A Is for Apple (10 page)

He looked impressed. “It’s really good.”

Actually, it wasn’t, but a mural always seems to impress people. My mother hadn’t been able to find a print to go on the sitting room wall that pleased her layman’s taste (“I don’t like people and I hate all that modern stuff. I want to be able to see what the picture’s of.”)
and
matched the carpet. So, annoyed with her, I said she could mix up some paints at the DIY shop and I’d splash them on the wall for her.

She took me seriously.

“Yeah, well,” I said to Luke, “I can hardly take the wall into school with me, can I?”

He got out his phone and snapped a photo of the wall.

“Sure you can.”

Smartarse.

We found my stuff in the hot, low, dusty loft and when we were done were so scruffy that Luke suggested taking a communal shower, and I’d have agreed if my parents weren’t right there in the house.

“Okay,” he said as we washed our hands, “but when we get home, I don’t care if you’re dead on your feet—”

“I get it,” I said. “You, me, bed, shag.”

“Succinct. I can see my best lines will be wasted on you.”

“Luke, you got me. I’m sleeping with you. It’s a bit late for lines.” Let alone any kind of persuasion. He’d say my name, and I’d take my clothes off.

When we went downstairs Dad had started the barbecue, Mum had finished her bottle and Chalker was pulling at the strings of his guitar, looking anguished.

“Sophie,” he said, “what is that bloody song? I’ve had a bit of it in my head all sodding day and I can’t think what it is.”

Mum started singing something and he glared at her. “Not helpful.” He played a few chords, a beautiful change, and I thought about it.

“Play it again.”

He did, and I started smiling.

“You know this,” I said to Luke.

“Do I?”

“Tara sings it to Willow on the bridge. It’s from
Buffy
,” I told Chalker, who looked really pissed off. He disapproves of my
Buffy
obsession, but he still has a poster of Sarah Michelle Gellar in his studio.

“Luke,” Mum asked, “do you eat meat?” He nodded. “Chicken?” Another nod. “Not like Sophie, then.”

“But she eats fish,” Dad said, putting a bit of chargrilled tuna on my plate, looking slightly anxious in case I’d changed my mind.

“I don’t eat things with legs or shells,” I clarified.

“Why?”

“Because things with legs are cute, and things with shells are gross.” There are other reasons, but I didn’t feel up to a detailed discussion of the merits of vegetarianism.

Luke shrugged, like this made perfect sense. “Okay.”

I always get completely stuffed with barbecue food, but sitting at a table with both Chalker and Luke was an education. They both started by piling their plates high with food—Luke added some salad but Chalker didn’t fill up unnecessary space with leaves. Then, by the time I’d eaten my first (veggie) sausage, Chalker had got through two burgers and Luke two hotdogs and half a chicken leg.

“God bless your belly,” Mum said, and he looked slightly taken aback until I explained that she was from Yorkshire.

“So where are you from, Luke?” Dad asked.

I looked at him interestedly. He’d been born in London, according to his file, but I didn’t think he’d lived there.

“All over,” he said. “My dad was in the air force. We moved around a lot.”

“Is he still with them now?”

“No.” I checked his face. There was no sign of pain. “My parents died when I was six.”

There was a silence around the table.

“Car accident, right?” I said, kicking myself for not being able to think of anything more sensitive to say.

He nodded and picked up the mustard.

“It’s okay,” he said to my momentarily silent family. (God, they must be shocked.) “It happened twenty years ago. I’m over it. This potato salad’s really good. Is it homemade?”

Somehow we got past it and conversation started flowing again. Luke asked Chalker about the band, and Chalker replied in his usual laconic style, letting my mother rabbit on about it so he could correct her in the important bits and still say relatively little. He’s a man of few words, my brother, especially when it comes to talking about himself.

“Oh, hey,” he said to me in a lull, “I meant to tell you. Guess what I saw the other day.”

I considered this. “John Lennon’s ghost? No, I know. Anna Kournikova doing a strip-tease in the middle of Cambridge Road?”

He gave me a “very funny” look.

