In the shed, I sit on the floor at Shane’s feet and lean back against his shins.
We’re both silent.
Shane always closes the door and he never opens the window, but I’m used to the smell of the warm creosoted wood now. It smells like stewed tea. Cake crumbs are scattered over the floor, already drying in the heat. Spots of chocolate buttercream are smeared into the boards. I swallow the last of our chocolate layer cake and lick each finger clean.
Shane dangles a pair of pink plastic hoops in front of my eyes. I try to turn to look at him, but he catches my face in his hands, tilts my head backwards and clamps his knees hard around my scalp. Taking each earlobe between his finger and thumb, he makes a dip and a pull with the earrings, hooking me up like a fish. Then he runs a finger along my bottom lip, hard. ‘Messy,’ he says, showing me the chocolate on his finger.
‘Mind my lipstick.’
He laughs. Shane’s laugh is low and quiet, like it’s half-hidden, a long huh-huh. ‘Are you my girlfriend?’ he asks.
I twist free of his knees and turn round. His T-shirt’s too small. What looks like a waistband of flesh bulges beneath it, and I can see his belly button sticking out. I haven’t seen that before. It looks like Shane has a hole that someone’s stuck a screw into. A flesh-coloured screw.
‘What?’
‘Are you my girlfriend?’ He keeps his eyes focused on the space above me. ‘I gave you the earrings,’ he says.
‘I know.’
‘So you’re my girlfriend.’
‘My dad left.’
He puts his hand in my hair, the way he did in the woods at Shotton Hill. Working his fingers around my scalp, he says, ‘It’s all right.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ I say, pulling away from his hand. ‘My dad left.’
‘My dad crashed the car. My dad never came back.’
I sit there, earrings dangling. Shane stares into the air above me. The line of his chin is strong. The dipping curve of his open lips is still. He doesn’t allow his face to twitch as I watch him.
‘Do you miss him?’ I ask.
He doesn’t allow one blink, even though his hair hangs over the side of his face like a strange eyepatch.
‘My dad was the only sane one in our house,’ I say.
Shane gives a nod.
‘What was yours like?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’
There’s a long silence before he says, ‘There’s no point missing them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Everything’s their fault. And when they go it’s still their fault. It’s all his fault.’
‘What is?’
‘Anything you bloody well like.’
I start to laugh, but Shane’s not smiling. He’s biting his lip, hard.
I wiggle my bare toes, but he doesn’t look at them. I blink at him and smile, but he keeps staring at the space above my head.
‘Shall we have some music?’
‘If you like.’
‘What do you fancy?’
He has no answer.
It’s hot in the shed. My palms are sweating. When I bring a hand up to sweep the hair from my face, I see a small patch of damp on the wooden floor.
‘Do you fancy anything, Shane?’
Again, no answer.
So I stand up. ‘I could take off my skirt. Shall I take off my skirt?’
I start to wonder if he’s heard me. ‘Do you want me to – ’ ‘OK.’
Staring at the wooden slats behind me, eyes half closed, he repeats, ‘OK,’ and not a muscle on him moves as he waits for me to remove my denim mini.
‘Shall we lock the door?’ I ask.
‘Why?’
‘In case.’
‘No.’ He pauses, nods his head. ‘Go on, then.’
Beneath my bare feet, the floorboards of the shed are warm. A cake crumb squishes between my toes. I shove my fingers down into my waistband. Shane keeps his eyes below my waist. His big lower lip hangs down so low I can see the spit on his teeth.
I tug the skirt down over my hips. I look at the net curtain behind Shane. I think about how white that curtain is. How clean.
I push the skirt over my thighs. I think about Shane’s mum washing the net every week, pegging the rough wet fabric to the whirligig. I think about the whipping sound it might make as it kicks out in the wind.
There’s a clunk as the rivets of the skirt hit the floor.
I flick a look at Shane, who seems focused on my knees. He breathes slowly, deliberately, taking a breath in, letting it go.
I cough out a giggle. Shane doesn’t move.
Fixing my eyes back on the curtain, I grab the side-strings of my knickers and pull them to my knees. I never wear the wrong knickers to Shane’s. I always choose the small black pair with the lace trim. I have to bend down a bit to get them off my feet.
The warm air licks around me. Every bit of me suddenly has a pulse. I slip my hands into the curve above my hips, run my tongue along my top lip, taste chocolate, and wait.
But he makes no sound, no movement, no nothing.
I look at him. His eyes seem to be closed. But then I realise he’s looking down at my toes. I’m standing here with just a T-shirt brushing the tops of my hips and he’s sitting, staring at my toes. Taking in each red painted toenail.
So I turn round, slowly, like I did in the pink pencil skirt. But this time he can take in each bit of leg, thigh, arse. I pause and concentrate. Perhaps I’ll feel his breath on my skin. Perhaps it will be wet. Perhaps he’ll put a big hand on me. Perhaps he’ll move for me, reach out and pull me over, pull me to him.
But when I’ve turned all the way round, his hands are clasped on his knees, and they’re white and dead looking. His curls fall over his eyes as his head drops lower.
I pick up my knickers, pull up my skirt. Shane doesn’t move from his chair.
‘I’m not your girlfriend,’ I say. And I open the shed door.