The Woods, page 21
I look at Bella. She’s white-faced and shaking, biting her lip. “You are such a shit, Jack Lewis,” she says.
“Oh, come on,” he says, frowning. “We should be celebrating. They caught the bastard. They caught the shit who killed your best friend and my girlfriend.”
“Yeah, her fucking best friend is dead, you stupid shit,” I yell. “Your girlfriend is dead. Celebrating? Are you bloody mad or just a total dick?”
“Whoa,” he says, throwing his hands up. “The mouse has teeth. Who knew?”
“Shut up. Just shut up for once,” I shout, shoving him with both hands. “Why do you always have to ruin things? Why do you always have to upset everyone? Is your own life so miserable you have to make everyone else miserable too? Julia leaving probably had nothing to do with Ellie—she probably left because of something you did, because you are such a shit.”
My voice rings out, loud enough to be heard in the next county, I swear. I want to swallow the words instantly. It’s Jack’s turn to go white, no sign of his cocky grin.
I’m sorry, I want to say. I shouldn’t have said it. I lost my temper, I shouldn’t…But, oh no, those words won’t come out, will they? Not in light of their shocked faces.
“I’m going,” I mutter. “Are you coming, Bella?”
Bella glances at Jack, who’s standing now with his head bowed. She shakes her head at me and touches his arm. “No—you go.”
I spin and march away, hurt weighing me down. Yes, I was wrong to say what I did, but I did it for Bella. And she’s staying with him? To check that he’s okay?
“Wait,” Sean says, catching my arm. “You can’t walk back on your own.”
“Relax,” I say, a mocking copy of Jack’s words. “We’re not going to be jumped by a serial killer, remember?”
“Why are you being like this?”
“Like what? Sticking up for my sister? Calling your brother out for such a stupid stunt bringing us here?”
“No. Cruel.”
I stop walking and take a shaky breath.
“Saying that to him about Ellie and Mum…that was cruel.”
“What—more cruel than bringing us to a murder site?”
He takes a step toward me and I stumble away from the anger on his face. “Does it not occur to you that Jack could be hurting too?” he says. “Oh no, why would it? If it doesn’t affect you, it doesn’t register, right? It’s fine to be a bitch if it’s just to Jack and Sean.”
There’s a lump in my throat. I want to say sorry again. Explain that the words burst out in anger and I didn’t mean to be cruel. I don’t want to be cruel. But I’m not apologizing to Sean Lewis.
“Well, maybe it’s hanging round you lot that’s turning me into a bitch.”
“That’s easily solved,” he says stiffly. “I’ll make sure we keep well away in future.” He turns away and walks back toward Jack and Bella.
“Good,” I shout after him. “You do that.”
Bella gets home just before seven. I jump up off the bed to greet her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have had a go at Jack like that. Not about Ellie.”
Someone’s stolen the smile from her face and, instead, she looks pale and sad. “It’s okay, Tess. It’s not me you have to say sorry to.”
“Yeah, well, I tried saying sorry to Sean and he was an idiot about it.”
“You should say sorry to Jack.”
I quail at the thought. “How was it?” I ask, avoiding her suggestion. “Did the boys know any more about the man they’ve arrested?”
She shrugs, facing away from me as she bends to pull her shoes off. She wore her white Converse and I notice mud all over them. Did they actually go into the field? Tread on the ground where a girl was raped and murdered?
“Not really,” she says quietly.
“It has to have been the same person, though, right? The same person who took that other girl and…hurt Nicole?”
“God, Tess, I don’t know, okay?”
I wait for a moment, chewing my lip. “So what did you do?”
“Tess…I’m tired. Can we talk about it later?”
I open my mouth to argue, but Dad’s calling us to come downstairs. He and Julia are in the living room, big smiles on their faces. I look at Bella and she shrugs and raises her eyebrows. I frown. Is that a bruise on her cheek? Revealed as she tucks her hair behind her ears?
“Girls…we have some news. I’ve asked Julia to marry me.”
