The Secret Place (44 page)

‘Right,’ Conway said. ‘So why was it?’

Selena said, simply, ‘I was saved.’

Conway’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You mean you – what? Found God? Chris broke it off because—’

Selena laughed. The laugh startled me: fountaining up into the air, full and sweet, like laughter out of girls splashing in some tumbling river, miles from any watcher. ‘Not saved like that! God, can you imagine? I think my parents would’ve had a heart attack.’

Conway smiled along. ‘The nuns would’ve been delighted, though. So what way were you saved?’

‘Saved from getting back with Chris.’

‘Huh? You said being with Chris was great. Why did you need saving?’

Selena examined that. Said, ‘It wasn’t a good idea.’

That flash again. Wrapped in the pearly mist was someone wide awake and careful, someone we’d barely met.

‘Why not?’

‘Like you said. He messed around all the other girls he was with. Going out with someone brought out his worst side.’

Conway trying to box Selena in, Selena leading her in loops. Conway said, ‘But you said he never did anything bad on you till after you split. What bad side did being with you bring out?’

‘It hadn’t had time to, yet. You said it would’ve, sooner or later.’

Conway dropped it. ‘Probably would’ve,’ she said. ‘So someone saved you.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who?’

So smooth and easy, it slid out.

Selena thought. She thought without moving: no ankles twisting or fingers weaving, not even her eyes flicking; just still, gazing, one hand loose in the other.

Said, ‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘It does to us.’

Selena nodded. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Yeah. You do.’

Selena met Conway’s eyes straight on. She said, ‘No, I don’t. I don’t need to.’

‘But you’ve got a guess.’

She shook her head. Slow and adamant: the end.

‘OK,’ Conway said. If she was pissed off, she didn’t give any sign. ‘OK. The phone Chris gave you: where is it now?’

Something. Wariness, guilt, worry; I couldn’t tell. ‘I lost it.’

‘Yeah? When?’

‘Ages ago. Last year.’

‘Before Chris died, or after?’

Selena thought about that for a while. ‘Around then,’ she said, helpfully.

‘Right,’ Conway said. ‘Let’s try this. Where were you keeping it?’

‘I’d cut a slit in the side of my mattress. The side that was against the wall.’

‘Good. So think hard, Selena. When’s the last time you took it out?’

‘By the end I knew he wasn’t going to text me. So I only checked last thing at night, sometimes. Just in case. I tried not to.’

‘The night he died. Did you check?’

The thought of that night sent Selena’s eyes skidding. ‘I don’t remember. Like I said, I was trying not to.’

‘But you’d texted him that day. You didn’t want to see if he’d answered?’

‘I hadn’t. I mean, I don’t think so. Maybe I might’ve, but
.
.
.’

‘What about after you heard he’d died? Did you go for the phone, see if he’d sent you one last text?’

‘I can’t remember. I wasn’t
.
.
.’ Selena caught her breath. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. A lot of that week doesn’t
.
.
. it’s not really in my head.’

‘Think hard.’

‘I am. It’s not there.’

‘OK,’ Conway said. ‘You keep trying, and if it comes back, you let me know. What’d the phone look like, by the way?’

‘It was little, like this big. Light pink. It was a flip phone.’

Conway’s eye found mine. The same phone Chris had given Joanne; he must have got a job lot. ‘Did anyone know you had it?’ she asked.

Selena said, ‘No.’ And flinched. The others, certain sure that there were no secrets in their holy circle: under cover of the night she had slipped out of that circle, left them sleeping and trusting. ‘None of them knew.’

‘You positive? Living in each other’s pockets, it’s not easy to keep a secret. Specially not one as big as that.’

‘I was super-careful.’

Conway said, ‘They knew you were with Chris, though, right? It was just the phone they didn’t know about?’

‘No. They didn’t know about Chris.’ Flinch. ‘I only went out to him like once a week, and I waited till I was completely sure the others were asleep. Sometimes they take ages, specially Holly, but once they’re asleep they don’t wake up for anything. I’ve always had trouble sleeping, so I knew.’

‘I thought yous were so close. Shared everything. Why didn’t you tell them?’

Another flinch. Conway was hurting her, on purpose. ‘We are. I just didn’t.’

‘Would they have had a problem with you seeing Chris?’

Vague look. The pain had her moving away again, taking refuge in her mist. Another girl would have been shifting as the pressure went on, glancing at the door, asking if she could go; Selena didn’t need to. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘So that’s not why you dumped him? Someone found out you two were seeing each other, didn’t like it?’

‘Nobody found out.’

‘You positive? Anything ever make you worry that you’d been sussed? Like maybe one of the others said something that sounded like a hint, or maybe you found the phone in the wrong position one night?’

Conway trying to go after her, haul her back. One flicker in Selena’s eyes and I thought she had her, but then the gauze came down again. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘After he died, though. You told them then, right?’

Selena shook her head. She was gone: gazing at Conway peacefully, the way you gaze at a fish swimming up and down an aquarium, all the pretty colours.

Conway looked puzzled. ‘Why not? It’s not like it could’ve done any harm: Chris was the one who’d wanted privacy, and he wasn’t around to care. And you’d lost someone who meant a lot to you. You needed support from your mates. It would’ve only made sense to tell them.’

‘I didn’t want to.’

Conway waited. ‘Huh,’ she said, when she got nothing else. ‘Fair enough. They must’ve copped that something was up, though. I’d say you were in tatters; anyone would’ve been. Even before Chris died: you said you were upset that he was ignoring you. Your friends can’t have missed that.’

Selena gazing, tranquil, waiting for the question.

‘Did any of them ever say it to you? Ask you what was up?’

‘No.’

