78

 

February 1996

            My notebook was never far from me.  I sometimes took it to work stuffed inside the waist of my jeans.  Made a nice difference from having a blade stuffed down there.  Those days were gone, or so we liked to keep telling ourselves.  Writing was a therapy, like the music.  The two were interwoven at all times, one feeding the other.  I’d hear a great song, be it an old one, or a new one, and I’d feel the need to jot down the lyrics, or to write about it in some other way.  I could never just keep it all inside myself.  It was too much, you see.  Sometimes I found it hard to listen to what people were saying to me, because there were all these words and all this music inside my head.   I wanted to be alone with it, or I wanted them to get it the way that I did.  It meant so much, you see, and it made me feel so much, and why didn’t other people get it like that?  I’d hear a song, and it would cause this utterly jolting and physical reaction inside of me.  It would take me over, and it would take me somewhere else.  Set all kinds of things off inside of me.  Some songs, they drag you down with them, they take your hand very gently and ease you out of the sunshine.  They want you to feel their pain, and they want the shivers to run through you as all your hairs stand on end.  And then there are the songs that set your heart on fire, and I mean, they fill you up with indescribably joyous energy, the kind that makes you believe you will live forever.  Primal Scream’s Movin’ On Up, was one of those for me, during that time.  I was lost, now I’m found, I believe in you, I got no bounds, I’m movin’ on up now, gettin’ out of the darkness, my light shines on, my light shines on, my light shines on! When I heard that, or sung along to that at Chaos, my heart was exploding with hope, let me tell you, my body felt like it had wings, my soul knew that nothing bad could ever happen to any of us, ever again.  Music can do that you know.

            So you hang onto hope, once you’ve got it, and you take it forward, you hold it close.  You wrap your arms around it and protect it from the dark.  Maybe you don’t totally believe in it yet, but you are trying to.  And people smiled, when they saw me.  Terry did, he smiled and rolled his eyes and shook his head.  I couldn’t have asked for a better boss really.  He even let me take the dog to work with me.  We put a little cardboard box down behind the counter and he slept in there, good as gold.  I think little Kurt single-handedly helped increased Terry’s takings, to be honest.  The shop was doing better.  People came in to see the little dog, and they came in because they knew I could find them what they were after, or failing that, I could turn them onto something they had never heard about before instead.  It was fun.  I loved it.

            Lucy came in one Friday after school like she always did.  I made her a cup of tea and started filling her arms with records we were taking home to listen to.  She hopped up on one of the stools, drank her tea, and listened patiently to me while I wittered on about the day we’d had.  As always, she had her overnight bag with her, her clothes and makeup all stored inside for the night at Chaos later. We had this little routine going, and I loved it.  We’d catch the bus back to the bed-sit, then take Kurt for another walk around the block.  We were like an old married couple then, walking arm in arm, and she would be smiling and telling me how glad she was about the dog.  “You treat him like a baby,” she teased me all the time.  “He’s so spoilt!”

            That day I was buzzing, full of it.  I’d just taken Primal Scream off the player and replaced it with the Oasis Morning Glory record.  “Had the best day ever,” I started telling her right away.  She smiled and listened.  “This old fella’ calls us up, he’s moving into a nursing home and can’t take everything with us, so do we want to go through his record collection before the skip arrives to take it all to dump?  Terry was out the door in a shot, right Terry?”

            Terry barely glanced up from his magazine.  “Always worth a look,” he remarked.

            “So anyway,” I go on, while Lucy shifted on her stool, and sipped at her tea. “We jump in his rust bucket and drive over, and it was totally worth it wasn’t it Terry? Original Beatles and Stones records Luce, I kid you not, original Buddy Holly, Elvis,” I started counting them off on my fingers while her smile faded in and out.  “Billie Holiday, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, and…”

            “Can’t you see she’s not interested?” Terry looked up and barked at me.  “You’re boring the poor girl and you’re boring me too.  Nothing there that tickled my fancy much.”

            “But they’ll sell!” I laughed back at him, while he glowered back into his magazine. “Sold half of them already!” I looked back at Lucy with a huge grin. “I’ve got a list see, this little book?  Rang a load of people in there I did.”

