The Shell House (5 page)

‘Oh yeah?’ Her hand was snaking down his body, flattening against the fly of his jeans, stopping there. ‘I wouldn’t call this nothing.’

‘You can’t be serious—’

‘Who said anything about serious? I feel like it, that’s all. And don’t tell me you don’t!’

Her hand continued to move against him, fingertips pressing, exploring—he closed his eyes, then opened them again and pushed her hand away. ‘Leave off!’ There were two people sitting at the top of the stairs, more voices on the upstairs landing.

‘Oh, come on, Greg!’ she said into the dip at the base of his throat. ‘Don’t wind me up. You fancy me, don’t you?’

‘Who wouldn’t?’ he answered evasively.

She nuzzled his neck. ‘You scared or something? Don’t tell me you’ve never done it? You’ll be safe with me, I promise—’

He edged away. ‘Course I have,’ he lied.

‘What, then?’

He gazed at a painting on the wall behind her, an elegant print of a tulip, black-framed. How could he explain? And who was she anyway? Someone he’d only just met. He didn’t owe her anything.

He moved towards the door. ‘Look, I’ve got to go, right?’

‘You’re joking!’ Her face hardened. ‘Stuff you! Go home to Mummy then. Loser!’

He nodded towards the jewel in her navel. ‘In case you’re interested, it
does
look tarty. Suits you.’

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth started to open; he saw her preparing a retort. Then the door to the main room opened and three people spilled out. In the confusion, Greg slipped out of the front door and slammed it shut behind him.

He stood on the doorstep, breathing deeply. He heard the bass thud from the stereo, laughter and a girl’s voice shrieking from inside. The air was cool against his face. It was dark, but a smudge of moon showed edges of heaped cloud. He stood there biting his lip, ashamed and angry—angry with Tanya, angry with himself. Gizzard would hear all about this, with embellishments. They’d be talking about him, laughing, Gizzard and the two girls.

He could go back into the party and pretend to enjoy himself; maybe find some other girl, show that poser Tanya where she could get off. He needn’t ring the doorbell and stand there like a nerd; he could go round to the open back door and just reappear, get himself another lager, find Gizzard and make the whole thing into a joke. He got as far as the side gate, saw the lighted kitchen window running with condensation, and an exhalation of fag-smoke from the extractor fan.

No. He’d had enough.

He walked away from the house. On the way, in the back of the Mini, he’d taken little notice of where they were going. He turned right, found himself in a culde-sac, and tried the other direction, at last reaching a road he recognized. The solitude, the silence broken only by occasional traffic, were like gifts he hadn’t deserved. His head cleared and became his own again. If he’d had his bike, he’d have gone to the Tavern after all; he considered hitching a lift, decided he couldn’t be bothered, and walked home.

His parents were watching a film; his mum looked at the mantelpiece clock in surprise. ‘You’re not very late! Did you have a good time?’

‘Great, thanks,’ Greg said. He went straight up to his room and turned on his stereo.

Caryatid

Greg’s
photograph
(colour):
the female caryatid
figure on one of the garden summerhouses at
Graveney Hall. From ground level, a pillar of
stone rises in an angular, widening co fin-shape,
becoming the top half of a girl or woman. A draped
cloth falls in folds around her waist; above she is
naked, with graceful, muscular arms and small
rounded breasts. In her arms she holds a garland
of vines and fruit. The sunlight throws strong
shadows on her face, exaggerating the classical
repose of her features. On her forehead there is a
medallion or brooch, from which the folds of stone
fabric fall away like hair. Above her head, the stone
becomes pillar again, rising to a decorative beaded
edging, surmounted by balustrades. Moss or
lichen gives a greenish shading. Ivy has found a
roothold in the stone, and twines live and green
around her head.

