The Deviants (2 page)

‘Yeah, well. We're not kids any more, are we?' Max's face was still doing that scrunched-up thing. ‘I'll come over for lunch soon, I promise.'

‘How about when the new car's there? That weekend, yeah? Please? I'll tell Mum to do your potatoes in Fry Light. She won't mind.'

‘OK. I'll change my training schedule that weekend.'

His face lightened at once, but I could feel my forearms heating up – my rash was coming on. It was always worse in summer. He reached across the table for my hand and just held on to it for the longest time. As my stress levels dropped, my body cooled, with a comforting sweep of goosebumps.

‘Anyway,' he said, fiddling with something under the
table and pulling out a small turquoise box and a large white envelope. ‘This is for you. Just to say I love you to Pluto and back.' He handed them to me.

I couldn't hold back my smile. ‘Not the Moon?'

‘Pluto's further away, innit?' He stuffed the second half of his teacake in his mouth and grinned crumbily at me.

I set down the envelope and opened the box. Inside, on a crushed velvet bed, was a silver chain with a solid silver teddy pendant in the middle. ‘Oh, it's gorgeous.'

‘Cos I gave you a teddy bear on our first date.' He took the necklace from the box, coming round to my side of the table. The original bear was still on the shelf above my bed – a little koala he'd brought back from Australia after one of his many holidays.

I felt the cold chain graze my neck, and the even colder metal of the teddy bear slide and come to rest at the base of my throat. Max did up the clasp. I looked down to see it and moved the teddy's little arms and legs. The box said ‘Tiffany'.

‘This looks expensive, Max.'

‘It's fine.'

‘Your dad gave you a loan, didn't he?' I said, unable to mask my disappointment.

‘Well, yeah – but when I start here next month, I can pay him back. It's cool.'

Max was such a sponger where Neil was concerned. He never had to work for anything. He'd coasted through his GCSEs because Neil said he could just work for him at the garden centre. He was only doing A levels because I nagged him to. My dad said he could be so much more if he ‘applied himself'. The thing was, even when Max
didn't
apply himself he got grades most kids would kill for. It was so annoying.

‘So it's not actually from you, it's from your dad, isn't it?' I said. ‘Same as your driving lessons, your car, our Glastonbury tickets…'

‘Do you like it?' he said.

‘Yes,' I said, touching the teddy bear – a mistake, as he spotted my scabby knuckles.

‘Christ, what happened to your hands?'

I toyed with telling him the truth, but then thought better of it. ‘I fell over on the track a few days ago.'

‘How did you manage to fall on the
backs
of your hands?' He lifted up my other one and looked at it, gently tracing his fingertips over the scabs. ‘This one's even worse.'

‘I tripped. I think my new spikes are too big.' I flexed my fingers – the deep ache was still there, but if I didn't concentrate on it too much, it didn't matter. Quickly, I diverted his attention back to the necklace. ‘This is beautiful. Thank you.'

I opened the envelope. Inside was an oversized card, covered in pictures of us. He must have spent ages sticking them down, shaking on glitter. There were pictures of us on swings. Our school Nativity, with me as Mary, with a cushion up my dress and Max as the innkeeper, with a scribbly black beard. Selfies in Starbucks. Selfies outside the arena in Cardiff waiting to see The Regulators. Selfies on bonfire night in woolly hats and scarves. Snuggly Duddlies in our Christmas onesies. There was one photo he hadn't cropped – it was a day we'd spent on the island with some other kids we used to hang around with – Zane, Corey and Fallon. We all had wet hair and chocolate or jam around our mouths, and we were all laughing.

‘God, look at us,' I said. My throat grew sore.

‘Yeah. I didn't want to cut that one up,' said Max. ‘I love that picture.'

‘Me too,' I said, clearing my throat. I never saw them any more. Even though we'd all gone to the same school, walked the same streets, breathed the same salty air, we were virtual strangers now. Zane had turned out to be the world's biggest bully, we hadn't seen hide nor hair of Fallon since the funeral, and though Corey still lived just down the road from me, we rarely spoke any more. Weird, wasn't it? One day spending every second of the holidays together, the next barely acknowledging each other's existence.

