Game Girls (14 page)

The third one collects pebbles, putting them
in a pile and patting them into shape. She finds
straggles of seaweed and runs them round the
top edge of her mound. A cone shell goes in the
centre, pointing upwards.

'Let's play families,' Courtney hears her call.
'I've just made us all a cake.'

'I'll be the mum,' calls the tallest girl,
running back up.

'No, I will.' The other girl joins her,
crouching down and adding new pebbles to the
mound. 'You have to be Dad because you're
the biggest. Hayley can be our baby.'

'A waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. A waaaaaaaaaaaaa,'
wails Hayley, dramatically.

'Now stop that noise,' the tallest girl is
talking in her gruffest man voice. 'If you don't
shut it, I'll clout you one.'

Courtney drops her head in her hands,
wishing she could block all the world away.

'Hey come on – don't.' It's a bloke's voice.
Very soft.

Courtney scrunches her eyes tighter,
pressing her knuckles against the lids. 'Go
away.' The last thing she needs is the sympathy
of male strangers.

She hears a creak on the bench next to her.
Whoever it is has sat down.

She stays locked in the world inside her cupped
hands. It feels strangely safe, a small warm pocket
of black to lose herself in. Leave me alone. Leave
me alone. She begins to cry and the crying grows
and grows. It feels huge and ugly and giant sobs
hack through her, as if the pain is trying to belch
its way out.

'Here – use this.' There is a touch on her arm.
A tissue being pushed in between her fingers.

After a moment, she takes it, pressing it up
to her eyes. She blows her nose, but keeps her
head dipped down. She must look awful.
Awful. 'Sorry. I must look awful,' she mutters.

'Maybe. You haven't let me see your face
yet.'

Courtney raises her head slowly, defiance
hardening in her. Let him see her. Let him find
the right things to say.

He grins, the smile spreading across his face.
A smile bigger and wider than she's ever seen
on anyone before.

What the hell has he got to smile like that
about? 'At least you look happy,' she sniffs.

'Looks like I've got to try to be happy for
both of us.' His eyes are a melting brown. His
hair is done up in a hundred tiny banded plaits,
all woven in with red and green and gold. There
is a smudge of blue – possibly chalk dust –
running down his left cheek. He's about her age.

She takes all this in, and then looks away.

'Want to talk?' he says.

She shakes her head. She notices he's
propped an easel and a small wooden box in
front of the carrier bag full of condoms.

'Walk then? Along the shore?'

'I look a mess. I'll scare small children.' She
nods in the direction of the beach, but the girls
have gone. An old man is there instead,
scrunching across the shingle. One heavy-footed
step crunches down on the pebble cake.

'I know – coffee.' He touches her arm.
'There's the Bluebird café just over the main
road there. Small. Dark corners. I'll tuck you in
a quiet place where it's all shadowy and no one
will ask you to do anything at all. Not even me.'

Courtney knows the Bluebird café, although
she's never been in there. It's where all the
oddballs go. 'It's sort of – I don't know. . . ' She
struggles for the right word. '. . . "arty" in
there, isn't it?'

'Is that bad?'

'No. 'Course not.' She never got on with the
'arty' crowd at school. They were always so
vague. So random and erratic. So full of tedious
enthusiasm.

'Good,' he says. 'Because "arty" is my
middle name. It's how I earn an honest penny.

Pictures of tourists. Pastels. If I couldn't do that
I'd have to empty bins for a living.'

She looks at him again, and it's not just his
smile. It's as if the whole sun is shining out
from behind his eyes. 'Your hair,' she sniffs. 'It
must take forever.'

He grins again. 'You grow yours a bit longer
and I'll teach you how to do it too.'

She stares at him now. There is something in
what he's said – in the way he's saying it. It seems
like he's holding out some sort of future to her.

He wants to know her long enough for her hair
to grow. There is warmth in the idea. A warmth
in her. As if whatever it is that is golden in him
is washing out onto her. 'OK then, coffee,' she
blows her nose hard into the tissue. 'But the
corner has to be really
really
shadowy.'

* * *

'C
AN YOU SPARE A MINUTE, FERN?'
Rob Perry calls her back as she heads out
through the English room door.

She turns to him. She hasn't really got a
minute because Alix has organised a taxi to
pick her up from the car park at four. This is
the only way she would let Fern come into
college at all. She's had to miss the last three
special Wednesday lessons, because Alix keeps
taking bookings. More and more bookings.
More and more clients. Alix wants her to start
doing Thursdays now, too.

