You Against Me

Tom sighed. ‘I have to have something to look forward to.’

He crumbled the dope on top of the tobacco, then picked up the whole thing and rolled it with such infinite care it was mesmerizing. He twisted one end, then laid it on his knee while he tore off a small piece of cardboard from the Rizla packet and rolled it into a tube, which he stuck in the other end.

‘What’s that for?’

‘A roach. It’s to stop your lip burning.’

Her lip? Was he expecting her to have some?

He lit the joint, inhaled hard and closed his eyes to exhale. ‘Every morning I look forward to this.’ He took several more drags, and just as she thought she’d got away with it, that he was going to keep it all for himself, he said, ‘So, now you’re officially hanging with your big brother, are you going to have a few draws?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You won’t even feel it. Just a little rush.’

It felt awkward in her hand, as if it was a prop from a game. She had a sudden memory of her and Tom rolling leaves from a bush in the garden into a sheet of A4 and setting it alight. They must’ve been about six and eight years old and pretending to smoke cigars.

She shot him a look. This was her brother. He always had been, always would be. She took a small drag and swilled the smoke around her mouth.

‘Take it right down,’ he said. ‘Don’t waste it.’

She tried to drag the smoke from her mouth into her lungs, but her throat tensed and she sent it straight back up again in a spluttering cough.

Tom laughed. ‘You’re such a rookie. Come on, you’re not going to get stoned, you’ll feel warm and a bit happy. Don’t give up so easily.’

Under his instruction, she took a deeper drag and tried to pull the smoke right down. Her lungs burned, her brain swung sideways and the smoke came hacking out again.

Tom took the joint from her then, and inhaled ridiculously deeply, as if showing her how to do it properly. He blew the smoke out towards the windscreen. It bounced straight back at them in a pungent cloud.

He smiled dreamily at her. ‘You’ve joined the dark side of the force now. You know that, don’t you?’

She slunk down in her seat, embarrassed. She’d never in her whole life bunked school, smoked dope or kissed a boy whose name she didn’t know, and yet in the last few days, she’d done all these things. This was what it must be like to have control of your own life. This is what it would be like at university – she’d do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. No questions asked. No surveillance. Maybe she’d even get into smoking. It was quite nice after the initial rush.

Tom looked happier than she’d seen him for days, sitting there with a joint in his hand. She smiled at him. He was her brother. They were bound.

‘Tom?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Did you like Karyn McKenzie once?’

He turned to her, surprised. ‘Do we have to talk about this?’

‘I know you hate her now, but before all this happened, did you like her?’

Tom opened his window, stretched his arm out and flexed his fingers. ‘She’s a slut.’

‘So, why did you invite her round?’

‘I didn’t – she followed me home.’

‘But you gave her a lift from the pub. You stood in the garden with your arm round her.’

‘You want this to be a love story?’

‘I just want to know.’

He sighed. ‘You saw what she was wearing. You think I should go to jail for saying yes when she offered herself to me on a plate?’

‘Did you send her threatening texts when she said she was going to the police?’

He looked at her sharply. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Is that why they didn’t give you bail straight away? Dad said it was the rubbish lawyer, but it wasn’t, was it?’

Tom licked the edge of his mouth with his tongue. ‘When you saw her the next morning, when she came downstairs and you were in the kitchen, what did she say to you?’

This again. She hated this. This was like the police station. ‘I already told you: she asked me for some orange juice and directions back into town.’

He nodded. ‘Exactly. She didn’t look hassled or anything, did she? She wasn’t crying and she didn’t say anything about being attacked, did she? She drank a glass of juice and left the house and went home. She didn’t even bother going to the cops for hours.’ He tossed the joint end out of the car and shut his window. He put the Rizla packet and the dope back in the tin. ‘I sent her texts because she was about to stitch me up.’

This is what grief is like, Ellie thought. It had a shape in her mouth like an O.

‘If I said I didn’t want to be your witness, what would you do?’

He looked genuinely alarmed. ‘You can’t bail out on me!’

‘I’m scared of going to court.’

‘We’re all fucking scared!’

‘But they’ll ask me questions and what if I get it wrong?’

‘How hard can it be? Just say you don’t know anything.’

‘I did tell you Karyn was only fifteen though.’

‘And I didn’t hear you.’

‘We had a whole conversation about it on the landing.’

‘So now you want me to go to jail because I’m hard of hearing?’

She turned to him, her cheeks burning. ‘How do you know she wanted you? How do you really know? She was so drunk she couldn’t even walk.’

He leaned towards her, his face only centimetres from hers. He spoke very quietly. ‘If you pull out, the cops will think I’m guilty.’

She shook her head, heart thumping. ‘They won’t.’

‘They’ll haul you down the station and ask you tons of questions. Then they’ll get a witness order and force you to court, whether you want to go or not. They’ll put you in the witness box and cross-examine you for hours. They’ll think it’s really suspicious that my own sister can’t be bothered to defend me.’

Ellie blinked. She knew what would happen next. He’d withdraw all the warmth and replace it with coldness. It would be brutal, like the sun going in and sheet ice covering the sky. It had always been this way with Tom.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘It’s ironic, I actually thought you were old enough to hang out with. But you’re worse than Dad.’

She’d ruined it between them now and it had been so perfect.

‘Get out of the car.’

‘Here?’

‘I’m meeting Freddie.’

‘Can you take me home first?’

‘Mum’s there. You want her to know you’re not in school?’

‘So, what will I do all day?’

‘I don’t know, it was your idea to bunk. Why are you going on at me all the time? There’s a bus back into town.’

So, she was stuck, the same as last week. Only then she’d had her anger and the river and the gatecrasher, and today she was dizzy from the dope and was being dumped in the middle of the harbour in a mist.

She closed her eyes, tried to get back to the anger. She wanted something to hold on to.

‘Do you have any money?’ she said.

He sighed, reached into his pocket and pulled out some coins, counted out five pounds and handed them to her. ‘You’ve got to trust me, Ellie.’ His face was still and his voice was very certain. ‘I mean it.’

And then she got out of the car.