CHAPTER TWENTY
Maya
‘Fifteen minutes,’ Francie begs. ‘Oh, come on, then – ten. Lochan knows you had a late class so surely an extra ten minutes isn’t going to make much difference!’
I look at my friend’s pleading, hopeful face and a moment of temptation flickers through me. An ice-cold Coke and maybe a muffin at Smileys with Francie while she tries to get herself noticed by the new young waiter she has discovered there – postponing the hectic evening routine of homework, dinner, baths and bed – suddenly feels like an absurd luxury . . .
‘Just give Lochan a call now,’ Francie persists as we cross the playground, bags slung over our shoulders, heads foggy and bodies restless after the long, stale school day. ‘Why on earth would he mind?’
He wouldn’t, that’s the whole point. In fact he would urge me to go, and that knowledge weighs me down with guilt. Leaving him to make dinner and supervise homework and deal with Kit when his school day has been nearly as long as mine and undoubtedly more painful. But more to the point, I ache to see him even if it entails spending another evening struggling against the painful urge to hold him, touch him, kiss him. I miss him after a whole day apart – I literally miss him. And even if it means diving straight from a deathly history lesson into the manic home fray, I can’t wait to do it just to see his eyes light up at the sight of me, the smile of delight that greets me whenever I step through the front door – even when he is juggling saucepans in the kitchen, trying to persuade Tiffin to lay the table and stop Willa stuffing herself with cereal.
‘I just can’t. I’m sorry,’ I tell Francie. ‘There’s just so much stuff to do.’
But for once she displays no sympathy. Instead she sucks on her lower lip, leaning her shoulder against the outer wall of the school playground, the place at which we normally part. ‘I thought I was your best friend,’ she says suddenly, hurt and disappointment resonating in her voice.
I flinch in surprise. ‘You are – you know you are – it’s got nothing to do with—’
‘I know what’s going on, Maya,’ she interrupts, her words slicing the air between us.
My pulse begins to quicken. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘You’ve met someone, haven’t you.’ She phrases it as a statement, folding her arms across her chest and turning to press her back against the wall, looking away from me, her jaw set.
I am momentarily lost for words. ‘No!’ The word is no more than an astonished little gasp. ‘I haven’t. I promise. Why did you . . . ? What made you think . . . ?’
‘I don’t believe you.’ She shakes her head, still staring angrily into the distance. ‘I know you, Maya, and you’ve changed. When you talk, you always seem to be thinking about something else. It’s like you’re daydreaming or something. And you seem weirdly happy these days. And you’re always rushing off at the last bell. I know you’ve got all that shit to deal with at home but it’s as if you’re looking forward to it now, as if you can’t wait to get away—’
‘Francie, I really haven’t got some secret boyfriend!’ I protest desperately. ‘You know you’d be the first to know if I had!’ The words sound so sincere as they leave my lips that I feel slightly ashamed. But he’s not just a boyfriend, I tell myself. He’s so much more.
Francie scrutinizes my face as she continues to quiz me, but after a few moments she begins to calm down, appearing to believe me. I have to make up some crush on a boy in the Upper Sixth to explain the daydreaming, but fortunately I have the presence of mind to choose one who already has a steady girlfriend so Francie won’t try to matchmake. But the conversation leaves me shaken. I’m going to have to be more careful, I realize. I’m even going to have to watch the way I behave when I’m away from him. Just the tiniest slip could give us away . . .
I arrive home to find Kit and Tiffin in the front room watching TV, which surprises me. Not so much the fact that they are watching television, but that they are doing it simultaneously and that Tiffin is the one with the remote control. Kit is slouched down at one end of the couch, his muddy school shoes half untied, head propped up on his hand, gazing dully at the screen. Tiffin has traces of ketchup down his shirt and is kneeling up at the other end of the couch, transfixed by some violent cartoon, his eyes wide, mouth hovering open like a fish. Neither one turns as I enter.
‘Hello!’ I exclaim.
Tiffin holds up a packet of Coco Pops and shakes it vaguely in my direction, his gaze still fixed straight ahead. ‘We’re allowed,’ he announces.
‘Before dinner?’ I query suspiciously, tossing my blazer onto the sofa and collapsing on top of it. ‘Tiffin, I don’t think that’s a very good—’
‘This is dinner,’ he informs me, taking another large handful from the box and cramming it in his mouth, scattering the area around him. ‘Lochie said we could eat whatever we liked.’
‘What?’
‘They’ve gone to the hospital.’ Kit rolls his head round to look at me with a long-suffering air. ‘And I have to stay down here with Tiffin and live off cereal for the foreseeable future.’
I sit up slowly. ‘Lochie and Willa have gone to hospital?’ I ask, disbelief resonating in my voice.
‘Yeah,’ comes Kit’s reply.
‘What the hell happened?’ My voice rises and I jump up and start rummaging in my bag for my keys. Startled by my shout, both boys finally tear their eyes away from the screen.
‘I bet it’s nothing,’ Kit says bitterly. ‘I bet they’re going to spend all night waiting in Casualty, Willa will fall asleep and by the time she wakes up, she’ll be saying it doesn’t even hurt any more.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Tiffin turns to him, his blue eyes wide and accusing. ‘Maybe she’ll have to get an operation. Maybe they’ll amputate her—’
‘What happened?’ I yell, frantic now.
‘I dunno! She hurt her arm, I wasn’t even down here!’ Kit says defensively.
‘I was,’ Tiffin announces importantly, shoving his whole arm into the cereal box. ‘She slipped off the counter and fell onto the floor and started screaming. When Lochie picked her up she screamed even more so he carried her out into the street to get a taxi and she was still screaming—’
‘Where have they gone?’ I grab Kit by the arm and shake him. ‘St Joseph’s?’
‘Ow, get off! Yes, that’s what he said.’
‘Neither of you move!’ I shout from the doorway. ‘Tiffin, you’re not to go outside, do you hear me? Kit, can you promise you’ll stay with Tiffin until I get back? And answer the phone as soon as it rings?’
Kit rolls his eyes dramatically. ‘Lochan’s already been through all this—’
‘Do you promise?’
‘Yes!’
‘And don’t open the door to anyone, and if there’s any problem call my mobile!’
‘OK, OK!’
I run the whole way. It’s a good two miles but the rush-hour traffic is such that taking a bus would be slower if not more torturous. Running helps activate the safety valve in my brain, forcing out visions of an injured, screaming Willa. If anything terrible has happened to that child, I will die, I know it. My love for her is like a violent pain in my chest and the blood throbs in my head, a pounding hammer of guilt, once again forcing me to acknowledge that since my relationship with Lochan began – despite my recent efforts – I have still not been paying my little sister as much attention as before. I’ve rushed her through baths and bedtimes and stories, I’ve snapped at her at times when Tiffin was the culprit, I’ve declined request after request to play with her, citing housework or homework as an excuse, too wrapped up in keeping everything in order to give her a mere ten minutes of my time. Kit commands attention constantly with his volatility, Tiffin with his hyperactivity, leaving Willa by the wayside, drowned out by her brothers during dinner-table conversations. As her only sister, I used to play dolls and tea-parties with her, dress her up, play with her hair. But these days I have been so preoccupied with other things I even failed to register that she’d fallen out with her best friend, failed to recognize that she needed me: to listen to her stories, ask her about her day, and praise her for her almost impeccable behaviour which, by its very nature, did not draw attention. The gash on her leg for example: not only was Willa stuck at school in pain all afternoon with no one to fetch her and comfort her, but – worse and more telling still – she didn’t even think of saying anything to me about the incident until I happened to notice the huge plaster beneath the hole in her tights.