I am Winter

PROLOGUE

Cee was nine months older than me. We were in the same year at primary school—there were only twenty-three of us so our hands couldn’t help touching when we did the hokey-cokey— but we weren’t friends.

She was loud and embarrassing and bossy. If there was any performing to be done, Cee was at the front of the class with a hand up in the air, the words to ‘It’s a Hard-Knock Life’ already tumbling out of her mouth. At Christmas nativity in the village church, she played Mary or an angel or both. It didn’t matter to her so long as she was seen and heard. Sports Day she took part in everything. When parents were invited in to ‘Show and Tell’ or Mother’s Day tea parties, Cee invented an invisible family to make up for the lack of real family in attendance and gave them weird names like Archibald and Elizabetta and Geraldine, poured them tea in plastic cups, and kept up a steady stream of conversation about visiting her grandmother in London, where Great-Uncle Jimmy slipped and broke his neck one winter when the weather was Baltic.

She lived in a fantasy world and no one else was allowed in. Apart from her big brother Ritchie. Cee and Ritchie were like shoes and socks or Jedward, weird when they weren’t together or close to each other. I’d have been her friend sooner if it would’ve made Ritchie see past my ankle socks and pleated skirts and look at me the way he and his mates looked at my mum. I loved Ritchie more than I loved Harry Styles. He had brown skin and curly hair and there was something about the way he walked around with his hood always up that made me feel like the ground was trembling under my feet.

The summer I turned eleven, it seemed Cee lived outside on the walkway linking our houses, with Ritchie circling on his bike or huddled on the grass with his mates pretending they weren’t sharing a smoke or pictures of tits.

That girl’s always outside, Gran said whenever her leather trousers squeaked through the front door. Her mother’s obviously got no time for her.

I asked if could go out to play. My best friend was on holiday on an island, the name of which I’d forgotten as soon as she told me, and although she promised to bring me back a seashell or a dolphin to put in my ballerina box, her absence left my chest wide open and infected with a sense of abandonment.

Course you can, sweetheart, Gran said. It’ll do you good to get out.

Mum checked the mileage on her exercise bike odometer. Sweat dripped from the end of her nose and she brushed it with the back of her hand. Her legs kept moving.

I sat on the step outside our house and smiled at Cee. She came straight over.

Do you want to go to the park? she asked.

I shrugged. It was the first time I’d been anywhere without telling my mum, which meant that Any Tom, Dick, or Harry could pounce on you and no one would know where to look; that’s something Gran would say.

We walked. Cee talked. She told me Ritchie was going to move away, live with his dad in a shiny apartment in Glasgow. When he was settled, he’d come back and get her and she’d get a proper education, go to college, and become a policewoman.

You can see me with a gun, can’t you? she asked.

I didn’t know what to say because I thought her arms were too skinny to hold a gun, and her hair was so long it might get caught in the trigger and rip bald patches in her scalp, and then she’d look like she had alopecia which was Gran’s nightmare because her sister had it. So, I didn’t say anything.

My silence made her roll her eyes.

Well, I’m not staying here.

What about your mum?

She’ll only miss me when the baby cries.

We passed the woods. We kept right on going until we reached the park at the bottom of the hill, sat on the very top of the climbing frame, our legs dangling and my heart rushing too fast with the fear of falling and breaking my neck and ending up with a wonky head. Cee told me she’d seen her mum having sex with a man.

They were on the living room floor. She still had her shoes on, and her knees jiggled when his bum slapped on top of her and after, she had carpet burns on her back. She showed Sam and Sam called them battle scars.

Who’s Sam? I asked. I didn’t really care who Sam was, I was just buying time, incubating the shared secret until it became a tangible thing, a rope binding us together. It didn’t occur to me she might have told this story to anyone else. This was our special moment, the spark that would ignite our friendship and from then on, we would be inseparable.

Or so I thought.

Sam’s her mate. She’s a lesbian.

To me, wobbling in the breeze, my knuckles white around the climbing frame, Cee was a warrior princess, fearless, strong, honest. My brain was humming with panic, sifting through the fragments of my life trying to choose one secret that might live up to Cee’s, one special moment that would seal the deal, unite us forever.

And of all the things I could’ve possibly mentioned, I told her about my bear-wolf. I blurted it out, confident in my newfound friendship and my closeness to the clouds. I told her about all the trinkets the creature kept safe for me, about the ball stuffed with beads from my mum’s necklace, and The Hunger Games book my friend gave me, and how one day I’d live in the woods and eat nuts and wild mushrooms—although I didn’t like mushrooms yet, but I would do when I was older. I’d never trusted anyone enough to tell before now. But there on the climbing frame, the backs of our legs metal-chilled, I believed Cee was the same as me. I believed I’d discovered a kindred spirit.

You actually think you found a bear-wolf? she asked. What even is that? Her eyebrows arched and I felt silly because I could’ve told her I’d seen my mum having sex too.

