Honest (4 page)

He paused,
then nodded his head. ‘Yeah, if you want. I could take you to see her if you
like. Her name’s Lauren. She works at one of the little shops down the lanes.
You’d like her.’

That’s sweet,
I thought. He was making an effort to form a link between us, probably paying
homage to her. I’d read once that men tended to do these things when they were
dissatisfied with their partners, purely out of guilt, as if
the other woman
and
the girlfriend
could be friends. ‘That’s nice,’ I said.

He seemed to
take that as a yes. ‘Great, we’ll go and see her after the cemetery,’ he said,
smiling briefly. ‘Well, mind how you go.’

I waved as he
drove off, but he kept his eyes on the road ahead of him. That was typical of
the David I remembered — he never could look me in the eyes.

Melanie
arrived at one o’clock on the dot, so reluctantly I let her in. She was a tall
thin woman with springy hair like Peter’s, except hers had been dyed a deep,
plum red. I was back in my chair again, the cold having seized my knee up, so I
took the lead and wheeled to the living room where we’d be having the first of
our weekly
chats.

‘You can sit
where you like,’ I said, waving at the sofa. ‘Obviously I won’t need to take a
seat.’ I smiled up at her while she bumbled past, planting herself on the end
seat closest to me.

‘Yes,’ she
said, chuckling. Her eyes were hard and blue, and she had a wide mouth coated
in pink lipstick. She looked about fifty–something. She wore a deep brown suit
and held a book and pen under her arm.

‘OK,’ she
began, letting out a long breath. ‘I’ve got your notes from your sessions with
your counsellor back in Enfield, and we’ve had a good chat on the phone.’ Her
face creased up in a big grin. I didn’t smile back.

‘What did she
say about me?’

She opened her
book and popped the top off her pen, before settling back in her seat,
pretending to be relaxed. They all did it. She was trying to give me the
illusion that this was a safe environment, but I knew better. I needed to keep
my guard up.

‘Nothing to be
worried about,’ she said, the pitch in her voice rising. I stared back at her,
waiting for the truth to come. I knew it never would. ‘We just went over some
of your old discussions, that’s all.’

‘You’re going
to make me tell you all about what happened with Peter’s dad, aren’t you?’

She shook her
head softly. ‘Not if you don’t want to, though we’ll get to that eventually. We
can talk about something else if you like.’

‘You mean I
can talk about what happened that same night on the boat with Peter instead.’

Her eyelids
blinked furiously. She smiled again, tapping the head of her pen on the book of
paper. ‘If you like. Whatever suits you,’ she said.

She was the
nervous type, I could tell. She was probably new to the industry. Back to
school, new career path, that sort of thing. I’d read that it was common in
people of her age. She was probably unsatisfied in her relationship the way
David was in his, too. I could always spot the signs. There was no way she was
one of those
strong, independent women
.

‘Do you and
your partner have regular sex?’ I asked, making her flinch.

‘Ellen,’ she
began. ‘Let’s not start off on the wrong—’

I clasped my
hands in my lap. ‘You can tell me,’ I said, interrupting her. Her blue eyes
were wide and staring like a painted doll. ‘You can tell me everything. This is
a safe environment.’

That night I
lay in bed and stared at the harbour through the big bay window and thought of
seeing David tomorrow, wondering what might happen. There was a light
flickering some way off on the horizon, maybe a lighthouse, but I couldn’t tell
from where I lay. I could see it beyond the cliffs, blinking on, off, on, off.

Something else
was moving out there. I squinted, searching for the movement. On the cliff top
I could see the silhouette of someone against the moon, walking alone, heading
for the edge of the cliff.

I sat up and
stared, unblinking, frightened of taking my eyes off the walking shadow. I
couldn’t make out much, but what I could see sent my skin prickling. The figure
had a big head of springy hair fanning out around its head, and the skinny
limbs of a young man.

I watched the
figure walk right to the edge, and just as his foot lifted to take a fatal
step, I whispered in a shrill voice, ‘Peter!’

