Skin Deep (10 page)

‘Your dad’s still in the yard.’

She leaned on my handlebars. ‘I didn’t come to see my dad.’

Result! I was in there.

‘You want to buy me a milkshake?’

She didn’t hang about.

I waited, as if I was thinking about it. ‘Yeah, all right.’ I got off the bike and wheeled it up the lane. She walked ahead, letting me get a good view of her legs and I didn’t waste the opportunity. Her tits weren’t that big. It looked like she had one of those push-up bras on, the kind that leave you disappointed when they come off. Probably padded too. We went on up to the shops, her silent and showing off, me silent and appreciative.

‘What flavour?’ I asked as she slid into a table by the window at the burger bar.

‘Strawberry.’

‘Want anything else?’

‘No.’

When I came back with the drinks, she watched me as she tore the top off the wrapper around the straw. Then she slid the paper slowly and deliberately down the length of the straw. She stuck the straw into the shake and sucked hard on the end. I wanted to laugh at how obvious she was being, but that would’ve wrecked my chances.

‘You doing anything tonight?’ she asked.

I shrugged. ‘Not much.’

‘Nothing to do round here anyway.’ She stirred the shake with the straw. ‘It’s a dump.’

I nodded. I’d been through some dumps and Whitmere wasn’t one of them. Quiet, yes, but she had no idea what a dump was. Wasn’t going to argue though.

‘It’s got even worse lately. We can’t even get in a car now without the police pulling us over and hassling us.’

I said nothing, just let her keep talking.

‘All year it’s been this way. Since some dumb posh kid from one of the villages put his car into a field. He was off his face.’ She checked I was listening and I nodded so she went on, satisfied. ‘So were the others in the car. Two girls got killed and another got her face fried when the car caught fire . . .’

Jenna?

She’d said it was a car accident. And she’d said it was this year. It had to be the same accident. But off their faces? Jenna didn’t look the type. Too much of a little girl.

‘Which village?’

‘Strenton. Why?’

So it was Jenna. But she was so quiet. It didn’t fit. Unless she’d been different before the accident. But even so . . . ‘No reason.’

‘I’ve got to go soon. You want to meet me later? Hang out?’

‘I don’t think your dad would like that.’

She peeked up at me, sucking on her straw for a moment, before she said, ‘My dad doesn’t have to know.’

‘I can’t lose that job.’

I didn’t want any trouble with Pete. I liked him and I liked the job. But Sadie wanted to get together with someone so it might as well be me. And she liked having to do a bit of work to get me now. She liked the challenge. But she’d turn the tables later and want me to be the one doing the running.

My one talent – reading girls for stuff like that. If you watched people enough, you picked up things like that. Body language, little looks, the way things were said – people gave themselves away. And I’d seen Mum play those games over and over again.

Sadie reached across and put her hand over mine. ‘Hey,’ she said, her hard edge hidden away, ‘we can go somewhere quiet if you like. Where we won’t get seen by anyone. Just you and me. Dad’ll never know.’

I bit back a smile. ‘OK.’

Home and a shower and dinner. Then I broke the news to Mum. ‘Going out now.’

‘Where?’

‘Into Whitmere.’

‘Ryan, I’ve been on my own all day!’

‘Am I not allowed to have a life?’

And I left, not waiting for an answer.

Sadie was already at the bus stop on the edge of town when I got there. I was ten minutes late. Deliberately. She waved a bottle of vodka and a torch at me. ‘This way,’ she said, and led me down an overgrown path to a field at the back of the town Rugby Club. A large hut stood at the rear of the ground in overgrown grass. She reached up to the window in the wooden wall, standing on tiptoe, and prised it open. ‘It’s been broken ages,’ she said with a giggle. ‘I don’t think they know. They don’t use it any more. Give me a leg-up.’

I stirruped my hands and she stepped up, opening the window wider and wriggling through with her mini-skirted bum in my face. She held the window while I vaulted up and squeezed in.

