Jenny Downham: You Against Me

‘It’s rubbish.’

‘How long have you known him?’

‘Nearly eight weeks.’

‘Is he your boyfriend?’

‘He kind of was.’

‘Was?’

‘He isn’t now. I won’t see him again.’

‘But you were intimate?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Ellie, I need yes or no answers. I’m sorry if you feel I’m being hard on you, but the defence counsel will be a lot harder, believe me. I need to be very sure that you’ll be a strong enough witness.’

Her mother tensed forward on the chair. She looked like a statue. She was barely breathing she was listening so hard.

Ellie turned to her, tears sliding down her face. ‘I’m sorry you found out like this, Mum. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you first.’

‘We can ask Mum to leave,’ Detective Thomas said, ‘if it makes it more comfortable for you, Ellie. Do you want her to wait outside?’

‘I want her to stay. I’m sick of secrets.’

The detective considered this for a second. ‘Is that all right with you, Mrs Parker?’

She smiled sadly at Ellie, gripped her hand firmly. ‘I’m staying.’

Karyn peered sideways at Mikey as he came out of the lift. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s you.’

She was outside! She was outside the flat and she wasn’t hiding under a duvet or a pile of jumpers. She was wearing leggings and a T-shirt and she was sitting on the balcony in the spring sunshine!

Holly was next to her, both of them wearing sunglasses like a couple of Hollywood starlets. They’d got the deckchairs out and had crisps and a plate of biscuits on the floor between them.

‘Hey,’ Mikey said, ‘how’s it going?’

Karyn tilted her sunglasses to look at him properly. ‘Fantastic. Like I told you earlier.’

Holly grinned up at him. ‘You want some crisps? We’re celebrating.’

‘I’m all right, thanks. Where’s Mum?’

‘Inside getting a cup of tea.’

He sat on the step and got out his fags, tried to make out it was perfectly ordinary that Karyn was outside on a deckchair, her bare feet up on the railing, her toenails painted pink. When had she done that? She hadn’t bothered with stuff like that for weeks. She looked pale though, like some long bout of flu had exhausted her. She was thinner too, and it surprised him he hadn’t noticed that happening. Maybe it was something to do with the duvet and jumpers.

‘So,’ Mikey said, ‘how was school today, Holly?’

‘Rubbish.’

‘Did you learn anything?’

She shook her head, her mouth full of crisps. He knew he was making conversation and it surprised him that he wanted to fill in the gaps, that he felt awkward with his own sisters.

‘You must’ve learned something.’

‘I didn’t. We had a supply teacher and he couldn’t control us.’ She laughed and crisps spluttered everywhere. ‘I know a secret though. Shall I tell you?’

‘OK.’

‘Something lives under the Christmas tree. Guess what it is?’

‘Dunno, a goblin?’

‘No, stupid.’

‘A rat? A wolf? A bear?’

She twisted round and lifted the pot. ‘Woodlice. Look, hundreds of them.’ She picked one up and showed him. It uncurled on her hand and ran to the edge of her palm; she turned her hand over and it ran across the back. On and on for ever, thinking it was getting away.

‘It looks like a dinosaur,’ she said. ‘It looks like an ankylosaurus, don’t you think?’

‘Probably.’

‘It really does. Do you even know what an ankylosaurus looks like?’

‘Like a woodlouse?’

She grinned at him. ‘You’re such an idiot.’

Mum stuck her head out. ‘I thought I heard you, Mikey. You’re back then?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘You OK?’

‘Yep.’

‘You want a cup of tea? I’m just making one.’

He shook his head and she frowned at him. What did that mean? What’s wrong with my tea? Karyn’s outside, have you noticed? Don’t upset her? Keep your big mouth shut? All the signs were new and Mikey didn’t seem able to make sense of them.

Down in the courtyard, a boy kicked a ball against the wall, and in one of the flats, someone whistled tunelessly. Holly fed crisps to the woodlice and Mikey smoked his cigarette and secretly watched Karyn turn the pages of a magazine. She was only pretending to read, he thought, faking interest in the pictures. It all felt so weird and uncomfortable.

‘How long have you been outside?’ he asked her eventually.

‘Ages.’

‘It’s been nice weather, eh?’

She didn’t answer and he felt himself falter, didn’t know how to be with her any more.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘maybe I want that cup of tea after all.’

Holly scrambled up. ‘I’ll tell Mum.’

He really didn’t want to be left alone with Karyn, but Holly insisted. She pressed past him and disappeared into the flat.

Karyn turned another page.

He lit a new cigarette from the old one and inhaled, long and deep. He knew he should give talking another try, but didn’t know where to begin. There were so many things he wanted to tell her – all the stuff he’d realized recently about how much she did, had always done in fact. She’d been taking Holly to school for years, collecting her too, doing the shopping and washing and keeping Mum in line. All he’d ever done was go to work, hang out with Jacko and pick up girls. Even his great scheme of becoming a chef had crumbled to nothing. The last few weeks, it was as if someone had taken his life to pieces and let him see the way it worked. And what he’d realized was that he wasn’t the heroic big brother who could solve every problem and hold a family together; he was, in fact, an idiot, and of course his sister wasn’t going to bother speaking to him.

He took a breath. Now or never.

‘Karyn,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

She looked over the top of her sunglasses at him.

‘I wanted to help you, but I got it wrong.’

She smiled. A tiny shadow of a smile, creeping along her lips from the edge of her mouth. ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘About what?’

‘Whether to forgive you or not.’ She pushed her glasses back up her nose and turned another page of her magazine.

Mum brought out the tea. She sat on a deckchair, her feet in the sun. Holly came out with a satsuma and peeled it carefully, sucked each segment dry of juice and left the empty skin on the step next to Mikey.

‘It’s got pips in,’ she told him, ‘and I don’t like pips.’

Karyn smiled at her. ‘You could make a bracelet out of them if there’s enough. I did it at school once. You use food colouring to dye them, then string them together. Stacey’s coming over later and we’ll help you if you like.’

‘Cool.’ Holly held a piece of satsuma up to the light to examine it.

It was nice sitting there, sipping tea. Mikey felt as if he hadn’t done something so simple for months. Holly fiddled about with the pips, Karyn turned pages, Mum ate a biscuit. Was that all it took to feel better about yourself – an apology? He still had no way of telling Karyn the things he felt, but it didn’t seem to matter so much now. Maybe if he just sat there with her, she’d know it anyway. And maybe, later, the right words would come.

‘Hey,’ Mum said after a while, ‘I know what I didn’t tell you, Mikey. You remember that social worker who came round when no one was here?’

Holly frowned. ‘Me and Karyn were here. I opened the door and everyone told me off.’

Mikey reached out and stroked her back. ‘What about her?’

‘She’s got Holly a place in an after-school club.’

‘I’m going to do football and street dancing,’ Holly told him.

‘At the same time?’