There’s a roaring in my ears as I stare at the diamond ring on Julia’s finger and all concerns about Bella’s “adventure” are instantly lost. I want to be sick, hurl up the whole of the casserole we had for tea right in their faces. Married? They’re getting married?
“Wow,” Bella says in an odd, flat voice. “That’s…big.”
Dad’s smile fades. He looks sad again, sad like he hasn’t for a long time, not since the dark old days after Mum died.
“Congratulations,” I say in a false-bright voice, too loud. “That’s…that’s brilliant news, isn’t it, Bella?” I look at her and will her to play along.
Her gaze bounces from me to Dad and back again. She turns back to them and smiles. “It is,” she says. “Great news. I’m really pleased for you both.”
“Has anyone told Gr— Mr. Lewis?” I blurt it out in the middle of the awkward celebrations and they all turn to look at me. Dad glances at Julia and back at me.
“We wanted to tell you girls first. Julia’s going to ring the boys and I’m sure they’ll tell their father.”
It’s only six months since Julia walked out on Greg. How is he going to feel when he finds out?
The next day, Bella slams out of the house early. I follow and find her sitting on the fallen tree at the top of the embankment looking down into the stream. I sit down next to her, my jeans biting at my waist. Bella jumps up, starts pacing around, smacking trees with a long branch she’s picked up.
“We’ll stop it from happening,” she says, sending leaves whirling as she spins around.
I drop a stone in the dank water of the slow-moving stream. “We can’t. How can we? What could we do?”
“He’s married to Mum,” she shouts, smashing the branch onto a rock, breaking the wood in two.
My hand grubs in the damp earth for another stone. “Mum’s dead.”
Bella comes over and sits on the dead tree next to me. “God, poor Jack and Sean. It’s bad enough she’s living here.”
My hand curls in the mud. Something squeezes tight in my stomach. She sounds all worried, not about Greg, stuck on his own, or Dad rushing into things when they’ve only been together a few months, but about those bloody boys.
“Oh yeah, poor Jack and Sean. I don’t get you, Bella. After Nicole died, you were so anti-Jack, and yesterday, you went off giddy as hell at the idea of spending the day with them.”
Bella kicks free the stone I’ve been reaching for. “Oh stop it, Tess,” she mutters. “You’re such a bore sometimes.”
Her words sting.
“Do you think they’ve told Greg yet?” I blurt out. “Someone needs to—before he hears it from some village gossip.”
She looks up at me and frowns. “Are you still going over there? Tess…you have to stop. It looks bad, a fifteen-year-old visiting an almost forty-year-old man living on his own.”
My cheeks burst into flames. “We’re only gardening. God, stop treating me like a child.”
She shakes her head, still frowning.
“And you weren’t so bothered about seeing him yourself when he gave you that camera, were you?”
“But I’m seventeen and…”
I roll my eyes. “Oh wow—two whole years older. Yes, old woman, I guess that makes the world of difference.”
She smiles at my sarcasm. It’s reluctant, but it’s a smile.
“So what are you going to do?” I say before she can lecture me any more. “About the wedding, if you’re so dead set against it?”
She looks at me and then away, smiling over my shoulder. I hear the crack of a twig breaking and whirl around to see who my sister has invited to the party, heart simultaneously lifting and falling at the sight of Max and Lena.
Lena looks at me and laughs. “Jeez, Tess, the look on your face!”
“What are you doing here?”
Lena glances at Max. “Bella sent an SOS. So we fled.”
“Won’t you get in trouble?”
She smiles. “Probably. But I’m eighteen, Max is seventeen—they don’t keep us penned in anymore. Our friends will cover for us until we get back.”
It strikes me in that moment as horribly sad that, if anyone notices they’re missing, the only people who’ll care will be teachers. Their parents, off on the other side of the world, haven’t got a clue what they’re doing. It also makes me wonder how they can sneak out so easily today but not yesterday. Did Jack even invite them? I don’t think he was expecting me to tag along, either. I think he just wanted it to be him, Bella, and Sean. The thought makes me nervous and uneasy.
