Still, the experience was an end in itself. Sitting under the cold fluorescent strip lights with Em, their voices echoing just a little, the sound of metal tools on the cement floor, the warm silk of the visiting greyhound, and the puckering tang of the Super-Sours that Em bought in quarters from Mr Jacoby’s shop.
Best of all, Em seemed to have supreme confidence that he knew what he was doing, and it actually made Steven attempt things he might otherwise have left to Ronnie.
Dismantling and cleaning the carburettor was one of those things. He’d been putting it off for a while, afraid of messing it up. But because of Em’s faith in him, Steven finally announced that it had to be done, and on Thursday night they took their usual places – he on an upturned bucket and she on a plastic milk crate.
Steven soon found that the carburettor was like so much in life: looked difficult; was easy.
With the Haynes manual open on the floor at his feet, and Em passing him bits and making helpful comments (‘I’ll find it… I also thought it was upside-down… That looks brilliant…’), he cleaned the jets, inserted the needle and dropped the float and filter into place, then methodically screwed it all back together with a happy flourish, and grinned at Em.
‘Finished!’
‘Woo-hoo!’ she laughed, and threw her arms around him. ‘Well done, Stevie,’ she said into his shoulder.
Steven entirely lost his breath. He sat on his bucket, twisted sideways, with his arms held out away from her like stiff wings.
‘Don’t,’ he said shakily. ‘I’m all oily.’
‘Don’t care,’ she mumbled into his neck, and he shivered.
So he put his arms around her, which was so different from holding her hand. Under her cotton T-shirt he could feel the warm skin sliding across the bones of her spine and ribcage, and the thin straps of her bra.
His first.
‘You’re shaking,’ she said, looking up into his face. ‘Are you cold?’
‘Yes,’ he croaked, although he thought he might burst into flames.
He looked at her lips, and she kissed him.
Just like that.
It was perfect. Every single little thing about it was perfect. She tasted of Super-Sours and smelled like fresh hay and Persil and motor oil. Or maybe that was him. He didn’t care. He didn’t care. It was all too perfect to care about anything else.
Looked difficult; was easy.
They parted, then sat up on the bucket and the crate and just looked at each other and smiled.
‘I love you.’ The words burst out of him like champagne.
‘I love you too.’ She didn’t even hesitate, and Steven felt a surge through his veins that made his whole body tingle.
By silent agreement, they got up and packed away. They barely spoke, apart from the mundane ‘Where does this go?’ and ‘Should we leave this out for Ronnie?’ But the air in the garage had changed. It was warmer, and charged with some kind of magnetism that meant that whenever he looked at her, she was looking at him too, and a strange sort of physics that dictated that when their eyes met, their lips smiled – as if they held an independent memory of the contact they had shared.
In the fading light, they walked up the hill, hands intertwined with new frisson. They didn’t talk about the kiss, but only because they didn’t have to; they didn’t talk about anything else, because only the kiss was important.
Steven didn’t even notice Rose Cottage pass them.
At the black iron gates they kissed again. This time he started it, and by the time she finished it, it was dark.
‘I’d better go,’ she said.
‘OK,’ he said, and kissed her again.
‘I’d better go,’ she said.
‘Me too,’ he said.
She kissed him.
‘It’s late,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go.’
They separated everywhere except their pinky fingers.
‘Your T-shirt has dirty handmarks all over it,’ he said.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Bye then.’ But she didn’t let go.
‘Bye then,’ he agreed.
‘I’m going now,’ she warned.
‘Go,’ he said. ‘See if I care.’
She slowly stuck out her tongue, then squeezed his little finger. ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me goodnight?’
Steven might have thought of a dozen clever, funny answers. But it spoke well for his future happiness that he simply did what she asked.
As the gates slid shut behind Em, Steven looked at his watch. It was gone 11pm and his mother would kill him.
It seemed a very small price to pay.
He walked through the moonless summer night feeling… chosen. Em loved him. She loved him. Him with the sticky-out ears. Him with no moves and no money. Him! She loved him. He played their kisses over and over and over in his mind – the thrill of touching her lips with his; her breath in his mouth, her lashes on his cheek. Nothing had ever felt like this. Nothing, nothing, nothing was like this – or ever could be.
With a sense of wonder, Steven Lamb felt one part of his life end and another part begin. This was the part where he loved a girl and she loved him back – and he felt instinctively that nothing that had gone before would ever seem quite as important as it once had.
An enormous feeling of goodwill swept through him. The skateboard meant nothing. He would apologize to Davey and explain about the money. Maybe even give him some cash. Maybe. For the first time in his life, Steven felt so much like a grown-up that he knew he could lose a battle without losing face. It was a good feeling.
Without the moon, the Milky Way seemed closer – touchable – like stars stuck on a blue velvet ceiling. He smiled up at Orion, and reached a single finger out into the universe to darken the mighty Mars. Em loved him and he could do anything.
Anything.
‘Hello, Steven.’
Steven’s heart jerked in his chest.
He dropped his arm and looked around.
It took him a couple of turns. Then, in the blackness a few yards down the hill, he saw the vague form of Jonas Holly sitting on the stone steps that led from his garden gate into the lane.
‘What are you doing?’ The fright made him blunt.
‘Waiting for you,’ said Jonas Holly.
Steven’s neck prickled like a dog’s. He didn’t want to ask why. Not here in the darkness between the towering hedges that made the lane feel like a funnel.
During the silence, Mr Holly just sat there, forearms on his knees, hands clasped loosely in front of him. Steven wondered how long he’d been there. Wondered whether he’d watched him and Em walk up the hill. He didn’t like that idea.
‘I wanted to ask you something.’
Again, Steven gave him no encouragement.
‘Why did you put the money on Lucy’s grave?’
The question took Steven by surprise.
‘What money?’ he stalled.
‘This money,’ said Mr Holly, and leaned to one side until Steven heard the chink of coins and the rustle of notes coming out of his pocket. ‘Sixty-two pounds thirty.’
Steven was quiet again. The dark let him be so, when in daylight he would have felt compelled to answer immediately.
Mr Holly said nothing for a long while. And when he did speak again, it was not about the money.
‘People hurt children, you know,’ he said softly.
Steven’s heart began to beat hard. ‘I know.’
He started to edge down the hill until he was level with the policeman. Another few yards and he’d be beyond him, and then he could run if he had to. He thought he might have to, however stupid that would look.