The Dead of Summer. Camilla Way

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СКАЧАТЬ sleep, watch them returning from their raves and parties; hear them in the hallways boasting of the lads they’ve pulled, the girls they’ve had. I watch them stagger home at five, six, seven in the morning, their arms around each other’s shoulders, and then I lie back on my bed and without even meaning to, I am back there, reliving that summer, wondering when it was, which particular point it might have been when I could perhaps have stopped what happened from happening.

      The next day at school went pretty much the same as the first, with Denis cheerfully babbling away by my side. In the weeks that followed I grew used to having him about and even missed him when he went off to his special classes without me. He proudly told me that he had learning difficulties (no shit, I thought), and that it was in the special classes he’d first met Kyle (Kyle was different, he explained. Kyle had behavioural problems). And we’d see Kyle sometimes, sloping through the corridors by himself, sticking to the shadows, always staring at other people’s feet. His hair was greasy, his uniform too long in the sleeves, too short in the legs. Skinny as a stick, he was the sort of kid you suspected would smell faintly of piss. The sort of kid nobody notices and you wouldn’t remember if you had. Except I did, and I don’t know why.

      The same thing happened every afternoon. I’d walk out the gates with Denis then he’d sidle off to wait for Kyle, leaving me to go home on my own. But one day we were a little late coming out of class and Kyle was already there, waiting. This time I didn’t let Denis shake me off and walked over to Kyle with him. He must have seen us coming but he kept looking at a spot just beyond us. For a while nobody spoke. Denis just stared down at his shoes as if he was about to get a bollocking off his mum. It was not going well.

      ‘All right?’ I said eventually. ‘I’m Anita. I live opposite you.’ Kyle stared hard at Denis, who muttered, ‘She’s in my class.’

      Then Kyle nodded slowly and looked off down the street just waiting for me to go. I couldn’t believe the nerve. These were two of the biggest losers in our school and even they didn’t want to hang out with me. Still, I’m nothing if not persistent. ‘Where you going then?’ I said, like I wasn’t bothered. ‘Can I come?’

      Finally he looked at me. His eyes were astonishing. A pale, flat grey, the colour of lampposts and gutters, the colour of rain, huge in his sharp, bony little face. Evidently he didn’t like what he saw. With a jerk of his head to Denis, he moved suddenly off down the street, Denis trotting after him like a big fat awkward puppy. They didn’t look back.

      I stormed off to the bus thinking, wankers, wankers, wankers. Why did I mind so much? I wasn’t after friends – had always preferred, actually, knocking about on my own. I bunked off a lot, wore the wrong kinds of clothes, had a boy’s haircut and didn’t give a fuck about Duran Duran. I didn’t know what to say to the other kids nor they to me. They left me alone and that was only what I wanted.

      I had got being ignored down to a fine art – and there is an art to it. It takes concentration and years of practice to ensure that you are constantly overlooked. I was a slipping-into-the-shadows sort of person, a disappearing-into-the-crowd sort of kid. Always on the periphery, a walking ‘Do not disturb’ sign. Nobody bothered me and I intended to keep it that way. I was the invisible girl. And yet. And yet. Something about Kyle tugged at me, pulled at me. I guess I must have seen something in him. I guess I saw me in him.

      And at least Kyle and Denis looked like they had a purpose. They didn’t seem to give a shit about school or the other kids either. I wanted to know where they were going, what they got up to after the last bell rang, where Kyle went to at night. I just did. And I really wanted somewhere else to go other than back home.

      Do I wish, now, that I’d kept away from them? Do I look back and curse the moment I first set eyes on Kyle? I just wish that he was still here. I miss him still, you see.

      A few days later I got back to find Dad drinking tea with one of our neighbours. Janice was fortyish, ginger and fat, and each of her breasts was bigger than my head. Her make-up looked like she’d thrown it on with a bucket, and she wore the sort of clothes that looked good on my sisters, but kind of made you wince to see them on someone like her. My dad looked terrified, our neighbour’s Lycra-clad rolls and ear-splitting laugh seemed to flatten him against the splashback like a dribble of spilt gravy. Next to her he appeared even more vague and hopeless than usual. In fact, I had never seen him so relieved to see me.

      She spotted me before I had a chance to back out. ‘You must be Anita!’ she shrieked, thrilled. I started edging my way out the door, but Dad lassoed me with his panic.

      ‘Anita, this is our neighbour, Janice.’ He stood there nodding desperately, like someone with Alzheimer’s and clutching his can of Tennent’s.

      ‘Don’t mind me, babes, come and sit down.’ She beamed and patted the chair next to her. I sat in the one nearest the door. ‘Thought I’d come and be neighbourly,’ she said in the south-London whine I’d soon grow to hate. Her teeth were very small and yellow in her big, pink mouth. ‘Been having a lovely chat with your dad,’ she said. ‘He’s been telling me all about you.’ I stared at my dad who started examining one of the buttons on his cardi.

      Janice hugged her cup of tea to her cleavage, her piggy, mascara-clogged eyes suddenly brimming with compassion. ‘Terrible what he’s been through, bringing you all up on his own.’ She looked at me like it was my fault Mum had dropped dead.

      At last Janice cottoned on that I was the sort of silent, staring child who makes adults like her nervous and shut up. We both looked at my dad, who looked at his can. Luckily for Janice, at this point, Push came in.

      My brother had never been one to shy away from a good cleavage and once the introductions had been made sat down with the air of a fifteen-year-old who has just found out he lives next door to Samantha Fox. ‘I’ll have to pop round for sugar sometime,’ he said with a wink, and Janice giggled and patted her hair. Cocky, handsome, big-mouthed Push. Not for the first time Dad and I stared at him in amazement. Where did he come from? we silently asked each other.

      After three minutes of Push banging on about himself, I was ready to make my escape. But I froze at the door when Janice said, ‘Lewisham High, is it? So you must know that Kyle Kite.’

      It was the first time I’d heard his full name but I knew instantly who she meant. Funny to think now, I suppose, how notorious that name has become, how synonymous it is with something I could barely comprehend back then. At the time though I merely turned back from the door, my curiosity pricked, to see her suck her cheeks in, raise her eyebrows and look at Dad as if to say ‘WELL!’

      ‘Kyle?’ I asked, ‘Kyle who lives opposite?’

      ‘That’s the one! No. 33.’ She shook her head as if she was going to start welling up again. ‘Such a sad business.’

      ‘What was?’ I wanted to strangle the words out of her.

      ‘His little sister was Katie Kite!’ She said the name triumphantly. Expectantly. Me, my dad and Push looked at each other, the penny almost but not quite dropping. The name vaguely but not really ringing a bell. We looked back at Janice, shaking our heads. Sorry, who?

      ‘Little Katie Kite!’ said Janice in exasperation. ‘God almighty, don’t you lot read the papers?’

      Janice sighed and filled us in. One morning a year ago Kyle’s mum (‘nice lady, but a bit, you know …’) went to wake up little Katie, only she wasn’t there. Five years old she was, gorgeous little thing. Vanished. No trace of her anywhere. ‘Surely you remember? Front-page news!’ We did, then. We remembered the headlines, the pictures of the little girl, the appeals for information. СКАЧАТЬ