The Deviants (4 page)

‘Have you tried getting to know her?' said Pete. ‘You might have things in common.'

‘I've hate-liked a few of her status updates on Facebook. But no, not really.'

I slowly peeled off my running gloves to show him the scabs on my knuckles. ‘And then there's this.'

He cringed and gently lifted my left hand to look at it. He reached for the other one and studied it. ‘How have you done this?'

‘We've got a stone pillar in our lounge. When I'm home alone, sometimes I punch it. I gaffer tape a cushion to it so it doesn't hurt as much.'

Pete's face creased. ‘How long have you been doing that?'

‘Only just recently. It just gets too much sometimes. You know what I was like when we started training. Running helped me. But just lately it hasn't been enough.'

‘Ella, this isn't right, what you're doing to yourself. You don't owe Max anything and you certainly shouldn't blame yourself for not being ready to sleep with him.'

‘I
do
owe him though, don't I?' I said. ‘I'm his girlfriend. It's what girlfriends do. He's waited ages.'

Pete's jaw dropped. ‘Where is that written? Is this some law I don't know about?'

‘It's just a fact.'

‘It most certainly is not,' he said, getting to his feet. ‘You don't owe him sex for any reason whatsoever. Sex isn't the prize you get for patience, Ella. The only reason to do it is because
you
want to. If he's the kind of person who will have sex with a girl who doesn't want to have sex with him, then ask yourself why would you want to be with a guy like that?'

‘No, he's not, his… He's not pressuring me,' I said, scratching my shins. The fire was raging. Urticaria, our doctor called it – a completely random skin reaction to too much histamine in my blood. My training meant I couldn't take my antihistamines because they made me drowsy. The wild grass was making it worse. ‘I just hate what we've turned into. And I don't feel like we can go back to how we were. Just friends. I hate myself.'

‘How can you hate yourself? You're an incredible girl. I'm so proud of you, how you've come through it all – your mum leaving, and your dad's illness. You've stuck to your training plan, you're nailing your PBs on a regular basis. You're brilliant, Ella.'

‘Don't give me compliments, Pete. You're just throwing stones into a bottomless pit.'

‘You know, not talking about something that's hurting you always makes it worse. It starts feeding on you, like a parasite. Once you let it out, it's got nowhere else to go but away. Is there something else upsetting you? Other than the Max thing?'

The tractor in the far meadow had stopped baling. The
sheep under the tree were looking our way. The whole world seemed to be waiting for me to say it out loud.

I shook my head. ‘No. I just need to work things out for myself, that's all.'

‘By punching concrete?' I didn't answer that. ‘Will you at least recognise that it's not good for you to keep doing this to yourself?' I shrugged. I couldn't promise. ‘OK, well, if you're determined to punch for therapy, I can at least show you some proper technique.'

‘Can you?'

‘Yeah. I boxed a bit at university. It's a great stress reliever. I still do a bit now and then. It's great for stamina, too.'

‘Where do you do it?'

‘In my garage. Come on, let's go back and have a cuppa and I'll show you.'

We jogged back down the hill and walked across the churchyard into Church Lane, where Pete's cottage was. His garage wasn't like ours, with all Dad's dusty boxes of rusty tools, doorknobs, foreign editions of his
Jock of the Loch
romance novels and Christmas trimmings. Or Neil Rittman's immaculate garage, with the two luxury cars and giant speedboat. Pete's was smaller, like a boutique gymnasium with a wall TV, a fridge of isotonic drinks, weight machines, a treadmill, dumb-bells, a bench and, swinging from one of the low slung beams on a chain, a large black-and-red punchbag. He reached for something on top of the fridge and unravelled it.

‘First we wrap your hands.' He set about coiling a length of red bandage right around both my hands, like I was being mummified, then tied it off on a Velcro strip. Then he reached for a pair of boxing gloves, tied to a nail on the wall next to the first aid box. He put them on me. It felt like some grand occasion, like I was putting on a crown. ‘Right,
relax your hand. Now make a fist. Keep your fingers all in there. Thumb on top but keep it in tight. OK, bounce on the balls of your feet. Keep everything relaxed but ready. Now, hit the bag.'

I did. Hard.