I opened the card. The message inside read:
To my Ella Bella Boodles, who owns my heart and every beat in it. Love you always and 4 ever Maxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

I looked at the front again. At the picture of us all as kids. Me, Max, Zane, Fallon and Corey. ‘Do you remember going to the town carnival? Us all sitting in Zane's mum's hairdresser's window, eating tomato soup?'

‘Yeah, I do.'

‘And watching the fireworks on the hill on Bonfire Night. And that time we went to the island and Corey got stuck up the tree and Zane had to talk him down. God, we'd spend whole days out there in the summer, wouldn't we? Do you remember camping out?'

‘Ella…'

I'd have given anything for just five minutes back inside that photograph. Before the island had become this evil cancerous lump sticking out of the sea that I could barely look at. It used to be called Grebe Island. Supposedly formed thousands of years ago from a huge blast of debris the volcano spewed out. Another local legend says there's precious stones buried there. When the council put it up for auction, Max told Neil about the stones and the next thing I knew, he'd bought it and renamed it Ella's Island.
The council and a few birdwatchers were up in arms about that. I hadn't been back there for years.

Max was looking at me, all glassy-eyed and cheesy smiley.

‘What?' I said, a mouthful of freezing-cold fruit.

‘I really love you, Estella Grace Newhall.'

I looked up at him. ‘I love you too, Maximus Decimus Meridius.'

‘Oi,' he said, with a bat of eyelids. ‘I'm trying to be meaningful here.'

‘I love you too, Max Alexander Rittman.' I couldn't say anything else. Why did looking at that photograph make me pine so much? Me and Max weren't even going out then, just friends; friends who knew there
was
buried treasure on that island, and spent years looking for it. Friends who gurned for photos, who ate chips not caring about what we weighed, not caring whether our tans were even. That's why I loved Max, I guessed. Because of what he represented. I'd hung around with various Beckys or Laurens at school and I knew girls at the track who did the same distances, but none of them were Max. He was my constant.

‘Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but to remain part of my character, part of the good in me, part of the evil…'

I couldn't help it – I laughed. I was glad for the break in the tension in my throat. ‘You did
not
just come up with that.'

‘No, it's from
Great Expectations
. I memorised it.'

‘My dad named me after her from that book.'

‘Seriously?'

‘Yeah. We're all named after Dickens characters. David, Oliver, then me. Apparently Estella's a right bitch in the book too.' I laughed an ugly laugh and I hated myself for it.

‘You're always so hard on yourself.'

‘It's the athlete in me. Nothing's ever good enough. Everything can be improved.'

‘How come I didn't know that about your name?'

I swallowed as tears stung my eyes. Luckily, he didn't seem to notice. ‘There's lots of things you don't know about me.'

Stroking my hand, he stared at me. There was meaning in that stare. I tensed up, flaring with realisation; tonight wasn't just about ‘marking the occasion'. This was a prelude – he wanted us to try sex again. Here.
Tonight
. I pulled away.

‘What's wrong?'

‘Nothing.' I scratched my arm. ‘My hives are up. I had a satsuma earlier, it's probably that. I need to cool down. Do you fancy a dip in the pool?'

‘Sure.' He blew out the Yankee Candle and we both scraped back our chairs on the hardwood floor and walked out of the café, through the sliding doors and into the night.

Hidden between all the rose beds and ferns, bronze statues, ceramic ladybirds and smirking Buddhas, lay the large rectangular pool with the statue in the middle; a laughing pearl fisherman, spouting water from his ears. It all looked so beautiful, lit by outdoor nightlights, making the water look as appealing as an icy blue cocktail on a hot beach. People had thrown coins in, and the bottom was green with algae in patches, but otherwise it was quite clear. A string of lights that looked like blue ice cubes hung around the edge of the pool.

Max had known me when I swam – in the days when my dad used to call me ‘Little Fish' because I could hold my breath underwater for a whole minute. Now, I was ‘Volcano Girl' – the Commonwealth Games hopeful with a county record for the 400 metres. In the days before dieting and
6 a.m. jogs got their claws into me, I'd loved to swim. But I didn't even own a costume any more. And Dad hadn't called me Little Fish for years.

