Страница 20 из 73
I must have fallen asleep, for time suddenly seems to have leaped forward and I find myself sitting up in a shaft of bright white light, wincing and massaging a crick in my neck and the stiffness in my arms. I stretch and stand up stiffly, moving over to the kettle and filling it. Padding out into the corridor with two steaming mugs and heading for the stairs, I hear the rustle of paper behind me and turn. Lochan has ensconced himself in the front room, lever arch files, textbooks and copious notes spread out over the coffee table and carpet around him as he sits on the floor against the edge of the couch, one leg stretched out beneath the table, the other drawn up to prop open a hefty tome. He is looking a lot better: much more relaxed in his favourite green T-shirt and faded jeans, barefoot, his hair still wet from the shower.
‘Thanks!’ Sliding the textbook off his lap, he takes the mug from me. He leans back against the couch, blowing on his coffee as I sit down on the carpet against the opposite wall, yawning and rubbing my eyes.
‘I’ve never seen anyone sleep with their head hanging off the back of a wooden chair before – was the couch not comfortable enough for you?’ His face lights up with a rare smile. ‘So tell me – how the hell did you get rid of the whole lot of them?’
I tell him about my fairground suggestion, my lie about the babysitting.
‘And you managed to persuade Kit to accompany them on this little family outing?’
‘I told him there were arcade games at the fair.’
‘Are there?’
‘No idea.’
We both laugh. But Lochan’s amusement is quick to fade. ‘Did Kit seem . . . ? Was he . . . ?’
‘Absolutely fine. In true antagonistic form.’
Lochan nods but his eyes remain troubled.
‘Honestly, Lochan. He’s fine. How’s the revision going?’ I ask quickly.
Shoving the huge textbook away from him in disgust, he emits a laboured sigh. ‘I don’t understand this stuff. And if Mr Parris understood it, at least I wouldn’t have to be teaching myself from some library book.’
I groan inwardly. I was hoping we’d go out and do something this afternoon – take a long walk in the park or have a hot chocolate at Joe’s or even treat ourselves to the cinema – but Lochan’s mocks are only three months away, and trying to study over the Christmas break with the kids at home all day will be a nightmare. I can’t say I’m particularly bothered about my AS-levels – unlike Lochan I’m just sticking to the subjects I find easiest. My strange brother, on the other hand, has decided, for reasons best known to himself, to take on his two most challenging subjects, further maths and physics, as well as English and history, the two big essay ones. My sympathy is limited: just like our ex-father, he’s a natural academic.
Absent-mindedly sipping his coffee, he picks up his pen again and starts sketching some complex diagram on the nearest scrap of paper, labelling the various shapes and symbols with illegible code. Closing his eyes for a moment, he proceeds to pick up the scrap and compare it to the diagram in the book. Crumpling up the sheet, he tosses it across the room in disgust and starts chewing his lip.
‘Perhaps you need a break,’ I suggest, looking up from the newspaper spread out at my side.
‘Why the hell can’t I get this to stick?’ He gazes at me imploringly, as if hoping I will magically conjure up the answer. I look at his pale face, the shadows beneath his eyes and think: Because you’re exhausted.
‘D’you want me to test you?’
‘Yeah, cheers. Just give me a minute.’
As he returns to his textbook and his diagrams and scribbles, his eyes narrow in concentration and he continues to gnaw at his lip. I flick idly through the paper, my mind flitting briefly to the French homework buried at the bottom of my bag, before deciding it can wait. I reach the sports section without finding a single article of interest and, suddenly bored, stretch out on my stomach and pull one of Lochan’s files off the coffee table. Leafing through it, I glance enviously at the pages and pages of essays, invariably accompanied by nothing but ticks and exclamations of praise. Nothing but As and A stars – I wonder if next year I could get away with passing off some of Lochan’s work as my own. They’d think I’d morphed into a genius overnight. A recent piece of creative writing makes me pause: an essay, written less than a week ago, its usual list of superlatives in the margins. But it’s the teacher’s comment at the end that catches my attention:
An extremely evocative, powerful depiction of a young man’s i
Beneath this panegyric, in large letters, the teacher has added: Please at least consider reading this out in class. It would really inspire the others and would be good practice for you ahead of your presentation.
My curiosity aroused, I leaf back through the pages and start reading Lochan’s essay. It’s about a young man, an undergraduate, returning to university in the summer break to find out whether he has got his degree. Joining the throngs that crowd the display boards, the guy discovers to his astonishment that he has received a first, the only one in his department. But instead of elation, he feels only a sense of emptiness, and as he moves away from the crowds of students hugging distressed friends or celebrating with others, nobody seems to notice him, no one even looks in his direction. He receives not one single word of congratulation. My first thought is that this is some kind of ghost story – that this guy, at some point between sitting finals and coming back to find out his results, has died in an accident or something – but an eventual greeting from one of his professors, who manages to mispronounce his name, proves me wrong. The guy is very much alive. Yet, as he turns his back on the department and crosses the quad, he looks up at the tall buildings that surround him, trying to gauge which one will guarantee him a fatal fall.
The story ends and I raise my head from the page, stu
Lochan opens his eyes and looks right at me. ‘The force per unit length between long parallel straight current-carrying conductors: F equals mu to the power of zero, iota to the power of one, iota to the power of two over two pi r . . . Oh, for chrissakes let it be right!’
‘Your story is incredible.’
He blinks at me. ‘What?’
‘The English essay you wrote last week.’ I glance down at the pages in my hand. ‘Tall Buildings.’
Lochan’s eyes sharpen suddenly and I see him tense. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I was flicking through your English file and I found this.’ I hold it aloft.
‘Did you read it?’
‘Yes. It’s bloody good.’
He looks away, appearing acutely uncomfortable. ‘It was just taken from something I saw on TV. Could you test me on this now?’
‘Wait . . .’ I refuse to let him brush this aside so easily. ‘Why did you write this? Who’s the story about?’
‘Nobody. It’s just a story, OK?’ He sounds angry suddenly, his eyes darting away from mine.
The essay still in my hand, I don’t move, giving him a long, hard look.
‘You think it’s about me? It’s not about me.’ His voice rises defensively.
‘OK, Lochan. OK.’ I realize I have no choice but to back off.
He is chewing his lip hard, aware that I’m not convinced. ‘Well, you know, sometimes you take a few things from your own life, change them, exaggerate parts,’ he concedes, turning away.