Mesmeris Page 13

  Act normally, he’d said, and I tried. A weekend wasn’t long. They usually raced by. One minute it was Friday night, the next, time to pack my bag for school. Not this time.

  Mum had her head in one of the kitchen cupboards when I went downstairs on Saturday morning. Saucepans, colanders and frying pans covered the worktop. I poured myself a cup of tea and sat down, watched her banging pots onto the work surface. Still angry then.

  ‘So, what happened?’ she said, from inside the cupboard.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You said that boy rescued you.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I stood up.

  ‘Is that right?’ She turned around, did that sarcastic little laugh that meant she was absolutely furious. ‘You don’t want to talk about it?’

  I could so easily have cried, broken down and told her everything. I wanted to. My secrets tried to push their way out of my mouth. I was almost scared to open it. ‘Not now, Mum – please.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said in a way that meant the exact opposite.

  I hid in my room for the rest of the morning, staring out of the window, trying to recreate Jack’s face in my head. It always went wrong, turned into someone screaming, or whimpering, or hanging upside down with their throat cut. Jess and Abbi rang. I rejected the calls, then texted to say I was fine, that I’d see them in school on Monday. I checked out Mesmeris on my laptop. Nothing but definitions of the word ‘mesmerise’. Four Howard Pitts in the UK – none of them Papa.

  At lunch, Mum and Dad were frosty. Lydia babbled on, talking rubbish to fill the awkward silence. By dinnertime, they noticed my lack of appetite and my silence. Worried frowns replaced their annoyed ones. I tried to eat, tried to force down the mouthfuls but they stuck at the back of my throat and would only go down with a gulp of water, followed by a shudder. Even Lydia stopped trying to wind me up when all she got was a blank look and a ‘what?’ to everything she said.

  After dinner, I laid my books out on my desk, held a pen in my hand and stared into space. I wondered what Jack was doing, if he was missing me, if he was safe. I checked my phone every few minutes even though I knew he wouldn’t text. I constantly refreshed the BBC news website, my stomach lurching each time just in case there was something about Brighton. There was nothing. Maybe Jack was right. Maybe they were being recruited. It was all so civilised, after all – the party – except for the dead body above the altar. And perhaps I had imagined that. Stress does funny things to your mind, and God knows, it had been a stressful few days.

  I thought Sunday would never come but it did, and with Sunday, came church. Two coppers stood guard at the lych gate, like sentries, their eyes looking straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to the people walking between them. Once inside the churchyard, the damage was obvious – gravestones smashed, knocked over or daubed with inverted crosses. Red paint dripped like blood over the inscriptions. People gasped and murmured, shocked at the vandalism. The porch was relatively unscathed and the door had been scrubbed clean. Bright new wood stood out against the aged, stained oak, its message as glaringly obvious as the red paint had no doubt been – Papa. I held onto the wall, my head swimming.

  ‘Pearl.’ Mum clutched me around the waist. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘I’m taking you to the doctor’s tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s fine, Mum. I just need to sit down.’

  ‘You’re green, girl,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll sit here for a minute,’ I said, ‘and then I’ll come in.’

  ‘Then, I’ll stay with you.’

  ‘No, Mum. Don’t be silly. I’ll be fine.’

  I sat in the porch until the last person had gone in and closed the door behind them. I waited a bit longer, until the organ groaned into life and the tuneless singing started. The word ‘Papa’ seemed to me a good enough reason to contact Jack. Anyway, the longing for him had become a physical pain. Even if my life wasn’t in danger, I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I hurried to the track, huddled into my coat, and walked through the copse of trees. The wetness clung to the branches, to the grass, shining like silver. The wasteland seemed even more bleak and grey than before. A sheet of plastic had been draped haphazardly over the saggy sofa, its corners held down by bricks. The plastic shone silver too - cold and lonely. I stopped and stared at the garages, at the flats rising up behind them. Four blocks of flats, three floors each – and no idea which one was Jack’s.

  Five minutes passed while I decided what to do. I imagined myself knocking on doors, asking for Jack, imagined the kind of people who would answer, the kind of dogs they could have. I went home, to find Mum had left church to look for me.

