Four months passed before I saw Danny again, and by then I’d all but convinced myself that what we once had never existed. Already I was getting good at blocking things out. My heart was hardening, learning to protect itself. Scarred by the knowledge that nothing good could last.
He was sitting on his spot on the wall as Barry’s car rounded the corner on the way back from school, just like he used to do when we were kids. It felt as though a long time had passed since then, although it hadn’t. Not really.
Barry went straight inside without even a second glance at Danny. Part of me wished I could do the same, but the pull of him was too much. He gestured me toward him with his chin and I took a couple of steps forward, still leaving a gap between us.
Come here then, he said, a smile playing on his lips. I did as he asked, walking slowly, staring at the ground. He reached over, took the bowler hat from where it still perched on my head. You look like a proper div in that uniform.
I didn’t say anything and he stretched out his leg, tapped my hip with his toe. Oi! How’s tricks? Danny’s face changed as I looked up, worry settling into the lines of his frown. You all right, Neef?
I nodded.
You don’t look all right, you look proper poorly.
I’m just tired, s’all.
His eyes searched mine, his face serious. D’you wanna come round mine?
Yours where?
Danny glanced toward the kitchen. I’m back at me nan’s fer a bit.
I knew by the way he said it that something had gone on between him and Denz. But if Danny wanted to have secrets, I would let him. So long as I could have some of my own. Yeah, I said quietly. All right. Yeah.
Danny didn’t mention Denz, other than to tell me he’d been giving him lifts to and from school most days.
I ain’t been goin in much, though. Just been comin here while Nan’s at work instead.
I stiffened when he said that, chewed the cuff of my school shirt, too afraid to ask him why he didn’t come and find me on all those days he’d been less than a mile from the pub.
How’s Chrissy been?
I looked at him strangely. What you askin me that fer?
He sniffed, looked away. No reason.
She’s all right, I s’pose. Same old.
In truth, Chrissy had been getting worse. There never seemed to be a time when she wasn’t wasted, but that wasn’t what frightened me. In the past few weeks I’d begun to sense it again. That itch in her feet.
Danny and I didn’t bother with school the next day, or the one after that. Before long, I had Jody on my back, asking what was going on with the orders. I fobbed him off but I could tell he didn’t like it. Not that I cared. Danny being back made all of that seem like another world.
It was easy for Danny to skip school. The teachers had no interest in him and Mary was out at the pub all day, so he could come and go as he pleased without her ever catching on. My situation might have been trickier, had Barry and Chrissy not already retreated into their own fucked-up worlds. No one ever checked the post, and the pub phone rarely got answered anymore. Barry had always ferried me to and from school, but he happily swallowed the story I made up about a girl from my class who lived at the top end of town and whose parents had offered to give me lifts instead.
So pleased you’re finally makin friends, love. He’d beamed with red-rimmed eyes. That’s what yer need, see, friends in high places. That’s the power of these schools—it’s all about connections.
I smiled at him, carried on getting dressed up every morning in that silly uniform, pretending not to smell the booze on his breath as he drove me to the top of the hill and dropped me off outside a stranger’s big detached house, day after day.
I could tell, by the way Danny was with me, that he didn’t know about what I’d done with those boys, where I’d taken them. He was like medicine, an alternative therapy, replacing all the shit I’d been taking to make me forget the weight and the heat and the stench of strangers’ bodies.
Jody carried on hounding me, skulking around the pub waiting for me to show my face, but I didn’t care, not even when he threatened to tell Barry I’d been skipping school. I’d laughed in his face then. Reckon I could tell him one or two things about you too, mate.
He quietened down after that and I made an effort to stay out of his way, steering clear of the pub as much as I could. It cleaned me up, being away from Chrissy, from them. To some extent, anyway. Danny had got pally with the younger brother of one of Denz’s mates while he’d been staying over in Leeds. Turned out this lad dealt weed to most of the kids in the neighborhood. He’d set Danny up with an account on tick, which meant we no longer had to rely on Denz for our supply. But it also meant we were both smoking plenty.
D’you wanna see summat? he said to me as we lay on our bellies in the garden one morning, passing a jay back and forth. I looked at him curiously, watched as he got to his feet. Come with me.