‘OK, again. Breathe out on the punch.'

I did it again. Harder.

‘Yep, good, exhale each time you let the punch fly. Don't hold it in. Make a noise if you have to. Both fists, elbows in tight, that's it, keep bouncing. Watch me. Don't fling it forward,
push
it. Good. Breathe out. OK, let's try some jabs. Keep breathing; let your breaths out, don't hold them back. Relax when you're bouncing, then let the punch fly and exhale. Good. Exhale. Good. Okay, cross. Upper cut.'

We stayed in his garage for the next hour – an hour when I should have been doing sprints and shuttle runs or burpees up on Brynstan Hill. Instead, I was Muhammad Ali. Strong and powerful and
so
angry. All bee – no butterfly.

‘Let's try a few straight line punches. These'll wear you out quicker but they pack the most power. Keep those wrists loose, don't lock them. Keep those breaths coming out on each punch. Bounce. Jab jab jab. Quicker. Good. Now smash it! Lights out! You've picked it up quickly, Ella.'

My knuckles and wrists ached but there was no real pain, not like there was at home. By the end, the sweat was pouring from my face and arms.
Bang-bang-bang. Bang-bang-bang. Bang-bang-bang.
It was so fast. I was so ferocious. I loved it. I used my anger well in my running, Pete said, but I had too much of it, and had to burn some of it off.

‘Like bleeding a radiator. We're just getting rid of your trapped wind, so you can function more efficiently.'

‘You better not be calling me windy!' I carried on pummeling the bag.

He laughed. ‘Believe me, I'm not going to mess with you while you're in this mood. That's great, keep going. Find the rhythm.'

It felt like each punch had meaning. Pete was right. What I'd been doing at home was just battering myself. This felt like it was working something out of me. Every time I punched, a tiny puff of poison flew away. I felt exhausted, but electric all over.

‘OK, that's enough for today,' Pete laughed, holding the bag steady and starting to unlace my gloves. I was still bouncing on the balls of my feet, sweat sliding off me in rivers.

I folded up the hand wraps and put them back on the fridge. ‘Can we do this again?'

He scratched his stubble. ‘Neil Rittman's paying me a lot of money to train you in running the four hundred metres, Ella. It's not going to look great at Area Trials if you're first out the starting blocks with an upper cut and a straight right left, is it?'

‘I know but just one more session doing this? Please? We don't have to tell anyone. We can run for half the session and box for the other half or something. Can we? Please?'

‘Tell you what,' he said, fumbling in his pocket. He pulled out a small set of keys, unhooked one attached to a Brynstan Academy fob and gave it to me. ‘How about we keep our training sessions to running, but any time you feel like punching the crap out of that pillar, you come here and use the bag and gloves. No more dry wall sessions on those fists.'

‘OK,' I said, holding the key like it was a precious artefact. ‘Thanks.'

‘And you jog all the way here and all the way back, right?'

‘Right.'

He looked at me for a long time, then rubbed the outside of my arm. ‘And if you do want to talk, my door's always open.'

I held up the key and smiled. ‘I won't. But thanks.'

‘So, hang on, where does the missing cat come into it?'

4

The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat

O
h yeah, well it was the morning Max picked me up from training at Pete's house, which he never ever did. He was leaning on his Audi across the road from Pete's cottage when I emerged from the garage, fists shaking, sweat trickling down my forehead.

‘What are you doing here?' I said, with an edge to my voice I hadn't meant.

‘Oh that's nice,' he laughed. ‘I thought I'd pick you up, save you the jog back.'

‘I like the jog back.'

‘All right, I'll go then, shall I?'

‘No,' I said, wiping over my face again with my damp towel. ‘Sorry. Thank you.' He was expecting a kiss, so I kissed him. Then I felt bad cos when he hugged me in to his chest, he rubbed my back like he did when we were kids and I was crying. I went round to open the passenger door.

Max got in too. ‘Sweated up a storm today,' he commented. I didn't answer. He didn't switch the engine on either. He was just looking at me.

‘What are you waiting for?'

‘How was it?' he asked. He wasn't looking at my face,
though. He was looking at my hands, red-tinged and shaking.

‘It's just adrenaline. I only did a quick warm down today.'