  ‘I went for a walk,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  Back in my room, I turned on my laptop and logged into Mum’s family history website. I typed in Jack Cooper. Hundreds of them. Then I tried John Armitage Cooper. Only one. Cooper, John Armytage, 7th October 1995. Address, 62 Coldershaw Road, Gloucester. There were no others – not one. It had to be him. Coldershaw Road lay between the canal and the cathedral, about an hour’s walk away, not too far. A plan began to form in my head.

  Jess pounced as soon as I walked into the classroom on Monday. ‘Oh, Pearl!’ she said. ‘Are you okay? We’ve been so worried.’ She put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed.

  ‘I’m fine.’ I resisted the urge to shake her off.

  Abbi patted the chair next to her. ‘Sit,’ she said. ‘Tell Auntie Abbi all about it.’

  ‘Bet your mum went ballistic,’ Jess said. ‘She was crying when she rang me.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Abbi said. ‘You’re lucky, you know. My mum wouldn’t cry. She’d just be glad to be rid of me.’

  Jess leaned over. ‘D’you hear about Tipper?’

  I nodded, looked away, pretended to concentrate on my work and tried to still my shaking hands.

  ‘He can’t remember a thing about it,’ Jess carried on. ‘And Jenkins was mugged. You should see him!’

  ‘Yeah, no front teeth,’ Abbi whispered. ‘How cool is that?’

  Not cool at all, I thought. I saw him spit them out.

  Art was the last lesson of the day. Miss Ellis walked into the classroom. Her eyes went straight to me. ‘Nice of you to join us, Pearl.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with you later,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Miss.’ No chance.

  The girls had finally given up asking questions, bored with my one-word answers. I’d bitten my lip so hard it bled, just to stop myself snapping at them. I saw I had a text and ran into the toilets. Blood thumped in my temples when I saw it was from Jack.

  ‘Need to see you.’

  I grabbed my things and went outside. He stood by the gates, his back to me. Everything buzzed inside me at the sight of him, his hair, the back of his neck, where the skin was soft and warm and vulnerable. I rounded the gates, saw he was deep in thought, that beautiful mouth serious, eyes cast down. I swallowed, suddenly afraid to see what those eyes held. I coughed.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, with a tired smile. ‘I had to see you.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He straightened his collar. ‘Drink?’

  I nodded, wondered why things felt so awkward between us.

  We went to ‘The Goat’, an old pub that looked as if it had been there forever. Dark, with low beamed ceilings and small, latticed windows, it smelled of sweet wood smoke and old stone. A blazing log fire filled the bar with a warm, earthy haze.

  ‘What’s it to be?’ the barman said. ‘The usual?’

  ‘Please.’ Jack nodded.

  We ducked through a small doorway and stepped down into another tiny bar, warm and cosy, with its own blazing fire and only three tables, bare wood with benches either side. The barman brought in a bottle of Champagne in an ice bucket and two glasses.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ I picked up the bottle. ‘How much did this cost?’ And the barman had said ‘the usual’?

  ‘Don�
�t you like it?’

  ‘Don’t know – I think so. Do you usually drink this?’

  ‘When I’m celebrating,’ he said.

  ‘And are we celebrating?’

  ‘We’re alive, aren’t we?’

  Our eyes met and we both smiled but we were like strangers, sitting opposite each other on a first date. I took a large gulp of Champagne. Ice cold and fizzy, it went down like lemonade.

  ‘I went to Jubilee Gardens yesterday,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  I shrugged. ‘I was bored.’

  ‘Did you miss me, then?’ he said.

  ‘A bit. Did you miss me?’

  ‘Not really.’ His mouth twitched. ‘I may have thought about you now and again, thought about kissing you once or twice.’ His gaze drifted to my mouth. ‘Thought about doing - other stuff.’ He leaned across the table and kissed me.

  Jack’s brothers came clattering down the steps, Leo holding another bottle of Champagne, Art, two glasses. Leo’s left eye was bruised, black and mustard yellow. Another dirty yellow bruise stained his jaw.

  Jack stood up. ‘We’re just going.’

  ‘Stay. Stay and have a drink.’ Leo refilled our glasses, smiled at me. ‘Please. I want to apologise. I feel terrible.’ He sat next to Jack.

  I moved my bag to make room for Art, couldn’t take my eyes off Leo’s black eye.

