Something Wicked Page 13

  “So what are we going to do about it?” I challenged him, sick with excitement.

  “Are you sure you’re up for it?” he smiled.

  “Just try me.”

  We were getting cold after fifteen minutes of just ambling up and down the street, but every time we passed the restaurant, just as Ritchie told me, I remembered more and more of the layout of the restaurant entrance, and perfected my part of the plan.

  Just when I thought the moment would never come, the woman got up, picked up her tiny handbag, and went to the ladies. There were no waiters about. I went and stood just by the restaurant door, where I could see what was going on. Ritchie entered.

  I didn’t hear what he said to the bloke, but it didn’t matter – I knew what he was saying anyway. He was asking the bloke, “Is that your BMW? Because, I thought you might like to know, there are some traffic wardens round the corner. And a towing lorry.”

  The bloke shot up out of his seat and fumbled in his jacket pocket for his car keys. Ritchie watched him, then followed him out. Exactly at that moment I attempted to enter the restaurant, partly blocking them.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m looking for Chez Nicole’s and none of these restaurants have got their names outside. I’ve got to pick up my sister.”

  “No,” said the bloke, annoyed and flustered. “It’s Coco’s.”

  “Ooh, sorry,” I said, gormlessly. I timed it so I turned to leave the restaurant at exactly the same moment as the bloke, squeezing through the door, accidentally jostling him, apologising again. But he was so stressed about his motor, he ignored me. Then I walked off left and back on to Dunne Street. I heard the sound of a car revving up and being driven off.

  “Come on!” said Ritchie, appearing by my side, panting heavily. “But don’t run!”

  We walked off swiftly, purposefully. In a moment we were back on Princes Street. And our luck was in. A bus arrived at the bus stop and we didn’t even check where it was going, just jumped on, paid our fare and went upstairs.

  Ritchie took it out of his pocket: a brown leather wallet, old and thick with promise. He opened it. There were twenties, tens, some change. Loads of cards, scraps of paper, sales receipts. I didn’t know what to say so I made a fairly obvious comment.

  “The cards won’t be much use.”

  “No,” Ritchie said. “He’ll cancel them as soon as he realises his wallet’s gone.”

  “Which will be when he tries to pay the bill.”

  I could just imagine it. He reaches into his pocket, looks everywhere for his wallet, tries to explain to the waiter, realises it was probably us who nicked it, because he remembers being jostled, but it’s too late. Maybe the girl has to pay. Then they go out to his car—

  And then, as I saw the car in my mind’s eye, I said, “Ritchie? Where’s the nearest hole in the wall machine? You know – a bank machine.” I could hardly get the words out, I was so excited. Ritchie looked along the road.

  “We’ll get off at the next stop,” he said.

  We did, and sure enough, there was a NatWest.

  “Give me the debit card. I want to try something.”

  Ritchie handed the card over. I inserted it in the machine. It vanished from sight. Then the on-screen instructions said, Enter your PIN number.

  I keyed in, 4711.

  Select which service you require, the machine said. I pressed cash, no receipt. £200. Please wait for your cash, we were told. We waited. Out slid the card, followed by the notes. I counted them and gave half to Ritchie.

  “Anna,” he said. “You’re amazing.”

  When I got home that night, I took an envelope from the drawer in the kitchen where my mum keeps our stationery. I put my hundred pounds in there, and stuck a stamp in the right-hand corner. Then, writing with my left hand, I addressed the envelope to Mrs Singh at the hospice. I kept it under my pillow overnight and in the morning, on the way to school, I posted it in the letter box at the end of our street.

  I checked myself in the mirror again. I thought the blusher looked a bit too obvious, so I rubbed it off. I pulled my black trousers a little lower – yeah, just right. The top I was wearing was one of those off-the-shoulder ones. It was also black, but with a kind of silver thread in it. I put some glitter gel on my shoulders. Karen lent it to me when I told her my boyfriend was coming over for dinner.

  I checked my watch. Still a quarter of an hour before he’d said he’d arrive. I was ready far too early. Even the food was almost ready, not that I was doing anything that fancy. Just a spaghetti bolognaise – I’m used to making that as I do it for me and Mum quite a lot. Some ice cream for afters. Ritchie said he would bring some booze.

