You And Me, Always(52)

‘When did you ever meet his mother?' Kyle had only arrived at the school  six months earlier and had lived several miles from Stanton Langley, in  a village called Compton Drew. As far as Dan was aware, none of them  had encountered his parents.

Lily reached over for the punnet of raspberries, then lay back and rested them on her flat stomach. ‘It's a secret.'

He turned his head to look at her. ‘What?'

She popped a raspberry into her mouth. ‘OK, it was a secret. I'm sure he  won't mind me telling you now. He invited me over for tea at his house  one day.'

‘He did?' Dan paused. ‘Is that the secret? Are you sure you want to work for MI5?'

‘Sarcastic.' Lily gave his ankle a gentle kick. ‘He asked me to pretend to be his girlfriend, if you must know.'

‘Seriously? Why?'

‘His mother had been giving him a hard time, wanting to know why he  wasn't going out with anyone. Poor Kyle. When he told me, I couldn't  believe she'd be like that. Then I met her, and she was worse. The first  thing she said to me was "So you're Kyle's girlfriend? Thank goodness  for that, we were beginning to think he was gay."'

‘Ouch. What a witch. And she actually meant it?' Dan said in disbelief.

‘Oh definitely. She was a horrible woman.'

Now he felt even worse. That poor kid. ‘And presumably he was gay.'

‘Nope. He said not. He told me he was straight but shy. And he was only  sixteen, for crying out loud. Can you imagine how awful it must have  been, having your mother coming out with stuff like that?'

‘So you just went over to his house for tea and that was it? She was convinced?'

‘I went over there four or five times. His mother ended up really liking me.'

‘But there was never anything going on between you and Kyle?'

‘Of course not. We just held hands a bit and pretended to be boyfriend and girlfriend for a few weeks. Then we broke up.'

‘I can't believe you did all that,' said Dan.

Lily shrugged. ‘No big deal. I felt sorry for him, so I helped him out.'

‘You're actually quite a nice person, deep down.'

‘And you're actually in danger of getting rolled into the water.' Lily nudged him playfully.

‘I'm amazed you never mentioned it before. All these years and you kept it to yourself.'

‘Maybe because it was no one else's business. And if you'd found out, you'd probably have made fun of him.'                       
       
           



       

Dan smiled; he loved that Lily had resisted the temptation to tell a  story that would have been amusing and shown her in a good light. She  was also right about the making-fun-of-Kyle bit. Well, prior to the  accident, at least.

They both gazed out over the lake in companionable silence for a couple  of minutes. Following that day, the farmer who owned the land above this  side of the lake had put up a No Entry sign and, rather more  persuasively, installed a bull in the field. He'd evidently also cut  down the rope hanging from the tree. Since then, none of them had been  back. Until today.

‘Oh, Coral called earlier,' said Lily. ‘It was lovely to hear her sounding so happy. She's having a fantastic time in Grimaud.'

‘That's great.'

‘I'm so glad we managed to persuade her to go. And she's painting again  …  What are you looking at?'

Dan smiled. ‘You.' Whilst she'd been gazing up at the sky, he'd thought  it was safe to study her profile in the early evening sunlight: the  angle of her cheekbones, the dusting of freckles across her nose, the  sweep of her gold-tipped lashes above the clear whites of her eyes.

‘Why? Do I have something on my face?' She rubbed her hand vigorously around her mouth. ‘Is it crumbs?'

‘It's OK. You're fine.' It wasn't something he could say out loud, but Lily's mouth really was his favourite mouth in the world.

‘Have you heard from Patsy?'

She was still watching the sun filtering through the branches. Her hair  was spread out across the grass beneath her head and a ladybird had just  landed on her pink bra strap. Was it a good sign that she had asked?

‘I had a text this afternoon. She asked me if I thought you missed her.'

Silence. Dan realised she must miss Patsy but couldn't bring herself to  admit it. After a few moments he said, ‘She also asked me if I thought  you'd ever speak to her again.'

