Anything for Him Read online

‘No,’ Jay said.

  I began to get irritated. ‘So what are you going to do, then? Are you going to keep hanging around his house like some sort of stalker? Do you think that’s you not letting him win, spending all your life figuring out how to get revenge on him for something he can probably barely remember?’

  Jay turned to me. ‘Oh, I’ve figured out how to get revenge,’ he said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Simple,’ he said, ‘you’re going to do it for me.’

  …

  I stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘I thought of it just a few minutes ago. After you said if I went round to Georgia’s I’d be letting her win. Something just clicked in my mind.’

  ‘I’m not getting involved in this.’

  ‘It wouldn’t take long,’ he said. ‘I just want to do to him what he did to me.’

  ‘Which is?’ I said, though I had a feeling I knew.

  ‘I want to sleep with his girlfriend.’

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. ‘But he doesn’t have a girlfriend,’ I said. The pieces were all coming together in my mind now, and I spoke the rest of what I guessed his plan to be with horror. ‘You want me to be his girlfriend,’ I said, ‘don’t you? So that you can take me away from him.’

  Jay grinned as though he was very proud of himself.

  ‘Jay,’ I said, ‘no.’

  Sammie

  5

  Sammie waited a while before speaking to the two boys. Not for lack of confidence, she had plenty of that. It was because it took a few weeks for her to believe they really were going to stay in this ridiculous little village – her parents weren’t suddenly going to hold up their hands, realise it was all a terrible mistake and take her back to Kent where she belonged.

  She’d seen the boys a few times, sometimes with their families, sometimes on their own, sometimes just the two of them together; one tall and lanky with a disastrous heap of unruly black hair, thick and curly like a dog’s; the other a scrawny, angry looking boy with a hard face and an arrogant stride. It was the latter Sammie found the most appealing, though to be fair, some fun could definitely be had with either of them.

  The village was so small that she knew their names, even without speaking to them. The scrawny one was called Jay, and it was his mum who had sold her parents the house. Not because the house was originally hers – she lived in a little two bedroom terraced cottage in the centre of Tatchley – if a church, a tiny corner shop and a pub could be called a “centre”. No, she was the estate agent that her parents had dealt with, and she’d told them about her son Jay, and the other boy Mark, who would both be in Sammie’s year at school.

  Sammie had been bothered by thoughts of her new school on and off all of the summer holidays, but now the start of term was drawing close they’d become particularly troublesome, so she decided to take a walk through the woods late one overcast summer afternoon to try to take her mind off of it. She’d tired of her usual pursuits – even her most recent favourite, which was sunbathing topless, or occasionally completely nude, in the generous and very private garden that had come with her new house. If anything, the garden was actually a little too private for her liking. She’d thought it would be funny to one day startle the postman or a neighbour, but had realised eventually that this would be almost impossible. The postman didn’t even have to walk up to the house, the drive was so long they had a mail box at the end of it rather than a letterbox in the front door, and everyone knew her parents were away working in London all day, so nobody came. It had become too cold for sunbathing now, anyway. In fact, as she wandered through the dank, shady trees she wished she’d worn something a little warmer than the shorts and t-shirt she had on.

  When she caught sight of the two boys they were crouched on the ground in a little clearing in the woods and they appeared to be building something out of branches, which struck her as remarkably childish, considering they were fifteen like her. She stood silently, watching them. They were intent on what they were doing and didn’t notice her straight away, so she stayed half-hidden behind a tree trunk and took a good, long look at them. The tall one, Mark, was apparently in charge of whatever was taking place, talking in an authoritative but low voice that she couldn’t quite catch, and occasionally gesturing with his lanky arms while the other boy, Jay, listened closely. She took a step forwards, and even though this brought her out of her hiding place behind the tree she got the impression they were so used to being undisturbed that it didn’t even occur to them that anyone would be around. She took a couple more steps into the clearing, and now they finally heard her, dropping what they were doing and staring up at her in surprise.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  Both boys practically fell over themselves to stand up. Mark gave her something of a reluctant smile and brushed the mud from his jeans, while Jay cocked his head a little to one side and made no attempt to hide the fact he was checking her out, looking her up and down with careful interest.