‘Good idea, this,' said Max, kicking off his trainers and ruffling his socks down over his feet. ‘I didn't shower after football.' He pulled his T-shirt up over his back. I took off my top and skirt, until I had on only my black sports bra and Snoopy knickers. It never used to bother me that my underwear didn't match.

I got in as Max lowered himself beneath the surface. I watched his body shimmer through the blue water until he bobbed up in front of me with a smile, a dolphin expecting chum. He put his hands on the ledge, either side of me.

‘Hello,' he said, droplets of water peppering his skin all over.

‘It's colder than I thought.' I shivered. His hair looked darker when it was wet.

‘Your rash any better?'

I looked down at my elbow creases. ‘Yeah.'

I hugged him towards me and we stayed like that until he pulled back and kissed me in a desperate smash of lips and tongues and teeth. I wanted to lie down with him and just kiss, stroking his bare back like I sometimes did. I liked the feel of his body against me, and I felt safe, holding him. That was all I wanted to do. But he wanted more. He was so ready. I'd thought that if I kissed him long enough I would be ready too—that I'd get the feeling. The hunger. The throb between my legs. But it wasn't there. There was something in the way.

‘Come on,' I said, and started moving away from him, climbing out of the pool.

‘Where are we going now?' he said.

‘Where do you think?' I said, reaching over for his hand.

He scrunched his face up. ‘I better stay here. Got a kind of – situation going on.'

‘It's
because
of that. Come on.

We padded through to Garden Furnishings to grab some picnic blankets, and then back out between the foliage towards the sheds, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We chose a two-storey Wendy house with window boxes then we spread out the blankets on the floor and lay down. Our breaths were hot. Our skin was wet. He moved on top of me and kissed me all over my face, gentle as a moth bumping a light bulb.

‘You're shaking like a jelly,' he chuckled.

‘I'm fine. I'm just cold.'

Maybe it would be all right this time. It was no big deal. Everyone did it. I stroked across the span of his back, his skin as soft as catmint.

Before my brain could catch up with my body, I moved him away and reached down to peel off my wet Snoopy pants. I flung them outside the shed and they landed with a splat on the path. It
would
be all right.

‘Are you sure you want to?' Smiling like Christmas had just arrived, he started wriggling out of his boxers.

‘Come on, quickly. Before I change my mind.'

I couldn't have felt less in the mood than if he was measuring me up for my coffin.

‘Why do we have to be quick? We've got all night.'

‘Before I lose my nerve then,' I laughed, and shuffled back underneath him. I didn't want to think too much about it this time. I just wanted it done.

‘Ella, if you don't want to . . .'

‘No I do, I
do
want to. Please. Come on.'

‘I haven't got any condoms.'

‘I don't care this time. Come on, please – quickly. Kiss me again.'

As we kissed, Max's hands were in my hair, then at my neck, my side, around my hips and my bottom before one of them sneaked around the front. He was going ‘there'.

‘Kiss me again.'

I kept my eyes open. I wasn't worried. This was Max and he loved me. I was safe in his arms. We both wanted this.

‘You smell so good.'

‘You do too,' I said in breaths, even though the only thing I could smell was the intense spicy smell of the wooden shed. ‘Tell me you love me.'

His fingers were going deeper. ‘I love you so much, Ella. God, I want you.' He un-clicked my sports bra and pulled it off. ‘I want you so badly.'

I held his head against my neck as my tears rolled down my cheeks into my ears. The necklace had slid down – the bear was resting on my sweaty shoulder, looking at me.

His tongue flicked inside my mouth. ‘I want you so much.'

I slid my hand into his hair and grabbed a tuft. Any second now, I'd want this too.

‘You're gorgeous,' he said. Silently, a dragon roared in my belly. Max wriggled about, positioning himself so every inch of his naked body was against some naked part of mine. ‘Kinda need you to open your legs a bit though, Ells,' he laughed.

I was lying like a corpse. ‘Oh sorry.'

Oh God, this was it. We were actually going to do it. I wasn't going to be scared. I grabbed on to his back. I looked up through the roof of the Wendy house, and through a crack in the wood I saw starlight. I drew up my knees. He
was going to put it inside me. Any second now. The starlight grew blurry in my eyes.