The Damage Done Read online

  “What I like in The Darkness,” Tat was saying, “is the way you really got inside that girl's head. Irina's. I could really identify with her - she was totally convincing. I mean, if you can do that in fiction, you can surely do it in drama?”

  “Perhaps. But it's all got to be more oblique,” Graham said. “No narrative, no description - it's a completely different ball game, drama.”

  “But you can do brilliant dialogue,” Tat said. “If you can do that, and create great characters, then that's a good start, surely? It's down to the actors to do the rest.”

  Tatjana had actually read all three of Kirsty's father's novels, read them properly, which gave her far more credit with him than any amount of misplaced awe. Kirsty never felt that she could read them herself with any sort of detachment. They made her uneasy. One reason was the sex - in anybody else's book she would have read those scenes with a different kind of close attention, but here she couldn't shake off her awareness that this was Dad's writing. He knew about lurid and to Kirsty's mind sometimes disgusting things that people did to each other. He must have done it all, and not only with Mum. She didn't want to think about that.

  “What would be really helpful,” Graham said to Tat, “would be if you'd both have a look at the script, you and Kirsty. Tell me what you think. Honestly.”

  “Oh, I'd love to! What, now? Here?”

  Kirsty was beginning to feel like an unwanted third in this conversation. She looked at the two of them, facing each other across the table: Tat, vivacious and animated, occasionally pushing back her dark hair; Graham, inclined towards her, his eyes on her face while he talked, occasionally remembering to flick a glance at Kirsty. They were a pair of charmers, charming each other. With Tat, it was unintentional; she was like this with everyone. With Dad –

  She stood up.

  “Come on,” she said curtly to Tat. “Let's go up to my room. We can read up there. Don't let us stop you from working, Dad.”

  *

  Chapter Three

  For once, Kirsty had made her bed and left her room reasonably tidy. The tabby cat, Nutmeg, had settled herself on the duvet, curled like a dormouse. She opened her visible eye just a slit, not bothering to move. Kirsty sat on the bed and picked hayseeds off her socks, wondering whether she smelled of horses and stables.

  Tat, roaming around the room with a wine-glass still in her hand, took down a book from the shelves. Kirsty saw at a glance what it was: Foxtail, by Graham Millen. Dad's second novel. Tat turned it over to look at Graham's photograph on the back, the one from six years ago that made him look a bit like Ted Hughes: brooding and pensive, heavy-browed.

  “He's so handsome, your Dad!” Tat said.

  In the photo he looked older than he’d been at the time; in real life he’d just about caught up. Kirsty knew by heart what it said on the back cover: the blurb, the bit about him being a talented newcomer, and the quotation from a Guardian review of his first book that said he showed a sharp, uncanny insight into adolescent angst.

  “It's just that photo,” Kirsty said. “Good lighting.”

  “No, it's not! I've seen him in the flesh, haven't I?”

  “Tell me about the driving test,” Kirsty said. “Did you really do everything perfectly?”

  Tat giggled, sliding the book back into place. She wasn't usually a giggler; it must be the wine, Kirsty thought, grabbing at a handy excuse not to go to the pub later.

  “Well, there was one bit, in the middle of the three-point-turn,” Tat said, “when I put the hand-brake on really hard, to make sure the instructor saw me doing it. Only I did it so hard that I couldn't let it off again! Honestly, I was about to ask him to do it for me - I'd have felt a right dork, but then I gave a stupendous heave, just in time. Anyway, isn't it great? We'll be able to go out now without bothering anyone for lifts - Mum hardly ever uses her car Friday or Saturday nights.” Tat sprawled on the bed next to Kirsty. “This Saturday, for a start. Everyone's going round to Ollie's - he told me to tell you. Bring a bottle.”

  “Oh, I can't,” Kirsty said automatically. “Sorry.”

  “Why not? You never go anywhere these days, as far as I can see.”

  The sick feeling curdled in Kirsty's stomach. She stroked Nutmeg's ear. “I do. I do go out.”

  “Oh? You do?” Tat sat up, hugging her knees. “Have you met someone?”

