Forbidden

CHAPTER TWENTY

Maya

‘Fifteen minutes,’ Francie begs. ‘Oh, come on, then – ten. Lochan knows you had a late class so surely an extra ten minutes isn’t going to make much difference!’

I look at my friend’s pleading, hopeful face and a moment of temptation flickers through me. An ice-cold Coke and maybe a muffin at Smileys with Francie while she tries to get herself noticed by the new young waiter she has discovered there – postponing the hectic evening routine of homework, dinner, baths and bed – suddenly feels like an absurd luxury . . .

‘Just give Lochan a call now,’ Francie persists as we cross the playground, bags slung over our shoulders, heads foggy and bodies restless after the long, stale school day. ‘Why on earth would he mind?’

He wouldn’t, that’s the whole point. In fact he would urge me to go, and that knowledge weighs me down with guilt. Leaving him to make dinner and supervise homework and deal with Kit when his school day has been nearly as long as mine and undoubtedly more painful. But more to the point, I ache to see him even if it entails spending another evening struggling against the painful urge to hold him, touch him, kiss him. I miss him after a whole day apart – I literally miss him. And even if it means diving straight from a deathly history lesson into the manic home fray, I can’t wait to do it just to see his eyes light up at the sight of me, the smile of delight that greets me whenever I step through the front door – even when he is juggling saucepans in the kitchen, trying to persuade Tiffin to lay the table and stop Willa stuffing herself with cereal.

‘I just can’t. I’m sorry,’ I tell Francie. ‘There’s just so much stuff to do.’

But for once she displays no sympathy. Instead she sucks on her lower lip, leaning her shoulder against the outer wall of the school playground, the place at which we normally part. ‘I thought I was your best friend,’ she says suddenly, hurt and disappointment resonating in her voice.

I flinch in surprise. ‘You are – you know you are – it’s got nothing to do with—’

‘I know what’s going on, Maya,’ she interrupts, her words slicing the air between us.

My pulse begins to quicken. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘You’ve met someone, haven’t you.’ She phrases it as a statement, folding her arms across her chest and turning to press her back against the wall, looking away from me, her jaw set.

I am momentarily lost for words. ‘No!’ The word is no more than an astonished little gasp. ‘I haven’t. I promise. Why did you . . . ? What made you think . . . ?’

‘I don’t believe you.’ She shakes her head, still staring angrily into the distance. ‘I know you, Maya, and you’ve changed. When you talk, you always seem to be thinking about something else. It’s like you’re daydreaming or something. And you seem weirdly happy these days. And you’re always rushing off at the last bell. I know you’ve got all that shit to deal with at home but it’s as if you’re looking forward to it now, as if you can’t wait to get away—’

‘Francie, I really haven’t got some secret boyfriend!’ I protest desperately. ‘You know you’d be the first to know if I had!’ The words sound so sincere as they leave my lips that I feel slightly ashamed. But he’s not just a boyfriend, I tell myself. He’s so much more.

Francie scrutinizes my face as she continues to quiz me, but after a few moments she begins to calm down, appearing to believe me. I have to make up some crush on a boy in the Upper Sixth to explain the daydreaming, but fortunately I have the presence of mind to choose one who already has a steady girlfriend so Francie won’t try to matchmake. But the conversation leaves me shaken. I’m going to have to be more careful, I realize. I’m even going to have to watch the way I behave when I’m away from him. Just the tiniest slip could give us away . . .

I arrive home to find Kit and Tiffin in the front room watching TV, which surprises me. Not so much the fact that they are watching television, but that they are doing it simultaneously and that Tiffin is the one with the remote control. Kit is slouched down at one end of the couch, his muddy school shoes half untied, head propped up on his hand, gazing dully at the screen. Tiffin has traces of ketchup down his shirt and is kneeling up at the other end of the couch, transfixed by some violent cartoon, his eyes wide, mouth hovering open like a fish. Neither one turns as I enter.

‘Hello!’ I exclaim.

Tiffin holds up a packet of Coco Pops and shakes it vaguely in my direction, his gaze still fixed straight ahead. ‘We’re allowed,’ he announces.

‘Before dinner?’ I query suspiciously, tossing my blazer onto the sofa and collapsing on top of it. ‘Tiffin, I don’t think that’s a very good—’

‘This is dinner,’ he informs me, taking another large handful from the box and cramming it in his mouth, scattering the area around him. ‘Lochie said we could eat whatever we liked.’

‘What?’

‘They’ve gone to the hospital.’ Kit rolls his head round to look at me with a long-suffering air. ‘And I have to stay down here with Tiffin and live off cereal for the foreseeable future.’