  ‘I’m Samantha,’ she said, meeting Jay’s observation of her by giving him a thorough visual appraisal herself. ‘Most people call me Sammie.’

  ‘Mark,’ said Mark.

  ‘I’m Jay,’ said Jay.

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘I’ve already heard about you both.’

  Mark nodded, running a hand through his disastrous black hair. ‘Yeah, we already knew your name as well,’ he said. ‘You’re from London, aren’t you?’

  ‘Kent,’ she said. They looked blank. ‘Below London,’ she explained.

  There was a small silence, and Sammie noticed that there was a huge contrast in how the two boys were dressed. Jay was wearing dark, acid-washed jeans with bright yellow stitching and his t-shirt was grey and slim-fitting, while Mark’s jeans were slightly too short, in an unfashionable shade of simple, clean blue denim and his t-shirt hung from his shoulders like a flapping green tent.

  ‘So, you live in that massive house,’ Jay said, filling the silence. ‘My mum said that place was well expensive.’

  ‘Mm,’ Sammie agreed. She doubted that Jay’s mum had actually used the term “well expensive” but she let that slide.

  ‘Your parents must be loaded,’ Jay continued.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I guess they must be.’

  He looked at her a little strangely. ‘Don’t you like it?’ he asked, ‘I’d love to be rich.’

  Sammie laughed. ‘It’s kind of embarrassing,’ she said.

  There was a big, dead tree in the clearing and they sat down on it, the two boys at one end and her at the other.

  ‘What were you doing?’ she asked them.

  ‘Nothing much,’ Jay said.

  Sammie raised an eyebrow. ‘Sounds fun,’ she said. ‘So, does anything ever happen in this place?’

  They looked at each other and both answered at once, Mark describing the village as “pretty dead” and Jay not mincing his words with a verdict of “pretty shit”.

  ‘There’s usually a big bonfire in November,’ Mark said, ‘and sometimes a barbeque in the summer.’

  ‘Is that as good as it gets?’

  ‘It’s a good opportunity to nick some alcohol,’ Mark explained, ‘nobody pays much attention to what we’re doing.’

  Sammie smiled. ‘Oh, well, that’s something,’ she said.

  They carried on sitting for a while, talking about nothing much. Sammie noticed that Jay continued to look at her a lot. In particular, she noticed he kept stealing glances at her chest, which was admittedly quite well displayed in her little pink t-shirt. When she thought neither of the boys were looking she pulled her top down a bit to give Jay more to look at, and she was sure she saw his eyes widen when he noticed.

  ‘How do you feel about starting a new school?’ Mark asked her.

  Sammie shrugged. ‘I don’t care,’ she said, ‘exams are a waste of time anyway.’

  He looked surprised, which was about what she’d expect. He looked the type to be into schoolwork.

&nbs
p; ‘It’s okay at Rangewood,’ he said, ‘and besides, you know us now.’

  Sammie made a non-committal noise. She wanted to forget about school.

  ‘What was your old school like?’ Jay asked her.

  ‘Shit,’ she said, ‘what are any of them like? They’re all the same.’

  Mark was clearly turned off by her attitude, which was a shame, but not the end of the world as Jay was quite obviously fascinated by her. In any case, Mark didn’t stay for much longer. He muttered something about needing to go home and left, though not before giving her and Jay a long look which she found hard to read. She forgot about it soon enough and focussed all her attention on Jay, just as he had made no secret of doing to her, and her heart fluttered in her chest. He really was quite nice. He looked even better close up than the times she’d seen him across the street. She shuffled closer to him on the dead tree trunk. She didn’t say anything, but slowly, very carefully, she let one of her hands come to rest next to his. And then, without a word, she touched his little finger with hers, and when their skin met, she felt herself practically fizzle with electricity.