  Kirsty smoothed her hand along the cat's warm striped body. “Yes. Actually I have. His name's Adam and he's the son of Dad's girlfriend - you know, Clare. He's home from Warwick and he's gorgeous. And intelligent. And funny.”

  “And you're going out with him? Since when?”

  “Not exactly going out. He's away at university most of the time. We email each other, and text.”

  “But now he’s home? When do I get to meet him? Can't you bring him on Saturday?”

  “No, I can't. We're going over to Clare's for lunch.”

  “That won't take all day! You can come to Ollie's later on. Does Adam drive? Has he got a car?”

  “No. Look, Tat. You won't say anything to Dad, will you? He doesn't know yet - promise?”

  “Mysteriouser and mysteriouser!” Tat said delightedly. “So how did the two of you get together, without him knowing?”

  “Oh - there are ways.”

  “I had no idea you were so sly and devious.”

  Kirsty looked away. Sometimes she surprised herself by finding out just how sly and devious she could be. Most of the time, she’d stopped noticing.

  “Come on. That's enough about him. I thought we were going to read Dad's script?”

  *

  Lying to Tat - lying to everyone - had become a habit. Kirsty knew exactly when it had started - early last June, on the final day of her GCSE exams. She had felt sick before each of the exams, but had kept herself under control; she could manage, as long as she was near the back of the hall. Then the last day. French in the morning, History in the afternoon. And by some quirk of the alphabet she found herself sitting at the front, at the head of the middle row.

  “French candidates, you can begin.”

  And the hall was a-flutter with the opening of question papers. Kirsty, trying to read the questions, was conscious only of the silence pressing against her ears, of the breathing of rows of people behind her, of the squeak of a shoe on the gym floor. No one else seemed to be having trouble breathing. In, out. In, out. The more she concentrated on getting air in and out of her, the less she seemed to get. Air, in the stuffy gym, had turned into a thick, glutinous substance like treacle; it clogged her throat, not reaching her lungs. Kirsty Millen, she had written on her paper, and that was all, while the hand of the big clock fastened to the wall-bars swept away the minutes. Then, a footfall close to her, a waft of perfume, and the flowered skirt of one of the supervising teachers brushed past her. Kirsty glimpsed a sandalled foot with toe-nails painted dark red. The teacher, one of the Modern Languages staff whose name Kirsty didn't know, turned and stood at the front of the gym, arms folded, in a curiously military posture that was at odds with her light summer clothes. In, out. In, out. Kirsty stared at the exam paper and willed oxygen into her lungs.

  You have arranged to spend a fortnight with your French pen-friend in Paris ... Your friend has sent you this email about plans for the visit ... The words spiralled in front of her, no longer anchored to the page. French words butted into her head, hundreds of meaningless words pronouncing themselves at once, all the words she’d spent so long cramming in last night. Her head couldn't hold it, without oxygen. Kirsty Millen, she read on her answer paper, a random collection of vowels and consonants. How odd to think that those black marks meant her. Milly Kirsten, Misty Curtain - the words danced and blurred. She imagined herself blacking out, toppling to the floor, and everyone else carrying on with their exam, not noticing. At the end, the teacher collecting the papers would step over her slumped body ...

  In a tremor of panic she shoved back her chair and stumbled to her feet, accidentally sweeping
her exam paper to the floor. Surprised faces gaped as she bolted down the narrow aisle between desks. She saw miniature teddy mascots and lucky dice key rings and pocket French dictionaries; pens moving over paper, producing script like rows of knitting. Tat mouthed something at her; she glimpsed Ross's anxious face. Reaching the double doors, Kirsty pushed past another teacher who held out a hand to restrain her. She burst out to the deserted corridor, where notices warned Silence - exam in progress.

  The teacher was following her through the swing doors. Gulping air, Kirsty ran the length of the corridor, turned a corner, turned again into the caretaker's area and out into the air.

  Free.

  Later, when Mr Bricknell, the exam secretary, phoned home, she said she’d felt sick. Had to rush to the loo. No time to put her hand up, to explain.