  ‘I had no idea he’d come after you,’ Leo said. ‘I didn’t even know you knew him. I’m so sorry.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘Leo, shut up,’ Jack said.

  ‘If I’d had any idea . . .’ Leo went on. ‘I just thought he’d make a good recruit.’

  ‘What?’ I knocked my glass flying.

  Leo caught it, managed to save all but a splash of Champagne, smiled.

  I swallowed. ‘Recruit?’

  Jack stood up. ‘Come on, Pearl – let’s go.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Hang on. Who’d make a good recruit?’

  ‘Pearl, leave it.’

  I stared into Leo’s eyes. ‘You mean Tipper, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, he’s bright,’ Leo said, ‘and ruthless and I just thought . . .’

  ‘So - so you told him to…?’

  ‘No, no.’ Leo laughed. ‘Of course not. Like I say, I didn’t know you knew him. I just suggested there might be a place for him – if he proved himself.’

  ‘Proved himself?’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t as bright as I thought,’ Leo said.

  ‘Foot soldier, obviously,’ Art said.

  Leo gave him a sarcastic smile.

  I stared at Jack. ‘And you knew this?’

  ‘I found out,’ he said. ‘That’s how Leo got the shiner.’

  So, that’s what he’d been hiding.

  ‘Anyway,’ Art said, ‘what Jack did kind of put paid to Leo’s bright idea.’

  I took a large gulp of Champagne, concentrated on the way the bubbles clung to the inside of the glass – anything not to think about Tipper, what Jack had done to him.

  ‘Had to laugh.’ Leo caught my eye. ‘Not about you, obviously - about him.’ He nodded in Jack’s direction. ‘Getting beaten up by a bunch of schoolboys.’ He laughed.

  Art turned away - not before I saw his smile.

  Jack stared across the table. ‘There were four of them,’ he said.

  Leo laughed harder, but no one else joined in.

  ‘Hear you upset Papa,’ Art said. He had dead-looking eyes, blank, like his face. Almost nothing moved when he spoke.

  ‘Where d’you hear that?’ Jack said.

  Art pursed his lips. ‘Rumours.’

  ‘You pissed on his party,’ Leo said. ‘Bad idea.’

  ‘We just left,’ Jack said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Well, thanks to you,’ Art said, ‘we have to find somewhere else to hole up.’

  ‘No way,’ Leo said. ‘They’re never going to look in Jubilee, are they? Get a grip.’

  ‘We’ll have to behave then,’ Art said. ‘No fuck-ups – Leo.’

  Leo held his hands up. ‘Why me? They’re the ones who pissed papa off.’

  I took another huge gulp of Champagne.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘Papa doesn’t know where you live?’

  ‘He knows the area,’ Jack said, ‘not the exact location. It’s better that way.’

  The barman brought in another bottle and took the two empties away. Art topped up my glass.

  ‘What happened to Spook?’ I said. ‘Where did he go for a whole month?’

  ‘Pearl,’ Jack warned.

  ‘The home,’ Art said. ‘Training.’

  ‘And he failed?’

  Leo nodded. ‘He was a dickhead.’

  ‘So, was it you who . . .?’

  No one answered. Jack’s lips shut tight.

  ‘That’s a yes, then,’ I said.

  Art shrugged. ‘We recruited him. He failed. We punished him. Those are the rules.’

  ‘My God.’

  Art stared at the ceiling. ‘If you don’t want to know, don’t ask.’

  I nodded. ‘Right.’

  Jack got up and went into the gents. I drank more. Art refilled my glass.

  Leo’s eyes glittered black in the firelight. ‘I met your sister today,’ he said.

  ‘My sister?’ My pulse quickened. ‘How d’you know she’s my sister?’

  He shrugged. ‘Just do – nice family you have.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I remembered that none of them had families, just each other. ‘I know I’m lucky.’

  ‘You are indeed,’ Leo said.

  Jack came back, sat down. ‘What’ve I missed?’

  ‘Pearl was just saying,’ Leo said, ‘how lucky she is, having that nice family.’

  Jack frowned, picked up his drink, eyes on Leo.

  ‘Do any of you remember your parents?’ I looked from one to the other of them.

  They stared back.

  A heavy silence enveloped the tiny bar.

