Forbidden

Maya has used this diversion to send Willa on her way. She runs wildly towards Tiffin, so intent on reaching safety she almost launches herself straight into my arms. I take a step back and growl in an attempt to send her off in a different direction. She freezes, a rabbit caught in headlights, her blue eyes huge with the thrill of fear. From either side of the street, the other two scream out instructions.

‘Go back, go back!’ Tiffin screeches.

‘Go around him, dodge him!’ Maya yells, confident in the knowledge that I’ll only pretend to try and catch her.

Willa makes a move to my right. I lunge for her, my fingers brushing the hood of her coat, and with a squeal she hurls herself towards the wall, head-butting Tiffin in the stomach, who promptly doubles over with a dramatic yell.

Maya is now the only one left, dancing about on the other side of the street, making Tiffin and Willa laugh.

‘Run, just run for it, Maya!’ Tiffin screams helpfully.

‘Go this way – no this way!’ Willa squeals, pointing wildly in all directions.

I flash Maya an evil grin to signal that I have every intention of catching her, and she bites back a smile, a hint of mischief in her eyes. Hands in pockets, I start sauntering towards her.

She goes for it. Catching me off guard, she sets off at an acute angle. I match her pace for pace and start laughing in anticipated triumph as we approach the boundary. Then, out of nowhere, she wrong-foots me and goes tearing back the opposite way. I hurl myself after her but it’s no use. She makes it to the other wall, yelping in triumph.

In the next round I catch Tiffin, whose disappointment soon turns to glee as he finds himself in the role of predator. Ruthlessly, he goes straight for Willa and catches her within seconds of her leaving the safety of the wall, sending her flying. Bravely she picks herself up, briefly examines her scraped palms, and then dances about excitedly in the middle of the road, stretching her arms out as if hoping to block our path. As we surge towards her, Maya and I both try so hard to allow her to catch us that we end up colliding and she grabs us both, provoking much hysteria. Maya has just begun her turn when, in the distance, I make out a lone figure trailing down the road towards us, and recognize Kit, dragging himself home dejectedly after an hour spent in detention for swearing at a teacher.

‘Kit, Kit, we’re playing British Bulldog!’ Tiffin yells excitedly. ‘Come and join in! Please! Lochie and the girls are all rubbish. I’m ruling this game!’

Kit stops at the gate. ‘You all look like a bunch of retards,’ he a

‘Well, come and liven up the game then,’ I suggest. ‘You know, I could do with some competition. This game is piss easy for a ru

Kit lowers his bag and I see him hesitate, torn between expressing the usual contempt for his family and the desire just to be a kid again.

‘Unless you’re worried I’ll outrun you,’ I say, throwing down the gauntlet.

‘Yeah, right, in your dreams,’ Kit sneers. He turns towards the front door but at the last minute pulls back. Abruptly, he takes off his blazer.

‘Yay!’ Tiffin screams.

‘You can be on our team!’ Willa screams.

‘We don’t have teams, you dumbhead!’ Tiffin yells back.

Soon we are embroiled in yet another round. I am back in the middle and determined to chase Kit into the ground – without actually catching him, obviously. Typically, he is the last to peel himself off the wall after all the others have made it safely to the other side. He waits for what feels like an eternity, clearly trying to test my patience. I start wandering off, turning my back on him, even bending down to tie my shoelace, but he is wise to all my tricks. Only when I am a couple of metres away from him does he finally move, deliberately making it as difficult for himself as possible. He wrong-foots me, legs it sharp right, hesitates as I block him, then begins to back away. He gives me his cocky, mocking smile, but I can see the sharp determination in his eyes. I lunge for him. He dodges me by millimetres and sets off at a blinding sprint. I charge after him, intent on making up the short gap between us. I grab him by his shirt collar just as his hands slap the wall. When he turns to face me, his face is aglow with a delight I haven’t seen in him for years.

We play on, well into the dark. Willa eventually collapses in exhaustion and goes to sit in the warmth of the hallway, watching us and yelling instructions through the open door. Maya is next to join her. I am left with Tiffin and Kit, and suddenly we’re all playing for real. Tiffin’s football skills come in handy, making him impossibly slippery to catch. Kit uses every trick in the book to distract me, and soon the two of them are ganging up on me, using each other as foils, locking me into the role of chaser. Finally, in exhaustion, I go for Kit like a demented bull. I catch him inches away from safety but he refuses to surrender, reaching out desperately for the wall and half dragging me along with him. We fall to the ground and I’m tearing at his shirt to stop him sliding out of my grasp while Tiffin is trying to use himself as a human chain between Kit and the wall.

‘I won, I won!’ Kit yells.

‘No way! You have to touch the wall, you big cheat!’

‘I touched it!’

‘You didn’t!’

‘I touched Tiff’s hand and he’s touching the wall!’

‘That doesn’t count!’

I have Kit pi

‘Cheater, cheater!’ They deafen me with their yells.

Soon we can’t move for laughter and exhaustion, Tiffin straddling my back and Kit, shaking with mirth, reaching out for a nearby twig and using that to touch the wall. We finally peel ourselves off the road, filthy and battered. Kit’s face is streaked with dirt and Tiffin’s shirt collar torn as we limp inside, long after di

Kit tries to trip me as I get up to put the kettle on. ‘We should have a rematch,’ he informs me. ‘You need the practice.’

And then he smiles.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Maya

Over the last few weeks a momentous change seems to have occurred. Suddenly everyone seems so much happier, so much more at ease. Kit starts behaving like a civilized human being. Lochan turns eighteen – we all go out to Burger King to celebrate and Willa and I make a delicious, albeit lopsided cake. Mum neglects even to phone. Taking the odd day off school allows Lochan and me time for us, time to tackle the mountain of things that needed doing long ago: trips to the doctor’s, the dentist’s, the hairdresser’s. Lochan helps Kit fix his bike and finally gets enough cash from Mum to buy new uniforms and pay some of the overdue bills. Together, we clean the house from top to bottom, devise a fresh set of house rules to encourage the kids to take on a few responsibilities of their own, but, most important of all, we make time to do things as a family – to play in the park or sit around the kitchen table with a board game. Now that Lochan and I spend our nights together and skip school whenever things start to get too stressful again, time on our own is no longer so limited, and having fun with the children becomes as important as looking after them.

Mum ‘checks in on us’ from time to time, rarely staying more than a night or two, reluctantly handing us the cash that’s supposed to get us through the week, resentfully pulling out her chequebook to pay the bills that Lochan thrusts at her. A lot of her anger stems from the fact that Lochan and I refuse to leave school and get jobs, but there is a deeper reason there too. She is still forced to support a family she is no longer a part of – has chosen to no longer be a part of. But apart from the financial side of things, none of us expect anything from her any more, so no one is disappointed. Tiffin and Willa cease rushing to greet her, no longer beg for a few minutes of her time. Lochan is already starting to look for a job after his A-levels. At university, he insists, he will be able to work part-time and we won’t have to keep begging Mum for money. As a family, we are now complete.