  I’d made an effort with the table. I got all the candles from my bedroom, that people had given me as presents, and a couple of Mum’s aromatherapy ones, put two of them on the table, and dotted the rest about all over the place. I put some R&B on the music system. I mean, was I sophisticated! The candles were a good idea, as their flickering light made the living room look different, not like the place I shared with my mum.

  Mum knew that I’d invited Ritchie over for dinner. It was amusing watching her reaction. She was going on about, I’m glad you won’t be alone, and it’s nice to have a tête-à-tête.

  “A what?” I asked her.

  “A tête-à-tête,” she answered. “It’s French. It literally means head to head. Two people alone together.”

  “Head to head sounds more like a fight!” I exclaimed.

  “Well, let’s hope there won’t be any fighting,” she said. “Or any of the opposite of fighting.”

  “The opposite of fighting?” I questioned, though I knew exactly what she meant.

  “You’re only sixteen,” she said. “Take it easy. Don’t do anything you might regret.”

  “I’m not a fool,” I told her.

  “I don’t want him staying the night.”

  “I know, I know.”

  We were both pleased when that bit of the conversation ended. I told her to have a brilliant weekend and not to worry about me.

  Five minutes to go. What if he didn’t turn up? How would I survive the disappointment? It amused me to think I was so nervous, just as nervous as when we went out taxing. There was one difference – now I didn’t feel in control. I went into the kitchen to check the bolognaise sauce. This was Ritchie’s idea, this meal. I’d just said to him, come over at eight. And he’d said, what’s on the menu? I thought he was joking, but he wanted us to eat together.

  And just at eight, the bell gave its throaty buzz, I took a deep breath, made my way out to the hall, and opened the front door.

  For a moment I didn’t recognise him. Here was another Ritchie. He was wearing a jacket and tie. I tried to hide my surprise. And he was carrying a bunch of flowers and a bottle of something. Well, I say I tried to hide my surprise. Actually, I failed. I started to laugh, and went, “Look at you!” But the self-consciousness I saw in his eyes stopped me in my tracks. “Look at you!” I said. “You look gorgeous!” I gave him a brief kiss on the cheek and he came inside. He looked around the house and I remembered this was his first visit here.

  “It’s nice,” he said.

  Now that was odd. Our house is OK, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t the sort of place you’d comment on. But Ritchie was kind of interested in it. Isn’t it funny, you think you know someone pretty well, and then they do something that makes you reassess them. Ritchie was tough, why should he be interested in a house? But he was. He walked around, looking at the furniture, the paintings on the wall, our knick-knacks. I even felt a little jealous.

  Then I thought, he’s only acting. He’s treating this like we were going out taxing. We were role-playing again. As soon as I realised this, I felt better, more at ease. I could join in. So I said, “You wait there. I’ve got to check the pasta.”

  “I’ll pour us a drink. Have you got a corkscrew?” he asked.

  I felt all giggly. “Sure!” I went and fetched
one, and carefully he opened the bottle of wine he’d brought. It looked posh – it had a French label. He poured me some and I only took the tiniest amount.

  “Mmm,” I said. “I can detect roses … and haystacks … and petrol fumes!”

  He grinned at me, and drank his.

  It wasn’t too long before we were seated at the table with the spaghetti I’d made. Ritchie seemed really hungry – at least he dug in with gusto. He said it was good, and I felt a little splutter of pleasure at that. I discovered I wasn’t too hungry though. It was the strangeness of the whole situation. I thought I’d better carry on with the role-play.

  “Had a nice day at the office, dear?” I joked.

  Ritchie just smiled at me.

  “I’ve put the children to bed,” I said.

  “You’re nuts,” he replied.

  I felt uneasy again. Why wasn’t he joining in? I tried a bit more pasta. Nope – I wasn’t hungry.

  “You’re a good cook,” Ritchie said. “I can cook too. So that’s something we can share. One day.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Do you and your mum eat together?”

  “Most evenings,” I replied. “Unless she’s working late.”