            “Brilliant,” she nodded.  I wondered if there was something up with her then.  Her smile didn’t seem to want to stay still.  It was like it crept away every time I looked away, and then shot back into place when my eyes were back on her.  I felt Kurt sniffing at my shoes so stooped down to pick him up. 

            “Oh he’s so bloody efficient,” Terry complained with a quick smirk.  “Boy wonder, or what?  Go on then.  Off you go.  I’m letting you out early.”

            I frowned at him. “How come big man?”

            “’Cause your bloody eager ways are getting on my wick, go on off you go.”

            Lucy finished her tea and put the mug down on the counter.  She picked her bag up from the floor and slung it over one shoulder.  I saw that look on her face again then, sort of pained and dreading.  I grabbed my coat from out the back, picked up the records I was borrowing and slung them under one arm and clipped Kurts lead to his collar.  “Alright then,” I nodded at Terry. “Me and Kurt will be off.  We know when we are not wanted.  Come on Lucy.”

            “Morrisey.” Terry mumbled.  I looked back.

            “You what?”

            “The dog.  His name is Morrisey.”

            “No it fucking isn’t!”

            “It is if he wants to work in my shop.  See you later kids.”

            “For fucks sake,” I complained and pulled open the door.  I slipped my arm through hers once we were out on the pavement.  The bus stop was just up and across the road, and the bus was due in ten minutes.  It was times like that I sometimes still got nervous.  I’d try like hell not to scan the area, not to try and pick trouble out where it didn’t exist, but it was hard.  Hard to just stand there in the open and wait. 

            We crossed the road and hovered under the shelter. I kept my arm linked through hers and my hands in my pockets.  It was freezing stood there.  “You alright?” I asked her finally, as it was becoming more and more obvious that she wasn’t.  She looked at me and blew her breath out slowly.  I felt something coming.  Something I would probably rather avoid.  I almost covered her mouth with my hand but I didn’t.  She sort of leaned into me and sighed. “Lucy?”

            “No, not alright,” she said then, her head on my chest so I couldn’t see her face.  I hugged her to me and waited.  “Got something to tell you, and it’s not good, well, you might think it’s good, I don’t know yet, so…”

            “What the hell?”

            “You want me to tell you now or later?”

            “Now! For fucks sake.”

            She pulled away from me then.  The bus was nowhere in sight.  There was only one other person under the shelter with us.  A little stooped old man wearing a flat brown cap.  He was counting his coins out on one wrinkled and weathered palm.  “Right,” she said. “Well this morning I walked past your mums house on the way to school, and she opened the front door and called to me.”

            My eyebrows shot up under my hair.  “Really?”

            Lucy nodded, her expression grim.  “Yeah, so I went.  Danny,” she paused again, looking away briefly, as if searching for the best words to use.  Then she looked back at me, and sort of shook her head while she exhaled again. “I went right up to the door Danny, she was….well, hurt.”

            I felt cold then.  I pulled my arm from hers and stared at her.  I don’t know why, looking back, it came as a surprise, what I knew she was about to tell me, but somehow it did.  It really did.  “Hurt?  What d’you mean?  What are you saying?”

            “Beaten up.  Black eyes.  Cut lip.  The works.”  She kept her eyes on me, searching for my reaction.  I blew my breath out between my clenched teeth. I nodded, and bit at my lower lip.

            “Right,” I said.  She touched my arm.

            “She wants to see you.  She begged me to tell you.”

            I looked at her sharply. “Begged you to tell me what? That’s she’s got beaten up or that she wants to see me?”

            “That she wants to see you.”

            “Right.”  I looked over my shoulder.  I could see the bus in the distance, making its way slowly up the road from the centre of town.  Lucy’s hand squeezed my arm so I looked back at her and forced a smile.  “Dunno why I’m surprised,” I shrugged. “Makes sense he would start on her.  But I really kind of thought he wouldn’t do anything to her.  Never saw a sign of it.  Never.”

            Lucy sighed, moved closer to me and wrapped both of her hands over one of mine.  “You don’t have to do anything,” she told me.  “She’s a grown woman.  It’s up to her what she does.  She married him after all!”

            “Wonder what she wants…”

            “I don’t know,” Lucy shook her head.  “She didn’t say.  She just said she wants you to go see her, she said he is away for a few days.”