I sit up slowly. ‘Lochie and Willa have gone to hospital?’ I ask, disbelief resonating in my voice.

‘Yeah,’ comes Kit’s reply.

‘What the hell happened?’ My voice rises and I jump up and start rummaging in my bag for my keys. Startled by my shout, both boys finally tear their eyes away from the screen.

‘I bet it’s nothing,’ Kit says bitterly. ‘I bet they’re going to spend all night waiting in Casualty, Willa will fall asleep and by the time she wakes up, she’ll be saying it doesn’t even hurt any more.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Tiffin turns to him, his blue eyes wide and accusing. ‘Maybe she’ll have to get an operation. Maybe they’ll amputate her—’

‘What happened?’ I yell, frantic now.

‘I dunno! She hurt her arm, I wasn’t even down here!’ Kit says defensively.

‘I was,’ Tiffin announces importantly, shoving his whole arm into the cereal box. ‘She slipped off the counter and fell onto the floor and started screaming. When Lochie picked her up she screamed even more so he carried her out into the street to get a taxi and she was still screaming—’

‘Where have they gone?’ I grab Kit by the arm and shake him. ‘St Joseph’s?’

‘Ow, get off! Yes, that’s what he said.’

‘Neither of you move!’ I shout from the doorway. ‘Tiffin, you’re not to go outside, do you hear me? Kit, can you promise you’ll stay with Tiffin until I get back? And answer the phone as soon as it rings?’

Kit rolls his eyes dramatically. ‘Lochan’s already been through all this—’

‘Do you promise?’

‘Yes!’

‘And don’t open the door to anyone, and if there’s any problem call my mobile!’

‘OK, OK!’

I run the whole way. It’s a good two miles but the rush-hour traffic is such that taking a bus would be slower if not more torturous. Running helps activate the safety valve in my brain, forcing out visions of an injured, screaming Willa. If anything terrible has happened to that child, I will die, I know it. My love for her is like a violent pain in my chest and the blood throbs in my head, a pounding hammer of guilt, once again forcing me to acknowledge that since my relationship with Lochan began – despite my recent efforts – I have still not been paying my little sister as much attention as before. I’ve rushed her through baths and bedtimes and stories, I’ve snapped at her at times when Tiffin was the culprit, I’ve declined request after request to play with her, citing housework or homework as an excuse, too wrapped up in keeping everything in order to give her a mere ten minutes of my time. Kit commands attention constantly with his volatility, Tiffin with his hyperactivity, leaving Willa by the wayside, drowned out by her brothers during dinner-table conversations. As her only sister, I used to play dolls and tea-parties with her, dress her up, play with her hair. But these days I have been so preoccupied with other things I even failed to register that she’d fallen out with her best friend, failed to recognize that she needed me: to listen to her stories, ask her about her day, and praise her for her almost impeccable behaviour which, by its very nature, did not draw attention. The gash on her leg for example: not only was Willa stuck at school in pain all afternoon with no one to fetch her and comfort her, but – worse and more telling still – she didn’t even think of saying anything to me about the incident until I happened to notice the huge plaster beneath the hole in her tights.

I am close to tears by the time I reach the hospital, and once inside, trying to get directions almost sends me over the edge. Eventually I locate Children’s Outpatients, am told that Willa is fine but ‘resting’ and that I will be able to see her as soon as she wakes. I am shown to a small room off a long corridor and informed that Willa’s ward is just round the corner and that a doctor will come and speak to me shortly. As soon as the nurse disappears, I burst back out again.

Rounding a corner, I recognize, down at the far end of another blindingly white corridor, a familiar figure in front of the brightly painted doors of the children’s ward. Head lowered, he is leaning forward on his hands, gripping the edge of a windowsill.

‘Lochie!’

He whirls round as if struck, straightens up slowly, then approaches me rapidly, raising his hands as if in surrender.

‘She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s absolutely fine – they gave her a sedative and gas and air for the pain and were able to push the bone straight back in. I’ve just seen her and she’s fast asleep but she looks completely fine. After they X-rayed her the second time, the doctors said they were certain there’d be no long-term damage – she won’t even need a plaster cast and her shoulder will be back to normal in a week or possibly even less! They said dislocated shoulders happen to children all the time, that it’s really quite common, they see it all the time, it’s nothing to worry about!’ He is speaking insanely fast, his eyes radiating a kind of frenzied optimism, looking at me with a frantic, almost pleading look as if expecting me to start jumping up and down in relief.

I stop dead, panting hard, brushing the stray wisps of hair back from my face, and stare at him.