  Felicity

  6

  Jay spent most of the evening trying to persuade me to agree to his plan. He drove back home, but he carried on talking about it all through dinner and when I could tell he really wasn’t going to quit I finally snapped and said ‘Jay, just stop will you? I’m not going to whore myself out to another man for you, and if you care about me at all you won’t ask me again.’

  This finally stunned him into silence. He stared at me a few seconds, before saying, ‘is that what you think?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That I’m “whoring you out?”’

  I sighed and turned away from him. I was exhausted by what had happened over the weekend and felt I’d had about as much as I could take.

  ‘You’re asking me to have sex with another man for you,’ I explained to him. ‘And I’m not doing that.’

  Jay frowned, seemingly still mystified. ‘We pick people out for each other all the time,’ he said. ‘That’s what we’ve been doing the past couple of years, isn’t it? Going out and spotting new partners for each other.’

  I searched his face. ‘And this is still that, is it? You’re saying this is the same thing?’

  ‘No!’ he said, ‘it’s nothing like the same. I used… I used to like seeing you with other guys.’

  ‘But not anymore?’

  ‘No. Not anymore. I want to stop all this.’

  ‘Then why are you asking me to do it again?’

  ‘Fliss,’ Jay said slowly, ‘this is the last time. Don’t you see? I just want to make Mark suffer, then we can be together—’

  I stood up. ‘I’m not sure I want to be with you.’ I wanted to walk away, but something about him made me stop. His eyes were fixed on my face, and there was something of a sincerity about him that I didn’t see too often. I sat back down by his side.

  ‘Jay, even if I did agree… which I’m not,’ I added quickly, ‘would it really make you happy? Do you think getting revenge is going to change anything?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I sighed. ‘It probably wouldn’t even work. You know that, don’t you? What are the chances, really, that Mark would even like me?’

  ‘He would. I know he would.’

  ‘Jay, no matter what you say, the answer is still no. I can’t be his girlfriend. If it was only sex, then maybe… maybe that would theoretically be doable, but you’re asking me to pretend I really like him. I’d have to spend huge amounts of time with him, and be affectionate with him and let him into my life. I can’t do that on your say so, with some man I’ve never even met.’

  Jay was quiet for a time. ‘I know,’ he said finally. ‘I’m sorry, Felicity.’

  To his credit, Jay didn’t mention it again for the whole of the next week. He was polite and careful around me, letting me have my space. I could see he wanted to talk to me, but I made it obvious I wasn’t receptive to any conversation about Mark or about the direction of our relationship and he respected that.

  I didn’t relent and let him tell me anything further about it until the following week, when I had the morning off and decided I’d go along with him in his van while he did his deliveries. I wasn’t sure whether it was by coincidence or design, but mid-morning his route took him near to the area where Mark lived, and I found myself asking more questions.

  ‘What was she like?’ I asked abruptly.

  ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘Your girlfriend. The one Mark—’

  ‘Sammie,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, Sammie.’

  Jay thought about it while he drove. ‘She was blonde, like you,’ he said slowly. ‘But skinny. Like, not really many curves. She had long legs, and pale blue eyes.’

  He paused as though expecting me to tell him whether this was the correct answer. ‘Jay,’ I said, ‘I kind of meant what was she like as a person, not what she looked like.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. She was just… normal. Although, sometimes she did things that were kind of weird, I guess. She didn’t get on that well with her parents. They pretty much ignored her.’

  ‘Did she love you?’ I asked.

  I waited for him to answer for so long I thought he’d forgotten I’d asked a question. ‘Jay,’ I said, ‘did she—’

  ‘I heard what you asked.’

  ‘So… did she?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I believe that she did.’

  ‘And you loved her?’