When he woke up, the sun was shining through his curtain and his mouth tasted of garlic. Remembering the party, he groaned and rolled over; then, giving up the attempt to fall back into sleep, he shoved off the duvet and went into the bathroom to shower, washing last night away. He gargled with his mother’s mint stuff and cleaned his teeth, then stuck out his tongue to inspect it.

Dad would be up before long, getting ready for golf; his mother usually had a Sunday lie-in, and Katy rarely surfaced before eleven. Quietly Greg let himself out of the house, and got his bike from the garage.

The cool air revived him like a plunge into the swimming pool. He felt free, full of energy, cycling fast till he was clear of the town and heading towards the fringes of the forest. There had been a heavy dew, and the grass beside the road was shining, webbed with fine threads. It was very still, the
zizz
of his tyres almost the only sound.

On its ridge in hazy sunlight Graveney Hall was the ghost of itself, like the setting for a gothic film. Except that in the film it would be deserted, approached on horseback through swirling mists, whereas in fact there were a number of cars already parked along its frontage. They were keen, those volunteers. On the way here Greg had passed only a few dog-walkers, one jogger and a couple of kids delivering Sunday papers, but this lot had already clocked in. Parking his bike, he kept a wary lookout for anyone with shorts and a beard. He shouldered his rucksack and slung his camera case round his neck with the aim of appearing to be on a photographic assignment, in case anyone invited him to join in the back-breaking fun.

‘Hello! Greg, isn’t it?’ Someone was calling from behind a Volvo hatchback. He looked round and saw the woman with the bandanna over her hair—a red one today. She came over, smiling broadly. She had gappy teeth and a sunburned face and a posh voice. ‘You’re becoming quite a regular! We’ll be glad of your help, I can tell you.’

He indicated his camera. ‘No, I’m taking photos.’

‘Oh. Well, good—we need lots of those for our exhibition. Are you looking for Faith?’

‘Not really.’ He’d had enough of being pushed and pulled around by girls.

The woman took no notice. ‘She’s around somewhere—comes every Sunday, rain or shine. Off on her own most of the time. Well, I must get on. See you at coffee! Don’t forget—in the Coach House, eleven sharp. Lovely to see you again.’

You’d think she was his auntie. He wouldn’t mind coffee, though, having left home without breakfast. She strode back to her car, collected a big chill-bag and walked off, waving.

He wondered if he ought to tell someone about those yobby boys. First, he walked across to the corner of wall where they’d left their rubbish. This area didn’t seem to be visited by the volunteers, whose efforts were concentrated on clearing the house floor and laying their track and working lower down the gardens, but Greg saw immediately that the boys had been back. There was an addition to the acid-green spray-paint: GREG H IS A TOSSPOT. His fists clenched. And they’d lit another fire: he saw fresh ashes in the burned circle, and the blackened remains of sticks and fag-ends.

That settled it—it
must
be that boy Dean from school, the one who’d brought the note for Jordan. What was it? Yes, Dean Brampton. Ignorant little yob! Why should he have it in for me? Greg wondered. Irritation prickled him:
every
one seemed to be getting at him. But if they came here regularly, he’d catch them sooner or later. Then he’d show that arrogant little oik and his friends what they could do with their spray-paint.

He crossed the garden, skirting bandanna woman and her group, who were only a couple of metres farther along their track than when he’d left them last week. Recognizing Faith’s father among them, he accelerated his pace, swinging to their left. The woman’s imperious voice carried across the grass: ‘No, he’s taking photographs today.’ His role seemed to have become semi-official. Walking slowly through the wet grass of the orchard, he picked up a windfall apple and took a bite, then winced at its sourness and chucked it away. He was making his way to the lake, along to where Faith’s log path made its secret descent through the shrubby thickets, when he saw her by the edge of the wood, her back to him. She was picking blackberries, dropping them into a blue plastic carrier bag; she wore jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt. While he wondered whether to speak to her or cut down to the lake on his own, she turned and saw him.

‘Hello!’ She didn’t seem at all surprised. ‘I hoped you’d come.’

