Almost True (30 page)

‘I'm not scared! Shut up!'

‘But you have to have a life; you have to keep on with your running, with your languages, darling. You need to get ready for school. Otherwise you might as well . . . be. . .'

She stops. Her hand covers her mouth. Tears flood down her face. The scar on my stomach is blazing like it's been ripped open and someone's trying to weld it back together with a blowtorch.

‘Be what? Be dead? Maybe you should never have had me in the first place.'

‘Ty. . .' she gulps, but we're not alone. Louise comes into the room carrying a Londis bag full of milk and bread and eggs. ‘What the hell is going on?' she asks.

‘Ty . . . he's upset. . .' sobs my mum, and Lou turns on me. ‘For heaven's sake. What have you done?' She clocks the chair lying on the ground. ‘You threw a chair at her? For God's sake, Tyler. Are you OK, Nicki?'

‘I never . . . I didn't . . . she's taken all my stuff, Lou, my games and my telly and my console.'

‘I know,' says Lou, ‘I helped her.'

My breath is coming in short puffs. I'm shaking. I slam my fist onto the kitchen table. ‘Get them back!
Get them back! Or I'll . . . I'll. . .'

‘You can go to your room right now,' says Louise in her best classroom voice. ‘You're acting like a five year old. Go and calm down and then we can talk about this.'

I need to get away from them before I make a complete fool of myself. Also, I am a bit cold. I'm shivering. ‘I'll go in my room because I want to,' I yell. ‘Because I can't stand looking at you . . . traitors . . . liars . . .
thieves
. . . for one more minute.' And I slam my door so hard, the entire sixteen-storey block shakes.

All I can see is the emptiness where the PlayStation used to be. There's nothing else. Two beds and a table. An empty table. I punch the wall, again and again. Plaster flakes fly into the air. But it doesn't make me feel better. I fling myself onto my bed, fists to my forehead, full of rage with nowhere to go.

And then someone stirs in the other bed.

All I can see is a tuft of dark hair. Who . . . what. . .? And then a face emerges and he stretches and yawns. Jesus Christ. It's Alistair.

I feel my forehead – am I running a high temperature again? That's why they said I was hallucinating before, wasn't it? But I don't feel hot. Alistair looks over at me and smiles, quite kindly. ‘Don't worry,' he says. ‘It's stress. Understandable.'

I'm not talking to him. He's not real. He's not. Perhaps if I turn my back on him he'll disappear. I lie still for five minutes. But it's no good. I can hear him humming
Silent Night
.

‘They did the right thing, you know' he says. I'm not answering. He's not real. If I talk to him, I'm talking to myself. Like a mad person.

‘You were getting addicted,' he says. ‘Forgetting to exercise. That's not healthy.'

‘Shut up,' I growl very quietly between clenched teeth.

‘You should listen to me,' he says. ‘I've got a degree in Sport and Exercise Science from Loughborough University.'

‘Big sodding deal.'

‘I know people think that trainers in gyms are dumb, but there's actually a lot of expertise involved,' he says, sounding a bit hurt.

‘Yeah, right,' I snarl back.

‘You should try yoga – it's very good for stress reduction. I'll give you a leaflet,' he says.

‘You can't, you're dead,' I point out, brutally.

He shrugs. ‘Yoga's very big here,' he says. ‘Some wonderful teachers. I'm learning a lot.'

‘Oh.' I don't know what to say. ‘Umm, that's good.'

‘Anyway . . . look, Ty, you can't yell at Nicki like that,' he says. ‘She's at a difficult stage.'

Hah! That shows how much he knows. She's always difficult. ‘Shut up,' I hiss. ‘You know nothing about her.'

‘I knew everything the minute I saw her,' he says dreamily. ‘So beautiful and so fragile. I see lots of girls like her at the gym.'

I don't want to hear this. But he goes on and on.

‘I felt a connection the minute we got talking. I wanted to help her . . . get her exercising . . . help her quit the smoking . . . healthy eating. . .'

For God's sake. He's making out he was some sort of Health Crusader, instead of a sleazy guy trying to get his leg over.

