Ten

Caspien’s sixteenth birthday was on Sunday. It was a quiet lunch which Beth and Luke (and I, honestly) were surprised to have been invited to. Gideon had extended the invitation on Thursday, so I’d passed it on. Just a small thing with those closest to him, Gideon had said. I assumed then that he meant closest geographically.

He was in the library when I turned up for study night the Thursday after his ‘episode’.

His nose was deep in a book with a French title and a painting of a young boy on the cover. He didn’t look up as I sat down across from him at the table and pulled out my laptop and textbook. All trace of sickness or whatever had been on him on Tuesday evening was gone. His hair was bright and shiny, and his skin a smooth pink gold.

“Are you okay?” I asked when the silence got too much to bear.

Over his book, his eyes found mine. A frown creased the space between his brows.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” His words were sharp and hard, all trace of the softness he’d had the last time I saw him gone.

I’d wanted to call yesterday to check on him, but something had held me back. And this, I realised, was that something.

I put my bag on the floor and opened my laptop.

“No reason...”

And that had been it.

The three of us walked up from the cottage to the main house on the afternoon of the 30th November. I’d gone into town the day before to get him a gift, and it was only as I walked up and thought about how he might receive it that I realised I’d left it on my dresser.

“I forgot his gift,” I said.

Luke shook his head and laughed while Beth tutted before reaching into her bag to give me her set of keys.

“Don’t dawdle,” she warned.

“With the way you walk? I’ll still beat you there,” I threw over my shoulder as I jogged backwards toward the cottage.

My gift was where I left it, and I scooped it up and hurried back downstairs.

Those closest people to Caspien were apparently Gideon, me, Luke, Beth, Tarbert and Elspeth and some child of Gideon’s cousin who had come to stay for the weekend. Finlay, his name was. A scrawny boy with glasses, a brace, and a shock of reddish-brown hair.

In all the months I’d known them, I’d never heard Finlay’s name mentioned once by either Gideon or Caspien. Yet there he was, sprawled on the rug in the main living room, shoving a cupcake into his mouth like he belonged there.

Gideon had already given Caspien a pile of designer clothing, a new iPad, a silver bracelet engraved with his initials, and a new leather saddle for Falstaff. Luke and Beth had given him a voucher for an online bookstore, and now it was my turn to hand him my gift.

I felt stupid and nervous. Why had I insisted on getting him an individual gift? Luke and Beth’s voucher would have been more than enough from all of us. I never got Alfie or Josh gifts. And Caspien and I weren’t even proper friends. We were something else. It was weird. I regretted it immeasurably the moment he turned expectant blue eyes on me.

I stood up, went to where he sat, and shoved the gift bag at him.

“Um, it was just a couple of things I saw and thought you’d like,” I said as he took it.

I sat back down and watched him open the bag and pull out the first tissue-wrapped item. A sheet music book of the best of Studio Ghibli. I loved the Studio Ghibli movies, and as soon as I saw it in the bookstore, I couldn’t get the image of Caspien playing something from My Neighbour Totoro out of my head. The second item was a tin of special edition Faber-Castell drawing pencils. I didn’t know much about pencils, but the woman in the shop told me they would make a nice gift, and they had come in a rather elaborate-looking tin.

He flicked through the book quickly, as if he were looking for something, and then closed it and set it beside his other gifts. He tore the wrapping paper off the pencils and flipped open the tin to inspect the contents, nodding.

“Thank you, Jude. This is very kind of you,” he said, setting the tin on top of the book.

It felt like the entire room was looking at me, watching my reaction to his reaction. Finlay on the floor had this weird look on his face as he glanced between us both. Gideon was beaming wide.

I shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

Caspien’s eyes narrowed very slightly at that, but he said nothing more.

“I’ll bring the sandwiches and cakes through, shall I?” Elspeth said, standing. “If there are any left, that is.” She glared at Finlay, who gave her a cheeky grin. Unlike Cas, he wasn’t obnoxious with his overt poshness; he was sort of geeky and childlike with it.