            I nodded silently, trying to take the information in.  She just stared at me, her hands around mine, her eyes wide and desperate.  She looked a state, I thought then.  I guessed it couldn’t have been much fun for her, carrying that information around with her all day.  So I smiled at her and squeezed her hand in return.  “It’s okay,” I told her. “Don’t look so worried Luce.  Maybe she just wants to see me.” I shrugged a little. “Maybe she wants to say sorry for not believing me.”

            I watched Lucy gulp and frown at me.  She looked nervy and confused. “You think so?”

            “I dunno.”

            “Would you really want to hear that though?”

            “Not sure,” I admitted. “I suppose it’s been on my mind.”

            I could see this came as a surprise to her.  Her mouth opened up and then closed again quickly.  She looked as though she was trying hard not to let her disappointment show through.  “Oh,” she said. And then; “But what if it’s a trap?  What if he’s not really away? What if he comes back suddenly and she doesn’t know?  I don’t think you should go Danny.”

            The bus pulled up jerkily beside us, and I nodded towards it.  “Let’s go home and see what the others think,” I said, just to appease her.  She clung to my arm, and we got on the bus, and every time I looked at her after that, I could see the fear etched all over her face.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her how I really felt.  That asking Michael and Anthony’s opinions was not going to change my mind, because I had already decided I would go and see my mother.

            When we walked into the bed-sit, we found both Michael and Anthony squeezed into the kitchen, making cheese on toast.  Lucy dumped her bag on the bed and released a drawn out sigh.  I said nothing.  I left it to her to explain things to them.  I had the strongest urge just to be alone with my gathering thoughts, so I dropped onto the bed, positioned my pillow behind my head and crossed my ankles.  I didn’t even look at her.  I just immersed myself in silence, until eventually she yanked back the beaded curtain, and let rip.  I knew what she was doing, and I understood it, of course I did.  She wanted them to be as appalled and outraged as she was.  She wanted them to think seeing my mum was a terrible, stupid idea, and she wanted them to talk me out of it so that she wouldn’t have to.  I just stayed on the bed, stroking Kurt on my lap, and listening to them talking about me.  Michael didn’t say much, but I knew he would think the same as Lucy.  He would think I was nuts.

            Finally Anthony pushed back the curtain and strode out of the kitchen, licking butter from the side of his thumb.  He shot me one look which told me right away he was on my side.  He picked up the phone, while Michael and Lucy looked on warily. “We can find out if he’s really out of town,” he said, and dialled a number.  We all watched, and waited.  “Hello is that K’s?” he asked, when the phone was picked up.  “Yeah, hi mate, I’m enquiring about work in the area and someone said you guys are hiring. Is Lee Howard there for me to speak to at all?” Anthony turned to look at our expectant faces.  Lucy was biting her nails, with her other arm wrapped tightly around her middle.  “Oh is he out of town?  When do you expect him back? Oh okay, that’s great, I’ll call back in a few days…Thank you. Bye.”  Anthony hung up and looked right at me.  “Gone to Essex to see his parents, and won’t be back until Monday.”

            Lucy looked immediately at me. “I still don’t want you to go!” she said, blinking hard as her eyes threatened to fill with tears. “She can’t just click her fingers and have you back in her life Danny!  She doesn’t deserve you.”

            “Too right she bloody doesn’t,” Michael grumbled from beside her, his arms crossed rigidly over his chest, his eyes dark and angry. 

            “It’s not safe,” Lucy went on, coming to the bed and standing next to me. “You don’t know he won’t come back early and catch you there!”

            I reached out to her, pulling her down onto the bed with me. “Come with me then.”

            “Good idea,” Anthony said with a nod.

            “We could all go,” Michael shrugged, but I shook my head at him and looked at Lucy.  She moved her head, resting her cheek upon my shoulder. 

            “Come with me,” I said again. “Come with me in the morning.  I think I need to hear what she has to say.”

            I didn’t expect any of them to understand.  I didn’t really understand myself.  You’d have thought my first reaction to her request would have been to tell her to fuck off.  But I was curious, and my imagination had gone into overdrive.  Why did she want to see me while he was away?  Did she want my help somehow?  Did she want to tell me I was right along, and she was sorry now that she knew? 