'I'm worried about your work. You're
slipping behind.' Rob Perry looks at her with
troubled eyes.

Fern is sorry she's put trouble in his eyes. She
struggles to dredge up excuses, and when she
speaks it is words spilling out that she hasn't
known were coming. 'It's my dad. He's quite ill,
and Mum needs me to help when I can.'

She thinks of the lie like mud spreading
through her. Surely Rob Perry will guess how
disgusting she is? She stares down at her
trainers, thinking that soon her feet will be
squashed into white stilettos. Or maybe it'll be
the cream ones with the tiny diamonds. Alix
still always keeps her in white, or cream.

'I'm so sorry. I thought it must be something
like that. Would it help to get your mum in and
we could all talk it through together?'

'No!' Fern's head jolts up in panic. 'No. I
just . . . she's worried enough, that's all.'

The mud thickens, dark and heavy. It
weighs in her. How can she ever wash out a
deceit like this?

Rob Perry's smile is caring. Hopeful. 'I
could get you concessions, if you talk to me
about it. Extra time in the exams. Maybe some
extra tuition after college, too. I'd be willing to
stay behind and work with you – if you think
that would help.'

Fern's eyes sting.

'I'll do anything I can for you. It would be a
tragedy if you didn't get into Art College.'

She has thought about this of course – she
has known in some shadowy background way
that she can't afford to miss English lessons –
and she can't afford not to get into Art College.
Now, hearing it said aloud moves it out from
the shadows and she is faced with it, staring at
it. A tragedy that she has sculpted herself.

She looks up at Rob Perry and sees all the
warmth of the world in his eyes.

She wonders if he can see all the scum of the
world in hers. 'I'll talk to Mum,' she says, her
voice thin and small. 'And I won't miss any
more Wednesdays, I promise.'

* * *

Alix fastens her robe as she watches him dress.
Trousers first. Then sweatshirt. Then socks.
Guys who dress in that order are experienced.
They know better than to hop around naked in
their socks.

He calls himself Jack when he rings to book,
but she knows it's not his real name. She never
lets any of them tell her their real names. She
doesn't care what he's called. It's not
important. But she thinks of him as the guy
with the gorgeous long-lashed eyes.

He is sitting, bent forward on the bed,
knotting the laces on his trainers.

She reaches out and touches his arm.
'Thanks for coming.'

He looks round at her and grins. 'Thanks
for having me.'

She grins back. She has slipped into this
ritual of talk with him. She has other rituals
with other guys and it's curious, the way it
happens – the way it's so easy to do the little
jokes and phrases with different 'regs', making
it seem, just in that bit of time in the Love Nest,
that they're real lovers. Partners. Couples who
go to the cinema and have meals together and
hold hands and dream.

'Can I ask a question?' This isn't part of the
normal 'real lovers' game. Questions are taboo
– but this guy has been five times now, and she
doesn't understand why. It's not like that with
all of them – sometimes she can see exactly
why – but not him. She leans back on the bed,
her head on the pillow. 'Why DO you come?
Come here at all, I mean? You're gorgeous.
You must get loads of offers.'

She wonders, as she says this, whether she's
just talking herself out of a slice of next week's
takings. She could offend him. She might be
forcing him into a really uncomfortable spot.

He starts working his jaw, chewing at the
inside of his mouth, and she can see he is
struggling.

'I'm so sorry. If you don't want to . . . ' she
begins.

But he shakes his head. 'It's because you feel
safe,' he blurts at last, and his beautiful long-lashed
eyes look sad.

'Safe?' She had expected exciting, daring,
risky, naughty. Never 'safe'. 'I don't get you?'

'With you . . . ' He seems to be picking
through words. '. . .with you, it won't go
wrong.'

'What won't go wrong?'

'Girlfriends. Being in relationships. Heavy
things like that go wrong.' He stands up
abruptly. 'That's why.'

She stands with him and lets him hug her –
they are back in their 'lovers' game now. She
wonders who it was that hurt him so much.
She can't imagine it, can't imagine feeling
things like that. Surely he doesn't have to get
involved – he could just run before anyone gets
too close? 'I'm sorry,' she whispers, pressing
her head against his chest. 'Sorry that someone
gave you a crap time.'

He hugs her tighter – a real crushing
embrace. 'Thanks for caring,' he whispers.

