Crossing the Line (8 page)

After a few seconds Gina grabbed Orla's arm and pulled her back the way they'd come, but as Orla turned, her eyes sought out the rest of us. It was me she looked at. I couldn't see her all that clearly but I felt her laser stare in my spine and the nape of my neck. Swallowing, I took a step towards her. With a dismissive toss of her head she walked away, and I watched her go as I listened to my sister shriek with laughter at a dead boy who wasn't there to laugh back.

Aidan was dead and gone, but Allie would never let him go and there was nothing I could do to make her. I felt sick with guilt and uselessness and insomnia, because I hardly slept for two nights after the family outing. On the Monday I went hunting for Orla to apologise for my sister's behaviour at the beach. At least, that's the reason I gave myself. That was my excuse.

Poor Aidan. We're all using him still.

Orla wasn't hanging around the corridors with her posse; she wasn't outside in the school grounds; eventually I found her just the other side of the wire fence, where we weren't supposed to go (Health and Safety). She
was sitting against a half-dead tree on the sloping bank of the burn (which was indeed unhealthy and not very safe). The same burn trickled soddenly through Allie's fields, and it didn't get any more appealing by the time it passed the school. Twenty metres on it was swallowed in a concrete tunnel that was like a whalemouth, jammed with a grille of rusty iron baleen. Plastic bags and fast-food boxes had caught in the hatch, tattered by the sluggish current, laced with dirty foam.

Orla knew I was coming but she didn't look up. Without the posse she didn't seem quite so intimidating, so I clambered down the bank, close enough to read the book's cover. Something by Albert Camus.

‘Has that got pictures?' I said.

Lame, and she ignored me as I deserved.

‘I saw your mum last week. She came round to ours.'

Orla licked a black-polished fingertip and delicately turned a page.

‘I've tried to talk to Allie,' I said.

Orla snapped her book shut, keeping her place with a finger. ‘What d'you want, Mister Ambassador? A box of Ferrero Rocher?'

I looked at the book with her finger inside it. I could hardly say,
Well, no, but I was hoping for some sex.

‘Eff off, Nick,' she said, as if reading my mind. Except she didn't say ‘Eff' either.

I effed off, because I couldn't think what else to do. I hadn't even turned away before she'd opened her book
again and fixed her attention somewhere in the middle of the pages, where the spine was. I was watching her that closely and I knew fine she wasn't reading. There was nothing for me to do, though. I climbed back up the bank and it felt like the final ascent of K2.

At the summit waited a smug-looking sherpa.

‘You're going about this all wrong,' said Shuggie, falling into step beside me.

I took a breath to tell him to do what Orla told me, but instead I managed to splutter, ‘What?'

‘I said you're …'

‘Yeah, shut up. I mean, what would you know about it?'

‘Well,' said Shuggie, ‘she's not stupid, that Orla.'

I wondered how hard I could hit him without actually hurting him too much. I wondered if I could get him to take his glasses off first. ‘What's that supposed to mean?'

Shuggie sighed as though he was at the limit of his tolerance. ‘Women want you to be honest, don't they? Orla thinks you're taking the mickey.'

Orla having bagged the only decent quiet and private spot within a mile of the school, I was forced to sit down on the broken tarmac against the wire fence. I was also forced to endure Shuggie, because he sat right down beside me.

‘Honesty,' he said. ‘That's what women like. Honesty.'

‘And you're the expert.'

‘More than you, obviously.' He took off his glasses and began to polish them on the hem of his shirt. That was a
temptation. I could swing my arm back now and catch him in his bare face, but I knew I never would. Not Shuggie. I knew I'd never bring myself to hit Shuggie. I was sort of responsible for him; I'd made myself responsible for him quite by accident, and now, like he relished telling me, I was stuck with him. Anyway, I was his only friend, in some loose sense of the word. And vice versa, I suppose.

I watched him rub his glasses methodically, one lens at a time, breathing on them in a finicky, delicate way that should have bugged the hell out of me, but was actually strangely calming. I liked the way he was taking such a ridiculous amount of care and time when the supermarket shirt fabric must have been scratching the lens surface anyway. I liked it that Shuggie was still enough like the rest of us to lose his special lens cleaning cloth and have to use his shirt. Glancing at his intent face, naked and funny and vulnerable without its highbrow horn-rims, I caught myself smiling, and had to force a frown.