  Why hadn't she come back to continue the exam? Mr Bricknell wanted to know. Why hadn't she told someone? Where had she gone? The invigilating teacher had looked for her in the girls' toilets nearest the gym –

  She was ill, Kirsty insisted. Sick. Must have eaten something - couldn't stop throwing up. That seemed to excuse everything. There had been only one place to go. She had cycled home, straight to the stable-yard to find Jay, and collapsed on him in a storm of weeping.

  “Hey, Mouse! What's happened?”

  He was in the sunlit yard, in jeans and T-shirt, hosing Leo's swollen tendon, while collared doves pecked at spilled grain and both cats basked by a wall. Kirsty smelled Leo's warm coat, and the hay and the dust of the yard, and couldn't explain. Not even to Jay, who put his arm round her and soothed her and eventually, when he couldn't get any sense out of her, left her sitting on an upturned bucket, while he went to fetch their mother from the house.

  Ursula, who had come back to Bramblings for the day to finish packing up her stuff, was brisk and practical. “Are you quite sure you can't go back? All right, have a rest now, and I'll drive you back for the History this afternoon. Fetch you again afterwards, if you like. It's your GCSEs, Kirsty, your future! You'll have to make the effort!”

  No. Nothing was going to make Kirsty go back into that exam hall. There were phone calls, Mum to Mr Bricknell, Mr Bricknell to Kirsty. She wouldn't fail her French and History outright, it seemed. There were allowances for illness, for special circumstances. She would get something based on her teachers' estimated grades and the papers she’d already done.

  Tatjana phoned at lunchtime. “What happened to you? You looked like you'd seen a ghost. Aren't you coming back for History?”

  Kirsty didn't. Not that day, nor since.

  *

  It was amazingly easy, she found, once she'd started to lie, to carry on doing it. People were so gullible. She felt sick. She didn't like parties. She was too busy to go shopping in town; too tired, too skint for the pub or the cinema. No one suspected, not even Tat.

  “Hey, you're not pregnant, are you?” Tat said, when Kirsty missed the year eleven leavers' party.

  “Don't be daft,” Kirsty scoffed.

  But she hadn't known then, for certain, that she wasn't. She knew why Ross had looked anxious; it was more on his own behalf than hers. A week later, the familiar dragging ache proved that particular worry groundless.

  The other fears remained, grew stronger. They thumped her into wakefulness in mid-dream; they tingled in the silent darkness. They buzzed in her ears, threatening to speak inside her head. What, exactly, she was afraid of, she couldn't have said: she was frightened of being frightened. Afraid of her own mind and what it might produce to terrify her.

  Jay was the only person she could have told. Several times, she stood by his bedroom door, hesitated, heard his steady breathing - sometimes, gentle snoring - and tiptoed away again. In the yard, or out riding with him, she rehearsed her confession: “Jay, I think I'm going mad.”

  But Jay had flown out to the States without knowing. He was so unsuspecting that he left her to look after his most prized possession, his horse; he left her in charge of his business. Jay had met Emma: sleek, assured Emma, with her perfect American teeth and her flawless skin and her Bronx accent. He talked incessantly about Emma, what Emma said, what Emma thought. When he came back from a weekend with her, full of excitement at the idea of going to Connecticut, Kirsty knew she would have to manage without him. For a whole year. Jay had left in September, which had at least given Kirsty her excuse for not going back to school.

  “You can come out and stay, Mouse!” Jay had promised her. “I'll take you sightseeing in New York. Bloomingdales, the Empire State Building, Central Park - you'll love it!”

  The Empire State building, the lift crammed with people, the long ascent – Kirsty shuddered. But she had kept her secret successfully enough to fool even him.

  *

  By morning the weather had turned colder, as if spring was regretting its impulsiveness of the last few days. Kirsty wore her fleece jacket zipped right up to the neck, and felt the wind cold through her jeans as she fed the horses before breakfast. It was Good Friday. The next few days would be busy, with all the livery owners off work for the Easter weekend; she did all the stables and left the yard tidy before she went in for breakfast. Afterwards, Ravenswood, and then she would groom Petronella, and clean the tack she should have done last night.

