Chapter 13

Wednesday

Marissa

The bike ride was even better this time. Just holding on, feeling the play of his breathing beneath the long, heavy coat as he eased the bike around. It's nice to hold someone, to feel that solidity in your arms. I hug my mother, but it's not the same — she's small, and not exactly frail, but... it's not like this. This is a heavy, solid, reassuring lump of dependability...

Except that under the surface there's a bomb waiting to go off. I surprised myself when I went off this morning, talking Dr Adams down in General Studies, but that was still controlled, after a fashion. Alban's outburst had been an explosion, bursting free from somewhere deep inside, like a volcano going off; there was more down there, waiting to come out.

We pulled up to a halt quicker than I expected, and I looked up to find us at the supermarket.

"What are we going to have, then?" I asked, as we stowed the helmets under the seat. "Ready meals for nine?"

"Ready meals?" he chuckled. "I was thinking pasta carbonara — it's relatively easy, and I can make some up without chicken for Issy and Kirsten."

"Vege-weirdo's?"

"I'm sure that isn't the term they used," he observed, wryly, "but yes."

"I'm sorry, by the way. I didn't mean to drag you into all this with me and Andrew McBride."

"It's OK. That's what I'm here for." From anyone else it would have been just a glib comment, mock bravado or modesty, but... he really was there for everyone else. But of course, if I pointed that out he'd just get all defensive again. Damn he was frustrating sometimes.

"So you do actually cook for real, then?"

"No parents to cook for us. Evan's better than I am, he does some really good fish dishes most Saturdays. Connor's OK — Kevin's just hopeless in the kitchen. He always trades cooking duty for ironing — he likes to stand in front of the TV and watch sport while he does it."

"My mum does that — she watches the soaps, though. Doesn't it get in the way? I can never see past her."

"None of the rest of us watch sport much, so it works out nicely."

"So what do you watch, then?"

"Not much."

"You read?"

"Not really?"

"So what does Alban Darch do for fun, then? Write? Draw? Dance?"

"I... not much, really. I don't get the chance. Between homework, washing, cleaning and the rest..."

"Weekends?" He just shrugged. It was... it sounded desolate, like the sort of grim existence you look for in a Dickens novel. Working all day, and keeping home all night.

"What about you? I didn't figure you for soaps, I figured you for a reader."

"I love to read. I've just about worn out my library card, I think."

"Historical romances?"

"Close, swords and sorcery."

"Ah. Tolkien and all that?"

"Well, not Tolkien... I just couldn't get into the language with Tolkien, but that sort of thing, yeah. Nothing... nothing deep."

As quick as that we were queuing up and paying — thankfully the school-rush mum's hadn't finished yet, still trawling round with their trolleys. Alban flicked open his wallet, drew out a card, but that wasn't what caught my attention — there was a picture. It looked a bit like the sort of paper you get out of an automatic camera, but it was smaller and the image was white on black. I recognised it straight away. I had a chance, I really, really had a chance here. He'd understand... wouldn't he? Now I had to know.

Alban

"It's not your fault, Alban." What the hell was that supposed to mean? Evan, Kevin, Connor and Pete had been there for her when she needed them. Kelly, Issy and Kirsten had been there for us when Dr Adams had... well, he hadn't actually cut loose on us, but we'd all thought he would, and they'd come along anyway.

Despite that, she came. I'm not used to having people on the back of the bike, but it's happened before, and it's usually horrible. They try to help, try to guess when you're going to turn, try to lean in or out of the corner, and it throws the balance. I don't think she even looked, she just locked her arms around me for balance, and held on. She pressed in tight, so she might have been more afraid than anything — I don't race around normally, but I kept the speed deliberately low for her — but she just went where the bike did, it was good.

We chatted on the way round the aisles, but I think I said something wrong, because she was very quiet after that until we reached the house.

"My god..." she muttered, as we got off the bike. "This place is huge..."

It is quite big, an old converted barn that my parents owned. My dad was in finances for a big multi-national bank based out of London, and my mum had the freedom to do whatever she wanted. She spent her time organising other people doing up derelict buildings and then selling them on for a profit. When they died, she's just finished doing up the barn, but hadn't sold it on yet. Where they'd actually lived was rented, and everywhere else was pretty much derelict — I'd arranged to have those sold years ago.

It was weird, though, because this place had been 'home' long before we'd ever moved there ourselves. It hadn't been empty, the law firm that'd been in charge of the estate had been renting it out for the income — which paid all their bills and more — since before I was old enough to make decisions about it myself. Once I decided to move here, it took more to convince social services than it did the tenants or the law firm.

"You going to show me around?" she asked, breaking me out of my reverie.

"One guided tour of 'Damage Control' coming up."

"Damage Control?"

