You Against Me by Jenny Downham
‘What? Are you crazy?’
‘Let’s go and say hello. I’m sure they’d love to hear all about your plan to trick their daughter and hurt their son.’
He couldn’t believe she was opening the door, was walking out onto the landing, expecting him to follow. She was only half dressed. Her parents would kill him.
‘Ellie, come back!’
She swung round, her eyes furious. ‘Why should I?’
And that was when someone yelled, ‘Ellie, you up there?’ which sounded like a threat and made her flinch, and footsteps came pounding up the stairs.
Twenty-three
Tom Parker stood at the top of the stairs in his ridiculous checked trousers and white polo shirt and folded his arms like a bouncer. ‘What’s going on?’
Ellie took a step back. ‘What are you doing here?’
He didn’t answer, looked Mikey up and down. ‘You’re the bloke from the party. You’re the one who nicked the whisky.’
Mikey laughed, couldn’t help it. Ellie had set him up brilliantly. Here was the brother, obviously part of the plan. The parents would turn up in a minute with handcuffs and ropes, closely followed by the cops.
‘You think it’s funny?’ Tom unfolded his arms and took a step towards Mikey. ‘You taking the piss?’
‘Take it easy, man.’
‘Or what?’
‘I’m just saying, take it easy.’
Tom took another step forward. ‘You’ve been smoking dope in my house. I could smell it when I came in.’
‘Back off,’ Ellie told him. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’
He waved a hand at her, standing there in her bra and skirt, turned back to Mikey. ‘Have you touched my sister?’
Mikey lunged forward and jabbed his fingers hard in Tom’s chest. ‘You want to stop accusing me of stuff?’
Tom slapped him away. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘Why? What’re you going to do?’ Mikey shoved him with the flat of his palm.
‘I said don’t touch me!’
Mikey could feel the bastard’s heart slamming under his hand. Having him this close – the stink of his sweat, his hot breath in Mikey’s face – it all came crashing back. Ellie might have a plan, but so did he – destroy the bastard who hurt Karyn. It’s what he’d been chasing for weeks and it was finally here. He grabbed Tom Parker by his collar and rammed him into the wall behind.
‘No!’ Ellie said. ‘Leave him alone.’
Mikey pulled back his fist and smashed it into the soft skin of Tom’s mouth. His hand came away wet and blood dripped onto Tom’s white shirt.
Mikey laughed at the pale white face. ‘I’m going to kill you,’ he said. It sounded true. The adrenalin was fantastic. He punched him again, on his nose this time. Tom moaned, a soft sound, clutching his hands to his face. Blood leaked between his fingers.
‘That was from my sister,’ Mikey said. ‘That was from Karyn.’
Tom smeared blood from his nose with the back of his hand. ‘You’re Karyn’s brother?’
‘Like you didn’t know!’
Ellie pulled at Mikey’s jacket, but he shrugged her away. She’d set him up and it wasn’t working out – tough. He was invincible and Tom Parker was easier than he’d ever dreamed.
Mikey gave him another shove. ‘You wasted yet?’
Tom shook his head, steadying himself with a hand on the wall.
‘You are. You’re wasted. Come on, aren’t you supposed to win this? Wasn’t that the idea?’
Mikey was stirring up anger. He knew it and couldn’t stop. He felt a terrible thrill in his chest as Tom looked up, blood bubbling from his mouth.
‘Your sister’s a slut,’ Tom said.
Mikey pulled back his arm to whack him again, but Tom went for the gap, brought up his knee and smashed it into Mikey’s gut. He doubled over, gasping, his breath expelled in one shocking groan.
Tom yanked him up by his hair and belted a fist in his face – loud as a hammer, the bones of his knuckles burning into Mikey’s eye.
‘Outside,’ Tom spat. Like it was school, like any of this could be controlled. His voice spinning as he shoved Mikey down the stairs.
‘What are you doing?’ Ellie yelled. ‘Tom, don’t!’
