Jenny Downham - You Against Me

Tom stood in the doorway. Ellie could feel him there and knew she should stop crying. He padded across the kitchen in his bare feet and squatted next to her.

I’m scared of you, she thought. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and tried not to look at him. But he tipped her face to his with the flat of his hand. His cheeks were scorched, like there was a fire stoking his gut.

‘Where have you been?’

‘The baker’s.’

‘Bit early for that.’

She showed him the plate with the croissant on it. ‘See?’

‘Did you get me anything?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’ He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Don’t you like me any more?’

He wasn’t kidding. He was actually saying it. It was like something under the floorboards rearing up and showing itself. She didn’t know how to answer, or even if he expected her to speak.

He said, ‘Freddie saw you yesterday. It was early, he reckoned, around six in the morning.’

‘I went for a walk.’

‘Where?’

Her heart slammed in her chest. She’d walked across town, over to the estate, with the sole purpose of looking up at the windows and seeing if she could guess where Mikey and Karyn lived.

‘Nowhere. Just walking.’

A beat. Then, ‘Why do I feel like you’re not on my side any more?’ He turned and walked slowly to the door, stood there for a second before turning back to her. ‘Please don’t give up on me.’

The curtains billowed like sails. Sunlight flickered on the carpet. On the bed, Tom lay with his eyes shut listening to his iPod. Ellie stood on the landing watching him. He looked like a perfectly ordinary boy in a perfectly ordinary room. No padlock, no police tape, the door open wide.

Tom Alexander Parker, who she’d grown up with for years, and surely he wouldn’t let anything terrible happen?

He must’ve felt Ellie there, because he sat up suddenly and looked right at her. He took off his headphones. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Why are you standing there staring at me? You trying to creep me out?’

‘Dinner’s ready, that’s all. Mum said to tell you.’

Ellie kneeled at the dog’s basket, stroked her muzzle, stared deep into her milky eyes, said, ‘How are you, my beautiful grey nose? How’s my lovely old girl?’

‘Eleanor,’ Dad said, ‘will you please sit back down at the table and leave the dog alone?’

She sat down. Mum carried a dish of lamb chops across to the table and Tom stabbed two of them up with a fork. Mum went back to the oven and turned peas and carrots into bowls. Tom passed the chops to Dad. Mum put the vegetables on the table and Tom helped himself. Mum went back to the oven and pulled out a tray of roast potatoes, using a tea towel as a glove.

‘Any mint sauce?’ Dad said.

‘Yes, yes, it’s coming.’

‘Gravy?’

‘That too.’

Dad tapped his fingers on the table to get Ellie’s attention. ‘Are you going to help your mother, or are you just going to sit there?’

‘I suppose,’ Dad said, ‘we have to understand she must be very damaged to make up such a story in the first place. She comes from a very under-privileged background – single mum on benefits, three kids, no prospects for any of them. No wonder the girl was attracted to Tom.’

Tom waved his lamb chop in agreement. ‘She was pretty impressed with the house.’

His lips shone with grease, his fingers too. He ripped meat from the bone with his teeth as though he hadn’t eaten for days.

Ellie said, ‘What was the food like when you were locked up?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Was it worse than school dinners?’

Tom glared at her. ‘Did you hear me?’

‘Did you get three meals a day, or only one?’

‘Ellie, I’m not in the mood.’

‘Did you share a cell, or were you put in isolation?’

Dad slammed his fork down. ‘That’s enough!’ A spatter of gravy flew across the table and landed on the cloth. ‘If you can’t be civil, then go to your room. What the hell’s got into you, Eleanor?’

‘Take your plate out, please,’ Mum said quietly, ‘and put it in the dishwasher.’

Ellie pushed back her chair, stood up and walked out into the garden.

The grass on a warm April day smelled luxurious. Ellie lay facedown and raked her fingers through it. It reminded her of the holidays they used to have camping, how the grass by the sea tasted salty, how she and Tom would lie in the dunes and chase sand bugs with their fingers.

Mum came out and sat next to her. ‘Why are you doing everything conceivably possible to annoy your brother?’

Ellie twisted onto her back, crossed her arms under her head for a pillow. ‘Is Dad the love of your life?’

‘Of course.’ Mum frowned gently.

Behind her mother’s shoulder, the house looked like a fancy cake on a pale green lawn. Sunlight reflected in the windows, like tiny fires behind every pane of glass.

‘Come on, Ellie, talk to me. These last few days, you’ve been so quiet.’

But how do you say unspeakable things to your very own mother?

‘Before you met Dad, who were you?’

‘I was a secretary, you know that.’ She smiled fondly at the memory. ‘Dad asked me out the first time we met. I was seeing someone already, so I said no, but whenever he came to my office he’d ask again. He was very persistent. Once he waited by the lifts at the end of the day and followed me home.’

‘He sounds like a stalker.’

‘No, it was romantic! You’re always so hard on your dad, Ellie. He was lovely to me – bought me presents, told me I was special. He said fate meant us to be together. Eventually, I gave in.’

‘What happened to your boyfriend?’

‘He found someone else.’ She made a shrug with her hands, as if there was no alternative. ‘Dad wanted me more.’

The lounge was empty. Ellie turned on the TV, put the remote on the table and settled back to watch a re-run of Friends. Food and TV were very comforting. Three minutes later, Dad and Tom came in.

‘What’s this rubbish?’ Dad picked up the remote and switched channels.

‘I was watching that.’

‘The golf’s on.’

‘But I was here first.’

He gave her a tired smile. ‘You’ve got a TV in your room, haven’t you? Come on, Ellie, give us a break, there’s two of us.’

Tom shook his head, as if to say, What we have to put up with, eh? Then he sat down and put his feet up on the coffee table.

Dizzy behind her eyes, sharp stabbing pains in her head, like holding her breath underwater, as she reached for the door handle. You can do this, she thought. You have to face it some time. She pushed the door open a few inches – enough to see the new laptop, new duvet, new bed sheets, new mattress. Everything the forensic people took away that night had been replaced. It was as if nothing had happened.

She shut the door and went back to her room to revise.

Tom came in without knocking. He stood in the doorway and Ellie studiously ignored him. ‘You’re depressed,’ he announced, ‘so I bought you a Creme Egg.’

He left it next to her revision books on the desk and sidled out.

Easter eggs were officially swapped the next morning. Ellie ate both of hers for breakfast. In the afternoon, the neighbours had a barbecue and invited them. Ellie didn’t go. She lay on her bed with the window open, listening to laughter drift across the fence. She revised the collapse of Communism and ate three hot cross buns.

Later, she walked into her father’s study.

‘Ellie,’ he said, ‘I didn’t hear you knock.’

‘When you and Mum met all those years ago and you asked her out, she didn’t say yes straight away, did she?’