  ‘Just thought,’ I couldn’t seem to stop my mouth, ‘just wondered, you know . . .’

  I drained my glass. Art refilled it. The barman brought another bottle in, took away the empty, and asked if we wanted food. Art shook his head.

  Eventually, Leo spoke, said something about people I didn’t know, some kind of riot, and a stilted conversation followed – Leo animated and chirpy, Jack sullen, terse. Art said nothing. Now and again, I found him watching me with an unreadable expression. Every time I caught his eye, he looked away.

  ‘I’d better get back soon,’ I said, bored with their chat, uncomfortable with Art watching me.

  ‘Right, okay,’ Jack said.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask her back to our place?’ Leo said. ‘She hasn’t seen our penthouse apartment.’

  Jack choked on his drink. ‘Penthouse apartment?’

  ‘It’s upstairs, isn’t it? Leo said.

  Jack looked at me. ‘What d’you think, Pearl? Come back for coffee?’

  ‘Okay.’ I didn’t really want to go home, and maybe I’d finally get to be on my own with him, get to kiss him. I texted Mum to say I was studying with Abbi and wouldn’t be late.

  I felt slightly woozy when we stood up to leave but managed to cover it up okay. When the fresh air hit me, though, my legs went from under me. Jack put his arm around my waist. I couldn’t seem to walk straight, kept banging into his side.

  ‘I’ll get a car.’ Art disappeared.

  The three of us stood on the corner by the kebab shop and waited.

  ‘At least it’s not raining,’ I said, just for something to say.

  Jack laughed. ‘Bloody hell, you sound posh when you’re pissed.’

  ‘I’m not pissed.’

  ‘Right,’ Jack said. ‘Still, we’ll sober you up before you go home.’

  ‘I’m not drunk.’ I leaned against him.

  Art arrived in a small, blue car. Jack and I climbed in the back and maybe I fell asleep because the next thing I knew, we were by the garages. I
staggered rather than walked towards the flats, pulling away from Jack and then banging back into him. We passed a group of kids clustered around a white car. The guy inside passed stuff through the window and they walked off, hunched over whatever he’d given them.

  A group of hard-faced girls stood smoking and jeering at a bunch of lads with two pit-bulls. The lads held the dogs about a foot apart, laughing as they strained on their leashes, snarling and snapping at each other. Usually, I’d have been terrified of both the people and the dogs but the drink seemed to have dulled the edges of everything. Even the memory of Spook’s upside down corpse, the black pool of blood on the concrete, had little effect. It was as if the alcohol had enveloped me in a protective shield, formed a barrier between me and the world.

  Noise came from all directions - not helicopters and sirens this time but a mix of heavy bass music, hip-hop, dance, all clashing together into a harsh, jarring din. I followed the boys up the filthy stairs. I stumbled a few times, clutched Jack’s arm to stop myself falling.

  ‘Do you love me?’ I said.

  ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘You’re ratted.’

  ‘I am not. I am not drunk.’ I tripped over the edge of the step.

  Jack caught me. ‘Course you’re not,’ he said.

  I didn’t feel drunk at all. It was just that my body wouldn’t do what I wanted it to.

  Art opened the door to a small, perfectly square, living room. It was like stepping into a different universe. Immaculately clean, tidy and warm, and classy, like the arty flats they have in weekend magazines.

  I plonked onto one of the cream sofas and sank into the soft leather. Everything in the room was brown or cream and plain – no pictures, no photographs, no ornaments, almost as if nobody lived there. At one end of the room, next to the front door was a window covered with a coffee-coloured blind. At the other end was a tiny kitchen and next to that a corridor with doors off. I hiccoughed and laughed, and hiccoughed and laughed. It hurt like hell but still made me laugh.

  ‘My room, Pearl,’ Jack said. ‘Come on.’ He disappeared down the corridor.

  Yes!

  Leo muttered something I couldn’t hear, then put on some dance music and gyrated to the beat. I wanted to dance like him, so cool.

  I dragged myself to my feet and tried to get my balance sorted. Once I’d been upright for a few seconds, I was fine. I launched myself after Jack, determined to walk in a straight line, determined to look sober. I was doing pretty well until I drifted sideways. I caught hold of an armchair.