Mikey half fell, half stumbled, his elbows and knees bouncing against the banister and the wall. In the hallway he went crashing down and suddenly Tom was on him, dragging him up by his jacket and propelling him through the front door.
The air changed everything. It had stopped raining and was hot and surprising outside. Mikey couldn’t see out of his eye and he was still winded, but he wasn’t leaving like this, being driven towards the gate, panting for oxygen. He twisted round, grabbed Tom Parker by his collar and forced him backwards. He felt like a magician, seeing victory turn to panic on his face.
‘You’re dead,’ Mikey told him. ‘You’re so dead.’
Mikey threw a straight punch. He aimed for the nose, keeping his shoulder to his jaw. He remembered it from all the playground fights he’d ever had. It came back like some old instinct. The sound of his fist hitting skin was amazing.
And then they were locked together. Tom scrabbled at him, tried to reach his back to pummel him, but Mikey shoved his hands under Tom’s armpits and clenched them behind his neck, so he couldn’t bring his arms down. There was a stink of fear and adrenalin.
This guy hurt Karyn, he kept thinking. This guy needs killing.
It was like dancing – they were both pushing, grunting, trying to kick each other’s feet away. Ellie hopped around them like a ref. She’d got a coat on now and was holding it around her and yelling at them to stop.
But Mikey wasn’t giving up. He was going to ram into this guy, unlock his arms, shove him backwards, then break his nose for good.
But before he could do any of that, Tom slammed his leg up and kneed Mikey in the balls. The pain was unreal, hot agony searing up from his groin to his gut as his legs buckled.
Tom stood towering over him as Mikey lay holding his balls on the grass. He curled into himself, was vaguely aware of Tom moving away, of Ellie running after him. He opened one eye. They were at the front door. Ellie was shouting at her brother as he scrabbled around in a green recycling box on the doorstep.
‘Don’t,’ she yelled.
But Tom shoved her off, and waved a wine bottle at Mikey.
‘Look what I got.’ He slapped it into his palm, flicked it backwards and forwards between his hands. ‘You scared now?’
Ellie screamed. ‘No, Tom, no!’
But he did it anyway. Bits of glass flew everywhere as he smashed the bottom off against the side of the house.
Mikey tried to struggle up as Tom strolled towards him. A broken bottle was like a knife. It was a whole different league. He wiped his eye with the back of his hand. ‘Put it down.’
‘Yeah, in your face.’
Tom was giving him psychotic eye contact as he got nearer, like he’d be in Mikey’s life for ever, would follow him wherever he went. Mikey kicked himself along the ground to get away, scrabbling upright, holding his bollocks, barely able to move, let alone run.
Tom was laughing, sauntering after him. ‘What’s the matter? Not so brave now, eh?’
Mikey made it as far as the gate, but he was an idiot, because it was shut and now all his strength was gone. Outside, Jacko’s car looked beautiful. In his pocket were the keys. Too late. He pressed himself against the gate, curled his arms round his head and waited for the pain.
But instead of the bottle, water slammed into him. It was freezing. The sudden cold spray of it drenched him immediately. Tom was next to him, both of them soaked, the bottle on the ground and Tom’s nose bleeding hard as he tried to slap the water away.
Ellie was standing on the lawn with a garden hose. Sun glittered on the water, making crazy rainbows in the air.
‘Turn it off,’ Tom spluttered. ‘What are you doing? Look at my nose!’
But Ellie trained the hose right
‘Get in the house,’ she said. ‘It’s finished.’
Mikey had a sudden longing to sit down, to lie down in fact. He was exhausted. It was like a car had crashed and flung them all over the fence and into the garden – glass and blood and water everywhere. But he couldn’t lie down because Ellie was by him now, pressing some secret button that slid the whole gate open.
‘Go home,’ she said. ‘Leave us alone.’
