Jenny Downham: You Against Me

He laughed. ‘They’re not easy, that’s the point. No one gets to shag a mermaid because they don’t let you.’

Ellie thought it was more to do with the fact that they had nothing below the waist but a tail, but maybe she was wrong about that, so she didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned the attention back to him, because despite everything, she loved him and he needed to know that. As she clipped the hair round his ears, she quietly recited a list of all the nice things he’d ever done for her.

It included everything, from drawing pictures for her to colour in (which was years ago), through starting school (when he let her hang out with him in the playground, even though she was two years younger and a girl). Right up to the holiday in Kenya when the dog tried to bite her a second time and he stood in the way (which was the most heroic thing anyone had ever done for her).

‘Before we moved house,’ she said, ‘whenever my friends came round, you’d always hang out for a bit and talk to us. If we ever saw you in town, you’d wave or come over and chat, like you were genuinely interested. No one else’s brother ever bothered. I’ve always been proud of you for that.’

He smiled up at her. ‘You say the sweetest things.’

‘Well, you do the sweetest things. You made that speech at my sixteenth birthday saying how I was the best sister in the world, remember? And when I did that stupid leaving concert at school, you clapped loudest even though I was total rubbish and forgot all my words.’

Tom laughed as she reminded him of these things. It was great. Everything pulled together. He told the story of the summer they’d gone camping in southern France and the site was dull, dull, dull. The swimming pool was shut and the entertainment was rubbish and the only good things were the pâtisserie and the kites they’d bought from the shop.

‘We found that hill,’ he said, ‘you know the one? We flew the kites from the top and when we got bored we rolled all the way down and ran back up again.’

Ellie was amazed he remembered. She could have cut his hair for hours then. She loved how cosy it was together in the spare room, how she could hear the vague sounds of people setting up the party, their voices low and far away. It gave her courage. ‘Can we talk about what happened that night?’

He swung round on the chair to look at her. ‘Really? Can’t I just have a break?’

Ellie lowered her eyes. ‘There are things I don’t understand.’

He frowned at her. ‘Have you been talking to anyone?’

‘Not really.’ Ellie had a drifting sensation, as if this conversation was surrounded by smoke. ‘I haven’t been back to school yet.’

There was silence as they looked at each other. ‘If I go down, Ellie, it’ll be the end of everything for me.’

‘I know.’

‘There are guys in there…’ His voice trailed off and he shook his head as if he’d seen the most unspeakable things. ‘It was the longest two weeks of my life.’

There was something in his eyes. Their dark shine reminded her of the autumn he broke his arm, how he sat on the football field and howled with fury, because he had to miss the whole season and he’d only just made the team. She looked away.

‘There,’ she said. ‘I’ve finished.’ She stroked her hands over his hair, smoothing flyaway strands. ‘It’s cute.’

‘Cute?’ He rubbed his own hand over his head. ‘That wasn’t quite what I had in mind.’

‘What did you want to look like?’

‘Innocent.’ He smiled at her in the mirror. ‘Inoffensive and above suspicion.’

She sat on his bed and watched him dust the hair from his shoulders with his T-shirt. He sprayed deodorant under his arms, splashed aftershave onto his hands, rubbed them together then smoothed his palms across his face.

‘Will I have to go to court and answer questions?’ she asked. ‘Or will they just read out my statement?’

He ignored her, pulled on his new stripy T-shirt. She’d chosen it for him with Mum last week and it still had the label on. He ripped it off and passed it to her. ‘Recycling,’ he said.

She put it in her pocket. ‘Did you hear me?’

He fiddled with his shirt, straightening it in the mirror. ‘You were the only other person here the whole time, which makes you the primary witness. You’ll definitely have to go to court.’

Her stomach gripped. ‘They can’t make me say anything.’

‘They can’t make you say anything if you didn’t see anything.’

She nodded. She felt a mixture of pity and fear as she looked at him, because the thought of what she should or shouldn’t say made her feel scared. She’d been worrying about it for two weeks. It had been so bad one day that she’d fantasized that a nuclear bomb had gone off and she was the only person left alive. In the fantasy, she’d wandered about opening and closing doors, stirring up dust, picking things up and putting them down. It had been so peaceful.

She gnawed at her lip again. ‘When the police interviewed me, I told them I went straight upstairs to bed when you brought everyone back.’

‘Well, that’s fine then.’

She blushed at the memory of scrambling up from the sofa in her slippers and pyjamas. Karyn and her mate Stacey glittered, surrounded by boys, fresh from the pub. They smiled down at her, told her she should stay and talk to them. But she knew by the look on her brother’s face that he wanted her safe upstairs, and she felt such an idiot making an excuse about having a headache.

‘The other thing I told them,’ Ellie said, ‘was I looked out of my window later and saw everyone outside.’

Tom turned from the mirror and blinked at her. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘I just said everyone looked like they were having a good time and you and Karyn had your arms round each other.’

‘What did you say that for?’

‘Because the police need to know she fancied you. Was that wrong?’

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to get upset. It’s me they’re going to grill, not you.’

‘She was flirting with you all night though.’ Ellie curled her fists tight and pinched her thumbnails into her palms. ‘I bet when you went into the bedroom to get the sleeping bag, she just pulled you down on top of her, didn’t she?’

Tom winced. ‘It’s not something I’m proud of, Ellie, but yeah, that’s pretty much what happened.’

She nodded. ‘I thought so.’

He pushed the chair back under the desk. ‘You reckon we can stop talking about this now? A sad little shag with a crazy girl is a bit humiliating to discuss with my sister. Maybe we should go downstairs and see if they need any help.’

He wrapped the newspaper into a parcel and put it in the bin. Ellie picked up the handful of hair from the corner and did the same. She was an idiot. It was horrible for him to be reminded of that night when he was supposed to be feeling safe with his family.

‘Are you going to dress up?’ he said. ‘Team Parker and all that? Best foot forward.’

He was trying to make her laugh. This was how their father would speak.

‘All hands on deck,’ she said, because she wanted to give him something back.

He patted her quickly on the head. ‘Don’t forget.’

Another expression from their father. Don’t forget who you are .

Don’t forget whose side you’re on.

They parked the car by the river and walked up the lane to the house, Jacko still feeding Mikey last-minute bits of information from Tom Parker’s Facebook page. Jacko had checked it out on the computer at work and now they both knew the bastard liked golf and sleeping and that all the friends on his page were girls.