It lives in the woods. I thought it was a dog, but she’s furry like a bear.

Cee blinked slowly and I felt like I was losing her, my euphoria being replaced by twisting cramps in my stomach.

She’s real, I said.

Thunderclouds rolled in, purple grey, booming like elephants.

My brother Ritchie loves storms, she said jumping down onto bark chips, her hair flying behind her.

I climbed down the steps with the rusty paint, holding onto the rails like a child.

Run! she yelled, giggling as fat drops of rain dotted our clothes and our hair. We were drenched before we reached the main road; I could see her bra through her white T-shirt, and I wished I’d worn one of the white lacy bras Mum had bought me from Primark.

It was still chucking it down when I stopped at the door to our house and waited for Cee to say goodbye, but she kept on running till she reached her own front door where she fumbled for a key in her pocket and let herself in without glancing behind her.

That summer I didn’t go back to the park with Cee. The next day, on the walkway outside our houses, someone had drawn chalk pictures of a flat-haired stick-girl holding hands with a long-tailed bear.

1

I can hear Mum’s voice as I tiptoe up the stairs from my bedroom which is on the lower floor of our house. On the top step, I stop, my back pressed against the wall so that if she is walking about in the living room, she won’t see me.

When’s Dad going to look at the new fish tank? She’s talking to Gran. They’re not interested in Grandad’s fish; my mum will be calculating how much money he’s spending, and Gran will be working out when she can have some alone time with the telly remote.

Gran’s voice is quiet which means she’s sitting at the table at the far end of the room, and I can’t smell cigarettes which means that Mum isn’t standing at the back door pretending that holding the fag outside means no smoke enters the house.

I bound the two steps between the stairs and the kitchen and find Mum’s purse on the side where the bills and bank statements and hair salon appointment cards create a small paper mountain spotted with coffee stains. I take a tenner. She’s so careless with money, she won’t miss it, and even if she does, she’ll think she spent it on something she’s already forgotten. I check the time on the cooker. Mac will be home from work soon and he’ll get aggy because the sink is piled up with dirty dishes, and the vacuum cleaner is still outside my bedroom, unused, because I haven’t picked the dirty laundry up off my bedroom floor.

They’re talking about football now.

I’m wearing Mum’s khaki playsuit and her new gold belt, so I need to sneak out before she notices, or she’ll make me change. It’s not like she’s going anywhere tonight. Mac will come home, they’ll choose a takeaway, probably pizza with garlic bread as we had a chippie last night, and then they’ll huddle up on the sofa with a couple of cans of lager and a couple of episodes of The Walking Dead which she’ll talk all the way through. I tuck the tenner inside the top of the playsuit with my phone, dash to the front door, and yell, I’m going out with Cee! as I close it behind me.

Summer! Mum calls but I pretend I didn’t hear her.

Cee is already waiting outside. She lives two doors along from me. It’s not a street exactly, more a raised walkway reached by a flight of steps at one end or a spiral ramp at the other. The whole estate is a maze of pathways; flats join onto houses, and houses join on to flats like a concrete 3D jigsaw puzzle with the woods framing two sides. Which is the only thing the place has going for it. Foxes come in to explore the concrete at night, tipping over rubbish bins and leaving a mess behind, swapping places with the kids who migrate to the woods or the park with some alcohol or anything else they can pick up without getting caught.

Cee’s real name is Courtney—which she hates—so her friends call her Cee for short. I wave the tenner at her. She shakes her head and laughs.

We’ll save it for later. Ritchie’s already got booze.

My stomach somersaults and I fix the smile to my face so that Cee doesn’t notice while I wait for it to settle. Cee’s brother Ritchie is three years older than us. They have different dads and Ritchie is a lot darker than Cee, and even though he’ll have his arms around another girl when we get to the park, I still won’t be able to stop my legs from shaking whenever I look at him.

We meet at the park most evenings now the weather has warmed up and it’s not raining all the time. There’s a crowd of us. The others are mostly older, Ritchie’s age, which means they can bring booze and fags and anything else that’s going. Cee has always seemed more their age, which means Ritchie is happy for her to tag along, and I’m there by association. Even though we play music, the neighbours never complain about us; it’s not like we destroy the place and terrorise little kids or anything. We’re just hanging out. Minding our own business. Getting pissed mostly.

Cee is quiet tonight while we walk to the park, cutting through the estate and then crossing the main road which divides the two sides of town: the rat-warren where the kids play hide-and-seek in the alleyways, and the big houses with BMWs parked on the drives and hot tubs in the back gardens.

I’m not paying attention because some guy I met in a nightclub has popped up on my Snapchat. We’re not old enough to get into clubs, but we’ve all got fake IDs and because we hang around with people who are older than us, the bouncers let us in, no questions. That, and because we always make sure they can see a nipple.

You remember that guy from the Venue who said he was a barber? I ask.

What? Who?

The flash geezer with the Audi. The night we stopped for kebabs and then you spewed everywhere.