“A Vanquish. Dark blue. Damn, that’s a pretty car.”

I bit my lip and couldn’t look at Luke. A couple of months ago I’d driven an Aston Martin Vanquish. I wasn’t supposed to—it belonged to a…well, a friend, who at the time I suspected of trying to kill me and… Let’s just say I
borrowed
his car, mine being unsuitable for the purpose and him being unsuitable for driving. Being that I’d shot him.

“Hot,” Luke said, looking right at me, and I knew what he meant. “Sophie saw one a while back. A really hot car.”

I squirmed. It had been even hotter when it had got blown up. The injustice of it!

“Have you seen the new one?” Luke was asking now. “The—what is it, Soph? The baby Aston.”

Chalker and I both said, “V8 Vantage,” at the same time. Luke and my parents stared at us.

“Spooky,” my dad said.

“She’s such a petrolhead,” Luke said fondly, nudging me.

I think that was a compliment.

Eventually, Mum having got more wine and finally gone to bed, Dad having watered down the barbecue with a teapot and Chalker having self-consciously played a few more songs on his guitar, we left, me with a Tupperware box of barbecued veggie sausages for me and a load of chicken that had fallen on the floor for Tammy. We shoved all my art stuff in the back and took off.

“Yours or mine?” Luke asked.

“Mine. I have to go to school tomorrow,” I said glumly. “Luke, what am I going to wear? What if the kid is a total goth?”

“He wouldn’t be allowed in a hotel on Park Avenue,” Luke said calmly.

“What if they figure me out?”

“What if the other kids don’t like me?” Luke mimicked. “You’ll be fine. Just wear something short—”

“Bruise,” I reminded him.

“Well, something low-cut, then. Smile a lot and flip your hair. Works for me.”

“You’re not one for subtlety, are you?”

He grinned at me.

We pulled up in the little car park outside my flat and I stood looking at the clutter in the back.

“Leave it there,” Luke advised, tugging at my hand, “sort it out tomorrow.”

“Is someone desperate for a shag?”

“Someone is. Where are your keys?”

We got in, I dumped the food on the counter and Luke pulled off my sweater.

“Did you miss me?” I asked pertly.

“Yes,” he said, going after my T-shirt too. “Very much. Why are you wearing so many layers?”

“It’s cold outside.”

“But it’s hot in here.”

“‘So take off all your clothes…’” I sang, looking up at him. (I was going to say through my lashes, but that’s impossible and anyway, it makes you look really stupid. See, now you’re trying it.) “Well, if you really want me to,” Luke said, obeying orders and kicking off his shoes as he threw his shirt across the room.

“Slow down,” I laughed, pulling off my trainers and trying not to wince as I peeled back the socks over my blisters.

“Can’t. Been waiting a week and a half already.” He pulled me to him and kissed me again, and I shivered happily against his hard, warm chest. He really is so beautiful. Sometimes I think I’m dreaming.

My jeans joined the pile of clothes on the floor, and my bra soon followed it.

“No fair,” I said, “you’re still wearing your jeans.” Blood was pounding in my ears as I watched him unfasten the fly and—

No, wait. That wasn’t in my ears. That was outside my ears. That was someone pounding on the door.

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “Ignore it.”

The phone started ringing.

“God dammit.” He stalked over to the phone, lifted and replaced the receiver, none too gently, and the knocking on the door started up again.

“I am trying to fuck my fucking girlfriend,” Luke yelled at the door. “Fuck off!”

I know I should have been offended, but really, you should see Luke half-naked. “If that’s my mother I will laugh so hard.” I giggled as Luke fastened up his jeans again and stomped over to the door, bare feet pounding the crap out of my wooden floor, and yanked open the door.

“What?” he snarled.

And then there was silence for a few seconds.

I picked up Luke’s blue shirt and slipped it on and padded over to the door, where I fell silent, too.

Eventually I found my voice. “Xander? What the hell are you doing here?”

He looked frozen, and really miserable, hugging a holdall to his chest. His gaze was rooted to Luke’s torso. I couldn’t blame him. Straighter men than he had stared.

