Storm and Stone (19 page)

After the prolonged applause at the curtain call, they rose to go, the rumbling thunder of audience feet descending the wooden staircases rolling through the acting space.

‘Verdict?’ asked Kieran.

‘Great show but I wanted to shake Perdita.’ She buttoned up her jacket.

‘Why? She’s supposed to be sweet and naive.’

‘Yeah, but she believed that guy was a shepherd when he was really a prince. I mean, c’mon, he was called Florizel! That should have been a warning. No girl can possibly fall in love with someone with such a stupid name.’

Kieran smiled. ‘I think Shakespeare was referring to the Jacobean love of Arcadian poetry. These weren’t smelly peasants but idealized classical figures.’

‘But strip away the silly names and you get a guy lying to a sappy girl.’

‘He does tell her the truth eventually.’

‘Yeah, but only after she’s fallen in love with him.’

‘Well, I enjoyed it,’ Kieran said briskly as they walked out into the sunshine.

‘So did I—I can’t help getting involved. Just ignore me.’

‘I’d never ignore you, Raven. You have my full attention.’

A flock of pigeons scattered in front of them, the downdraft of their wings wafting her hair. Crowds massed in the pavement under the blue summer sky; language students all wearing the same orange backpacks occupied the South Bank taking photos of the theatre, so that Londoners had a struggle to get through them. The city had surrendered to the invaders without putting up a fight.

‘The acting was first class.’ Kieran tucked her hand in his.

‘I agree.’

‘Amazing: you agree with me on something!’ He tapped her nose. ‘Is that a first?’

‘Don’t push it, pal. I’m not going to be making a habit of it.’

He sighed and shook his head. ‘What am I going to do with you?’

She raised one eyebrow. ‘Kiss me again, maybe?’

He put his finger under her chin to tip her head up. ‘That’s an excellent suggestion and a second point of agreement.’

‘Kieran? Kieran? Is that you?’

Startled, Raven took a step back. Kieran froze, his eyes screwed shut. The pigeon woman from earlier pushed through the Italian school party and dumped her shopping bag of booze by his feet. She did not look like someone Kieran would know: her mass of badly dyed black hair tumbled from a red scarf, her lids were heavily rimmed with kohl, her skin slathered with too much foundation so that it had caught in the lines around her eyes and mouth. As for her clothes, if the black skirt was any shorter she would be arrested.

‘Hey, baby, it’s me. I’ve been dying to see you but Isaac wouldn’t tell me where you are. I’ve been coming to the YDA every day hoping to run in to you.’ Her voice was hoarse, like she’d gargled pebbles.

Kieran moved to put himself between Raven and the woman.

‘I’m sorry but I can’t speak now. I’m with someone.’

‘I can see, baby. I won’t keep you long.’ The woman peered round Kieran’s shoulder. ‘She looks very sweet. Works for Isaac too does she—one of your students of crime at your college?’ The woman held out her hand to Raven, each finger weighed down with rings. ‘Hi, honey. I’m Gloria, Kieran’s mum.’

His mother? Automatically, Raven shook her hand.

‘Mother. Please.’ Kieran sounded desperate.

Raven didn’t know what to think: she’d expected him to deny it but it seemed Pigeon Lady was what she said. How had that happened?

Gloria smiled at Raven, swaying slightly. From the smell coming from her breath, she had begun her drinking early, or maybe never stopped. ‘He’s ashamed of me, poor baby. Doesn’t like to be seen with his mum.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘But he’s my only one left to me—the only one who loves me since his shit of a father ran out on us.’ She gave a half-hiccup, half-sob. ‘Don’t turn your back on me too, baby—I couldn’t bear that.’

Raven glanced up at Kieran. He looked cold, completely unmoved by his mother’s pleas. She was so pathetic; Raven didn’t know why he wasn’t rushing to help her, but he probably had his reasons. Clearly, a very complicated history here and she’d just been dropped right in the middle of it.

‘This isn’t the place for this.’ His voice was clipped, allowing no emotion to seep through.