The shadow
blinkered, like an image from a projector, then flickered out all together.
Peter was gone.

My hands
quivered as I clutched the bed sheets, craning my neck, desperate to see the
boy again. Only the moon looked back at me.

There came a
rapping on my door, interrupting everything. I laid back and kept very still. I
let out a long breath. I knew I couldn’t hold off forever or he’d be upset. I
turned on my side, facing the window, and said nothing.

The door
creaked open, a long rectangle of light flooding in, then disappearing as it
closed. I heard his breath, felt the bed compress as he leaned with his knee,
and finally, felt his hand groping for me under the covers.

I stiffened,
and turned onto my back when his hand guided my shoulder. I kept my face to the
window while it happened. I focused on willing that shadow boy back again with
my mind.

He still
hadn’t appeared by the time I was being tugged back and forth. I kept my mind
shut off from what was happening to me, expertly, from years of practice. I
watched the blinking light on the horizon instead, until I could no longer hear
the creaking of the bed in the comfort of my mind.

 I closed my
eyes and thought of Peter and me floating on the deep black ocean, miles and
miles and miles out to sea, far away from everything.

Chapter Four

Peter Denton
had the most beautiful green eyes I had ever seen, and I believed that until
the day he died.

It was my
twelfth birthday, and dad had invited the few people we knew back to the
cottage to celebrate. David was there with his mum, who knew dad in passing at
the shops. Then there was Peter’s dad Dennis, my dad’s friend from work at the
campsite — or “the black Liverpudlian guy” as people called him, seeing as
there was only one of him in Mevagissey. And then there was Peter himself, who
helped out at the camp in the holidays.

I’d opened my
presents from dad in the morning before my party, and the contents of the pink
tissue paper had set me off to a bad start. He’d bought me nightwear. One gift
was a pair of fluffy black slippers with embroidered love hearts. Another was a
big fluffy dressing gown with embroidered hearts to match. But the last piece
had given me a cold sweat.

It was a black
chiffon nightdress.

It had
cap–sleeves and a piece of lace on the bust and a long lace hem, but there was
no hiding the fact that it was a
little black nightdress
.

I held it up
by the sleeves like a stinking rag, and then let it drop back inside the
tissue. Someone else had worn a nightdress like this before, and I remembered
it clearly.

‘Don’t you
remember your mum having one just like it? It’s the same range too. They still
do them at Marks’. I know it’s a bit old for you and it doesn’t match the
dressing gown and slippers, but still. My little girl is growing up,’ said dad,
not quite meeting my eyes.

I scrunched it
up tight inside the tissue; seeing it on my lap was unbearable. Rage bubbled
inside me. How could he? What did he think this was, a sick joke? What was I to
him?

His little
girl? Hardly. Everything about that nightdress was sick.
He
was sick.

Right before
my party, while dad was laying out the party rings and fairy cakes on paper
plates, I stuffed the nightdress up the chimney breast in the living room, as
far as it would go. When I pulled my arm out it was as black as the material
from all the soot.

Even while
they sang happy birthday, with Peter’s eyes glowing behind the flames of the
candles, I thought of that nightdress and felt sick, sick to my stomach. I
couldn’t handle this thing between me and dad getting worse. This thing we had
was maturing as fast as I was.

 He was even
dressing me like
her
now. I didn’t remember much about my mum, except
her moods and her migraines, and her long brown hair. I knew we looked nothing
alike.

Everything
about it made my skin crawl, and I felt so hollow inside that I just wanted to
squash that feeling at any cost.

That’s why,
when dad was in the living room with Dennis and David’s mum, I took the
birthday cake up to the bathroom. David and Peter were downstairs in the hall
talking, but they quietened down as I ascended the stairs with the cake in my
hands. I didn’t care if they knew. I just wanted that awful feeling to
disappear.