The pair of us floated through the little garden and into the greenhouse, right toward the back where the herbs grew. Danny grinned at me over his shoulder, then parted the plants gently, exposing the slender-fingered leaves, rich and green, their sweet perfume mingled in among basil, lavender, peppermint neighbors.
It’s just a start. He beamed, fiddling with the angle of the lamp. I’m only learnin but…reckon I’ve got the touch fer it, just about.
Why didn’t you tell me?
Danny shrugged. You been busy, innit.
I swallowed, leaning forward to inspect the plants so that he couldn’t see how his words had stung. You done it all by yerself?
Course I have, man. Got a few tips here and there, but mostly I figured it out. You think anyone could do this better’n me?
Despite myself I laughed, reaching a hand out to stroke the leaves. Danny stood behind me, chattering on about the scent, the effervescence. Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. Light schedules and pH levels and humidity optimization; how best to avoid stale air in the greenhouse, how to manage pests and mold and bud rot. Look at the crystals on it, man. Look, he urged, tilting the bud toward me, squeezing it gently so the stickiness came away between his fingers.
You’re clever, you are, Danny Campbell. I grinned.
Danny had spent all that time when he was supposed to be at school nurturing those buds, turning the tiny space in the roof above his bedroom into a makeshift drying room, the branches hanging upside down from a coathanger strung up on the ceiling beams. Every couple of days he’d hoist himself up there, change the batteries in the little handheld fan that he’d positioned just so, check for the snap in the stems. We won’t need to rely on anyone else soon. He’d grin. The stuff I grow’ll be the best fer miles, you’ll see!
The plants kept him busy, purposeful, although I could tell there was more going on in his head than he let on. Danny hadn’t mentioned his dad since he’d been back at Mary’s. But there was something different about Denz’s absence this time. As though it were Danny’s decision, for once, to stay away.
There was a sense that the pair of us were balancing on a tightrope wire, keeping one another steady as we tiptoed over a world that was fragile. The in-and-outness of Denz from Danny’s life, the brittleness of mine and Chrissy’s existence at the pub. Our parents felt like unsteadiness, like danger. Maybe that’s why I never told Danny about the day I saw them together.
I’d taken the long route back from Danny’s, trying to kill some time before going to the pub, when I spotted the car, pulled over on a dirt path not far from the exit for the motorway. Denz must have seen me walking toward them because he got out quickly as though to block my view, but not before I saw Chrissy in the passenger seat. She looked rough, even to me, black makeup pooled in the hollows around her eyes, the remains of a crudely drawn red liner sketching the shape of her mouth. I sidestepped Denz, yanking at the door.
What you doin?
The inside of the car was warm, but the skin on Chrissy’s legs was raised up in tight, hard goosebumps, a thin denim jacket hanging loose from her shoulders. She didn’t answer, just pursed a cigarette between her lips, jabbed the button of the car lighter.
D’you want a lift somewhere, Neef? Denz asked me, an uneasiness in his voice that I wasn’t used to.
I took a step back, looked at him carefully. Nah. You’re all right, ta.
He shifted uncomfortably. You seen Danny lately?
Yeah.
He doin all right?
I s’pose he’d tell yer, I said, my eyes narrowed. If he wanted you to know.
Denz looked down at the ground then. I shot Chrissy a disgusted look, walked away from the two of them as fast as I could, turning back in the direction I’d come from.
By the time I got to Danny’s, my jaw was sore from clenching it. As soon as he opened the door I greeted him with my whole self. Pushed my mouth against his, slid my hands roughly under the fabric of his T-shirt, like the sight of Denz and Chrissy together had awakened something urgent in me.
He didn’t pull away. He kissed me back, placed the warmth of his palm around the base of my neck. There was a moment, then, when everything fell into place. The fit of the two of us together, the light and the joy and the sweetness. The sense of exactness, of all the hurt and heartache and anger leading to this. This this this.
And then it was as though Danny remembered, suddenly, who I was, looked at me questioningly, but I didn’t let myself think, pulled him close, felt him swell against me, his hands moving over my body.
Me nana’s due back in a minute, he murmured as I tugged at the waistband of his trackies.