"That's what Evan called it when he first got here. He was... wild, I suppose. To his way of looking at things, this was where the damaged kids came, the ones that couldn't manage in the homes."

"Is it? Didn't you guys choose this?"

"I moved out, I offered places to Kevin and Connor. I only got that because I agreed to take more — it was supposed to be two, originally, but it's never been more than one more since then. The first one we got, Phillip, was... too much. He couldn't handle the freedom particularly well, and we had to ask them to take him back.

Evan's much better. He appreciates the freedom, understands that he has to earn it, though, and works with us."

"I didn't... I'm sorry, I thought it'd be a little, pokey, squalid, run-down place. I didn't think the state had this much money."

"It's... the homes aren't brilliant, usually. They're better than being on the streets, but... this isn't run by the state, though. They check up on us, but this is ours."

"What, you guys do all the maintenance and everything?"

"Yeah, it's our place. Six months time, I turn eighteen, I'm completely free of them."

"You're looking forward to that, aren't you?"

"A lot... I don't like having them peer over my shoulder all the time, checking up on me. I've done alright for myself, I don't need anyone's help to run my life."

"Do you want someone's help?" That stopped me. She has this way of slipping questions into the conversation like that, questions that find holes in arguments you didn't even realise you were having.

"I... I've never really thought about it." I admitted. "I don't think it's likely."

"You'd be surprised what some people will accept." She offered, and there was a strange smile there. Like she knew something.

"Come on then, let's give you the tour and see if you're so accepting." She knew it was a subject change, she accepted that. We toured the sitting area, the study, the kitchen-diner, the four bedrooms and the box-room upstairs, the shed and the garage.

"There's no fence... I figured you'd have a garden with a place this big."

"There's a fence, it's just behind those trees."

"What tr... what, those trees?" She pointed.

"Yeah."

"Alban, they must be nearly a mile away."

"No, it's not much more than half a mile square."

"Half a mile square? What... a half-mile each side?"

"Yeah, it's about 65 hectares."

"What's that in real numbers?"

"Real numbers... acres?"

"Yeah."

"I think it works out at about a hundred and sixty."

What can you do at a time like that? You just have to live with it. I didn't ask for the money, I'd rather have had parents, you understand. I was lucky my parents had been quite canny, or a lot of it would have been taken up paying for my care up until now — means testing is only a good system if you don't have the means.

I wasn't really worried that people would only be after me for my money, I was a better judge of character than that.

"Oh my God. And you guys own this?" she finally managed.

"Not exactly."

"Oh? What, they own the land, you guys own the building?"

"See... Evan, Kevin and Connor... they don't own any of it."

"It's all yours?"

"I inherited it, eventually. It all, technically, belongs to a company, and I'm the owner of the company. It's... it's a tax issue and some other things that my parents set up before they died." She was quiet, and I turned away from the view. She was just staring at me.

"Do you miss them, much?"

"I never met them. My dad died before I was born, they put my mother on a machine when she died in hospital until I was born."

"What happened to them?"

"Car accident."

"I'm sorry..."

"It's alright, it's... there isn't really any sense of loss. It's like... My grandparents were all dead before I was born, too, so I don't really think of them any differently."

"Do you know what they were like?"

"Not really. My dad was away a lot for his work, apparently. I have a few pictures, but they could be anybody, really." I felt two small arms slip around my waist, pressing gently as she rested her cheek on my chest — I know my pulse sped up, she must have felt it.

"It must have been so lonely." She commiserated. What do you compare it to? It's just the way things were, the way they've always been. It's like missing being Chinese... I've never been Chinese, how can I miss it?

"Come on, we'd better get this dinner on." I muttered, and she let go, slowly.

Kelly

Jujitsu didn't live up to my expectations, exactly. We spent most of the lesson learning how to fall over — I'm blind, I've done that a lot in my life, you know — and I found out just how out of shape I was during the warm-up. Issy, of course, breezed through it. I'm going to try it again, though, I need to get in shape, I've known this for a while, and it wasn't actually that bad when we got to throwing people around.

I couldn't do any of the kicks and punches like everyone else, of course, but Connor says he does Judo — just the throwing bits — at the weekend, so I'll probably have a go at that instead. So, warm and sweaty, we walked back to Connor's house just before it started to rain.

What a house! It's huge, his room's about the size of the living room at my parents house, and the dining room sat the nine of us easily — even though three of us ended up sitting on chairs brought in from the study. Yeah, a study, with four separate desks. It's like a bloody library in there, you can smell the books as soon as you walk in the door.

It wasn't a bad meal, on the whole. Issy and Kirsten are vegetarians, but Alban managed to find something that went reasonably well with chicken and without. Alban disappeared fairly soon after dinner, driving Marissa home, and we were gathered around the table in the dining room.