  “I think families should eat together,” he said. “It’s good for the kids. It helps bring them up properly. Do you want some more wine?”

  I didn’t, but I forced myself to drink some. I thought it might help. Maybe I was wrong, inviting Ritchie over. Maybe our relationship worked best out on the streets. We ate in silence for a bit. As we did, my mood changed again. I kept stealing little glances at him. Ritchie. My boyfriend. My partner – in crime. In my house.

  “One day we might have a place of our own,” he said. “Then we can do this most nights, like a normal couple. And we’ll be loaded then. We’ll have a proper entertainment centre, one of those flat-screen TVs and a DVD player, and watch films. Cos I’m gonna have a good job, me. I might be an actor. Yeah, I’d go to college, then drama school, then audition for parts. So we’d need to move to London, Anna. You could still see your mum. She could stay with us. Cos we’re gonna have this huge house, with spare rooms and that. And a garage. With three cars.”

  “Three?”

  “Yeah, three. In case one breaks down. And you’ll go to college too, as you’re dead brainy.”

  All of that felt scary and exciting to me at the same time. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. I was so happy that Ritch saw his future with me, but robbed also of my voice in it. It was weird, thinking of us as respectable. But the idea had its appeal. Maybe the taxing was a stage we had to go through, to prove ourselves to each other. But the future would be different, on the level. I decided to test him.

  I asked, “And will we still go taxing?”

  “No way. We won’t need to. We’ll just have a laugh about what we used to do.”

  “Yeah,” I said, losing the thread a little. The wine and the food had made me feel sleepy. I thought that I didn’t want to be on the other side of the table to Ritchie any more, as lovely as he was to look at. I wanted to be next to him. So I kicked him under the table, as a sort of suggestion.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  The CD that was playing came to an end. I got up to put another one on, and as I was passing Ritchie he put his hand out and stopped me. Next thing, I found myself on his lap, and we were kissing.

  It was seriously weird kissing like that, at the dining table. I pulled him over to the sofa. And soon I forgot where I was. I was back in that dark, unexplored territory of our bodies. And we didn’t even need a new CD. We needed nothing.

  I guess you’re curious about what happened then, whether we ended up in my bed or not. It’s OK, I don’t mind talking about that stuff. I’m not embarrassed. In fact, it’s even kind of relevant. We did go up to my room, and I’d decided that if Ritchie wanted to go the whole way, I would. If he had a condom with him, that was. You see, I never wanted to say “no” to Ritchie, ever. But the funny thing was, nothing like that happened. He asked if he could stay the night, and of course I said he could. We got into bed together, and hugged, but he didn’t try anything. It didn’t matter. Being so close to him, all tangled up like that, was one of the best feelings I’d ever had in my life. The sex bit wasn’t very important.

  But it kills me, the way everyone makes out that blokes are only after one thing, and here’s Ritchie, Public Enemy Number One, reluctant to force himself on me. Or maybe he didn’t feel like it. Then I began to wonder, why? Was there something wrong with me? A crazy idea, but once it had planted itself in my head like a tiny seed, it grew and grew until it was all I could think of.

  So we lay in my bed, side by side, arms round each other, and I said, “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled.

  “I kind of thought, you might want to … you know.”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Pass me over my fags,” he said. I did. They were in his jeans pocket. He lit up and I thought I’d better get rid of the smoke before my mum gets back. Ritchie took a huge drag on his cigarette, then sat up in the bed. The duvet fell away, exposing his bare chest. He’s quite skinny, Ritchie. You could see the faint outline of his ribs.

  “Have you got an ashtray?”

  I looked around and passed him an old jar that used to have face cream in it.

  Then I said one of those stupid girlie things I thought would never pass my lips. “Have you gone off me?” I asked him. “Don’t you fancy me any more?”

  “Of course I fancy you,” he said, quick, determined, as if I was daft to ask (which I was). “But there’s stuff on my mind.”

  “You mean with your dad and everything.”

  He nodded, took another drag. I was kind of pleased he’d brought this up. We hadn’t spoken about that weird episode at the builders’ yard, although I’d thought of it a lot. I’d wondered what Ritchie was going through, and what he was going to do next. I was about to find out.

