I think it started out like any other day. I suppose they always do. The sky wasn’t a cloudless blue, but nor was there a louring, ominous darkness. There were clouds from horizon to horizon, halfway up the sky and uninclined to rain. The atmosphere felt a bit damp but it wasn’t cold; it was the end of summer, after all. The last day of another mild August. Nothing would have made you think twice about getting out of bed and into the world and restarting your life from where you left it on pause last night. Nothing would have hinted it was the last day of someone else’s.
When I see a bad news story now I think: what was I doing while that guy was getting kicked to death on his doorstep, or that girl was getting strangled, or that boy was fighting for his last breath in a swollen river? I was watching The X Factor or I was on the internet or I was eating a biscuit and swiping the crumbs off my homework. And I never felt anything, and nor did anyone else, and no dreadful rip opened in the fabric of space and time. The world just went on.
In a way that’s reassuring, but in another way it’s terrifying. If the earth blew up tomorrow, the universe would go on too. I can just see some little green man getting bored with the ‘Earth Explodes’ breaking news, I can see him picking up his remote and changing channels.
Maybe that’s why I don’t like looking at the night sky.
‘Nick?’
I glanced up. On that ordinary morning I was sitting in my usual spot against the wire fence, which was developing a baggy bit from being leaned on so often.
‘Aiiidaaan …’
I had to say his name slowly, because I was surprised, to put it mildly, and I had to haul myself out of the sixteenth century before I could talk to him. I wished I’d hidden the poetry book inside a violent graphic novel or Loaded or something. Bad enough trying to get my head around John Donne, who seemed to have got his head round many things, not all of them the kind you’d discuss with your grandmother. I’d been starting to like the man on a personal level and I wasn’t glad of an interruption from a boy who’d never spoken a word to me in his life, let alone a friendly one. I shut the book with a snap. ‘What?’
Considering I was the one on my backside on the ground, squinting into the watery sun, Aidan was the one who looked awkward. Swinging his backpack off his shoulder, he shifted from foot to foot, then turned clumsily and crouched on his hunkers beside me. I could see him better now he wasn’t standing against the diffuse sunlight and his face was on my level. He was giving me a shy sort of smile but I looked back without a word. The empty-eyed stare.
It didn’t seem to faze him. ‘When’s Allie’s birthday?’
‘Why don’t you ask her?’
‘Because.’ He looked up at the milling groups in the grounds. ‘Because I don’t want her to know I asked.’
‘November fourth,’ I said before I could stop myself.
‘Thanks!’ He gave me his big open grin. ‘John Donne?’
I gritted my teeth. ‘I have to do him. Set book. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘I don’t read poetry.’
‘Right.’ He glanced idly around again. ‘Orla does.’
‘Is that so?’ I’d have liked to hit him but that would look as if I cared what Orla did with her free time. When I followed his gaze, I saw Orla. She was standing with a bunch of girls not ten metres away. I couldn’t make out whether she was looking at Aidan or at me, but whichever it was, she was finding a lot to interest her. Cold horror formed in my stomach like a lump of dirty ice, and I grabbed Aidan’s sleeve and yanked him down so I could glare at him. ‘I’m not reading this to impress your bloody sister.’
‘Never said you were.’ There was annoyance in his voice. ‘Look, I know you don’t like me.’
‘Good.’
‘And I don’t like you.’
I don’t know why that bald statement should hurt the way it did. I took a breath. ‘And?’
‘Just, Allie and me get on fine. And I hope you’re not upset about it. Is all.’
I closed my book and tapped it against my knuckles. ‘I’m not upset about anything.’
‘Allie thinks you are.’
‘She’s wrong.’
‘Well, will you tell her?’ His expression went soft all of a sudden. I’d have liked to punch him. ‘’Cause she gets upset if she thinks you are.’
‘Allie doesn’t care what I think.’
‘Yes, she does. She kind of worships you.’ There was a sardonic twist to his lip.
‘Not any more,’ I said.
‘Yes, she does. She didn’t like you for a while but she changed her mind because of Shuggie and what you did.’
I sat there letting the wire fence brand a lattice pattern into my back. I was going to look like a waffle when I got up, but I needed the support and I needed the distraction. She kind of worshipped me, but she didn’t like me for a while? I felt light-headed with relief, but there was also a terrible ache below my breastbone. She didn’t like me for a while. Nobody had come out and said that to me before. I suppose I knew she didn’t like me. I suppose nobody did. I don’t suppose even Kev or Sunil or that crowd actually liked me. Fair enough: I’d never actually liked them. My last four years had been entirely empty of liking, and now Aidan didn’t like me either.
Oh, so what? My phone never got nicked.
‘You know my sister?’ he said casually.
