Michael Robotham - The Night Ferry

Bradley had been watching, too shocked to react. He was never sure what to do unless Donavon told him. First he tried to put me in a headlock, forcing my face into the dampness of his armpit, which smelled of wet socks and cheap deodorant.

My legs were wrapped around Donavon’s waist. My fingers gouged his eyes. Bradley tried another tack. He grabbed one of my hands and uncurled my fingers, pulling my arm backward. My grip broke. I raked my fingernails across Donavon’s face. Although he couldn’t see anything from his streaming eyes, he lashed out, kicking me in the head. My mouth filled with blood.

Bradley had hold of my left arm, but my right was still free. In a family of boys you learn how to fight. When you’re the only girl you learn how to fight dirty.

Spinning to my feet, I swung my hand at Donavon’s face. My index finger and forefinger speared up his nose, hooking him like a fish. My fist closed. No matter what happened next Donavon would follow me. Bradley could break my arm, drag me backward, kick me through the goalposts and Donavon would come with me like a bull with a ring through his nose.

A moan was all I heard escape from his mouth. His arms and legs were jerking.

“Don’t touch her. Don’t touch her,” he pleaded. “Just let her go.”

Bradley loosened his grip on my left arm.

Donavon’s eyes were swollen and closing. His nasal passages were turned inside out by my fingers. I held him, with his head tilted back and his lower jaw flapping open as he sucked air.

Miss Flower, the music teacher, was on playground duty that day. In truth she was having a cigarette in the staff room when someone came hurtling up the stairs to get her.

Donavon blubbered on about being sorry. I didn’t say a word. It felt like none of this had happened to me. I still seemed to be watching from the branches of the tree.

Miss Flower was a fit, youthful, jolly-hockey-sticks type with a fondness for French cigarettes and the sports mistress. She took in the scene with very little fuss and realized that nobody could force me to let Donavon go. So she adopted a conciliatory approach full of comforting words and calming appeals. Donavon had gone quiet. The less he moved, the less it hurt.

I didn’t know Miss Flower well but I think she got me, you know. A skinny Indian girl with braces and glasses doesn’t take on the school bully without a good reason. She sat with me in the infirmary as I spat blood into a bowl. Two front teeth had been ripped out of the wire braces and were trapped in the twisted metal.

I had a towel around my neck and another across my lap. I don’t know where they took Donavon. Miss Flower held an ice pack to my mouth.

“You want to tell me why?”

I shook my head.

“Well, I don’t doubt he deserved it but you will have to give a reason.”

I didn’t answer.

She sighed. “OK, well, it can wait. First you need a clean uniform. There might be one in lost property. Let’s clean up before your parents arrive.”

“I want to go back to class,” I lisped.

“First you need to get those teeth fixed, dear.”

Finding an emergency dentist on the NHS normally meant promising your firstborn to the church but I had family connections. My uncle Sandhu has a dental practice in Ealing. (He’s not really my uncle, but every older Asian who knew my family was referred to as uncle or aunt.) Uncle Sandhu had fitted my braces “at cost.” Bada was so pleased that he would make me smile for visitors, showing off my teeth.

Mama rang my sister-in-law Nazeem and the two of them caught a minicab to the school. Nazeem had the twins and was pregnant again. I was whisked off to Uncle Sandhu who dismantled my braces and took photographs of my teeth. I looked six years old again and had a lisp.

The next morning was fresh and bright and possessed of an innocence so pristine it made a lie of the previous day. Cate didn’t come to school. She stayed away for two weeks until we broke for the summer holidays. Miss Flower said she had pleurisy.

Sucking on my glued teeth, I went back to my classes. People treated me differently. Something had happened that day. The scales had fallen from my eyes; the earth had rotated the required number of times and I said goodbye to childhood.

Donavon was expelled from Oaklands. He joined the army, the Parachute Regiment, just in time for Bosnia. Other wars would turn up soon enough. Bradley left during the holidays and became an apprentice boilermaker. I still see him occasionally, pushing his kids on the swings on Bethnal Green.

Nobody ever mentioned what happened to Cate. Only I knew. I don’t think she even told her parents—certainly not her father. Digital penetration isn’t classified as rape because the law differentiates between a penis and a finger, or fist, or bottle. I don’t think it should, but that’s an argument for fancy defense lawyers.

People were nicer to me after my fight with Donavon. They acknowledged my existence. I was no longer just “the runner” I had a name. One of my teeth took root again. The other turned yellow and Uncle Sandhu had to replace it with a false one.

During the holidays I had a phone call from Cate. I don’t know how she found my number.

“I thought maybe you might like to catch a movie.”

“You mean, you and me?”

“We could see Pretty Woman . Unless you’ve already seen it. I’ve been three times but I could go again.” She kept talking. I had never heard her sound nervous.

“My mother won’t let me see Pretty Woman ,” I explained. “She says it’s about a whore.”

I protested that Julia Roberts is a hooker with a heart, which only got me into trouble. Apparently, it was OK for her to use the term “whore” but I wasn’t allowed to say “hooker.” In the end we went to see Ghost with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore.

Cate didn’t say anything about Donavon. She was still beautiful, still clear-skinned, still wearing a short skirt. Sitting in the darkness, our shoulders touched and her fingers found mine. She squeezed my hand. I squeezed hers.

And that was the start of it. Like Siamese twins, we were. Salt and pepper, Miss Flower called us but I preferred “milk and cookies,” which was Mr. Nelson’s description. He was American and taught biology and protested when people said it was the easiest of the science electives.

Through school and then university Cate and I were best friends. I loved her. Not in a sexual way, although I don’t think I understood the difference at fourteen.

Cate claimed she could predict the future. She would map out our paths, which included careers, boyfriends, weddings, husbands and children. She could even make herself miserable by imagining that our friendship would be over one day.

“I have never had a friend like you and I never shall again. Never ever.”

I was embarrassed.

The other thing she said was this: “I am going to have lots of babies because they will love me and never leave me.”

I don’t know why she talked like this. She treated love and friendship like a small creature trapped in a blizzard, fighting for survival. Maybe she knew something then that I didn’t.

Another morning. The sun is shining somewhere. I can see blue sky bunched between buildings and a construction crane etched in charcoal against the light. I cannot say how many days have passed since the accident—four or fourteen. Colors are the same—the air, the trees, the buildings—nothing has changed.

I have been to the hospital every day, avoiding the waiting room and Cate’s family. I sit in the cafeteria or wander the corridors, trying to draw comfort from the technology and the smiles of the staff.