‘Are you busy?’ she asks. And I say no. She asks if I can meet her in the forest. There is a little shed, halfway up the mountain, past the crossroads where Catlin and I found the fox. I’ve seen it on my walks, but never gone in.
This distraction is a sort of blessing. I press my hand against the windowpane and look out at the mountains and the sky. Something rustles in the wall behind me. A brittle, scratching sound. It could be rats, I think. That’s all we need.
I brush my teeth and pad down to the kitchen, boots in hand. The sky is dark tonight, and I use the light of my phone to pad around, trying to keep as quiet as I can. This house is big, but Brian could be hanging out in the walls or something, because I wouldn’t put it past him, what with all the secrets he’s been keeping. Ugh. I’m so sick of the lot of them. Except for Button.
I pull on one of Brian’s big logo fleeces. My coat is clean, but it reminds me of torture, broken foxes. I walk and walk. The forest’s dark and full of night-time sounds. Ripples and clicks and my boots on the leaves marching through it. It takes me around forty minutes to get to the right place.
The wind is harder on the sloping road. It mashes grass and plants down horizontal. I zip the fleece right up. It’s past my nose. My hands are in the pockets. There’s a fat brass lighter there. Does Brian smoke? I wonder. What don’t we know about this quiet man who’s in our family?
The shed is small and stone with a corrugated iron roof that’s rusted into red. Someone definitely lived there once. There is a crumbling old wall all around it. A wrought-iron gate so warped it doesn’t close, just swings and flakes. A lonely place. I hope Oona’s all right.
My heart. I think of the night we had that walk, of swimming in the lake. Her hand in mine, her shoulders and her smile. She let go, and maybe she was right. I don’t deserve a precious thing. I’d break it. My fat hands on the handle of the door. My thick tongue in my mouth. My heart is beating hard. I breathe in deep before I venture in.
The place is nicer than I thought it would be. There’s electricity, for one thing. A bare light bulb swings in the middle of the wooden-plank ceiling. The floorboards bare, and grey mould on the walls, but there’s a heater someone has plugged in, some cushions and a beanbag on the floor. There are some cans and old packets of crisps inside the fireplace. They must hang out here, the kids from school, without us, I think. And Oona knows about it, and we don’t. And it hurts a little, being left out in another way.
I know I look a state; I run my fingers through my snarling hair and bite my lips to try to make them pinker. My cheeks are flushed. I should have made more of an effort.
Her voice says, ‘Madeline.’ And then I see her. Curled up on some cushions on the floor. Her face is very blotchy. Her eyes are ringed with black. Her hair is wet. Her hair is always wet.
I go to her. I put my arms around her and I say, ‘Tell me what happened.’
Oona cries. I hold her and she cries. I tell her that she’ll be all right. That it will change. That things always get easy in the end. I believe that when I say it to her. I stroke her hair. She snuggles in beside me, and she speaks.
‘Claudine broke my heart,’ she says. ‘She broke my heart. It’s finished.’
Then she says some other things in French. My French isn’t very good and her voice is fast. I think there is another person. And they have been to the cinema. And it isn’t fair. We talk and talk for ages.
‘She’s an idiot,’ I tell her softly.
‘You’ve never met her.’ Oona sniffs a bit.
‘She was mean to you,’ I say. ‘She had you and she lost you. She’s a fool.’
‘I hate him and I hate her. But mostly I just hate myself. I might as well be dead.’ She starts to sob again, and curls towards my chest. My body pulses. I stroke her back awkwardly. She’s crying and she needs me. I need to be a friend to her right now.
‘We could go to the castle?’ I suggest. ‘Sneak in and watch a film? Look at cat videos? Photoshop her head onto a dinosaur?’ I waggle my eyebrows, trying to seem fun. I’m rarely fun, but I could try, for her.
‘I am too melancholy for such pursuits,’ she says. It is the Frenchest, Frenchest sentence. ‘I think that I might have to swim it off.’ She sighs, and squeezes out her hair, as though it were a little burnished sponge. She’s standing up.
I stand up too.
And then she looks at me.
We are facing each other and I can feel the blood rush through my skin. She doesn’t move. I cannot even blink. Every part of me is waking up. I might get sick.
She looks at me again. What big eyes she has.
I can’t help it. I lean in, kiss her gently. On the mouth.
Just once.
Her lips are very soft.
‘She’s an idiot,’ I say again. Her hand snakes to my waist, she pulls me closer, and we are kissing properly. There’s nothing tentative at all in this. It’s fierce and warm and soft and, oh, I want her and I want her.
So many ways to make a person ache.
I always thought that when I had my first proper kiss, with someone I felt things for, I would be worried that I was doing it wrong. I was wrong. I cannot think at all. I’m just a body. I am just a mouth. And she is Oona.
Her hands snake inside my hoodie, underneath my T-shirt to the small of my back. She traces the notches on my spine. I shiver. Everything about her is clean and soft and fresh. I breathe her in. Our skin is touching skin and we are kissing. I need her and I need this. We are touching on the cushioned floor and I am hungry. I didn’t know that bodies were a thing. That they could fit like this. That there was magic.
‘Madeline,’ she says. I murmur something back. She sighs forever. I can feel her shoulders, tense, collapse. Her ribcage pressing in against my torso. Her soft, damp skin.
She says my name again. She moves away.
I hate the stupid world for rushing in.
‘I don’t think we can do this.’ She looks at me. Her face is calmer now. Her hair all mussed. Her eyes are bright. I did that, with my hands, to her, I think. I made it better. Even for a while.
‘Why?’ I ask. But I already know.
‘I think …’ she says. Her voice trails off. She thinks. Begins again. ‘I think that you could be a good friend, even a best friend, to me. And I think you’re beautiful as well. I mean, I loved that. What we just did. I loved it … but there is another thing that must be there. I don’t know what it is. But something’s missing. I couldn’t fall in love with you, Madeline. Whatever love grows from, it isn’t there …’ She’s playing with my hair while saying this. Her hands are tender. I feel a helpless weight begin to build. Her mouth shapes words like me and you and sorry. There’s a pause. I can’t think what to say.
‘So I’m beautiful. And a good friend. And you want me. And that’s not enough.’
‘It sounds strange when you put it like that.’ She smiles. ‘But something here and here –’ she touches hands to stomach and to heart – ‘it isn’t there. And I can’t make it grow.’
‘Maybe it’s too soon after Claudine?’ I say, my hand still on her leg, tracing the soft denim up and down. I feel a panic mounting. I can’t discover this and have it gone.
‘That could be it. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s my destiny to love people who do not love me back,’ she says.
And mine as well, I think.
Because I love you.
‘My mother and my father, they fight all the time,’ she tells me. ‘About me. It’s scary. I don’t like it. That was why I wasn’t in school. Things were bad, with them. And with Claudine. Sometimes, when things are very bad, I find it difficult to manage in the world. I stay at home. I swim, I cry, I sleep …’