I’d eaten two
thirds of the sickly sweet sponge when they appeared in the doorway of the
bathroom, watching me. I was crouched by the toilet, my hands coated in icing,
swallowing a chunk when I saw them.

‘What are you
doing?’ said David, his eyes bulging in disgust.

‘Mind your own
bloody business,’ I said, spraying crumbs, my eyes filling with tears. ‘Just
piss off and close the door.’

I wiped my
mouth as the tears fell, but David wasn’t budging. ‘Why are you eating it like
that?’

‘Just fuck
off!’ I cried.

Peter hadn’t
said a thing. He’d just watched me with his big green eyes. He had such wild
hair, and his skin was a pale creamy brown from his dad’s side of the family.
Looking back, it was no wonder I’d never looked twice at David before. Not when
there was him.

‘Let’s leave
her alone,’ Peter said to David, nodding at the door. ‘She’s upset.’

David looked
from me, to the cake, and then to my grubby hands smeared with frosting. He
wrinkled his nose. I understood why, of course I did: I was a disgusting sight.
But he didn’t understand that the really disgusting thing was hidden in the
chimney breast, and even if I’d explained why I was so upset he’d never
understand me. I was just trying to squash that feeling in my belly, that was
all.

‘I’m going
downstairs,’ said David, pushing past Peter.

When David was
gone, Peter crouched down beside me and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Are you
OK?’ he asked, his forehead creasing up with worry.

‘Don’t tell
anyone,’ I croaked, wiping my mouth. I was crying harder by this point, and
apparently I didn’t even care that the most amazing boy I’d ever seen had
caught me looking like that. I was beyond that point.

‘I won’t,’ he
promised, giving me a smile. ‘Ignore David, he’s a dickhead but he’s all right
really. Do you want me to leave you alone?’

In truth, I didn’t.
I would have loved to sit on that bathroom floor for hours, just me and Peter,
and in weeks and years to come we would do just that. But now wasn’t the right
time, and the fact I couldn’t even voice myself, or defend myself about the
cake, just set me off crying again.

I shrugged.
Salty tears mingled with the sugary icing around my mouth, but Peter didn’t
even wrinkle his nose. Instead he unravelled a length of toilet tissue and
softly dabbed my face, his hand so close that I could smell the scent on his
skin. He smelled faintly of soap and rain. Peter’s hand was the softest thing
I’d ever felt in my life.

‘My mum gets
upset sometimes. Don’t worry, I know it’s a girl thing,’ he said, grinning.

‘I’m sorry,’ I
spluttered, my cheeks flushing bright red. All of a sudden I seemed to wake up
to the fact that I was caught in the most humiliating situation, with cake all
over my face, like some bloated pig on the bathroom floor.

‘Nah, don’t,’
said Peter. ‘It’s too late for sorry. I’ve seen the worst of it.’

My eyes met
his and I couldn’t help laughing. That was the first of many magical laughs
Peter induced in me, even when all the world seemed dark and pitifully empty.

In three years
time, when I would finally confess why I’d been so upset the day I met him, I
would realise just how grateful I was to have someone like Peter who could make
me laugh. Happiness never lasted. It couldn’t, because the world found ways to
wipe it away; that was one thing I could always count on. And in three years,
when Peter found out my secret, we would never share laughter again.

When Peter
finished wiping my face, he asked again, ‘Do you want me to leave you alone for
a bit?’

This time I
said yes.

When the door
closed, I shoved the last of the cake aside and crawled on all fours to the
toilet, where I methodically lifted the seat and stuck two fingers down my
throat.

I wish I could
explain how such a disgusting first meeting could be so magical, but I
couldn’t. It just was.

Chapter Five

Dad had
already gone to work when I woke up the next morning. When I checked my watch
it was already eleven, but by the gloom outside anyone would think morning
hadn’t broken at all.

I panicked,
grabbing my stick and throwing the bed covers off with haste. I didn’t have
time to fill up the tub, so I hobbled out to the bathroom to give myself a
quick sponge bath instead. David would be arriving soon, and I wanted to look
my best. Not for him, necessarily, but for Peter too.

