Иэн Рэнкин - The Flood

‘Don’t believe him, Sandy. Don’t believe anything he says. There’s a streak of badness in him.’ Her voice was quiet and sugary. He turned to her and she stepped towards him. It was the easiest thing to just snake his arms around her waist. She touched his arms with her fingers. Her chest was against his ribcage. She was skinny, thought Sandy. All skin and bone really. ‘Promise that you won’t let him turn you against me. Promise me, Sandy.’ There were tears in her eyes. She put her head to his shoulder. He felt an erection swelling and pulled his hips back a little so that she would not feel it. He had been embarrassed more than once at school dances when a girl had noticed his erection during a slow dance and told her friends, who would then giggle at him for the rest of the night. He wanted there to be no mistakes with Rian.

‘Don’t get me wrong, Sandy,’ she was saying. ‘I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. Robbie is my brother and I wouldn’t hurt him for the world, but he’s bitter at having had to look after me all this time. He feels he’s losing out on life, and yet he won’t leave me alone because he feels it’s his job to look after me. There’s a jumble of things in his head, but he will try to turn you against me. I know he will. He’s tried it before.’ Sandy wanted to ask her a question then, but she gave him no opportunity. ‘He’ll do anything. He’ll tell any lies he wants to. Don’t believe them.’ As he held her waist, her hair tickled the backs of his wrists. Her hair was longer than he had imagined. It reached down to her waist and beyond. He looked down at her cowering head, resting so easily upon him.

‘I promise,’ he said, ‘if you’ll kiss me.’ It was easily said, as if he were dreaming. He felt like running away or making a joke of it, but something made him hold his ground. She looked at him and he could feel her eyes as they overwhelmed him. Everything he was, everything he had decided he would be in life, it all went out of the window in one easy fall. She kissed him. It was a slow, steady kiss, breathy. She seemed at ease, which unnerved Sandy slightly. He opened his eyes for a peek and saw that hers were open and rigidly upon him, studying him coldly. He closed his again quickly. It was as if his mother had found him to be feigning sleep. Her lips tasted of soap. He shrugged off the comparison and tried to enjoy himself. He should have been enjoying himself. It should have been heaven. Later it would seem as though it had been, but the moment itself was too curious and strained to be anything other than strange. He accepted its strangeness. He accepted everything. She breathed in his ear.

‘Oh, Sandy,’ she said. Then she pulled away from him, looking into his eyes as if uncertain of something. Eventually she forced herself to smile, and Sandy felt that she was depending on him for something profound, something beyond his immediate grasp. He felt a tiny weight of responsibility being shifted on to his shoulders. Did Robbie feel it too, inversely?

He watched her as she turned from him and began climbing the drainpipe. She was a small, brittle-boned monkey. He admired her long arms, the way her feet dug into what purchase the wall would afford. Her hair swung in rhythm with her body. Her skirt was flailing too, and suddenly, as he had not dared to hope, he was looking up inside it. She was calling something to him, but it was lost, like a distant voice calling across a swelling tide. Up inside it. The pants soiled but feminine. The tuft of hair crawling from beneath the cotton. A flush went through his whole body. He tried to control it. Useless; he had come. Oh God, he had never done that before, not standing up, not in his denims. His legs were as weak as if he had been swimming. He watched the boards appear in the window, covering that doorway. The house was closed again, dark, apparently lifeless. He trotted gingerly across the lawn and climbed his wall. The wet smell was all around him. He would have to take the quiet way home, and he hoped that he would meet no one. That kiss. Her saliva was still in his mouth. It was turning cold now. He had to get home, had to rush upstairs, ignoring his mother’s call from the living room, and change into clean clothes. Perhaps he could have a bath. No, this was not his regular bath night. The water would not be warm, and his mother would suspect something. He would have to wash his trousers in the bath tomorrow morning while his mother cooked the breakfast. And his pants. Her pants. That kiss. It went home with him, becoming more than it had been at the time with every step as the imagination took over. For once he hoped that Mr Wallace would be there. That would keep his mother occupied while he ran upstairs. Rian. He would watch Robbie. He would listen closely to any accusation, and would challenge any lie. Rian was his girlfriend after all. He had to protect her. She was depending on him.

Dear Mary,

Sorry I’ve been so long in replying. The job is as hectic as ever. That’s the only excuse I can offer, and I don’t suppose it’s a very good one at that, but I hope you will forgive me as ever! I’m glad to hear that you are winning the Adolescent War with young Sandy. Give him my best wishes, will you? He must be real man-sized by now. Could you maybe send me a photo of the two of you? I keep meaning to find a recent photograph of myself to send on, but you know what it’s like. I think I’ve changed a bit since the last photo I sent you. That was Christmas 1980 if my memory serves me right. Or was it ’79? The brain cells have given up the battle! Only the body soldiers bravely on. There are few new victories. I sit behind my desk all day signing my name to scraps of paper. Sometimes I am allowed out of my chair to walk around one of the sites. You would think I have an important job, huh? Sometimes I even fool myself that I do have an important job. Truth is, I’m no more than a glorified clerk. I wish I was out on the sites again, running things out there rather than in this little box. (Yes, I’m writing to you from my place of work. This is the company’s stationery.) Old Emerson himself was in to see me last week. That’s the first time I’ve seen him since they promoted me, which apparently means that I’m doing fine, or at least making no visible botches. Emerson nodded his head a few times and grunted and then asked if I was getting married yet. He’s been asking me that for four goddamn years! One day I’ll maybe surprise him, but I think not. I’m a born bachelor, I guess, so it’s no use you hounding me to get hitched either!

This schoolteacher guy sounds okay. You have my blessing, sis, whatever you decide. I suppose you feel you have to think of Sandy just now, but he’ll soon be flying the roost himself. You’re only thirty-one, Mary. In your last letter you sounded like some fifty-year-old. Get out there and grab some guy! Enjoy yourself while you’re young. Look at me, I’m all of thirty-three, still single, still having an okay time with my decreasing band of merry bachelor men. There are lots of nice men around, Mary, so there’s no excuse for you. If I could I’d swim the Atlantic and marry you myself... but of course I don’t have the time! (Just joking, sis!)

Have you asked Sandy about his coming over to Canada for a holiday this year? I still think it would be a good idea — and no, I’m not trying to steal him! But maybe he could strike it lucky here like his Uncle Tom did. (Okay, so I’m no Howard Hughes.) Anyway, it would do him good to have a break after his exams. He needs time to think over his future, don’t you think? And it would also give The Teacher and you some well-earned time by yourselves. Please think it over. For this year only! Super special offer. Much reduced prices. Hell, we’re giving the stuff away. Canada doesn’t have an incredible amount going for it as a holiday centre, but there are parts of it I’d still like to see myself, parts I’m sure Sandy would enjoy. Way up north. Remember I went lumberjacking up that way when I first arrived here? What an experience that was. I only lasted four days! And I promise to keep Sandy out of mischief if he comes. You have a bachelor’s word on that! (Worth a grand total of not much.)