Another Life (7 page)

‘That’s better,’ he says, and I think he’s going to pat me on the back. I step backwards.

‘If – and it’s a big if – I can organise better training for you, and if the governor agrees, then there’s an athletics meet in Northampton next month,’ he
says. ‘You interested?’

Am I interested?

On the one hand it’s crazy to do anything at all that could draw attention to myself.

On the other – a day out of prison a chance to compete, to beat, to triumph.

And all in Northampton. Approximately seven miles from Claire’s home.

I could write to her. She could be there.

‘I’m interested,’ I say.

I
 thought for a long time about the best way to tell Claire all Ty’s bad news and in the end I sent her a message on Facebook.

Yes, I did.

No, actually, I don’t think that was stupid and insensitive.

I didn’t write it on her wall, I sent her a private message. I sent her my phone number so she could call me. I think that I handled it very well. I sent it on Friday and today is Sunday,
so she’s had all weekend to call me.

So what the hell is she doing standing on our doorstep, talking to my mum?

‘Go and get dressed, Archie,’ says Mum, not even bothering to check whether I am dressed or not – fair enough, really, because it’s only 10.30 am and I was at a party
(Lily’s cousin Maia in Notting Hill) until 2 am.

By the time I’m ready (my new hairstyle takes ages, I have to pull it all forward and then tousle – Oscar showed me how) Mum’s got her in the interrogation chamber, i.e. the
conservatory, has disarmed her with coffee and croissants and is metaphorically shining a light into her eyes.

‘Claire’s come all the way from Northamptonshire!’ she says, a note of triumph in her voice.

Claire looks as fierce as you can when you’re the height and build of a twelve year old, you have short blonde hair, big blue eyes and a soft sweet voice. She’s not my type at all
– I prefer Real Women with real breasts – but I can see how she and Ty look cool together in a world’s-least-suited-couple way. Not really Beauty and the Beast, more like a
straight version of Batman and Robin, or Tom and Jerry – assuming (as I do) they were gay couples.

‘Err . . . hey, Claire,’ I say, dead casual. ‘What brings you here?’

I’m still a bit wasted from the party last night. My head is throbbing and my eyes are sore. The last thing I need is some hideous tearful scene, and, let’s face it, whenever
I’ve seen Claire, she’s usually turned on the waterworks sooner or later.

‘I need to ask you some questions,’ says Claire, like she’s Inspector Morse and I’ve murdered a professor.

Mum’s nose twitches, and I say, ‘Oh right . . . maybe we should go out.’

‘Fresh croissants!’ says Mum. ‘I’ll froth some milk for your latte!’

But Claire’s already out of her chair and saying, ‘Yes, let’s. Thanks for the coffee, Mrs Stone.’

‘Oh, call me Penny,’ says Mum, who’s actually never changed her name to Stone and insists on being called Ms Penelope Tyler. I think it’s a bit sexist when women
don’t change their names when they get married. It’s like she thinks she’s better than Dad and me.

‘Thanks, Penny, come on, Archie.’

There’s a café around the corner and I suggest going there, but Claire wants to take the Tube into town. I agree – I’m waiting for the emotional storm to burst and
I’m certainly not risking arguing with her.

But she doesn’t mention Ty or his gran or prison or Facebook. Instead she starts asking me questions.

Why aren’t I at boarding school any more? How do I feel about that? What school will I go to now? She seems really interested, and she listens carefully to my answers and then follows up
the questions with more. Why do I want to stay in London? Why are my parents away a lot? Which school would I really like to go to?

We talk all the way to Temple station, and then she leaps up and says, ‘Let’s get out here.’

So we cross over the Thames and we’re wandering along the South Bank and I’m almost forgetting that we’re here to talk about my jailbird cousin, because there’s a
second-hand book stall and I find out she’s recently got into manga and has been trying to draw some, which is kind of amazing, because I’m the only person I know who does that.

I mean, for all I know everyone at Allingham Priory was secretly creating manga masterpieces, but it’s not something we’d ever have found out about each other, because we were too
busy being forced to play rugby.

When we get to the National Theatre she says, ‘Wow . . . I wish we could get tickets for something.’

‘Do you? Like what? It’s not musicals and stuff in there, it’s, y’know, Shakespeare etc.’