The bathroom
was as dimly lit as it had been the day before, and the light switch wasn’t
working. I turned the taps and almost screamed when nothing came out. I tried
again and again, the knobbly rusted tops pressing red indents into my skin, but
it was no use. It seemed like the bathroom was determined to leave me filthy.

Cursing, I
turned on my heels and staggered back to my bedroom, where I combed my thin
blonde hair and tied it up, before picking out something to wear. It was
raining out, but the air had been humid lately. I glanced at a couple of my
summer dresses, wondering if I should just go the whole hog despite the rain.
Yes, I decided. What kind of a woman didn’t dress up when she was meeting a
man?

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Besides, if I
was going to meet this Lauren, I needed to show her that having a bad leg
didn’t mean I couldn’t look good. As my eyes wandered over the summer dresses,
something even better caught my eye. I couldn’t remember why I’d brought it
with me. It was a strapless white dress with a netted skirt, with two large
embroidered poppies on the front. I’d worn it to my cousin’s wedding back home.

I doubted
Lauren would be wearing a dress fit for a wedding. I snatched it off the hanger
and tugged it on, tying the ribbon around my narrow waist. I hadn’t brought
matching shoes, only my sandals, some flats or a pair of trainers. I went with
the sandals. Next I chose a black cardigan — I didn’t want to ruin the impact
of my dress by wearing a coat — then I took myself downstairs in the stair
lift.

It was half
past and I wasn’t nearly ready. Keep calm, I told myself. Women always made men
wait when they picked them up for dates, didn’t they? David would understand. I
could bet that Lauren kept him waiting hours while she got ready, and I could
bet that she never apologised for it either.

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When the stair
lift halted I swung my stick down off my lap and hurried to the kitchen, where
I boiled the kettle and filled the sink. I dunked a clean tea–towel to wash my
face and armpits, before squirting a little washing up liquid to get myself as
clean as I could. I realised I should have brought the soap down from the
bathroom, but I was in too much of a panic to think.

I slathered my
face with the frothing tea–towel and squealed when my eyes began stinging. My
stick fell to the kitchen floor in a clatter as I staggered sideways,
scrunching up my eyes, groping around to turn the tap on.

When my
fingers blindly sought the tap, I turned it. Nothing came out. It had worked
when I filled the kettle and now nothing.

‘No!’ I cried,
turning it and turning it, biting my lip against the stinging behind my
eyelids. I didn’t have time for all this. David would be coming any moment, and
I was in such an awful state.

Alarmingly, a
car horn tooted outside.

I plunged my
hands in the water and scooped it over my face, blinking furiously, all the
while fishing around with my foot for my stick.

The car tooted
a second time, and by then I was rubbing my face with the dry end of the
tea–towel, my eyes red raw. But as I re–focused my sight and looked blearily
around the kitchen floor, I couldn’t see my stick anywhere. I ducked and peered
under the table, looked around the skirting, twisted and turned so much my
skirt fanned out around me.

The stick
wasn’t there. The car horn tooted again.

I swung myself
around and held the counter top for support. I decided my chair was my only
other option unless I wanted to risk a fall, and was about to move when
something came crashing down from the ceiling. I screamed, falling back against
the sink unit as the thing clattered and rattled on the floor, until eventually
it stopped moving and lay still.

My stick was
now in the centre of the floor.

My knees shook
as I glanced slowly up at the ceiling where I was so sure it had fallen from.
Nothing looked untoward. I stuck out the foot of my good leg, hooked the stick
and drew it towards me, my blood running cold. I hobbled in a daze from the
room to the front door.

I couldn’t get
out of there fast enough. I couldn’t explain what had happened, not even to
myself who had experienced the whole thing. But I just told myself that David
would know, and he’d reassure me, and he’d make me feel safe again. He had to.

 I grabbed my
bag from the table in the hall and flung myself out the front door. The car had
already pulled away and was ambling down the hill, its windscreen wipers going.

