Forbidden (13 page)

‘We’ve – oh God – we’ve done a terrible thing.’ Lochan’s voice is shaking, hoarse and breathless with horror. ‘I – I’ve done a terrible thing to you!’

I wipe my cheeks and turn my head to look up at him. ‘We haven’t done anything wrong! How can love like this be caled terrible when we’re not hurting anyone?’

He gazes down at me, his eyes glistening in the weak light. ‘I don’t know,’ he whispers. ‘How can something so wrong feel so right?’

I tel Maya that she needs to sleep but I know I can’t – I’m too afraid to go upstairs and sit on my bed and go crazy in that tiny room, alone with my terrifying thoughts. She says she wants to stay with me: she’s frightened that if she goes away, I’l disappear. She doesn’t need to explain – I feel it too: the fear that if we part now, this incredible night wil just vanish, evaporate like a dream, and we wil wake in the morning back in our separate bodies, back in our ordinary lives. Yet here on the couch, my arms around her as she sits curled up against me, head resting against my chest, I stil feel frightened – more frightened than I’ve ever been before. What just happened was unbelievable yet somehow completely natural, as if deep down I always knew this moment would come, even though I never once alowed myself to consciously think about it, to imagine it in any way. Now that it has arrived, I can only think of Maya, sitting right here against me, her breath warm against my bare arm. It’s as if there is a great wal preventing me from crossing to the other side, from casting my mind out into the external world, the world beyond the two of us. Nature’s security valve is at work, preventing me from even contemplating the implications of what just happened, keeping me, for the moment at least, safe from the horror of what I have done. It’s as if my mind knows it cannot go there yet, knows that right now I’m not strong enough to deal with the outcome of these overwhelming feelings, these momentous actions. But the fear remains – the fear that in the cold light of day we wil be forced to come to terms with what was, quite simply, an awful mistake; the fear that we wil have no choice but to bury this night as if it never took place, a shameful secret to be filed away for the rest of our lives until, brittle with age, it crumbles to dust – a faint, distant memory, like the powder of a moth’s wings on a windowpane, the spectre of something that perhaps never occurred, existing solely in our imagination.

I cannot bear the thought of this being just one moment in time, over almost before it started, already retreating into the past. I must hold onto it with al my might. I cannot alow Maya to slip away because, for the first time in my life, my love for her feels whole, and everything that has led up to this point suddenly makes sense, as if al this was meant to be. But as I gaze down at her sleepy face, the freckled cheekbones, the white skin, the dark curl of her eyelashes, I feel an overwhelming ache, like acute homesickness – a longing for something I can never have. Sensing my eyes on her, she looks up and smiles, but it is a sad smile, as if she too knows how precarious our new love is, how dangerously threatened by the outside world. The ache inside me deepens, and al I can think of is what it felt like to kiss her, how brief that moment was and how desperately I want to live it once more. She keeps on looking at me with that little wistful smile, as if waiting, as if she knows. And the blood is hot in my face, my heart racing, my breath quickening, and she notices that too. Raising her head from my chest, she asks, ‘Do you want to kiss me again?’

I nod, mute, heart pounding anew.

She looks at me expectantly, hopefuly. ‘Go on, then.’

I close my eyes, my breathing laboured, my chest filing with a mounting sense of despair. ‘I don’t

– I don’t think I can.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m worried . . . Maya, what if we can’t stop?’

‘We don’t have to . . .’

I breathe deeply and turn away, the air around me thrumming with heat. ‘Don’t even think like that!’

Her expression sobers and she brushes her fingers up and down the inside of my arm, her eyes heavy with sadness. Yet her touch fils me with longing. I never thought that the mere touch of a hand could stir so much.

‘Al right, Lochie, we’l stop.’

‘You have to stop. Promise me.’