The hut was dry and smelled of leather and dried mud. There was a pile of old kit bags in the corner and she sat on it and opened the vodka. She took a swig and passed it to me. I drank and she rubbed her arms, watching me.

‘Are you cold?’ I screwed the cap back on the bottle.

‘Mmm.’

I sat down beside her and handed her the bottle before I pulled her into my lap and wrapped my arms round her. ‘That better?’ I rubbed her arm, and then let my hand slide round . . .

‘Yeah,’ she said, breathing a bit faster.

I nearly put myself off then wondering if her tits were orange too. Did she put the fake tan all over them? Or, when I got her bra off, would they stand out white against the orange like poached eggs in reverse?

She felt good though, warm and enthusiastic. I leaned back against the hut wall and took another drink. She gulped down more after me. I didn’t kiss her, just looked at her, not smiling, not saying anything, not doing anything until she got nervous and leaned forward to kiss me. I moved my head away. She stopped in confusion and I waited for a moment until she frowned and pulled back. I laughed and grabbed her and kissed her.

Ten minutes later, I found the fake tan did go all the way. And the bra was padded.

We got dressed quickly afterwards. It was cold. She snuggled up against me to finish the vodka. I cuddled her for a bit. She didn’t expect me to talk, just grunt while she went on and on about her friends and stuff and . . . I’m not sure what because I stopped listening. I kissed her again in the end to shut her up.

We both played it cool when we left the hut and walked back up to the bus stop slowly.

‘Do you live far?’ I asked. It was past eleven and I wasn’t going to let her trail down some dark street on her own.

She pointed to a road about fifty metres away. ‘Just down there.’

There were plenty of streetlamps. ‘Go on, I’ll wait until you get round the corner.’

She hesitated. ‘See you around?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, leaning against the bus shelter.

She opened her mouth, then closed it without saying anything and hurried off.

I bet myself a fiver she’d be outside the marina again tomorrow.

Mum was waiting up when I got back. ‘So who is she?’ she asked, twisting a jewellery clasp fiercely.

‘No one special. I just went for a drink.’

She didn’t look right. Something about her eyes. ‘I don’t want you out drinking. You’re only sixteen, Ryan.’

‘Since when did you care about the law?’

‘It’s not the law I care about.’

Her hands shook on the pliers as if they had cramp. Piles of bagged up work by her feet. I definitely didn’t like the look of this.

‘Mum, I don’t want to fight. I’m tired. I’m going to bed. OK? I’ve got to get up for work tomorrow.’

‘You stay home tomorrow night.’ Her hands fumbled on the pliers and she dropped them.

I bent and picked them up and packed them away in her toolbox. Then I gathered up her equipment. ‘Yeah, course. I’ll come straight home after work and help with dinner. We can go for a walk after.’ She’d been stuck on this boat too long. It drove me nuts. What did it do to her? ‘Why don’t you go to bed too? I’ll make you some camomile tea.’

I lay awake in bed for a long time. If Sadie turned up tomorrow, I’d blow her out. Mum needed me. Sure, I could explain, but Sadie wouldn’t be interested, not in my real life. It was her fantasy she wanted. Being blown out wouldn’t wreck that. Me babbling about Mum would. That was the thing about the girls who chased me. They lived in their own little worlds in their heads. They made their own realities and I was just there to make them feel good. It didn’t bother me. I never got attached. It was just sex.

Sadie did turn up the next day and waited for me at the top of the street. And I did blow her out. Said I had other stuff on and maybe another time. She acted like she wasn’t bothered, but I saw the shock on her face, and then the hurt before she hid it. I didn’t feel proud of myself.

But Mum looked better when I got home. Calmer. We made dinner together. We went for a long walk and looked out over the village from a distance.

‘You were right. It’s pretty,’ she said, and she hugged me. ‘My special boy!’

I felt guilty for feeling suffocated again, but I hugged her back because I loved her. And I didn’t understand how those two feelings could sit in a person side by side.

