Stones

I look at her long fingers stroking the wood of the doorframe, at her hair where it’s come loose from its clip, and her eyes as they search mine. They’re creased at the corners but the wrong way up. Not laughter lines, that’s for sure.

‘I’d rather stay here,’ I tell her, but I wonder what I’d have said if I hadn’t got my plan. Whether I’d have gone with them and tried to mend the chasm that’s widened between us without any of us noticing until now.

She goes to say something but then stops and just nods her head and goes. I hear her feet on the stairs and then the click of the front door. ‘Bye, Mum,’ I whisper.

The silence in the house seems to rise like air pressure, and I hurry out, slamming my bedroom door behind me.

I smuggle Banks in by the main front door like a fugitive, and he stops dead just inside so I have to push him to get the door closed. Even then he just stands there, sniffing the air like an animal brought indoors, checking out the danger spots. I squeeze past him then lead him by the hand into the kitchen where I make coffee as if I do it every day. When I press down the plunger on the cafetière and turn round, I notice, with a lurch in my stomach, that he’s disappeared. I want to trust him, and I do, but it is Mum and Dad’s house after all, and I know what they’d think. I dash out of the kitchen in a sudden panic, but he’s only in the hall, peering through the inside door that leads to the shop.

‘Lotta nice stuff in there,’ he says, squinting past the lace curtain

‘Yeah, I guess so. It does okay. It’s Mum’s thing really.’

‘Lots of that Japanese looking stuff.’

‘Mostly pine – boxes and that. They used to keep blankets in them but now people use them as coffee tables.’

‘Can we go in?’

‘It’s closed because Mum’s not here. She locks it.’

He sighs. ‘Okay then,’ and straightens up, twisting his head so he’s looking right up the stairwell. ‘How many floors?’ he says.

‘Three. You want to see?’

We go up the first flight and he stops to look at the claw-footed bath before we work our way up. It feels odd to see him tiptoeing through my parents’ bedroom. He picks things up from the dressing table, examines Dad’s book by the bed and even opens the wardrobe like the snowman in that cartoon – he’s certainly no less weird. I know he shouldn’t be here. I’ve made a mistake but now I have to see it through, so I follow him like an estate agent while he pokes about. He looks at everything, even the flock wallpaper on the upper landing – running his hand up it to feel the texture.

When we come to my room I push ahead in case there’s anything out that shouldn’t be, like knickers! There isn’t, but an old diary is on the floor and I kick it under the bed. I don’t use it any more – I got tired of shouting from the end of a biro, but it’s pink and embarrassing somehow.

Because he’s there, it’s like seeing my room for the first time. Teddies on the bed and little kid curtains still up at the windows; even an old poster on the wall behind the door. He must think I’m a right baby. He’s certainly not saying much.

‘I feel funny with you being in here. We should go down.’

‘Sure,’ he says, ‘if you like.’

We go back downstairs, feet muffled on the carpet. ‘What’s in there?’ he says as we reach the first floor again. We are outside my brother’s room. The door is plain stripped pine like all the others, except for a square of wood in the centre that’s a different colour. Banks runs his hand over this as if puzzled by it, fitting his fist into the outline as if measuring for a boxing glove. He says nothing. ‘Sam’s room,’ I say, moving to the staircase. ‘Or it was. Shall we go down?’

As we start, however, I have the best idea.

‘Why don’t you have a bath?’ I say. ‘Wouldn’t you like that?’

He looks at me and then at his feet, and I realise how rude that must have sounded.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean because you’re dirty! I just thought…’

He shakes his head. ‘No, no. I am. I haven’t had a bath for ages; showers sometimes, yeah, but not a bath. If you think it’s okay, that would be good.’

He goes to the front door to get a little bag he left there, and I start filling the bath. It’s one of those old ones that Mum rescued from a house demolition; big, deep and free-standing, with lion’s feet legs.

I empty in loads of bath foam and little soap petals until the whole room is steamy and smells of roses. When it’s done, I get towels from the wall safe – big, fluffy white ones – and pile them on the wicker chair. Banks has taken off his jacket and shirt and his hands are on the hem of another layer. I’m not straightened up yet and from the corner of my eye I see bare skin appear as he peels off his T-shirt. Compared to his arms and face it’s dead white, and a little fluffy line runs down from his tummy button into his jeans.

‘Wait!’ I laugh. ‘Let me get out first. I’ll make some sandwiches. When you’re done, just come down – there’s no rush.’

My heart is pounding and a little snake of disquiet squirms in my guts. What the hell am I doing? He could kill me and leave, and who would ever know he was here? How could I ever have thought this was a good idea?

I finish making the coffee and put it on the table in chunky blue cups with some flapjacks and biscuits. When he still doesn’t come, I find some corned beef in the fridge and make sandwiches with brown bread and rocket, then sit staring at the clock. In the end, I go to the bottom of the stairs and look up, but the bathroom door is ajar and it’s silent, as if no one else is here.

‘Banks!’ I shout. ‘Come down. Coffee’s getting cold.’

At last he comes. I hear feet on the stairs and then he’s in the kitchen, wearing some new clothes that I don’t recognise. He grins.

‘Sally Army,’ he says. ‘Men and women in funny hats. They give out food ’n’ clothes, you know.’

I don’t really, but it doesn’t matter right now. I’m too stunned by this new person that’s come into the kitchen and too busy pretending I haven’t noticed.

Banks now has golden brown hair that falls in waves to his shoulders, and his face is clean and much younger looking. He seems to feel awkward too because we sit down and don’t speak. He sticks his nose over the mug of coffee I’ve made him and breathes in, ‘Snnnfffff’ like he’s smelling roses, then stuffs half the sandwich I’ve made into his mouth, chewing with his eyes closed. I get up and put his old clothes in the washing machine like a regular housewife. He’s brought them down in a little pile, with the stuff from his pockets in a paper bag. As they go round in the machine we sit watching the water turn black, like it’s a television. Banks laughs and tells me to change the channel. ‘This one’s too mucky for a girl your age,’ he says, winking.

He starts to peel an orange with his strange, new fingers – so clean you can imagine the person they could have belonged to – a Banks who’s married, with a job and a house. His eyes, without the oily lines round them, look wider and brighter and he doesn’t smell any more. I like this Banks, even if it’s only a ‘good patch’.

‘Now you’re all clean and not totally drunk, why don’t you find a job and somewhere to live?’ I suggest. ‘I mean, you must feel better, right? You could come here for Sunday dinner. My dad could introduce you to some people. You could make a fresh start.’

Banks looks at me over his coffee mug and doesn’t speak. I blush and feel like a kid again, a stupid kid who should know better.

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