The Alibi Girl. C.J. Skuse

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ got it, Chelle.’

      ‘You spent your ten-year-old daughter’s pocket money? Jesus Christ.’

      Foy buzzes the window up. ‘I don’t like it when Mum gets stressy.’

      ‘It’s always Dad that makes her stress.’

      Chelle deep-breathes and gets in the car. He follows and she starts the engine. None of us say a word until we get back to the station. Chelle leaves the engine running. Dad pokes his head through my window and fist-bumps Foy, making the sound of starburst sprinkles coming out of his hand. He kisses me on the nose.

      ‘You be good, Squish, alright? Call me every night.’

      By the time we get out of town and the car’s streaming along through the green countryside towards Carew St Nicholas, I’ve forgotten about the row between Chelle and Dad – my mind’s too full up with the possibilities that lie ahead. As we turn the corner down into the village and round the bend into the vast car park at the back of The Besom Inn, I spy Paddy and Isaac on their bikes, doing wheelies and bunny hops.

      ‘Isaac’s got a new bike!’ I say. I can’t wait to get out of the car.

      ‘Yeah,’ says Chelle. ‘It’s a Hellcat Something Something with front suspension and something-else splashbacks, apparently. He got it for his birthday. He said you could have his old one.’

      ‘REALLY?!’ I cry. ‘Ah wow!’ I spy it straight away, leaning up against the skittle alley wall, all shining silver and red with the word Apollo written on the downtube.

      ‘He’s pumped up the tyres for you specially,’ says Foy.

      I leap out of the car and run across to Apollo, wheeling it over to Isaac.

      ‘Hey, Ellis. Like your new bike?’

      ‘Yeah! I love it! Can I really have it?’

      ‘Yeah, no sweat. I pumped the tyres up for you.’

      ‘Not you again, Smellis,’ says Paddy, wheeling over and skidding to a halt beside me. He tickles my ribs and chases me across the car park but lets me win, like always.

      After an hour of wheeling around we go inside the pub and find Uncle Stu closing up the bar for the afternoon. I give him a hug and we help ourselves to crisps and cans of Rio. The pub is a rabbit warren of low ceilings, oak beams and a warm orange glow from every doorway. There’s a pervading smell of old log fire and spilled beer and somewhere a fruit machine plinks and whooshes.

      Upstairs, there are four main bedrooms and two unused ones called the back bedrooms, housing old toys and various pub bric-a-brac, old tankards and unused bar stuff like beer mats and ice buckets. My hands run along the wallpaper, bumping over the little chips and dents. I want this holiday to last forever.

      And once Foy’s changed out of her ballet stuff, we ride, four of us into nature, along the lanes towards the playing fields, me and Foy stopping every so often to pick up dinosaur food, or petrol for the Lamborghini or the Ferrari, or new school shoes for some of our kids. We have forty in all, but we live in a castle so there’s definitely room.

      My ten-year-old self needs this. A break from worrying about Dad and his angry phone calls and disappearing acts in the night. I need weeks of itchy legs and Wham bars and cola cubes and board games played the wrong way and bare feet on cold evening grass playing Mad Rounders with leeks and sprouts. I need to run until my sides stitch and make up dance routines to Madonna songs with Foy.

      I need to fly kites and make nests from cut grass in fields wider than oceans, in sunshine that warms our backs and stretches our shadows to look like giants. To jump on desert rock furniture and lava carpets and create assault courses from old fire guards and broken chairs and table cloths. To play for hours a day in our secret places where adults don’t go – the quiet churchyard over the wall from the pub, the castle, our duvet dens – places where time is decided by the colour of the sky, not clocks and watches, and my limbs are powered by fizzy drinks and melted ice lollies.

      Where every morning Chelle says ‘Rise and shine, Clementine,’ when she opens Foy’s bedroom curtains and takes us downstairs for milky coffees and bacon sandwiches. And we help Stuart stock up the bar and he gives us five pounds to spend at the shop. And we buy felt tips and sketchpads and blue bootlaces and we take it all up to our castle in the tree where we draw our wedding dresses and watch over our land where popcorn fields sway in the wind and unicorns run wild and a T-Rex stalks the land, looking for half-open tins of Jurassic Chum.

      And where everyone calls me Ellis. Or Elle. Or Ellis Clementine Kemp, when I’m naughty. Or Smellis or Elly Belly Cinderelly. But always, always Ellis.

      If only I’d known then that everything would soon be taken from me – even my own name.

5

       Friday, 25th October

      Kaden is out at 6 a.m., doing little sprints up and down the seafront. I only went out to put the Smarties by the gate for Alfie but I decided to sit and watch him as it was such a peaceful, bright day. So I’m sitting on the front steps, looking across the road at the doughnut van and wondering what time he opens. I hold my glass of Strawberry Nesquik. I think about Us again. Me and him supermarket shopping, the baby sitting in the trolley seat and him making faces at her. When I’m thinking about him, I’m not thinking about Tessa Sharpe. I need him in my life. He can protect me from The Three Little Pigs. He can be my brave Saturday Knight with bulletproof shield and a lance that will pierce the hearts of my enemies.

      He always seems so busy though. If he’s not jogging, he’s working. And if he’s not at the gym he’s gone off somewhere on his motorbike. I don’t like to impose.

      But if I don’t impose, I’m going to keep thinking about it. About Tessa. Wondering if she knew what was happening when those big hands were around her neck. Wondering how long she panicked before the breath was squeezed out of her. Wondering if she heard Death creeping into her bedroom.

      Kaden eventually appears, vest sweated through, lost in music. I call out, ‘Hiya.’

      He sees me as he’s climbing the steps to the front door. ‘Oh hey, Joanne,’ he puffs, yanking out one of his earphones. His neck’s all sweaty again but the big news is he’s wearing shorts. And he has the most wonderful legs. Tanned, toned, soft blond hairs all over but I’ve never minded that. He’s never looked lovelier. Beads of sweat trickle down his forehead and into the nape of his neck.

      ‘How are you today?’ he puffs.

      ‘Yeah, I’m okay thanks,’ I say, gesturing towards my Nesquik.

      ‘Nice. How’s Emily?’

      ‘She’s fine. Thanks. Asleep, for now.’ I roll my eyes like Mums do when they’ve been up all night with their babies. ‘What are you doing today?’

      ‘Got to have a shower and then it’s work at nine. You?’

      ‘Work this afternoon,’ I shrug. ‘That’s about it.’

      I feel like I have left it open for him to ask me to spend this morning with him instead but he doesn’t. One of the cats leaps up onto the wall and СКАЧАТЬ