The Secret Place

Chapter 8

An evening in early November, the air just starting to flare with little savoury bursts of cold and turf-smoke. The four of them are in their cypress glade, snug in the lovely pocket of free time between classes and dinner. Chris Harper (over the wall and far away, not even a whisper of a thought in any of their minds) has six months, a week and four days left to live.

They are scattered on the grass, lying on their backs, feet dangling from crossed knees. They have hoodies and scarves and Uggs, but they’re holding out a last few days against winter coats. It’s day and night at once: one side of the sky is glowing with pink and orange, the other side is a frail full moon hanging in darkening blue. Wind moves through the cypress branches, a slow soothing hush. Last period was PE, volleyball; their muscles are slack and comfortably tired. They’re talking about homework.

Selena asks, ‘Did you guys do your love sonnets yet?’

Julia groans. She’s drawn a dotted line across her wrist in Biro and is writing under it in case of emergency cut here.

‘“And if you don’t feel that you have, em, adequate experience of, em, romantic love,”’ Holly says, in Mr Smythe’s reedy simper, ‘“then perhaps a child’s love for her mother, or, em, love for God would be, em, would be-”’

Julia mimes sticking two fingers down her throat. ‘I’m going to dedicate mine to vodka.’

‘You’ll get sent to Sister Ignatius to get counselled,’ says Becca, not entirely sure whether Julia is serious.

‘Whee.’

‘I’m stuck on mine,’ Selena says.

‘Lists,’ says Holly. She pulls one foot to her face to examine a scuff-mark on her boot. ‘“The wind, the sea, the stars, the moon, the rain; The day, the night, the bread, the milk, the train.” Instant iambic pentameter.’

‘Instant iambic craptameter,’ Julia says. ‘Thanks for the most boring sonnet in history, here’s your F.’

Holly and Selena glance at each other sideways. Julia has been a bitch for weeks now; to everybody equally, so it can’t be something one of them did.

‘I don’t want to tell Smythe about anyone I love,’ Selena says, sliding past that. ‘Ew.’

‘Do it about a place or something,’ Holly says. She licks her finger and rubs it on the scuff-mark, which fades. ‘I did my gran’s flat. And I didn’t even say it was my gran’s, just a flat.’

‘I just made mine up,’ says Becca. ‘I did it about a girl who has this horse that comes under her window at night and she climbs out and rides him.’ She has her eyes unfocused so that the moon has turned into two, translucent and overlapping.

‘What’s that got to do with love?’ Holly says.

‘She loves the horse.’

‘Kinky,’ says Julia. Her phone beeps. She pulls it out of her pocket and holds it above her face, squinting against the sunset.

If it had been an hour earlier, when they were throwing off their uniforms in their room and singing Amy Winehouse, deciding whether to go across the road and watch the guys’ rugby match. If it were an hour later, when they would be in the canteen, sprawled forward over the table, catching last crumbs of dry cake with licked fingertips. None of them would ever have imagined what they had brushed up against; what other selves, other lives, other deaths were careening ferocious and unstoppable along their tracks, only a sliver of time away. The grounds are pocketed with clusters of girls, all blazing and amazed with inchoate love for one another and for their own growing closeness; none of the others will feel the might of that swerve as the tracks switch and their own power takes them barrelling into another landscape. When Holly thinks about it a long time afterwards, when things are starting to stay fixed and come into focus at last, she will think that probably there are ways you could say Marcus Wiley killed Chris Harper.

‘Maybe I’ll just do it about pretty flowers,’ Selena says. She stretches a lock of hair across her face – the last of the sun turns it to a web of gold light – and examines the trees through it. ‘Or ickle kittens. You think he’d care?’

‘I bet someone does theirs about One Direction,’ Holly says.

‘Aah,’ Julia says, sudden and too loud, disgusted and angry.

The others come up on their elbows. ‘What?’ Becca asks.

Julia shoves her phone back in her pocket, clasps her hands behind her head again and stares up at the sky. Nostrils flaring as she breathes, too fast. She’s red right down to the neck of her jumper. Julia never goes red.

The rest look at each other. Holly catches Selena’s eye and tilts her chin at Julia: Did you see what…? Selena shakes her head, just a millimetre.

‘What?’ Holly says.

‘Marcus Wiley is a douchewipe, is what. Any more questions?’

‘Duh, we knew that,’ Holly says. Julia ignores her.

Becca asks, ‘What’s a douchewipe?’

‘You don’t want to know,’ Holly tells her.

