Daylight Saving (8 page)

I prepared to serve the volleyball. Dad stood in front of me, near the net. He had his hands behind his back, two fingers held up on one hand. “Time out,” I called to Chrissy and Tash. They relaxed and slapped each other’s hands. I walked over to Dad, who was still facing the net. “Dad,” I whispered.

“Yes, Daniel.”

“I don’t know what those hand signals mean,” I said.

“Oh, right. Neither do I, to be honest,” he said. “I’ve seen them do it on the telly, and I thought it would make Chrissy and Tash think we knew what we were doing.”

We were losing by a considerable margin. “I think they might have worked out that we don’t, by now,” I said.

Dad laughed. “Yeah.”

I went back to the baseline and served deep to Chrissy. “Mine!” she shouted, punching the ball high into the air so that it swirled in the wind.

“Set me up!” Chrissy called, moving toward the net. Tash softened her hands and set the ball just above the net. I started to move across to cover the left side of the court, but so did Dad. “Go line!” Tash called. Chrissy leaped high and smashed the ball toward the open court. Dad reversed himself almost in midair and got a hand to it, but it wasn’t enough. He finished stretched out in the sand, growling and laughing.

The sisters whooped and high-fived. “Great play,” Dad said. He was wearing a tank top, despite the blustery weather, and blue-tinted swimming goggles as protection against sand. I thought he looked ridiculous, but he seemed happy enough. His arms were pink with windburn.

I, on the other hand, was struggling. I had woken with pains all over my body. My ankle was swollen, and the bedsheets had been stuck to a long, freely bleeding gash on my leg.
Maybe,
I thought,
I picked up the injuries while jumping over those fences.
But I had begun to suspect something more sinister.

I looked over to the lake. The trees where I had first seen Lexi were shuddering in the wind, but there was no sign of her. No smoke from the cooking pit, no red hoodie, no limbs breaking the water. I thought of how quickly she had left me in the long grass and of the sinking feeling I’d gotten when she did so. I thought of a TV program I had seen about flesh-eating bacteria. The man in the program had contracted the disease after cutting himself while swimming. I didn’t know who or what Lexi was or where she was from, but I was beginning to think she was contagious.

Chrissy served the ball, but I was so angry, I just slammed it into the net. “For God’s sake!” I shouted, pretending I was angry with the shot.

“Language, Daniel!”

“
God
’s not a fucking swear word, Dad,” I said.

I caught Tash and Chrissy exchanging a glance. “Just leave it,” Tash said to her sister. “He doesn’t need your New Age nonsense.”

“What harm can it do?” Chrissy said.

Tash sighed and turned to Dad. “I’m a bit worn out now, to be honest. Shall we call it a draw?”

Dad laughed. “That’s kind of you. But I think you two were the victors.”

“Ricky, I’ll buy you a commiseration coffee at the Pancake House,” Tash said.

“I could do with something stronger. Maybe one of their finest . . .”

“Bit early for that, Ricky,” Chrissy said sternly.

Dad nodded.

I stood with my hands on my thighs. The wind gained strength and then died for a moment. Three drops of blood fell on the sand, and I watched the grains absorb the liquid. A dark paste formed, then the wind picked up again and blew the stain away. The blood came from the gash on my leg, and it seemed to be getting worse.

“Looks nasty,” Chrissy said.

“I fell off my bike,” I lied.

Chrissy nodded. “Why don’t we get out of this gale?” she said.

We walked over to the grass bank of the bike path, where the trees provided some shelter from the wind. Chrissy had a kind face, with freckles. She sat down with her legs folded beneath her. She stretched her back. Had I attempted either of those movements, I would have ended up in hospital. The way I was bleeding, there was every chance of that, anyway.

“I fell off my bike yesterday, too,” she said. “I was wearing nylon sports pants — whatever they’re called now. Training pants or something.”

“Sounds like a nappy,” I said.

She laughed. “Yes, it does rather, doesn’t it? Anyway, I cut my knee on the gravel. Look.” She showed me the little scab on her kneecap. “The amazing thing is, the pants didn’t even rip.”

“It’s hard-wearing stuff,” I said.

“If there’s ever a nuclear war, the only beings left will be cockroaches in tracksuits,” she said.

“It’ll be like Nottingham,” I said.

“Now, now, Daniel.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Daniel, when your father comes home and he’s had a few drinks, do you ever fight?”

“Yes. Especially when he puts Phil Collins on the stereo, full blast. Although sometimes I blame Phil Collins.”

“Does it ever get physical?” she asked.

“What?”

“Does your dad ever hit you?”

I put my head in my hands. I could see how she’d reached that conclusion, and I was grateful for her concern, but these counseling chats always went down the same old roads. I needed Lexi. Lexi understood. But Lexi had run off without so much as a good-bye.

“Daniel?”

“What?”

“Does he hit you?”

“No. Sometimes I wish he would.”

“You don’t mean that, Daniel,” she said.

“Well. Maybe it’d help him get over it.”

“Get over what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Chrissy was still sweating from the volleyball game. “You don’t have to be afraid of talking about this, you know. When someone comes at you, it can be very intimidating.”

