Иэн Рэнкин - The Flood

‘I heard the window,’ she said. ‘It didn’t sound like Robbie, so I hid.’ She was facing him now, close. He took a step towards her and their lips met, their tongues twisting like tiny serpents at the mouth of a cave. He held her waist. Her hair touched the backs of his hands. When he opened his eyes this time he saw that hers were ecstatically closed. The black slits of her lashes gave more passion to his kiss. She pulled away.

‘We’re going out. Okay?’ Sandy’s voice, prepared to be manly, was trembling and uncertain.

‘Where?’ Her eyes were wide. She folded her long arms around herself. She was cold. Sandy remembered that her skin had been deathly to the touch.

‘Somewhere warm,’ he said. ‘I thought you might like to see where I live. My mum’s out with her boyfriend. They won’t be back till midnight. Would you like to?’ Now he was the pleading schoolboy with a would-be friend. His eyes were as wide as he could make them. Rian messed with her hair.

‘I should wait for Robbie. He’s been gone all day.’

‘He’s at his Aunt Kitty’s.’

‘Is he?’ She was genuinely surprised. ‘That’s not where he said he was going. How do you know?’ As she moved to the window he noticed that her face was puffy from sleep, as innocent as a new-born. She leaned against the half-boarded window.

‘I went with him this afternoon for a little while.’ Her eyes darted to him like stinging things.

‘You did?’ she asked, her voice quivering.

‘Yes, to find out the meaning of an itchy nose. You remember.’

‘Oh, but that was a long time ago.’ She was hesitant. Then she smiled. ‘Well, if my brother can go off to our scheming aunt’s without telling me, I can go with my friend to his house. Isn’t that right?’ She approached him and took his arm. ‘Shall we go?’ she said. He smiled, took off his jacket, and made her put it on.

‘Oh, Sandy.’ Her face was suddenly ill again, only half alive. ‘I’m scared of what they might be planning there. You know they hate me. Everybody there hates me. They want to use me and hurt me and...’ She broke off to cry, her head bowed to his shoulder. ‘Oh, Sandy,’ she said again. He lifted her head, kissed her brow perfunctorily, and began to manoeuvre her towards the corridor. He placed one arm around her. Her feet slid across the floorboards as if she were learning to walk again after an accident. Sandy’s groin pulsed. He could not believe it. He was not even sixteen yet.

Soon he might join Colin in knowledge. Soon he might have something to tell the gang. He felt strong.

They crossed several fences and trudged through several fields to reach the back of his house unseen. In Carsden, secrecy was well-nigh impossible, but Sandy felt that they had done a good job. Though Rian complained, he did not tell her the reason for his furtive actions.

In the garden, they scraped mud from their shoes on to the edge of the path. The garden needed digging, and he promised himself silently that he would put some work into it at the weekend. He opened the door to the kitchen, with his own key which had been made a long time ago without his mother’s knowledge, and, when the door was open, made an extravagant gesture towards Rian. She bowed gracefully and entered. He closed the door behind them.

Now that Rian was in his home, Sandy felt confused. Her aroma was everywhere. It made the house different, made it strange to him. He showed her around like a trainee estate agent. In his room, the last to be investigated, he sat casually on his bed and asked her to sit down. She sat beside him, her hands stretched along her lap. He pecked her cheek. She smiled, but looked apprehensive. She was examining the posters on his walls and his two rows of books.

‘You’ve got a lot of books,’ she said.

His bravado faded like a song that had gone on for too long. He suggested that they go back downstairs for a drink and she readily agreed. As they left the room, Sandy patted his bedspread flat again, erasing the mark of her from it for ever. He was flushed and had assumed a nervous cough.

In the living room they watched television and drank a little whisky, not enough to be visibly missing from the bottle. Rian was entranced by the television screen. She sat close to it, her face turning the rainbow colours of the programmes as she flicked from channel to channel. She stroked the carpet with her free hand as if it were a slumbering cat. Outside it was raining again. They would get soaked going back through the fields. Sandy had closed the curtains. He had turned off the lights. The television was their magic lantern. He put on a small electric fire and Rian shifted close to it. She had her thumb in her mouth now that she had settled on one channel to watch. Sandy sat on the floor beside her, his feelings for the slender girl jumbled but passionate.

‘Rian,’ he said, but she did not answer. ‘Rian.’ This time she grunted, glanced at him, smiled, pecked his cheek, and turned back to the television. He reached behind his back towards the wall and silently dislodged the plug of the television. The picture fizzled and faded from the screen. Only the red of the fire illuminated them in the sudden silence.

‘What’s wrong with it, Sandy?’ Her voice was childlike. ‘Have you done something? You have, haven’t you?’

He looked aghast. ‘Me? I’ve not done anything.’ He pushed a few of the buttons on the television, felt behind the set, frowned, and finally said, ‘It must be the fuse.’ He brought a screwdriver from one of the drawers and, pulling the plug completely out of the socket, began to open the casing. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Can we talk about things?’ He said this as he made his thorough inspection of the plug’s interior. Rian looked on like a spectator at an operation.

‘What things?’ she said slowly, her curiosity shifting.

‘That day down at Kirkcaldy. What you told me. What you said about Robbie. Was that all true? Or were you making it up?’ His eyes were still firmly on the plug. He spoke as if preoccupied. She looked on, never glancing at him.

‘Of course it’s true,’ she said. ‘Why do you say that?’

He shrugged. ‘Just a feeling, that’s all. To tell you the truth,’ now he did look at her, ‘I don’t think Robbie would do that, what you said. That’s why I’m wondering.’ He bent to his work. The screwdriver forced the fuse out from the casing. ‘Ah ha,’ he said. Her face was crimson beside his, her cheeks hot from the fire. She edged closer.

‘Sandy,’ she said, ‘every word was true. I swear to God.’ She made a crude attempt at crossing herself. ‘Every word. Robbie is horrible. You can’t see that, but he is. He doesn’t let you see him as he really is.’ Her words became choked. Tears sharpened in her eyes. As on the sea-wall that day, she did not allow them to fall. She looked at him. ‘Robbie tells men about me. He gets them to give him money, then I have to toss them. You know what that is, don’t you?’ He blushed, nodded, continued to examine the fuse. Inside he was a single pulse. ‘Or else he tells me to go and find men for myself, then I’ve to give him the money. He hits me if I don’t get any money. Sometimes I steal so that I don’t have to do it, but that just makes him think that I’m good at it. Oh, Sandy.’ Although his head was bowed, she could see that he was crying. He wept silently, but his shoulders jerked in spasms. She put her arm around him. He did not know why he was crying — it could even have been jealousy. He had not cried for a long time, perhaps not since his grandmother had died. He hardly knew the meaning of the thing. Rian saw in his tears, in the traces streaked down both cheeks, his humanity. Her own were small things by comparison. ‘Oh, Sandy,’ she said. ‘Why are you crying?’