The Memory Keepers (8 page)

18

She had expected his flat to be cluttered and dirty, all unwashed crockery and clothes and mess, as you’d anticipate from three teenage South boys living together. Instead, it was bare. The front door opened up into a small living room with a tattered brown sofa and a cheap-looking plastic table.

As his flatmates were home – Alba could hear one of them snoring from behind a door with the name
Sid
scrawled across it in Biro – Seven bundled her quickly through the flat. She didn’t see much of it, but the impression she got was one of emptiness. She wondered whether it was because that’s how they liked it or simply because they couldn’t afford many things.

The thought it might be the latter filled Alba with guilt. Her room at home was full of beautiful, expensive things. Their whole house was.

The whole of
North
was.

Seven led her to a small room at the back of the flat, locking the door behind them as they went in.

He waved a hand. ‘So. My memorium. I know it’s nothing like yours,’ he added quickly, catching her eyes as she looked round.

She shook her head. ‘No. It’s – it’s lovely.’

This time, Alba didn’t have to lie. There was something special about the room; she could feel it. Though the memories were hidden away, they seemed to hum from within the blue filing cabinets lining the walls, filling the air with a shimmering, magical quality. The room thrummed with the promise of hundreds of possibilities, hundreds of worlds just a heartbeat away.

Seven leant against a cabinet. ‘What d’you wanna surf, then? I’ve got over 300 skids.’ There was a touch of pride in his voice.

Alba walked slowly around the room, fingers trailing the cool metal fronts of the cabinets. ‘All these are memories you’ve stolen?’

‘Yup,’ he said, grinning.

Alba couldn’t help it: she was impressed. She was less impressed, however, with his labelling system. Seven did use some  …  interesting phrases. The
Fear, Desperation and General Wetting-your-pants Kind of Stuff
cabinet, for example. Wetting her pants wasn’t exactly something she wanted to be thinking about in front of a boy. Or at all, for that matter.

Another cabinet’s label caught her eye:
BORING BORING NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

Alba’s curiosity was instantly stirred. She moved closer. The label was peeling at the edges. ‘There’s another label underneath this one,’ she said, lifting her fingers to prise it back, but in a flash Seven was pushing her away.

‘Nah, you don’t want those,’ he said hurriedly, throwing out his arms to hide the cabinet. The tips of his ears turned pink.

Alba stepped back, reddening herself. She had an inkling just what sort of memories might be in that cabinet. Once, Dolly had taken her to Soho for a rare shopping trip, the two of them taking the opportunity while Alba’s parents were away on business. They’d gotten lost in its tangle of narrow backstreets and come across a woman in a tight dress standing in a neon-lit shop entrance under a sign flashing the words:
PORN-SURFING
. The pink light had glazed her exposed flesh.

At the time, Alba had been too young to understand what the sign meant, and Dolly had ushered her away before she could take a closer look. It was the only time Alba had seen her handmaid blush.

Now, Seven was the one who was blushing.

‘Maybe you should try one of those,’ he said, voice unnaturally high. He nodded to a cabinet across the room, labelled:
Get the Effing Hell Outta Here.

‘Are they memories about travelling?’ Alba asked, interested.

Seven nodded. He peeled away from the cabinet he’d been hiding and dragged a strange-looking machine out from one corner of the room. ‘From all over the world.’

Excitement fluttered through Alba. ‘So I can just pick where I want to go from the places you have in the selection?’

‘Well, not exactly. I don’t say what’s in the skids.’

‘But how do you know what’s in them? Won’t it always be a surprise?’

Seven grinned, his smile crinkling his eyes and dimpling his cheeks in a way that made Alba feel a strange flush of something hot in her belly.

‘That’s what makes it so fun. Now, come on.’ He patted the machine. ‘Butler’s waiting.’

19

He couldn’t help it. There was something so exciting about introducing someone to skid-surfing that Seven didn’t even mind it was
this
girl, of all people. A girl he should have left to die in the stinking tunnels of the sewer deep under the Thames, but was instead letting her use Butler, not to mention his small, precious allowance of electricity.

