Still Falling Read online

  I hear voices from the living room but not words.

  My phone stays silent. My hangover abates enough for me to have an equally silent Sunday dinner with my parents. Mum’s been crying. So have I.

  _____________

  I get to the war memorial as early as I can, but it’s not that early because Dad made me get a lift with him. I wait in a chill drizzle until the first bell goes. OK. So he’s really pissed off. But it isn’t fair. I can’t help having Victorian parents. By the time I’ve got to the door of tutor group, with my hair frizzing damply and my nose burning with cold, I’m ready to fight with Luke. How dare he punish me like this! I’ve given up thinking something has happened to him – surely I’d know.

  ‘Hurry up, Esther,’ Baxter says.

  Luke’s place is empty.

  Jasmine leans over to me. Her silky hair brushes my arm; it makes me think of Luke on Saturday night. ‘No Luke?’

  I shake my head. I pretend to look at my homework diary, crossing off the homeworks I’ve done, smiling at my desk the whole time.

  He’s late on purpose. He’s avoiding me.

  He’s dead. He had another seizure on the way home. He fell under a car. And his phone got crushed by the car, so Sandra couldn’t get my number.

  He’s just trying to punish me.

  What for?

  At the end of tutor group I wait till everyone’s gone and hover at Baxter’s desk while he’s shuffling his bits and pieces together.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sir – you know how Luke’s not in? I was just – I wondered if there was anything – if you knew why?’

  He looks at me over his glasses. ‘Good heavens, Esther, I have no idea. You sixth formers aren’t renowned for your punctuality. No doubt he’ll swan in when it suits him.’

  He doesn’t.

  I text him – Are you OK? – and there’s no answer.

  After school, hating myself for doing it, I take the landline phone into my room so he won’t recognise the number if he’s screening his calls. It goes straight to voicemail.

  I lie on my bed and tears run into my ears. Mum has changed the bed so the smell of Luke’s hair has gone from the pillow. When Mum calls me for dinner I yell back that I’m not hungry. I hear Mum’s voice, worried, and Dad’s – ‘Let her; it won’t hurt her to lose a few pounds.’

  Thanks, Dad.

  It’s only seven o’clock. How do people get through times like this? I turn on the radio but it’s all love songs. I need distraction that isn’t going to make me think about Luke. I need a book. I heave myself off the bed and stand sniffing in front of the bookcase. Nothing. The books I need are under the bed. I hunker down, avoiding the stain on the carpet – I know if I get close enough I’ll still be able to smell it – and reach under. My hand closes on the box of children’s books – just the feel of it, full of Jacqueline Wilson and Anne of Green Gables, is enough to make my heart just a fraction lighter – but it also hits against something else. Something small and hard. I pull it out.

  Luke’s iPhone.

  It’s died, and I can’t put it on to charge because nobody in this house has an iPhone, but at least it means he hasn’t been ignoring me.

  The next day Luke’s absent again. But now I have a plan. After tutor group, I go to assembly – because Dad might notice if I don’t – but then, on the way to English, I turn back to the lockers, shove my bag in, and start walking purposefully towards the side door. I meet McCandless, who twitches her beard at me and asks me what I’m doing out of class and I say I’m going to the toilet, and she sniffs but she can’t say anything and I don’t have my bag so I don’t look like I’m about to walk out. I dodge out the side door and meet no-one.

  According to my phone, there’s only one Lilac Walk, and it’s the other side of town. The bus takes forever, and my stomach feels the way it did on the day of my hangover. I don’t know what I should be prepared for. He must be sick, or he’d be at school. And why hasn’t he been in touch some other way?

  When I step off the bus at the entrance to a council estate I think, this can’t be right. Nothing here – the painted kerbstones, the tattered flags hanging from streetlights, the concrete walkways between small houses – chimes with the Luke I know.

  But I find Lilac Walk easily enough, and count off the houses – 3, 5, 7 – oh, gosh, please let it not be that one with the bins in the front garden – but no. Number 11 is spruce and painted, with shrubs in the small garden and a cheerful blue door.