I’ve been there quite often. My mum and dad believe in taking me to cultural things. I mostly enjoy them, actually, but I don’t want her to think I’m some sort of goody-goody
intellectual.

‘I think I might want to be an actress,’ she says.

‘Really?’

I can’t imagine Claire up on stage. She’s so quiet and small.

‘I like it,’ she says. ‘It’s like you can be someone else completely. It’s fascinating.’

‘I’d like to see you act,’ I say, and she grins and says, ‘Maybe you can one day. I’ll tell Zoe next time I’m in something.’

Oh yes, Zoe. My long-distance girlfriend, Zoe. I’d kind of forgotten about her.

‘Maybe we can get tickets,’ I say. ‘I’ve got some cash and they might have cut-price tickets just before the performance.’

She looks wistful, but says, ‘No, I need to be on the 5 pm train, or I’ll be in trouble.’

‘Does anyone know you’re here?’

‘Not my family. I told Zoe – I needed to get your address. She’ll cover for me if I’m late back. But it’s better if I’m not. And, anyway, we need to
talk.’

We end up walking towards the London Eye. She’s looking at it, impressed – all non-Londoners are – so I say, ‘Shall we go and queue up? It’s not so bad this time of
year, we shouldn’t have to wait too long,’ as though I’m working for the London Tourist Office.

She smiles – and right there and then I truly get what Ty sees in Claire. Her smile is something else. When someone’s expression is naturally serious, to see their eyes widen, their
face change shape . . . it’s like getting into a warm car on an icy day. I swear, you feel like you’d do anything to see that smile again.

She doesn’t mention Ty until we’re high in the sky, until I’ve told her a bit about the only thing I really enjoyed at my first boarding school, which was taking part in a
Gilbert and Sullivan opera, all dressed up in a Japanese kimono. I liked it all, the singing and being on stage and everything about it, actually. It’s completely naff – I know,
sad.

Oscar and Lily would have laughed at me, never let me forget it, God knows what Ty would’ve said, but Claire nods solemnly and says, ‘If it was fun, why didn’t you want to stay
at that school?’

‘Oh, you know. Because I didn’t want to be there.’

‘I’d quite like to go to boarding school,’ says Claire, gazing out over London. ‘I can’t wait to leave home. Where’s the bit where you live?’

I locate some landmarks . . . Tower Bridge due east . . . and then point to the west.

‘Look, Fulham, over there.’

‘And where does Ty come from?’

‘That way . . . over there.’

And I gesture past Tower Bridge, over to St Pauls, up and east to the grubby streets of the East End. Seen from so high up, London is vast and never-ending, a huge nest of ants, all scurrying
around, busy and biting and not realising how small they are, how easily crushed. The Thames gleams and twists like a snake in the mud. There’s a yellow-brown haze in the air.

London is one of the biggest cities in the world. It started out small and it grew and grew, eating little villages, swallowing fields and farms, hills and valleys. It doesn’t really
believe in itself as a city. It still thinks it’s just a load of bits stuck together.

‘He was a long way from you,’ says Claire. ‘Did you see him much when you both lived in London?’

Ty was a long way from me. He was poor, I was rich. He was east, I was west. He knew people in gangs, people who mugged and fought and killed. I worried about getting mugged.

‘I never saw him at all. I never even knew I had a cousin. Actually, I think Grandma might have mentioned him sometimes, but I didn’t realise what she was on about. He was like a
family secret.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s like, you know, those things that happen when you’re a baby and no one ever bothers to explain.’

‘Oh yeah,’ she said, ‘like my sister’s accident. I was only about eight and I thought it was all my fault because I asked her to show me her gymnastics routine and then
she fell off the beam. They only bothered to tell me last year that actually the equipment was faulty. All those years I thought it was my fault she was in a wheelchair.’

‘Wow,’ I say. ‘It must have been good to find out that wasn’t true.’

‘It was, but I was angry that no one told me before. Turned out they all thought I knew.’

‘Exactly,’ I say, and she grins at me.

‘Ty’s having a hard time,’ she says.

‘A really hard time,’ I agree, ‘but he seemed OK, Claire, at the funeral. He asked me to tell you about everything.’ I swallow nervously. ‘Maybe Facebook
wasn’t the best way, but I thought. . .’

