Skin Deep (26 page)

We sat at a table by the window and Mum stared out through the glass into the street. The woman at the till came over and took our order. While we waited, Jenna linked her little finger round mine on the table.

I knew then that she’d seen me hiding. I couldn’t look at her. I kept my eyes fixed on a rose on the PVC tablecloth. My skin burned up.

She leaned over and kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear. ‘It’s OK.’

I shook all over with the effort it took me not to lose control and howl like a baby as Jenna took my hand off the table and cuddled it on her lap between hers.

That’s when I knew I loved her.

Karen crumbled pieces of brownie in restless fingers as she watched the market packing up through the window of the café
.
Ryan’s hand slowly stopped shaking.

‘Come home with us for a while?’ he asked in a low voice.

I got my phone out and called Mum. ‘Hi, it’s me,’ I said, too cheerful for the silence on either side of me. ‘I’ll be back later than I said. I’m going round to Ryan’s . . . Yes, he’ll walk me home. Don’t worry.’

‘Stay for tea,’ he mumbled.

‘I’ll have tea round at his. Yes, love you too.’

I closed the phone.

‘Seen enough, have you?’ Karen shouted at the window.

Ryan’s hand clenched again. The man outside the café looked away and hurried on.

Karen subsided and watched the streetlamps twinking on along the road. ‘Winter’s coming,’ she said. ‘The Solstice is on its way, and the world hibernates like a slumbering dragon beneath the hills waiting to be woken.’

I glanced at Ryan.

‘It’s a legend,’ he said in a flat voice, staring down at his muffin.

‘But it’ll be Christmas soon, Karen. I love Christmas, don’t you?’

Her forefinger stabbed the crumbs around the plate. ‘When I was small, we used to have the biggest Christmas tree in the village. My sisters and I would sit in the hall and gaze in the dark at the fairy lights. I thought there was no more beautiful sight than that. Magical. On the last Sunday before Christmas, the church choir would go from house to house. They’d come to us last and sing carols under our tree. My mother would bring out mulled wine and mince pies for them. We’d stand together and listen, our arms round each other. A quintet. Like the perfect family.’

Ryan pulled his hand out of mine and rubbed his forehead in slow, tired circles. I looked from one to the other.

‘Will you be visiting them at Christmas, your parents?’ I tried to sound upbeat, but I’d hoped Ryan would be around at Christmas.

She laughed, tinkly harsh. ‘We weren’t the perfect family.’

‘I’ve never met them,’ Ryan said, getting up. ‘We should go. Catch the next bus.’

Back on the boat, Karen insisted on cooking a proper meal. Afterwards, Ryan cleared the plates away, and then took my hand and pulled me off to his room. Karen ignored us. She sat with her eyes shut, clutching a crystal as she chanted something under her breath.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said as soon as he closed the door.

‘What for?’

‘Everything. Her. Being a coward in the market. You having to do all that. It should’ve been me.’

‘But it’s been you before, hasn’t it?’

His breath juddered heavy through his chest into me. ‘Yes.’

‘So this time it didn’t have to be.’

He pulled my face up – a flash of anger in his as he kissed me. It wasn’t me he was mad at though. He led me back towards the bed with his mouth still pressed hard to mine. I wound my arms round his neck.

He lay half across me and his hand crept under my top, circling on my side for a while, then travelling further. It cupped my breast – I sucked my breath in at the sensation of his fingers there.

He pulled his fingers away and his mouth broke free of mine. ‘Sorry.’

‘No, it’s OK. Really.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes.’

The angry light had gone from his eyes and something else was there – I didn’t recognise it, but it made the pit of my stomach wobble.

He kissed me again and I felt his hand on my breast a second time, stroking, sending sweet shivers through me. I snatched at some courage and sneaked my hands under his T-shirt to touch his back. My own daring made me breathless. So did the way he shifted against me at the contact.

He’d think I was so stupid if he knew how brave I felt to even do this.

His lips moved down my neck and his hand stilled. He tucked his face against me so I could barely catch his words. ‘Love you.’

I froze. I could hear his heartbeat against mine, suspended between the minute when my world was one thing and some far ahead future minute when it would become another.

I breathed.

He took his hand away and rested it on my waist, skin on skin. ‘It’s all right,’ he murmured. ‘You don’t have to say it back.’

‘Yes, I do. Because it’s true.’ I leaned my mouth to his ear and whispered.

He uncurled and pulled my face into his shoulder. Rough – like he couldn’t wait for it to be there and wouldn’t let go when it was.

He held me.

Slowly, slow as a marble falling through treacle, the seconds moved again.

He breathed.

I breathed.

He let out a laugh and loosened his grip. ‘I was scared shitless of saying that to you.’

I wriggled my arm free so I could hug it round him. ‘Have you ever said that to anyone before? A girl, I mean.’

‘No,’ he said, half scornful, half embarrassed. ‘Have you?’

I rolled back so I could see his face. ‘What do you think?’

He gave me a triumphant grin. If it were possible to win an Olympic Gold for smuggest expression, he’d have got it without a contest then.

‘Do you have to do that?’

‘What?’

‘Gloat.’

‘Yes.’

I had to laugh.

He shut me up by kissing me.

When he stopped, I gathered my nerve to ask, ‘Why?’

‘Fishing for compliments?’ I opened my mouth to deny it, but he tapped my jaw closed with his finger. ‘I just do.’ He stroked his thumb over my scarred cheek. ‘All of you.’

Beth said Max told her she was beautiful. He sent her love songs by email, ones he said made him think of her. I wouldn’t have exchanged Ryan’s monosyllables for that.

I groaned and butted my head on him. ‘I suppose I’ll have to take you home to meet Dad soon.’