Oh, yeah, vaguely, she says.

Cee gets like this sometimes. Most days, our messages are like a running commentary of our lives.

My mum’s in the bathroom and I need to pee.

Ritchie just burped in my face. He’s so gross, I don’t know what girls see in him.

I’m watching Hunted. We should apply as soon as we’re old enough. We’ll be hilarious.

And then sometimes I don’t hear from her all day, and I sit at home stressing that I’ve done something to upset her, guzzling Diet Cokes and pigging out on popcorn, and arguing with Mum when I’m too full to eat dinner. But, later in the evening, I’ll creep upstairs to the tiny room at the top of our house where the window opens onto the V-shaped roof, and she’ll be on her roof with her cuddly bunny, and we’ll both listen to Drake through our earbuds at the same time.

I patch the Snapchat for now and link my arm through hers.

Everyone is buzzing when we reach the park. I love it when it’s like this. Ritchie’s mates dancing on the grass, a couple of boys kicking a ball about, and me and Cee. I feel like no one can touch us, like we can do whatever we want because we’re young and special and immortal. And that’s before I have a beer.

Ritchie doesn’t have a girl joined to his hip tonight. He brings us a couple of cans and drapes an arm over each of our shoulders from behind, kissing the tops of our heads.

How’s my two favourite girls? he asks.

Cee shoves him away. You’ve been eating Peperamis; you stink.

Ritchie chases her and she runs from him screaming until he catches her and swings her around, his arms around her waist and her feet flying above the ground. She struggles to get free, and he cups his hands around her face, breathing over her. I join in with the laughter. I wish he would do that to me, but it’s like there’s this big invisible barrier between us since the time we kissed.

Still, Cee is smiling now, and I feel a pang of guilt that I didn’t ask what was wrong before we got here.

Once the last few little kids and their mums clear out of the play area, we all pile in. The boys claim the climbing frame that’s built to resemble a castle, sitting at the top, some of them swinging upside down from the monkey bars. Cee and I take over the swings. Ritchie pushes us like he’s our dad, and we swing higher and higher until the whole frame is vibrating with the movement.

My hair is in my face and I’m starting to feel sick when a little boy appears in front of us like an apparition. He is wearing shorts and a stained T-shirt, and his face is grubby as though he has been crying and has rubbed the tears away with dirty fingers.

What the hell? Cee says. Ritchie, stop! I need to get off.

Ritchie grabs the chains holding up Cee’s swing and she almost falls off with the force of it. I’m sitting upright on my swing, waiting for it to slow. I don’t even feel like I’ve had a beer now.

Cee jumps off the swing while it’s still juddering about. Vinny, what the fuck are you doing here? She grabs the boy by his skinny arm and starts dragging him towards home, yelling at him about crossing main roads and bedtime.

Sometimes, I forget that her brother Vinny exists. Cee is always looking after her two youngest siblings, but Vinny seems to live outside with a bunch of other kids his age, occasionally popping into the house for food and drink. As they walk away, Cee doesn’t glance backwards.

I stay a while. Someone offers me vodka from a water bottle which he pours into my can of beer. Ritchie wanders off to sit on the grass. I swing lazily back and forth, my trainers scuffing the bark underfoot, my arms turning rusty brown from the chains. I don’t know how long Cee has been gone because I forgot to check my phone when she left, but it feels like ages.

I’m about to join Ritchie on the grass when I look up and there’s a girl sitting beside him. She’s skinny, dark-skinned, pretty, with red lipstick. I watch as she leans closer, her long black hair forming a veil around them like they’re hiding behind a curtain or something and kisses him. I don’t know if she is deliberately moving slowly to make sure everyone is watching or whether my brain has activated slow-mo, but either way, my eyes are glued to them.

My phone dings and I almost drop my can of beer and vodka. It’s Mum.

I ordered you pizza.

I instinctively message back:

I’m not hungry.

I can’t think about food right now. Every time I see Ritchie with a new girl, I tell myself that it won’t last, that he’s messing around because that’s what boys do, that it’s only a matter of time before he looks at me the same way.

I down my drink. The fuzzy feeling inside my head makes it easier to deal with. I get up off the swing, trip over a small rock, and glance around to see if anyone has noticed, but the boys are all too busy laughing and climbing and having a kickabout. I don’t even know if Cee is coming back. I send her a message:

Where are you?

No reply.

As I walk towards the woods at the top of the hill to take the shortcut home, one of Ritchie’s mates yells, Where are you going?

Home! I shout over my shoulder. I don’t look at Ritchie and hair-girl. He probably hasn’t even noticed me leaving and that will hurt even more.

2

The woods begin at the crest of the hill as though the slope is a face, and the trees are a quiff. I could walk the raggedy path with my eyes closed; all the kids know their way around the woods. When I was younger, I had this creature, a bear-wolf, who lived in a hollow by the tree with snake-roots—she looked after my trinkets which were shiny things I stole