‘She dislocated her shoulder?’ I gasp.

He flinches, as if stung by the words. ‘Yeah, but that’s all! Nothing else! They’ve X-rayed her and everything and—’

‘What happened?’

‘She just fell off the kitchen counter!’ He tries to touch me but I move out of the way. ‘Look, she’s fine, Maya, I’m telling you! There’s nothing broken: the bone just popped out of the shoulder socket. I know it sounds dramatic, but all they had to do was push it back in. They gave her gas and air so it wasn’t too – too painful, and – and now she’s just resting.’

His manic demeanour and rapid-fire speech is faintly horrifying. His hair is on end, as if he has been running his fingers through it and tugging it repeatedly, his face white, his school shirt hanging loose over his trousers, clinging to his skin in damp patches.

‘I want to see her—’

‘No!’ He catches me as I try to push past. ‘They want her to sleep off the sedative – they won’t let you in until she wakes up—’

‘I don’t give a shit! She’s my sister and she’s hurt and so I’m going in to see her and no one can stop me!’ I begin to shout.

But Lochan is forcibly restraining me and, to my astonishment, I suddenly find myself grappling with him in this long, bright, empty hospital corridor. For a moment I am almost tempted to kick him, but then I hear him gasp, ‘Don’t make a scene, you mustn’t make a scene. It’ll just make it worse.’

I fall back, breathing hard. ‘Make what worse? What are you talking about?’

He approaches me, his hands reaching for my shoulders, but I back away, refusing to be pacified by any more meaningless words of comfort. Lochan lets his arms fall with a hopeless, desperate look. ‘They want to see Mum. I told them that she was abroad on business, but they insisted on a number. So I gave them her mobile but it just went straight to voicemail—’

I pull my phone out. ‘I’ll call her at Dave’s. And I’ll try the pub and Dave’s mobile too—’

‘No.’ Lochan holds his hand up in a gesture of defeat. ‘She’s – she’s not there . . .’

I stare at him.

Lowering his arm, he swallows and walks slowly back towards the window. I notice that he’s limping. ‘She’s – she’s gone away with him. Just for a holiday, apparently. Somewhere in Devon, but Dave’s son doesn’t seem to know where. He just said he thought – he thought they’d be back on Sunday.’

I gape at him, horror coursing through my veins. ‘She’s gone for the whole week?’

‘Apparently. Luke didn’t seem to know – or care. And her phone’s been off for days. Either she forgot her charger or she’s switched it off deliberately.’ Lochan goes back to lean against the windowsill, as if the weight of his body is too great for his legs to bear. ‘I’ve been trying to call her about the bills. Yesterday after school I went round, and that’s when Luke told me. He’s staying in his dad’s flat with his girlfriend. I didn’t want to worry you—’

‘You had no right not to tell me!’

‘I know, I’m sorry, but I figured there was nothing we could do . . .’

‘So what now?’ I am no longer speaking in measured tones. A head pops out from a door further down and I try to reel myself in. ‘She has to stay in hospital until Mum comes to fetch her?’ I hiss.

‘No, no . . .’ He puts out a reassuring hand and again I dodge it. I’m furious at him for trying to shush me, for keeping this from me, for treating me like one of the children and just repeating that everything is going to be all right.

Before I have the chance to quiz him any more, a short, balding doctor comes out through the double doors, introduces himself to me as Dr Maguire and shows us back into the small room. We each take a seat on a spongy, low-slung chair and, holding up large X-rays, the doctor shows us the before and after pictures, explains the procedure that took place and what to expect next. He is cheerful and reassuring, echoes most of what Lochan has told me already and assures me that although Willa’s shoulder will be sore for a few days and she will have to wear a sling, it should be back to normal in a week. He also informs us that she is now awake and eating dinner and that we can take her home as soon as she is ready.

We can take her home. I feel myself go limp. We all stand up and Lochan thanks Dr Maguire, who smiles broadly, reiterates that we can take Willa home as soon as she’s ready, and then asks if it would be all right to send Mrs Leigh in now. Lochan puts his hand against the wall as if to steady himself and nods rapidly, chewing on his thumbnail as the doctor leaves.

‘Mrs Leigh?’ I turn to Lochan with a questioning frown.

He swings round and looks at me, breathing hard. ‘Don’t say anything. OK? Just don’t say anything.’ His voice is low and urgent. ‘Let me do the talking – we can’t risk contradicting each other. If she asks you anything, just go along with the usual business-trip story and tell her the truth – you had a late class and didn’t come home till after it had happened.’