‘Epic fail, Archie,’ says Claire, but she doesn’t seem angry.

‘Anyway, he’s OK and we can write to him and they said he’d only serve six weeks. . .’

‘Archie,’ she says, ‘you’re probably wondering what I’m doing here.’

‘Umm . . . well. . .’

‘The thing is that when I met Ty, he was someone else completely.’

‘Oh I know about that,’ I say. ‘He was Joe, wasn’t he – the false identity because of witness protection?’

‘Yes. He was Joe. He was, like, the most popular, best-looking, most impressive, amazing person in our school.’

I think about the Ty I know. OK, I can just about imagine that.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. And then . . . he noticed me. I was . . . I wasn’t a very happy person then, Archie. For me, just talking to someone like Joe – I know it sounds crazy – but
it made me feel. . .’

Her voice trails off. She’s blushing.

I’ve always been confident. I’ve always assumed that people basically like me, find me interesting, entertaining. I’m struggling to put myself in her position here.

‘That must have been nice.’

‘It was . . . much more than nice.’ She’s smiling at the memory. ‘It was overwhelming. Have you ever been in love, Archie?’

Oh God. Is she here to interrogate me for Zoe?

‘Well . . . you know. . .’

‘It made me feel like I was a newer, better, braver version of myself,’ she says. ‘I felt like I could do all the things that had felt impossible before. And I completely,
utterly, absolutely believed that Joe was a good person.’

‘OK . . . right. . .’

‘And then I started having doubts,’ she says, ‘because he sent me this email which said he’d hurt someone. And he’s never really explained it. And I want everything
to be all right, Archie, I really do, but now he’s in prison and I’m thinking, who is this person I’m in love with? I think I love him, but do I know him? Am I making a colossal
error?’

I summon up all my loyalty to my cousin – even though I hardly know him myself.

‘I’m certain Ty really loves you too,’ I say, which sounds good, but isn’t really an answer.

The London Eye glides to a halt. We’re back down on earth.

Claire looks at me. ‘Archie, I’ve come to you because you’re the best friend Ty’s got. You’re family.’

I like Claire. I really do. If she wasn’t going out with my cousin and I wasn’t sort of long-distance-Skypingly involved with her best friend, then I think I might really like her a
lot.

‘Right, OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll keep you up to date on how he’s doing.’

‘I need to ask you to do something for me,’ she says.

What the hell?

‘Sure, anything,’ I say.

‘It might be a bit dangerous,’ she says, looking worried.

To be completely honest, I’m in severe danger here already.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I say. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I want you to tell Ty that I need a break. I’m not sure I’m the right person to support him through this. I don’t know if we’ve got a future any more.’

M
y mum is a connoisseur of other people’s feelings. She’s very kind and caring and all that, but you can see from the shine in her eyes
that when things get heavy and emotional, she’s really quite enjoying it.

My dad says she should have been a therapist or a tabloid journalist – not a lawyer. I personally would never dream of telling her any secrets. It’s not that she wouldn’t be
helpful, it’s just that with such an appreciative audience, I might never stop.

Her brother obviously never learned this when he was growing up. When I get back from seeing Claire off at Euston station, Danny’s sitting at the kitchen table, cradling a large glass of
wine, muttering and mumbling into his chest.

Mum looks up as I come in, and jerks her head very briefly to indicate that I need to scoot. But I’m just as nosy as she is. I back out of the room as silently as possible, but as soon as
she turns her back I drop down on my hands and knees and crawl past them to the conservatory, where I curl up behind some large, green, leafy thing. I can hear everything that’s going on,
and, in my opinion, what I can hear is a grown man crying.

‘I’ve got another bottle in the fridge,’ says Mum, ‘if you’re sure you’re OK with alcohol. I’m not nagging, but you’ve done so well. Oh, OK . . .
just this once. . .’

Sniff, gulp, a kind of hiccupping sound. Sniff. Groan. And then glug, glug, glug – she’s pouring him another glass.

Gulp. And then, ‘Thanks, Pen. Jesus. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I ought to be going.’

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ says Mum, predictably. ‘Stay here for supper and you can sleep in the spare room, if necessary. I’m worried about you,
Danny.’