don't want to rest. I do nothing but rest. It's so boring here. There's nothing to do.' I sound like a baby, I know, but I can't help it.

She kisses me on the forehead. ‘What about that iPod Archie gave you? What about the books he's lent you? What about the telly in this posh private room? And Pen's sent you a book of Sudoku.'

I yawn. Archie's iPod was full of girl bands and I've given it back to him with a list of decent stuff to add. Proper men's music. His books are thrillers and manga and I'm not in the mood for either. And as for
Sudoku. . . God knows why Archie's mum would think I'd spend one moment trying to work out where stupid numbers go in some stupid grid.

‘Boring. Tell Archie to come tomorrow.'

‘He's off to school next week,' she says. ‘This is his last weekend. He's acting like he's being sent off to prison. He's a brat. Boarding school will be good for him.'

‘He wants to stay at home,' I say, and she says, ‘His mum's a top City lawyer, you know. I'd love to have a career like that. Danny's sisters were always incredibly impressive. And she's done it all with a child. Talk about inspiring.'

There are times when I just don't get how her mind works.

‘This school, Allingham Priory,' she adds, ‘Danny's dad suggested seeing if they had a place for you. He offered to pay. Said it seemed like a really good school.'

Oh my God. I can just imagine Patrick's idea of a good school. ‘No! I'm going to France! You said!'

‘No, it's probably not the best thing,' she says, ‘although, mind you, Ty, private education.'

‘France.'

‘Oh, well, I suppose it'll be safer. Now I really am going.'

She kisses me again and then she's gone. And I'm
all on my own and I've got another boring, boring, lonely evening in the hospital to look forward to, and I really don't fancy my own company right now.

She's left
Twilight
behind, and I pick it up, but a quick skim of the first page or two confirms that she was right – it's not my sort of thing at all.

I spend ten minutes frowning at a Sudoku puzzle, and then realise I've got two eights next to each other. I chuck the book at the door. It crashes onto the floor and Dennis, my personal armed guard, sticks his head round the door.

‘What's this then, throwing books?' he says, picking it up. ‘You must be feeling better. Last week you wouldn't have had the strength.'

‘I'm bored.'

Dennis is the nicest one of the cops that come and guard me. The others look at me like I'm scum and never talk. Dennis is as bored as I am and flits in and out chatting about football.

He sits down on the bed.

‘Dennis, what's going to happen when I get out of here? They're not going to have someone like you watching me all the time, are they?' I've been wondering where I'll go before I'm well enough for France. Or maybe I'll go straight from hospital to the Eurostar.

‘Doubt it,' he says, ‘It'll be witness protection for
you again, I should think. Quite a lot of people involved, though, this time – your dad, those girls he lives with. Not sure how they'll deal with all of them. But hopefully, now they've arrested old man White, the threat's not so great.'

‘They've arrested him? Jukes's dad?'

‘Big day today at the station. The guy who was nicked with your mate Jukes, turns out his sister's been temping in the witness protection admin office. They reckon that's how they got your name and address. It's the link they've been waiting for. They've found deposits in her bank account that match one of White's accounts. They did a dawn raid this morning. We've been trying to put this guy away for years.'

‘Is that good?' I don't know if that means I'll be safer or whether Jukes's dad will now hate me even more than he did before, and somehow find a way to eliminate me from inside his prison cell.

Dennis chuckles. ‘It'd better be. Biggest crook in north London. Hopefully we can move on and nick a few of his mates as well.'

Then he says, ‘I'm dying for a slash, and Jim's not coming to take over for another hour. I'm just going to use your facilities.'

He disappears into the loo that's attached to my room. My mum is really impressed that I've got my own
shower and toilet. She says it's because they've put me in the private patients' wing, and not being in an NHS ward is the one and only advantage she can think of that's come from this whole mess.

Dennis is being ages. He's not meant to leave the door unguarded. What if someone's lurking outside? What if a gunman bursts in? I'm concentrating hard on not worrying, not being paranoid, not jumping when I hear rattles and footsteps in the corridor outside.

And then there's a knock at the door.

No one ever knocks at my door. I don't stop to think whether a gunman would either. I dive for the floor, ready to roll under the bed. But my arm is still attached to a tube –
oww!
– and it rips out of my hand and I crash onto the floor by the bed, bleeding all over my pyjamas.