I gaze at Lochan across the small room in bewilderment. ‘I thought you said they were fine about Mum.’

‘They are. It’s – it’s just procedure . . . for this type of injury, they say. Apparently they have to file some kind of report—’ Before he can get any further, a knock sounds and a large woman with a head of frizzy ginger hair enters.

‘Hello there. The doctor told you I’d be coming in to have a word? I’m Alison – from the Child Protection Agency.’ She extends her hand towards Lochan.

A small sound escapes me. I turn it into a cough.

‘Lochan Whitely. N-nice to meet you.’

He knew!

I’m aware I’m being addressed. I take her podgy hand in mine. For a moment I literally cannot speak. My mind has gone blank and I’ve forgotten my own name. Then I force a smile, introduce myself and take a seat in the small triangle.

Alison is rummaging about in a large bag, pulling out a folder and pen and various forms, chatting as she does so. She asks Lochan to confirm the situation with Mum, which he does in a surprisingly steady voice. She appears satisfied, scribbles a few things down, and then looks up from her notes with a broad, artificial smile.

‘Well, I’ve already had a word with Willa about what happened. She’s a delightful little girl, isn’t she? She explained she was in the kitchen with you, Lochan, when she fell. And that, Maya, you were still at school, but your two brothers were at home.’

I look across at Lochan, willing him to make eye-contact with me. But he seems to have deliberately turned away. ‘Yes.’

Another of those fake smiles. ‘OK, so in your own time, explain to me how the accident occurred.’

I don’t understand. This isn’t even about Mum. And surely Lochan gave the details of the fall to the doctor in charge when he brought Willa in.

‘R-right. OK.’ Lochan leans forwards, elbows on knees, as if desperate to tell this woman every detail. ‘I – I came into the kitchen and Willa was up on the counter where she’s not allowed to be because it’s – it’s really quite high, and – and she was on tiptoe trying to reach a box of b-biscuits on the top shelf—’ He is speaking in that manic, staccato way again, almost tripping over his words in his hurry to get them out. I can see the muscles in his arms vibrating, and he is scraping at the sore beneath his mouth so hard that it’s starting to bleed.

Alison just nods, scribbles some more, looks up again expectantly.

‘I t-told her to get down. She refused, saying her brothers had each eaten some and had then d-deliberately put the biscuits up there out of her reach.’ He is panting, staring at the form as if trying to read what’s being recorded.

‘Go on . . .’

‘So I – I repeated what I’d just said—’

‘What exactly did you say?’ The woman’s voice is sharper now.

‘J-just – well, basically just: Willa, get down now.’

‘Was that spoken or shouted?’

He seems to be having trouble breathing, the air making a scraping noise at the back of his throat. ‘Um – well – well – the first time I was speaking quite loudly b-because I was worried to see her up there again, and – and the second time, after she refused, I – I suppose, y-yes, I sort of shouted.’ He glances up at her, chewing the corner of his lip, the rise and fall of his chest rapid.

I can’t believe this woman! Making Lochan feel guilty about shouting at his sister when she was doing something dangerous?

‘And then?’ The woman’s eyes are very sharp. She seems particularly attentive now.

‘Willa – she, well, she i-ignored me.’

‘And so what did you do?’

There is a terrible silence. What did you do? I repeat to myself, desperate to butt in but trapped by my promise to let Lochan do the talking, on top of the fact that I wasn’t actually there. Does this Child Protection person ask the parent of every injured child brought into hospital what it was the parent had done? Guilty until proven innocent? This is ridiculous! Children fall and hurt themselves all the time!

But Lochan isn’t answering. I feel my heart start to pound. Don’t start getting stage-fright now, I beg with him in my head. Don’t make it look as if you have something to hide!

Lochan is frowning and sighing and chewing his lip as if trying to remember, and with a shock I realize he is close to tears.

I press myself back into the chair and bite down hard to stop myself from intervening.

‘I p-pulled her down.’ His chin quivers briefly. He doesn’t look up.

‘Could you explain exactly how you did that?’

‘I went – I went over and g-grabbed her by the arm and then – and then I pulled her off the counter.’ His voice cracks and he raises his fist to his face, pressing his knuckles hard against his mouth.

Lochan, what the hell are you talking about? You would never deliberately hurt Willa – you know that as well as I do.

‘You grabbed her arm and pulled her to the floor?’ The woman arches her eyebrows.

Silence stretches out across the room. I can hear my own heartbeat. Finally Lochan lowers his fist from his mouth and takes a ragged breath. ‘I pulled her arm and – and—’ He looks up at the corner of the ceiling, tears amalgamating in his eyes like translucent marbles. ‘I know I shouldn’t have – I wasn’t thinking—’

‘Just tell me what happened.’

