SOMEONE DIFFERENT (8 page)

‘Tia, Tia. All I bloody hear is
Tia
. I hate that horse, and do you know what? I hate you as well. You’re selfish and spiteful and a liar!’

I spun around and bumped straight into Dad.

‘Annabel, that’s uncalled for, and you know it.’ He watched as I recovered my balance. ‘I know you’re upset at the moment, but you didn’t mean that.’

‘I did; every word of it.’

He stared down at me. ‘You’re just over-reacting. All your mother has done is try to help you get on better with Tia. And it’s not like you have no horse at all – in fact, you have a very bloody expensive horse instead of an old nag who was past his best. You ought to be grateful, rather than flinging insults like that around. I think you should apologise.’

‘Me apologise?’ My voice went higher as I glared at him. ‘What’s wrong with you? You’re as bad as her.’

‘Right, that’s enough. You will apologise, because otherwise you’ll go up to your room, and you’ll stay there until you do.’

I shook my head at him. Why did he think he could still treat me like I was five?
But being sent to my room was fine; anywhere, away from them, was fine.

The rain lashed almost horizontally against the French doors as I sat on my bed and stared out. Oh, Pepper. My face crumpled as I pictured him. Where was he now? Who did he belong to? And, more selfishly, what the hell was I going to do without him?

11 – Jay

I thought it’d gone OK when I’d talked to her on Thursday. I know it hadn’t been for long, but she’d seemed friendly and happy enough.

But it looked like I was wrong, didn’t it? Cos by the time me and Billy were walking down the lane at four o’clock on Friday, there’d been no sign of her.

I played on my phone in silence while we sat on the bus. Billy tried hard to leave me alone, but after a bit he must’ve decided he was going to cheer me up instead.

This guy got on and sat a few seats in front of us. He was bald but he’d got this long black beard, and Billy leaned towards me and said, ‘Look at him; he’s got his head on upside down.’
 

I glared at him. ‘Quit it,’ I said. But it did make me laugh. Luckily though, the guy didn’t hear us. He was about six foot square and his neck bulged like a sumo wrestler, but stuff like that just didn’t matter to Billy.

It was pissing it down when we got off the bus, and we bombed it through the estate as fast as we could. Billy’s phone rang just before we got to the shops, and he looked at it.

‘Unknown number,’ he said, rejecting the call. But a couple of seconds later, it sounded to say he’d got a message.

He pointed at the bus shelter, and we went and stood under it while he dialled his voicemail.

I faced into the corner and tried to get out of the wind to light a fag; it took a couple of tries, but then it lit and I turned back to look at Billy.

His eyes were darting about all over the place.

‘What’s up?’ I said.

He shook his head a bit and lifted his other hand up to tell me to be quiet. A couple of seconds later, he pressed another button on his phone and held it out to me. ‘Listen to that,’ he said.

‘What is it?’

‘Just listen.’

I swapped him the fag for the phone and held it up to my ear. The man’s voice was fairly old and not from round here. I pressed the phone closer to try and hear him properly.

‘So you think you’ve got away with it,’ he said quietly. ‘You must be laughing, the pair of you. Well, be careful, my friends. Unlike me, the courts didn’t know all the details, that’s why they let you off. But trust me, we haven’t.’

I stared at Billy as I handed him his phone back.

‘What d’ya think?’ he said.

A shiver ran across my shoulder blades. ‘I dunno.’

‘D’ya recognise the voice?’

I shook my head. ‘D’you?’

‘No.’

He passed me the fag back and I took a long last drag. ‘It could just be the other lads, winding us up?’

Billy leaned his head to one side, but didn’t answer.

‘I mean, anybody that was really gonna do somethin’ would have done it by now, wouldn’t they?’

Billy thought about it. ‘Yeah, I suppose. Unless they’ve only just found out who we are, or where we live.’

Some freezing drops of rain ran down my face and I wiped them off. ‘Anybody that really wanted to know would’ve done. Even though we weren’t named in the papers, they’d have found a way.’

‘Mmm.’ Billy wasn’t convinced, and neither was I, totally.

But it still didn’t make sense. The kind of people we’d pissed off, weren’t the kind of people to give warnings.

Billy must’ve had the same thought. ‘And they probably wouldn’t be leaving a voicemail, either.’ He pushed the front of his hat up a bit. ‘Yeah, it’ll just be some nutter; some nutter that got our number from somewhere and thought he’d have a laugh. C’mon.’