I don't know why I put up with him. He turned up like some guru whenever I didn't want his advice. If I did want something from him, such as Allie's whereabouts, he was the most elusive geek on the planet. Any other time I could be swaggering down the corridor, giving the likes of Sunil the evil eye so that nobody would ever in the history of the world think they could get away with having another go at me, and I'd feel this presence and
there would be Shuggie, hugging some manual on rocket science or string theory or God knew what. And that would be him attached to my hip for the rest of the day. It was doing nothing for my image. He was a small planet sucked into my irresistible orbit. So how come it didn't work this way with Orla Mahon?

I wished I could ask Lola Nan. I wished I'd remembered to ask her this kind of thing earlier, when she was still capable of answering.

‘And how is your nan?' asked Shuggie now. ‘I suppose she could be worse.'

That was another annoying thing. The little geek was telepathic, but I was in no mood for one of Shuggie's philosophical lectures. ‘Piss off, Shugs,' I snapped. ‘What d'you know?'

‘Well, what does
she
know? Objectively speaking, she doesn't know anything's wrong, does she? Really, she
could
be worse. Look at my dad.'

I was about to open my mouth and say something vicious but I stopped myself in the nick of time. I'd kind of gone off gratuitous cruelty when I heard the first sick Aidan joke within two weeks of his death.

Shuggie told me once he didn't grieve for his dad, not after he was dead, because he was glad for him and he wished he'd put a pillow over his face in the first place, like his dad asked him to (when Shugs was all of eleven). Maybe it'll be like that for me. Maybe I'll be happy for Lola Nan. Maybe I should do the pillow thing for her, not
that she'd ever asked …

‘Why don't you apologise to her?' said Shuggie.

What? To Lola Nan? In advance? The world swung on its axis. I opened my mouth, then I shut it again. Being with Shuggie was like virtual reality or something.

‘Who?'

‘Orla,' he sighed, with a martyred air of patience.

‘Why would I apologise to her? I haven't done anything!'

‘Do you want to shag her or not?'

That did it. I swung round and grabbed his shoulders. I could feel my fingers sinking into his scrawny flesh and I knew I must be hurting him, but I couldn't think of anything to say to that reproachful, glassy gaze.

‘Look, Nick, you're not gay or something, are you? Because I don't fancy you.'

He blinked up at me nervously, while my grip and my jaw went slack even as I wondered how to disembowel him without attracting attention. I suppose nervous blinking was Shuggie's incredibly clever defence mechanism. I was never going to beat him to death. So I let go of him and put my face in my hands to hide my laughter.

‘Shugs, I swear –'

‘Frequently. Look, it doesn't matter what you've done or haven't done. Orla's hard as nine-inch nails. You think anybody ever told her they're sorry about … um … you know? Nobody would dare bring up … you know. Nobody would mention it. She needs somebody to say
sorry. She needs to talk about it. And if it's
you
, well … she'll be so shocked and grateful, she'll forget to think you're a dick.'

I clenched my loose jaw in case I started dribbling. What he said made a certain insane sense. Or maybe that was me clutching at straws. ‘Is the atmosphere thin?'

‘Where?'

‘Up there on Planet Shuggie.'

He sighed and hitched his bag on to his shoulder. ‘No one can help a man who doesn't want to be helped.'

‘You're mad,' I said.

‘Whatever you say.'

‘Mad,' I said again.

‘I have Physics now.' Dignified, he marched away.

‘Heidcase!' I shouted after him. ‘Feckin' heidcase! Think I'm stupit enough to take advice like that?'

Orla was in exactly the same position the following day at lunchtime. There were three things about this that bugged me. How did she get away with it, climbing over the fence in full view of McCluskey's office and sitting by the burn all lunchtime? And how come she'd shed her gang like a snakeskin in the last few days? And how was that a different book already? She'd obviously finished Albert Whatsisface because she was on to Ian McEwan, and as far as I knew this one wasn't a set book either.