‘I promise.’ She touches my cheek, turning me back towards her. I take her face in my hands and start to kiss her, gently at first; and as I do so, al the pain and worry and loneliness and fear start to evaporate until al I can think of is the taste of her lips, the warmth of her tongue, the smel of her skin, her touch, her caresses. And then I’m struggling to keep calm and her hands are pressing against the sides of my face, her breath hot and rapid against my cheek, her mouth warm and wet. My hands want to touch her al over, but I can’t, I can’t, and we’re kissing so hard it hurts – it hurts that I can’t do more, it hurts that however hard I kiss her I can’t . . . I can’t—

‘Lochie . . .’

I don’t care about the promise. I don’t remember why I even suggested it. I don’t care about anything – anything except for—

‘Easy, Lochie—’

I press my lips back down over her mouth, holding her tight to stop her from moving away.

‘Lochie, stop.’ This time she puls away and pushes me back, holding me at arm’s length, her fingers gripping my shoulders. Her lips are red – she looks flushed and wild and exquisite. I’m breathing too fast. Much too fast.

‘You made me promise.’ She looks upset.

‘I know, al right!’ Jumping up, I start pacing the room. I wish there was an icy pool of water for me to dive into.

‘Are you OK?’

No, I’m not. I’ve never felt like this before and it scares me. My body seems to have taken over. I’m so aroused I can hardly think. I’ve got to calm down. I’ve got to stay in control. I can’t let this happen. I run my hands through my hair repeatedly and the air escapes from my lungs in a rush.

‘I’m sorry. I should have said it sooner.’

‘No!’ I spin round. ‘It’s not your fault, for God’s sake!’

‘Al right, al right! Why are you angry?’

‘I’m not! I’m just—’ I stop and lean my forehead against the wal, fighting the urge to head-butt it.

‘Oh, Jesus, what are we going to do?’

‘Nobody would have to find out,’ she says softly, chewing the tip of her thumb.

‘No!’ I shout.

Storming into the kitchen, I rummage furiously through the freezer for ice cubes for a cold drink. Hot acid shoots through my veins and my heart is hammering so hard I can hear it. It’s not just the physical frustration, it’s the impossibility of our situation, the horror of what we’ve got ourselves into, the despair of knowing that I wil never be able to love Maya the way I want to.

‘Lochie, for goodness’ sake, calm down.’ Her hand touches my arm as I wrestle with the freezer drawer.

I knock it away. ‘Don’t!’

She takes a step back.

‘D’you know what we’re doing here? Have you any idea at al? D’you know what they cal this?’

I slam the freezer shut and move round to the other side of the table.

‘What’s got into you?’ she breathes. ‘Why are you suddenly turning on me?’

I stop abruptly and stare at her. ‘We can’t do this,’ I blurt out, aghast with the sudden realization.

‘We can’t. If we start, how wil we ever stop? How on earth wil we be able to keep this a secret from everyone for the rest of our lives? We’l have no life – we’l be trapped, living in hiding, always having to pretend—’

She stares back at me, her blue eyes wide with shock. ‘The kids . . .’ she says softly, a new realization suddenly dawning. ‘The kids – if even one person found out, they’d be taken away!’

‘Yes.’

‘So we can’t do this? We realy can’t?’ It’s phrased as a question, but I can see by the stricken look on her face that she already knows the answer.

Shaking my head slowly, I swalow hard and turn to look out of the kitchen window to hide the tears in my eyes. The sky is on fire and the night has ended.

I’m tired. So terribly tired. It crushes down on me like an invisible force, obliterating al rational thought, al other feeling. I’m tired of dragging myself through each day, wearing my mask, pretending everything is OK. Trying to take in what others are saying, trying to concentrate in class, trying to appear normal in front of Kit, Tiffin and Wila. I’m tired of spending every minute of every hour of every day fighting back tears, swalowing repeatedly to try and ease the constant ache at the back of my throat. Even at night, as I lie there hugging my pilow, staring out through the open curtains, I don’t alow myself to give in – because if I did I would fal apart, I would fragment into a thousand pieces like shattered glass. People constantly ask me what’s the matter and it makes me want to scream. Francie thinks it’s because Nico dumped me and I let her – it’s easier than coming up with another lie. Nico tries to talk to me a couple of times during break but I make it clear that I’m in no mood for conversation. He looks hurt, but I’m beyond caring. If it weren’t for you . . . I find myself thinking. If it weren’t for that date . . .

