You Against Me

‘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 ru

‘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 in his face, forcing him away from the gate until he stood in the middle of the grass shaking his head, blood ru

‘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 pla

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 pla

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 begi

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?’