  Luke answers the door. Not under a car. Not sick. When he sees me his eyes widen.

  We speak at the same time.

  ‘What are you –?’

  ‘Why aren’t you at school? I was really worried.’

  He shrugs. ‘Sandra made me stay off. It just took a bit longer than usual to – you know – bounce back.’

  I look at him closely. He’s nearly as pale as he was on Saturday, and he has a rash of spots across one cheek, but compared to the under-a-bus scenario he’s fine.

  ‘Why aren’t you in school?’ he asks.

  ‘I mitched,’ I say airily. ‘I’m tired of being good. After getting off my face on Saturday night, and being grounded for the next two years, I thought, what can I add to my new career of debauchery? Plus I hadn’t heard from you and I was convinced something terrible had happened.’ I’m working up a little indignation now that the relief of seeing him has worn off slightly.

  ‘Look – come in properly. And I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.’

  ‘Where’s Sandra?’

  ‘At the shops.’

  I follow him into a cluttered living room. The walls are covered in photos – baby photos, school photos, wedding photos. I count at least six different kids. I wonder if there’ll be a picture of Luke here some day, and I wonder where all those kids are now. A gas fire hums in the grate, and the cushions on the squashy, patterned sofa are scrumpled as if Luke has been sitting there. An economics book lies face down on the coffee table, and a small black cat blinks at us from an armchair, then settles back to sleep.

  ‘I thought you hadn’t been in touch because you were angry with me,’ I said. ‘About my dad being so … I was texting you like mad. And then last night I found your phone under my bed. It must have fallen out of your pocket.’ I thrust the phone at him.

  He tries to turn it on and sets it down on the coffee table when it doesn’t respond. ‘I suppose I was a bit pissed off. I thought you’d at least come after me. I didn’t think you’d just stay and let them –’

  ‘How could I have come after you, the state I was in? I could hardly walk!’ I burn with shame. ‘I was puking my guts up.’

  Luke shakes his head. ‘What? It was me who –’

  ‘I drank the wine. Well, most of it. You were asleep and it was there, and I just – I just did. And then I fell asleep too. And when everything kicked off I tried to stick up for you; I tried to explain, but I was – kind of incapable.’ Dad’s word – ridiculous and OTT but sadly accurate. ‘But you knew all this.’

  Luke shakes his head. ‘All I knew was your dad went mental.’

  ‘Well, you missed me making a complete fool of myself.’

  I’m so relieved that Luke hadn’t seen me with red puke all down my dress that I could sing. For the first time I get what it must be like for him, knowing people have witnessed him in similarly humiliating situations. All the epilepsy websites in the world couldn’t tell me that.

  ‘So – you’re grounded?’ he asks. ‘For how long?’

  I blow out through my fringe. ‘At first it was indefinite and I was banned from seeing you. Now it’s for two weeks and I’m – encouraged not to see you. I think Mum had a word with Dad. They know if they forbid me to see you it’ll just make me more determined.’

  I have a sudden fear that he’ll think it’s not worth it; that I’m not worth it. ‘It’s only two weeks,’ I say, ‘and I’m here now.’

  I lean forward and kiss him, gently at first, then har
der, and I push him backwards on the sofa. I straddle him as best I can in my school skirt, and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, and it’s lovely –

  Until he groans and twists my hair in his fingers, and then he shakes his head and pushes me away.

  I shiver with rejection, but then the front door slams – maybe it’s not me; maybe he heard the door. When Sandra comes in, lugging Lidl bags, we’re at opposite ends of the sofa though I know my face is burning. Sandra is a big woman, not as fat as Mum but sort of solid all over with thin frizzy grey hair and a strong-featured face that looks as if it smiles easily. She’s smiling now.

  ‘Och,’ she says, ‘you must be Esther.’ Then her face changes. ‘Should you not be at school?’

  ‘I had a free period,’ I lie. As if any free period could be long enough to get all the way out here and back.

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘it’ll give Luke a wee lift to see you. He’s been a bit down.’

