Deathwatch (5 page)

“Sportswomanship,” called someone.

“Of course. Sportswomanship,” Mr Boyd said, no expression on his face. “Or maybe even sportsperson-ship. Whatever you call it, Catriona, you of all people should know about it. Fencing is a sport, not a war. Catriona?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I’ll fight on, Sir. I’m fine,” Danny mumbled.

“No, you’re not. You’ve hurt your hand. Let me look at that.”

Catriona could see that Danny’s fingers would not straighten properly. Mr Boyd called for someone to get an icepack from the first aid room and made Danny sit down on a bench at the side while the others set to work practising moves.

She went over to him. Without looking directly at his face, she managed to speak. “Sorry about that. Are you OK?”

“Sorry about what?”

“I don’t know … for making you fall over.”

“You didn’t make me fall over. I am quite capable of falling over all by myself without any help from you.” She said nothing. He continued. “You’re not that great, you know. I scored the first hit, after all. You think you’re so great at anything you do. Well, get used to it – you didn’t win just now.”

That stung. It bit in the guts, set her stomach clenching. She tightened her jaw.

“Danny, we went out for a while. Big mistake, hey? Get over it!” And she turned and began to walk away.

“Over it? How up yourself can anyone be? I am so over you, you wouldn’t believe it.”

The rest of the lesson went badly. She lost two bouts. OK, they were with pupils who had done fencing last year, but still. Losing does things to you. It can make you angry. Sometimes that’s good in competition, but sometimes it’s not. Winning depends on dealing with losing.

She won some bouts too. And Boyd gave her praise, but it felt hollow. She tried not to look at Danny again. Someone came with an icepack and Cat was aware of the fussing round him. She looked over once. He was watching her.

Why had she ever gone out with him? Because his smile, when he used it, was gorgeous, in an unusual, crooked sort of way. And because he had been nice to her, flattered her. And they’d had a good laugh together. Yes, well…

But then, of course, there’d been the time he’d stood her up. Some family thing that got in the way. And he’d said a couple of things about her being posh. So she’d been embarrassed to ask him round to her house but he’d pestered and then he’d come and all he could do was look at things like the blatantly expensive kitchen and the books everywhere, and the cleaning woman had been there, and she’d wished she hadn’t let him come.

Then there were the insects. Actually, the insects had come first. It was after she’d looked so obviously turned off by his insect collection that things had started to go sour. The visit to her house had been later. He’d told her that her bedroom looked like a palace.

“Shame you’re no princess!” he’d joked. What did he mean?

Anyway, she’d responded quickly, “At least I don’t get off on dead flies.”

And it had been pretty much downhill from then on.

Why did life have to be complicated?

But he would get over it. He’d have to. If she just ignored him, just pretended nothing was wrong, he’d soon get bored.

CAT’S
dad looked hunch-browed and dark-eyed, giving her a row just because she hadn’t taken her mugs down from her bedroom. She
never
took her mugs down from her bedroom without being told at least five times, so what was the difference now?

Her mother was no better. Tight-lipped and silent in the kitchen as she chopped vegetables aggressively. Scowling when Cat came down with six mugs in varying stages of congealment hanging from fingers and thumbs.

“Just put them there. I’ll do them. They’ll need to soak before going in the dish-washer.”

“Dad said I was to do them.” Cat clanked them down a little too hard on the granite work surface, before starting to run the tap.

“Just leave them, Catriona! And why can’t you bring them down as soon as you’ve used them? Why do you have to wait to get a row?”

Cat was silent. Obviously they were in a bad mood. Did she care why? Parents
were
ratty sometimes. It would be something that would blow over soon. Might make for an uncomfortable meal with both her parents black-faced and tense for the start of a weekend. But hey…

Though probably not a good time to say that she wanted to cut down her training at least for a while. She’d rehearsed it in her head, but she hadn’t found the moment.

Cat didn’t give much thought to why they were in a bad mood but it wasn’t long before she found out anyway. Later that evening she was coming downstairs to get some milk when she overheard their voices in the sitting room.