I waved my hand in front of Xander’s face. Luke sighed, looking pissed off, and leaned against the door frame, arms folded.

“Go away,” he said, in a patience-tested voice.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” Xander said pitifully.

“Well, you’re not staying here. Your brother lives just up the road—”

“I went there,” Xander said. “They’re not in. There’s no car or anything.”

I frowned, and remembered Angel mentioning some date with Harvey.

“They won’t be back ‘til late,” I said, pulling Luke out of the way. “Come in.”

“
Sophie
,” Luke said, and I ignored him.

“How do you know where I live?” I asked Xander as he shuffled inside and looked around, still clutching his bag.

“Phone book,” he said.

“I thought you were going to go ex-directory,” Luke said, still standing in the little lobby.

“Yeah, tell the phone company that. Xander, what happened to you?” I said, looking him over. He looked like he’d been sleeping rough.

He looked gratefully at my sofa and fell onto it, still holding his bag. “You mean today? Or since you hauled ass and left me there on my own?”

“Hey, I had reasons for leaving,” I said, a touch guiltily.

“What happened to your leg?”

“That would be one of them. Luke, for God’s sake stop glaring at me and put some clothes on.”

“You’re wearing my shirt.”

I looked down. So I was. I went into the bedroom and pulled on a dressing gown, handing the shirt back to Luke at the doorway.

“He’s not staying,” he said stonily.

“Well, where else is he going to go?” I hissed. “Look at him, he’s a wreck. Angel and Harvey are out and he doesn’t know anyone else.”

“So you’re just going to take him in?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

We glared at each other for a bit.

“He can go to a hotel,” Luke said.

“Who’d let him in, looking like that?”

Luke ground his teeth. “He is not—”

“He
is
, Luke, and if you think having a shag is more important than looking after a friend, who is a witness in this case,” I added for good measure, “then you can fuck off. Go on, go.”

I pushed past him and collected up his shoes and socks and threw them at him. “I have to be up early tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t need any of this.”

“Sophie, you’re being unreasonable,” Luke began, and I turned murderous eyes on him.

“And I have a gun in my room,” I said. “Two, actually. So even if one misses I might hit you with the other one. Are you going to be sensible about this or are you going to leave?”

He glared at me, then glared extra hard at Xander.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he muttered, and stomped out to walk home.

I locked the door behind him, feeling almost like crying, hoping he’d come back and tell me all was forgiven, of course Xander could stay, we’d work something out.

But there was nothing.

Xander was still huddled on the sofa, looking more miserable than he had before.

“Did I interrupt you guys?”

I nodded.

“I am so, so sorry. But I didn’t know where else to go.”

I forced a smile onto my face. “That’s okay.”

“Really?”

“No.” I slouched over to the kitchen. “Drink?”

I found some vodka and Xander drank it neat.

“So what did happen to you?” I asked. “I came back and you were gone.”

“I went for some ice,” he said. “I remembered the key and everything, but when I came back there was someone waiting outside the room…”

“Someone familiar? With a gun, maybe?”

“The guy from the lobby. The second one.”

“Yeah. I saw him too.”

“Did he get you?”

I paused. “You tell me yours first.”

He sighed. “Well, I ran. I got on the subway and went back to my apartment for some stuff,” he patted the bag, “but when I got there they were waiting for me.”

Must have gone straight there from hitting me. Vicious bastards.

“So I ran some more,” he said. “I got a taxi to the airport. God knows what’ll happen when they cash the cheque.”

I frowned. “What flight were you on?”

“Delta, six-thirty.”

So he missed me by an hour and a half. Ha!

“But—that means you’ve been in England since yesterday! Where have you been?”

He looked miserable. “I didn’t have Harvey’s number and I don’t understand your phones—” probably because they weren’t vandalised, “—so I couldn’t get him to pick me up. I got a map, and you live really far from the airport. I thought you worked there?”

“I work at Stansted,” I said. “You flew into Heathrow.”