            No one really embraced the night that followed at Chaos.  Their hearts were not in it, and neither was my head.  I kept catching sight of Michael and Anthony, huddled and talking.  Whenever I looked at Lucy, she looked like she was fighting tears.  She smiled bravely when I went to her, taking her face in my hands and tipping it up to look at me.  She was perched on a stool at the corner table we always nabbed.  “You’ve got your worried face on,” I said to her, and she laughed at me gently.

            “Sorry.”

            “You don’t have to be sorry.  What you thinking?”

            “If you want to know the truth, I was just sat here wishing to god I hadn’t passed the message from your mum onto you.  How bad is that?” She exhaled slowly and lifted her hands, pressing them on top of mine, on either side of her face.  I was swaying slowly to the music. I felt dreamlike. Everything had that quality to it.  I’d only had one pint of beer, and it had gone right to my head.  How many special people change?  How many lives are living strange?  Where were you while we were getting high? Oasis were playing, and my head was full of memories from that night, when we had all been together, all hugging and jumping up and down with the crowd.  A smile took over my face, and I sang along softly while she started to play with my hair at the back of my neck.  “Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball, where were you while we were getting high? Someday you will find me, caught beneath the landslide, in a champagne supernova in the sky…”

            Lucy kissed my cheek and rested her head on my shoulder, and I wrapped my arms firmly around her as she leaned forward on the stool.  I could feel the sadness and the fear seeping from her.  “Wish I hadn’t told you,” she said again with a heavy sigh. “Then you wouldn’t be going to see her tomorrow.”

            “I get why you feel like that,” I told her. “But you know what? For some reason, it actually makes me feel better that she wants to see me.”

            “Does it?” she asked, jerking back to stare at me.  “But why?  Why should you feel glad she wants to see you?  Is that what you’ve been hoping for?  I didn’t know you felt that way.”

            “No neither did I, but I dunno…it’s hard to explain.  I always thought she hated me, you know, even before he came along.  It was always a nightmare, me and her.  I guess I just want to hear her side of things, maybe.”

            Lucy looked outraged all over again and her hands fell down into her lap.  “Side of things? How can she have a side of things? She stood back!  I mean, how can any mother do that?  Just stand back and let…” She sucked in her breath and shook her head. “I don’t understand it.  I never will.”

            I moved to the side of her and leant back on the table.  My eyes drifted out to the dance floor, where the people seemed to all blend into each other, as it heaved from side to side.  “She didn’t really know,” I said, staring out at them all.  “I mean, there was one time I tried to tell her and she didn’t believe me, but you know, I’d told her so many lies and been in so much trouble before then, that I guess now I can see why she wouldn’t believe me…I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I was a total shit Lucy.  She couldn’t control me, I didn’t listen to her, I did whatever the hell I wanted.  She couldn’t cope. So the thing was, he came in, and she was relieved, you know?  She thought he was a father figure, you know, strict and that?  She was all pleased ‘cause you know, I listened to him and stuff. Stayed out of trouble.” I shook a hand at the air dismissively. “Anyway.  Just don’t worry, that’s all.  We’ll just show up and see what happens, hear her out, then leave.  And if the bastard does show up, so what? What’s he gonna do if you and mum are there?  She knows what he’s like now Luce, that’s the thing, she knows now.”

            I felt her shudder beside me.  Then her arm snaked around my middle and pulled me close.  “You’re braver than me,” she said. “I’ll come with you, if you’re sure.  Whatever you want.  I love you, you know?”

            I grinned down at her worried little face.  “Love you too.”

 

            The next morning I woke her with a kiss, and watched her flutter out of her dreams and into the cold reality of the freezing bad sit and the uncertain day that lay ahead.  Her eyes clouded over when she remembered what we were going to do, and she gave me a small, brave smile, and I ruffled her hair, and made her laugh.  I was already dressed, and passed her a cup of tea after she’d pulled one of my hooded sweatshirts over her head.  She emerged from the other side of it, hair a mess, and yawning.  “Want some toast?”  She shook her head.