And then the door opens and Claire comes in.

I can't believe it. I'm stunned, mouth wide open and my arm is killing me, and she's running to me, ‘Why are you on the floor? Oh my God, you're bleeding! There's a gun! What happened?'

And then we hear the loo flush and the hiss of air freshener – thank you, Dennis, for
totally
ruining the moment – and he comes into the room and says, ‘I leave you for two minutes and you smuggle a girl in. Well, good luck to you, mate.'

And he picks up his gun and goes and stands outside the door. I don't think he really takes this job very seriously.

‘What . . . how . . . why are you here?' I ask, faintly. Claire has found some tissues, and is mopping the blood on my arm, and asking anxiously if she should call a nurse. But I have no intention of alerting anyone who might point out that visiting time is over. I climb back up onto the bed, holding a tissue against the blood, and it seems to be stopping. Claire curls up next to me and I'm so unbelievably happy. My face is one big stretched-out smile.

‘You asked me to come. So I came,' she says. She's wearing black jeans and a soft pink top. Her eyes are lined with smoky kohl. She's got shiny lip gloss and turquoise fingernails and her hair is blonde feathers.

She's nothing like the Claire I fell in love with.

But when I close my eyes, I smell her clean soapy smell and we're back in her dark bedroom again. Except that this time she's the cool, attractive one and I'm the complete mess. And last time she was cut and bleeding, and this time . . . this time it's me.

‘How did you get here? Did your parents bring you?'

She shakes her head. ‘They've gone to watch Ellie race in Prague, and me and the boys were meant to stay
at home with my granny, but I asked her if I could stay with Zoe and she said yes, because the boys are enough work for her and she's getting on a bit.

‘Zoe was desperate to see Archie again, so she decided to come and stay with her aunt in London. Her mum said it was fine. I'm not going to tell my parents, they'll only worry. We'll go back tomorrow, they'll never know.'

‘Oh, wow,' I say. Her mum and dad are going to totally kill her if they ever find out, but she doesn't seem too bothered.

‘Zoe and Archie are going to pick me up me later,' she says.

I'm desperate to hold her, but my body's like a sweaty lump of cheese. A sweaty, painful lump. Everything feels wrong. Then Claire scrambles off the bed and switches off the light. It's not quite dark because there's a street lamp right outside the window, but in the orange glow the room feels like it's ours.

She climbs back next to me and says, ‘Are you all right? You're covered in bruises.'

‘I'm OK.' The black eye is fading now, but I'm not exactly looking at my best.

‘Archie said you were nearly killed.' She strokes my hair. ‘I've never seen you look like this. You're so thin. Is this your natural hair colour? You're so blond.'

My hair is the colour of Special K, and about as
attractive. Claire only thinks I look blond because she's used to me with black hair. Now I'm washed out, colourless, boring. . . No one would blame her if she didn't fancy me any more.

‘It is natural,' I say. ‘I'll probably have to dye it again when I come out of here.'

‘It's nice,' she says, ‘It's weird, though. Is this how you look when you're not Joe?'

‘I'm still Joe,' I say. I don't care if it's true. ‘Claire, last time I saw you . . . last time, you know I really wanted to kiss you. I just couldn't.'

‘I worked it out,' she says, and she's shaking with laughter, but then she puts her hand on my cheek and she lifts her mouth to mine and I can taste cherry lip gloss and mint toothpaste. Her lips are so soft and so strong, and that emptiness carved inside me is filling up with joy.

Suddenly I feel alive again. Suddenly I've got energy and can sit up properly and kiss her back, and it's so great that I'm wondering if it's actually a dream . . . and whether it's one of those really fantastic dreams. . .

It's strange. When I used to kiss Ashley, it was a bit like doing beginner's Sudoku. It was all about what comes next . . . if this bit goes here, then this bit must go there . . . and nothing mattered except the final result. I never got that far – just like Suduko – although for different reasons, obviously.

But kissing Claire, it's like a diabolical Sudoku where you feel happy to have got even one number. I'm totally focussed, not planning ahead at all, and it's getting better and better . . . although I wonder why I'm thinking about Sudoku right now. . . She's so sweet and soft. . .