Innocence (6 page)

“Open up the doors for me.”

Finn gestures at the back of the transit, and I slip out of the driver’s seat.

“What is it?” I ask when Finn and the others have bundled up the wire and covered everything on the floor of the transit with blankets and a large tarpaulin sheet.

“Copper,” Chase says, his expression challenging me to dare ask any more questions.

It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak. He’s shorter and heavier set than the others, his head shaved to a close black fuzz.

I can tell he’d rather I wasn’t here.

Now the boot is full, I sit squashed between Finn and Logan on the seat up front. Chase drives.

We drop the wire off at a salvage yard on the outskirts of town. We don’t get out. Two guys get the wire out of the back of the van, another hands Finn a bundle of notes through the window. A bored-looking Doberman wanders round, its chain dragging across the concrete. It’s 1:00 a.m. No one speaks.

“Want to come home with me?” Finn whispers hotly in my ear as the countryside flashes by all shadowy and strange beyond the headlights.

Mutely I shake my head. Jay will be lying awake, waiting for me. I would be too if it were him out cavorting in the belly of the night.

Finn deflates, and I sense his disappointment. But even though I liked the kiss, I’m still not sure about the rest of it. At least when it’s just me jerking off on my own, I’m not self-consciously wondering when it’s going to be over. I think he maybe needs to go slower with me.

Chase drops me off first. The Tavern has closed for the night, the streets all around so quiet and empty. I quickly climb over Finn and drop down out of the van before he tries any more persuasion.

“Chris!” he hisses as I’m about to dash off.

Reluctantly I turn.

“Here.”

He hands me a note from the roll in his hands. It’s a fifty. I stare at it. It’s the most money I’ve ever had in my hands. More even than the savings growing moldy and damp under the cabinet in our room.

“Might have another job next week if you’re up for it?”

I nod, still stunned at how much I’ve earned doing so little, and wander back to the boat.

S
ATURDAY
MORNING
I don’t get up. It’s pretty much a first for me. Even Jay gets up before I do.

I sprawl out in the warmth he’s left and go back to sleep.

Midafternoon Jay brings me some toast and pulls the duvet off and onto the floor.

“Get up,” he grumbles. “I’m bored.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“Dunno. Said he’d be back ’bout four with food.”

Sighing, I roll over. I can’t ever remember being this tired.

“Want to go and explore the town, then?” I ask him, trying to muster some enthusiasm.

Jay looks away, trying not to smile.

Towns are a novelty for us. I can’t say I like built-up places much—all gray and closed in, too many people—but they’re interesting, and I discovered the last time we stopped anywhere that Jay loves shopping, though we rarely have money to buy anything.

I send him up on deck while I get dressed and take a tenner out of my savings. It only takes me a moment. Then I lock up the boat and step out onto the deck to see Jay sprawled across the deck all starfish-like. It makes me uncomfortable to see him lying there like that, knowing the only time I lie there is at night when I need some release.

The afternoon is hazy with heat and pollen, the sky so blue it hurts to look up, though there are clouds to the east and it smells like rain is on the way. I wish it would rain now and wash the dirty heat away.

Lorne is sat up on the flat roof of the Tavern that pokes out into the canal path, reading as usual. I wave halfheartedly, and she glances down at us and holds up her hand. She no longer sits on the wall, and I can’t help but feel we may have chased her away.

We follow the direction I take with Finn every morning, sweating before we’ve even gone half a mile. I pull my T-shirt off and tuck it in my jeans as they do on the building site. It’s not something I would have done in a populated place before last week. I’d always felt too self-conscious of my lack of muscle, the slats of my ribs the only definition on my chest. But there is some muscle tone coming to my arms and stomach, and I like it.

In town there are crowds of people. I don’t know where they all come from. We go in and out of just about every shop along the high street. In the end I buy Jay a black bandanna with a white skull on that he can wear round his neck, and we share a cold lemonade in the shady courtyard of the library.

“Christopher?”

I look up, my hand gripping the cold can, wishing for a much bigger blast of coolness to hit me.

