Allie had never lost that fey strangeness she’d had as a baby, that solemn indifference to reality. I knew very well that she’d be a target for bullies despite her connections to the underworld (me), and from the day she started at Craigmyle High I had every intention of keeping an eye on her.
Things never work out. I had my own priorities, and more importantly Kev’s priorities, and I could hardly stalk my own little sister around the playground. I consoled myself with the knowledge that even Allie had to learn life’s number one lesson: you have to look after yourself.
Anyway, she wouldn’t let me look after her. I was no longer her big brother and guardian angel – good for lending Marvel comics, getting rid of the spooky dream-catchers Mum hung around Allie’s bedroom, and creating showjumping courses in the back garden for nonexistent ponies. Her shock must have killed that brother, but that was fine: he’d only ever existed in her head.
The parents had had complaints about me, of course, but Allie had simply had no idea. I’d led a double life without knowing I was doing it, without realising how much Allie’s starry adoration meant to me. I stayed out late with my mates, but I never came home off my face or reeking of drink. After all, Dad was a hell of a role model in that respect. Anyway, when your pals are lashed it’s easy enough to fool them into thinking you’re drinking just as much as they are, but that drink only makes you surlier and sarkier.
No secrets now, though. Allie was on to me. She never did mention Calum’s beating; she never referred to it, not once. Whatever she’d wanted so much to show me, I never did see it. It was probably something she’d made or painted at school, that was all, so I don’t know why it bothered me so much. Allie turned her huge dark eyes from me and pretended I didn’t exist, either at school or at home. Guilty and resentful, I started ignoring her, too.
That’s why her swashbuckling saviour was not me, but studious, handsome, noble, sporty, sucky-up, clever-dick Aidan Mahon.
The twat.
It should never have happened. It would never have happened if I’d been there in time. The bit I missed, I soon caught up with: one more thing Dad wasn’t going to let me forget. His little goddess had been threatened, and Dad was as smitten as she was with the boy who rescued her.
Five hard-faced girls had cornered her at breaktime in her fourth week at school. They were after her lunch money, but what they were really hoping for was a fight. Her money clasped in her fist, Allie being Allie she hesitated, which was what they wanted. She was strange, she was silent, she stuck out: what she needed, clearly, was a good kicking.
I could have told her that, of course. I could have told her the facts of life if I’d been there, but I was on the other side of the science block when it started, and Kev was the one who told me what was going on, and he took his time about it.
‘Did you not do something?’ I bellowed.
‘Nah,’ said Kev, shrugging. ‘Thought I’d tell you instead.’
It struck me that Kev didn’t like Allie that much.
I was anxious, but it seemed important to look cool about this, so I didn’t run. I walked fast, hands in pockets, panicking only a little. I knew she couldn’t come to too much harm before I got there. They were novice neds, and too stupid to know when they’d picked the wrong target.
A small crowd was gathering: you can always spot a scrap by the audience. The five girls hadn’t noticed me. They were chanting their loathing, and the first girl was swinging her bag at Allie’s legs to tangle them and trip her, and I was thinking about starting to run, and wondering how that would look, when Aidan Mahon turned the corner.
He’d come upon them by accident, but he was a lot closer than I was. He was with some other handsome rugby-playing type (God, but they’re irritating) but Aidan didn’t even wait for his friend. Without so much as pausing for breath and a hasty risk-assessment, he waded in and ripped the bag from the little bitch’s hands.
I came to a frozen halt. So what was the smooth thing to do in this unprecedented situation? She was my sister. I was too late. But I wasn’t Aidan Mahon’s sidekick and I didn’t want to look like an afterthought.
My mind was such a chaos of shock I couldn’t hear what Aidan said to the five girls. He had the advantage of surprise, of course, and he had Allie by the arm, and even I would have thought twice before tangling with somebody his size, even though he was a year younger than me. Whatever he snapped at them, it had an effect. They scowled, but they backed away pretty fast as he shoved past them, escorting Allie out of their circle. Humiliated, they slouched away, muttering. I don’t think the wee gangsters even managed to swear at him, they were so stunned.
I hesitated. I should go up to her, I thought, and ask if she was OK. I should tell her I’d been on my way, she didn’t have to worry, I wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.
I’d have done all that if she’d looked at me once. She didn’t. She knew I was there, but she never even turned her head. She said something quietly to Aidan, and he smiled and flushed a little.
They walked within a few metres of me, but my sister still didn’t look my way.
Allie was his shadow after that, and the annoying thing is, Aidan didn’t seem to mind. He almost seemed to like her. Perhaps he was too tolerant and kind to tell her where to go.
The big frigging cowboy, what was he thinking of? He was two years older than her. He should have shrugged her off, told her he’d got her out of a tight spot but that didn’t mean he wanted a stalker. No way should he have led my sister on. He should have treated her with amused condescension, accepted a certain degree of hero-worship but made it quite clear he didn’t have a romantic interest.
That’s how I’d have done it.
Aidan wasn’t me, though. He wasn’t anything like me. I wondered how his mind worked, and I developed a permanent sinking feeling.
You cannot cow little cows indefinitely, and it wasn’t Allie’s last brush with trouble. But that day her dark eyes grew shining stars in their depths that never went out again, ever glittering with the reflection of Aidan’s glory. I had blown my chance to be my sister’s hero but at least she’d found another one, and I hated and respected him for it.
Dad, of course, wouldn’t hear a word against Aidan. One morning I tried to spin some negative propaganda in the shape of my suspicions about Aidan’s intentions, but where Allie was concerned Dad had rose-tinted contact lenses (unless that was his morning-after eyeballs).
‘Of course Aidan likes her,’ he told me. ‘Who wouldn’t?’ He was staring at his Guardian, badly folded with trembling hands, but I could tell he wasn’t really reading it. He was too annoyed with me, and last night’s empty bottle of red was parked beside the recycling bucket, and Lola Nan had been dawn-hoovering again.
‘He’s older than Allie,’ I said, being skilled in Stating the Bleeding Obvious.
‘So?’
I’d picked a bad time, but the phone had rung and Mum had disappeared to her under-stairs sanctum in a swish of skirt and hair and glitter. We were alone together unexpectedly. I said, ‘Don’t want Mahon to think he can take advantage of Allie just ’cause she’s younger.’
‘He’s not like that. He’s not that kind of boy.’
Not, in other words, like you, Nick. I could hear that one vibrating telepathically in the air.
‘Anyhow,’ I persisted, ‘he just lets her hang on his coattails. Likes her trailing him like a puppy.’ That wasn’t quite how it was, and there wasn’t any actual romance going on, but I was pissed off with Dad, with Aidan, with Allie. ‘It’s not like he ever takes her to films or anything. Not as if he makes any kind of an effort.’
Dad stood up sharply, almost unbalanced, and grabbed dirty breakfast dishes off the table while he got his equilibrium back.
‘Make up your bloody mind, Nick,’ he snapped.
Losing my temper, in a silent way, I walked out.
No change in that relationship then. Dad and I were not made for hearty man-to-man chats. Anyway, I’d already made up my mind.
I hated Aidan Mahon; I loved his big sister. I’d fallen like a stone, smitten, the day she watched me beat the crap out of Calum, the day she decided I was scum. That timing was bad enough.
But I loved her from the moment I saw her grab Kev’s nuts and twist so hard she nearly had them off.