“Oh,” he said. “That might explain it. But anyway, I found where you live and I had to hitch a ride. Well, several rides. I slept at the airport. It’s taken me all day to get here.”

“If you found me in the phone book, why didn’t you call me?”

Xander pointed and I looked over at my answerphone. It was flashing madly.

“Oh.” I collected myself. “What about your luggage?”

He gave a little smile. “Bought it at the airport. Thank God I had my chequebook, huh? By the time they bounce no one will be able to find me.”

“Is there anything in it?” I asked wearily.

“Sketchbook. Pencils. Cool sneakers I found on sale…” He was shaking.

“Xander,” I said, “I think you need some sleep. And a bath.”

He looked like an abused puppy who’d finally stopped getting kicked.

“I have to—” I couldn’t say “go to school”. I just couldn’t. “I have to work tomorrow, but I’ll take you up to Harvey’s first thing, okay?”

He nodded gratefully, stood up suddenly and hugged me.

“Sophie, you’re the greatest.”

Funny, I didn’t feel that fab.

I was woken hideously early by what sounded like a burglar in my kitchen.

Sighing, I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. But the noises went on. I squinted at the clock. Bleurgh.

Swinging grumpily out of bed, recalling how late I’d gone to bed and then how even later I’d finally fallen asleep, and took the key for my gun cabinet out of my goodie drawer. Then I got out my lovely SIG Sauer P-239, loaded it, and pushed open the bedroom door.

Then I stared at the intruder, so surprised I nearly pulled the trigger by mistake.

“Xander?” I yawned, watching him turn my cupboards inside out. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for coffee.”

“It’s right there by the kettle!”

He looked at it with disgust. “Real coffee.”

“What’s that? Scotch mist? This isn’t Starbucks. That’s the only coffee I have.”

“Don’t you got anything with a filter?”

American grammar.

I had some filter coffee, but it was older than my flat. I’d last seen it when I used the filters to make hats for Tammy at Christmas.

“No,” I said shortly. “I don’t.”

His face softened when he saw my expression. “I’m sorry, Sophie. You’ve been really good. This is fine. You want some?”

I nodded. “I’m going to take a shower.”

When I came out, finally free of the faint smell of smoke that had been clinging to me since the gig, I spent a while deciding on what to wear. Eventually I decided on a pair of black trousers and a tight blue top with a loose draped neckline, and my faithful old black boots. I was just packaging up my feet when Xander knocked on the door and came in, bearing coffee.

I sipped it. “You’re forgiven.”

“What happened to your arm?”

I sighed and recounted the story as I did my makeup. Xander was amazed and immediately apologised for being so snarky about me leaving him. Not that he’d realised I wasn’t coming back.

I glanced at the clock. It had just gone eight. I had enough time to throw all my school things into my bag, lock up my gun again (part of me longed to take it with me and the other part, the part that remembered Dunblane, very much wished that the first part of me didn’t exist) feed Tammy, who Xander was in love with, and take him off up to Angel’s.

“What’s all this stuff in the back?” Xander was leaning over to look through my warped cardboard folders.

“Just some old school work of mine.”

“It’s good.”

“Really?” I couldn’t help being pleased. Xander was an actual artist.

“Well, it’s okay.”

Oh. Cheers.

Angel lived about five miles away in a pretty village named Ugley. Yeah, I know. Apparently it’s Saxon or something. Her house was a converted medieval church, complete with spire and creepy crypt, and she lived there quite happily with Harvey, the Perfect Boyfriend.

He answered the door, and his jaw dropped. It was like a weird mirror.

“Xander? What the fuck are you doing here?”

Xander gave a wave. He’d taken a shower and shaved with Luke’s razor and I’d thrown his clothes in the washing machine overnight, so he looked a hell of a lot better, but there was still a rough edge to him, a pallid tone to his skin and shadows around his eyes.

“Long story,” Xander said, looking at me ruefully. “You reckon I could stay here, big bro?”

Harvey nodded, then he paused and turned to Angel, who was hidden behind him. She looked ridiculously perky for someone who didn’t have to get up so early. “Can he?”