Knew her, feared her, fancied her. Obsessive-compulsive lust turning lately to borderline terror. But Aidan didn’t have to know that, and neither did Orla. ‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘She heard Kev saying something about you, end of last term. After you got your kicking, remember? He was kind of laughing with some guys and they were having a go at you, really loud. So she stops and taps him on the shoulder and says “At least Nick Geddes has got some balls and he doesn’t keep his brains in them.”’
I rolled my knuckles against John Donne’s cover. ‘Did she … um, say that, did she?’
‘Uh-huh.’ He’d gone a bit pink. ‘Oh yeah, and then she kind of stared at his pals, and she told him his dick must be really small if he had to surround himself with bigger ones.’
I laughed out loud, couldn’t help it. Then I thought about it, and laughed again. When I looked at Aidan he was smiling at me.
I scowled. ‘See Allie …’ I said.
‘Uh-huh.’ He tensed, and his smile vanished.
‘No dumping her,’ I said through my teeth. Then, because that sounded a little unreasonable, I added, ‘No dumping without a good explanation and being really nice to her.’
‘I’m not going to dump her,’ he said.
‘And you’d better look after her,’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘Because she goes running to you now. She doesn’t come to me any more, she always goes to you, so she’s your bloody responsibility. Right?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. And smiled. ‘I’ll look out for her, Nick. I promise.’
‘You dropped your big white cowboy hat,’ I said, and pointed across the grounds.
Taking the hint, he scrambled to his feet, grinned at me and sauntered off. I kept my glower in place till he was safely gone, so he didn’t see me smile. The only person who saw that was Shuggie, hovering and watching with that bright inquiring gaze. I crooked my finger at him.
He came over and hovered some more, till I slapped the tarmac and he sat down at my side.
‘Shuggie,’ I said, not looking at him. ‘Sometimes I think you’re a bit fiendish.’
‘Fiendish? What a big word, Nicholas, and difficult to spell.’ He followed the direction of my stare, and before I could rip his head off said, ‘There’s Orla.’
Yes, there was Orla. How could my gaze go anywhere else? Aidan passed quite close to her posse and he must have said something cheeky, because she stepped smartly back, grabbed him by the lapel and mock-headbutted him. Grinning, he took her platinum forelock and tugged on it, so she slapped him on the stomach, then grabbed his head and kissed his nose.
That’s your brother, I thought longingly. Don’t waste all that aggressive affection on him. I can take it just as well as he can …
In a parallel world, one where Kev Naughton had been drowned at birth and I’d not sold my soul at the first opportune moment, I realised Aidan Mahon and I might have been friends. But as it was, that was the first time Aidan spoke to me. The day my life started to come back together, and the day it fell apart again. The last day of his life.
The last day of Aidan’s life, Allie was on her own. I know what happened to her, though. Not that she told me all the details; I got those at the trial. I got the details while the jury discovered what an intimidating bruiser Aidan was, and what malicious revenge-seekers Allie and I were, and what a hard childhood Kev had had, and how much he loved his mother. Oh, don’t get me started. I’ll tell you what I found out, not what the jury thought.
Aidan was held up after school – not a detention, obviously, not Aidan Mahon; he’d stayed behind to discuss something with a teacher. Kev was sitting in his car, on the other side of the road, opposite the school gates, and when he saw Allie come out on her own he must have practically hit the car roof with joy. So he got out of the car and slammed the door – she heard that – and he followed her.
He was between her and the school, so she couldn’t go back. So first thing she did, she pulled out her mobile and punched the speed dial. Not my number, Aidan’s number. Of course. She’d only got as far as the dank copse behind the computer store before Kev caught up with her.
Kev grabbed her by the arm and yanked her into the shadow of the Amenity Value trees. Shoved her against the third tree trunk on the left – it’s the details that get jammed in your brain and won’t come loose – and twisted her phone out of her hand. And she thought that was it, and she didn’t care about the tree bark scraping her back or the fact that her wrist hurt so much he must have sprained it. She just wanted him to go away, because she had a terrible, terrible longing for Aidan not to arrive in time: she knew in that funny old way of hers she’d made the most dreadful mistake in calling him. She just stared levelly into Kev’s eyes and willed him to go away, but she didn’t say anything and she didn’t cry; she just felt her heart banging her ribcage and wished more than anything she hadn’t called Aidan.
Kev probably sensed her terror, though he’d never have understood what lay behind it. And he wouldn’t have liked her staring at him in that fearful intransigent way.
He looked left and right, gripping her phone in one hand. Then he shoved himself right against her and grabbed her breast hard with his other hand.
‘Hey, Allie,’ he said, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. He smelt of cheese-and-onion crisps, she said. ‘Give us a bit of what Mahon gets.’ And he hit her on the cheek with her own phone, and started groping her.
He was grunting anyway, and she was frozen with horror, so she didn’t realise at first when he gave a grunt of real astonishment. Somebody jerked him away from her, and he hit the ground hard.