“Hi… it’s Pixie,” she says, as if she thinks I would have forgotten her, kindness, bright red hair, and all. “I almost didn’t recognize you without all your hair.”

I sink inwardly a little. I don’t want to talk about my hair.

“Hi,” I say, edging closer to Jay so she can sit down on the floor next to us if she wants. But she doesn’t. She’s with a friend.

“Jay, right?” she says gently.

Jay nods without looking up. He knows she is studying him—his face—and he doesn’t want to see her reaction. I know it makes him uncomfortable.

“So how is it going on the site? I hear you’re emptying one of the blocks over by the football ground next week.”

This is news to me. I hadn’t really thought about what I would be doing next week.

I shrug. “It’s okay.”

Distractedly I wonder if she lives over at the camp.

“I’ll probably see you there next week. Finn roped me in to do some lunches again, though it’s my week off work.” She shakes her head. “That boy owes me big-time, and I don’t just mean a romantic night out.”

I look at her, confused.

“I’m a nurse. I work at the hospital.” She glances at her friend. “I’m on my way in now, actually.”

But that’s not what I’m confused about. “Are you and Finn…?” I can’t finish.

Smiling, she holds out her hand, a bright gold band on her finger. “He’s my husband-to-be, actually.”

Digging my fingers into the concrete, I ride the wave of nausea that turns my stomach upside down.

“There’s a party over at the camp tonight. You should all come along.”

I nod, my jaw aching too much to speak. My muscles are seizing up.

“Maybe see you later, then,” she says.

I watch her leave, then get up. Everything is too bright, too busy, too fucking hot. I can’t believe Finn used me like that.

“Come on,” I snap at Jay. Without even checking he is following behind me, I stride out of the town back the way we came.

“What’s wrong?” Jay asks as he jogs along beside me.

I wish he wasn’t here. I just want to be on my own. “Nothing,” I grind out.

When we get back to the boat, I unlock the hatch, then hand Jay the keys.

“I’m going for a walk,” I tell him. “I want to be on my own for a bit.”

He shrinks behind the bandanna round his neck and nods.

D
AD
IS
back when I finally return. I don’t know what he’s cooking, but it smells a bit strange.

“There’s a party at the travelers’ camp,” I tell him, standing on the step, tensely leaning on my hands and swinging my body half in, half out of the cabin.

I figure the easiest way to get him to let me go will be if he comes too. It will mean Jay has to come with us even though he hates things like that, but I don’t care right now.

Stirring whatever he has in the frying pan, Dad doesn’t respond, but I know he’s thinking about it. They’re crayfish, I suddenly realize, probably dredged from the bottom of this stinking stretch of river.

My appetite shrivels. I didn’t feel much like eating anyway.

“It just so happens that I was already going to this party,” Dad says between shoveling food into his mouth when we’re all sat down at the table.

Figures that we’re the last to know,
I think, pushing pieces of crayfish round my plate with my fork.

The fact Finn said nothing to me about the party somehow hurts more than the fact he used me, that I was just a fucking hole in his belt. I’m not stupid enough to think what we did constitutes a relationship—I don’t even think I want a relationship with him—but he’s getting fucking
married
. I’m not jealous, I’m just angry, so fucking angry, and it hurts that he didn’t even like me enough to tell me that. I feel stupid and naive for ever trusting him.

“Liam is picking me up at nine. You two can come along, but you had better not be any trouble.”

Hiding my surprise, I say, “When have we ever been any trouble?”

Dad stares at me.

I purposefully avoid looking at Jay.

“W
HY
CAN
’
T
I stay here?”

Jay is curled up on his bed, looking miserable. The bandanna is still round his neck. He pulls it up, half hiding his face.

I know he doesn’t really want to stay here on his own—he just wants to make a fuss about having to go.

“I don’t know. Go ask Dad,” I say, tipping out my clothes drawer in search of something half-decent to wear. I have one work shirt and six T-shirts, not including the one I’m wearing that needs washing, and they are all old. One is black and very faded. The other five were white but are now varying degrees of dishwater gray. I stare at them as if a seventh is going to magically appear. And as for trousers, apart from the cutoffs I’m wearing, I have one pair of stained jeans I use for working and one pair that are too tight.