‘Oh, did you?’ He walked slowly towards her. ‘What, after last week? Handing me over to your dad, then clearing off?’

She laughed. She had white, even teeth and an infectious laugh; annoyed with her though he was, he couldn’t help smiling.

‘Dad kept going on about you all week—how good to have young people involved, how hard you’d worked, all that sort of thing.’ She stooped to wipe juice-stained hands on the grass; the silver cross swung forward on its chain as she crouched.

‘Why did you go along with him when he thought you knew me?’

Faith smiled. ‘Easier than saying you were some trespasser who crept up on me down by the lake.’

‘I didn’t creep! And how come you don’t get roped in to the slave labour? I don’t see you sweating and straining.’

‘I am helping, though!’ Faith looked affronted. ‘Mum makes blackberry pies and jam to sell at the open day. It all helps make money. Look! There’s hundreds here—great big juicy ones. You can help if you like.’

‘Well, OK.’ He came closer to the mound of brambles, seeing the thorny stems heavy with clusters of blackberries, plump and glossy, and the drapery of spider-webs spangled with dew.

‘We can get loads.’ Faith pulled another plastic bag from her jeans pocket. ‘Look out for maggots. I’ve seen one or two.’

‘Does your mum work here as well, then?’

‘Mm, every week—she’s tidying up in the Coach House.’

The berries were asking to be picked, coming away easily from their stems; it was satisfying, dropping the warm fruit into his bag, feeling it gradually sag with their weight. He ate while he picked, feeling the sharp sweetness on his tongue and the fibrous pippiness.

‘Breakfast,’ he explained to Faith.

‘Were you mad at me last week?’ she asked.

‘What do you think? Getting rid of me like that!’

‘Oh no, it wasn’t that. I was in the middle of something, that’s all.’

‘What?’

‘At the grotto, where you found me—I go down there to be by myself. To meditate and pray.’ She looked at him defiantly. ‘No-one disturbs me down there.’

‘Pray?’ Greg echoed, not sure she was serious.

‘Yes.’

‘What, all day long?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I think and read and walk about as well, and just look at the water and the trees. I suppose I think of it as my own special Sunday place. That’s why I didn’t like you being there at first.’

Greg looked at her sidelong. ‘So you don’t—you know—go to church; you go there instead?’

‘Church on Sunday evenings. And to Bible Study class on Wednesdays.’

‘Oh.’ He was taken aback. The cross round her neck wasn’t a mere piece of jewellery, then. St Ursula’s girl. Right. Religion probably came as part of the package. But it was more than a formality for her, if she spent time praying by herself.

‘What do you pray about?’ he ventured.

‘Oh, things. There’s always something. I mean big things, not just things for myself.’

‘You’ve got the right name then. Faith.’

She laughed. ‘That’s no coincidence. My parents are both Christians, you see.’

‘What if you hadn’t wanted to be one?’

She looked at him. ‘But I do. I am. If I didn’t believe—well, what would it all be about?’

‘What would what be about?’

‘Life. Everything. What would it all mean?’

‘OK, so what
does
it mean? You’re telling me you’ve got it sussed?’

She was stretching deep into the bush, reaching for a cluster of berries, showing a strip of smooth flesh between jeans and T-shirt. A thorn caught at the yellow fabric; she stopped to free herself, then bent the stem down in an arc. ‘It means living for God. For Jesus. Everything we do is for them. Without that, there’d be no point in anything. No meaning.’

‘Shouldn’t we work out our own meaning?’

‘OK, so what’s yours?’ she asked, chin high.

‘You do like to ask awkward questions, don’t you? Only I’m not pretending to have the answers. What you said—is that what you’ve been taught? Or do you believe it for yourself?’

She turned to stare at him, holding the thorny spray away from her face. ‘Of course I believe it. If I didn’t, it would just be . . .’

‘Mm?’

‘Like cleaning your teeth every morning and night. Like looking both ways before you cross the road. Just following rules, no more than that.’