‘I p-pulled her arm and she slipped. She – she was wearing tights and her feet just slid off the counter’s surface. I – I kept hold of her arm as she fell to try and stop her from hurting herself and that’s when I felt this – this snap!’ He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, as if in terrible pain.

‘So you were holding onto her arm when she hit the floor and the weight of her body pulled the bone out of the socket?’

‘It was counter-intuitive to let go of her as she fell. I – I thought I’d c-caught her, not – not wrenched her arm out of its socket. Jesus!’ A tear glances off his cheek. He swipes at it rapidly. ‘I didn’t think—’

‘Lochie!’

His eyes meet mine this time. ‘It – it was an accident, Maya.’

‘I know!’ I exclaim in soft outrage.

The damn woman is scribbling again. ‘Are you often left in charge of your siblings, Lochan?’ she asks.

I recoil back into the chair. Lochan presses his fingers against his eyes and takes some steady breaths, trying to pull himself together. He shakes his head vehemently. ‘Only when our mother has to go away on business.’

‘And how often does that happen?’

‘It – it depends . . . Every couple of months or so . . .’

‘And when she’s away, I presume you have to fetch them from school, cook for them, help them with homework, entertain them, put them to bed—’

‘We do it together,’ I say quickly.

The woman turns towards us both now. ‘That must be exhausting after a long school day—’

‘They’re good at entertaining themselves.’

‘But when they misbehave, you must have to discipline them.’

‘Not really,’ I say firmly. ‘They’re pretty well-behaved.’

‘Have you ever hurt one of your siblings before?’ the woman asks, turning towards Lochan.

He takes a breath. The fight with Kit flashes through my mind. ‘No!’ I exclaim in outrage. ‘Never!’

In the cab on the way home we are all three silent, spent, exhausted. Willa is curled up on Lochan’s lap, her arm strapped up across her chest, the thumb of her other hand in her mouth. Her head rests against Lochan’s neck, spots of light from passing cars float over her golden hair. Lochan holds her tightly against him, staring blankly out of the window, face pale and stunned, his eyes glazed, refusing to meet mine.

We arrive home to a tornado-hit kitchen, the front room’s carpet embedded with crisp, biscuit and cereal crumbs. To our amazement, however, Tiffin is actually in bed and Kit is still in the house, up in the attic, music pounding down through the ceiling. While Lochan gives a groggy Willa a drink and some Calpol and puts her to bed, I climb up the ladder to let Kit know we’re back.

‘So has she broken her arm, or what?’ Despite the nonchalant tone of his voice, I recognize a spark of worry in his eyes as he glances up at me from his Gameboy. I push his legs to one side to make room on his mattress and sit down beside his sprawled-out figure.

‘She hasn’t actually broken anything.’ I explain about the dislocated shoulder.

‘Yeah. Tiff said Loch lost his temper and pulled Willa off the kitchen counter.’ His face darkens suddenly.

I pull my knees to my chest and take a deep breath. ‘Kit, you know it was an accident. You know Lochan would never hurt Willa intentionally, don’t you?’ My voice is questioning, serious. I know the answer, I know he does too, but I need him to be honest with me for a moment and actually admit it.

Kit takes a breath, ready for a sarcastic retort, but then seems to hesitate as his gaze locks into mine. ‘Yeah,’ he confesses after a moment, a hint of defeat in his voice.

‘I know you’re angry,’ I say quietly, ‘about how things turned out with Mum and Dad, about Lochan and me always being the ones in charge – and Kit, you have every right to be . . . but you know what the alternative is.’

His eyes have slid away, back to his Gameboy, uncomfortable about the sudden change in conversation.

‘If Social Services found out that Mum was no longer living at home, that we were on our own—’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ he interrupts gruffly, pounding the buttons of his games console viciously with his thumbs. ‘We’d be taken into care and split up and all that shit.’ His voice sounds fed up and angry, but I can sense the fear behind it.

‘It’s not going to happen, Kit,’ I reassure him quickly. ‘Lochan and I will make sure of that, I promise. But it does mean we have to be careful, really careful, about what we say to other people. Even if it’s just some mate at school. All it would take would be for him to mention it to his parents, or to another friend . . . all it would take is one call to Social Services—’

‘Maya, I get it.’ His thumbs stop moving against the buttons and he looks up at me sombrely, suddenly appearing much older than his thirteen years. ‘I won’t tell anybody about Willa’s arm – or anything else that could get us into trouble, OK? I promise.’