‘If you’re all so close, how’d they miss that?’

Silence, and those peaceful eyes.

‘OK,’ Conway said, in the end. ‘Thanks, Selena. If you remember when you last saw that phone, you tell me.’

‘OK,’ Selena said, agreeably. Took her a second to think of standing up.

As she drifted for the door, Conway said, ‘When all this is sorted, I’ll e-mail you that video.’

That turned Selena fast, in a quick rush of breath. For a second she was vivid, blazing at the heart of the room.

Then she switched it off, deliberately. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

‘No? I thought you said nothing bad happened that night. Why wouldn’t you want the video? Unless it brings back bad memories?’

Selena said, ‘I don’t need to have what Joanne Heffernan saw. I was there.’ And she went out, closing the door gently behind her.

Chapter 18

In the Court the pink-and-red Valentine windows are gone, all the big-eyed furry things holding hearts, enticing and barbed:
For you or not for you, will you won’t you dare you hope?
In their place Easter eggs are starting to pop up, surrounded by shredded green paper to remind you that, somewhere on the other side of the pissed-off-and-on drizzle, it’s going to be spring. Outside, in the Field, crocuses have started in corners and people who stayed indoors for the winter have buttoned their jackets high and come out to see what they can find.

Chris Harper is sitting on a weed-grown heap of rubble, away from the rest, looking out over the bare Field. His elbows are leaning on his knees and a pick-and-mix bag is hanging forgotten from one hand, and something in the set of his shoulders makes him seem older than the yelping rest of them. It stabs Selena in her palms and her chest, like she’s being hollowed, how much she wants the right to go to him: sit down by his side on the rubble, clasp his hand close, lean her head against his and feel him ease against her. For a flashing second she wonders what would happen if she did it.

She and Julia and Holly and Becca have been there half an hour, sitting among the weeds sharing a couple of cigarettes, and he hasn’t said a word to her, hasn’t even looked at her. Either he’s doing exactly what they planned, or he’s changed his mind about the whole thing; he wishes he’d never left the dance with her.
I’ll find a way to get in touch,
he said. That was weeks ago.

Selena knows this is good, either way. When they slid through the gap into the Field and she saw Chris sitting there, she prayed he wouldn’t come over. But she wasn’t ready for how it would hurt, how every time his eyes skim past her would feel like the air being ripped out of her lungs. Harry Bailey keeps talking to her about the mock exams and she keeps answering, but she has no clue what she’s said. The whole world is weighted and sliding towards Chris.

He has two months and three weeks left to live.

‘My
photos
!’ Becca bursts out, on a rising note that’s almost a wail. For the last few minutes Selena’s felt Becca winding tighter beside her, doing something more and more hyper with her phone, but Chris pushed that to the edge of her mind.

‘Huh?’ says Holly.

‘They’re
gone
! OhmyGod, all of them—’

‘Breathe, Becs. They’re in there.’

‘No they’re not, I checked everywhere— I never backed them
up
! All my photos of
us
, like everything
all
year
– oh Jesus—’

She’s panicking. ‘Hey,’ says Marcus Wiley, eyes sliding up from his slouch among his mates and all over Becca. ‘What’ve you got on there that’s such a big deal?’

Finbar Wright says, ‘Gotta be tit pics.’

‘Maybe she’s sent them to all her contacts,’ says someone else. ‘Everyone check, quick.’

‘Fuck that, man,’ Marcus Wiley says. ‘Who wants to see those?’

Howls of laughter, exploding up like mines. Becca is scarlet – with fury, not embarrassment, but it silences her just as hard. ‘Nobody wants to see your mini-dick either,’ Julia points out coolly, ‘but that doesn’t stop you.’

Howls, even louder ones. Marcus grins. ‘You liked the pic, yeah?’

‘It gave us a laugh. Once we figured out what it was supposed to be.’

‘I thought it was a cocktail sausage,’ Holly says. ‘Only smaller.’

She bounces it Selena’s way with a glance –
Your turn
– but Selena looks away. She remembers that day in the Court with Andrew Moore and his friends, just a few months ago, the wild gale of new strength whipping her breath away:
We can do this we can say this whether they want us to or not
. Now it feels stupid, like spending your afternoon hand-slapping some bratty snotty toddler that isn’t even yours. The speed of things changing makes her feel carsick.

‘Was it your baby brother’s?’ Julia asks. ‘Because kiddie porn is illegal.’

‘Man,’ says Finbar, shoving Marcus and grinning. ‘You told us it got her all wet.’

They all sound like yammering nothing. Chris hasn’t moved. Selena wants to go home and lock herself in a toilet cubicle and cry.

‘Maybe he meant she wet herself laughing,’ says Holly, charitably. ‘Which she almost did.’

Marcus can’t think of anything to do to Julia and Holly, so he launches himself onto Finbar. They wrestle and grunt through the weeds, half showing off for the girls but meaning it anyway.

Becca, frantically jabbing buttons, is on the edge of tears. ‘Did you check if they’re on your SIM card?’ Selena asks.

‘I checked
everywhere
!’

‘Hey,’ says someone, and Selena feels the jolt slam through her even before she turns her head. Chris drops down to sit beside Becca and holds out his hand. ‘Give us a look.’

Becca whips her phone out of reach and gives Chris a suspicious glare.
It’s OK
, Selena wants to say,
you can give it to him, don’t be scared.
She knows better, a whole bunch of different ways, than to say anything.

‘Whoa, look at that!’ Someone from Marcus’s gang, whooping across Marcus and Finbar still rolling in the weeds. ‘Harper’s into mingers!’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Holly tells Chris. ‘She doesn’t actually have tit pics.’