He's After Me (8 page)

I’d hated him for updating my mother for a newer, streamlined model. But until this moment I’d never thought he was ashamed of the old one.

‘
She doesn’t understand
… How patronizing is that?’

He has the grace to look embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘Yes you did!’ I let him see how angry I am. Because it makes him feel bad. And because it distracts him from the effect his words have had upon me.

Deep down I know I’m throwing away my dream. I don’t need anyone to point this out to me, least of all my father. But it’s too late now to do anything about it. I’m miles behind with my work and I’m never going to get the grades I need to do English at Newcastle anyway.

I want to get away. I’m not hanging around here for another year to watch my father fawning over The Bitch, my mother fading away and my sister making a fool of herself, while Zoe zooms off to uni and Jem goes back to college without me.

And Jem’s suggestion of studying Art – it’s a great idea. A gateway into a whole new world. Art is so much more than conventional painting and drawing. It’s about exposing yourself to whole new cultures.

Like graffiti for example.

Jem says, it’s not just an art form, it’s an attitude.

And now I’m with him, I’m discovering I’ve got plenty of that.

The anger was bubbling up inside him again. She belonged to
him.
What right did that tosser have to steal her away?

It was all his fault he was stuck here like this in this half-life. Neither here nor there. Just watching and waiting for her to get tired of the idiot and notice him again.

Well, he was getting fed up with it. There was a limit even to his patience.

D
espite my good intentions, I allow my father to get to me. It’s not surprising really, he won’t let up. He takes me out for a meal to a posh restaurant and tries to convince me over four courses and two bottles of wine that I’m making a big mistake.

It’s like it’s a personal affront to him that I’ve deviated from the grand plan. At one point he even says to me, ‘Jude thinks this is your way of punishing me for being with her,’ and I snap, ‘This is not about you, Dad! It’s about me!’ I’m furious at the thought of The Bitch and him discussing me in such a condescending way like I’m a child who’s spat the dummy out of the pram. What does
she
know? She’s only a few years older than me!

He runs through all the doors a university degree will open for me and I refuse to rise to the bait until he dares to use
her
as an example of where I want to be in ten years’ time.

‘Think about it, Anna. You could be like Jude. Educated, qualified, on an upward career path …’

‘… and sleeping with the boss, who’s twice my age?’

Dad’s face flushes an ugly shade of purple and I feel a prick of triumph. At last I’ve got to him. He fizzles out after that and I’m left feeling oddly disappointed. And mean. I’m so glad when my phone bleeps. Dad raises his eyebrows.

‘James?’

‘Um … yes.’

‘I’ll get the bill.’

He knows when he’s beaten.

Jem wants to know when I’ll be free. I text him back that I’ll meet him outside the bank in ten minutes.

Dad flips his card on the plate without bothering to see how much it is. I guess it doesn’t matter when it’s all on expenses. He pours more wine into his glass without offering me any.

‘Can I book you a taxi home?’ he asks politely, like he would to a very junior colleague.

‘No thanks. I’m meeting—’

‘James. I thought you would be.’ He takes out his phone and calls a taxi for himself. It’s like he doesn’t care any more. He just wants to get home. To her.

We sit there in silence like two strangers. We’ve got nothing else to say to each other.

I
want
to say something to him. I want to say, ‘Don’t give up on me, Dad. Don’t stop caring about me. You see, it’s not as easy as you think, it’s not a straightforward choice. The truth is, I don’t know what I want. I think I do when I’m with Jem. But sometimes, when I’m alone, I can see what Zoe means when she says he’s controlling. I love him, I really do, but he can be quite persuasive, in the nicest possible way, of course. I don’t quite know how he does it …’

That’s what I
want
to say. Instead I say, ‘Dad?’ and he looks up at me and says, ‘Yes?’ and at last we connect. I open my mouth to speak to him properly, to tell him all this stuff that’s tearing me apart, and then a voice says, ‘Anna? Are you ready?’ and Jem is standing in front of me.

‘What are you doing here?’ I ask blankly and he says, ‘I saw you through the window.’

‘Don’t let me keep you,’ says Dad and he gets to his feet. ‘My taxi’s here.’ He gives me a peck on the cheek, then he’s gone.

Jem flops down into his vacant seat and picks up the bottle of wine. ‘Shame to waste it,’ he says and pours us both a glass. ‘Did you have a good time?’

Now Dad’s gone, I offload on to Jem instead. I don’t tell him my doubts about going to London with him. Instead I focus on Jude and how much I loathe her. Jem is a great listener. He calls for another bottle of wine and, fuelled by it, we spend a bitter-sweet half-hour pulling her apart, even though he’s never met her.

‘I hate her, I really do,’ I rant. ‘Waltzing into our lives like that, breaking up our home.’

‘Bitch,’ agrees Jem companionably.

‘She
is
a bitch! She’s totally vile. She told my dad I’m only going to London with you just to get at him.’

‘You’re not, are you?’

‘No, of course not. She’s just an …’

‘Evil bitch.’

‘Exactly. If you met her you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she’s a right cow, she’s a liar and a cheat and she sees what she wants and just takes it, and she doesn’t give a stuff about anyone else …’

I continue ranting and raving, hardly pausing to take a breath, and Jem continues nodding and listening patiently without interrupting, except to insert the odd expletive that seems to encapsulate Jude perfectly.

At last I run out of steam and he takes my hand. ‘Better now?’

‘Not really.’ I hiccup sadly. ‘I hate her.’

‘I think I’ve got that.’

‘I hate him too.’ I don’t actually mean that, but it gives me a certain satisfaction to say it.

‘So?’ He raises my hand to his lips and kisses my fingers, one by one, his eyes locked into mine. It’s mesmerizing. ‘Do something about it then.’

