TAINTED LOVE Page 4

  Mr Lion would make a batch of almond cookies. They were Jimmy’s favourites. By the time the cookies were mixed, baked in the oven in two batches, then cooled for half an hour on a wire tray, Jimmy would find he’d done just about enough practice, and he’d come and sit with us in the kitchen and someone would brew a pot of tea.

  The thing about Jimmy is that hot air passes through his mouth in both directions, and always has done. He practiced fire-eating every day until he became world class at it. I really mean world class: he spends half the year travelling all over Europe – sometimes further – with the top circus performers. His stage name is Pyrotastic. But the hot air, it’s not a one way passage: it comes back out again. I never known anyone who talked as much as Jimmy.

  He talked to Mr Lion and my dad of course, but sometimes they were busy doing stuff and Jimmy was left alone with me. So while I sat in my baby chair or crawled around on the floor with bricks and board books he talked to me and, because I couldn’t say anything back and he thought I probably didn’t understand, he’d tell me things he’d not tell anyone else. About the girls at school he fancied and the worry about his mum who he thought was dying. Back then, when I was crawling around on the carpet, it washed over me. But it became a habit for him, and as I grew older he kept on telling me his secrets, until I was six, eight, twelve, the sole recipient of the details of his love life, his mother’s slow and lingering death, his self doubt, his triumphs. It became an essential part of life for both of us.

  He met Suky when he went on a circus tour of Eastern Europe three years ago. She was part of the troupe as well, a trapeze artist from Kent. The night he first set eyes on her he texted me saying he’d met the love of his life. It was love at first sight for both of them. After the tour Suky moved up here with him straight away, and he’s not looked at another woman since. Which is saying something for Jimmy, because before he met Suky he looked at lots of women and mostly didn’t stick to looking if he could help it, and it got him into a fair bit of trouble.

  Now he’d only go on tour if Suky was in the same troupe. When he wasn’t away, he worked as a plumber for a local business, and that’s what he was doing up at Hough Dean.

  Later, when Peter had left and I wished he hadn’t, when I was lying on my bed and my fingers could still feel the soft hair on his haunches and my lips still felt bruised from his kisses, I decided to phone Jimmy. It might have been different if I had a mother. When I’m down or confused I might talk to her. But then again, Peter’s my boyfriend, and I’m sure there are things you don’t talk to your mother about.

  Jimmy was full of good common sense.

  ‘Laurie love, you’re only seventeen, you’ve got all the time in the world. He’s a lovely lad, but you can see how it is for him. He wants to be sure that’s what you want. He knows he’s different.’

  I groaned. ‘God, we all know that. He won’t let us forget it. How many times do I have to tell him it’s him I want?’

  ‘And in your house, under the same roof as your dad. That might make him feel a bit uncomfortable. Maybe if you were somewhere else, a bit more neutral.’

  ‘What, like your place?’

  ‘No. You’re not using our flat as your shag pad. I’d never be able to look your dad in the eye again. Or Mr Lion. No, I meant somewhere else – his sort of place – out in the open.’

  ‘Hmm, maybe. But it would have to be soon. Summer’s nearly over.’

  ‘Well, just stop waiting for him, Laurie. You’ll have to make the first move.’

  ‘Ok, Jimmy, I will. I promise.’ I picked up a pencil and drew a circle on my knee. ‘Suky was round today.’

  ‘Was she?’

  I wondered if I detected something odd in Jimmy’s voice.

  ‘She said you’re working up at Hough Dean.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I am. Is that what she came round for?’

  ‘No. She was making some cordial for Mr Lion.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So, what’s it like?’

  ‘The cordial?’

  ‘No, idiot! Hough Dean. What’s it like at Hough Dean?’

  ‘Oh right! It’s a bit of a mess at the moment. But it will be something special when it’s finished.’

  ‘What about the people – the owners?’

  ‘Hardly see them. The woman comes and looks sometimes to see how it’s going. She’s a bit weird – never takes off her sunglasses. Nice bum though.’