It’s fine, I insisted, but he moved my hand away gently.
Nah. Come on. Let’s go somewhere else. Let’s go up to Devil’s Claw.
I winced, recoiling. It’s all right, forget it—
Nah, nah, come on, Neef, he said, excited now, apologetic almost. I want to, I do want to. Come on, we’ll go up to Devil’s. No one ever goes up there. No one except me and you.
I hadn’t been there since that night. I told myself it didn’t matter, it was just a place, nothing more than a patch of earth, it could have been anywhere really. All that mattered was that I was there with Danny. The time before had meant nothing, I couldn’t even remember it after all. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter. It didn’t happen, it wasn’t real. All that mattered was the here and now, Danny’s body and mine, me on my back in the grass, Danny and I pressing ourselves against each other, into each other, the thistles unyielding against our skin, all of it heightened and sharp and bold. I squeezed my eyes shut, but in the darkness I felt them again, the weight of those faceless boys, and I gasped, stared up, the branches above my head mocking me, laughing at me. We know what you did. We know what you are.
When it was over, Danny rolled onto his back beside me, reached for my hand, but already I was getting to my feet. He pulled himself up so that he was leaning on one elbow, looked at me strangely.
What’s up?
Nowt.
What you in such a rush fer then?
I’m not, I just…need to get out of here.
A look of bewilderment passed over his face and he sat up, pulled his trackies back on self-consciously. Didn’t you like it?
What? No…no, it int that; it’s just…I’m cold, that’s all.
All right. He nodded, taking my hand and smiling at me uncertainly. All right.
After that day, despite all its complexities, all its confusions, it felt as though a fog had lifted; our whole way of being simplified to the understanding that I was for him and he was for me, that Danny and I together could be a source of mind-emptying bliss. The hours spent lying innocently in the grass beside one another, or riding Danny’s bike through the streets, disappeared. Instead we would find ourselves entwined at every opportunity, starving, ravenous, filled up only by one another.
Mary knew something had changed between us. She pulled me up on it first, a long time before she even mentioned it to Danny. He and I had been upstairs in my room, my bed, most of the afternoon, the threat of being caught only adding to the thrill. We’d managed to get Danny in and out with a stealth operation of back doors, all fours and skin-of-our-teeth timings, waiting for hours to make sure Barry and Mary were both occupied with something at the exact same moment, so that we could execute our plan. And it had worked, to some extent. Mary only cornered me as I was walking back inside the pub, once we’d thieved our last fumble behind the safety of the beer-garden wall. She caught me by the sleeve as I tried to sneak past the kitchen door. It was only when I looked down at her hand on my arm that I realized the jumper I had on was Danny’s.
A word, please, lady, she said sternly, steering me into the kitchen and closing the door behind us.
What? I said, my eyes inflated with fake innocence.
How come you’ve been avoidin me?
I’ve not.
Mary crossed her arms over her chest, looked me square in the face. I tried to hold her stare but I was the first to look away. The silence stretched between us and I wondered if she was waiting for me to speak, although now I think she was looking for the right words, that the discomfort was as palpable for her as it was for me.
Look, love, she said eventually. You and Danny, you’ve been glued at the hip since you moved into this pub a couple years back. And don’t get me wrong, it’s been a good thing. Fer t’most part. There’s been times when I don’t know what our Danny would’ve done without yer. She stopped then and I took a step back toward the door, my heart sinking at the look in her eyes, a sadness I hadn’t expected to see.
I know you’re both gettin older. I’m not daft. You’re a nice-lookin girl, and Danny’s…well, Danny is who he is. And I’ve been around long enough to know what happens at your age. But, Neef, I’m saying this fer your sake, not his. You be bloody careful.
We haven’t slept together, I blurted out, my mouth seeming to form the shape of the lie without ever making any sort of deal with my brain. Straight away I felt my cheeks flame, my eyes clamp shut, not knowing where to look.
I don’t want to know the ins and outs, love, Mary said after a pause. Just remember what I said. She picked up a dish from the drying rack and began wiping it with a tea towel, making it clear the conversation was over. As I scurried upstairs out of sight, I heard her begin to cough.