The rest of the afternoon was a weird, awkward thing that felt staged, like we were all part of some play I didn’t know the lines for. We ate sandwiches – tuna cucumber, egg and cress, and salmon cream cheese – and then cupcakes before Gideon carried through a large chocolate birthday cake with ‘16’ written in white chocolate icing, and we all sang happy birthday.

Gideon let Caspien and Finlay have a small glass of champagne each.

This time, since it was a special occasion, Beth and Luke said I could have one, too. I didn’t particularly like it. I thought it tasted like fizzy salted water, but I did like the warm, bubbly feeling that settled over me afterwards. Like how after I’d run or swam really fast, my body felt light and filled with hot air. I gulped it too fast, trying to burp quietly as the fizziness rose up in my chest.

While Elspeth cleared away the cake, Gideon talked with Luke and Beth about some work he planned on doing at the house. Finlay was showing Caspien something on his phone. I took the opportunity to slip away and call Ellie. She wanted to come over that night, but I hadn’t committed to it since I didn’t know what time I’d be home. And now, sitting on the step outside, I hovered over her name in my phone.

I did want to see her and spend time with her; it’s just that I wanted to spend time with someone else more. I was only out there contemplating calling her because the person I wanted to spend time with was inside giving his attention to someone else. It was pathetic. I was pathetic.

Angry with myself, I flicked away from Ellie’s number and brought up Instagram instead. I’d followed Caspien a couple of weeks ago, the day at the beach; we’d all followed him in some pretence that we would all be friends. He hadn’t followed me back, and he didn’t post very often. In fact, he hadn’t posted at all since I’d followed him.

So when I went to his page and noticed a new post from earlier, I sat up straighter. It was a picture of his bed, gifts arranged artfully on top, and a single birthday cake caption. I noted the iPad, dark blue Chanel bag, expensive cologne, and the scarf from Finlay. My gifts weren’t there, but all of the others were. That’s when I noticed it.

Something that didn’t belong. Something I hadn’t watched him open earlier.

The book had a green antique-looking hardback cover. An early edition certainly with the title etched in foiling on the front. No matter how much I zoomed in, I couldn’t make out the title.

Who’d bought him it? Why did seeing it make me feel chilled to the bone?

I tried to reason it out. Of course, given the piles around his room, it was possible that one of his books had found its way onto the bed and into that photo. But something told me that it wasn’t an accident. It looked placed there. Deliberate. It sat in the middle of the bed in the centre of a posed photo. It looked like a message.

I stood up and rushed back inside.

I took the stairs as quietly as possible and made my way to the last door at the end of the corridor. It was closed but not locked and the pile sat on the bed exactly as it did in the photo.

Except the book was gone.

Lots of the books that had been lying in stacks the last time I was in here were now on shelves. Some still lay in piles beside his bed, but if my gut was right, then would he really put the book on a shelf like all the others? I didn’t think so.

I knelt and looked under the bed which was clear and so clean that the wooden floor shone.

There was a tall chest of drawers by the window, which I went to next, opening each one and rummaging quickly through it. T-shirts, shorts, underwear and socks, but no books. I knew the invasion of his privacy was wrong, but I was too keyed up, too convinced about what I would find and how angry I was going to be about it, to focus on something as pointless as right and wrong. Not when this was so beyond wrong.

The ottoman at the foot of the bed had two small doors and three drawers in the centre. Here, I found stacks of unused sketchpads and paper. In the drawers were phone chargers and other cables.

Though I was certain I wouldn’t find it, I turned and scanned the shelves anyway. The books were mainly modern, so I looked for any that stood out as clothbound and green.

As a last attempt, I moved to the bed and stuffed my hand under the pillow on his side, then the other. I pulled out a black eye mask, which I stuffed back under. With a sigh, I sat down to think. I’d confront him. Ask him outright. I doubted he cared enough about what I threatened or thought to lie to me. And now that he was old enough, I supposed no one could really stop him. I felt sick. I felt angry. I felt impotent with both. I felt something dig into my thigh.

I stood and pulled back the duvet. It was such an obvious bloody place, and I’d almost missed it. Snatching it up, I studied the cover of what I could now see was a very old edition of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. I opened the cover and saw, written in pencil:

“ ‘A lover is a man who turns himself into a slave.’ ”

Caspien, my beautiful boy, let me be yours...