‘It’s OK, Kieran, if you need time with her, I can … um … go to a coffee bar or something,’ Raven offered.

‘I don’t need time with her.’

Raven winced at his cruel tone. This wasn’t a Kieran she knew. In fact, she had been brought slap up against the reality that she didn’t know him at all.

Gloria gripped his forearm with her chipped multicoloured nails. ‘I won’t spoil your evening. You go have fun—that’s all I ever wanted you know—for you to be OK. The YDA is your big chance—I understand. But … but I’m short again, baby. Can you give me the fare home?’

‘How much this time?’ Kieran took out his wallet.

‘I know Isaac pays you well for your work for him,’ she wheedled, eyes on the notes he had in the pocket. ‘Fifty quid?’

He took out all his money and thrust three twenties at her. As she flicked through the notes to check the amount, he began walking towards the nearest underground station, towing Raven along with him.

‘Love you, baby,’ Gloria called. ‘See you again soon?’

As Kieran didn’t reply, Raven turned to give her an apologetic wave for her son’s abrupt departure. Gloria was watching him with agonizing longing on her face.

‘Don’t,’ snarled Kieran.

‘What?’

‘Don’t look at her.’

‘But she’s your mother!’

‘She’s nothing to me.’ He swiped his ticket at the barrier with the desperation of someone fleeing a fire.

‘That can’t be true.’

‘Just … just drop it, Raven. I can’t talk about this.’

She stood beside him on the platform, no longer touching, anger burning down the gunpowder trail to a keg of explosive emotion. It didn’t take a genius to know that his relationship with his mother was a broken one, but how did that square with Kieran’s spiel about his parents being too busy with their jobs to visit Westron, and Joe’s claim that Kieran came from a posh family? Gloria’s accent suggested pure London, no aristocratic upbringing, and she was a highly unlikely candidate for employment. Who did that make his father?

Another of Gloria’s comments came to mind.

‘Kieran, who’s Isaac? Is he your dad?’ Maybe he would redeem himself by setting the record straight for her?

Kieran watched the train announcement board count down to the arrival of their service. ‘Forget she mentioned him. Forget everything she said. It’s not important.’

But it was. ‘I only asked if he was your father.’

‘No, he’s not my father. He’s my friend.’

‘A friend you work for. Doing what? What’s the YDA and why did she say you studied crime?’ No reply. She tried to piece together what he had told her about himself. ‘Was that the school you got expelled from?’

Kieran turned on her, his hands were shaking. ‘Can’t you just leave it alone, Raven? Must you stick your nose in to my private business? That woman is my biological mother but she lost the chance to be anything more a long time ago. I have nothing to do with her. If you want to be with me, then you won’t mention her again.’

That hurt. She thought she had been given a right to know his personal business, but it seemed she was just a date to him. Practically a stranger. ‘Fine. Let’s pretend that didn’t happen. Let’s pretend I’m not going out with a guy who has lied to me about the most basic things about him—about his family, about the fact that he’s doing some kind of job he won’t explain to me.’

‘Just … just leave it.’ He scraped his fingers through his hair as if his head was paining him. But if he sucker punched her like that, throwing her concern back in her face, then she was damn well going to keep up her own shields. He wanted her to back off? Then she would—permanently—if he didn’t give her a straight answer.

‘Leave it?’ she said with mock consideration, finger on chin. ‘Erm, no, I don’t think I can do that. I won’t leave it because, A, you have lied to me and, erm, let me see, B, you’ve lied to me.’

Fury rolled through him, his green eyes blazing as he spat out the facts. ‘Fine. You want the truth? Well, you’ve just seen it. I’m not the sodding posh boy of Joe’s invention, OK? I come from that woman and maybe you can see why I don’t like to advertise the fact.’

‘You’ve had weeks to set me right, so why didn’t you?’

‘Because I didn’t want to!’ he roared. ‘Damn it, Raven, can’t you understand that?’