“We can help you stop the wedding. It’s simple,” Lena says, lighting a cigarette and passing the packet around to the rest of us. “We’ve done this before, right, Max?”
Max shakes his head. “Our parents are still together.”
“I don’t mean we’ve done this, exactly. I mean we’ve manipulated the situation to suit our ends. Oh, Mummy and Daddy,” she says in a fake little-girl voice. “We’re so sad and lonely without you. The only thing that’ll make us feel better is a new computer and a new phone and a holiday.”
Max looks uncomfortable. But it isn’t me he glances at with his cheeks stained red—it’s Bella. It’s Bella he wants to see him at his best.
But Bella is laughing with Lena and I’m jealous, wishing I could be as cool and carefree as Lena. All I seem to do these days is nag and moan, and it’s obvious that Bella’s fed up with me.
“You have to provoke Julia into looking bad,” Lena says. “Show her in a bad light in front of your dad. Get him to the point where he has to choose between you and her.”
I frown. Yes, the thought of them getting married is freaking me out, but I don’t want to split them up. It’s actually been nice having Julia in the house. Dad laughs a lot more and she cooks a brilliant chili and everything seems that much brighter. “That’s a bit mean, isn’t it? Julia’s always been really nice to you, having you to stay in the holidays.”
Lena rolls her eyes. “Well, that’s all stopped now, hasn’t it? We haven’t had any invites to stay at your place, have we?” She sounds bitter.
Ah, now I get her eagerness to mess things up between Dad and Julia. She wants things back how they were.
She turns to Bella. “Come on, Bella. What was it you were saying as we arrived? You’d do anything to stop it from happening?”
Max has wandered off and I follow him deeper into the woods.
“I’m sorry about my sister,” he says when he turns and sees me following him.
I shrug. “She’s just playing up to Bella. My sister will soon figure out there’s nothing we can do about this bloody wedding—not without hurting Dad. We don’t want a new stepmother, but we do want our dad to be happy. And I like Julia, so things could be a lot worse.”
“It wouldn’t be that bad, would it?” he says. “Forget what Lena said. If they get married, we might be here more as well.”
A warmth fills my belly at the thought. There’ll be an engagement party, a rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself. All with Max in the house with me. I step closer to him and my arm brushes against his. All the hairs on my arm rise.
He turns to look down at me and my heart starts galloping. Is this it? Am I imagining it or is he bending to kiss…? I reach up but he steps away and my kiss lands on the air instead of his lips.
He smiles, staring into the middle distance. “Ha,” he says. “Can you imagine Bella in some frilly bridesmaid’s dress?”
Yes. Yes, I can. She’ll look beautiful.
I can see he already knows. I’ve come to tell him myself so he doesn’t have to wait for his sons to tell him, but I can see by the way he’s slumped at the table that he knows. I back away. Should I leave him alone? I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. Then he moves and I see Bella’s jacket chucked over the back of one of the kitchen chairs and I realize how he knows so quickly. She gave me that look when I asked if anyone had told him about the wedding, like I was stupid for even asking. Then the moment my back was turned, she comes rushing over to tell him herself.
I back farther away and manage to walk into the table, sending it scraping along the paving slabs. Greg looks up at the noise and catches my eye. He smiles and gets up.
“Hey, Tess,” he says, appearing at the back door. “Were you knocking? Sorry—I didn’t hear.”
“It’s okay,” I mutter. “I just wanted to…” My voice trails off.
“I heard,” he says, and I nod. “You just missed your sister. She came to tell me.”
There’s an awkward silence.
“Are you…are you okay?”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” he says with a smile. “But what about you? How do you feel about it?”
“It’s a bit of a shock. They’ve only been together a few months. But I guess if they’re happy…”
“You don’t sound exactly thrilled for them.” He pauses and steps outside. “Come on—the roses need pruning.”