She draws away slightly, smiling up at him. 'I
haven't put you off me, have I?' Opening the
door, she herds him out, following him downstairs
as she talks. 'You didn't mind me asking?'

'I'll be back next week,' he gives her one last
hug in the hall, kissing the top of her head.
'Promise.'

She waves and blows a kiss as he heads
down the path. She's not sure if he's got a car
or not – a lot of the guys choose not to park
anywhere near the house – and she watches as
he crosses the road and walks briskly away. She
thinks, as she finally steps back inside, that it's
a criminal waste to let yourself get hooked into
one person – especially someone who is going
to hurt you.

'Alix?' Fern appears in the hallway.

Alix turns to her. Fern has that silly wide-eyed
face on, like a kid opening Christmas
presents. 'Everything OK?'

'There's been a phone call – from your
mum's boyfriend. Carlos.'

'What did he want?' Alix grows cold. She
wants to push past Fern and get a drink or
check her email or watch telly or order in
pizza. She wants to do anything rather than
hear what it is that is making Fern shine out a
smile like someone who's about to tell her she's
won the lottery. 'It's your mum. She's had the
baby. Carlos wants you to ring him back.'

* * *

They meet on the same scraggy bit of beach a
week later.

Courtney is scared, remembering how
golden he had seemed. How much she's
thought and thought and thought about him all
week. Elroy. They'd swapped names and held
hands in the Bluebird café.

What if she's got it wrong? Built him up?
Dreamed him?

But when she sees him, sitting waiting on the
bench, her knees almost physically give way. 'Hi.'

'You came.' He seems stupidly pleased, as if
he is almost bewildered by it – by the fact that
she has bothered. 'What d'you want to do?'

She shrugs, stands smiling at him, as
stupidly pleased as he is. 'Anything really.'

And anything is really what she means.
Being with him is like being in a sort of magical
other world, away from everyone and
everything else.

He stands up and hugs her, and although
she doesn't want to, she feels herself shrink
slightly. Straight away he loosens the grip, as if
he can sense that she's panicking.

'Come on then, let's go down here. Find a
little piece of peace.' His fingers twine through
hers as he leads her onto the scraggy bit of
beach. As they reach the shingle his arm slips
round her shoulders, but it's a light touch and
she manages to stay calm. To behave like
someone who is normal.

'We'll just sit here for a while, down beside
the sea wall. Keep out of the wind.' He isn't
trying to kiss her or grope her and even the way
he holds her has a sense of quiet about it. It is
as if there is no need to hurry anything. It is as
if he knows she might need time, and space.

He slips off his jacket and lays it on the
shingle. 'My lady. Be seated.'

'You'll get cold,' she tries to protest. 'The
wind's still batting in, even down here.'

'Sit!' He makes his voice mock stern but he
can't keep the smile from his eyes and the look
he is giving her is so sweet and so tender that she
is suddenly overwhelmed by the whole idea of
him, and she has to turn away. 'OK,' she says,
trying to stop her voice from wobbling. 'I'll sit.'

She edges as far along the jacket as she can
– making a place for him – but she sits upright,
hugging her knees. He drops down next to her,
his own legs stretched out and relaxed. She can
feel the pressure of his thigh against hers, a
warmth washing out from him. She wants to
relax, to rest her head against his shoulder. She
wants him to hold her hand again.

'It's a magic place here, isn't it? Brings you
closer to your soul,' he says.

Courtney tries to imagine being close to her
soul, but nothing will come. She's not sure that
she's got one.

The sea swills in, then rolls out again.

The sky is gunmetal. A few gulls circle and
call. A boat dips and bobs. The sun pours out
rays from behind the grey clouds, and they
stretch to touch the horizon like beams in a
child's painting.

'This stone . . . ' Elroy has run his fingers
through the pebbles and lifted one out, holding
it in front of her. '. . . it looks boring at first,
doesn't it? But look at the colours. The tiny
speckles, splattered like ink blots. That little
knot there – just on the side. I could get lost in
it – just looking at it. Stones are amazing.'

Courtney takes the stone from him, holds it
on her palm. She can't see what he can see. She
can't make it be amazing.

She looks up at him, wondering if she
should pretend, but he touches her cheek and
the brush of his fingers is electric and his eyes
are touched with warmth and honesty and
everything pure and she knows that she never
wants to pretend about anything to him. Not
even about stones.

And that, she thinks, is amazing enough for
her.

* * *