‘Jules,’ Selena says gently. She turns over onto her stomach to be side by side with Julia. Her hair is bright and messed, with bits of grass and cypress fans tangled here and there, and the back of her hoodie is ribbed with creases from lying on it. ‘What’d he say?’

Julia’s head moves away from Selena, but she says, ‘He didn’t say anything. He sent me a dick pic. Because he’s a fucking douchewipe. OK? Now can we talk about the sonnets some more?’

‘Oh my God,’ Holly says. Serena’s eyes are massive. ‘Seriously?’

‘No, I made it up. Yeah, seriously.’

The sunset light feels different, a slow grind like fingernails across every bit of bare skin.

‘But,’ Becca says, bewildered, ‘you don’t even really know him.’

Julia whips up her head and stares, teeth bared about to bite, but then Holly starts to laugh. After a second Selena joins in and at last even Julia, head falling back on the grass. ‘What?’ Becca wants to know, but they’re gone, their whole bodies are shaking with it and Selena is curled up to hold herself: ‘The way you said it!’ And ‘The face on you,’ Holly gasps, ‘“You’ve barely been properly introduced, dahling, why to goodness would he share his little friend with you?”’ and the fake English accent has Becca blushing and giggling too. Julia hoots up at the sky, ‘I don’t believe we’ve even taken tea and… and… and cucumber sandwiches together…’ and Holly manages, ‘Dicks should never be served until after the cucumber sandwiches…’

‘Oh, God,’ Julia says, wiping her eyes, when it dies down. ‘Oh, Becsie baby, what would we do without you?’

‘It wasn’t that funny,’ Becca says, still red and grinning and not sure whether to be embarrassed.

‘Probably not,’ Julia says. ‘But that’s not the point.’ She props herself up on her elbow again and fishes in her pocket for her phone.

‘Let’s see,’ Holly says, sitting up and scooting over to Julia.

‘I’m deleting it.’

‘So let’s see first.’

‘You’re a pervert.’

‘Me too,’ Selena says cheerfully. ‘If you’re scarred for life, we want to be too.’

‘God, don’t be so gay,’ Julia says. ‘It’s a dick pic, not some kind of bonding experience.’ But she hits buttons, finding the picture.

‘Becs,’ Holly says. ‘Coming?’

‘Ew. No.’ Becca twists her head away, so she doesn’t see by accident.

‘Here you go,’ Julia says, and hits Open.

Holly and Selena lean in against her shoulders. Julia pretends to look, but her eyes slide past the phone, into the shadows. Selena feels her spine clamp up, and leans harder.

They don’t giggle or scream, the way they did when they went looking online. Those were primped and plastic as Barbie, no way could you imagine a real guy attached. This is different: smaller; shoving itself up at them like a thick middle finger, like a threat, out of a mess of dark sticky hair. They can smell it.

‘If that was the best I could come up with,’ Holly says coolly, after a moment, ‘I wouldn’t exactly advertise it.’

Julia doesn’t look up.

‘You should text him back,’ Selena says. ‘“Sorry, can’t tell what pic is, way too small.”’

‘And get a close-up. Yeah, no thanks.’ But the corner of Julia’s mouth twitches up.

‘You can come on over, Becs,’ says Holly. ‘Totally safe, unless you’ve got a microscope.’ Becca smiles and ducks her head and shakes it, all at the same time. The grass squirms under her legs, prickling.

‘Well,’ Julia says. ‘If you perverts have seen enough mini-dick for one day…’ She hits Delete with a flourish and gives her phone a finger-wave. ‘Bye-bye.’

Tiny beep, and it’s gone. Julia puts the phone away and lies down again. After a bit Holly and Selena drift back to their places, looking around for the thing to say, finding nothing. The moon is strengthening, as the sky turns darker.

In a while Holly says, ‘Hey, you know where Cliona is? She’s in the library, looking for a sonnet to copy that Smythe won’t know.’

‘She’s gonna get caught,’ Becca says.

‘That’s so typical,’ Selena says. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to just write the sonnet?’

‘Well, totally,’ Holly says. ‘This always happens. She ends up working harder to get out of doing the thing than she would just doing the thing.’

They leave space for Julia to say something. When she doesn’t, the space gets bigger. The conversation falls into it and vanishes.

The photo isn’t gone. The faint rank smell of it is still stained onto the air. Becca breathes shallowly, through her mouth, but it greases her tongue.

Julia says, up into the smeared watercolour sky, ‘How come guys think I’m a slut?’