  ‘Sandra.’ Luke shakes his head at me. ‘I’m fine. I’m just going to walk Esther up to the bus stop, OK?’

  I feel dismissed, but I know I should get back to school. I can spin Donovan some story, but it’s French after break and Madame Sudret’s not so gullible.

  Luke takes my hand walking to the bus stop. He says he’ll be back tomorrow. He asks me to ask Toby to text him what he’s missed in economics. We get to the main road and, even though I want to be with him for longer, I’m so nervous about getting back to school that I’m half-relieved to see a bus coming down the hill.

  ‘Oh,’ Luke says, ‘you haven’t told me if you liked your present?’

  ‘I haven’t opened it.’

  ‘Well, do!’ He kisses me quickly. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  From the bus I watch him walking away down the hill, past the boarded-up community centre and the drooping flags. Even though he’s wearing an old hoody and track bottoms he doesn’t fit. He looks like an actor walking through a film set.

  Luke

  ‘Your dad won’t actually spy on you, will he?’ I glance behind me through the gap in the war memorial hedge. In the far distance a teacher patrols.

  ‘Course not.’ But she doesn’t sound totally confident.

  We sit on the bench, close but not touching – because you can’t get away from the fact that this is school, however little it feels like it. Esther takes my hand and traces a pattern on it with her finger.

  ‘I reckon Big Willy was just waiting for his chance. He was delighted to find me in your bed –’

  Esther leans her head on my shoulder. Then she raises it and says, ‘It’s only two weeks. One and half now. It’s not that long. Only I’m scared –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You might get fed up with me.’ Her voice is small. ‘There’s plenty of girls whose parents aren’t on their case all the time.’

  Plenty of boys who’d be a much better bet than you, Lukey.

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘What?’ Her eyes widen in shock.

  I shake my head. ‘I mean – don’t be daft. They aren’t you.’

  _____________

  Sandra knocks on my bedroom door. ‘I’ve called you three times. Your tea’s ready.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’ I hardly look up from my sketchbook. The picture of Esther is coming on well, even though it’s mostly copied from a photo on my phone. You can see the shine on her hair and the lovely roundness of her. But I can’t get the eyes right – dark and serious but ready to sparkle with life. Maybe it’s too much to expect pencil to do that.

  Sandra gives me the look I’m getting used to, and folds her arms across her large chest. ‘Sorry, son – not an option. You know the score.’

  She’s turned into the seizure-control police. She even bought me one of those pill boxes with a compartment for every day of the week, like I’m a senile old man, and she stood over me while I filled them all for the week ahead. But I suppose she’s right: not eating, not sleeping, getting stressed – all major triggers. And I do feel better than I have for ages.

  Yesterday the school nurse asked me to talk to a second-year girl who’s just been diagnosed with epilepsy and keeps crying and refusing to come to school because she’s so scared of having a seizure in public. I told her about my first day and how it was kind of mortifying but I got over it because you have to. I made her laugh. I suggested that Esther and I should talk to Lauren’s friends about how to help if she has a seizure. ‘That’s a great idea,’ the nurse said when Lauren had skipped back to class. She looked at me with the kind of approval I used to get all the time from the staff at Belvedere.

  I go down, sit at the table and eat pasta, and listen to Bill talking about a man at work who keeps chickens in the back garden and does Sandra think it would be a good idea? Sandra thinks it would be a terrible idea and they argue about it cheerfully all through the meal.

  ‘You seeing Esther, son?’ Sandra asks when we’re finished. I hesitate. ‘You know she’s welcome round here any time.’

  Bill nods. They’ve obviously discussed this.

  They don’t know about Esther being grounded.

  I shrug. ‘She has something on. Some family thing.’

  I go back upstairs. Jay is on my bed. He looks up and yawns when he sees me, then curls up again. I take out my sketchbook. I take a new page and start drawing Jay. It’s a good way to pass time because I get so engrossed in trying to show the way his paws are tucked so neatly under, without it looking like he has no legs, that when my phone buzzes I actually jump and the pencil slides out of control.

