Jenny Downham - You Against Me

There was a moment’s silence, then she said, ‘Would you phone in sick for me?’

‘What?’

‘Can you phone the school and pretend to be Dad?’

‘No! He’ll go round the bend if he finds out.’

‘Please, Tom. I can’t face it.’

She held her hand to her belly. It was going weird again, as if it was wrecked inside and small things were fluttering about. She thought she must have clutched it in her sleep too, because she’d woken up with the shape of a button from her pyjamas imprinted on her palm.

‘What will you do all day?’ Tom asked.

‘I don’t know, hang out with you?’ She gave him a pleading smile. ‘If I get home at the normal time, they’re never going to know.’

He gazed at her for a second, then nodded. ‘Don’t tell them I did this.’

As he dialled, she watched his face and thought how weird it was that by sheer fluke of birth, she was his sister. Sister, sister . She said the word silently in her head and tried to make sense of it.

‘Good morning,’ Tom said. ‘I’m ringing on behalf of my daughter, Eleanor Parker, in Year Eleven. Just to let you know, she has a migraine and won’t be in today.’ He nodded as he listened to the response. ‘Yes, yes, of course I’ll tell her that. Thank you very much.’ He snapped his phone shut and smiled. ‘The receptionist hopes you get better soon.’

Ellie laughed. She couldn’t help it. One simple phone call and she had a free day ahead of her.

‘There’s another trick,’ Tom said as he started the ignition. ‘You could try this one tomorrow. You go in for registration, leave before your first class and spend the morning in town, then go back for afternoon registration and bunk straight out again. I did it loads when I was at school and no one ever found out.’

She shook her head at him, amazed. ‘I never knew that about you.’

They pulled away from the bridge, down Lower Road, past the newsagent’s and Lidl and swung a right at the post office, then a sharp left. Space opened up quickly – fields, trees, hedgerows. Ellie opened the window. The verge was rich with wild flowers and swaying grass. She stuck her hand out and let the wind play with her fingers. Across the field a bird flew very fast in a straight line, then swooped down to the earth. This was great. Her and Tom off on an adventure. Like old times.

As they got nearer to the coast, the sun began to look hazy and far away. Ellie knew it was something to do with the weight of the atmosphere at sea level. Advection, it was called, or sea mist . By the time they pulled into the car park at the harbour, it had substance to it and was hanging damp and heavy above them.

They parked by the sea wall. Ellie had been to the harbour before, when it was busy with tourists – kids with crabbing lines and buckets, whole families trailing down through the car park to the beach. But today was a weekday and the weather was so dull now that the line between sky and sea was lost and the edges of the boats in the dock were blurred. Apart from a bloke fishing on the end of the jetty, the place was deserted. Even the souvenir shop had its hatches down.

‘So,’ Ellie said. ‘What are we doing here then?’

Tom shrugged. ‘I like the boats. I’m not allowed into town and I’ve got a curfew, but I can come here whenever I want.’

It was as if she heard it for the first time – what this meant to him, how hard this was. And she’d been all wrapped up in herself.

‘I’ve been here every day since they let me out. And you know what I do when I get here?’ He did a magician’s Duh-da! and pulled a tin from his pocket.

‘What is it?’

He took out a small chunk of something wrapped in cellophane and danced it in front of his nose. ‘I’m trusting you with this, Ellie.’ He sniffed it. ‘Shame it’s only Rocky.’

‘Rocky?’

‘Moroccan. It’s a bit mild, but it’s all I could get hold of.’

She knew he’d tried dope before – he’d been smoking it the night he brought everyone back. In the morning she’d buried the joint ends in the garden so their parents wouldn’t find out. But this whole chunk – soft and dark as fudge – was something else completely.

She watched him lick the seam of a cigarette and strip the damp paper away. He didn’t even bother checking outside as he emptied the tobacco into a giant Rizla and began to carefully heat the dope over his lighter.

‘Watch and learn,’ he said.

The car filled with sweet fumes. Ellie wondered if the smell would cling to her hair; if, when she got home, her dad would sniff and say, ‘Are you on drugs now, Eleanor?’

Two women walked past in matching blue windcheaters and backpacks. They looked determined, solid. Ellie envied them.

‘Should you be doing this?’ she said. ‘I mean, what if the police give you a drugs test or something?’

Tom sighed. ‘I have to have something to look forward to.’

He crumbled the dope on top of the tobacco, then picked up the whole thing and rolled it with such infinite care it was mesmerizing. He twisted one end, then laid it on his knee while he tore off a small piece of cardboard from the Rizla packet and rolled it into a tube, which he stuck in the other end.

‘What’s that for?’

‘A roach. It’s to stop your lip burning.’

Her lip? Was he expecting her to have some?

He lit the joint, inhaled hard and closed his eyes to exhale. ‘Every morning I look forward to this.’ He took several more drags, and just as she thought she’d got away with it, that he was going to keep it all for himself, he said, ‘So, now you’re officially hanging with your big brother, are you going to have a few draws?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You won’t even feel it. Just a little rush.’

It felt awkward in her hand, as if it was a prop from a game. She had a sudden memory of her and Tom rolling leaves from a bush in the garden into a sheet of A4 and setting it alight. They must’ve been about six and eight years old and pretending to smoke cigars.

She shot him a look. This was her brother. He always had been, always would be. She took a small drag and swilled the smoke around her mouth.

‘Take it right down,’ he said. ‘Don’t waste it.’

She tried to drag the smoke from her mouth into her lungs, but her throat tensed and she sent it straight back up again in a spluttering cough.

Tom laughed. ‘You’re such a rookie. Come on, you’re not going to get stoned, you’ll feel warm and a bit happy. Don’t give up so easily.’

Under his instruction, she took a deeper drag and tried to pull the smoke right down. Her lungs burned, her brain swung sideways and the smoke came hacking out again.

Tom took the joint from her then, and inhaled ridiculously deeply, as if showing her how to do it properly. He blew the smoke out towards the windscreen. It bounced straight back at them in a pungent cloud.

He smiled dreamily at her. ‘You’ve joined the dark side of the force now. You know that, don’t you?’

She slunk down in her seat, embarrassed. She’d never in her whole life bunked school, smoked dope or kissed a boy whose name she didn’t know, and yet in the last few days, she’d done all these things. This was what it must be like to have control of your own life. This is what it would be like at university – she’d do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. No questions asked. No surveillance. Maybe she’d even get into smoking. It was quite nice after the initial rush.

Tom looked happier than she’d seen him for days, sitting there with a joint in his hand. She smiled at him. He was her brother. They were bound.

‘Tom?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Did you like Karyn McKenzie once?’