The red is blotching her skin again. Selena says gently, ‘You’re not a slut.’

‘Duh, I know I’m not. So why do they act like I am?’

‘They want you to be,’ says Holly.

‘They want all of us to be. But I don’t see anyone sending any of you guys dick pics.’

Becca moves. She says, ‘It’s only the last while.’

‘Since I snogged James Gillen.’

‘Not that. Loads of people snog someone and the boys don’t care. It’s since before that. Since you started having a laugh with Finn and Chris and all them. Because you make jokes, because you say things…’

She trails off. Julia says, ‘You are shitting me.’

But Holly and Selena are nodding, as it sinks in and clicks into place. ‘That,’ Selena says. ‘You say stuff like that.’

‘So you figure they want me to be some prissy hypocrite bitch like Heffernan, who let Bryan Hynes finger her at the Halloween dance because he had booze, but she acts totally OMG-so-outraged if you make a dirty joke. And then they’ll respect me.’

Holly says, ‘Just about, yeah.’

‘Fuck that. Fuck them. I’m not doing it. I’m not being it.’ Her voice is raw and older.

Thin clouds are running across the moon so it feels like the moon is moving, or like all the world is tilting under them.

Selena says, ‘Then don’t.’

‘And just keep taking this kind of crap. Sounds great. Anyone got any more genius ideas?’

‘Maybe that’s not why,’ Becca says, wishing she had kept her stupid mouth shut. ‘Maybe I’m totally wrong. Maybe he was trying to text someone else with a J, Joanne or someone, and he hit the wrong–’

Julia says, ‘When I snogged James Gillen.’

The dark condenses, under the cypresses, at her voice.

‘He tried to put his hand up my top, right? Which I was expecting – I swear, I don’t know why guys all have such a fixation with tits, did their mommies not breastfeed them enough or something?’

She isn’t looking at the others. The clouds move faster, setting the moon speeding across the sky.

‘So since I’m not actually interested in James Gillen feeling me up and let’s be honest I’m only even snogging him because he’s cute and I want the practice, I go, “Whoa, I think this is yours,” and give him his nasty clammy hand back, right? And James, being a total gentleman, James decides the appropriate thing to do is to shove me back against the fence – like an actual shove, not just a little nudge or whatever – and stick his hand right back where it was. And he says something incredibly predictable along the lines of, “You love it, don’t act so pure, everyone knows about you,” blah blah whatever. Prince Charming or what?’

The air feels chilly and searing all at once, feverish.

They’ve had it spelled out a dozen times, in cringey classes, in cringey parent talks: when to tell an adult. The idea never comes near any of their minds. This thing opening in front of them is nothing to do with those careful speeches. This mix of roaring rage and a shame that stains every cell, this crawling understanding that now their bodies belong to other people’s eyes and hands, not to them: this is something new.

‘The little shit,’ Holly says, through her heartbeat and her breath running wild. ‘The little prick. I hope he dies of cancer.’

Selena stretches out a leg so that her foot touches Julia’s. This time Julia jerks her foot away.

Becca says, ‘What did you do? Did you, did he…?’

‘I kneed him in the balls. Which actually works, just in case you ever need to know. And then when we came back here I showered the living shit out of myself.’ They remember. They never thought to connect it up with James Gillen (Julia offhand, flipping a shoulder, Shouldn’t have bothered, like snogging a Labrador). Now, in the seething space of their new knowledge, it feels slap-in-the-face obvious.

‘And I don’t know about you, but being the genius I am, I figure James Gillen didn’t feel like telling the rest of Colm’s that all he got out of his afternoon was a bruised ballsack, so he told them I was a slut who couldn’t get enough. And that’s why Marcus fucking Wiley feels I’d just love a photo of his dick. And it’s just going to keep on coming, isn’t it?’

Selena says, but there’s a thread of uncertainty flawing her voice, ‘They’ll forget about it. In a few weeks–’

‘No. They won’t.’

Silence, and the watchful moon. Holly thinks about finding out some disgusting secret about James Gillen and spreading it till everyone laughs whenever he walks past and finally he kills himself. Becca tries to think of things to bring Julia, chocolate, funny poems. Selena pictures some yellowed book with curled writing, a low rhyming chant, knotted grass and the smell of burning hair; a shimmer closing around the four of them, turning them impermeable. Julia concentrates on finding animals in the clouds and digs her fingernails through the layers of grass into the ground, till clumps of dirt stab up into the quick.