He was looking at me funny, the way he did sometimes when he didn't get something.

‘Pied Piper on form today, was he?' He started up the engine.

‘What do you mean?'

‘You know. Did he push you all the way?'

The car started off down Church Lane. ‘You don't like Pete, do you?'

‘No,' he said.

‘Why not?'

‘Uh, cos I've met him? And cos he's a dick?' he said, stopping at the lights.

‘He's not a dick.'

‘He's posh.'

‘So are you when you're not trying to sound like your dad.'

‘I am not!'

‘You so are, Max.'

‘Am not.'

‘So are.'

He stopped talking for at least a mile. Only when we came to the hospital roundabout just down the slope from my road did he open his mouth again.

‘There's nothing wrong with my cock, is there?'

‘Where did
that
come from?' I said, washed hot and cold with embarrassment.

‘I was just thinking about last night at Greenland. You would tell me if that was the problem, wouldn't you? With us, I mean.'

I couldn't help laughing, and the ice between us broke and melted away. He'd obviously been stewing on this all night.

‘The only thing wrong with you is you picked the wrong girlfriend.'

‘Never.'

I clicked off my seat belt and leaned across to kiss him back. ‘Thank you for picking me up. And for last night.' I kissed him again. ‘And my card.' And again. ‘And my necklace.'

He started doing Round and Round the Garden… on my neck with his fingertip and I cringed, remembering I wasn't wearing it. ‘That tickles.'

‘Where is it?' he said, looking at my neck where a pool of sweat had collected.

‘Where's what?'

‘Your teddy necklace?'

‘Oh I can't wear it for training cos it keeps hitting me in the face,' I gabbled.' I couldn't actually remember taking it off.

‘What are you doing later? Do you wanna go into town or something? Or we could, I don't know… Oh. You've got a visitor.'

I followed his eye line along the garden path towards our bungalow, where a figure sat crumpled in my doorway.

‘It's Corey!' I yanked open the car door and slammed it behind me, running up the path. ‘Corey? Are you OK?'

‘Ella?' said Corey, un-crumpling. He was all bleary-eyed, and he had a noticeable scab on his eyebrow and a yellowing bruise on his chin. Old wounds.

‘What are you doing here?'

‘I was waiting for you.'

‘Why? What's happened?'

Another car door slammed and Max ran up the steps, two at a time. ‘What's up?'

‘I'm still trying to find out,' I said. Corey was getting to his feet, adjusting his glasses with one hand and clutching his skateboard with the other. ‘Why are you on my doorstep?'

‘No one answered.'

‘My dad's gone to Manchester to do a book signing and see my brother. He's just had a baby. What's happened? Is something wrong?'

‘Ells,' said Max, folding his arms across his chest and nodding. I followed his eye line towards the bottom of the road. A figure stood beneath a lamp post opposite Corey's grandparents' house; a stocky figure with a shaved head, wearing a rugby top and jeans.

‘Let's go inside,' I said, getting out my key and ushering both boys through the front door, keeping one eye on the distant stranger.

Me and Max had grown up with Corey Malinowski (his full name was Corneliusz, but we'd never called him that). We'd spent the summers together, us and him and Fallon and Zane. He'd gone to Brynstan Academy too, but he'd mostly been one of the school loners – he had a mild form of cerebral palsy, a hearing aid and two dead parents, so he was pretty much begging to be an outcast. But to us, he'd been vital. He was the reader of books, the architect of dens, darer of dares, encyclopedia of Harry Potter trivia (seriously, down to page numbers), and the only one who could get a fire going using just sticks. To the other kids, he was that skinny weirdo with the limp; to us, he was a genius.

He took off his tatty Converse by the pillar in our lounge and padded into the kitchen, standing in front of our French windows like they opened onto a long dark tunnel.

‘He's gone,' he said, turning to me.

I knew his granddad had a bad heart. ‘Oh, Corey, I'm sorry. Are you OK? How's your nan coping?'

‘No, no,' he said, correcting me. ‘Granddad and Nan are on their cruise to the Rhineland. For their anniversary.' His voice was shaky, and before each sentence, he would sort of rev up to get going. I'd forgotten he did that. ‘No, it's Mort.'