“Of course! Xander, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Angel…”

I stepped back. “Okay. I have work to do.”

Harvey followed me a few steps out of the porch. “Sophie? What’s going on?”

I explained about Xander coming to me because they’d been out. “I think he’s had a rough couple of days,” I said. “Be nice to him.”

“Did you hear about Shapiro?”

I nodded. “Floating in the Hudson. Xander is probably going to be a suspect.”

“Why? Does anyone know the body was at his apartment? You didn’t tell anyone…”

“No, I didn’t, and Luke won’t have either, but it won’t be hard for them to find out Shapiro owed Xander money. And that Xander—who is vastly overdrawn, by the way—has now left the country.”

“Great.” Harvey rubbed his face. “Okay. Looks like I have work to do today too. Thanks for looking after him.”

“No problem.”

Harvey smiled at me, and that was reward enough.

I got back in Ted and pointed him north, towards Longford, on the road to Cambridge. The village was long and old and pretty, with a river running under the main road (boy, they really didn’t have to think so hard about that village name, did they?) and the high school at the far end. It reminded me a lot of my old school. From the road, across the lawn, I could see cars parked outside what I assumed was the main hall, so I turned up the lane that ran through the middle of the school, and swung Ted neatly into a parking space.

And then I got out, and a stern-looking woman with “History Teacher” written all over her tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was a student.

“Of course,” I said, laughing a little nervously. I’d passed the first hurdle. “Why else would I be here?”

“This is staff parking,” she said. “You’ll have to put
that
,” Ted was given a disparaging wave, “somewhere else.”

“But—where?” I fought to keep from scowling at her treatment of my beloved car.

“There’s a car park outside D Block for students,” she said, and swept off.

Great. Where the fuck was D Block?

I got back in and rummaged for my school map. No map. Great.

So I got back out—by now people were starting to watch me—and grabbed a kid in uniform and said, “Do you know where D Block is?”

He nodded.

“Do you know how to get to the car park?”

He nodded again.

“I’ll give you a fiver if you show me.”

Eagerly, he hopped in, looking around my car in amazement, and I remembered what a small economy kids operate on. Five quid was probably a week’s lunch money. And I had a car—when I was at school hardly anyone had their own car. The ones that did drove beat-up Novas older than themselves and thought they were the business.

He directed me left onto the lane, past a clutch of ugly low-rise buildings, and up a steep drive on the other side of the road. I found a space behind the gym and paid the kid off.

“What’s your name?”

“Rob,” he said, looking at me like I was a goddess. “8F.”

I assumed that was his class.

“Thanks, Rob. Now, er, run along.”

And he did. Bless.

I went back down the slope and round the front of D Block to the newer building Rob had said was the sixth form block. According to my letter of induction I was to go to my form room for a twenty minute registration period, before my first class at eight fifty-five. I was five minutes early. Go me!

I walked into the S Block lobby (there being six buildings, A-E Blocks, plus the new, bewilderingly named S Block for the Sixth Form. And they wonder why kids today are so confused) and everybody turned to look at me.

I’d checked myself over in the rear-view mirror before leaving the car and I knew I looked pretty good. The difference between a schoolgirl and a grown woman, I guess. Not that I feel like a grown woman most of the time—I feel like that geeky teenager. Still, I know I look better. Hell, I couldn’t look worse. I’d like to think it’s something in my manner that indicates I’ve grown up, but I’m fairly sure I act like a daft teenager most of the time.

Better hair and a more experienced hand with makeup had, however, given me the edge, and certainly I’d grown up in terms of clothing since the last time I walked into a school building. I’d given up trying to dress like a skinny clotheshorse a long time ago, and instead decided to embrace my curves, in the hope that maybe someone else might want to embrace them, too.

By the looks of it, a few of them did.

I preened.

“Excuse me,” I asked a girl on her own, “where’s S3?”

She pointed to a locked door. “You in Devvo’s form, then?”

I blinked. My form tutor was supposed to be a Mr. Devely. “I guess,” I said uncertainly. “Are you?”

She shook her head. “Hemlock.”