That would have scored points, but it seemed unnecessarily cruel. Sandy said nothing; only listened and hoped that his princess would speak. Robbie talked about the snooker hall in Craigore. ‘You can sometimes make a few bob on a game, but not often and never much money. They’re tight-fisted in that town all right. Mean shower. Rotten snooker players too. Almost embarrassing.’ He looked at Rian, then at Sandy, and crushed the thin beer can with one hand, rubbing at his nose with the other.
‘An itchy nose,’ said Sandy. ‘My mum says that means you’re going to come into money.’ Having said it, he felt stupid. It seemed banal. Robbie’s eyes lit up, however, and he shook his head vigorously.
‘Your mum’s wrong. An itchy palm means money. An itchy nose doesn’t mean anything. No, wait a minute. That’s not right. It does mean something but I just can’t think what.’ He furrowed his brow, put a hand across his eyes like a mind-reader. ‘My Aunt Kitty used to tell me about all that stuff when I was a kid, but I’ve forgotten most of it. Superstitious crap. No,’ he shook his head and waved his hands in the air, ‘I’ve forgotten it. She could help, though. My Aunt Kitty at the caravan.’
‘Caravan?’ said Sandy.
‘Caravan,’ said Robbie. ‘Where the hell did you think we came from? We didn’t just appear out of thin air, man. Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t Rian? We belong to the tinkers’ site at the foot of Craigie Hill.’
‘Then why did you move here?’ Robbie hesitated at Sandy’s question. He looked over to his sister, then at Sandy. Sandy nodded, though he felt that he had only half the picture. ‘Oh,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Robbie continued, ‘we should visit my Aunt Kitty some day.’ He again looked to Rian, who suddenly came alive.
‘She’s my aunt too! She’s not just your aunt!’ She stared at her brother in a rage while he scratched his beard, then she blushed and dropped her eyes. Robbie chuckled.
‘Oh?’ he said. ‘Well, maybe that’s something to ask her, after what happened. Maybe all three of us should go up there just now and see what Aunt Kitty says to it. I seem to remember her saying something like “She’s no relation of mine.” Isn’t that right then, Rian?’ The girl was already on her feet. She moved swiftly, and in her movement Sandy was attracted to the shape of her body. She slammed the door as best she could behind her. Robbie hooted loudly, smiled at Sandy, then turned his eyes to the floor and thought to himself.
‘I suppose I should be going,’ said Sandy.
‘But you’ve only just got here!’ complained Robbie, who seemed genuinely upset.
‘Yes, but my mum will have my tea ready. I’m hellish late for that.’ Sandy had a sudden inspiration. ‘And I want to ask her about the itchy nose. Then we can go and see your auntie. Okay?’ For a second Sandy thought that it might have been a mistake to mention this, but Robbie nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You do that. Will you come back tomorrow?’
‘Maybe, Robbie.’ Sandy was already on his feet.
‘Fine then.’
There was no sign of Rian in the corridor. ‘Cheerio, Sandy,’ said Robbie. As the door closed on him, he was hunting in his pockets for a cigarette.
‘Cheerio, Robbie.’
He sat on the window ledge for a long time. Rian did not appear. Robbie was whistling in the far room. Sandy did not want Robbie to come out and find him still sitting there. It would be too much of an admission of interest in Rian. He sat for a full count of sixty. The golfers had abandoned the course. It was too dark now to play, though there was still a faint red glow in the sky. He reached out for the drainpipe and shimmied down, jumping the last five feet and feeling the drop through space thrill in his stomach. He landed with a grunt on the lawn. Some jotters had fallen from his satchel. He crouched and replaced them. When he stood up, she said something behind him.
