The Secret Place полностью

‘If you’re all so close, how’d they miss that?’

Silence, and those peaceful eyes.

‘OK,’ Conway said, in the end. ‘Thanks, Selena. If you remember when you last saw that phone, you tell me.’

‘OK,’ Selena said, agreeably. Took her a second to think of standing up.

As she drifted for the door, Conway said, ‘When all this is sorted, I’ll e-mail you that video.’

That turned Selena fast, in a quick rush of breath. For a second she was vivid, blazing at the heart of the room.

Then she switched it off, deliberately. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

‘No? I thought you said nothing bad happened that night. Why wouldn’t you want the video? Unless it brings back bad memories?’

Selena said, ‘I don’t need to have what Joanne Heffernan saw. I was there.’ And she went out, closing the door gently behind her.

In the Court the pink-and-red Valentine windows are gone, all the big-eyed furry things holding hearts, enticing and barbed: For you or not for you, will you won’t you dare you hope? In their place Easter eggs are starting to pop up, surrounded by shredded green paper to remind you that, somewhere on the other side of the pissed-off-and-on drizzle, it’s going to be spring. Outside, in the Field, crocuses have started in corners and people who stayed indoors for the winter have buttoned their jackets high and come out to see what they can find.

Chris Harper is sitting on a weed-grown heap of rubble, away from the rest, looking out over the bare Field. His elbows are leaning on his knees and a pick-and-mix bag is hanging forgotten from one hand, and something in the set of his shoulders makes him seem older than the yelping rest of them. It stabs Selena in her palms and her chest, like she’s being hollowed, how much she wants the right to go to him: sit down by his side on the rubble, clasp his hand close, lean her head against his and feel him ease against her. For a flashing second she wonders what would happen if she did it.

She and Julia and Holly and Becca have been there half an hour, sitting among the weeds sharing a couple of cigarettes, and he hasn’t said a word to her, hasn’t even looked at her. Either he’s doing exactly what they planned, or he’s changed his mind about the whole thing; he wishes he’d never left the dance with her. I’ll find a way to get in touch, he said. That was weeks ago.

Selena knows this is good, either way. When they slid through the gap into the Field and she saw Chris sitting there, she prayed he wouldn’t come over. But she wasn’t ready for how it would hurt, how every time his eyes skim past her would feel like the air being ripped out of her lungs. Harry Bailey keeps talking to her about the mock exams and she keeps answering, but she has no clue what she’s said. The whole world is weighted and sliding towards Chris.

He has two months and three weeks left to live.

‘My photos!’ Becca bursts out, on a rising note that’s almost a wail. For the last few minutes Selena’s felt Becca winding tighter beside her, doing something more and more hyper with her phone, but Chris pushed that to the edge of her mind.

‘Huh?’ says Holly.

‘They’re gone! OhmyGod, all of them-’

‘Breathe, Becs. They’re in there.’

‘No they’re not, I checked everywhere- I never backed them up! All my photos of us, like everythingall year – oh Jesus-’

She’s panicking. ‘Hey,’ says Marcus Wiley, eyes sliding up from his slouch among his mates and all over Becca. ‘What’ve you got on there that’s such a big deal?’

Finbar Wright says, ‘Gotta be tit pics.’

‘Maybe she’s sent them to all her contacts,’ says someone else. ‘Everyone check, quick.’

‘Fuck that, man,’ Marcus Wiley says. ‘Who wants to see those?’

Howls of laughter, exploding up like mines. Becca is scarlet – with fury, not embarrassment, but it silences her just as hard. ‘Nobody wants to see your mini-dick either,’ Julia points out coolly, ‘but that doesn’t stop you.’

Howls, even louder ones. Marcus grins. ‘You liked the pic, yeah?’

‘It gave us a laugh. Once we figured out what it was supposed to be.’

‘I thought it was a cocktail sausage,’ Holly says. ‘Only smaller.’

She bounces it Selena’s way with a glance – Your turn – but Selena looks away. She remembers that day in the Court with Andrew Moore and his friends, just a few months ago, the wild gale of new strength whipping her breath away: We can do this we can say this whether they want us to or not. Now it feels stupid, like spending your afternoon hand-slapping some bratty snotty toddler that isn’t even yours. The speed of things changing makes her feel carsick.

‘Was it your baby brother’s?’ Julia asks. ‘Because kiddie porn is illegal.’

‘Man,’ says Finbar, shoving Marcus and grinning. ‘You told us it got her all wet.’

They all sound like yammering nothing. Chris hasn’t moved. Selena wants to go home and lock herself in a toilet cubicle and cry.