But how can I blame Nico for making me realize I was in love with my brother? The feeling had been there for years, rising closer and closer to the surface with every passing day; only a matter of time before it broke through our fragile web of denial, forcing us to confront the truth and acknowledge who we are: two people in love – a love that nobody else could possibly understand. Do I realy regret that night? That one moment of joy beyond compare – some people never experience it in a lifetime. But the downside to that taste of pure happiness is that, like a drug, a glimmer of paradise, it leaves you craving more. And after that moment, nothing can ever be the same again. Everything greys in comparison. The world becomes bland and vacuous, there seems little point to anything any more. Going to school – for what? To pass exams, to get good marks, to go to university, to meet new people, to find a job, to move away? How wil I be able to live a life apart from Lochan? Wil I just see him a few times a year, like Mum and Uncle Ryan? They grew up together, they were once close too. But then he got married and moved to Glasgow. So what do Mum and Uncle Ryan have in common now? Separated by so much more than distance and lifestyle, even their memories of a shared childhood have faded from their minds. Is that what wil happen to Lochan and me? And even if we both stay here in London, when he finds a girlfriend, when I find a boyfriend, how wil we bear it? How wil we be able to watch each other leading separate lives, knowing what could have been?

I try to shock myself out of the pain by thinking about the alternative. Having a physical relationship with one’s brother? Nobody does that, it’s disgusting, it would be like having Kit as my boyfriend. I shudder. I love Kit, but the idea of kissing him is beyond revolting. It would be horrendous, it would be repulsive – even the thought of him snogging that skinny American girl he’s always hanging around with is bad enough. I don’t want to know what he gets up to with his so-caled girlfriend. When he’s older, I hope he meets someone kind, I hope he fals in love, gets married, but I would never, ever want to even think about the intimate details, the physical side of things. That’s his business. Why, then – why is it so different with Lochan? But the answer is so simple: because Lochan has never felt like a brother. Neither an annoying younger one nor a bossy older one. He and I have always been equals. We’ve been best friends since we were toddlers. We’ve shared a bond closer than friendship al our lives. Together we’ve brought up Kit, Tiffin and Wila. We’ve cried together and comforted each other. We’ve each seen the other at their most vulnerable. We’ve shared a burden inexplicable to the outside world. We’ve been there for each other – as friends, as partners. We’ve always loved each other, and now we want to be able to love each other in a physical way as wel. I want to explain al this to him, but I know I can’t. I know that whatever the reasons for our feelings, however much I try to justify them, it doesn’t change anything: Lochan cannot be my boyfriend. Out of the milions and milions of people that inhabit this planet, he is one of the tiny few I can never have. And this is something I must accept – even if, like acid on metal, it is slowly corroding me inside.

The term grinds on, grey, bleak, relentless. At home, the daily routine continues to folow its course, over and over. Autumn gives way to winter, the days growing noticeably shorter. Lochan behaves as if that night never happened. We both do. What alternative do we have? We speak together about mundane things, but our gazes rarely meet, and when they do, it is only a moment or two before they shrink nervously away. But I wonder what he is thinking. I suspect that, seeing it as something so wrong, he has pushed it right out of his head. And anyway, he has enough on his mind. His English teacher is stil on a one-woman mission to get him to speak in front of the class and I know he dreads her lessons. Mum’s behaviour is increasingly erratic – she spends more and more time at Dave’s and rarely comes home sober. Now and then she goes out on a shopping spree and returns with guiltinduced presents for everyone: flimsy toys that wil get broken within days, more computer games to keep Kit glued to his screen, sweets that wil send Tiffin hyper. I watch it al as if from a very great distance, incapable of engaging with anything any more. Lochan, white-faced and tense, tries to keep some kind of order in the house but I sense he too is close to breaking point and I am unable to help him.