Billy set off and I followed him ’til we got to the end of our road, which was where we normally split up.

He stopped. ‘It won’t be owt, will it?’ he said.

‘Nah. Nobody that’s serious is gonna phone up for a chat, are they? I’ll see ya tomorrow, yeah?’ And I left him and walked down to our house on my own.

The rain still swirled around in the wind, and there was hardly anybody about, but I couldn’t help watching the odd person who did pass right carefully. A few minutes later though, I walked into our house all in one piece.

12 – Anna

I must have cried into my pink cushion for about an hour and a half before Dad knocked on my door and came in.

‘Are you coming down to dinner?’ he asked.

I ignored him.

‘Annabel?’

I turned my face away.

‘Oh, come on; you can’t dwell on this forever. He was no use to you anymore
– surely you can see we only did what was best?’

I felt him watch me for a while, then he went back downstairs and reappeared a minute later with a tray. ‘You can eat your dinner here,’ he said, laying it on my desk. ‘And hopefully, by tomorrow morning, you’ll be able to see things more clearly.’ The door clicked closed behind him.

Just the smell of the roast chicken and gravy almost made me vomit. I lifted my head up from the soaked cushion and looked around. The lights above me made me dizzy. The paintings on the walls, the twirling flowers growing up the drapes – they all seemed to be closing in on me, like some dense fog. But the heat from it was stifling.

I had to get out. I needed air; cold, fresh, untainted air. But where could I go? Who could I run to now Pepper had gone?

I threw on my coat, found my phone, and grabbed a handful of money off my dressing-table. Then I picked up the magnet out of my drawer.

‘Sheff-tax.’

The woman answered my call as I walked along the lane at the bottom of our drive. Rain dripped from my hair, and I gripped the phone as if it were a branch I was clinging to over a great ravine.

‘Could I have a taxi, please?’ I said quietly.

‘Where are ya, love?’

‘The Huntsman Pub, Ladybridge.’

‘An’ where d’ya wanna go?’

I breathed in deeply, then out slowly. ‘63, Meadows Drive,’ I said.

13 – Jay

Magically, a battered tin of soup had appeared in the cupboard, and once it’d been zapped in the microwave it helped to warm me up a bit. I watched the telly for a couple of hours, then decided to risk a shower. Sometimes there was hot water, sometimes there wasn’t, and the thought of getting wet through and freezing cold all over again, was enough to make me shiver before I even got started.

I ended up with about ten minutes of warmish water though, then I got dried and pulled a pair of jeans on. Viva played on the telly in my bedroom, and for a bit, I totally forgot about the phone call Billy’d got earlier.

But as I hunted around for a clean T-shirt, I heard something downstairs. I stopped, lowered the volume, and listened.

And as the loud knocking at the front door sounded again, I nearly shit myself.

14 – Anna

It was crazy, wasn’t it? He might not even be there. It
was
Friday night after all; he’d probably be out having a good time with his friends, or maybe, even his girlfriend. My chest tightened as a cutting pain ran through it.

And, if he was home, how would he react when he saw me? We’d met twice for a total of about three minutes, and there I was, arriving unexpectedly on his doorstep looking like a kitten that had fallen through thin ice.

I chewed at the skin around my thumbnail. No way should I have done it. I should have found a way to deal with it on my own: what they’d done to me, what they’d done to Pepper.

Pepper. God, just the thought of being without him made me unsteady. How could they? How could they have sold him when they’d said they wouldn’t? And to have done it in secret as well? The quiet cry crept out before my hand could hold it in.

But was running away to an unknown house, in an unknown area, to someone who was little more than a stranger, really the right answer?

My teeth bit into my thumb as a dim light flickered on behind the cracked, frosted glass. Still, no movement came from inside. I glanced around. Meadows Drive certainly didn’t have any meadows. A single tuft of grass had managed to fight its way up through the thick mud that covered the front garden, but even that seemed to be wilting now, under a heavy layer of broken paving stones and shards of glass. In the middle of it, stood an old brown sofa; the cushions were missing, and the ripped, frayed material dripped with rain.

My head lifted as a police car raced past, its sirens blaring. Then voices shouted, and a gang of boys walked along the pavement. Quickly, I turned back and knocked again, harder. And this time, a slim figure slowly made its way down the stairs.

‘Who is it?’

