You Against Me

Forty-three

Karyn peered sideways at Mikey as he came out of the lift. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s you.’

She was outside! She was outside the flat and she wasn’t hiding under a duvet or a pile of jumpers. She was wearing leggings and a T-shirt and she was sitting on the balcony in the spring sunshine!

Holly was next to her, both of them wearing sunglasses like a couple of Hollywood starlets. They’d got the deckchairs out and had crisps and a plate of biscuits on the floor between them.

‘Hey,’ Mikey said, ‘how’s it going?’

Karyn tilted her sunglasses to look at him properly. ‘Fantastic. Like I told you earlier.’

Holly grinned up at him. ‘You want some crisps? We’re celebrating.’

‘I’m all right, thanks. Where’s Mum?’

‘Inside getting a cup of tea.’

He sat on the step and got out his fags, tried to make out it was perfectly ordinary that Karyn was outside on a deckchair, her bare feet up on the railing, her toenails painted pink. When had she done that? She hadn’t bothered with stuff like that for weeks. She looked pale though, like some long bout of flu had exhausted her. She was thinner too, and it surprised him he hadn’t noticed that happening. Maybe it was something to do with the duvet and jumpers.

‘So,’ Mikey said, ‘how was school today, Holly?’

‘Rubbish.’

‘Did you learn anything?’

She shook her head, her mouth full of crisps. He knew he was making conversation and it surprised him that he wanted to fill in the gaps, that he felt awkward with his own sisters.

‘You must’ve learned something.’

‘I didn’t. We had a supply teacher and he couldn’t control us.’ She laughed and crisps spluttered everywhere. ‘I know a secret though. Shall I tell you?’

‘OK.’

‘Something lives under the Christmas tree. Guess what it is?’

‘Dunno, a goblin?’

‘No, stupid.’

‘A rat? A wolf? A bear?’

She twisted round and lifted the pot. ‘Woodlice. Look, hundreds of them.’ She picked one up and showed him. It uncurled on her hand and ran to the edge of her palm; she turned her hand over and it ran across the back. On and on for ever, thinking it was getting away.

‘It looks like a dinosaur,’ she said. ‘It looks like an ankylosaurus, don’t you think?’

‘Probably.’

‘It really does. Do you even know what an ankylosaurus looks like?’

‘Like a woodlouse?’

She grinned at him. ‘You’re such an idiot.’

Mum stuck her head out. ‘I thought I heard you, Mikey. You’re back then?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘You OK?’

‘Yep.’

‘You want a cup of tea? I’m just making one.’

He shook his head and she frowned at him. What did that mean? What’s wrong with my tea? Karyn’s outside, have you noticed? Don’t upset her? Keep your big mouth shut? All the signs were new and Mikey didn’t seem able to make sense of them.

Down in the courtyard, a boy kicked a ball against the wall, and in one of the flats, someone whistled tunelessly. Holly fed crisps to the woodlice and Mikey smoked his cigarette and secretly watched Karyn turn the pages of a magazine. She was only pretending to read, he thought, faking interest in the pictures. It all felt so weird and uncomfortable.

‘How long have you been outside?’ he asked her eventually.

‘Ages.’

‘It’s been nice weather, eh?’

She didn’t answer and he felt himself falter, didn’t know how to be with her any more.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘maybe I want that cup of tea after all.’

Holly scrambled up. ‘I’ll tell Mum.’

He really didn’t want to be left alone with Karyn, but Holly insisted. She pressed past him and disappeared into the flat.

Karyn turned another page.

He lit a new cigarette from the old one and inhaled, long and deep. He knew he should give talking another try, but didn’t know where to begin. There were so many things he wanted to tell her – all the stuff he’d realized recently about how much she did, had always done in fact. She’d been taking Holly to school for years, collecting her too, doing the shopping and washing and keeping Mum in line. All he’d ever done was go to work, hang out with Jacko and pick up girls. Even his great scheme of becoming a chef had crumbled to nothing. The last few weeks, it was as if someone had taken his life to pieces and let him see the way it worked. And what he’d realized was that he wasn’t the heroic big brother who could solve every problem and hold a family together; he was, in fact, an idiot, and of course his sister wasn’t going to bother speaking to him.

He took a breath. Now or never.

‘Karyn,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

She looked over the top of her sunglasses at him.

‘I wanted to help you, but I got it wrong.’

She smiled. A tiny shadow of a smile, creeping along her lips from the edge of her mouth. ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘About what?’

‘Whether to forgive you or not.’ She pushed her glasses back up her nose and turned another page of her magazine.

Mum brought out the tea. She sat on a deckchair, her feet in the sun. Holly came out with a satsuma and peeled it carefully, sucked each segment dry of juice and left the empty skin on the step next to Mikey.

‘It’s got pips in,’ she told him, ‘and I don’t like pips.’

Karyn smiled at her. ‘You could make a bracelet out of them if there’s enough. I did it at school once. You use food colouring to dye them, then string them together. Stacey’s coming over later and we’ll help you if you like.’

‘Cool.’ Holly held a piece of satsuma up to the light to examine it.

It was nice sitting there, sipping tea. Mikey felt as if he hadn’t done something so simple for months. Holly fiddled about with the pips, Karyn turned pages, Mum ate a biscuit. Was that all it took to feel better about yourself – an apology? He still had no way of telling Karyn the things he felt, but it didn’t seem to matter so much now. Maybe if he just sat there with her, she’d know it anyway. And maybe, later, the right words would come.

‘Hey,’ Mum said after a while, ‘I know what I didn’t tell you, Mikey. You remember that social worker who came round when no one was here?’

Holly frowned. ‘Me and Karyn were here. I opened the door and everyone told me off.’

