Shell generally didn’t trust men, taking pains to avoid them and, if they were loud and grumpy (like that scruffy mountain monster, Finlay Morlich), she’d cower from them, visibly trembling. The builders behind the big plastic sheet at the back of the shed weren’t her favourites either, always shouting to each other over their radio and whistling along to the music, spoiling Sachin’s choice of jangly, happy music (he’d called it Scottish Bhangra; all she knew was that she loved it). She wouldn’t evenlookat the builders.
Cary Anderson, however, was universally known to be sensible and mild, and not at all frightening, not like Francie Beaumont, who everyone hoped Shell had no memory of.
Shell didn’t let on to anyone that she could remember absolutely everything about Francie Beaumont, not even to that lady who’d asked her all those questions that night at her granny’s house and who’d pretended she wasn’t a police lady but most definitelywas. She remembered his gold tooth and his scuffed, peeling knuckles, and his aftershave stink. Most of all she remembered his simmeringly threatening, angry-under-the-surface feeling that she couldn’t put into words but it had filled up the whole room those few times she’d been near him.
She’d also never forget when her mum didn’t come back for her at Granny’s that time and she’d missed her and cried for her and asked her gran over and over when her mum was coming for her, and then one morning, on her way to school, she’d caught a glimpse of her on the street corner with a big dark circle around one eye like a panda bear and her mum had suddenly hidden her face and walked quickly away even though Shell was shouting for her.
Nobody in the world could understand the things Shell had seen. Some of it she had hidden even from herself, but she could always feel something dark and troubling in the back of her mind, something that gave her nightmares and made her hands shake all the time. She’d taken to clasping her old baby doll’s blanket to stop people noticing and now she couldn’t be without it.
One day, shortly after she had returned to school, having lived in that faraway hotel room with the broken blinds where the wall lit up all night,red, orange, green, orange, red, Mrs Hendry had tried to coax the blanket out of her hands and into her desk drawer where she promised, ‘it would be safe until home time’, and Shell had screamed and shaken so much her mum had to be phoned and after that she was allowed to have her blanket without anyone interfering.
It had all been enough to put the fear of men into her at the age of seven, and meant that, for now, she was allowed to tag along on days like today as the little ones’ ‘special helper’. So far, she hadn’t felt inclined to help much, and she’d huddled on the beanbags near the Duplo box to keep a close eye on Livvie working.
Shell liked the repair shop better than anywhere, especially because the nice policeman, Jamie Beaton, who’d put Francie in the jail, called in sometimes, and Sachin Roy stopped everyone at the shed doors and sussed them out before letting them come inside. She wasn’t afraid of either of them, so long as they kept their distance.
Shell eyed the other kids now, all tiny, boisterous, happy things. She was much more grown-up than them, she thought with a burning streak of resentment. That resentment was just one more thing she had to hide from the adults, especially from her mum, who she knew worried about her. Her mum had told her so, almost as often as she’d told her she was sorry she’d let her down.
Shell didn’t blame her mum for anything: not for leaving her at Granny’s, not for being afraid of Francie Beaumont and his horrible friends, and not for the long time they had to leave Cairn Dhu ‘to stay safe’, away from her classmates and all her toys.
When she got back it was like she didn’t know any of the children in her class any more and all they wanted to do was ask why she’d been gone so long. One had asked if she had done something naughty and been sent to prison, and when she’d made the mistake of telling her mum this, she had shouted about ‘all those bloody gossiping parents’, so she wouldn’t be doing that again. She mostly ignored the other kids now. They were silly and bad, and she’d watch Mrs Hendry in sympathy as she had to deal with their babyish behaviour in the classroom.
Shell kept an eye on her mother now as she flitted around the little circle of child-size workbenches, three kids to a bench, offering encouraging words as they practised planing the wooden blocks clamped in little red vices.
Cary Anderson sat on the floor behind his own mini bench demonstrating how to do it, speaking in a voice so soft Livvie had to repeat almost every utterance for the benefit of the little group who were only delighted to be taken out of school for a while.
Shell hoped there was another pink wafer biscuit coming her way, but didn’t have the nerve to try and catch Murray McIntyre’s attention. She looked at him now, behind the desk nearest the beanbags and toy area, sighing and scratching his head and making a right song and dance over a broken radio she’d heard he’d been trying to fix since Saturday. He didn’t look like he knew what he was doing. Shell settled upon wordlessly willing him to notice she was peckish and had no wafers left, all while sitting stock-still. Maybe if she put on an especially hungry face, he’d take pity on her?
That was when she noticed the buggy coming through the doors with a big boy dozing inside it. His legs were so long his shoes skimmed the ground, making light-up trainers flash blue and red.
‘Hello, Shell,’ the boy’s mum said, even though Shell didn’t know how the woman knew her name.
The feeling of being seen, of being known, gave her a tingly, shrinking feeling in her belly.
‘Can I leave Jolyon here beside you while I grab a cup of tea?’ the woman continued. She was nodding encouragingly like she was going to leave him there whether Shell liked it or not. ‘I’ll only be over there for two seconds.’
Shell’s mum answered for her. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him too,’ Livvie told the woman, who’d parked the buggy right by Shell’s side and hurried away to the café counter, not even asking her if there was anything she wanted, such as a pink wafer or another pink milkshake or anything.
Shell took the opportunity to study the dozing boy who was blinking himself awake in the buggy. He was red cheeked and had wild bushy hair. She hoped he wasn’t going to wake up and want to play with her! She didn’t like boys. They were loud and made up nasty names, and the ones in her class always swung back on their chairs when they’d been told not to, and she’d seen Stevie Mason wipe his nose on his school jumper during phonics and thought she might actually throw up.
The boy’s eyes turned from faraway and glassy to alert and blinking. He was looking right back at her, staring, saying nothing.
Shell considered sticking her tongue out. Instead she looked away.
He wasstillstaring. Stupid boys. Getting in everywhere and spoiling things.
‘Ah, Jolly’s woken up,’ his mum said, on her way back with a tray. She had a sing-song voice that Shell didn’t think should be coming out of a grown-up woman’s mouth. ‘Here you go, Jolly. I got you a milkshake to try.’ The lady’s voice was wobbly like her mum’s used to be.
‘And I got you one as well, Shell,’ the woman said. ‘Your mum said it was OK.’
Shell checked this wasn’t lies by meerkat-peering at her mother across the room, and Livvie – who could always read her mind – winked at her to say she could have it.
The boy had slipped himself out of his pushchair straps and onto the floor where he inspected the milkshake glass with its red and white stripey straw like a helter-skelter in a picture book.
That’s when Shell noticed his drink came withtwopink wafers. The boy clutched one of the delicious biscuits in his hand. Shell could see he was gripping it so hard bits were falling off and making a mess. Why wasn’t his mum telling him to be more careful? Instead she was holding onto a teacup and staring into the steam like she wasn’t even in the room.
The injustice of him having two wafers which he’d smash to smithereens while she hadnoneat all was still washing over her when, all of a sudden, the boy very slowly shoved the saucer with the second wafer over the floor towards her with his foot.
‘Aww, that’s so nice of you, Jolly. Good sharing!’ the mother said, overdoing it a bit, but still, Shell wasn’t about to say no.