I was certain it was Jay, but he sounded so much rougher than he had before.

My eyes filled up. It was crazy,
I
was crazy. I almost spun on my heels and ran for it, but then the figure began to move away from the door.

‘No! Jay ... it’s me.’ My voice shook madly, but it still blurted out louder than I’d meant it to.

The door swung open. He gazed at me in complete shock for a second, then took my hands and pulled me towards him. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

‘I’m sorry ... it’s just ... it’s Pepper.’ My eyes clung to his. ‘They’ve sold him. And they promised they wouldn’t, and they said we could keep him always. And then I went to see him tonight and he’d gone. I was frantic. I searched and searched for him in the darkness and shouted him and ... and ... I just had to get away ...’

‘OK; it’s OK,’ he whispered. Then in one swift movement, he stepped forward and wrapped me up in his arms.

And, God, I relaxed into him like I’d never relaxed before. The tension flowed from my shoulders, every muscle in my body softened – so much, I actually wobbled. Without his tight, solid, protective hold, I think I’d have ended up on the floor. There was no wonder Tia melted like chocolate whenever he touched her; he felt amazing.

After about a minute of me snuffling into his shoulder and him just standing and letting me, he reached over and closed the door. Gently, he pushed my hair back off my wet face. ‘Alright?’ he said.

I nodded, then he slid his hand around the back of my neck and kissed my forehead.

‘Good. Come on.’

Jay led me over to the stairs. The door into the lounge was open a little, and a man lay sleeping on the sofa. I wondered if he was Jay’s dad, but he looked too old for that – his grandfather then, maybe? The man grunted and murmured something in his sleep, and Jay closed the door. I followed him upstairs, and it was only as I peered up at him then, that I realised all he was wearing was a pair of jeans.

In his small, dimly-lit bedroom, he took a T-shirt out from the middle of a pile of clothes and slipped it on.

‘D’ya want somethin’ dry to wear?’ he asked.

I looked down. Both my jacket and my top were clinging to me.

‘Here.’ He held out an orange hoodie he’d taken from the pile.

‘Thank you,’ I said. 

Jay smiled. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

He left the room and I changed into the hoodie quickly. It felt good to get out of the dripping wet clothes, and although his top almost came down to my knees, and I had to roll the sleeves up three times so my hands showed, the warmth from it was lovely.

A gust of wind whistled outside, causing a faint rattling from the window. I glanced over. I’d hardly ever seen windows that weren’t double glazed before. Most of the paint had flaked off from the wooden frames, and it was the loose panes of glass that made the rattling noise whenever the wind blew.

Not knowing where else to put them, I folded up my wet clothes and placed them on the floor. The carpet was dark red – except for in the doorway where it had been worn thin and you could see the brown threads underneath, and over by the end of the bed, where a big yellowy stain showed up. I stepped nearer to the scuffed, bare wall and put my hand on the radiator – it felt colder than our fridge.

A quiet knock sounded at the door then and Jay came back in. He moved a towel off the bed and sat down on top of the duvet. ‘Are ya warm enough?’ he said.

‘Yes, I’m fine.’ Without thinking about it, I walked across and sat next to him. As well as the bruise on his face, there were two more on his neck; faint ones, that I suspected weren‘t caused by playing football. ‘I really am sorry for just turning up like this,’ I said. ‘I mean, if you already have plans, if you want me to leave –’

‘Don’t be daft.’ He laughed. ‘Believe me, I had no plans.
And even if I did, I’d cancel ’em all for you.’

He pulled a face and laughed again. ‘Jesus Christ, how sad did that sound?’

I giggled along with him, then he shuffled back a little until his shoulders touched the wall. ‘So, I guess Pepper’s a horse, right?’

I blinked as it all came back to me. ‘Yes, I’d had him for seven years.’

‘Well, there’s no wonder you’re upset then; there’s nothin’ wrong with that, ’specially if it came as a bit of a shock.’ He shrugged hopefully. ‘Maybe they’ll get him back for ya, when they know how much he means to ya?’

‘They know.’ I turned my face away. ‘They knew what they were doing all along.’

I felt his hand on my arm, and he tugged me slowly backwards until my head rested on his chest.

We lay there without moving for a long time. The calm rhythm of his breathing soon steadied mine again, and the knots in my stomach loosened.