That stunned him, but he wasn’t hurt. Aidan did not hurt him. He probably thought about it, but he didn’t, whatever Kev’s QC said. Thinking about it isn’t the same thing. Wanting to do it isn’t the same thing. Wanting to kill someone isn’t the same as doing it: ask my dad, who often says he’d like to kill me.
It’s what you do that matters. All Aidan did was lunge for Allie’s phone as Kev lay there in shock, and when he’d grabbed it he staggered back. He stared down at Kev for a few seconds, maybe not knowing what to do next, but by then Allie had had time to get her breath back and her head together, to seize his hand and tug him away. Aidan, after all, was a fifteen-year-old who’d just humiliated a sixteen-year-old, and even if he was easily as tall as Kev, he wasn’t in the same psychopathic league. So after a moment he clasped Allie’s hand harder, and backed away from Kev, then let Allie pull him along the path back towards the road.
Allie remembers the looming figure at the end of the path. She knows Aidan saw him too because his fingers tightened round hers and she felt him take a breath and walk faster.
Mickey Naughton had left Kev only to go and buy fags, and now he’d come to look for his brother. What he found was Kev staggering to his feet, scarlet with fury and shame, and Aidan walking away with a dishevelled girl in one hand and an unthieved phone in the other. Maybe Mickey couldn’t believe what he was seeing, because Aidan had enough impetus to shove past without being grabbed, but it didn’t take Mickey long to reassemble his thoughts. Kev stumbled out of the lane and Allie heard Mickey give him his unedited opinion.
‘You stupit useless wee tosser! Gonnae let him get away with that?’
That’s the edited version.
Allie glanced back over her shoulder to see Kev walking swiftly after them, head down, eyes up, teeth showing where they bit into his upper lip.
‘Mahon,’ he shouted, ‘Mahon!’
Maybe Aidan thought he had to turn round or he’d be attacked from behind. So he came to a dead halt and spun on his heel.
He shouldn’t have done that, but what else was he going to do? I saw this part because by now I was running towards them, Shuggie panting at my heels. Somebody on the opposite side of the road had turned too, a tall middle-aged guy with a Jack Russell. A group of girls was walking behind me, and their laughter had faded, replaced with a bright callous curiosity, and they were striding faster towards the scrap. All I could hear in my head was the echo of my own unthinking voice: She goes running to you now, she’s your bloody responsibility. And young Sir frigging Galahad going, I’ll look out for her, Nick. I promise.
No, you stupid git, no, I thought. You don’t know what you’re getting into. Leave this to me.
As I barged past Mickey, Aidan caught sight of me. He looked back at Kev and said, ‘Leave her alone.’
My words. My words exactly, give or take a gender pronoun. But this time Kev didn’t take any notice; he just kept walking, head down, his whole body tight with fury, and Aidan stepped forward in front of him and the two boys collided.
I stopped. Everything stopped. I wanted to say or do something but I’d seen something for a fraction of an instant that my mind didn’t want to register, a bright glint between the two of them, just before they slammed into each other. Aidan still had Allie’s phone in one hand but his other arm was up to grab Kev, ready to stop him in his tracks. And he did stop him. Kev just stood, frozen to Aidan, while Aidan stared into his face, looking very surprised. Then Aidan’s eyes slewed across to me, full of a sort of hurt bewilderment.
He started to slide. He glanced down, then back up at Kev, trying to hold himself up, but Kev wasn’t helping, he just stood there like a piece of meat. Aidan slid to his knees and let go of Kev.
I only knew about the silence when Mickey broke it.
‘That wis self-defence.’ He strode up and grabbed Kev’s arms, manhandling him away. ‘That wis fecking self-defence.’
I didn’t care what it was. I was still trying to work out what had happened, while in another layer of my mind I knew fine. Also I was trying to keep hold of my phone, which had appeared in my palm somehow, but it kept slipping in my damp shaking hand while I tried to thumb buttons.
Allie was on the pavement now with Aidan in her arms. He’d slumped back into her lap and he was looking up at her, the bewilderment turned into terror, his knees drawn up, his hands clutched over a spot below his breastbone, blood pumping out between his fingers. He kept slumping sideways like he just couldn’t stop himself, and Allie held on to him and stroked his hair and went, ‘Sh, sh.’
There was the slam of a car door, the phlegmy roar of a souped-up engine and the screech of departing tyres. Someone was nagging and badgering me through the phone that was stuck to my ear, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying, because someone else was shouting obscenities as she shoved through the gathering crowd. Orla bumped into me, knocking the phone out of my hand, but it was fine because there were plenty of people making calls. She fell silent, then she screamed.
Allie didn’t scream and she didn’t shout. She sat as Aidan’s body jerked in her arms and his blood pooled around her legs, as his life soaked out of him and through her trousers and into her skin. Her eyes were the colour of night, and she was still hushing him softly. She cradled him like a baby, and until the sirens drowned her out, I heard her whispering that he wasn’t going to die, because she wasn’t going to let him.