Maybe it was about power. This was something he had over the girl, after all. She was relying on him to help her, to show her how to surf. She was putting her trust in him.

Not many people did that.

And maybe that was it: the fact that she
was
trusting him, even though everything she knew would have taught her to do the complete opposite.

Seven finished fixing the wrist-straps to Alba’s arms and stepped back, grinning at how funny she looked, all wired up to Butler. Though even the metal cap pinching onto the top of her head couldn’t take away from how pretty she was. It was annoying. He plugged the feed cable into the DSC she had picked at random from the travel cabinet.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

The girl swallowed. Her green eyes flickered with something that took Seven a second to place –

Fear.

‘I’m  …  I’m scared,’ she said, biting her lip and glancing away.

Seven could have laughed. He could have thrown a snide comment or made fun of her. He could have ignored her, because what was the effing problem? She’d dragged her own stupid ass into this so there was no point complaining now.

But instead he said, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll have a great time,’ and in the brief moment after he pressed the
ACTIVATE
option on the screen and before Alba dipped away into the memory, their eyes met and they shared a smile.

20

‘
MEMORY ACTIVATED
,’ came a flat, robotic voice, echoing up from somewhere deep within her skull. ‘
EXPIRATION IN TWENTY-ONE MINUTES, SEVENTEEN SECONDS.’

Alba opened her eyes and let out a cry of wonder.

The world had turned green and golden. Gone was Seven’s memorium, the blue metal cabinets and old memory-machine and swirls of dust. Instead, sunlight filtered in through the canopy above her head, where huge, twisted trees arced into the sky. All around came the rustling of leaves and animals nosing through the undergrowth. From unseen depths sounded the cackling of monkeys –
monkeys!
– and a rushing, watery noise came from up ahead, beyond the thick tangle of vegetation.

Alba could scarcely believe her eyes. And not just her eyes:
every
one of her senses had come alive. Sounds, smells, even the taste of greenness in the air and the feel of the heat on her skin.

It wasn’t like a dream where you were slightly detached, numb from it all. It wasn’t even like a memory. It was like a moment, a string of moments, and you were right
there
in it, living it as it happened, everything vivid and real and –

‘Oh!’

Without meaning to move, Alba started forward, as though something was pulling her. She slipped on the leafy ground. Regaining her balance, she began to walk, falling into a steady rhythm, feeling a strange need to be moving in this direction. A light pressure at her back pushed her on.

‘I’m in a memory,’ she said out loud to herself, laughing with amazement. ‘I’m in someone else’s memory! And I’m walking because that’s what they did!’

It didn’t feel restrictive. It felt simple. Instinctual.

As Alba walked on, the rushing sound grew louder. After a few minutes it soared into a roar, and then with a suddenness that drew her breath away, the forest opened into an enormous clearing, a huge, tiered waterfall cascading down in a shining white-blue torrent.

‘Oh lords,’ she breathed, coming to a stop.

The view was incredible. Golden sunlight filled the clearing, the sky above such a pure, clean blue it seemed to be made of glass. The river poured down through the centre. Each of the waterfall’s tiers had a wide basin where the water pooled, gurgling and splashing in and over itself. Rocks lining the edges glistened with moss.

A need grew inside Alba. A hot, playful feeling that teased a grin onto her lips and made her heart start to race. All of a sudden, there was nothing more she wanted to do than to be
in
the waterfall.

To
jump
.

Alba ran. Steady at first, then picking up speed, breaking into a sprint towards the lip of the cliff, running and running until she was at the edge, pushing off with one foot and leaping into the sky.

I’m flying!
she thought, heart soaring.
I’m
flying
.

Then the water burst open as she slammed down into the middle pool of the waterfall, going under so hard and quick she didn’t even have time to be scared.

