Skin Deep (21 page)

‘I didn’t think you would. What makes you think I think you want to?’

‘Eh?’ I could hear his confusion.

‘Nothing. Never mind.’

I felt awkward next to him, like a spider dropped into a puddle, limbs struggling to work out what to do. He didn’t have that problem though, even drunk. His arms fitted round me so easily he obviously hadn’t had to think about that. Or how to pull my head to his shoulder so he could rest his cheek on my hair. He just knew.

I gathered enough courage to put my arm over his side and he sighed, a contented noise.

‘I would,’ he said into the silence several minutes later.

My breath hitched. ‘You would what?’

‘I would want to. But I won’t.’

That was the vodka talking. ‘You really are smashed, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, but it doesn’t make any difference. I would and I won’t sober too.’

It took me a second to unpick that sentence. ‘Why?’ I didn’t know how I managed to force that question out.

‘I like you,’ he said very quietly into the darkness.

‘Oh.’ I didn’t expect that. ‘So . . . why won’t you?’

I felt him smile against my hair. ‘Because I like you.’

I really didn’t expect that, not from him.

The silence this time wasn’t prickly. It felt charged, like air after heavy rain.

‘Do you like me?’ he asked in the same quiet voice.

I stepped off the edge of a cliff into space. ‘Yes.’

He held me tighter. ‘Do you like me enough to respect me and not do stuff to me while I’m asleep?’

I laughed, and the tension flooded away. ‘I think I can control myself.’

‘Good,’ he said seriously. ‘Cos if you’re going to do stuff to me, I want to remember it.’

I was so relieved he’d started to sound like himself again that I wriggled my head up on an impulse and kissed the first part of his face I found. It turned out to be his chin.

‘Aww, wow!’ he whispered. ‘Do that again.’

I reached up again to the same spot, embarrassed now he was expecting it. But he’d shifted in the dark and my lips met his. His hand slid behind my head so I couldn’t pull away.

It was even better than the first time because I wasn’t worrying about how to do it. I just melted into it.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he mumbled against my cheek eventually.

‘Are you feeling better now?’

‘Way better.’ He kissed me again.

 ‘Ryan, you do mean this? You’ve not had a brain meltdown?’ I held him off with my palms on his chest. ‘Only . . .’

He huffed a breath, exasperated. ‘What part of “I like you” are you not understanding? Shut up and kiss me.’

‘You are so rude sometimes . . . mmph –’

He’d got fed up with waiting and I didn’t get to argue for a few minutes. Then his head flopped back on the pillow and his eyes closed. ‘Don’t go anywhere . . .’ he mumbled.

I curled into him and his breathing slowed.

I lay awake listening to the silence and his breathing, and that of the horses next door. I wanted to stay awake all night to remember this.

Somebody was pounding a pneumatic drill inside my head.
I prised my eyes open to tell them to stop.

And then I remembered.

The daylight hurt like hell, but I smiled. Jenna was asleep next to me, with her head tucked into my shoulder.

But I shouldn’t have let her stay. She’d get in major trouble if her parents found out. Hard to be sorry – she looked so cute asleep. To hell with it – maybe I could talk Mum into sticking around here. Maybe this time we wouldn’t have to move on.

I checked my watch. Seven o’clock. We had to get moving. Her parents could be up. I shook her shoulder gently.

‘Wake up.’

She moaned in protest and turned her face into my shirt. I kissed her hair.

‘Jenna, wake up.’

She jerked back, opening sleepy eyes to study me carefully. If she had a thought bubble coming out of her head, it would’ve said ‘Have you changed your mind?’ so clearly that I wanted to laugh.

I ignored the pain in my head and the hangover churn of my stomach and squeezed her. ‘Morning. God, I wish I had a toothbrush.’

She rubbed her eyes. ‘Why?’

‘Cos my mouth feels like a pub carpet so I can only do this.’ I kissed the top of her hair again.

She blushed. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Awful,’ I groaned. ‘I need water and paracetamol. But listen, you’ve got to get home before they know you’ve been out. I shouldn’t have asked you to stay. And I’ve got to go to work.’

She looked disappointed, but she scrambled up while I hauled myself to my feet. She folded the blankets and picked up the pillow. I staggered out into the light and closed the loose box door behind her. She looked up at me hesitantly and I hugged her round the armful of bedding. ‘Can I text you later? When I get back from work.’ I felt her smile.

‘Yes.’

‘See you later,’ I whispered in her ear and kissed it. Then I headed home.

When I reached the boat, I tried to sneak in as quietly as I could, but Mum was sitting in the rocker opposite the door, her head slumped down and purple rings under her eyes.

She jumped up as soon as she heard me. ‘Where’ve you been? Look at the state of you.’ She burst into tears and threw her arms round me. ‘I thought you’d run away.’

‘Sorry.’

 ‘Have you been drinking? Where were you?’

‘I slept in Jenna’s stable.’

She touched my face. ‘You’ve been fighting.’

‘It’s OK. Just some local dick last night. I’m OK.’

‘Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’ve been sitting here all night, terrified you wouldn’t come back.’

I let her try to straighten my hair. Normally I wouldn’t have, but I figured I owed it. ‘I always come back.’

Her mascara was running down her cheeks in black tracks. ‘One day, you won’t. One day, I’ll go too far. You’ll leave me too, and I wouldn’t blame you.’

That was as close as she got to saying ‘sorry’. She never used that word. It wasn’t something she could bring herself to say. But this was her version of it and I understood that. I hugged her harder. ‘You say stuff you don’t mean sometimes. I know that.’