‘Don’t believe him, Sandy. Don’t believe anything he says. There’s a streak of badness in him.’ Her voice was quiet and sugary. He turned to her and she stepped towards him. It was the easiest thing to just snake his arms around her waist. She touched his arms with her fingers. Her chest was against his ribcage. She was skinny, thought Sandy. All skin and bone really. ‘Promise that you won’t let him turn you against me. Promise me, Sandy.’ There were tears in her eyes. She put her head to his shoulder. He felt an erection swelling and pulled his hips back a little so that she would not feel it. He had been embarrassed more than once at school dances when a girl had noticed his erection during a slow dance and told her friends, who would then giggle at him for the rest of the night. He wanted there to be no mistakes with Rian.
‘Don’t get me wrong, Sandy,’ she was saying. ‘I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. Robbie is my brother and I wouldn’t hurt him for the world, but he’s bitter at having had to look after me all this time. He feels he’s losing out on life, and yet he won’t leave me alone because he feels it’s his job to look after me. There’s a jumble of things in his head, but he will try to turn you against me. I know he will. He’s tried it before.’ Sandy wanted to ask her a question then, but she gave him no opportunity. ‘He’ll do anything. He’ll tell any lies he wants to. Don’t believe them.’ As he held her waist, her hair tickled the backs of his wrists. Her hair was longer than he had imagined. It reached down to her waist and beyond. He looked down at her cowering head, resting so easily upon him.
‘I promise,’ he said, ‘if you’ll kiss me.’ It was easily said, as if he were dreaming. He felt like running away or making a joke of it, but something made him hold his ground. She looked at him and he could feel her eyes as they overwhelmed him. Everything he was, everything he had decided he would be in life, it all went out of the window in one easy fall. She kissed him. It was a slow, steady kiss, breathy. She seemed at ease, which unnerved Sandy slightly. He opened his eyes for a peek and saw that hers were open and rigidly upon him, studying him coldly. He closed his again quickly. It was as if his mother had found him to be feigning sleep. Her lips tasted of soap. He shrugged off the comparison and tried to enjoy himself. He should have been enjoying himself. It should have been heaven. Later it would seem as though it had been, but the moment itself was too curious and strained to be anything other than strange. He accepted its strangeness. He accepted everything. She breathed in his ear.
‘Oh, Sandy,’ she said. Then she pulled away from him, looking into his eyes as if uncertain of something. Eventually she forced herself to smile, and Sandy felt that she was depending on him for something profound, something beyond his immediate grasp. He felt a tiny weight of responsibility being shifted on to his shoulders. Did Robbie feel it too, inversely?
He watched her as she turned from him and began climbing the drainpipe. She was a small, brittle-boned monkey. He admired her long arms, the way her feet dug into what purchase the wall would afford. Her hair swung in rhythm with her body. Her skirt was flailing too, and suddenly, as he had not dared to hope, he was looking up inside it. She was calling something to him, but it was lost, like a distant voice calling across a swelling tide. Up inside it. The pants soiled but feminine. The tuft of hair crawling from beneath the cotton. A flush went through his whole body. He tried to control it. Useless; he had come. Oh God, he had never done that before, not standing up, not in his denims. His legs were as weak as if he had been swimming. He watched the boards appear in the window, covering that doorway. The house was closed again, dark, apparently lifeless. He trotted gingerly across the lawn and climbed his wall. The wet smell was all around him. He would have to take the quiet way home, and he hoped that he would meet no one. That kiss. Her saliva was still in his mouth. It was turning cold now. He had to get home, had to rush upstairs, ignoring his mother’s call from the living room, and change into clean clothes. Perhaps he could have a bath. No, this was not his regular bath night. The water would not be warm, and his mother would suspect something. He would have to wash his trousers in the bath tomorrow morning while his mother cooked the breakfast. And his pants. Her pants. That kiss. It went home with him, becoming more than it had been at the time with every step as the imagination took over. For once he hoped that Mr Wallace would be there. That would keep his mother occupied while he ran upstairs. Rian. He would watch Robbie. He would listen closely to any accusation, and would challenge any lie. Rian was his girlfriend after all. He had to protect her. She was depending on him.