  ‘What about her son?’

  ‘I’ve never seen him. He’s either out or he’s in his room. Not one for socialising.’

  ‘I’ve met him.’

  ‘You know him?’

  I laughed. ‘No. Not really. He seems interesting though.’

  ‘Does he now? Should I warn Peter?’

  ‘No, not like that. But I think he’s travelled a lot. There’s no one else around here like him.’

  ‘I think I will warn Peter.’

  ‘Watch it Jimmy, or I’ll tell Suky you think his mum has a nice bum.’

  The next day Peter went running after college with his dad, so just me and Suky went up to Hough Dean. I went round to their place after I’d dropped off my stuff at home.

  Suky was still in the kitchen finishing off some jam. If you work half the year in the circus, you have to find something else to do the rest of the year. Suky had set up her own business making jam and cordials, the sort you find in little shops with fancy labels on. She was doing quite well. I helped her pour the jam into the waiting jars, then she covered them with muslin to keep off flies while they cooled down, and we got in her van and set off to Hough Dean.

  Suky and Jimmy are quite alike. They both talk a lot. I sometimes wonder if either of them ever shuts up for long enough to listen to the other. They’re always laughing and don’t take anything in life that seriously, other than performance and each other. But as we drove through town Suky was silent, and on the lane up to the Craggs she still hadn’t said anything.

  ‘You ok, Suky?’

  She let out a long juddering sigh, and I realised how tense her shoulders had been. Then she pulled over to the side of the road, stopped the van and put her face in her hands.

  ‘Oh Lauren, I think Jimmy’s seeing another woman.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  That slipped out of my mouth before I could stop myself. But it did seem ridiculous. I mean, before Jimmy met Suky, he was always looking for the right girl. Girls liked Jimmy. He was funny and good looking and the fire-eating gave him an edge of danger. Jimmy liked girls in the same way that a child likes sweets, they tasted good and made him feel happy. But I knew, because he told me, that every time, with every new girl, he hoped she would be The One. He wanted to fall in love and settle down. And when they turned out to be just a momentary pleasure followed by a sugar rush and the vague queasiness of over indulgence, he would vow to stop playing the field. He’d tell me that that was it, he was going to keep himself pure now, stop picking in the sweet shop and wait for the girl of his dreams to come along. He never doubted that she would.

  So when he met Suky, and they loved each other, he wasn’t surprised, but felt he’d reached a milestone. He grew up. His sweet shop days were behind him. I listened to him for hours on end telling me how perfect Suky was, how no other woman he’d ever met could match her, how happy she made him, how he would walk through fire as well as eat it for her. There was no way I believed he would jeopardise that.

  I was about to say something of this to Suky when I remembered how Jimmy had been on the phone last night, and I said instead, ‘Sorry. Why do you think so?’

  And she told me how he had started coming back late sometimes when he’d been out for a drink with his friends. Not that often, maybe once or twice a month. Five or six times altogether. He’d creep back into the house long after the pubs were closed. She’d pretend to be asleep and he’d
slip into bed beside her, and she thought she could smell something on him. Not as strong as perfume, but perhaps shampoo or body lotion. In the morning when she asked him, he’d lie about the time he’d got in – say he’d stayed for a last one after closing time. He’d be a bit cagey over breakfast, keen to get off to work. By the time he got home at the end of the day he was back to normal. The first couple of times she’d relaxed, decided to believe him. Explain it away with a lock-in at the pub and air freshener in the pub toilets.

  But it had happened again, the night before last, and she couldn’t really believe that the White Horse had regular lock-ins midweek, and having sniffed it again, she was sure the smell wasn’t air freshener. It had a hint of jasmine in it.

  I said, ‘Do you want me to talk to him?’

  Suky sighed again, and her body was like a rag doll in the van’s high driving seat.

  ‘Would you mind? I’m not asking you to come telling tales or anything. I know he’s your friend. But I just want to know if I should worry or not. We’re so happy the rest of the time.’