First, her dad’s voice, “I wish to goodness you’d listened to me and not written the damned thing.”

Her mum’s voice came back, bitter-brittle, “As I said at the time, I couldn’t afford not to. Professionally. Leave it, Bill – it’s not something we’re ever going to agree on, is it?”

“But I’ve seen the patients. The symptoms are there – and they’re not all psychiatric.”

“Oh, please – let’s not go over all that again! Can’t we just agree to disagree?”

“Not if you’re going to keep raking it up by writing journal articles that could get noticed by the newspapers. And then by some pressure group.”

Cat paused outside the door. Her mother’s voice came now.

“But I’ve seen the research, hundreds of thousands of words of it. It’s clear that Gulf War syndrome has a psychiatric basis. Post-traumatic stress, shellshock, whatever we call it: you know the arguments.”

“Yes, but you’re only reading the psych research. And I was there myself. I saw…”

“Yes, Bill, I
know
you were there. I
know
what you saw. I’ve been married to you for sixteen years, remember. I’ve heard your stories and they’re horrible, of course, but—”

“God, Diana, you sit there in your ivory tower and you haven’t a bloody clue! I have three Gulf veterans in my own practice with symptoms that are not psychiatric. I see rashes and joint pains and—”

“Bill, please. Let’s not do this again. I wrote the article, as suggested by the department, because it’s what I believe and because if I hadn’t I’d have had to explain why. And do you think I should have said, ‘Because my husband says I mustn’t’?”

Silence. Then the clink of bottle on glass.

Her dad’s voice. “What if a newspaper picks it up? What if one of my patients notices it? My professional connection with the barracks is important to me. Life’s too short to fight other people’s battles for them. It’s not as though this is your big crusade – why can’t you stick to schizophrenia?”

“Come on, we’ve talked about this before; we’re always saying I should diversify. You know how I feel sometimes, seeing the same type of patients every day, knowing that in too many cases I can’t help them. Well, this was a chance.”

“Fancy being a GP?” asked her dad. “Snotty-faced kids and fat people? Diarrhoea, eczema and piles?”

“Not particularly!” There was a slight laugh in her mum’s voice, though it was strained, as if she’d been close to tears.

Cat went towards the kitchen now, her thoughts mixed, glad they weren’t arguing any more. But her mum had sounded low. Adults didn’t seem to have that much control over their lives and dreams either.

Cat didn’t know exactly what Gulf War syndrome was, though she’d obviously heard of it – the last time her mum and dad had argued about it. Some kind of illness or disability that a load of soldiers got and people argued about what it was and whose fault it was. It seemed very irrelevant to her. OK, so her dad had been in Iraq during that war, but even that was history. Before she was born. There’d been another Gulf War since then, but wasn’t that supposed to be over? She didn’t really know, only that both her parents agreed that this one had been wrong. But how did you have a
right
war? Weren’t wars just one of the ways people messed up the world?

Time to stop thinking about it. Her parents were not getting divorced or suffering from a terminal illness, and there wasn’t anything else to worry about.

Back upstairs, Cat switched off her parents and logged on to Phiz. She knew she should have been getting ready for bed, but she was never sleepy until much later at night.

Anyway, everyone else would be on Phiz, and she might miss something. And that guy might come back tonight and put himself on her PhizPlace. For her to choose.

Would she take the risk? Would she say yes or no? Hot or Not?

One of the best things about Phiz was the risk factor. All the other sites were so up themselves, full of rules to avoid perverts listening in, all rules set up by paranoid adults. They should realize that most people her age were perfectly capable of staying safe online. Only idiots would get into any kind of danger.

Parents seriously didn’t approve of Phiz, which was another point in its favour. Newspapers were always going on about it. Her dad had read something out about it from the
Guardian
and asked if Cat used it. She said she didn’t. He believed her… And the police had recently made some statement warning parents about it. All of which added to the attraction.

So Phiz was adult-free, unlike the other networking sites, where you’d suddenly find that a teacher had joined.