I shove everything back in the drawer in disgust.

“What’s wrong?” Jay asks for the second time today.

“Nothing!” I snap then because I can’t help it. “It’s not like you tell
me
everything anymore.”

“What?” He sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bunk, staring at me in confusion. “Is this about who jumped me?” His expression is pained. “The only reason I didn’t tell you is because I’m frightened you’ll confront them and they’ll hurt you!”

“Just forget it.”

I need some fresh air. I slam the door to the cabin, though I only meant to close it to stop Jay following, and go out on deck to brood.

The water is black in the falling dusk, and all I can see as I look over the edge of the boat is a pretty despicable human being looking back at me. I’m angry at myself that I’m forcing Jay into going out. I’m angry because I know if I push him, Jay would tell me who beat him up—and I’m desperate to know—but if he tells me, he will expect me to tell him what is bothering me, and… I can’t.

I want to throw my head back and yell.

I’m angry at Finn. At Dad. At mostly everyone. And I hate that the one person I’m
not
angry at is the one I’m taking it all out on.

I want to get drunk and not care.

W
E
’
VE
SAT
on the curb for half an hour, the light now faded from the sky, by the time Bosco’s white van comes into view. I’m not overly enthusiastic about getting in the back of the van with Jay to get thrown around like a box of tools. Dad gives me a look that says I’m welcome to go back home and spend the rest of the evening on the boat if I like. But as Jay and I have not spoken a word to each other since I stormed out, I don’t relish spending the evening just me and him. Yet I no longer really want to go to this stupid party either now that my anger seems to have worn off.

I put my arm round the wheel arch, hoping Liam is going to cool it with the brake, and watch Jay out the corner of my eye, feeling guilty.

He fiddles with the frayed hems of his cutoffs, looking utterly depressed.

Sighing heavily, I shift round to sit next to him, stretching out my legs and anchoring my feet against the other side of the van as we take a corner too fast. I rest my head on his shoulder, and immediately his head drops against mine and he tilts himself in closer.

We rarely ever fall out. But since we got here, it’s like something in me is fighting against everything and I don’t know why. It makes my heart ache to see him this unhappy. I resolve to stop it somehow.

When the van pulls into the dirt track up to the camp, I put my arm round his shoulder to stop him being thrown about and try to hold myself in position with my feet.

“Promise you won’t leave me on my own,” Jay says in a hushed voice as Liam opens the back doors and ushers us out.

I stare around, my eyes drawn to the light of a bonfire, sparks shooting up into the dark and swirling on the wind.

“I won’t leave you on your own,” I promise reluctantly. I still have visions of myself confronting Finn, though now my veins are not flowing with spiteful anger, I don’t know what on earth I will say.

We get out of the van and walk towards the fire.

“I don’t want either of you drinking,” Dad calls after us.

But I ignore him. Getting a can of cider is the first thing I’m going to do.

The bonfire is a bright burning hole in the night, set away from the vans by about a hundred feet, the heat of it making the summer evening breathless and near unbearable. Maybe thirty to forty people are crowded round it, laughing and drinking. Somewhere a guitar is playing, the sound of it rich and mellow. As the air flickers with sparks, it makes me melancholy for autumn.

For a while we stand in the dark just watching everyone lit up by the flames. Jay grips my sleeve tightly, and even though I make no move to go closer to the fire, it feels as if he’s holding me back.

I see Shane standing on his own, chucking lath (presumably from the house we tore down) onto the fire with one hand and holding a pack of beer with the other.

Desperation making me forward, I drag Jay with me to say hi and look wistfully at the beer he’s holding. Smiling wryly, he hands us a can each, and we stand next to him, picking up the flat pieces of wood off the grass and throwing them into the flames. Shane’s not a big talker—I like that. I like that I don’t feel we have to say anything. We can just drink our beer and chuck our wood on the fire.