‘I'm sorry,' I mumbled to the back of her head.

Her right hand rested on Ian McEwan's pages. Gracefully, she lifted it and made it into a casual fist. Her middle finger uncurled, lingering in mid-air. I watched, fascinated by its gleaming black fingernail, as it lowered unhurriedly to turn another page.

Shuggie, I thought, you pointless wee waste of space,
thought and time.

But I was here now. Turning and walking away would be my ultimate loss of dignity and I would never recover from it. So I sat down at her side.

She didn't spare me a glance. At least I don't think she did, though it was hard to tell behind that gleaming, thick dark hair and the silver-blonde forelock that curved down across her face. I was sitting there as stiff and aggressive as a deep-frozen Dobermann, so I leaned casually back on one elbow and made all my muscles slouch. This position was incredibly uncomfortable, but I couldn't recover; I'd just have to let my spine sag and endure it. My jaw moved round some imaginary gum; then I stopped that, realising how stupid it looked.

‘For God's sake,' sighed Orla. ‘Sit up before you get cramp.'

I paused a moment, for dignity, then did as she said. I put my arms round my knees to stop myself putting them round her.

‘I'm sorry about Allie,' I blurted. ‘That's all. The way she's going on about Aidan and all. That's all I was going to say and I'd better go and –'

‘Shut up,' said Orla, and turned another page.

‘OK,' I said, swallowing. Never, I thought, never, never, never take Shuggie's ridiculous ideas seriously. Ever again.

‘I don't want your stupid apology.'

‘Right,' I said. ‘Right. OK. I realise that. Sor … OK.'

I was waiting for her to tell me to eff off. I knew she would, eventually, and that I ought to leave before that final indignity, but I couldn't bring myself to stand up and walk away. Sitting there watching her half-hidden profile, I wasn't sure I actually liked Orla Mahon. Maybe it was because I felt guilty about her brother. Guilt, what a weird thing it is. I felt bad for her, so I disliked her.

I still wanted to sit next to her till it wasn't possible any more. Till the world fell into the sun, if she'd let me.

Neatly she folded down a triangle of page and closed her book, then laid it on the sparse grass beside her. Here it comes, I thought, a huge regretful ache clenching my guts.

Sitting forward she put her arms round her knees, the same position as me. That was a good sign, I thought, hope leaping crazily in my heart again. Call it a mood swing, but that was good, wasn't it? Mirroring your body language. Hadn't I read that somewhere?

Ah, hormones and lust: there's no reasoning with them.

‘That was his name,' she said. ‘Aidan.'

I chewed the inside of my cheek. Her voice was dry and bitter and cool and I didn't know quite where she was going with this, so I thought I'd keep my mouth shut.

‘You said it,' she said. ‘Aidan, you said it. Nobody's said his name to me in a whole year. Not outside my house.'

‘Oh,' I said.

Wildly articulate. Oh, well done, Nicholas.

‘You know the thing about your sister?' she said.

‘Um …' I began. And stopped, because once more I didn't know where this was going.

‘She's never stopped mentioning him,' said Orla.

‘She never shuts up about him,' I pointed out, then wished I hadn't.

‘True. But at least she talks about him. She doesn't pretend he never existed, y'know? She just pretends he still does. Which I think. You know. I like that better.'

We sat in silence. Weak sunlight prised through the branches and glanced off the burn's surface, making it gleam like an oily blade. I chucked in a dirty twig and watched it drift towards the whalemouth, but it caught against the rusty grille, tangled in a bit of blue plastic.

‘It's just Allie's way of handling it,' I said. ‘See?'

Orla's shoulder moved very slightly. ‘Having a go at her, that's Mum's way of handling it.'

‘So you're not …'

‘I'm not bothered,' said Orla. ‘Mum just says I am, because she doesn't want to admit she's upset about it herself. And she doesn't want your mum to know Allie upsets her. She thinks that would upset your mum. See?'

I did, sort of. ‘Your mum,' I said. ‘She's very…'

‘Yes,' said Orla. ‘She is.'

I threw the burn another twig. This one it caught, swirling it away into the tunnel.