  After about half a mile, the woods came to an end and the track veered to the right, bounded by open grassland which rolled away for a distance before rising steeply. Hough Dean was in what I had learned at school was called a hanging valley, and the farm was nestled at the far end, with hills surrounding it on three sides.

  When we arrived Jimmy and his workmates were out in the front yard stripped to the waist. They’d finished work for the day and were smoking cigarettes at the back of one of the vans. It was hot and their skin glistened with sweat.

  ‘Hey, what a reception committee!’ said Suky. ‘Can I take a photograph?’

  I laughed, and the men exaggerated their poses while she pretended to take their picture. The yard was a building site. Nails, wood shavings and random pieces of plastic littered the dusty ground. As well as the two vans there was the black Porsche I’d seen the other day.

  Jimmy started telling Suky about an amusing accident that had happened earlier in the day. I thought about the window at the back of the house.

  ‘Is it ok if I go and have a look round the back?’

  Jimmy shrugged. ‘I guess.’

  I found it quickly enough. The elder tree next to the house was in full leaf. It had grown in the intervening years and cast a dense shade. Beyond it was the back garden, but this corner was secluded, dark and silent. The window was no longer a broken pane. The frame had been replaced with polished pine and fitted with double glazing and a lock. This hot afternoon it was slightly open, held on its catch, the bottom of the window just lower than my shoulder.

  I peered in. It was dark compared to the daylight outside, and I couldn’t see anything.

  I don’t know what compelled me. Maybe the previous failed attempt, and wanting to tell Peter. I undid the latch so the window swung fully open and hoiked myself up onto the ledge. The elder tree rustled its leaves, but I took no notice of it.

  I wriggled forward, pushing at the wall with my toes for leverage. Gradually my upper body moved forward into the room.

  I probably got just about as far in as I did the last time. But it wasn’t the smell that stopped me – everything smelled new. I put my hands down on the work surface to stop myself falling forwards, the window catch pressing hard against my groin, and realised Richard was in the room.

  He wasn’t near the window, but in a dark corner where he blended into the shadows. In one hand he held a glass and in the other a pint of milk. He was standing by the fridge watching me, and he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses.

  I noticed three things simultaneously.

  First that the milk was full cream. I didn’t know anyone that used full cream milk and wondered, when I saw it in the shops, who bought it.

  Secondly Richard was smiling. He was obviously amused at my clumsy and ridiculous attempt to break into his house.

  But the things that struck me most, which distracted me even from the unbearable position I’d been caught in, were his eyes. I’d had my doubts about the supposed eye condition, thinking it was just part of some ridiculous pose. Now my doubts disappeared. The irises were blue, but not much darker than the milk in his glass. I’d never seen such pale eyes before. The whites were badly bloodshot, the lids heavy to the point of looking swollen, and fringed with lashes whose dark length looked indecent against the blue pallor.

  ‘Hi Lauren,’ he said. ‘Would you like a glass of milk?’

  I gasped and pushed myself quickly back out of the window. The catch caught the hem of my top and pulled it up as I slid, so I landed with my feet on the ground and my top round my ears, revealing my bra to anyone who cared to look.

  I expected him to come to the window, but he didn’t. The room inside reverted to darkness. I unhooked myself and scurried round the building back to the others.

  5. Peter

  Peter’s physics teacher said he was gifted. Now he was in sixth form he sometimes had to talk her through his thought processes as she couldn’t follow the leaps his mind made. He didn’t go step by step, he just knew. This idea connected to that, this answer belonged to that question. The same way he knew that if he leapt from this rock his hooves would land neatly on that boulder. He could calculate the slippage, factor in ice or rainfall, in a fraction of a second. He never fell.

  His dad had never taught him, not in words. As soon as Peter could run, they’d run together, and Peter had picked it up, whether by instinct or by following his dad’s example he couldn’t say. In the lab he’d moved beyond anything his teacher could tell him. She muttered about Cambridge University, scholarships, opportunities. He blanked her and focused on the work in hand.