  It’s an unknown number.

  Just checking you’re free

  to come to my birthday

  party next Saturday.

  And Esther of course.

  Jasmine x

  I wonder where she got my number. I don’t like the way she’s put Esther’s name as an afterthought. And I don’t like the x after her own name, which doesn’t look like an afterthought at all.

  Esther

  They aren’t keeping me prisoner. In fact they drag me with them everywhere – Tesco; Gran’s house; they even ask if I’d like to go to a special young people’s praise service at church.

  ‘I hate the phrase “young people”,’ I say. ‘It sounds ridiculous.’

  ‘Well, they’re people and they’re young,’ Dad points out. ‘Don’t go if you don’t want to.’

  If I can’t see Luke I don’t want to see anyone.

  But then Ruth texts.

  Adam n I put loadsa work in2

  it wd luv u to be there xxx

  I think I might as well. Maybe it will sweeten Mum and Dad up. I even make gingerbread men. Mum smiles when she comes into the kitchen to find me putting trays into the oven.

  ‘Essie, it’s like old times, seeing you baking.’

  As opposed to seeing me drunk in bed with my boyfriend? I don’t say it out loud. I give all the gingerbread men identical bland smiley faces.

  My stomach squeezes as I push open the church door. I know pretty much everyone, and they’ve known me all my life. Even though it’s supposedly a Young People’s event, our church – I mean, their church – is quite small, and everybody goes to everything. So when I walk in, clutching a pink biscuit tin, and looking desperately for Ruth, noticing that there are new blue curtains, but that the old poster with the peeling edges that says CH_CH – WHAT’S MISSING? is still up above the door, lots of people troop up to me, all smiles, their words caressing me.

  ‘Och, Esther, you’re welcome back.’

  ‘There’s Esther!’

  Mum and Dad aren’t here – I think it’s a test to see whether they can trust me. I can imagine them phoning Pastor Greg as soon as it’s over to check I haven’t sneaked out to meet Luke. I speak to everyone who speaks to me – which is everyone apart from a couple of new Lovely Young People. Then Ruth bounces up, her hair in curly bunches, pulling a stocky, jolly-jumpered guy by the hand, and squeaks, ‘Essie! I’m so glad you came! This is Adam.’

&n
bsp; Adam and I nod our hellos.

  ‘I am so nervous,’ Ruth says. ‘I’m leading the worship.’

  Adam gives her an affectionate squeeze. ‘You’ll be wonderful. Once you get them joining in all those new choruses, they’ll be ready for anything.’ He can’t keep his hands off Ruth, while never actually deviating from what’s acceptable for Lovely Young People in the church hall.

  It’s so long since I heard words like worship and choruses. I want to sit near the back but Ruth pushes me into a seat in the front row. ‘I want to see you,’ she says bossily. When the choruses start I can’t stop myself joining in – I love singing and I’ve known these all my life.

  We are one in the spirit; we are one in the Lord … I felt one with Luke, when he lay in my bed … And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love …

  Ruth, bent over a honey-coloured guitar, looks up and smiles straight at me. Light from the high stained glass window makes her ruddy hair into a halo. She looks happy and in the right place. A few people wave their hands in the air. I would make so many people happy if I came back here. It wouldn’t be difficult. I want to believe it. I liked believing it. When I started not being sure it was horrible, like falling off something I’d thought was a wide path but turned out to be a narrow ledge. Maybe God will speak to me again; if I’m back in the church I can be listening better. And maybe he’ll speak to Luke too, and we could come together – and Dad would approve of Luke and everything would be brilliant.

  But I know I’m kidding myself. I still don’t know what I believe, but I do know this isn’t the place for me any more.

  And if Luke were ever to find God, he’d find him somewhere austere and beautiful, not in a suburban evangelical church with lots of Lovely Young People waving their hands. Or maybe he’d like Quaker meetings. All that silence.

  Ruth speaks at the front, very sincere, nervous at first but then stronger. She makes a joke I don’t get, something about fish and Pastor Greg.