Effy was trying to sleep but the streetlight kept flickering. Her forehead furrowed and she tried to move over but Cook was sprawled out over the rest of the seat and she had no room to manoeuvre. Cook. She didn't know what went on in his head and that bothered her. People were easy enough to read if you watched carefully enough and Effy had done years of watching whilst she was silent.
She'd watched Tony playing his games and fucking up his life and she thought, in that moment in time, that perhaps she'd emulated him. Still, Tony had been hit by a bus and managed to get people to forgive him. Effy didn't think getting in a road traffic accident would work in the same way for her and she was in no hurry to copy that particular part of her brother's life.
Cook grunted in his sleep. His head slipped further down from her shoulder. Effy couldn't help but feel disgust when she noticed he was drooling. He was a heavy sleeper and so Effy found it was easy enough to extract herself from underneath him and climb out of the stolen car. She closed the door and watched Cook flop down to cover all of the back seat. She ran a hand through her hair. Fuck. She needed a shower. It was becoming lank and greasy.
Effy walked up the street until she came to a dark house. All the curtains were open, even at the early hours of dawn. There were no cars in the driveway and, when Effy rang the doorbell, there was no sign of life. She used a dustbin to climb over the fence into the back garden and found that, rather stupidly, they had left one of their second floor windows open. She pulled herself up onto the shed and then onto the roof of the garage. From there she shimmied along and climbed in. She checked all the bedrooms. No one was home.
The water in the shower warmed up quickly as Effy rooted around the bathroom cabinet. She could only find shampoo and conditioner for men but there was some shaving cream and women's razors. She shaved the growing stubble on her legs and washed her hair thoroughly. Who knew when she would get a chance like this again? She couldn't go back; she knew that. Equally, she couldn't keep running for ever. She probably had a warrant out for her arrest. Katie had awoken and she certainly wasn't going to spare Effy.
Fuck. Effy didn't even know how it had happened. All she could remember was Katie going between pathetic and snivelly – begging Effy not to steal Freddie – and violent and angry. It was easier for Effy to remember the last face of Katie: the one that had hit her and pulled her hair and started to strangle her. That way Effy felt more justified. Not that Freddie had seen it that way. Fuck. Freddie. She thought she loved him. It scared her. She'd never felt that way before. Not even close. She didn't understand why things had become so messed up. She had thought he would wait at least a little longer. He had been enamoured with her.
But he hadn't; he'd found Katie. Katie. Since when had Katie broken up with that idiot of a footballer anyway? Effy would have said it was about time and Katie had been wasting her time with that cheesy, loutish stereotype, but then Katie had moved onto Freddie. Effy's Freddie. Who was no longer her Freddie at all. Now all Effy had now was Cook and she doubted how constant he was. Although, he was apparently less fickle than her, however, which was something she didn't quite understand.
"Fuck," she said aloud.
She'd nicked herself with the razor. She hadn't even noticed before. It was a tiny cut but she felt a strange satisfaction watching the bead of blood trickle down a few inches before Effy stuck her leg under the spray of the shower and the red washed away.
She towelled herself dry and found some new clothes. She also found a bag and put all the money she could find in it. She then added food and booze. She was going to have to get seriously drunk to get through this and stop feeling so miserable.
She found the keys to the door and was about to let herself out the normal way when she spotted the phone. She paused for a few minutes to contemplate her choices. She could call her mother. But what would she say? Her mother might tell her to come home and that it was all a mistake and they could get it sorted out. Or she might not answer. She was probably passed out drunk. If she did answer she would probably cry. God that women had been a wreck since Tony had been hurt. Even when he had got better she hadn't recovered. It was pathetic.
Tony. The first child. The clever and ambitious one. He had always been more charming and successful and she had resented him for that for a while. She'd soon got over it. Mostly. Well, she'd accepted she would never been the golden child – despite what an enormous prick Tony could be – and she'd settled for not giving a fuck what anyone thought. It had worked fairly well until now.
She'd thought she could read him. Freddie. It all had gone wrong.
She picked up the phone and started to dial. She hadn't even spoken to Tony since he'd left for university and given her his room and that stupid quilt cover that she had chucked out – ignoring his warnings – just to spite him. She knew his mobile number though. She hadn't even contemplated calling him before this day but those sorts of things were handy to know. She dialled. The phone rang for a moment before there was the sound of shuffling and a disgruntled reply on the other hand.
"Hello?"
Effy was silent. She stared at the mirror opposite her. She looked gaunt with dark shadows under her eyes matched with pale skin and dark, wet hair. The smudging of her make up had added to some of the shadows but she knew most of them were due to lack of sleep and stress. Fuck. She looked rough.
"Hello?" Tony said again. "Look, do you know what bloody time it is? I've got a lecture first thing tomorrow… Who is this anyway? Look, I'm going to hang up."
"Hello," Effy said, interjecting just before he ended the call.
"Effy?" he asked, recognising the voice. "Effy… I did not expect to hear from you. I didn't understand a word of what Mum was wailing about so I had to call Dad."
"I need your help," she said.
"You need to go home," Tony replied.
"No. I can't."
"Yes, you can," Tony said, sounding mildly irritated. "What do you expect me to do? Hide you in my dorm room? Effy. You are just making it worse."
She didn't speak.
"You need to go home and face up to what you've done."
"Oh, like you did?" Effy sniped. "You were a colossal prick and I don't see you apologising for that."
"I'm different now," Tony said.
"You got hit by a bus. That is why everyone forgave you. Pity."
"What I did is not the same as what you did. I didn't almost kill anyone!"
Effy's eyes narrowed. Her reflection looked feral.
"You almost got me killed," she reminded him.
There was a long silence.
"Fuck you," Tony said. "That wasn't my fault. I came and got you."
"I called the ambulance afterwards," Effy shot back. "Look…"
But Tony continued, repeating, "It wasn't my fault."
"You pissed off a psycho," Effy said, "who then took it out on me."
"You were being irresponsible anyway," Tony said. "You were always crap with drugs, Eff." He paused. "Look, I didn't run away then. You shouldn't either."
"You had it easier," she said.
Tony didn't say anything for a moment. She almost thought he had hung up. Then he said, "At the beginning of the college year I could barely write my own name. At the end I got three As and a B in my A-levels. I worked fucking hard."
Effy had nothing to say.
"Look, Eff, just go home. It'll be tough, yeah, but you have to deal with it. You can't keep running away."
Effy was silent.
"Eff?" Tony said. "Are you there? Just go home."
Effy put down the receiver. She could still hear Tony's voice faintly as he called through the phone.
"Eff?"
She hung up.
Effy closed the window she had come through and locked the house behind her, dropping the keys she had located back through the letterbox. At least they still had most of their valuables. She walked back down the streets and back to the stolen car. She climbed into the passenger seat and the shutting of her door awoke Cook in the back.
"Whoah, what are you doing up?" he asked, blinking blearily.
"It's time to go," she told him.
He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Then he climbed from the back into the front and started the engine. Effy did up her seatbelt.
"So where to then?" he asked, giving her one of his cocky smiles.
Home, she almost said, with Tony's words ringing in her head. Instead she shrugged.
"Anywhere."
He put his foot down and they pulled away from the curb and onto the road.
"Anywhere," she repeated. "As long as we keep moving."