Alba gasped as her head broke the surface moments later. The rush of the water cascading in from above roared in her ears, but apart from a slow, tugging current that was trying to pull her towards the edge of the basin, the water was gentle here. Treading to keep herself afloat, she swiped a hand across her forehead, pushing back the hair glued to her skin. Her clothes were heavy. Following another instinctive urge, she swam to the side of the basin where the cliff ran down alongside the waterfall, and climbed out. Tugging her jumper and trousers off her body, she threw her soaked clothes to the ground, not even caring that she was naked and might be seen at any moment.

Because how could she care, when she felt like this? So weightless. So free.

Alba realised that, for the first time ever, she
was
free.

It was the absolute best feeling in the world.

She slid back into the pool. The water was silk on her body. Sighing, she eased down until she was submerged up to her neck, and closed her eyes. Sunlight poured over her face.

She never wanted it to end. The memory was glorious. It was a million times better than anything she could have imagined. The sounds of the water and the rainforest pulsed in her ears, raw and beautiful and so
alive
it made her want to cry.

And she did. Floating there in the middle of a waterfall in a place that must have been miles and miles away from her home, and possibly years and years away from her present, Alba cried, and for the first time in her life it was from joy.

21

They barely spoke on the way back to North. Seven didn’t mind; Alba was less annoying when she didn’t talk. And it was a weird kind of nice, walking quietly through the darkness with someone at his side, their footsteps falling in time. It felt almost as though they were friends.

The night was at its deepest when they arrived back at Alba’s house, shadows swallowing the estate and making them stumble on the uneven ground. Above, the sky was a hard edge of black. The moon had disappeared. The wind that had earlier been refreshing now had a biting edge: winter was on its way.

Alba squeezed her arms around her chest as they stood at the edge of the cluster of elm trees. The house was white and silent before them. She stared at it, biting her lip. Something about that movement gave Seven a funny, twisty feeling in his stomach. He realised yet again how pretty she was, then scowled, angry with her for making him think it.

‘Soooo  … ’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He grinned. ‘Your first time in South. Bet you’re wishing you were born on the other side of the river now, huh?’

Alba didn’t reply, still staring at the house.

Seven’s grin faded. Annoyance buzzed through him. Sure, he’d only done it to stop her telling her father about him, but he’d taken her skid-surfing, for eff’s sake. He’d shown her the most precious thing to him – his memorium – and she couldn’t even say thank you.

He was just about to leave (what did he think was gonna happen? That this stuck-up North princess would show her gratitude by rewarding him with all the riches he could have ever dreamed of? That there was any other way for this weird situation to end other than her walking back into her golden North life, and him crawling back to South?) when Alba spoke.

‘Will you take me memory-surfing again?’

Seven blinked, shocked.

‘I – I know you’ve kept your side of the deal,’ she went on, ‘and I won’t tell my father about you breaking in, or any of this. I promise. But  …  I really enjoyed memory-surfing. I’d like to do it again with you. If you don’t mind,’ she added in a whisper.

As if I could say I
do, Seven thought, on the verge of scowling, but (much to his surprise – and pride) something warm in him was unfurling at the thought of seeing her again, at how she’d said
with you
.

At the thought that maybe, maybe this was what it was like to make a friend.

Letting out a heavy sigh, he shrugged. ‘Sure. Whatever. We should probably leave it a week, though. You know. Don’t want to make it too obvious or anything.’

Alba’s smile was as bright as sunshine. ‘Oh!’ she cried happily. ‘Yes! Yes, of course!’ And before he knew what was happening, she lurched forward and threw her arms around his neck.

Seven froze.

For one long, long moment, neither of them moved. Alba stood stiffly against his body, her fingers only just meeting at the base of his neck, her face pressed into his chest. Every inch of Seven was still apart from the shuddering of his heartbeat, quick and fast, racing against his ribcage.

He’d never hugged anyone before. No one had even touched him in any way that wasn’t trying to cause pain. Well, Mika hugged him all the time, but she was so small she could only wrap her arms round his legs, so he wasn’t sure that counted.

Now Alba’s body was pressed up against him, their hearts thudding together, the wind whipping around them, and Seven had no idea what in the effing world to do. He was so stunned he couldn’t even think of a joke.

That had to be a first.