            “When we get back.” She sipped her tea and shivered violently under the blankets, and gazed around the room while I started tying up my boots.  Anthony had a shift at the pub and had already left.  Michael was snuggled up on the sofa bed, only his shock of black hair showing from under his sleeping bag.  Lucy finished her tea, and went to the bathroom to sort out her hair and brush her teeth.  I checked my pockets for bus fare, cigarettes and keys.  I was so nervous by the time we left that I could barely speak.  Lucy slipped her arm through mine and asked me if we could go shopping when we got back.  I smiled.  Lucy loved the shopping in Belfield Park, and rummaging through the many charity shops and market stalls had become a new habit of hers.  Her parents gave her regular pocket money which she liked to spend on vintage clothes and knick knacks, while I hunted for records and tapes on the music stalls.  Then we’d grab a coffee and a doughnut in our favourite café before buying some food from the market to take home for lunch.  The Saturday street market made her smile.  The loud mouthed men and women, in body warmers and fingerless gloves, hollering about apples, cauliflowers, batteries and coats.  There was always a bargain to be had.  The smell of the burger van followed us back home, where we would tip our treasures out onto the bed with a childlike delight.  “You don’t need to buy things new,” she was always saying now.  “When there is all this to be had!”

            We left Kurt behind and snuck out before Michael woke up.  We waited silently, at the usual stop, arm in arm while I smoked a quick fag.  We climbed on the bus when it came, and huddled together on the back seat, and any conversation we had tried to maintain had all but dried up by then.  We just sat and watched the world roll by.  We passed the record shop, and the club, and remained on the bus while it weaved its way down the high street, over the two bridges, and on towards the estate.  We jumped off when it pulled in along Somerley road opposite McDonalds, and I reached automatically for her hand.  We crossed the road, and the silence grew in weight and strength.  I realised we would have to walk past the old house, and my stomach felt sick and weak.  Lucy clung to my hand and we marched on, walking as fast as we could, and I felt as though I was trying to outrun the memories. 

            I didn’t look at the house.  I couldn’t bear to.  I felt like I was three different people rolled into one, and it was making my head spin thinking about it all.  There was the old me, the messed up new kid, getting into fights to make myself heard, and there was the me from the dark times I’d had in that house, and I didn’t like that one, I didn’t like that boy one little bit.  I thought he was weak and cowardly and drenched in shame, and I didn’t want him inside me ever again. And then there was the new me, the one people said was wise beyond his years, an old head on young shoulders, they said, quiet, but happy.  They were all inside me crashing into each other, and they all had voices demanding to be heard.  I felt the urge to cram my fists into my ears as we walked on, and as we walked, the memories slammed into me on every corner, on every street, and it was awful.  It felt like hands under the ocean pulling me down, sucking me back in, destroying me.

            By the time we came out onto Cedar View, my guts were a twisted mess.  We slowed our pace, and Lucy looked at me as we approached the house.  “No offence Luce,” I smiled shakily. “But it’s even flasher than yours is!”

            Lucy clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes at the manicured rose bushes and perfect, lush green lawn.  “It’s all pathetic,” she insisted.  I stopped at the gates, which had been left open.  There were stone lions roaring on either side of the drive.  I shook my head at them and Lucy growled.  “Horrible,” she spat.  “He put them there.  They weren’t there before.”

            “What about the rest of it?” I asked, gazing around.

            “Your mum does the garden.  About the only thing he lets her do by the look of it.  They had painters and workmen and everything in and out of here for months, changing it all. Come on,” she said then. “It’s all vulgar.  It’s all for show.”

            “Okay,” I laughed. “Calm down Luce.”

            We walked down the driveway towards the huge front door. I seemed to feel myself shrinking, the closer we got.  There was a flurry of movement at one of the windows to the right of the door, which made my stomach leap into my mouth, and Lucy tighten her hand even more on mine.  She was practically clinging to me now.  The door opened before we could even knock on it.  I opened my mouth and gasped.  Her face.  Her beautiful face.  What had he done to her beautiful face?  Tears flowed from her swollen eyes.  They flowed from mine too.  “Danny…” she croaked through her broken lips, “thank god!”

77

 

After kicking off in the record shop that day, Howard retreated.  I waited for something else to happen, but nothing did.  We looked around, we held our breath, and we waited, and when still nothing happened, we all began to relax into our lives.  At first, it was hesitant and cautious, like the careful peeling of a plaster from damaged skin.  Slowly does it, bit by bit, to minimise the pain and the shock.  Life had a pattern of its own, I found.  There was day to day living to be done, simple things, but it all bowled me over to tell you the truth; it was strange being able to just live.  A few weeks after Howard had stood raging in the middle of his shop, Terry asked me to work for him full time.  He even drew up a proper contract and everything, and had me open a bank account so that he could pay the money in for me.  It was weird.  I felt grown up, and trusted.  Unbelievable.  I felt like I was dreaming most of the time.  Floating on air above all the shit I had escaped from. 