‘You wanted to get her into bed.' I've turned round to look at him now and I'm back to my normal voice. It's hard to remember someone's not real when they're totally winding you up. ‘You knocked her up. Not very healthy, was it? What about safe sex?'

He shrugs. ‘We got carried away. Heat of the moment. You'll understand one day.'

Patronising git. Patronising
dead
git.

He leans forward. His hands grasp mine. They're so cold . . . so icy cold that I start shivering again. I want to pull away but I can't move. ‘Look after her,' he says urgently, his grey eyes staring into mine. ‘Look after her. She won't like it. It'll upset her. . .'

‘Wh . . . what?'

‘Ty, you know what I'm talking about. You know. Really you do. Look after her. Look after the baby.' His eyes flicker over me, unimpressed. ‘You're all I've got.'

Then he's gone. Dissolved into the air. I'm left, sitting on the bed, staring at nothing, shaking and shivering,
skin bumpy as an Iceland chicken.
You know
, he said.
You know.

What did he mean?

I pull on some clothes. I'd like to have a shower but it's not my day on the rota. You try sharing a flat with four women. Your personal hygiene suffers, believe me. I'm breathing in and out, in and out, replaying his words, trying to focus, concentrate, remember.

And then there's an explosion of noise and I fall off the bed in shock . . . but it's great, it's fine, it's amazing because the noise is a dog's happy barks! And it's Meg! And she's jumping up and licking my face and I'm hugging her close and breathing her dusty smell. Her beautiful, beautiful smell.

I know she's not a hallucination. Nothing could be more real than Meg. But what's she doing here? She can't have tracked me cross-country, through the streets of Birmingham, up in the lift?

Meg snuffles at me in a way that would be a purr if she was a cat. ‘What are you doing here, girl?' I ask her soft ears, her shiny brown eyes. ‘How did you find me?'

My mum is standing at my bedroom door. ‘Well,' she says. ‘I never thought I'd see you so fond of a dog.'

I still haven't even nearly got over the outrageous
PlayStation theft. I ignore her and concentrate on scratching Meg's tummy.

‘Patrick and Helen want you to go and stay there for a few days.' She says it in a totally neutral voice, like she's reading the football results on 5live.

‘You
what
? When I was there before, you acted like I'd been kidnapped.'

She's gone a bit pink. ‘Yes, but things are different now. I think you need a change of scene. Anyway, aren't you going to get dressed and come and say hello to Patrick?'

Oh my God. I can hear his voice rumbling in the distance. I'm still not sure how I'm even going to face him.

Five minutes later, I sidle into the living room, Meg by my side. Patrick's standing in the middle of the room examining a large patch of damp that's made a dark shadow of mould on the wall. ‘It's a complete health hazard,' he's telling Louise. ‘Really, they should pull these places down. No wonder some of the people who live in them behave like animals. Oh, hello, Ty.'

That's what I like about Patrick. He tells the truth. We've all been pretending that patch doesn't exist. Patrick just says what he thinks. I give him a big grin.

‘Having a good Christmas?' he asks, looking me
up and down. I'm suddenly self-conscious about my unwashed hair and crumpled jeans.

‘Umm . . . yeah. OK.'

‘I gather there's been a touch of family disharmony,' he says, raising his eyebrows.

Blimey. Mum must've been really worried about the gaming to have told Patrick about it. Pregnancy has softened her brain cells.

‘Why don't you sort out your bag, Ty?' she says, picking dog hairs off the sofa. She's looking like she's already regretting letting Patrick and Meg through the front door.

I scuttle off to stuff a few things into a bag, but I leave the door open so I can listen to what they're saying, although I don't really need to, because Patrick's voice is so loud that he can probably be heard by the people upstairs with the sound system from hell.

‘This is no place for a baby, Nicki,' he says, and for one astonished moment I think he means me. Then I realise he doesn't. I can't hear her reply, but I work out it's something about money. Beggars can't be choosers, I should think. She's been saying that a lot recently.

‘You've got my idle son to tap for fifteen years' worth of child support,' booms Patrick. ‘He's made a small fortune, as far as I can work out, with his so-called music,
and I don't think all of it disappeared up his nose. Just because you wouldn't take money from him before doesn't mean you can't take it now.'

