The Furies. Katie Lowe

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СКАЧАТЬ She moved to admire a case of lipsticks, their black cases shining like beetles. I stood, stunned, waiting for a looming security guard to swoop in and drag us away.

      Nothing happened. No one came.

      I followed Robin to the counter, where she hovered, thoughtfully chewing her lip. ‘It’s my birthday next week,’ she said, pointedly. Her eyes fixed on a red lipstick. ‘That’d go so well with my hair, don’t you think?’

      ‘I’ll buy it for you,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind.’ I had twenty pounds in my purse, my weekly allowance – though I also knew Mum’s bank details, and that the settlement sat there, largely untouched. It rarely occurred to either of us, it seemed – that we could have things, live differently, somehow. So we went on as we always had, with off-brand canned foods and frozen microwave dinners. For Mum, it was enough.

      Robin rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever. If you’re too scared, then don’t.’

      ‘I’m not scared,’ I said, uselessly.

      ‘Well then,’ she said, turning to examine a baby-pink t-shirt she’d never, ever wear, eyes lowered, watchful.

      I put a trembling hand over the counter, picking one, then another, examining each with what I hoped was casual disinterest. The harried sales assistant explained a refund policy to the mother of a screaming nine-year-old; as the assistant turned away, I slipped the lipstick into my palm, and down my sleeve.

      A hand at my shoulder, a heavy slap. I flinched.

      ‘Good girl,’ Robin said. ‘Let’s go.’

      The air in the street outside was a thrilling relief. I gulped, realizing I’d been holding my breath since I’d tucked the lipstick into my jacket. As we walked, she slid the nail polish out and held it between finger and thumb, close to my face. ‘Got something for you, too.’ I felt a rush of warmth, a sweet thrill at the gift.

      I slid the lipstick from my sleeve, and did the same. She took it, clicking open a mirror she pulled from her pocket – an item even I hadn’t seen her take – and applied a dark slick to her lips as we walked, shoppers forced to dodge her, tutting as they passed.

      ‘How do I look?’ she said, turning to me, pouting.

      ‘Gorgeous,’ I laughed. It was true. To me, at least, she did.

      She grabbed me by the shoulder and planted an exaggerated, ridiculous kiss on my cheek. ‘Now you’re gorgeous too,’ she said, grinning, the lipstick smudged with the impact, flecks of red on her teeth. I felt I ought to laugh, but couldn’t; I was too stunned. I stumbled along beside her, speechless and blind, as she chattered on about classes, homework she refused to do (‘on principle,’ she said, not explaining what, exactly, the principle was) and girls she hated, their crimes seeming to me like instructions, things I would no longer say or do.

      As I look back, it seems ridiculous. And yet, though I have loved, and been loved, in the decades since we met, no infatuation could compare to the outrageous intensity of those first weeks with Robin.

      I wanted to know every part of her, and she craved my secrets just the same. We each felt the raw crush of the other’s nerve-endings; we shared experiences great and small, sitting under trees dropping red leaves around us, glowing in the autumn sun. Occasionally, I would think of Emily Frost, as we passed the faded posters stuck to lampposts and trees, and the question would gather in my throat – Is she the reason you like me? But I’d brush the thought away, press it wilfully into forgetting, and take her interest in me as my own; raise some new topic of conversation, a new intimacy shared.

      It seems impossible, now, to imagine an intensity so feverish, such delirium. Perhaps that’s a symptom of getting older. One’s feelings wear down, no longer sparking so keenly. Still, when I think of Robin, of those early days when our friendship was new and unfamiliar, I feel a swell deep within my chest, an echo of those heady days, when we ducked into a rain-battered chip shop and shared a single cone as we walked along the promenade, laughing at the withered old women and screaming kids, who seemed so stupid, so beneath us, so deserving of our contempt. When we smoked rolled-up cigarettes and stubbed them out in the sand, the detritus of summer – cans, fools’ emeralds made from broken bottles – shifting beneath our feet. When we drank sickly-sweet alcopops from glass bottles, breaking the caps on the metal backs of graffitied bus seats. Every breath, every moment, possessed with an illusion of glamour, of filthy decadence, purely because it was ours, we two our own radical world, a star collapsing inwards and bursting, gorgeous, in the dark.

      Not, of course, that I was able to imagine this then, still chattering shyly as we walked along the pier, the setting sun turning the sea blood-red. I heard a familiar voice, and turned to see Nicky bounding towards the two of us. Robin let out a groan, and I swatted her arm. ‘Shhh,’ I hissed, feeling my cheeks redden as Nicky approached, caught in a lie. I’d mentioned her invitation to Robin earlier – this, admittedly, an attempt at making Robin jealous, though it seemed only to have the opposite effect: she had told me I was lucky, blessed to have been rescued, her hatred of Nicky vicious and clear.

      And yet, I realized, as Nicky approached, it was Robin’s idea to come here, now.

      ‘How are you doing?’ Nicky said, as she strolled towards us, clutching an enormous stuffed bear (or cat – it was cheaply made, and hard to tell). She saw me staring at it. ‘Ben—’ she turned and pointed to a tall, tanned boy in a football shirt, lurking several paces behind ‘—he won it for me. Isn’t it cute?’

      ‘If you’re into that kind of thing,’ Robin muttered.

      Nicky ignored her, and turned to me. ‘Are you coming to the party on Friday?’

      She looked at Robin, who scowled back. ‘What party?’ I said, at the same time as Robin said ‘Yeah, she’s coming,’ the two of us laughing, awkwardly.

      ‘Awesome,’ Nicky said, pretending not to see, though a half-smile passed on her lips, a whisper of a smirk. ‘Also,’ she said, expression instantly serious, tone conspiratorial, ‘I wanted to ask … Is Grace okay?’

      I felt my stomach drop; glanced at Robin. ‘I … I haven’t seen her. Why?’

      ‘Well, Stacey – you know Stacey, in the lacrosse team? She broke her finger at a match last Friday night. Which is horrendously bad timing, because we need her for the squad when we play …’ I felt myself dragged into the long and complex history of the school lacrosse team, and nodded dimly, waiting for her to return to the matter in hand. ‘Anyway,’ she said, finally, ‘she was at A&E and she said she saw Grace in the waiting room with Alex, looking like she’d been hit by a bus.’

      ‘She’s fine,’ Robin said. She looked out at the seagulls criss-crossing in the air, diving at unsuspecting tourists clutching fried doughnuts and newsprint-covered chips.

      ‘I don’t know … Bloody nose, black eye … Not that you’d know under all that make-up, mind. It’s a shame, really. She’s got such a pretty face.’

      I shook my head. ‘I haven’t spoken to her. I didn’t know anything had happened.’ I turned to Robin. ‘Did you?’

      ‘No,’ she said, looking down between the broad slats of the pier.

      ‘Well, I thought you might know. Jodie – Jodie with the short hair, the lesbian-looking girl in the upper class – she asked Alex if Grace was okay this morning СКАЧАТЬ