Happy birthday, X

I read it over and over and over. Then I read it again. I felt validated, devastated, and incensed all at once.

“You can borrow it if you like.” Caspien’s flat voice came from behind me. “It’s not his best work; a little verbose for my tastes. His non-fiction texts are better.”

I turned, the book gripped in my hand. His eyes dipped to it and then back to me. He was unmoved.

“Were you wondering where I put yours? I’m sure they’re around here somewhere.” He made a show of looking around. “Unless they got scooped up with the other rubbish.”

I tossed the book on the bed and stalked toward him. He took a step back so that he was against the bedroom door, with me crowding him there.

“I told you what would happen if you saw him again.”

“Yes, you’d tell Luke, and Luke would believe you. But now it hardly matters, does it? Now I could pack my suitcase and fly off into the sunset with him, and there would be nothing you or anyone could do about it.”

This struck a new kind of fear into me. Endless and huge. Caspien going. Caspien leaving. Leaving me. Angry, I pushed my body into his so that he was pinned between me and the door. He made a small noise of surprise in his throat, and his eyes went wide.

“It might be legal now, as of today, but he could still go to prison for what’s happened before. And he could still lose his job.”

Caspien’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? What do you know about his job?”

“You think I don’t know who he is?” I seethed.

Caspien looked frightened now.

“I know, Caspien. I know it was your tutor. The one who suddenly had to quit and move back home. I’m not a bloody idiot, and I’m pretty sure once they find out he’s been grooming one of his students, he’ll struggle to find work anywhere again.” I was vibrating with rage, and the words I was saying were so unlike me I didn’t recognise myself.

Caspien had turned a strange shade of grey, his eyes hard and his jaw tight. Finally, after many moments when I could practically hear his brain working, he said, “Well. Seems you’re not quite as dumb as you look, Judith.”

“I’m not dumb at all, but I’ll assume you are if I get even a hint that you’re seeing him again.”

Caspien’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “You’re threatening me?” He sounded impressed.

“No. I’m trying to keep you safe from someone who doesn’t care about you.”

He scoffed at that. “There’s not a soul alive who cares about me, Jude. This isn’t bloody news to me.” It didn’t come out like he was looking for pity, but like some well-known fact he was tired of talking about.

“What are you talking about?” I scowled. “Gideon cares about you.” I care about you.

He gave me a look that sent a shiver down my spine. “You know nothing about Gideon, Jude.”

“What does that even mean?”

He rested his head back on the door with a quiet thud. “Forget it.”

I wish I’d pushed him that day. Maybe he’d have told me the truth, or some version of it, and saved us both some of the pain heading towards us like a freight train. If he’d told me the truth, would I even have believed him? How could I have understood something like that then?

Then, I was a child trying to play an adult game. A game I didn’t understand the rules of. A game Caspien and Gideon had been playing for a long time before I came along.

Instead, I said something I’d be embarrassed about later. “People care about you, Caspien. I care about you.”

“Is that why you’re rummaging around my room and threatening me? Because you care about me?”

Guilt hit me square in the chest. I looked down away from his eyes.

“I...didn’t mean to...I just...”

“So why did you?”

I swallowed. My mouth was so dry from the champagne and the argument that it hurt to do so. “Because I was angry. I saw the photo and the book, and I knew it was from him, and I was...” I whispered the next words. “I hated it.”

“Why did you hate it?” His voice was almost gentle.

When I looked at him, I felt heat rush to my cheeks because I knew he knew why I’d hated it. He knew why, and he wanted me to say it.

I wasn’t breathing and there was a sound like music in my ears. Like Caspien playing piano. He was so close and so devastatingly pretty, and I didn’t know how to say all the things swirling about in my belly with the sandwiches, birthday cake and champagne, but I knew if I did, then everything would change.

Things were already changing. This hot, confusing, frightening thing that got louder and more desperate whenever I was around him had reached some critical point. One I couldn’t come back from even if I wanted to. Telling him why I’d hated seeing that book seemed too difficult, too impossible.

So I went toward him instead, took his face in my hands, and kissed him.