‘So you’re a real born-again Christian? Or a born-into-it Christian?’

‘Every true Christian is born again. Just going to church and reading the Bible doesn’t make you a Christian. You have to know that Jesus died for you. No, more than that, you have to
feel
it. You have to know it inside yourself.’

Greg was beginning to feel preached at. ‘So you know that Jesus died for you? He died for your sins that you wouldn’t commit for another two thousand years?’

‘He died to show me the way to God. And to show you.’

He huffed a laugh; she looked at him sharply but turned away to concentrate on her picking. He dropped a handful of berries into the bag, assimilating this new aspect of her. He felt, in a way, embarrassed; he wasn’t used to having conversations like this. He knew other people who went to church, of course—there was a girl in his form who taught a Sunday school class. Some people rode bikes or played football, others went to church. But for Faith, it was obviously more than that. It was—well, real faith. He didn’t know whether to feel amused, irritated or impressed.

‘What about you?’ Faith asked.

‘What about me what?’

‘What do you believe in?’

Greg puffed out his cheeks. ‘I don’t believe in God, no.’

‘What, then? What do you think we’re doing here?’

‘I think we evolved from apes. I mean, God creating the world in seven days and all that—fine, nice story, when people believed the earth was the centre of the universe, but it doesn’t make much sense now. Not since Stephen Hawking and Big Bang theories have proved it wasn’t like that.’

‘Proved? Aren’t those just theories?’

‘Better theories than yours, though.’

‘I don’t see that. The Big Bang doesn’t rule out the existence of God.’

‘The universe obeys its own laws—the laws of physics,’ Greg said. ‘There’s no need for a God to have created it.’

‘But God
made
the laws of physics. Otherwise, what? Scientists keep talking about the first few seconds of the universe, but what was before that? What made time and space?’ Faith paused to suck a blackberry prickle from her finger. ‘Anyway, go on.’

‘Go on what?’

‘About the Big Bang,’ Faith said. ‘How you understand it.’

Christ! (And he’d better not say
that
aloud.) He wasn’t sure how much he
did
understand. It was a bit much to be called upon to account for his existence, the existence of the whole universe—all out of the blue on a Sunday morning when he’d come here to get away from last night. ‘Well, it was about twelve billion years ago,’ he began reluctantly. ‘And our galaxy exploded from a singularity—the centre of a black hole. And maybe that’s where it’ll all finish up again, eventually—sucked back in. Don’t they teach you about cosmology at St Ursula’s?’ It was easier to be flippant than to dredge up Physics lessons he wasn’t sure he could pass on coherently.

Suddenly Faith was defensive. ‘How do you know I’m at St Ursula’s?’

‘Your dad said.’

‘Oh, he would!’ Faith said, grimacing Katy-fashion. ‘Why does he have to tell people that? It’s like hanging a label round my neck: St Ursula’s girl!’

‘You don’t mind hanging that cross round your neck. Isn’t that a kind of label?’

Faith’s hand went to her throat; she held out her silver crucifix as far as its chain would allow, as if using it as a charm to ward off evil. ‘That’s not the same thing at all. I choose to wear this—it’s for me. Anyway, what about you? Sixth form or what?’

‘Radway. The comp. Doesn’t Daddy mind you hanging around with a pleb like me?’

‘Don’t be stupid; you’re not a pleb. And I’m not posh just because I go to St Ursula’s.’ He had annoyed her; she was picking the fruit at accelerated speed, deciding her bag was full enough, pulling out another from her pocket.

‘D’you know a girl called Michelle McAuliffe?’ he asked in a gentler tone. ‘Her brother’s in my year.’

‘Yes. She’s the year below me, Year Ten. I don’t know her well, but I know who she is.’

‘OK, then. Why does God decide to give a fifteen-year-old girl kidney failure? Because he’s so kind and concerned?’

Faith shook her head. ‘We can’t know why things like that happen.’