Now You See Me (17 page)

I nod dumbly, then lift my head and catch Paul's eye. Get that feeling again, that he's quietly observing me, gauging my reactions.

Martha points out a blurry snapshot of a dark-haired boy in shorts. “Oh, there's…um…Danny, you remember, that kid you were friends with at primary school. What was his name?”

“Er…” Danny leans forward for a better look, peering under the rim of his cap to examine the photograph.

“Oh, you know,” Martha says. “He used to have that funny way of walking, picking his feet right off the ground like a prowling cat…”

“Sure,” says Danny, still staring at the picture.

“Billy,” I say, “Billy Crossland.”

Danny shoots me a grateful smile. “Thanks, titch. Right on the tip of my tongue.”

A flush of pleasure flows through me. Danny always had that way of making you feel like the sun had come out whenever he paid you attention. Clearly he hadn't lost any of his charm.

“Remember when he threw that cricket ball and it hit the greenhouse?” Martha giggles. “And you pretended you'd done it.”

Danny laughs. “How could I forget? He was so scared he offered me his PlayStation to cover up for him.”

“I wasn't fooled, darling.” Martha leans into him and squeezes his arm. “I knew it was him all along.”

Danny touches the side of his head to hers and I see his mother glow with happiness. Millie turns over the next page, revealing a picture of the two of us, short and skinny, wading in the sea. We both look grey and shrunken with cold.

“I remember when that was taken.” Martha glances up at me. “It was just after you hurt your arm.”

I smile. “No thanks to Danny.” I hold up my left arm, showing off the small scar near the wrist.

Martha laughs, but Millie looks puzzled. “What was that all about?”

“Ask Danny,” Martha says. “He'll tell you.”

Millie turns to him.

“Oh god, not that old one,” Danny groans.

“Come on, Danny. I'm dying to hear it,” Millie says.

Danny leans down and picks up his glass from the floor, draining the last third of his wine in one gulp. Then sits back and takes a deep breath, like someone preparing for a performance. There's a long silence as everyone waits for him to speak. I watch his face, the concentration in his eyes. And something more. A glimmer of agitation.

Across the room, I notice Paul studying his son with a frown.

I'm about to open my mouth to come to his rescue again when Danny stands and walks into the centre of the room. Sticking out his arms like he's balancing on a skateboard, he relates the tale of how he dared me to go down the steep path on the west side of the park. When he gets to the bit where I lost control and shot into Mr Campbell's garden, he mimes me teetering, then falling head first into the pond.

Everyone laughs. I'm laughing too, though to be honest I never thought it was that funny. Especially when you were the one crumpled in all that water with a gash in your arm.

“Tell us another,” Millie coos as Danny goes back to his seat.

Danny shakes his head.

“Oh, go on,” Martha squeezes his arm. “There was that time you and Andy Summers climbed onto the roof of the cricket pavilion. Do you remember?”

I glance back up at Paul. His eyes are still fixed on Danny as his son leans forward and drops the photo album on the coffee table and gets up abruptly.

“Show's over,” Danny says, and turns and walks out the door, followed by Martha's look of astonishment.

An awkward silence fills the room. Millie leans across and places a well-manicured hand on Martha's arm. “Forget it, darling. It's nothing. Danny's tired, that's all. It's been a long day.”

Martha's gaze lingers on the open doorway. As she rises to collect the empty glasses, I try and catch her eye, wanting to offer a smile of sympathy.

But the moment she sees me, she looks away, as if even the sight of me reminds her of something she'd rather forget.

A sharp trill from my mobile as I'm walking home from school. A voice sounding hurried, anxious. Martha.

“Have you seen Rudman?”

“No…why?”

“He's gone. I left him here in the house while I went out shopping. I got back a few minutes ago and there's no sign of him.” A heavy sigh on the end of the line. “I thought maybe you'd come round and taken him out or something.”

“Nope. Maybe Danny did.”