Mikey reached out and stroked her back. ‘What about her?’

‘She’s got Holly a place in an after-school club.’

‘I’m going to do football and street dancing,’ Holly told him.

‘At the same time?’

‘No, silly. And when it’s raining I’m going to make puppets.’

Karyn twisted round to look at Mikey. ‘And I’m getting a computer.’

Mikey was tempted to ask what he was going to get, but managed to keep his mouth shut.

‘It’s from a charity,’ Mum told him. ‘They give old ones a service and hand them out again, good as new. The social worker reckons we might get a desk for the girls’ room as well – I just have to write a letter and say why we need it.’

Mikey laughed. ‘Remember when you got that paint for Holly?’

‘For me?’ Holly’s whole face gleamed. ‘What paint? When?’

‘You were just born,’ Mikey told her, ‘and the council said Mum could have a budget to paint the bedroom, but they said the paint had to be white and she wanted yellow.’

Mum laughed out loud. ‘Yellow and blue. I stood in that office and told them I wasn’t leaving until they agreed. It was a ridiculous policy – everyone having white walls – what rubbish. I said, why should my kids have to stare at four plain walls, when they can have the colour of sunshine and sky in their rooms?’

Holly plonked herself on her mother’s lap and gave her a hug that was so brand new and abandoned that Mikey wanted one for himself. Karyn shot him a shy smile over their heads and he felt a rush of something for them all – love? Shame? He actually felt like he might cry. It was crazy – the four of them having an OK time together for once, and here he was, choking up.

‘Uh-oh,’ Mum said, ‘here comes trouble.’

Mikey peered over the balcony, glad of a distraction. Jacko was pulling up in his car, reversing into a space over by the bins.

‘He’ll get clamped there,’ Mum said. ‘Run and tell him, Holly. Tell him they’ve clamped three cars down there today.’

‘I’ll go,’ Karyn said. ‘I could do with a walk.’

She slipped on her sandals and the three of them watched as she got up from the deckchair and walked slowly, as if walking was a new thing, along the balcony to the lift door. When she pressed the button, Holly scrambled after her and took her hand. When the lift came they stepped in together.

Mum got herself a new cigarette and offered Mikey one. Their eyes met across the lighter.

‘So,’ he said, ‘she’s outside then.’

‘Ever since Gillian left.’

‘Amazing.’

‘She’s invited her mates over later as well. I think something very important happened when your friend swapped sides.’

‘Swapped sides?’

Mum shrugged. ‘You know what I mean.’

They looked down at Karyn together. She was leaning into the car window, talking to Jacko. Holly was walking across to the boy with the ball.

Mum said, ‘Have you spoken to your friend today?’

‘She rang me from a phonebox when she got out of the police station.’

‘Is she OK?’

‘Not really. Her brother’s not allowed to live in the same house now she’s a witness for the police.’

‘You’re worried about her?’

‘She says her dad’s going to go crazy when he finds out. She was going to a café with her mum to work out how to tell him.’

‘At least she’s got her mum with her.’

‘I suppose.’

Though Mikey wasn’t sure that skinny woman he’d met all those weeks ago would be any help. He took a long drag of his cigarette and exhaled slowly. Ellie had had a weird calm about her on the phone, and when she’d said goodbye, she’d made it sound like for ever. Never before had he been so hungry for someone – never so specifically, so desperately. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw her, her arms spread above her head, her legs wrapping him warm.

He wiped his face with his sleeve and took another puff on his cigarette.

His mum was staring at him.

‘What?’

‘If you hadn’t got to know this girl, Karyn wouldn’t be outside today. You think about that.’

‘You’re saying me knowing Ellie is a good thing?’

‘I’m saying you tried to help your sister and that’s a good thing. I’m not sure any of us would have done any different if we’d been in your little friend’s shoes.’

‘Yeah, well I don’t think Karyn sees it like that.’

‘Give her time.’

He rubbed his nose and thought about it. He looked around at the place where he lived because he didn’t know the answer. There were newly-planted trees in the courtyard, thin little sticks protected by their own wire fences. He looked at the sand pit, the swing, the football area with its goal marked on the wall in red paint. The boy with the ball was still there and Holly was laughing with him about something. Mikey took a last drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out in the Christmas tree pot, picked up a stone he found and held it so it warmed in his hand.

‘I lost my job, Mum.’

‘Oh, Mikey!’

‘I mucked them about too much.’

She shook her head as she stubbed out her own cigarette. ‘Did you tell them how difficult everything’s been?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘You should’ve done. It might’ve helped.’

‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘I’m really sorry about that.’ She looked sorry too. ‘What will you do now?’

He didn’t know. It struck him how suddenly the world goes and changes. Here he was sitting on the step and he couldn’t think of a single thing that was the same as the day before. Yesterday he was with Ellie and today it was over. Yesterday Tom was getting away with it, and today he wasn’t. Yesterday Karyn was glued to the sofa and now she was down in the courtyard. Yesterday he had a job. He sighed and stretched his legs out. Even the weather was freakishly different – constant rain replaced by a low sun pulsing in the sky.

‘Maybe I’ll go down and give Holly a kick-around,’ he said. ‘I’ve been promising her one for weeks.’

‘You do that,’ Mum said. ‘And I tell you what. Why don’t I make us a proper dinner? There’s some chicken pieces in the freezer and I could do potatoes and veggies like I used to. Would you like that?’ She leaned over and stroked his arm.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘That’d be great.’

He knew it wouldn’t last for ever, knew it was only one of her cycles, but it was kind. And maybe, like a game of footie with Holly, like the sun in April, it was important to appreciate good things when they came.