I’d discarded a pile of clothes on the bed before I finally decided what to wear.
When I sat down to straighten my hair, I did it by touch alone. I was good at that now. But eventually I couldn’t put the moment off any longer and I got the hand mirror out from the wardrobe.

This was the first time I’d used the make-up since the dermatology appointment at the hospital after the mask came off. I went through it all in my head, trying to remember exactly how to use each product.

‘First,’ the nurse had said, ‘you put on a fresh layer of moisturiser and let it sink in for a couple of minutes. This one’s much lighter than your massage cream.’ She smoothed some over my face and it felt light and cool.

She arranged some pots in front of me on the table. ‘The next part we do in three stages. We start with some concealer. You can do this in small sections so by the time you have to look at the whole of your face to put the foundation on, it’s already looking better.’ I swallowed and kept my eyes on the pots. She patted my hand. ‘It helps some patients, until the colour settles down. I’ll start off and then you have a try.’

‘All right,’ I mumbled. What I really wanted to do was get up and run out. The thought of touching my skin in that way, paying it so much attention, turned my stomach. It was bad enough when I had to do the massage twice a day, but at least then there was no mirror and a thick slick of cream under my fingers so I couldn’t feel my face properly.

She dipped her finger into the tub and dotted some yellowish gloop on to my face. I watched as she rocked her finger over my scars. ‘This is called stippling and it works the concealer into all areas equally.’ I had a try, less successfully, and she dampened a sponge. ‘Foundation now. This is much lighter so we’re going to pat it all over your face, like this. Be careful not to drag at the skin or it pulls the concealer off.’ She picked up another pot and passed it to me. ‘Last stage. This one is a different shade and heavier. You only put this where you need it, but I like the mix – it gives a better result.’ She nodded her approval as I stippled the concealer in and pointed out where she thought I’d missed a bit. ‘Close your eyes now. I’m going to whisk some powder over your face to take the shine off . . . OK, now have a look.’

I opened my eyes. It did look a little better, but the right half of my face still reminded me of fingertips after a soak in the bath. No amount of make-up could take that away.

Two months on, and I looked at my made-up face again. I hadn’t done such a bad job on it. I slipped some silver hoops in my ears and ran the straighteners over my hair one last time. Perfume was out because it irritated my neck, but it didn’t matter because I’d put on plenty of body lotion after my shower.

A car hissed on the gravel as it pulled up and I ran downstairs, putting my shoes on at the bottom step. Mum hovered with my coat.

‘I don’t need it. I’ll be in the car.’

‘You look lovely. Have a great time,’ she said, fussing with the wispy scarf covering the scar on my neck.

Dad came into the hall. ‘Now if there’s alcohol, remember you’re not to –’

‘Clive, she knows. It’s the first time she’s been out in months. Don’t nag her. The bar’s soft drinks only tonight, I told you.’

‘And if there are drugs,’ he went on, ignoring her, ‘then you call me on your mobile and I’ll come and pick you up. You have got your mobile? Is it charged?’

‘Yes,’ I snapped, my stomach a whirlpool of nerves, and I ran out of the front door before I was tempted to escape upstairs and lock myself in my room.

‘I’ll have her back by half eleven,’ Beth’s dad called to mine as I got in the car.

Whitmere Rugby Club often had social events on, but this was the first time they’d had one for under-eighteens. Tonight was part of their twentieth anniversary celebrations and Max had got us the tickets. He and Beth had gone to the harvest dance the week before and were now officially an item. Beth saw it as her best opportunity to drag me out of the house. ‘You’ll get to meet Max,’ she said when I protested and tried to duck out of it. Normally if I put her off she gave up, but this time she nagged until I agreed.

Beth checked her phone as we drew up at the clubhouse. ‘Text from Max. He’s here and he’s waiting for us at the bar.’ She leaned forward to peck her dad on the cheek. ‘Bye, see you later.’ She looked good tonight – she had her new contacts in and she’d done her hair differently, scrunching it so it curled.