Etched on Me Read online

  Safety? Recovery? Five A-levels? Your mouth everywhere, I almost said, would have said, had I not already been spirited off to the land of unconscious oblivion, sedated as if I’d been doled out ten milligrams of Valium, lulled by her breath’s steady rise and fall.

  9

  My seventeenth birthday fell on a Saturday in April. I’d have gone out to celebrate with Clare, but of course her parents were coming up for the afternoon. That killed me. Not just because their visit would ruin any chance of our spending time together, but also because it was one more reminder of my parents’ absence. (I’d yearned yet again for a card, but no such luck.)

  “You’ll have a brilliant time with Mrs. Kremsky,” Clare said soothingly, just before she left our room for the day. “Won’t you?”

  “Sure I will,” I said. “But that’s not the p—”

  Clare silenced me with a kiss on the mouth. “Your birthday will be fantastic, I promise.”

  After she’d gone, I sat on my bed and flipped through my soul postcards, trying to distract myself from the reunion I knew she was having.

  Didn’t work, so I curled up, and closed my eyes, and chastised myself: Her parents are homophobic arseholes. You shouldn’t envy her them.

  Didn’t work, either.

  “Call for you, Les,” I heard Nina yell down the hall.

  Mum. Maybe?

  I jumped up and sprinted for the phone. Grabbed its clunky black receiver.

  Please, please, please. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Lesley.”

  Any other time, I’d be thrilled to hear that voice, but just then my heart plummeted. “Hi, Miss.”

  “Listen, sweetie, the traffic is completely ridiculous, but I’ll be there soon as I can.”

  I went back to my room. Sat slumped against the wall on Clare’s bed. Hugged one of her pillows. Drifted to the ceiling.

  Next I knew, there came a knock at the door.

  “Come—come in,” I said, startled.

  Miss peeked her head around the corner. “Better late than never, right?”

  I grinned despite myself. “Flippin’ yeah.”

  She hurried over to sit next to me. “I am so sorry, birthday girl.”

  When we pulled back from our long hug, I was struck by how feminine she looked in her linen dress and matching jacket, her hair pulled back demurely, her earrings delicate dangles.

  For a second I was afraid she’d lost her edge, but then she licked her thumb and reached over to wipe a smudge from the corner of my mouth. “If you want to keep covering your tracks, you’d best start wearing lipstick in earnest, kiddo.”

  “Not a chance,” I said, and gestured towards my new boots. “How d’you like these bad boys? Scored them at a charity shop. Steel toes and everything.”

  Miss surveyed the scuffed leather. “Well,” she said with an amused smile, “you’ve certainly outpunked me.”

  Sweet. We went downstairs and headed out to her car for the unveiling of my present. “Close your eyes,” she ordered, and began rummaging about in the back.

  I heard a thump, and then the slightest hint of a metallic twang.

  “Okay. You can look now.”

  I opened my eyes to see her holding out a guitar case.

  My hands flew to my mouth. “No. Bloody. Way. How did you—”

  “Clare,” Miss said, passing it over. “We had a secret hall-phone conference plotting what to get you. Figured you could use a little music therapy.”

  “God, Miss.” My fingers wrapped round the case’s handle, squeezing it in delight. “You two are fucking ace.”

  She grabbed a picnic blanket and we headed for the garden, where I pulled out the guitar and commenced ineptly picking out chords.

  “I wanted to bring us some sangria to celebrate with,” Miss said, peeling out of her jacket and sitting down next to me. “But they apparently don’t take too kindly to booze-smuggling around here.”

  “That’s okay,” I said with a laugh as I lay back on the blanket. “I’d be good with just some chocolate.”

  “Well, that I’ve got.” She reached into her purse and handed me a packet. “My emergency stash.”

  On its wrapper, a reproduction of an old-timey oil-painted cherub stared coyly at me, plump-cheeked, its bow lips pouty. I ran my fingers over the Cyrillic letters above the baby’s head. “What’s it called?”

  “Red October,” Miss said.

  I ripped the papery angel in two, straight down the middle. “Revolution-worthy, huh?”

  “Nah, just my husband’s childhood favorite.”

  Yum, more hazelnuts. “He ever take you back there to visit?”