I panicked, my
hands trembling. All I could think was that I had to get David’s attention or
else he’d never see my dress and know I was better than this Lauren girl, and
I’d miss seeing Peter’s grave, and I’d be stuck in that house all alone, and
before I knew it It’d be night time and I’d hear that rapping on my bedroom
door.

‘David!’ I
called out, waving my free hand up in the air. ‘
DAVID!
’

I put a wet
hand over my brow and squinted through the rain, which was soaking my lovely
dress, and I could swear that the car was actually driving faster now.

I realised,
then.

He just
couldn’t hear me.

I had no
choice but to start hobbling after him, waving my free hand, hoping beyond hope
that he would spot me just in time. My knee began to throb but I didn’t care,
and I didn’t even care about the rain hammering down on me, or the waves
crashing against the harbour wall. I threw my stick in front of me faster and
faster, half walking half staggering, until I came within shouting distance.

I lurched down
the final few yards, stubbing my toes on the cobble stones, until I was finally
within reach.

‘David!’ I
cried, waving frantically.

The lights
came on. The car was about to pull off.

I slapped the
back of the car repeatedly, huffing, my lungs heaving inside my chest. Relief
came over me when the passenger door was opened. I laughed and hurried around
to it, soaked through to the skin, knowing everything would be okay now. I was
alone with David, in his car, and he could help me.

I slammed the
door and tucked the sopping wet strands of hair behind my ears. David gave me a
nervous smile, his hands glued to the wheel.

‘You nearly
went off without me!’ I said, laughing a little too shrilly for such a small
space. I was so worn out and shaken that I almost forgot what I’d been so
afraid of before, back in my kitchen.

‘Sorry,’ he
said. ‘I thought you must have been out.’ He looked me up and down. He was
admiring my outfit. ‘You’re soaked,’ he said.

‘I know, silly
me, I didn’t want to wear a coat today. I hope it hasn’t gone all see–through.’

‘It hasn’t,’
he said, going pink. His fingers tapped the steering wheel. He watched the road
and took an opportunity to pull out, before snaking the car down the lanes and
out onto the road towards the cemetery.

I sighed,
wiping the rain from my face. ‘David,’ I began, trying to make my voice sound
less shaken and more upbeat. Thinking about the incident with the stick in the
kitchen was making my hands shake again. ‘Have you ever seen a ghost?’

He frowned,
keeping his eyes front. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s no such thing.’

‘Oh. It’s just
the funniest thing happened back at the cottage. Well, a few funny things
actually. Something’s wrong with the taps,’ I said, my voice quavering. I
cleared my throat.
Keep your composure
, I told myself.
You’ll make
him think you’re weird
.

‘Sounds like
it might just be a plumbing problem,’ he said.

I nodded.
‘That’s what my dad said, but you know, he knows nothing about plumbing.
Anyway, just before I came out the weirdest thing—’

‘In old houses
they tend to get all sorts of problems. He should probably ring up the landlord
and get it sorted that way,’ said David, cutting me off. He frowned and I
noticed him pressing his lips together so tightly that they became a thin line
across his face.

‘Well, perhaps
you could come and have a look at it. It sounds like you might know what you’re
talking about,’ I gushed.

‘No, not
really,’ he said.

We drove on. I
exhaled loudly and looked down at my hands. ‘Are you all right, David?’ I said.

He huffed.
‘Ellen, I’m just going to come out with it. Was it you who kept ringing my
house last night?’

I blinked.
‘Ringing? No. Of course not. I don’t even have your number.’

‘Our house
number hasn’t changed. Your dad had it noted down in his diary from when we
used to arrange those fishing trips with Pete, do you remember?’

‘Oh that,’ I
said, remembering. ‘That was
years
ago.’

David nodded
slowly. ‘Yeah, I suppose it was a long time ago. It’s just somebody kept
calling and when I answered, I could only hear a few breaths and that was it.
Nobody answered when I called back. I looked up the number online and got this
area code. I was just thinking it might be you.’