Her parents didn’t know she used Phiz, obviously. It was a simple matter of one click to hide the page if they came into her room and she’d always have an innocent page open behind it that she could switch over to. Homework or something.

Back to the cool guy.

Phiz was about watching people. That was where the newspapers got the idea of stalking, but it wasn’t stalking. After all, you
allowed
yourself to be watched – it was all with consent. And watching and being watched was the whole point. You went on the site and browsed for people you liked the look of – from their hobbies or messages or tastes or whatever on the public pages. When you found someone, you would sign in as a watcher and hang around before making contact. You played games with people when you were a watcher. You kept them guessing. At each visit you had to drop a new hint about yourself, and after a few hints the person being watched had to decide whether to say Hot or Not. Of course, the watcher could have lied. But it wasn’t really dangerous; you wouldn’t actually meet them. You wouldn’t be so stupid.

And you could have lied about yourself too. You had an online identity, which could be anything you wanted. A perfect version of yourself, maybe. You without the spots, big nose, thin hair, whatever you didn’t like about yourself. Touched up photos, if you wanted: there was a touch-up facility on Phiz. DIY plastic surgery. It was called Celeb Me. Cat had made her nose smaller. Smoothed away her arm muscles to make herself look a bit thinner. Made her hair a bit blonder.

So this guy had been watching her. Which gave her a shiver of excitement. She’d no idea what he looked like, of course:
he
was watching her, not the other way round. He would be able to see her pictures on the public part of her page.

Incidentally, she was assuming he was a guy. She’d said in her profile that she was straight, so she guessed he would be too. Otherwise what would be the point?

She was interested in him – the clues he’d put about himself were definitely right. He’d put a picture of running shoes first of all, which got her interest going. Then swimming goggles. Which got her interest going again. Now, earlier this evening, he’d put something new up.

A fencing mask.

That thrill had rushed through her. In her imagination, he must be sporty, fit, otherwise why the sporty clues? She’d no idea where he lived but that didn’t matter because she wasn’t going to meet him. She’d no idea what he looked like either but she could dream.

Now, after three clues, she should decide whether to let him into the secret parts of her page and put him on her PhizPlace. That was a commitment. Like going out with someone, except less time-consuming. Phiz relationships didn’t interfere with training.

And you’d never have to admire his insect collection.

First, though, she’d ask her friends. She clicked on their symbols. But only Bethan was there. The chocolate bar was her symbol. Cat went into the personal message section and wrote:
“hey!! hes intrested! 3rd clue a fencing mask!! well?????”

The chocolate bar started melting: Bethan was replying. In a couple of seconds, the reply came:
“hey u could play it cool for a bit u dont no much about him yet”

“whats to be sure about??? i can just zap him if it doesnt work”

“how about u ask more?? theres nothing to lose”

Cat felt a twist of irritation. Wasn’t Bethan on her side? OK, so Bethan didn’t have a Phiz relationship going just at the moment but friends were friends, no matter what. And Bethan wasn’t the jealous type. She was probably just being cautious. Cat would probably have said the same. But she didn’t want caution.

She typed: “
it’ll be fun!
”

“go for it then but b careful. keep me posted. gtg – homework calls groan xoxoxox”

Hesitating just a little, Cat clicked the button that said Hot. She had a brief horrible moment when she wished she had waited longer, wished she’d listened to Bethan’s caution, but now her page fizzed into life: stars and fireworks everywhere. Her heart was racing as the guy’s Phiz symbol came twisting onto her page. Along the top, as always, were the symbols of her other friends who had full access. But the person you had in your PhizPlace would always have pride of place – top right-hand corner – and whatever you were doing on your computer, his symbol would always be there. Watching her.

In a moment he would appear there, and she waited to see what he would have chosen as his symbol.

It was taking ages for his information to load.

Nearly finished.

She peered at the screen. It seemed to be going grey. Dissolving almost. Flickering. The mouse was frozen too. All the pictures along the top were fuzzy at the edges.