Katie Lowe - The Furies

Not, of course, that I was able to imagine this then, still chattering shyly as we walked along the pier, the setting sun turning the sea blood-red. I heard a familiar voice, and turned to see Nicky bounding towards the two of us. Robin let out a groan, and I swatted her arm. ‘Shhh,’ I hissed, feeling my cheeks redden as Nicky approached, caught in a lie. I’d mentioned her invitation to Robin earlier – this, admittedly, an attempt at making Robin jealous, though it seemed only to have the opposite effect: she had told me I was lucky, blessed to have been rescued, her hatred of Nicky vicious and clear.

And yet , I realized, as Nicky approached, it was Robin’s idea to come here, now.

‘How are you doing?’ Nicky said, as she strolled towards us, clutching an enormous stuffed bear (or cat – it was cheaply made, and hard to tell). She saw me staring at it. ‘Ben—’ she turned and pointed to a tall, tanned boy in a football shirt, lurking several paces behind ‘—he won it for me. Isn’t it cute?’

‘If you’re into that kind of thing,’ Robin muttered.

Nicky ignored her, and turned to me. ‘Are you coming to the party on Friday?’

She looked at Robin, who scowled back. ‘What party?’ I said, at the same time as Robin said ‘Yeah, she’s coming,’ the two of us laughing, awkwardly.

‘Awesome,’ Nicky said, pretending not to see, though a half-smile passed on her lips, a whisper of a smirk. ‘Also,’ she said, expression instantly serious, tone conspiratorial, ‘I wanted to ask … Is Grace okay?’

I felt my stomach drop; glanced at Robin. ‘I … I haven’t seen her. Why?’

‘Well, Stacey – you know Stacey, in the lacrosse team? She broke her finger at a match last Friday night. Which is horrendously bad timing, because we need her for the squad when we play …’ I felt myself dragged into the long and complex history of the school lacrosse team, and nodded dimly, waiting for her to return to the matter in hand. ‘ Anyway ,’ she said, finally, ‘she was at A&E and she said she saw Grace in the waiting room with Alex, looking like she’d been hit by a bus.’

‘She’s fine,’ Robin said. She looked out at the seagulls criss-crossing in the air, diving at unsuspecting tourists clutching fried doughnuts and newsprint-covered chips.

‘I don’t know … Bloody nose, black eye … Not that you’d know under all that make-up, mind. It’s a shame, really. She’s got such a pretty face.’

I shook my head. ‘I haven’t spoken to her. I didn’t know anything had happened.’ I turned to Robin. ‘Did you?’

‘No,’ she said, looking down between the broad slats of the pier.

‘Well, I thought you might know. Jodie – Jodie with the short hair, the lesbian-looking girl in the upper class – she asked Alex if Grace was okay this morning when she saw her, and Alex said she didn’t know what she was talking about. Which is kind of weird, right? I mean, if she was there and all. Which she must’ve been, because Stacey wouldn’t lie about something like that.’

I shrugged, though it seemed, based on Nicky’s sideways look, that my attempt at nonchalance was unsuccessful. ‘I’ll let you know if I hear anything,’ I said, at last. This seemed to appease her. Nicky smiled, leaned in to kiss my cheek – an affectation I suspected (though I couldn’t be sure) she’d adopted in some sly imitation of Robin, one’s lips marking the spot where the other’s lipstick had been, before – and bobbed off towards town, boyfriend in tow, leaving the two of us walking silently towards the sea.

Robin spoke, finally, when we reached the railings, looking out into the nothing. ‘Her dad’s a total psycho.’ She clung on, leaned back, and swung there for a moment, before pulling herself back. ‘Grace’s, I mean. He’s why she’s always got bruises.’

I turned to face her, a dull sickness rising. ‘He hits her?’

‘Yeah,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Can’t we—’

‘She says it’s not our business. Like, she won’t talk about it. Ever.’

‘Oh,’ I said again, uselessly. Silence fell, broken only by the clack and chatter of seagulls swooping above, the waves rattling the pier below. ‘Where’s the party?’ I said, at last, desperate to break the silence. I felt bad for Grace, truly; but my thoughts kept wandering back to Nicky’s other comment. The party. Robin hadn’t said anything, and if Nicky hadn’t brought it up, I wasn’t sure she would’ve mentioned it at all.

‘Halloween party,’ she said. ‘My boyfriend’s throwing it. You should meet him.’ She chewed, thoughtfully, at her finger, biting off a hangnail and spitting it into the water below. ‘Lots of boys in his halls, too. You might find one yourself.’

‘Halloween isn’t for another week.’

‘So?’

‘I don’t have a costume.’

‘You won’t need one. Wear what you’ve got on now, and no one’ll tell the difference.’

I threw a bottle cap at her, sand rolling back on the wind. I’d never been with a boy, never so much as kissed one. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to. I thought back to my old school, scrappy, howling boys who’d tug and paw at the girls who let them, who encouraged them, and who told each other elaborate stories of who loved who, and how they’d fucked. It all seemed a lot of work, even if they had shown any interest in me (which, of course, they hadn’t).

Still, the prospect of a night with Robin, in what I imagined might be the more sophisticated, mature company of university students, was too tempting to refuse. ‘Can’t wait,’ I said, as the last spark of the sunset clipped the edge of the horizon, and the first brush of night air echoed in the wind.

The university was on the far side of town, only a couple of miles from the Kirkwood – and it possessed none of the grandeur of the grounds to which I’d by now become somewhat accustomed (though even now I am not wholly immune to the bloom of evening light behind the Campanile, or the froth of raindrops glowing above the Great Hall’s sage and silver dome on a cool spring day). I’d only ever been dimly aware that it existed, and even now never thought of it as a university. It was ‘the old poly’, or ‘the college’, to residents of the town, and I had never thought of it in any other terms.

All béton brut and gabions, grey crumbling into black, it was impressive, in its own way, and almost a better fit for the town: ugly in a way that seemed to be somehow intentional. Aggressive, even. The tower, indeed, had cut a lonely but ever-present figure in my childhood, the only tower building in the whole town – wide and squat, with gangways connecting its two halves, a ladder leaning on the sky. The leaves hung wincing from the trees, or cracked underfoot, scratching at the pavement; the sky grey and fat with mist, words made visible in the cool night air.

When Robin and I had met, in the dim lights of the bus station, where the shelters rattled in the evening wind, she’d thrown her arms around me in an overblown hug. ‘You look amazing,’ I said, the words muffled by the crush of her shoulder, the wide, black brim of her witch’s hat.

‘I know,’ she said, pulling away. ‘What … What are you meant to be?’

I tugged at the back of my coat, the blooming flash of red. ‘Red Riding Hood,’ I said, blushing; knowing, already, that it was stupid, a childish idea.

She laughed. ‘Okay, so, before I say anything else: you are adorable,’ she said, the words shot through and veined with sarcasm. ‘But this is a grown-up party. You need to look the part.’ She pulled me down onto the cold metal seat beside her, and began rooting through her bag, chewing thoughtfully at her smudged, blackened lips.