My mouth had
gone dry, so I cleared my throat again. I didn’t know what else to tell him.

‘So it
definitely wasn’t you?’

‘Can’t have
been,’ I said, smiling. ‘Well, I might ring up just for a natter, you know,
just to see how you are from time to time...’

‘But last
night wasn’t you?’

‘Course not,’
I said, slapping him on the arm. He flinched, like a wary cat. I thought
perhaps he wasn’t used to being alone with a girl in such a short dress. He’d
never been a very forward kid in that department years ago, and I bet he hadn’t
changed.

We drove the
rest of the way to the cemetery in silence, and it took a short while to source
out Peter’s grave amongst the thousands that lay buried there. The rain had
seized up by the time we found it, nestled up near some bushes and a memorial
bench.

I got out the
car, still soaked, but now my knees were quivering for a different reason.
Peter’s grave, white marble with a dove in the corner, was overgrown with
weeds. Even his picture, which was behind a glass case inside the headstone,
was obscured by the overgrowth.

‘What is
this?’ I said through gritted teeth, clenching my fists. I felt David’s
presence behind me like a spirit passing through, sending a chill down my back.

‘His mum moved
away about a year ago, somewhere far, so nobody comes here to sort the grave
out much,’ said David. I heard a clicking sound, and when I turned he was
lighting a cigarette.

‘What the heck
are you doing?’ I said, turning to face him. ‘Don’t you
dare
smoke near
Peter’s grave!’

David frowned
as he took a drag and pocketed his lighter. He was a long way off from the
David I’d met at my twelfth birthday party; the weedy boy who shadowed Peter.
He was bigger now, and there was no Peter to follow. ‘He’s dead. It’s not like
he’s actually—’

‘That isn’t
the point!’ I shoved him in the chest with my stick.

‘Jesus, calm
down,’ said David, holding his hands up in protest, smoke streaming from the
cigarette. ‘Don’t hit me with that.’

‘I’ll do
worse,’ I warned. He cursed under his breath, but he did as he was told and
stubbed the cigarette out on the grass. He picked it up and re–inserted it into
its packet.

He’d obeyed
me. That was promising.

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‘Good,’ I
said, turning back to the grave.

David sighed.
‘I’m only doing this because Pete would...look, I know you’re upset, but don’t
go thinking I’m just going to let you—’

I held up a
hand to silence him. He carried on.

‘—walk all
over me. Don’t do
that
. Jesus.’

I bent as low
as I could, my stick sinking into the earth, and began snatching up all the
weeds. Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face like the rain on
David’s windscreen.

‘Are you
crying? Oh come on, it was only a smoke.’

I threw the
first lump of weeds in his direction. I heard him laugh as he dodged them, as
if my boyfriend’s grave was just a big joke. Well, I’d show him who was in
control soon enough.

‘You were
always an arsehole to me,’ I said, tugging up another clump. ‘Always talking
down to me.’

‘That was a
long time ago. Pete’s death hit me hard too.’

‘No it
didn’t,’ I snapped. ‘You don’t know what went on between us. You couldn’t understand.
You’re just as bad as they are for letting his beautiful grave turn to weeds.’

I heard him
sigh again, then the sound of his trainers padding over the slushy grass toward
me. I looked up. ‘You’re just as weird as I remember,’ he said, raising his eyebrows.
I didn’t say anything back as he helped me pull up the weeds, taking twice as
much in his large hands.

I let the
tears roll off the tip of my nose, my hair straggled about my neck, all
pretence of looking pretty completely wasted now.

I was sure I
noticed David glancing, just quickly, at my breasts behind my sodden dress, and
I knew my suspicions were right. Girlfriend or no girlfriend, I’d show David
Peirce what he was dealing with.

‘Did you know
you’re getting mud all down the front of your—’

‘Yes,’ I
hissed. I wiped my nose, getting mud on my face now too.
What a poor excuse
for staring.