The moment I say it, I know it sounds stupid, though I'm not sure why. I guess because Danny's been back nearly a month now and I don't think he's taken Rudman for a walk in all that time.

“I already asked him,” Martha says over a noise in the background. Someone wailing. Alice. “Maybe I left Rudman in the garden. I don't think so, but I can't be sure.”

“Even if you did, he wouldn't run off, would he?”

“Well, I suppose there's always a first time.”

The wails grow louder. Alice shouting something about a man.

“For god's sake,” mutters Martha. “That's all I need.”

“Do you want me to go out and look? I could check the park.”

“Oh, Hannah, would you, sweetheart? As you can hear, I've got enough on my plate with Alice. And Danny's gone out – I've no idea where.

“Come round for supper afterwards, Hannah,” she adds, almost as an afterthought. There's still loads of food left from the party.”

I hesitate. I'd planned on talking to Dad tonight. Tackle this rift between him and Martha and Paul. Now that Danny's home, I'm hoping we can sort it out and all start afresh.

Then again, I'd also like the chance to spend some time with Danny. I never seem to catch him in these days – though I've no idea where he goes off to.

“Okay,” I say to Martha. “See you later.”

That conversation with Dad will have to wait.

I go out round the back of the house. We've not got much of a garden – just a small patio leading to a patch of lawn with two straight flower beds either side. When Mum was alive it was all kept neat and trim, but now the grass has romped into the borders and all you can see are a few flower heads poking through. The lawn is so overgrown I have to trample it down to reach the gate at the end.

I head off towards the playground, skirting the cricket pitch, and pick up the path winding up to Ryall Hill. The sun is low in the sky, but it's warm enough to make me wish I'd left my jacket at home.

As I walk, I scan each side of me, alert for Rudman's little brown body. “Ruddddeeerrrrrssss,” I yell, adding a long, slow whistle with a quick trill at the end. The way Danny and I always called him.

Skirting round the hill, I head for the warrens that litter the higher ground. Rudman loves chasing rabbits, more for fun than anything, always slowing up at the last moment or taking a wrong turn, letting them dart off in another direction. He doesn't really want to catch one; he wouldn't know what to do with it if he did.

I check the burrows anyway. Sometimes dogs follow rabbits so deep into a hole they have to be dug out, their owners guided by their muffled barks for help. Bending at the mouth of every tunnel, I peer inside and whistle, listening for a responding bark.

Silence.

I make my way to the top of the hill. I'm really starting to worry. Rudman's not the kind of dog to run off. He's older now, and lazier. Sometimes you take him out and he sits down, right in the middle of the pavement, refusing to walk any further. Presenting you with a choice – to carry or literally drag him home.

A pause to catch my breath. The air smells fresh up here, only faintly salty, and the view is amazing. You can see right across the town and the channel to the distant glint of factories and the hazier Welsh hills beyond. I stand for a moment, taking it all in – the tiny stick figures walking along the promenade, the tankers heading to and from the docks, the mauve-grey islands of Steep Holm and Flat Holm.

I haven't been up here for a year or more, I think with a pang. We used to come most days, Danny and I. We knew every inch of the place, the bramble thickets and copses of birch and blackthorn, the concrete monolith of the trig point that marks the top of the hill. We brought Alice up here as soon as she could walk. And Rudman too, for his first run as a puppy.

“Nice view, eh?”

His voice makes me swing round, heart leaping. Danny is sitting on the grass just behind me, leaning against the trig point. How come I didn't see him on the way up?

“You should see your face, titch,” he laughs. “Like a startled animal.”

I squint down at him. A half-burned cigarette hangs from his left hand. I stare at it in shock. “I didn't know you smoked.”

Danny shrugs. “I guess we've still got a lot of catching up to do.” He takes another puff and turns his face back towards the sun. “So, what brings you up here?”

“I'm looking for Rudman. He's disappeared.”

Danny says nothing.

“Have you seen him?”

He breathes in deeply, exhales slowly, an extended sigh. “Nope.”