He pulled himself together enough to step through the gate. In the lane he turned to her. ‘You won,’ he said. ‘Congratulations.’
She looked at him with dark eyes as the gate shut. He had an idea she was trying to tell him something, squeezing her voice out in a whisper, but his ears were ringing and his eye was swollen shut.
And anyway, why would he be interested in anything she had to say?
Twenty-four
Tom was leaning over the sink in the downstairs bathroom watching blood drip from his nose.
‘Look at me!’ He waved his hands at Ellie as if to prove something. They were bright and slippery with blood. ‘Are you going to help me, or what?’
She closed the front door and went into the bathroom, passed him some tissue, then draped a towel round herself like a cape and sat on the closed toilet seat. She leaned back and closed her eyes.
‘Well, you’re a good nurse,’ he said. ‘Thanks very much.’
She tried to remember what had happened out there – Mikey’s scared face as he staggered to the gate, Tom sauntering after him, blood everywhere, water slamming at them and the grass all slippery.
But before any of that, there’d been a moment, and this was what was hard to remember exactly – a moment when Tom smashed the bottle against the wall of the house and glass flew everywhere. She’d told him to stop, she’d kept saying it and he’d kept ignoring her. And he had that look on his face – the one she’d seen before, where nothing she said or did was going to make anything different.
She opened her eyes. Tom was still dabbing at himself with tissues over the sink. Their gaze met in the mirror.
He said, ‘Why did you let him into the house?’
She’d thought about this outside, had planned to give some mad excuse – her upstairs revising, the back door open, Mikey forcing his way in, her half dressed and hysterical. But now Tom was asking, the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth.
He got there before she could answer anyway. ‘You fancy him!’
She didn’t deny it. She couldn’t be bothered.
It didn’t take him long to piece a story together – Mikey crashed the party and chatted her up, he knocked on the door today to try his luck.
‘He’s taking the piss out of us,’ he said. ‘They planned it between them. She sent her brother round to spy on us! Can you believe it?’
Ellie didn’t mention that she’d invited Mikey, that it was her who wanted the information, that her plan had horribly back-fired.
Through the window, the smell of cooking wafted at them. Somewhere, a perfectly normal family was having a perfectly normal lunch. Ellie wished she was with them.
‘I don’t think anything’s broken,’ Tom said. He studied the cuts on the back of his hand. ‘You think we should take photos of this for evidence?’
‘Evidence? You can’t report him. He didn’t attack you with a bottle.’
He turned to her, his eyes flashing. ‘You think I should have let him hit me? You think maybe I deserved it?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
Tom licked blood from the edge of his mouth with his tongue. ‘I wasn’t going to bottle him. It’s what guys do to protect themselves, to make themselves look hard. I wouldn’t’ve done it. You should know that about me.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything about you.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He came up close, leaned down so his face was right over hers. He was so close it was difficult to see him properly. She concentrated on the blond bristle of hair on his chin and the blood beginning to leak from his nose again.
He said, ‘What was he doing in your bedroom?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Why did you have your top off?’
‘What’s it got to do with you?’
He clutched her chin with his hand and swung her face up to look at him. ‘Did you know he was her brother? Did you invite him round knowing who he was and tell him stuff about me?’
‘Like what, Tom? What kind of stuff?’ The cistern was cold and solid at the back of her head. She tried to push him away, but he held her there. ‘Get off me, will you?’
‘Make me.’
She shoved him, but he pushed her back harder and glared at her.
‘So, let me get this right,’ she hissed. ‘He came round here to defend his sister, and here you are threatening yours! And you think he’s the one with the problem?’
He crumpled then. It happened in slow motion. His shoulders sagged first, and then the light went out of his eyes. He looked like he suddenly couldn’t remember where he was and couldn’t even be bothered to try. He moved away from her, leaned against the towel rail and closed his eyes.
He said, ‘You don’t blag your way into someone’s house and punch their lights out.’ He rubbed at his nose, spreading new blood across his cheek.