‘Like what?’

He doesn’t answer. Instead he gives me that wicked smile of his. I feel myself coming alive again.

‘Have you got any with you?’

He taps his pocket. I jump to my feet.

‘Let’s go then. What are we waiting for?’

As we head out of the door, the waiter calls, ‘Excuse me, sir, madam. Would you like to settle your bill?’

For a second I’m puzzled.

‘The wine,’ says Jem quietly and turns to the waiter.

‘No thanks,’ he says politely. ‘Put it on the big-shot lawyer’s account instead. He can afford it.’ Then he grabs my hand and together we make a bolt for it down the road, laughing, and jump on the first bus we can find heading for the docks.

That is the first time I have ever run out of somewhere without paying. I feel elated, like I’m high on drugs. I feel invincible. On the top deck we snog fiercely, all over each other, regardless of the other passengers. I don’t know what’s got into me. I want to do it here, right now, on top of the bus. But Jem is on the move again, pulling me up out of the seat. We’re already there.

When the bus moves off, we’re left alone in the darkness, with just the boats knocking forlornly together and the sea lapping up against the harbour wall for company. Across the road looms the apartment block, some of its windows shrouded in curtains or blinds, others blazing with light. I tip my head back and gaze up at the top storey. Someone is gazing out over the sea. It’s Jude. My father comes into view and wraps his arms round her. They kiss. I turn to Jem, unable to watch any more. He’s watching them too, his expression tense, raw.

He takes the spray cans out of his pocket and hands one to me, and without a word we run across the road and get to work.

I
t was totally awesome up on the roof of Wharfside. You could see for miles.

Jem helped me climb up there via neighbouring buildings, up and up till we reached the top. It was easier than I thought. It was so high up I was too scared to look down at first. But after a while I got used to it. I wouldn’t hang over the edge to write on the wall though. I hung on to Jem’s legs for grim death while he did it instead.

When he’d told me what he’d written, I was crying laughing. He’d sprayed
The Bitch
and
Her Keeper
above their massive front window.

After that it becomes a bit of a habit. An addiction. I start to need a regular fix. It’s the adrenalin rush, the playing with fire, never knowing if you’re going to get caught. Jem combines graffiti with free-running. He is ace at it, leaping, vaulting, pushing against walls with his feet, propelling himself up them. He’s like a cat, strong and supple, and makes it look so easy. I’m useless compared to him.

We spend more and more nights together, tagging around the town. By the time I meet up with Jem after he’s finished work, there’s hardly a soul about. No one knows what I’m up to.

Mum thinks I’m revising in my room. When she takes herself off for her early nights in her lonely bed, I’m hard at it, swotting for my exams.

I wish! I can’t remember when I last did any work for college. I can’t seem to settle to anything. Since I started tagging, I feel like I’m in a permanent state of heightened alert. Plus I’m knackered because I’m out half the night.

Livi knows I go AWOL once Mum is safely tucked up in bed, but she thinks I’m nipping out to be with Jem. Which I am, only not in the way she presumes. And she’s never going to split on me. Because she idolizes Jem. Plus, I cover up for her all the time. She’s still hanging out with the wrong crowd, acting like a little tramp and pining for that little rat, Ferret.

Idiot! I blame my dad for her bad taste in men. I mean, what sort of male role model has she got to aspire to? It’s lucky Jem’s around to show her not all men are shits.

Jem and I have become more and more creative. We used to just leave our tag. Then we got clever with stencils and did some nice quick designs of sharks with their jaws open wide. We got into the local paper with those. It was surprising how many people actually liked them, especially the ones on the wall of the council swimming pool.

But lately we’ve been leaving messages, ever since we wrote on the wall of Dad’s apartment. It takes more time, obviously, but it’s worth it for the buzz. Jem is brilliant at thinking up phrases. Once he wrote
Not in use
on the front of a bus. I nearly died laughing, thinking how many times I’d been caught out like that.

Last week he wrote
No alcohol
on the front door of his hotel. Then we climbed over the gate into the railway station and I wrote
No waiting
on the waiting room, which was risky because it’s CCTVed, but that’s what gives you the thrill.

The next night we went out again and inscribed
Private, Keep Out!
all over the front of the posh girls’ school on the outskirts of town. We nearly got caught that night by a stupid caretaker and we had to run for our lives through the bushes. I was scratched to bits. It was such a high. We ended up going back to Jem’s and tearing each other’s clothes off. It turns you on when you think you’re about to get caught but you get away with it.

Tonight we are heading into town. To be honest, I’m not really in the mood.

Yesterday Dad had let drop that he was away next week in New York with The Bitch.

‘Supposed to be a business trip,’ he’d said, looking very pleased with himself. ‘But actually, Jude’s looking forward to doing some early Christmas shopping in Times Square.’

Smug, smarmy swine.

‘I can’t afford to do Christmas shopping in Lidl!’ said Mum bitterly.

I was so mad at him.

When I told Jem he’d curled his lip and said, ‘All right for some. That’s why lawyers charge such high fees. Because their girlfriends are such high maintenance.’

Then today, Zoe asked me to go to the cinema with her and I was thrilled because I thought she’d been avoiding me, so I said yes without thinking and she looked chuffed to bits. Then Jem called me and he was really moody and said he had something special planned for us and in the end I gave in. Zoe was furious …

Jem won’t tell me what he’s got in mind. He likes keeping me in suspense.

‘This is where my dad’s office is,’ I say when we get off the all-night bus and head round the corner.

Jem treats me to his lopsided grin.

‘Oh, no!’ The penny drops. ‘Not again!’

After we’d sprayed the front wall of Dad’s flat, I’d spent days petrified he’d work out it was us.