  She cycled the half-mile to Mrs Hendy's. Beside the track, near the vegetable beds and the garden sheds that were hidden from the house by a yew hedge, there was a big heap of garden waste - prunings and dead twigs - from the work the strange boy had done yesterday. He would light a bonfire, presumably. Kirsty half-expected him to be hanging round the stables again, or to startle her with a sudden appearance. Only when she was putting Prince's headcollar back in the harness-room did she notice that the bolt on the hatchway to the loft had been left open. She stood frowning at it. She was sure she had closed it yesterday, and locked the harness-room door behind her.

  Maybe he was up there now.

  She thought of the way he had hung around last night, remembered his unsmiling stare. Mrs Bishop ought to know.

  Purposefully, Kirsty cycled up to the house. Finding the back door ajar, she went in without ringing the bell. Mrs Bishop was talking to someone in the kitchen; Kirsty knocked on the door and pushed it open, expecting to find Mrs Hendy there.

  “Excuse me, but - ”

  “Yes, dear? Come on in and have some tea - it's a bit nippy out there.”

  Kirsty stared. They were sitting at the big kitchen table, two of them. Mrs Bishop, with a chopping board and knife and a heap of carrots; the boy, Dally, eating toast.

  “Oh,” Kirsty said.

  They both had mugs of tea in front of them. Mrs Bishop looked far more agreeable than she had yesterday; as if she’d just been sharing a good old gossip and a joke with her visitor. Kirsty couldn't imagine it. Again she noticed Dally's deep-set, shadowed eyes, and his hawkish face. He didn't look like someone who smiled much.

  “I'll just put some more hot water in the pot,” said Mrs Bishop, standing. “You know Dally, don't you?”

  “Yes.”

  Dally flicked a glance at Kirsty, with a grunting sound that might have meant Hello. He carried on eating his toast, sitting with hunched shoulders as if someone might snatch the plate away.

  “Shall I put some more toast on?” Mrs Bishop offered. “Sit down and warm yourself up for a bit.”

  “No, I've got to go. And no tea, thanks,” Kirsty said.

  “What did you want, then, dear?”

  “Oh – er - ” Kirsty faltered.

  Then Mrs Bishop clapped a hand over her mouth. “Your money! It's Friday, isn't it? You mustn't be too shy to ask, dear. I clean forgot, though Mrs Hendy did tell me you'd want it today. I'll go to the cash machine later. Can you come back for it this evening?”

  And Kirsty agreed, feeling thoroughly mercenary.

  *

  Chapter Four

  It felt weird to be riding again; even weirder to be riding Leo, who was over sixteen hands and narrow, and
made Kirsty feel she was perched on top of a racehorse. He was so tall that she had to use the mounting block in the yard to get into the saddle. Jay, tall and athletic, could vault up; for Kirsty, only five foot four, mounting from ground level was a stretch more than she could manage.

  Examining his injured tendon earlier and finding it not puffy at all, she’d decided to start giving him quiet exercise. She would start with half-an-hour's walking each day, then, if the tendon remained unswollen, build up to more, so that when Jay returned in September he would find his horse half-way to being fit again. Quiet exercise may have been what Kirsty intended, but Leo, not having been ridden out for months, was skittish and excitable: he shied at sparrows in the hedge, snatched at the bit, veered close to the ditch that ran beside the lane. Kirsty had ridden him a few times before, but only in the schooling field, and with Jay present. She soothed him, sitting quietly, hoping he would settle. Then, just as she persuaded him to walk sensibly, hoofbeats sounded on the lane and a black pony rounded the bend at a fast trot. Kirsty had time to recognise Lottie and her Welsh cob before Leo plunged and half-reared, trying to whirl round. Kirsty steadied him, turned, and made him walk forward.

  Lottie had pulled up in a gateway. “Wow! I thought it was Jay, for a minute. Are you OK?”

  “Yes, thanks,” Kirsty gasped. “He's just a bit excited, out for the first time.”

  “You look great on him! Where are you going?”