  ‘Yeah. More than anything.’

  I left it there until a little later when we stopped for lunch. It was starting to rain, and we sat inside the van in a lay-by while cars rushed past by our side. I sat cross-legged in my seat, watching the raindrops slither down the window.

  Jay largely shunned any sort of fast food, or even any sort of “normal” food. He’d made both of us a bean salad, full of lots of fresh herbs and vegetables. Jay had always nagged me to eat more healthily, and often cooked dinner for me to try to encourage me. I was grateful to him for doing it – it made my life easier – though I quickly became fed up of too much health food so he knew not to push it too hard.

  ‘How long were you together for?’ I asked as we ate.

  Jay stopped chewing for a second. ‘Why do you want to know all this?’ he asked. ‘If it’s not going to change how you feel about what I asked you to do with Mark.’

  ‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘But I’m curious.’

  ‘We were together for around… eight or nine months.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ I asked casually.

  Jay gave me a sharp look. ‘How should I know?’ he said.

  ‘So you completely lost touch? You’re not friends with her online, or—’

  ‘No,’ Jay said.

  ‘Did she… did she ever say anything to you about what happened with Mark?’

  Jay had a forkful of salad halfway to his mouth, and he lowered it again.

  ‘She wouldn’t have meant to have had sex with him,’ he said. ‘He must have talked her into it. She was… she was kind of… vulnerable. I wasn’t always there for her like I should have been, but part of that was because Mark kept causing trouble. If I’d been better at telling her how I felt she would never have turned to him.’

  ‘That’s very understanding of you,’ I said.

  Jay raised his fork to his mouth again and chewed silently for a while. ‘I understand her,’ he said at length, ‘I didn’t to start with, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and I get it now. The person… the person I can’t understand is him.’

  Sammie

  7

  Sammie asked the boys to her house the next day. It was a Friday and only three more days of the summer holiday remained. After the weekend, she’d start her new school. Unfortunately, her mum had decided that the day Sammie invited the boys round would be a good day to work from home, so when they came inside her mum was there at the kitc
hen table with a mug of coffee, reading through some lengthy document with a blue biro in hand.

  ‘I said I’d give Mark and Jay a tour of the house,’ Sammie told her.

  Her mum looked up, first at her, then at Mark and Jay. Sammie thought she looked old and tired. She was like a piece of paper that had been screwed up then stretched out flat again but had never really recovered, and her hair, which had always used to be a mass of thick, blonde curls, was looking decidedly thin and washed out. Sammie hated the way her mum looked now, because it was as though she’d given up. It took slightly too long before her mum spoke, a drawn out moment while the boys stood awkwardly, eyes exploring the enormous, shiny white kitchen, and her mum thought about whatever it was she was thinking about. ‘Okay,’ her mum said at last. ‘Just… keep it down. I need to finish this.’

  Sammie wandered through the downstairs of the house, the boys traipsing after her. Her home wasn’t a great source of interest or pride to her. It had been designed by an architect for the previous owners, who as far as Sammie was concerned must have had more money than sense, because to her the vast open spaces felt cold and lifeless; the white walls clinical, and the rigid expanses of glass unfriendly and uncompromising, looming over her like threatening transparent giants. However, she understood the house was a source of curiosity and admiration for other people so she dutifully showed the boys the sitting room – with its log-burner, pile of Country Living magazines on the coffee table, and a massive vase of lilies on the sideboard; the TV room, with a couple of squashy sofas and heaps of furry cushions; and then the utility room, where a lot of the yet to be unpacked boxes were being stored.

  ‘This is bigger than the whole kitchen in my house,’ Mark said, as he took it all in.

  ‘Really?’ she said, although in truth she wasn’t surprised.

  ‘How come your parents have so much money?’ Jay asked, which made Mark eye his friend disapprovingly, though Sammie didn’t particularly mind the question.

  ‘My dad has his own business.’