I stare at him. Irritation rises and catches in my throat. My next words come out croaky. “Aren't you bothered? I mean, Rudman was
your
dog, Danny. You used to adore him.”

Even as I say it I flashback to the pair of them, asleep on the same bed. Officially Martha banned Rudman from the upstairs rooms, but somehow he always ended up on Danny's duvet, head resting on the pillow next to his. It's a wonder Danny never got fleas.

“Not to mention that Alice is really upset,” I add. “Don't you even care?”

He takes another drag on his cigarette. “I guess we just grew apart.”

“Who? You and Rudman? Or you and Alice?” Or you and me? I wonder, staring at him. Was that what he meant?

Danny doesn't answer.

“Jesus, what's happened to you, Danny? Why come back if you don't give a shit about anything any more?” My voice is louder now, Danny's indifference getting to me. I'm on the brink, I realize, on the edge of venting stuff I never even knew I felt.

Danny turns, blue eyes glinting. He tosses the remains of the cigarette onto the grass in front of him and extinguishes it with the heel of his boot. He looks at me with an intense, almost piercing expression.

“Give me a break, Hannah. I've only been home a few weeks. It takes time to, you know…adjust.”

The truth in this stings and my anger instantly deflates. I take a deep breath. “I'm sorry,” I say. “It's just that…that… God, I don't know…”

“That things are different now?” Danny finishes my sentence for me. “Well, of course they are. People grow up, they change. You've just got to go with it, titch – no use clinging on to the past.”

I think of that photo of us in Martha's album. How alike we were. And realize there's more than one way to grow apart.

“Is that what happened?” I ask suddenly, before I can think better of it. “Is that why you avoided me all the time, you know, before you left? You just grew out of me?” My heart starts to race again, reacting to this new swell of emotion. “I mean, what the hell, Danny? Did you even consider how that made me feel…what with Mum…?”

I stop. Aware I'm about to cry.

Danny eyes me carefully. I see the corner of his mouth twitch. If he smiles, I think, I'm going to kick him.

But he doesn't. He doesn't move. Or speak. I wait for him to explain, but he stays silent.

It's not you.

That was what he'd said when I asked him this before, back before he left.
It's not you.

So why am I still convinced it was?

Danny sucks at his teeth, presses his lips together. “You need to chill, Hannah. Seriously.”

Chill?

I'm trying to read his features, but his eyes give nothing away. I can't tell if Danny is serious or only teasing. There's a mocking, almost malicious edge to his sarcasm now that was never there before. How could someone change so much? I wonder again.

What on earth happened to make him like this?

Something big, says a voice in my head. Something dark. Something bad. Something he can't stand even to remember.

Like drugs, maybe. Gangs. Danny must have survived out there somehow, and what could a boy his age have lived on, except crime? It's not like he could have got a real job or anything.

And how did he get over to France without a passport? However he managed that, it couldn't have been legal.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. And it explains why Danny decided to come back when he did.

Danny was running away again – only this time in the other direction.

“I've got to go,” I say, feeling a sudden need to get away. “I've got to look for Rudman.”

Danny doesn't even bother to reply and all the way down the hill, as I half walk, half run along the path leading back to the road, I feel his eyes watching me.

In the end, it happens outside the supermarket. Hardly the place to have a heart-to-heart with anyone, let alone your dad. And I'm already feeling low and edgy from seeing Alice, red-eyed and withdrawn after three days without Rudman.

But this is my first chance to speak to Dad when he's not got a head full of DNA. And with Danny back, I'm determined to get this sorted out. I've had enough drama for one lifetime.

I wait till we've loaded all the carrier bags into the boot – the usual mix of bread and pizza and frozen stuff you can stick in the oven or the microwave. Dad climbs into the driver's seat and slides his key into the ignition. Pauses and sighs, like we've just accomplished something monumental, not just the weekly shop.

“Can I ask you something?” I say quickly, before he starts the engine.

Dad looks at me. Or rather half looks at me, his eyes veering away from mine, then back again, his expression wary.