Ellie felt heavy as she stood up. Her teeth ached and her knee was sore from where she’d slipped on the wet grass. ‘Tom?’
‘That whole family’s crazy. Didn’t you see him? I need you to believe it’s them and not me.’
‘Tom, your nose is bleeding loads.’
It was bright, startling. He tried to catch it, but it dripped through his fingers and splashed onto the tiled floor.
‘Let me help.’
‘I don’t want your help.’
She gave him her place on the toilet seat and got him more tissues. ‘Pinch it here, like this. And put your head down.’
He slumped there, holding his nose. The top of his head was shiny with water. ‘It hurts,’ he said. His voice was nasal and muffled.
‘It’ll stop soon. Here’s some more tissue.’
He gave her the old ones. They were warm and heavy. She put them in the pedal bin, then washed her hands in the sink. There were dots of blood splashed over the mirror. She wiped them with her palm and they smeared pink across the glass. She’d have to clean it properly later.
She dried her hands, went to the cabinet on the wall and scooped out handfuls of cotton-wool balls – pink, white, eggshell blue – like little clouds. She rinsed out the sink and filled it with fresh water. It was good having something to do, it slowed her pulse down. This is how the nurses must have felt in the First World War, she thought. Facts seeped into her head as she dunked and squeezed the cotton balls.
The war started on 28 June 1914 and lasted over four years. Total dead: over eleven million. Factors that led to strong feelings of nationalism throughout Europe were … Were what? Ellie leaned on the sink for a moment, a wave of panic in her gut. She’d learned the factors only last week. What was happening to the inside of her head?
She knelt on the floor at Tom’s feet in an effort to calm herself. She made him take the tissues from his nose. ‘It’s stopped,’ she said. ‘Now don’t speak. I’m going to clean you up.’
‘OK.’
‘Shush, no talking.’
She wiped his mouth and around his nose with cotton wool. She dabbed at his eyebrow. He moaned gently as she touched a raw place on his cheek.
There was silence then, a tiny window of time when they looked at each other. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Ellie felt her insides shift; a warmth for her brother stirred there.
He kept his eyes on her as she blotted at him. ‘You think he does boxing?’
‘Probably.’
Tom’s face softened. ?
She didn’t understand the world of fighting, that’s what the problem was. She’d been looking for subtlety, and there wasn’t any – it came down to daring and bravado. Tom had the better weapon. Tom won. Maybe Mikey didn’t mind about the bottle as much as she did. Maybe he didn’t see it as cheating.
‘He shouldn’t’ve come here. He shouldn’t’ve dared. You know what I mean?’
She nodded.
‘I wouldn’t’ve bottled him. I only wanted to scare him. Did you think I was going to bottle him for real?’
‘I don’t know.’
He smiled. ‘You soaked me with that hosepipe.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re a nutter.’
She sat down at his feet and watched him searching for pain with the tips of his fingers.
‘Is there anything here?’ He pushed out his lip with his tongue – it was swollen, as if he’d been stung.
‘Just a graze.’
Tom said, ‘You all right?’
‘Sure.’
‘You don’t look it.’
Her throat contracted and her eyes filled with tears. ‘What’s going to happen next?’
‘I’ll go to court. I’ll get off. We’ll go back to normal.’ Tom looked down at her fondly, the way he used to before any of this. ‘It’ll be all right.’
Twenty-five
‘It’s always the men. Have you noticed? Any trouble in the world and there are always men involved.’
‘I’m a bloke, Mum.’
‘I know that, Mikey.’
‘Well, it’d be nice if you’d stop slagging us off.’
They’d been at it since they got up, and today was the formal hearing, so they’d all woken early – his sisters listening to Mum as if it was story time, while she told them about every unpleasant bloke she’d ever met. Karyn was lapping it up. If all men were bad, then she didn’t have to feel so alone. Mum was getting off on it too. It was her new way of being close to Karyn.