  Running with his dad was as easy as sleeping. His limbs relaxed, his haunches carried him effortlessly up steep wooded tracks, across open expanses of moorland, over peaks and down slopes that were almost vertical. Purple heather and bilberry brushed his thighs as he passed. He thought of Lauren in the kitchen, the sun lighting her pale hair with gold fire, as though she and it were made of the same substance. She was so fragile.

  When he ran with Lauren he had to slow his pace to a trot, think about the path ahead, watch out for stones or hollows which might be stumbling blocks for her feet – so soft inside her boots – protected only by slippery rubber soles. She seemed almost translucent with the sun behind her. He sometimes thought she was a mirage, that one day he would reach for her and find she had gone.

  But she was strong too. Strong like a sapling, like the new growth of spring forcing itself though the frozen ground. She could hold herself amongst the other kids, tell Joel Wetherby where to get off. Nobody at school ever picked on her. She was the golden girl, the one all the boys fancied, all the girls wanted to be, holding her head high, her healthy, blonde hair swinging between her shoulder blades.

  When they were children he’d never questioned it. He’d accepted her friendship the same way as he took warmth from the sun, water from the mountain stream, love from his father. Now he knew it was a gift from the gods.

  6. Ali

  When I was eleven, our class went on a school trip to this big house with loads of land where they’d made stuff out of rope between the trees for us to climb on. The food was crap and the rooms were really cold with rickety bunk beds, and I had to share with the other girls, who had names like Jessica and Alice and talked about ponies and boys. A couple of them had mobile phones. But I could turn my back on them and go to sleep, and in the day, outside, it was all right. I found that I could climb higher than any of the others – even the boys – and I could get to a place up high where nothing really mattered. Best of all, it was time away from home.

  It was only two nights. The second morning we had to pack all our gear and get back on the coach and go home. Some of the kids were crying because they’d missed their mums so much. They made me feel sick and I didn’t look at them. I sat near the back of t
he coach on my own and looked out of the window. I thought about my gran. She hadn’t done any cooking for a while. When I went round after school she still gave me stuff – biscuits and muffins and toast – but it was all out of packets. Mum said she was getting old and wouldn’t last much longer – she probably just wanted her money. Maybe Gran was tired. I could ask her if she wanted me to do some cooking. She could teach me.

  It was Saturday morning. When we got back to school, the buildings were empty and doors locked, but parents were meeting their kids in the bus layby. Mum was there with Emma. I was surprised: I thought they’d be out shopping and I would have to get the bus home. But here they were with big fake smiles, pretending to do the ‘oh we’ve missed you so much, darling’ act that all the other families were doing.

  Emma’s my sister. She’s three years older than me and she’s like a smaller version of my Mum. They both have blonde hair and small feet and they swap lip gloss and talk about celebrity makeovers and reality TV. She’s just what my mum wanted in a daughter, so I don’t know what possessed her to have another one.

  ‘Alicia.’ My mum said it ‘Aleesha’. ‘We’ve got such a surprise for you. Haven’t we Emma?’

  Emma gave me one of her supersweet smiles.

  ‘Oh yeah! A real big surprise. Aleeesha.’

  I felt myself going cold inside. She knew I hated being called anything except Ali, and that I hated it when she did fake American stuff. But that was just normal wind-up-your-sister type behaviour. That morning I could see there was something else. Underneath the saccharine there was something truly evil squirming with glee. I hoped that whatever it was had nothing to do with Gran.

  I didn’t say anything on the way home and they didn’t ask me about the trip. Emma sat in the front with Mum and they talked about some telly programme they’d watched about house makeovers. That’s what really grabs them, mum and Emma. Interior decoration. Cushions and rugs and curtains and all that stuff to do with fabrics and patterns. Mum even talks sometimes about setting up a business. They’ve changed the living room twice in the last three years, and last month they completely redid Emma’s bedroom. They’re addicted to it on the telly. Say they’re ‘shopping for ideas’. Every now and then, Emma threw me a glance over her shoulder, and her face would start to break into a smile and she’d turn away again.