We garden in silence for a few minutes while all my stupid feelings stew inside me.
“Why do boys always go for the obvious?” The words burst out and Greg smiles, handing me a pair of clippers.
“Ah. Max?”
My answer is in the way I duck my head at the mention of his name.
“Because they’re boys,” he says. “It takes age and experience to look past the obvious. Aren’t girls the same? Would you have fallen for Max if he were short and ugly?”
His words make me feel young and stupid because he’s right. I fell for Max before I’d even had a conversation with him because he was gorgeous. And the reason he’s only my friend, the reason he hasn’t fallen right back, is because I am definitely not gorgeous. I am ordinary. But does it make me feel any better to know I’m as bad as him? Of course it doesn’t, it just makes it obvious my feelings for him will be forever unrequited and it bloody hurts.
“Tess,” Greg says, taking the clippers from me before I cut through the rose I’m supposed to be pruning. “You’re funny and creative and you’re going to grow up so lovely. You’re only fifteen—what’s the hurry?”
What’s the hurry? Bella has always been the person I’ve talked about everything to and that is another stab wound, knowing I can’t tell this to her because she wouldn’t understand, because she’s never been ordinary, because I’ve seen Max look at her the way I look at him. How long before she looks back and sees what I see? That’s the hurry. I don’t have bloody time to wait to grow up lovely.
God, sometimes I wish I were an only child.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ll walk you back. It’s getting late—you shouldn’t be walking alone.”
I shrug. “They’ve caught someone for the murders, haven’t they? We’re back to being a nice, safe village.”
He pauses, halfway through putting his jacket on. “Actually, they’ve released the guy they arrested.”
“What?”
“Rock-solid alibi, I heard.”
“But…”
But that means the murderer is still on the loose. I think of Bella roaming the woods on her own at night. I think of Jack and Sean taking her to murder sites and I shiver.
A few days later, I’m back at Dean House and for once I go to the front door rather than round the back of the garden, but there’s no answer when I knock. I realize I haven’t been inside the house since that long-ago New Year’s party. Greg sometimes brings out drinks and biscuits when we garden, but he always goes in by himself. I go around the side to knock on the back door instead and freeze with my hand poised to knock. I can see him in the kitchen and he has someone with him. Her back is to me, but I’d recognize her blond hair anywhere. She’s clutching the jacket she left behind the last time she was there. He reaches over and touches her bowed head and jealousy races through my body, hot and painful. It’s like the Max situation all over again. He’s never once invited me into the house, but Bella is in there again.
All her false warnings to stay away—is it because she has something going on with him herself? Did she leave the jacket there deliberately to have an excuse to come back? Exactly how grateful is she for that camera he gave her? The hot jealousy has solidified into sharp needles that stab and stab. I clutch the clippers I brought back with me tight in my hand, wanting to stab something myself. She already has Max mooning around after her, plus all the boys at school. Is this where she’s been every night when she told me she was up at the amusement park with her friends? Here, alone in Dean House with Greg?
I hate her sometimes. I do, I do.
March 2008
“He likes you, you know,” Bella says, leaning down to pick up a stone, smiling back at me over her shoulder. We’re cutting through the woods on the way to Dean House. Well, I am, gardening tools in a messenger bag, scruffiest jeans on. Bella’s dressed up to go out. But she insisted on walking me over there first. Because apparently it’s not safe for me to be out in the woods alone, but it’s fine for her.
“Who?” I say, my heart beating faster. Max, I’m thinking. Tell me it’s Max.
“Sean.”
“Sean? Really? Urgh—no. Are you winding me up?”
Bella laughs. “I see him watching you. And why are you looking so horrified? He is gorgeous—you should be thrilled.”
“But he’s so scowly and brooding. He scares me a bit, to be honest. I can’t imagine ever…you know.” I blush, glad it’s dark in the woods so she can’t see.
She smiles. “Brooding and scowly is sexy—like Heathcliff.”