She wasn’t about to let him make this her fault. ‘I warned you I hated lies. OK, maybe I can see why Gloria’s not exactly the first thing you want to tell me about, but what about this job she mentioned? What the heck are you involved in?’

He said nothing, too angry to speak.

‘I can’t forgive someone systematically lying to me.’

His silence was worse than angry defence. She took it as a sign he didn’t care enough to tell her the truth.

‘You and Joe made it all up, didn’t you—your posh family, your big house in London, your sister? Geez, that was low, using that story to play on my sympathy. You probably even lied to your mother to hide the fact you were expelled from college. No wonder she hasn’t been able to find you. But I won’t put up with it—I can’t. You’d better start telling me the truth about yourself and what you’re doing or I’m outta here.’

He dug in his pocket and took out his wallet. Seeing it was empty, he gave a horrible hollow laugh. ‘I was going to give you the cash to get yourself back to Westron but, guess what, my vampire mother has sucked it all away.’

‘You were sending me back on my own?’ That felt like a knife in the guts. She’d wanted to be the one to walk away from him, head held high, but he’d got there first and added a slap to the blow, trying to pay her off.

‘I can’t be with you right now.’

‘No need to flash your cash, Kieran. I’m perfectly able to get myself to Paddington on my own.’

‘I’ll refund you the money.’

‘I don’t want your fricking money, OK?’ Her skirt began to flap in the breeze running ahead of the approaching train. Raven hated the fact that she was perilously close to tears—hated him for doing this to her. ‘You know what? You can just … just go to hell, Kieran.’

She got on the train and kept her back to him until the doors closed, taking deep breaths to stop her sobs in their tracks. OK, a final glance to show him she didn’t care, that she was tough, that he hadn’t beaten her down. But when she looked round, he had already gone.

Raven surfaced from her tenth length of the pool. One of her favourite places at Westron, the old orangery had been transformed in the 1920s into a swimming bath but they had wisely kept the pale stone columns and high glass windows, maintaining a wonderful air of elegance. The setting reminded her of
Great Gatsby
-style cocktail parties, flappers dancing at the edge of a pool to a gramophone and sipping gin slings, whatever they were. This evening she found it particularly easy to indulge those fantasies, as the oblique shafts of the sun bathed the surface in golden light. She swept her fingers through the liquid gilt, letting the droplets fall into the water.

She needed something nice to compensate for the awful break-up with Kieran. That relationship had nosedived before it had even got properly underway. She should have known he wasn’t as perfect for her as he had seemed: people lied the whole time. Sometimes they did it because they thought it best for you, like her dad about her mom’s condition; others just because they were spiteful, like Jimmy Bolton, who had made her life at home and school one long torment. But strip away the motives, it all came down to screwing her over with a lie, leading her out blindfold on to a ledge, swearing she was safe, then disappearing and leaving her stuck.

It was the one thing she asked of relationships, that they be based on truth: the one thing that Kieran had not given her.

The outer door banged and her heart sank. In retreat mode after the horrible return journey, she had thought she would have the pool to herself. Saturday night was party time for the school; only social outcasts came here at this hour. Now her sanctuary had been invaded: Joe was standing at the far end, towel draped round his neck.

As the only two people here she could hardly ignore him, so she swam towards him.

‘Hi, Joe.’

‘Hey, Raven.’ He sat on the edge of the pool, dangling his legs in the water. ‘How was London?’

‘The play was OK.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘Did you turn him down?’

‘Turn him down for what?’

Joe cast his eyes to the ceiling where the golden light danced. ‘I can’t believe it. I’ve just seen Kieran and he’s not talking to me—or anyone. I thought you must have done it, but you’re saying he didn’t ask you?’

‘Ask me what, Joe?’

‘To the prom.’

Such a regular school matter seemed laughable in the face of the giant meltdown. ‘Er, no. I don’t think that was on his mind—we kinda broke up.’

‘So what did you do to upset him?’

It was her fault how exactly? She heaved herself out of the pool and grabbed her towel. ‘Me? I did nothing.’

‘He’s gone into one of his dark moods. Something must have happened.’