Shortie pushes me against a tree, and she’s panting as well. She pulls her cigarettes out, lights a fag in shaky hands and passes it tae me. Then she leans in and kisses me, and I hold onto her, because there is nothing else — no air, no sky, no ground.
31
HOLD SHORTIE’S HEAD over the sink while blood swirls down the plughole. She pushes a wet roll of tissue across her eye and climbs into the empty bath. I dry her face, her neck. I won’t try to brush her hair, cos her scalp will still be too sore. We placed a towel along the bottom of the bathroom door so nobody can tell that we’re in here.
I clean myself up quickly. The police will be up here any minute now. If the lassie I battered identifies me, then I’ll be straight into a secure unit tonight.
Jay, I got held up … do you still want me to come?
This is what they wanted. That’s what the police said: one more charge, and they’ve got me. It won’t be a secure unit near here; upstairs is never gonnae be finished. They’ll take me to John Kay’s.
Aye, but come now.
Keep dabbing at my face in the mirror, wiping the blood away, but all I can see is dead pigs, and dead Islas, and a dead Anais — hanging in a cell. One vertebrae. Snapped.
There’s a knock on the door.
‘Who is it?’ I ask, trying to make my voice sound even.
‘It’s Dylan — let me in.’
‘Not just now, Dylan, what d’you want?’
‘Brian’s down in the office, he’s grassing you up!’
‘To who?’
‘He’s grassing you tae Angus and Joan — he says you’ve just battered a whole bunch of lassies down in the village. He’s saying you broke one girl’s legs.’
‘Shit!’ Shortie looks up at me.
‘The polis are on their way, the staff had tae ring them. They’re looking for you the now — they dinnae know you’re back here yet.’
‘Dylan?’
‘Aye?’
‘Go downstairs and, if the staff look like they’re coming this way, do me a favour and stop them.’
Are you coming right now? I need tae know, for definite?
Okay A Xx.
Shortie gets out of the bath and opens the door a crack.
‘Can you manage that?’ she asks Dylan.
He nods and she opens the door to let him see that I’m alright. Shortie’s black eye is already swollen up to fuck, but I’ve cleaned up quite good. Dylan looks scared — I dinnae like it.
‘We’re alright. Cross my heart,’ I tell him.
‘Can you keep the staff outside? Cos Anais will be put away, if the polis get her,’ Shortie says.
‘Aye, I can do it.’ He turns away and clomps down the hall.
Shortie gets me out the back interview-room window. She smashed it out with a stone and her jumper wrapped around it, so they wouldnae hear it. I drop to the ground, and look back up at her.
‘You better come back,’ she says.
‘I will.’
Then I am running, down towards the woods. I can see a police car pulling down the drive behind me, but their lights dinnae reach out over the fields. The wind is fucking freezing and I didnae even have time to grab a coat.
Darkness feels safer than daylight. How many times has the dark been my safe place? I begin tae count all the places I’ve slept: bus shelters, graveyards, old cottages, holiday-let caravans in winter when the park is shut, in the woods, disused buildings, a burnt-out car, under a bridge, on the beach, the viaduct. I once slept on a roundabout in the middle of a dual carriageway. I watched the cars all night — it was winter, so I kept my knees tucked up in my top, and newspapers crumpled up and stuffed under it for insulation, and I breathed — with my head inside my jumper, so as not to lose any body-heat. D’you know what that’s called? Resourceful. Stupid. Fucking idiotic. I am not sleeping rough again, not for anyone, it’s not fucking safe and it’s not fucking funny. The woods thin. Nobody is around at the village main road, thank God!
The bus-shelter timetable says forty minutes until the next bus. That’s enough time. The bus’ll stop by the old row of cottages over the road. The cottages are all hunched in a row, their letterboxes set in a grim grin.
I just want Jay to hold me, and stroke my hair. I want the night tae just become us and a bed, and the shadows on the walls. I need to get fucked up, properly.
Tension gnaws my gut, and the adrenaline won’t let me go, I cannae get it out my body. I took two trips when we got back to the unit. I was saving them for a moment like this — I need to see clearer. I had half an E from Pat’s stash as well.
Walk across the road, down to the village high school and go around the back. There’s one minibus that’s always parked here. I find a chib — a rusty pole. I’m ramming it in the minibus door when two laddies walk up the hill.
They come and watch: one is buzzing gas, and the other one’s doing tricks on a yo-yo. The road is empty and orange and wet.
‘D’ye want some?’ The kid holds out his gas for me.
‘It’s bad for your lungs,’ I tell him.
The front door cracks open.
Hop up into the driver’s seat, rip out a plastic box under the dash and grab the wires. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! My heart’s going mental and the trips are kicking in now. It’s hard to see what’s brown or red in the dark. The ignition catches. I pull my foot up right gentle on the clutch and ease it into first.
‘Get in then,’ I say.
The laddies climb up into the back, and I reverse the minibus fast.
‘What are you doing?’ one boy asks.
Slam my foot down on the accelerator.
‘Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!’ he screams.
It echoes. That fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck echoes.
Bang! We hit the gym-hall wall. Impact! Bring it. Powwow-wow-wow-wow. Reverse again. The laddies are laughing their arses off as we drive into the wall a second time. There’s a screeching from underneath the minibus and smoke’s coming out the front. Fucking great! We just sit here for a minute, grinning, then something big falls off the back; it clatters and the sound spooks me.
Click, click, click.
‘Where’s Tash?’ I ask the laddie.
‘Who?’
‘Aye, you ken,’ I say, and I stagger down the step, feet on the tarmac — I dinnae feel right.
‘That was fucking amazing!’ the smallest laddie says.
I run up to the corner and the bus is just pulling out. I catch up with it and bang on the door — he stops. Thank God he’s stopped.
‘A half tae town.’
‘Are you a half?’ he asks.
‘Aye, I’m a half!’
He puts it through. Twat! I dinnae look at the folk on the bus, with their long noses, and their stares. I’m going cross-eyed — those trips are way stronger than the last I had. Wobble down the aisle. There’s condensation on the windows and everything smells like wet dog. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I just need to make it to Jay’s. He’ll have something to bring me down, Valis or smack or anything, I dinnae fucking care what.
Glance out the window. The polis urnay following, just the experiment — four black rimmed-hats, a car overtaking, one looking up. Fuck them. They can fucking try me! I’m not taking it, not now.
My nose. Look at in the window, and it’s so fucking long. Keeps growing. Rain spatters outside and the experiment speed up and cruise ahead. Paris. Think of Paris. I bet the rain in Paris is way nicer than this. Imagine if there was an Outcast Queen in Paris, flying to work on her cat; maybe she sent Malcolm to bring me to her, but the experiment turned him to stone.
I need tae get milk.
I hate it when this happens. I can hear people’s thoughts — all the way down the bus, I can dip into each passenger’s head and hear what they’re thinking.