Read Online Tell Me No Secrets by Julie Corbin - Free Book Online Page A

see him along the shore bending to look at something in a rock pool. I call out to him but the wind lifts my voice up and away. When I reach him I can barely speak I’m so excited and I jump up and down and turn around on one leg. ‘Euan! Euan! Guess what? We can play again! My mum gave in. I went on hunger strike like they do in Ireland and my mum gave in!’
    He squints up at me. His face has sand stuck all over it in little clumps. ‘Who says I want to play with you any more?’
    I stop, deflated, feel tears sting at the back of my eyes. ‘But you do,’ I say. ‘Because we’re best friends.’
    â€˜Aye, maybe. But no more crying and no more showing your knickers.’ He grins at me. ‘Unless you want me to pull them down.’
    â€˜That’s rude!’ I push him and he pushes me back. I fall over and he sits on top of me, holding my arms. Seawater laps at my feet and I try to dig my heels in but they slide away from me.
    â€˜Do you submit?’
    â€˜Never!’ I struggle and push as hard as I can but he holds my wrists into the sand and ignores my knees kicking into his back.
    â€˜Do you submit?’
    His weight is pressing down on to my stomach. ‘All right, all right! I submit!’ I grumble. ‘This time. Only this time, mind.’
    He climbs off and lies beside me, lining up his head with mine. We stay together, catching our breath, squinting up at the clouds.
    â€˜Those big round ones that look like cauliflowers’ – he points up and to the left – ‘are called cumulus and those ones over there, see, really high up, are called cirrus and they’re made at thirty thousand feet from ice needles.’
    â€˜Who told you that?’ I ask him.
    â€˜Monica.’
    â€˜Monica!’ I turn to face him and giggle. ‘You played with Monica?’
    He shrugs. ‘She kept on following me around. She knows a lot of stuff. She even knows about fishing.’
    I pinch him hard on the arm.
    â€˜Ow!’
    I jump up and start to run.
    â€˜I’ll catch you,’ he shouts. ‘I will.’

4
    I take the late morning train through to Edinburgh. I try to read a magazine and flick through articles jauntily titled, ‘My Husband Left Me for Another Man’ and ‘Babies Who Never Learn to Breathe’ before settling for a piece on foods with a low glycaemic index. After a couple of minutes, I throw the magazine aside. I can’t concentrate. I’m impatient to get there and get it over with.
    I pace up and down the aisle. The carriage is empty apart from one teenager who is attached to an iPod and spends the entire journey texting on her phone. As the train crosses the railway bridge over the Firth of Forth, I stop and look out of the window. The water is a gunmetal grey. A container ship has just passed underneath the bridge and I start to count the multicoloured boxes on board, stacked high like building blocks. It reminds me of the game I played as a child; the one that was meant to break up the monotony of a long journey. Count the number plates beginning with V or the number of caravans driving north. Count the red cars, the hatchbacks and the cows that are lying down. Count the number of times I have thought of Rose since she died. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Too many to count.
    The train arrives and I alight first. Waverley Station is buzzing with people and the hum echoes up into the steel rafters high above my head. I have five minutes to spare and I go into the bookshop to choose a book for Paul’s birthday which falls just two weeks after the girls’. I know the one to buy. It’s an autobiography by a famous musician, an entertaining and revelatory account of his life. I pay for the book and walk out into the wind, stopping for a minute to fasten my jacket and look up at Edinburgh Castle. Built on a plug of volcanic rock, it watches over the city and the Firth of Forth beyond.