“My problem isn’t people coming at me,” I said. “It’s people going away.”

She smiled and then shuffled behind me. I turned my head to keep an eye on her. “Would you agree that you feel under stress, Daniel?” she said.

“Well, yeah,” I said.

“There are things I can do to ease that anxiety. Reiki can get you back into balance.”

Her voice, when it wasn’t asking questions about domestic abuse, was soothing. And she was right about balance. I was off-balance. Maybe that’s why the swimming had helped.

“Are you a psychic?” I asked.

“God, no. We’d have beaten you by even more points if I was psychic. Reiki is a sort of palm healing. It’s very relaxing.”

She moved a little closer to me. “You can tell so much about what’s inside a person from their physical aspect. My grandmother worked in a munitions factory during the war. For the rest of her life, her middle finger was bent back, because you can carry two bombs on the middle finger and only one on the others. I could see the tension in you as soon as we met. Our lives are written on our bodies,” she said.

I wondered what was written on
my
body.
Quarter-pounder with cheese,
probably.

“Close your eyes,” Chrissy said.

Reaching from behind my head, she put her hands over my eyes. I stifled the giggles for a few moments, and then I started to let go. It was nice. It wasn’t as good as swimming, but it was still relaxing. My thoughts wandered. I thought of Lexi’s back as she ran through the gardens, of her standing on the fence, her wet hair gleaming in the fingernail of moonlight.

Chrissy took her hands away, and I felt my aches and pains blossom again. “So, were you taking on my energy then, or something?” I asked.

“Mmm,” she said.

I turned around. Chrissy was frowning and staring at the grass.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

“What? Yes. I — Yes. I’ll be fine,” she said.

I stood up, because Dad and Tash were coming toward us. Chrissy stood, too. I started walking, but when I realized Chrissy wasn’t following, I turned. She had her hand to her head, and she was swaying.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Oh, God, Daniel,” she said. Then she collapsed.

Tash and Dad rushed over to help Chrissy, and I stood well back. She was out cold for a few moments. I could feel burning across my knuckles, and when I looked down, there were livid scrape marks on the skin. Dad ran back to the Pancake House to get some water while Tash knelt with her sister.

“I didn’t do anything,” I said.

“Don’t worry, Daniel,” Tash said calmly. “She’s going to be fine.”

“Has this happened to her before?” I asked. “When she does her treatments?”

“No,” Tash said. “No, to be honest. It hasn’t.”

Chrissy had come round by the time Dad got back with the water. She sat up and drank from the bottle. She flinched when she saw me.

“What happened?” I said. “What did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything,” she said. She wore a dark, worried expression, but when she saw that I was looking at her, she made it into a weak smile. I knew about those fake smiles. I knew what they meant. The blood was throbbing in my leg, and I was beginning to feel weak. Weak with anger. Weak with fear.

Lexi was lying on her back in the reeds when I found her, eyes open, her face somehow submerged in the water. Her skin was pale, and her hair fanned out like a pool of black blood. When she saw me, she blinked and rose. “Daniel!” she said.

“You can’t just do that, you know,” I said.

“Do what?”

“Run away. You ran away. You didn’t give me any reasons, and you didn’t say good-bye.”

“Danny boy,” she said. Her voice sounded frail. “I was late. I had to go.”

“Late for what? I don’t know anything about your life. Was your carriage going to turn into a pumpkin?”

“Daniel,” she said, climbing out of the water. “You don’t understand. I told you there were things about me that I couldn’t tell you. Trust me, I had to go. It had nothing to do with you.”

“That’s what they all say. But it
has
to do with me. If someone leaves me, it
has
to do with me.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I? God, I only — What’s this really about?”

She came toward me, but I backed off. “Stay away,” I said.

“Why?” she asked.

“Look at me!” I said. “I’m falling apart.”

I showed her my hands, my ankle, the gash down my leg. “You’ve given me your disease,” I said.

She stared at each wound, her eyes widening. Clearly, she knew what was going on.

“What is it? What’s happening to me?” I asked. “A minute ago a woman passed out just from
touching
me.”

“Where did you get these marks?” Lexi asked. “Did you fall?”

“No! You know I didn’t fall. You know what’s happening. I
woke up
with these wounds, and they are getting worse, not better. Just like yours.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she said.

“It’s contagious, isn’t it? It’s one of those flesh-eating viruses.”

“No, Daniel. It’s not a virus. It’s . . . I can’t . . .” She started crying, but I was so tightly wound, I didn’t even care.

“Why won’t anyone ever tell me what’s going on?” I said.

She was crying freely now. “You have to go, Daniel. You have to stay away from me. I’m no good for you. This is all my fault.”

“Shut up!” I shouted. “This time it’s my turn to leave. You’re nothing but trouble, anyway. I could tell people about you. I could tell them what you’re doing here. That you lie and steal.”

She looked at my hands again and then covered her face and sobbed.

I pointed at her. “So why don’t
you
stay away from
me,
” I said.

I sprinted off toward the Dome, trying hard to deal with the pain in my ankle, and the pain in my soul, the fury. The biggest part of me wanted to turn back, but sometimes, when you think someone’s going to walk away from you, there’s only one thing to do: walk away first.