They have no weapons for this. The air is bruised and swollen, throbbing in black and white, ready to split open.

Julia says, hard and final as a slamming door, ‘I’m not touching any guy from Colm’s again. Ever.’

‘That’s like saying you’re never going near any guy ever,’ Holly says. ‘Colm’s guys are all we meet.’

‘So I won’t go near any guy ever, till college. I don’t care. Better than having another of those stupid pricks telling the whole school exactly what my tits feel like.’ Becca goes red.

Selena hears it like a single ding of silver on crystal, shivering the air. She sits up. She says, ‘Then me neither.’

Julia shoots her a ferocious stare. ‘I’m not just being all, “Oh, my ickle feelings are hurt so I’m giving up men forever.” I mean it.’

Selena says, unruffled and sure, ‘Me too.’

In daylight it would be different. In daylight, in indoor light, this would never come to them. Powerless and stifled, the rage would turn ingrown. The stain on their skin would burn deeper, branding them.

The clouds are gone but the moonlight is speeding faster, turning around them. Becca says, ‘Same here.’

Julia’s eyebrow flicks, half wryly. Becca can’t find how to tell her that it’s not nothing and that she wants it to be more, she would bring the biggest thing in the world to put in the middle of their circle and set it on fire if she could, so that she’d deserve this; but then Julia gives her a small smile and a private wink.

All their eyes have gone to Holly. She has a flash of her dad, his grin as he sideslips when you try to pin him to an answer: never get tied down, not till you’re beyond sure, not even then.

The others, blazing white against the dark trees, triple and waiting. The soft curve of shadow under Selena’s chin, the narrow back-bend of Becca’s wrist where she leans on her hand in the grass, the downward quirk at the corner of Julia’s mouth: things Holly will know by heart when she’s a hundred, when all the rest of the world has been scoured away from her mind. Something throbs in the palms of her hands, pulling towards them. Something shifting, the smoke-spiral ache of something like thirst but not, catching her in the throat and under the breastbone. Something is happening.

‘Same here,’ she says.

‘Oh, God,’ Julia says. ‘I can hear it now. They’re gonna say we’re some kind of lesbian orgy cult.’

‘So?’ Selena says. ‘They can say what they want. We won’t have to care.’

A breathtaken silence, as that sinks in. Their minds race wild along its trail. They see Joanne wiggling and giggling and sneering in the Court to make the Colm’s guys fancy her, they see Orla howling helpless into her sodden pillow after Andrew Moore and his friends ripped her apart, they see themselves trying desperately to stand right and dress right and say the right things under the guys’ grabbing eyes, and they think: Never, never ever, never never never again. Break that open the way superheroes burst handcuffs. Punch it in the face and watch it explode.

My body my mind the way I dress the way I walk the way I talk, mine all mine.

The power of it, buzzing inside them to be unlocked, makes their bones shake.

Becca says, ‘We’ll be like the Amazons. They didn’t touch guys, ever, and they didn’t care what people said. If a guy tried to do anything to them, he ended up…’ A second that whirls with arrows and flares of blood.

‘Whoa,’ Julia says, but the small smile is back and it’s her own smile, the one that most people never get to see. ‘Chill. This isn’t forever. It’s just till we leave school and we can meet actual human guys.’

Leaving school is years away and unimaginable, words that can never turn real. This is forever.

Selena says, ‘We need to swear it. Make a vow.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Julia says, ‘who does stuff like…’ but she’s only saying it out of reflex, it spins faint and dizzy away into the shadows, none of them hear.

Selena holds out her hand, palm down over the grass and the hidden trails of night insects. ‘I swear,’ she says.

Bats call, up in the dark air. The cypresses lean closer to watch, intent, approving. The rush and whisper of them lifts the girls, surges them on.

‘OK,’ Julia says. Her voice comes out stronger than she meant it to, so strong it startles her; her heartbeat feels like it’s going to lift her off the ground. ‘OK. Let’s do it.’

She brings her hand down on top of Selena’s. The small slap echoes across the clearing. ‘I swear.’

Becca, thin hand light as a dandelion clock on Julia’s, wishing fiercely and too late that she had looked at the photo, that she had seen what the others were seeing. ‘I swear.’

And Holly. ‘I swear.’

The four hands twist into a knot wrapped with moonlight, fingers tangling, all of them trying to stretch wide enough to tighten round all the others at once. A breathless small laugh.

The cypresses sigh, long and sated. The moon stands still.