  “Not yet, but we’ll be going soon.” Small smile, girlish and tentative as Clare’s. “Hopefully.”

  I draped an arm over my eyes to shield them from the sunlight. “Must be a mess to sort out the visas.”

  “Oh, no, that part’s easy. It’s more an issue of whether or not we’ll be able to . . .”

  Her voice was matter-of-fact, but her hesitant trail-off made me both concerned and curious.

  I lowered my arm onto my chest so I could see her properly. “What?”

  Her shoulders hunched in a mash-up of what looked like tenderness and excitement and nerves. “My husband and I, we’re . . .” Her face did the melt. “Trying to adopt a little girl from Russia.”

  Gobsmacked, I sat up slowly. “You’re joking, right?”

  She shook her head. “For the longest time, Jascha kept asking me, ‘Don’t you want another?’ And I always said, ‘No, no, one’s all I can handle.’ For years, I kept insisting! But then, that night at the hospital, being there with you, it just . . . opened up that maternal desire again.”

  I wish I could say that I’d been happy for her, or at least honored, but all I felt was deserted fury.

  “That’s right,” I said, scrambling to close the latches on the guitar case. “Make sangria off my rotten lemons. Call me an inspiration and then ditch me on my fucking birthday.”

  Her mouth crumpled. “Lesley, I’m not—”

  “Oh, don’t even. Soon as you find your new waif, that’ll be the end of visiting me, won’t it?” I shoved the guitar at her and stood up. “Fine. Let’s just get it over with.”

  I stomped towards the patio where the adult patients were out having their cigarette breaks, but only got in a few huffy paces before Miss caught up and grabbed my arm.

  “Les,” she said, breathless, turning me round.

  “Let go of me.”

  “No,” she said, so sharply I stopped trying to wrench away. “I won’t. Not ever.”

  On those last two words, her voice softened. She let go my arm, and brought her hands up to cup my face.

  “I’d adopt you if I could,” she said quietly. “I know you won’t believe that, but it’s true. Ask Francesca.”

  My heart just about flipping stopped. “You—you talked to her about . . . doing that?”

  Miss nodded. “She said the approval process takes at least a year, at which point you’d be eighteen already, so—”

  “But you—you were keen on it,” I said, my voice shaking. “You wanted to.”

  Soon as she nodded, I burst into tears. Threw my arms around her.

  “Oh, lovey,” she said, kissing the top of my head. “Don’t cry. Don’t worry. You’ll always be welcome with us.”

  “So your husband, your son,” I said, sniffling, grinning. “They’re okay with some crazy girl being an informal part of their family?”

  “Why not? They’ve had me as a formal member for ages.” She draped an arm around my shoulders and walked me back to our blanket. “Besides, Jasch isn’t exactly a stranger to PTSD, either.”

  That rocked me back for a second. “Really?”

  She nodded. “Survived a horrible car accident years ago. Bad enough to kill his first wife and daughter.”

  “Holy shit,” I breathed. “Talk about rising from the ashes.“

  “We’re all phoenixes in some way
or another, sweetheart,” Miss said, reaching across me for another piece of chocolate, her firebird ink peeking out stubbornly from the elegantly seamed confines of her sleeveless dress.

  • • •

  Later that afternoon, on my way back up to the third floor, I took the stairs instead of the lift, swinging my new gift around like I was flipping Julie Andrews skipping down the road with her shabby carpetbag to catch her Salzburg bus.

  “Surprise!”

  There they stood beneath streamers in the commons, Nina and Parvati and Chloe and Amal and Miranda and even Kath, holding a banner with my name done up all swirly in purple art workshop glitter glue.

  “Sentimental fuckers,” I said, shaking my head. “You’d think I was graduating or something.”

  “Clare’s in the kitchen,” Parvati said, as if anticipating my eyes’ hungry scan. (Crap. Did she know?)

  We all trooped in, me still clutching my new guitar (my! new! guitar!), to find a massive spread on the counter: paper cups full of punch, little sandwiches, and, right in the middle, the main attraction—not simple chocolate-topped pudding, but a layer cake that looked like it ought to be on one of those reality shows where bridezillas tear up tulle dresses in fits of rage.