Lily swallowed. ‘And what did you say?'

‘I told her I didn't know. I thought I might ask you this evening.'

‘Hmm.'

‘What does hmm mean?'

‘Honestly?' She sighed. ‘Oh Dan, you know me. I'm not the  not-speaking-to-someone type. But I still can't believe she did it. All  these years she didn't tell me he'd been here. She had no right to keep  something like that to herself. If she hadn't slept with him, she'd have  told me, I know she would. But she needed to cover her tracks so she  kept quiet. Every time I think about it, I just feel  … ' Lily clenched  her fist and pressed it against her chest. ‘It makes me feel sick.'

‘I know.'

‘I can't help it. She did a bad thing.'

Dan nodded. ‘Have you ever done a bad thing?'

‘Of course I've done bad things. But not that bad,' said Lily. ‘Nowhere near.'

‘Go on, then. Tell me some of your not-so-bad things.'

‘OK.' A glimmer of a smile. ‘Well  …  I made you some cheese on toast  once. I dropped it face down on the kitchen floor and there wasn't any  more bread left. So I scooped it up, smoothed all the melted cheese back  over the top with a knife and sprinkled it with black pepper so you  couldn't tell anything had happened.'

‘Did you also spit on it?'

‘What? No!'

‘In that case,' said Dan, ‘I forgive you.'

He wouldn't have minded even if she had.

‘Thanks, I feel so much better now.' Lily shot him a sideways look. ‘Is  this your attempt to make everything all right? Because I don't think  it's going to work.'

‘Come on, is that the worst thing you've ever done? I mean, seriously?'

‘Right. I'm trying to remember.' She concentrated hard, then said, ‘OK, I  bought two cushions in a supermarket once and the cashier made a  mistake and only charged me for one of them. I should have told her, but  I didn't.'

‘Oh my God, I bet you felt really terrible about that,' said Dan.

‘I did! Oh  … ' She realised he was making fun of her. ‘Shut up. I did feel bad about it.'

‘Now tell me the very worst thing you've ever, ever done. And please  don't say it was the time you put an empty crisp packet in the green  recycling bin.'

Lily reached out and pinched his wrist, then gave the matter some  thought. Finally she said, ‘Just after I'd passed my driving test, I  reversed the van into a postbox and smashed the brake light. I swore  blind to Coral and Nick that I'd seen a red car reverse into the van  then drive off.'                       
       
           



       

‘And did they ever find out the truth?'

‘No.'

‘So I could tell Coral when she gets back from France.'

Lily gave him a look. ‘You could. But it's hardly a life-changer, is it? Is that why you're doing this?'

Dan wasn't entirely sure what he was doing; he was kind of freestyling, making it up as he went along.

‘Your bad things aren't bad enough.' He topped up his glass of wine.  ‘You've never even told a string of lies and broken some guy's heart.'

Apart from mine. Which doesn't count.

‘Sorry,' said Lily. ‘If only I had a secret double life as a serial  killer. Go on then, what's the most awful thing you've done?'

Dan tilted his head to look at her. This was the bit he had decided to tell her.

‘Oh dear.' Lily's eyes were bright with anticipation. ‘Too many to choose from, I suppose. Hard to narrow them down.'

‘It was my fault that Kyle smashed his pelvis.' Now it was Dan's turn to  feel a bit sick; he'd actually said it out loud. At last.





Chapter 41



‘What? No it wasn't. I was there,' said Lily. ‘I saw it. He got his timing wrong, that's all.'

OK, time for some brutal honesty. Aware that his was a story that  decidedly didn't paint him in a good light, Dan took a deep breath.  ‘Kyle got his timing wrong because he was terrified. I'd told him he had  to go for the double somersault, and if he didn't do it, we didn't want  him tagging along with us any more. I said if he wimped out, that was  it, he'd be out of the group. And I saw the look on his face. I knew he  was petrified, but I let him go ahead and try it anyway.' He paused. ‘So  that's why it happened, and it was all my fault.'