Sitting across from him at the kitchen table, watching him help Wila with her homework, I’m overcome with this terrible ache, this profound sense of loss. Stirring my long-cold tea, I watch al his familiar traits: the way he blows the hair out of his eyes every few minutes, chews on his lower lip whenever he feels tense. I look at his hands, with their bitten-down nails, resting on the tabletop, his lips, which once touched mine, now chapped and raw. The pain I feel when looking at him is more than I can bear but I force myself to keep watching, to soak in as much of him as I can, trying to recapture, in my mind at least, al that I’ve lost.

‘The boy went into the c – a – v – e.’ Wila sounds the letters out. Kneeling up on the kitchen chair, she points at each letter in turn, her fine golden hair curtaining her face, the ends brushing the page of her book with a faint whispery sound.

‘What word does that make?’ Lochan prompts her.

Wila studies the picture. ‘Rock?’ she says optimisticaly, glancing up at Lochan, her blue eyes wide and hopeful.

‘No. Look at the word: c – a – v – e. Put the sounds together and say them quickly. What word does it make?’

‘Kav?’ She is restless and inattentive, desperate to go and play but pleased, nonetheless, by the attention.

‘Nearly, but there’s an e at the end. What do we cal that e?’

‘A capital e?’

Lochan’s tongue darts out, rubbing his lip in impatience. ‘Look, this is a capital e.’ He flicks through the book in search of one, fails, and writes one himself on a piece of used kitchen rol.

‘Eugh. Tiffin blew his nose on that.’

‘Wila, are you looking? That’s a capital e.’

‘A snotty capital e.’ Wila begins to laugh; she catches my eye and I feel myself smile too.

‘Wila, this is very important. It’s an easy word – I know you can read it if you try. This is a magic e. What does a magic e do?’

She frowns hard and leans over the book again, curling her tongue above her lip in concentration, her hair partialy obscuring the page. ‘It makes the vowel say its name!’ she shouts out suddenly, punching the air triumphantly with her smal fist.

‘Good. So which one’s the vowel?’

‘Hm . . .’ She returns to the page with the same frown, the same curled tongue. ‘Hm . . .’ she says again, staling for time. ‘The a?’

‘Good girl. So the magic e turns the a sound into an—’

‘Ay.’

‘Yes. So try and sound out the word again.’

‘C – ay – v. Cave! The boy went into the cave! Look, Lochie, I read it!’

‘Clever girl! See, I knew you could do it!’ He smiles, but there is something else in his eyes. A sadness that never fades.

Wila finishes reading her book and goes to join Tiffin in front of the TV. I pretend to sip my tea, watching Lochan over the rim of the mug. Too tired to move, he sits back, limp, bits of paper and scattered books and school letters and Wila’s book bag spread out in front of him. A long silence stretches out between us, as taut as a rubber band.

‘Are you OK?’ I ask him eventualy.

He gives a wry smile and appears to hesitate, gazing down at the littered table. ‘Not realy,’ he replies at length, avoiding my gaze. ‘You?’

‘No.’ With the rim of my mug I press my lip down against my teeth in an attempt to stop the tears.

‘I miss you,’ I whisper.

‘I miss you too.’ He is stil staring down at the cover of Wila’s reading book. His eyes seem to catch the light. ‘Maybe—’ His voice comes out unsteady so he tries again. ‘M-maybe you should give DiMarco another chance. Rumour has it he’s – he’s pretty crazy about you!’ A forced laugh. I stare at him in stunned silence. I feel like I’ve been dealt a blow to the head. ‘Is that what you want?’ I ask with carefuly controled calm.

‘No – no. That’s not what I want at al. But maybe it would . . . help?’ He glances up at me with a look of pure desperation.

I continue pressing my teeth into my lip until I’m sure I’m not going to start crying, swirling his outrageous proposition around in my head. ‘Help me or help you?’