Michael had picked up some extra shifts at McDonalds, and Anthony was working every hour they offered him at The Ship.  Between the three of us we were easily able to cover the rent on the bed-sit, pay the bills, and start to eat some decent food.  All three of us boarded the bus, and made the journey back into our old territory, faithfully every day.  It wasn’t pleasant, and it made our stomachs sink, and our words dry up in our mouths, but it had to be done.  There was courage, but also terror.  It felt like we were stepping over an invisible line every time we climbed from the bus.  It felt like we were exposed, and anything could happen.  But nothing ever did.  `I’m not proud to admit that sometimes I still contacted Jaime Lawler, and arranged to meet him in the alley behind the record shop. 

Jaime looked even thinner these days, I thought, whenever I saw him.  Haggard, and with a haunted look in his eyes that made me feel uncomfortable whenever I was near him.  “Just can’t fucking get to sleep some nights,” I explained to him, although god knows why I felt the need to justify drug use to him.  “Lie awake for hours, and then I can’t get up in the morning.  Not good.”  Jaime smiled thinly in the dark of the alley where we made our exchanges.  His grey eyes, hooded by a frown, moved in a constant panicked state, up and down the alley, over his shoulder, everywhere.  He was light on his feet, looked prepared to run at any given moment.  “You still work for him?” I asked, and in response he laughed a hollow, cold laugh.

“You could call it that,” he replied, shifting restlessly from one foot to the other.  He looked at me and looked me right in the eyes for a change.  “That bastard scares the shit out of me.  Not many people I’d say about that.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, moving away from him, not wanting to hear any more of what I considered to be the past.  “Thanks Jaime, see you at Chaos some time?”  He nodded, lit up a cigarette and walked away.  I thought about him as I watched him go.  It was a strange thing, a relationship of mutual dependence and trust, but I was yet to think of him as a friend.

 

Lucy called me one Sunday to make sure I was at home.  “Course I’m at home,” I laughed down the phone at her. “It’s Sunday!  No work.  Day of rest and all that.”

“Right, well stay put,” she told me, and I started to smile at the undeniable excitement in her voice.  “I’ve got a late birthday present for you, and I’ll be over in half an hour.  Don’t go anywhere!”

When she hung up, I relayed her message to Michael and Anthony, who were instantly intrigued and started trying to guess at what it could mean.  True to her word, she was tapping energetically at our door half an hour later.  I leapt from the bed to open it, and there she was, grinning fiendishly back at me, with this squirming, wriggling, white and tan Jack Russell puppy in her arms.  I immediately grabbed it from her, as Anthony groaned out loudly from behind me; “What the hell is that?”

Lucy stepped in and closed the door behind her.  I was giggling like a madman, with the puppy covering my face in exuberant wet kisses.  “Late birthday present,” she shrugged. “What do you think guys?”

“I’m not cleaning up after it!” Anthony retorted with a roll of his eyes and a lazy grin.  I sat down on the floor with the tiny pup.  I felt like a child on Christmas day.  For a few moments, everyone else ceased to exist for me.  The little pups tail was wagging so fast it was a blur.  He couldn’t wash my face fast enough.  It seemed to be all he lived for, slathering my grinning face with warm puppy kisses.  I hugged him to me, shivering with delight at the feel of his soft warm body, and he put his front paws up on my chest and just wagged that tail faster and faster.  I looked up at Lucy and shook my head and laughed.

“Are you mental?  I can’t believe you got me a dog! Best present ever!”

“Zoe’s uncle had one left over,” she explained, crouching down beside me.  “I just had this crazy idea when she showed it to me.  I remembered what you said to me that day down at the beach.  Well you can have one now, can’t you?” She glanced quickly at Michael and Anthony. “If it’s okay with you guys, that is?  Zoe said she’ll take it back if it’s a problem.”

“It’s a ‘he’,” I said, as the pup fell off my lap, landed on his back and started wriggling from side to side while I rubbed at his fat round belly.  Michael arrived next to me, kneeling down to stroke his silky little head.

“Fine by me,” he said. “But he needs a name!”