Mumble, mumble from my mum. Louise says, ‘He's got a point, you know, Nic.'

Patrick again: ‘And what about the new baby? Surely you have a claim on the father's estate.'

Blimey. I'm suddenly aware, out of the corner of my eye, of Alistair, pressed against the wall, listening intently. But when I turn to look at him, he's gone.

I've missed my mum's reply if there was one. But Patrick says, ‘You should try and contact them. They've lost a son, why should they lose the chance to know and support their grandchild?'

This seems as good a time as any to break it up. I haul my bag onto my back and walk into the living room just as my mum, red in the face now, says, ‘Look, just because I've said Ty can come and stay with you for a few days doesn't mean you can walk in here and start telling me what to do.'

‘Patrick didn't mean—' says Lou, just as I open my big, fat mouth and say, ‘He's right, actually, Mum.'

‘
What?
' says my mum, shooting me a filthy look.

Maybe if I make this happen, then Alistair will leave me alone. Finally. Forever.

‘You should – it's the right thing – Alistair would
really want you to, I know for sure. It's not fair on the baby if you don't.'

Right next to me, I can see Alistair. I think he's giving me the thumbs up.

There's a silence. My mum's red face has faded to white. Lou's hand is over her mouth. Patrick pulls out his handkerchief and blows his nose. His eyes look a bit funny. Maybe he's allergic to mould.

‘We'd better get going,' he says. ‘Nicki, I'm sorry if I spoke out of turn. I didn't mean to interfere.'

‘Oh,' says my mum, ‘OK.' She sounds a bit sour but she's not going to explode in the next five minutes. I give her a quick hug, tell them to say goodbye to Gran – still out looting the shops with her ill-gotten gains – and check that I'll be back before Lou and Em skip the country.

‘Oh, yes,' says Mum again, ‘They're going on the first of January and you have to be back to report to the police here on the thirtieth.'

They arrange that Patrick will take me to the police station on the way back, and that's it. We're out. Escape from the fortress of women. We get downstairs and his car's safe, amazingly, although it turns out that's because he's paid a kid five pounds to keep an eye on it.

And we're driving away, and the city turns into green fields and country lanes and Meg's whining in the
back to go and have a run. Patrick pulls in at the side of the road and we find a footpath and Meg bounces out of the car. She rushes off, every centimetre full of joy to be free and running and following her nose. I wish I could turn into a dog. I'll never get to be that happy.

It's cold, and my breath puffs out in front of me. Someone's driven a tractor down this path and ice sparkles in the frozen mud stripes and ridges of the tyre tracks. It's good to be outdoors, good to breathe in the fresh cold air. My mind's getting clearer and sharper. Everything is coming into focus. Memory bites, like the cold.

‘We have a lot to talk about,' says Patrick, as we walk after Meg. ‘You need to tell me what's happened with the police and your lawyer. I hope that Danny's found you a good one.'

He doesn't sound too cross with me, but at the same time I'm not stupid enough to think that Patrick's going to be super cool about what I've done. ‘He's called Mr Armstrong,' I say. ‘He seems OK.'

‘What on earth happened?' he says. ‘I thought you were a witness, not a participant. According to Penelope you're facing a long list of serious charges.'

I sigh. ‘I don't know. It was just . . . one thing kind of led to another. Danny thought I should tell the police. It was sort of screwing me up, not telling.' Not, mind you,
that I feel especially un-screwed up now.

‘What was the first thing?' he asks. ‘You say one thing led to another. What was the first step in this mess?'

I'm not sure what to say. The obvious answer is the knife. The first knife. The knife that Arron said I needed for protection. If I hadn't had that knife, then I couldn't have stabbed him. I'd have had nothing to lie about. So much would have been different.

I remember the day he told me to carry it. I gave it, oh, about a minute's thought, and just stuck it in my back pocket. My biggest worry was whether I would cut myself if I sat down.

But maybe that wasn't the first step. Maybe it went back before then. Maybe the trouble started the day I decided to ignore that Arron was almost definitely dealing drugs at school. Maybe it was the first day I let him get away with calling me names – pretty boy, gay boy – and decided I could take anything, as long as we went on being friends.