The TV had some documentary on about how The Arctic Monkeys had risen to fame. I lay with my back to the screen and the volume had been turned down low, but for the first time, I actually listened to the lyrics of
A Certain Romance
. And by the end of it, I wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh or cry.

Eventually, Jay squeezed my arm a little. ‘Anna?’

‘Yes.’

‘What ya gonna do?’

I thought about it before I answered him. ‘I’ll go back I suppose, there’s nothing else I can do. At the minute they don’t even know I’m here, but if they find I’m missing in the morning, they’ll go completely mental. They’ll phone the police and everything, and then there’ll be even more problems to face, it’ll be even worse than ever. So ...’

‘Go on.’

I reached over and ran my hand down his other arm. ‘So I’ll go back, and I’ll probably apologise, and everything will be just like before. Except that now, I won’t have Pepper to turn to.’

‘I’ll be there though, some nights.’

My hand found his as I shook my head. ‘She’s even ruined that. She’s arranged for me to have extra tuition with one of our teachers after school. It’ll mean I can only see you on Thursdays from now on.’ I squeezed his hand tighter and shivered.

‘D’ya wanna get in bed?’

I looked at him.

‘To keep warm I mean ...’ He blushed and let go of my hand.

I smiled, then folded back the duvet and wriggled underneath it. You could see the stripy blue mattress through the thin, greyish sheet, and I ran my hand over the bobbled-up material. I admit, just for a second, I did wonder how clean that bed really was. But as I held up the duvet for Jay to follow, and we snuggled down together, it very quickly stopped being important.

Jay rubbed my back through the hoodie, and after a little while he said, ‘D’ya feel any better?’

I hugged him. ‘A million times,’ I answered.

He smiled, then after a slight hesitation, lifted up his hand. His thumb glanced over my cheek, and his fingers pressed lightly under my chin. Finally
, he moved a little closer, stopped for just a second, then leaned right in, closed his eyes, and kissed me.

Jeez, it made me tingle all over. All I could do at first was lay there, loving how his lips moved slowly over mine, how his hand held the back of my neck, keeping my head steady. But then my lips parted, and I started to kiss him back; really kiss him back. My arms folded around his shoulders, my fingers touched his hair. Even though his weight pushed down on me, it still felt gentle, safe; reassuring. And, God, I never wanted it to stop.

But of course it had to – eventually.

Jay raised his eyebrows, then grinned at me. ‘About only bein’ able to see ya on Thursdays,’ he said. ‘Is there some way we can get round that?’

I giggled, and we kissed again, and then again.

But that’s all we did do. Jay’s hands stayed firmly on the outside of the hoodie, and he never touched me anywhere that might’ve made me feel uncomfortable. He put no pressure on whatsoever.

The truth was though, if he had, I think I’d have done it. It wasn’t why I’d gone there, and there were a hundred reasons why it was a bad idea. But in one night, I’d lost Pepper, ran away, found Jay, and ended up in bed with him. Everything was mixed-up, my head was all over the place. And, although I still didn’t feel quite brave enough to make the first move, if he had, I’m sure I wouldn’t have stopped him.

But he didn’t. And actually, about an hour later, it was Jay who sat up and said, ‘It’s getting late. D’ya think you ought to be makin’ a move?’

I sighed. ‘I know, I will. But not yet; please, can I just stay a tiny bit longer?’

He lay down again. ‘Stay as long as ya want for me, darlin’.’ He cuddled me, and I closed my eyes tightly.

Last year, when we were on holiday in Italy, I went in this huge, transparent, plastic bubble thing. You got in through a slit, then they inflated it with air and Velcroed you in. They attached it to a long rope and launched you into the sea, where you bobbled, and spun and fell around everywhere. It was fantastic. And lying there, in Jay’s arms, reminded me of it. I could still see out, I knew everything on the outside still existed, but it couldn’t touch me. While ever he was holding me, I could float along in that bubble, and I was protected – from everyone, and everything.

15 – Jay

I let her sleep ’til about twelve. She looked like proper peaceful laid there. Her eyes were less red than before, and when I lifted her arm up to look at the time on her Gucci watch, it felt all floppy and relaxed.

It hit me how much the bones in her wrist stuck out though, and the watch fitted that loosely, I’m surprised it never slipped off over her hand. Her fingers were slim as well, and although they were mostly all white and soft, the skin round both her thumbnails was red-raw. You could see where she’d picked away at it until it’d bled. Why would she do that to herself?