  “Told you it’d be fantastic,” Clare said.

  “You sneaky thing,” I said. “Your mum and dad never even came, did they?”

  “Nope.” She gave me one of her wicked glances.

  Of course I went over to hug her, every muscle in me tight with propriety, so guarded I was sure everyone could see what a giant faker I was.

  We took our plates to the table, me in the place of honor at the head, Clare next to me. The room truly festive: our usually sullen crowd full of laughter, forks clinking, the anorexics actually eating without protest. Closest we ever got—ever will get—to a wedding reception. No brides from hell, just my own teenage transparency, burning bright and simple as striped candles.

  Someone—Nina?—had bought trick ones to stick in the cake. Clare was vexed, but I just kept blowing. Take that, and that, and that, like the first delicate pricks of my blade. Put that light out. Right out. Applause. My invincibility so fragile in retrospect that I long to reach over, and touch my former self’s sharp shoulder, and whisper in warning shorthand: pride, fall, can’t, won’t, last.

  Pointless. After all, what need was there for her to listen? She had a guitar, and a family waiting for her back in London, and a birthday cake to put the food hall at Harrods to shame, and a mood good enough to ensure that later that evening—to cap off the best bloody day of her short, histrionic life—she would let her girlfriend really, truly, properly fuck her.

  • • •

  It starts with a lavender candle atop my dresser in a silver metal tin. Soothing flicker. Clare’s face, shining but shadowed, in the mirror. She turns round in a short new nightdress, sleeveless and silky purple, another birthday surprise for me. Her hair loose, a dark smoky silhouette.

  I am burrowed beneath blankets, curled up in just my T-shirt and knickers. The press of my bare legs against the sheet, against each other, cool and satisfying.

  Her sock feet shuffle across the linoleum. She sits down on my bed next to me, the mattress sighing with her weight, her bum nudged up against my thigh. She jostles my hip with her hand. “Not falling asleep on me, are you?”

  Half-smile. I look up, mellow enough for a ceiling hover, but this time, I’m right here. Right here.

  I curl in closer, savoring it. Roll onto my back as she strokes first my hair and then the side of my face, the whispery trail of her fingers slow and deliberate.

  When she bends to kiss me on the forehead, first thing I think is No, not like that. I lift my head, the muscles in my neck hardening as I struggle to meet her mouth.

  “Let me do it,” she murmurs, cradling my skull in her palms like I’m my own daughter, the one she’ll never meet. My shoulders fall back, obedient and grateful, as she lowers me, her hair falling round the pillow, a coarse corkscrew waterfall. Her breath, seconds from breathing into mine, smells of buttercream and vanilla.

  And then she kisses me. Not lets me kiss her, not kisses me back, but kisses me, opening my mouth up, taking my tongue over, so self-assured I ought to be scared, so gentle I’m not at all. When she lies down atop me, the ample-fleshed press of her makes my hips arch.

  Clare props up on her elbows as she draws back for air. Her hair still all around me. Haloed. Her lips crooked, smiling.

  I smile back at her, amazement-drunk.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  I nod. Shift a little, wriggling my knees open so she can get more comfortable. As she settles into me, her thighs push mine apart, anchoring her in me, me to her. Grounded. I think of flowering trees, of the earthy flourish of roots’ gradual tangle, and then she scoots down, and loosens the blanket, and kisses me all over through my T-shirt, rolling the shirt’s fabric up, revealing me in flickery half-light, pale nipples and prominent ribs, so embarrassing I shiver.

  The covers bunch at my waist now. Clare smooths my T-shirt back into place. Lets her hand rest, palm flat, fingers spread, along the upper hem of the blanket. Not at my knickers, but close. Her body poised to slide down farther or sit up fast. Her eyes blinking in silent query.

  I want to close my own eyes, but I force them to stay open. Sink fully into the feel of her palm’s light but sweaty pressure atop my lower belly. Breathe, I tell myself, and I do, so deeply her hand rises.

  “Les,” she says, her voice hoarse. “If I’m . . . if we’re . . .”

  Her throat catches. Shit, it hurts to watch her like this.

  “You—” Trembly lip. Oh, sweetheart. “You’re gonna need to stay here, okay?”