  “Wendy says that was the last straw for her – seeing him disown me. She said all the feelings she had for him died, when he did that. She says that, but she still goes on about him. This mate of hers that cleans for him, she keeps going out with her and finding stuff out. It’s like the more she knows about him, the more it gives her power over him.”

  “Yeah. I can understand that.”

  “But me, right, I don’t bloody care if I never see him again. The bastard, the …” He came out with a string of expressions you wouldn’t want to hear. For a minute, he looked like his mum, haunted and rage-filled, eyes dark with fire. “If that was me, if I’d brought someone into the world, I wouldn’t just cut them out of my life. He’s a coward, he’s scum. Worse than scum.”

  “So are you going to cut him out of your life?” I asked, hoping the answer would be yes.

  “He’s my dad,” Ritchie said, and as he stubbed his fag out in my face-cream jar, he looked young, like a kid sitting up in bed, waiting for someone to come in and kiss him goodnight. Then his face hardened again. “He owes me, Anna.”

  I nodded. I agreed with him. You can’t deny your own flesh and blood.

  “So I’m gonna take what’s mine. Wendy doesn’t know this. But I reckon that will shut her up, too, if I put things right. Like when we tax, Anna. We’re putting things right – making the rich cough up for the poor. So I’m taxing him. And when I’ve done that, and Wendy sees, she’ll drop the whole thing.”

  “I’m sorry – I don’t understand. What do you mean? How are you going to tax him?”

  “We’ll get into his house and nick some stuff.”

  I could feel my heart pounding. This was dangerous, this was way out of our league. Very casually, I asked, “How are you going to get into his house?”

  “I’ve thought about this. You see, this mate of my mum’s – she’s his cleaner – she has keys to his house in Burnham. I could get copies made. So we co
uld get in and just help ourselves. He’s rolling in it, Anna. That BMW – that’s one of three cars he owns. His kids go to private school. His wife doesn’t work, she doesn’t need to clean at the pub, coming home smelling of fag ends and stale beer. So we’ll get in there, you and me, and help ourselves.”

  “No,” I said.

  He looked at me quizzically. But that “no” had slipped out before I even knew I was going to say it. Once I’d said it, I knew I was right. “Drop it, Ritch,” I said. “Just drop it. I know he’s scum but I … but I think we’ll get into trouble.” I sounded pathetic. Ritchie thought so too.

  “Getting into trouble hasn’t bothered you before.”

  “I know, but this is different. He knows you. He’ll guess it’s us. It doesn’t feel right.”

  “I don’t care if he knows it’s us,” Ritchie said. “That’s the point. And he’ll be so ashamed he won’t grass on us. We’ll get away with it.”

  I shook my head.

  Then Ritchie looked at me, long and hard, and turned his head. Just turned it. And I felt him withdraw from me to somewhere unreachable, until it didn’t even seem as if he was sitting up in my bed at all. I could sense the bond between us unravelling. I thought, what would happen if this was the end? If my refusal to work with him means he drops me? I felt cold and empty inside.

  “Look, Ritchie, it’s just that I think it’s a bad idea.”

  “I talked to Loz about it. He said he’d help. He gave me … some advice.”

  I was jealous of Loz. I liked him the least of Ritchie’s mates. “Don’t take Loz. He’s bad news.”

  “He’s my mate,” Ritchie said.

  “If I came with you, would you leave Loz out of it?”

  He turned his face back to me and smiled. It was like the sun coming out. “Yeah,” he said. He took my hand and held it tight.

  My mind raced. I thought, if I went with him, I could keep an eye on things. I could look after Ritchie, check he didn’t get into trouble, maybe even persuade him to change his mind at the last minute. He needed me there. He couldn’t be trusted in his dad’s house, not alone, certainly. Thinking about it, I had no option. I didn’t, did I? If it was you, you would have done the same. You’d have stuck by Ritchie. Because I reckoned I was probably the only sane person in his life. He needed me. It felt good to be needed. But I had one more thing to say.