She leaned on me like a dead weight and sighed. ‘Don’t forget that, Ryan, please. Ignore the words when I’m like that and remember I love you. The words fly away as soon as I’ve said them. The love never goes.’

She made me screw my face up when she said things like that, but it was just her way and you had to wince and take it.

I made her some tea before I left for work. When I got out on to the towpath, I saw two cars parked up at the bridge. As I got closer, a man in uniform hurried off the bridge towards me and I realised they were police cars. I froze as he came over. Two cars? That was overkill to move me and Mum on, surely?

‘Where you going, son?’

‘Up to the road. I’m going to work.’

‘You’ll have to go round another way, I’m afraid. We’re about to tape this area off.’

‘Oh, OK.’ So they weren’t here to move us. ‘Why?’

‘Can’t say at the moment. It’s a crime scene.’

‘Oh! Hey, look, my mum’s back there in our boat.’ This was more important than covering up that we were moored without a permit. ‘Is she safe there?’

He looked down the canal towards the boat. ‘Oh, right. Might be better if you went home then, lad. We’ll need to come and ask you some questions later. You could be witnesses.’

‘Witnesses to what?’

‘We’ve found a body.’

I crept back in through the back door.
Raggs pattered over and I shushed him. He didn’t seem in a rush to go out so I sent him back to his basket with a biscuit and slunk up the stairs on tiptoe to crawl under the duvet. I was asleep the moment I shut my eyes.

I felt like I’d slept for ages, but when I cracked an eye open at the clock, it was only quarter to ten. I went for a shower so I didn’t smell of stables and padded downstairs in my bathrobe to find something for breakfast.

Mum and Dad were in the kitchen at the table. Charlie was nowhere to be seen. Dad’s face was grey and worn. Mum had her hands folded on the table; they were shaking.

‘What’s wrong?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Mary just called.’ I frowned at her in confusion and then realised she meant our vet’s wife who was a friend of hers. ‘Ted is in a terrible state. He was called out to see a sick horse this morning and he found a body by the canal on his way to the call.’

‘What?’ My skin went cold.

Mum looked surprised to see me back so soon.
‘I thought you were going to work.’

‘I’ve just rung them to explain. Look out of the window.’

She lifted the net curtain and peered out. ‘Where?’

‘Up towards the bridge.’

She craned her neck. ‘Police? What’s going on?’

‘They’ve found a body. The policeman said to come home. They’re coming to interview us in case we’re witnesses.’

She dropped the curtain and stared at me, mouth open. ‘Whose body?’

‘I don’t know. They wouldn’t let me up there.’

Her face paled. ‘Sit down.’

I sat in the rocker, puzzled, and watched her pace up and down plucking at her sleeves with restless fingers.

‘Where were you last night?’

‘I told you. Over in Jenna’s stable.’

‘You didn’t get those bruises in a stable. Or are you going to tell me the horse kicked you?’

I put my hand up to the cut on my face, remembering how the policeman’s eyes had hovered there.

‘What happened, Ryan? And tell me properly.’

‘I went to the village shop and bought a bottle of vodka.’

‘And they sold it to you? Didn’t they ask for ID?’

‘Um, yeah . . . but . . . I was a bit arsey with the woman so she sold it to me anyway.’

Mum passed a hand over her face. ‘Oh Christ! Then what?’

‘I got jumped by this guy from the village.’

‘What guy?’

‘Just a lad. He’s been giving me some hassle over hanging out with Jenna. He’s a knob. So we had a fight.’

She gripped the back of the chair. ‘Did anyone see you?’

‘A woman came out and yelled at us and he ran off. I don’t think she saw us properly. It was dark. Then I drank the vodka on the way to Jenna’s and crashed out in the stable.’

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it, Mum, honest. Why’re you looking so worried?’

She sank her head into her hands. ‘They’ve found a body. Your face is cut up and we’re strangers here. Travellers. You know what the police are like about that. You know that and you still ask me such a stupid question.’

‘Just because I had a fight, it doesn’t mean I murdered someone. Who says it was murder anyway? It could be an accident.’

‘It doesn’t matter. You’ve scared a woman. You had a fight. They’ll be here, sticking their noses in.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Right, you tell them you went to buy the vodka for me and then you came straight home. Don’t mention the fight. If they ask about your face, you fell off your bike. After you got back from the shop, you were here on the boat with me all night. We didn’t hear or see anything.’

‘Don’t you think you’re going a bit over the top? It’s probably nothing –’

She crossed the space between us in two paces and slapped my face with a crack. ‘Over the top? Don’t you realise how much trouble this could bring us? Sometimes, Ryan, you are so naïve. If they can blame us for anything, they will.’ She stared at the patch on my face where her hand had left a stinging hot imprint. ‘Go to your room! Just go!’

I swallowed to stop myself saying anything back to her. She’d never hit me before. And the last time she sent me to my room, I was nine. But I got up and went. There’s a time you argue and a time you don’t.

This was all so stupid. Probably someone had fallen drunk into the canal. Or tried to top themselves. Mum was paranoid, part of her being ill again. But then my mind flicked back to how the policeman had looked at my face . . .

If I hadn’t been here on the boat all night, I had no alibi because if Jenna’s parents found out where she was . . .

I sat on the bed and sent her a text.

I waited, but there was no reply. Either she was asleep or she wasn’t on her own. I lay down and watched the screen and waited and tried to ignore the unease that was suddenly bubbling through me.

‘A body?’
My legs folded under me and I grabbed at a chair. ‘Yes.’ Mum looked down at her hands. ‘Steven Carlisle.’