I’ve only ever come close to telling one person about what happened in Clifton. Mum always said that it was important to keep the door shut on the past, and over the years she’s watched like a hawk to make sure I’ve done that. She said we were lucky that I was too young to have my name in the paper, and I shouldn’t go ruining our fresh start in Raithswaite by talking about things that can never be changed. And I was careful for years until I nearly told Fiona Jackson. I first met her when we were both nine years old, not long after we’d moved to Raithswaite, and she was just the same then as she is now – dark eyes and darker hair. Stern and lovely. The only difference is that seven years later her beauty comes complete with curves. There’s an old limestone quarry called Crosshills between our two houses. The back wall of the quarry is sixty feet of vertical rock with trees and grass growing out of it; the bowl below is a maze of tracks, sudden big rocks and tiny steep hills. A few years ago the shrubs and trees began to take over and the place is mainly green now with only the odd patch of grey quarry rock showing through.
I’ve never made friends easily; all of it is unclear to me and I’m not sure how it normally happens, but with Fiona it happened because of the quarry. She would often be down there avoiding her dad and her brothers, and I would be there too, hiding from Mum on her dark days. It was easier for us to walk around together than to try and pretend the other person wasn’t there, and over the years we became easy in each other’s company. These days when we meet she’s usually got her music and her cigarettes. We sit down if it’s sunny, or wander about if it’s cold, and she gives me an ear of her headphones, which has got tricky since I grew half a foot in six months, but never offers me a cigarette. I don’t want to be misleading – we aren’t best friends. Sometimes we don’t see each other for days, and sometimes we see each other and she might want to be left alone. But most of the time we have a chat and a wander.
It nearly happened because of her brother. He’d just been found guilty of GBH and was starting a two-year sentence. Fiona was angry, but not with the sentence, with her brother. She told me how hard he’d been to live with, how stressed he made her feel and how she was pleased that he was going away. Her hands were shaking and she was pulling on the cigarette too fast and I couldn’t work out the right thing to say. But it got worse when she suddenly burst into tears. We were stood at the side of the quarry nearest my house, and she was sobbing and I’d never been alone with a crying girl before. I was useless. I knew I was supposed to hug her, comfort her, but we’d never touched in all the years I’d known her, and I just couldn’t move forward and put my arms around her. Gradually she calmed down a little. She was telling me that it was a shit thing to say, but she was relieved when her brother got sentenced, that it meant the house might be normal for a while. ‘The thing is, I can’t say that to anyone,’ she said. ‘There’s a few people at the house now and it’s like a wake. And they are all having a go at the judge and the court, and I’m trying to nod along when all I can see is the truth of what he did, and how I can’t stand him and I’m pleased I won’t have to live in the same house as him any more.’ She looked so sad at that moment, so guilty and tired, like she’d said something she should never say, that I was about to speak too. I was going to tell her about the little boy back in Clifton. I could feel myself running towards the words, charging down the runway. I was excited, I felt relief that I was going to be finally saying it out loud, and Fiona would understand, I knew she would. My mouth was open and I was ready to talk when there was a sharp knocking behind us. We turned to see Mum at the bathroom window, eyes glaring down, gesturing for me to come in. Fiona told me to go, she would be fine she said, and I left her stood there, crying in the quarry. Mum was still in the bathroom, cleaning hard. I asked what she was after, but all she said was ‘You’d been out there too long,’ and carried on scrubbing at the bath.
That evening we were sat in the back room reading our library books. ‘You like that Fiona, don’t you?’ Mum said, without looking up. I didn’t get chance to answer before she carried on. ‘It’s important Donald, that you don’t say anything to her that you shouldn’t.’ I nodded and said I knew. ‘We left all that behind when we left Clifton, so don’t go bringing it with you here.’ She looked up from her book then and fixed me with a stare. I looked away first. She was like that my mum – if she saw an open drawer she always made sure she snapped it shut.