His bottom lip quivers for a moment and he immediately bites down on it, apparently unaware that he is making a concertina out of the cover of Wila’s reading book. ‘I don’t know. Maybe both of us,’ he says in a rush.

‘Then you should go out with Francie,’ I shoot back.

‘OK.’ He doesn’t look up.

I am momentarily speechless. ‘You – but – I thought you didn’t fancy her?’ The horror in my voice resonates across the room.

‘I don’t, but we’ve got to do something. We’ve got to go out with other people. It’s – it’s the only way—’

‘The only way to what?’

‘To – to get over this. To survive.’

I slam my mug down on the table, sloshing tea over my hand and shirt cuff. ‘You think I’m just going to get over this?’ I shout, the blood pounding in my face.

Ducking his head and flinching as if I am about to deal him a blow, he raises a hand to ward me off. ‘Don’t – I can’t – please don’t make it worse.’

‘How could I?’ I gasp. ‘How could I possibly do anything to make this worse?’

‘Al I know is that we have to do something. I can’t go on – I can’t go on like this!’ He inhales raggedly and turns away.

‘I know.’ I lower my voice, forcing myself back into some semblance of calm. ‘Neither can I.’

‘What else can we do?’ His eyes plead with mine.

‘Fine.’ I shut down my thoughts, shut down my senses. ‘I’l tel Francie tomorrow. She’l be over the moon. But she’s a decent person, Lochan. You can’t just dump her after a week.’

‘I won’t.’ He looks at me, his eyes ful. ‘I’l stay with her for as long as she likes. I’l marry her, if that’s what she wants. I mean, at the end of the day, what the hel does it matter who I end up with if it can’t be you?’

Everything feels different today. The house is chiled and alien. Kit, Tiffin and Wila seem like impersonators of their real selves. I can’t even look at Lochan, the embodiment of my loss. The streets on the way to school seem to have changed overnight. I could be in some foreign town, in some far-flung country. The pedestrians around me don’t feel quite alive. I don’t feel alive. I’m not sure who I am any more. The girl who existed before that night, before the kiss, has been erased from life. I am no longer who I was; I stil don’t know who I wil become. The nervous honks of cars jar me, as do the sounds of feet on the pavement, buses going by, shops opening their shutters, the highpitched chatter of children making their way to school. The building is bigger than I remember: a stark, colourless concrete landscape. Pupils hurrying this way and that look like extras on a film set. I must move in order to fit into al this activity, just as an electron must obey the current. I take the stairs very slowly, one at a time, as people shove and push past me. When I reach my form room, I see things I have never noticed before: the fingerprints on the wals, the speckled lino, cracked like a delicate eggshel, disappearing rhythmicaly beneath my feet. Far off, voices try to bump up against me, but I repel them. The sounds bounce off me without registering: the scraping of chairs, the laughs and the chatter, Francie’s nattering, the history teacher’s drone. Sunlight breaks through the blanket of cloud, slanting in through the great glass windows, across my desk, into my eyes. White spots form in the space in front of me, dancing bubbles of colour and light that hold me captive until the bel goes. Francie is at my side, her mouth ful of questions, her painted red lips forming and re-forming – lips that wil soon touch Lochan’s. I have to tel her now before it’s too late, but my voice is gone and al that comes out is empty air. I skip second period to escape her. Walk around the empty school, my giant prison cel, searching for answers that can never be found. My shoes tap against the steps as I go up and down and round and round each floor, searching for – what – some kind of absolution? The harsh winter light strengthens, flooding through the windows and bouncing off the wals. I feel the pressure of it against my body, burning holes into my skin. I am lost in this maze of corridors, staircases, floors stacked one above the other like a pile of cards. If I keep going, maybe I wil find my way back – back to the person I used to be. I am moving more slowly now. Maybe even floating. I swim through space. The earth has lost its gravity, everything feels liquid around me. I reach another staircase, the treads melting down. The sole of my shoe peels off the topmost one and I step into nothingness.