  No way I can promise and not mean it. No chance I can just think, All right, sure, we’ll give that a go, and keep the ceiling backup plan handy. So I look straight into her lush, sorrowful face and—

  “Yes,” I say. Not quite Molly Bloom, but hardly closet Lesley, either.

  Clare hears the difference in my voice, I can tell. Her expression too guarded to be pleased. Hopeful? Can’t let her down. No, can’t let me down.

  My gaze swings wildly towards the dresser-top candle and its equally unbridled flame. Something about the warm flutter gives me a sudden burst of clarity, of calm. I lift my knees just enough to slip my knickers off. Hand them to her, our fingers brushing.

  When I look down, she’s nestled between my legs, balanced on her elbows again, her face upturned towards mine. Her tongue darts out, moistens her lower lip in a quick flicker.

  “Close your eyes,” she says.

  Of course I do it. Not out of fear, not out of nerves, but because I trust her, so completely my shoulders melt into the mattress, so fully the muscles in my neck yield.

  And then, soft as you can imagine, there it is, the warmwetdelicate bath of the one thing he’d not ever done to me. Her tongue taking over again, twirling lush swirls, leaving me awash in swollen sensation, head tipped back, I start to grin but then I’m stopped by the slow, relentless rhythm of being sucked at, holy fucking sodding shit, how did I live on the ceiling for so long and not know that bodies, my body, could do this, spun round in a tide pool of pleasure, deep inside itself yet floating, whirling in such dervish delight that—

  Short, sharp nibble of teeth. Ow. Urgh.

  I wince. Turn my head. Press a hand across my eyes.

  “Too much?”

  I nod. Let out a deep, slow breath.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Clare leans up to give me a quick apology of a kiss, like the pressing of a flower, on my hip bone. Her gaze flickers to meet mine, alarmed and alert.

  “Come here, you.” I motion her up to me, pull her close in reassurance. The taste of her mouth is weird and swampy, but not in a bad way. In fact, it’s super exciting—not just because of where it’s been but because I’m still here. Still! We’ve just had a little thanks but no thanks moment, nothing crisis-worthy, right back in the game like a norm
al person, few seconds of commercial break and now, check it out, I’m nudging Clare back down.

  She moves so slowly, taking her time, relishing this, I can tell. Looking up at me, giving her right thumb a brief lick, then sucking long and hard on her fingers, two at a time, all the way up to the second knuckle.

  Every muscle in me clenches, not with panic but with anticipation. I breathe, and breathe, and breathe.

  Without taking her eyes off mine, Clare presses her thumb to me, circling more lightly than before. I start to drift, I start to float again, back to the place where she took me before her teeth broke the spell. I feel the slip of one finger, careful and tentative, her slowness welcome now. I watch the candle, its blurry, burnished smear of light dancing in time to languid entrance, drawn-out retreat.

  When the second slide comes, it’s a touch harder, but I breathe through it, relax into the slight twist. My boots tramping through more mud, soft squashy footprints.

  She sits up gradually, raising her right arm as little as possible, until she’s crouched on her knees between mine. Gaze questioning, she crooks her ring finger.

  I nod. Breathe. There’s a juicy push, a demi-stretch.

  Her wrist turns. “Too—”

  I shake my head. Her fingers shift, triangulating, making room for her pinkie. Tiny stub, snuck in, but I still flinch, my body fighting the fullness.

  Clare’s face cramps. “Should I stop?”

  “No,” I say, and grab her free hand. Squeeze it tight as I will Gloria’s and Imogen’s five years later, bent double in the grip of labor, leaning into the pain like a strong shoulder, pushing out then, taking in now.

  “Can I try something?” Clare whispers.

  “Sure,” I mumble, lost in the whirlpool.

  I feel her fingers shift and compact into a dense cluster, making way for the awkward worm-wedge of her thumb. I bite my lip. Scrunch my eyes closed tight. Her hand curves, her fingers’ last set of knuckles poised.

  I open my eyes. “Do it fast,” I tell her.

  Rough, inept shove, so hard I want to scream, so hard it will bruise, so hard I have to breathe breathe breathe, candle candle candle, stare stare stare at her beautiful haloed face, tender and grave.