‘Bloody hell, woman, I’m not asking you to marry me!’

I snorted. ‘What makes you think I’d say yes if you did?’

He tickled my ribs. ‘You’re crazy about me.’

I sat up and tried to frown and look disgusted while he laughed up at me. ‘Is there some disease you caught that makes your ego so big?’

‘You look really hot when you’re cross with me, do you know that?’

I made a pathetic attempt at slapping him and gave up to cuddle down next to him again. ‘Dad’s going to go mental though.’

‘Suppose I’ll be skewered with a garden fork when he finds out.’

‘Probably. Might deflate your ego so it could be a good thing.’

‘You’re supposed to say “No, I’ll protect you” and stuff like that.’

‘Are you mad? He pays my pocket money.’ I twizzled the ends of the leather cord on his wrist between my fingers. ‘Seriously though, I don’t know what to do. I’ve never seen Dad so stressed. He’s not sleeping and he looks awful.’

‘The DNA tests can’t be much longer and then he’ll be in the clear. But you know what I think about why they haven’t got anyone for it? It could be anyone. That dickhead had a big mouth. Maybe he pissed off someone a lot harder than him.’

‘But killing him? And the way they did it . . .’

He held me tighter. ‘There’s psychos everywhere you go. You just don’t expect them in a place like this, I guess.’ He jerked his head round to look at the clock. ‘Shit! Have you seen the time? I’d better take you home. I don’t want to make your mum mad with me. She’s all that’ll stand between me and that garden fork.’

‘In a minute. I want to ask you something.’

‘The answer’s yes.’

‘What? You don’t know the question yet.’

‘Yes, I do. It’s am I fantastic in bed.’

I debated suffocating him with the pillow, but it was getting late and I did need to get back. ‘Is your mum going to be OK? Are you?’

His grin faded. ‘Yeah. I told you, she’s not dangerous. Just acts a bit crazy sometimes. She comes down quickly from it. Real fast. Her downers are worse than the highs and they last longer.’

‘What happens then?’

He shrugged. ‘She . . . stops. Everything. Doesn’t get up some days, unless I make her. Lies in bed and stares at the wall. Cries. Stares some more.’

‘How long does that last?’

‘It varies. A few weeks usually for the really bad part. Lasted a few months once.’

I didn’t know what to say. Stupidly, I rubbed his arm as if that could help. He nuzzled my hair as if it did.

The walk home was over too quickly. I didn’t want to leave him so soon. He gave me a last long kiss and said ‘I meant it,’ gruffly in my ear. Then he jogged off down the lane.

Mum raised an eyebrow at me when I sat on the sofa beside her. She glanced meaningfully at the clock.

‘Where’s Dad?’

‘I asked him to take Charlie and his friends bowling. He needed to get out and do something normal and you can’t brood with a pack of ten-year-old boys in tow.’

‘Oh, nice. Good.’

‘It is good, considering the time you’ve come home.’

‘I was thinking I should bring Ryan to meet Dad soon, but I don’t want to stress him more.’

She frowned. ‘It might be better if you did. It’ll give him something else to think about. But please warn the poor boy this time. I thought I was going to have to resuscitate him when you sprang me on him.’

‘Oh, I knew he’d be nervous if I told him.’

‘Why is he nervous about meeting us?’

‘The boat, Mum. People have attitude about it.’

‘Really? I thought he was a very polite boy. And quite shy, in fact.’

‘Mum, he is so not shy.’

She watched me as I tried not to giggle. The more I tried, the more serious she looked. ‘Jenna, do we need to have a private talk?’

‘No, Mum, we do not!’

Honestly, parents! Why did they think teenagers did nothing but have sex? I blamed the TV.

The next day, we walked up the hill above the village and sat on the exposed roots of the oak tree at its brow
.
Strenton spread out below us, Sunday-peaceful like a picture postcard. I cuddled Jenna close to keep her warm, and leaned my back against the tree trunk.

‘It looks so calm down there,’ she said. ‘Like it used to.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Sometimes I think you can feel the fear in the air as if everyone’s waiting for a psycho to pounce whenever they set foot outside.’

I twisted a strand of her hair round my finger. ‘I didn’t think your mum was going to let you come out today.’

‘Me neither.’

‘Do they still think it’s someone from outside the area? The village lot, I mean.’

She nodded. ‘It can’t be someone local. It just can’t. I mean . . . we’d know. Surely?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. I guess.’

We watched a couple of birds soar above us and flap off to perch on a hawthorn tree in the field hedgerow. Raggs ran out of energy and flopped down.

A leaf drifted down and landed on us. She picked it up. It curled over at the edges, dry and yellow. Jenna twirled it in woollen-gloved fingers.

‘If we lay here long enough, do you think the rest of the leaves would cover us like a duvet?’

I looked up at the bare branches. ‘Not enough left.’

‘When I was little, Mum used to read me a story about fairies and they sewed leaves together to make coverlets for beds made from twigs.’

‘Were they cute fairies?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘My mum used to tell me stories about fairies too. Except hers were called the Fey. Beautiful women who’d lure men into the hills and suck out their sanity, leaving them empty shells to wander lost in the wilderness.’

‘Eww!’

I grinned. ‘She’s always had issues with female oppression in fairy tales. I was really shocked when I found out Snow White had a wicked stepmother. In her version, it was a capitalist stepfather.’

‘Was there a prince or did Snow White set up a hippy commune with the dwarves?’

‘Nah, she sold the dwarves into slavery and ran off with their money.’

Jenna frowned at me. ‘Surely Karen wouldn’t . . .’ Then she laughed and thumped me. ‘Liar!’