“Oh I got a name for him already,” I told them, lowering my face so that the puppy could shower me with more kisses.  “Kurt!”

“Kurt!” Anthony exploded scornfully.  “You can’t call a puppy Kurt!  That’s not a dog name!”

“Not sure Cobain would approve mate,” Michael laughed beside me.  He was tickling the pups neck, and he was twisting and snapping at his fingers.  Michael yelped and withdrew his hand and rubbed at it. “Ouch! He’s got teeth like needles!  Call him Jaws!”

Lucy laughed at him. “Kurt is a great name Danny.  Call him Kurt.  Look I think he likes it!  Kurt?  Kurt?”

“Oh god,” groaned Anthony, retreating into the kitchen to put the kettle on.  “Listen to you lot, talking to it like a baby! It’ll be like having a kid!”

“You sure it’s okay?” I called after him.  He laughed in response.

“Course it’s bloody okay. As long as you clean up after the little runt! I do not want to be stepping in dog shit first thing in the bloody morning.”

I turned the pup over and stood him on his little fat legs.  “Aw you wouldn’t do that, would you Kurt?  You’re gonna’ be so smart, I can just tell!” I picked him back up and he nuzzled his little face right into my neck.  I took a breath then.  Happiness was disorientating, head spinning.  I reached out and found Lucy’s hand with mine.  “Thanks Luce.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, returning my smile.  “I just thought it would be sort of good for you.  You know, they say dogs are really good for people.”

“He’s the best present ever, the best present in the whole world,” I leaned forward then, pulling her to me with her hand and finding her face with my lips.  Michael moaned instantly and jumped to his feet.  “You’re the best girlfriend in the world,” I told her, and it was true.  She was a light.  How can I explain it any better than that?  That’s what she was.  That’s what she’d always been to me.  A light, warm and glowing and constant and good.  You ever feel like you’re in such a good mood, it’s like you are walking around with a chunk of sunlight stuck in your eye?  You want to blink and shield your eyes, because it dazzles and overwhelms, and you are too used to the darkness.  But you can’t get it out, it’s lodged right in, and after a while you get used to it, and you walk around with it, and it’s so bright and shines so hard, it bathes everything else in the entire world in gold.  Well that’s how I felt about Lucy.  She was the sunlight in my eyes.

 

They returned to school that September; Billy, Jake and Lucy.  They met at the end of Lucy’s road every morning and walked in together, no doubt feeling older and wiser, and a little bit jumpier.  I was glad that Billy and Jake walked in with her.  I didn’t like the thought of her walking to school alone.  I didn’t like the thought of any of them being alone. 

I picked up my old journal again the day after the Oasis gig.  I couldn’t not.  There were too many words and emotions and images compacting inside of me, bursting to get out, and there had to be a release somewhere, somehow, so it came in writing.  To say it was one of the best nights of my life would be an understatement, and the words not enough to do justice to the experience.  It was one of those nights when it felt like anything was possible.  Anything in the world.  We were together, we were united, we were all the same, and feeling the same things as we jumped and leapt and hugged and sang.  Nights like that make you feel on top of the world, like you are flying, like you are so high you can never come down, you can never be brought back down again.  Nothing can touch it.  Terry was right about that.  You can’t appreciate music properly until you go to see it live.  Until you see and hear and feel it in its rawest form.  It was electric.  We were part of one organism, this surging, sweating, worshipping mass of people.  All going crazy, bellowing the words to the songs that meant so much to us, the songs that made sense of our lives, Supersonic, and Cigarettes and Alcohol, Slide Away and Don’t Look Back In Anger, and fucking Live Forever!

I wondered if I ought to dare feel free, finally.  I soaked it all up, this thing called life, life!  I sat on the bed the next day, buzzing with it all, restless with excitement, the songs thumping and roaring through my head as I lay my notebook on my lap, my pen flying endlessly across the pages.  I wrote and wrote until my hand ached, and my neck cracked.  I wrote about the gig, and I wrote about Lucy, and the dog, and then it was like pulling a plug out of my consciousness, letting it all stream out of me. 

They were good times.  The best of times.  Lucy came over every Friday night without fail.  We snuggled on the bed, when we could, taking advantage of the times we had alone before Antony and Michael returned home from work.  Stopping and starting, moving forward and then retreating in shyness, under the covers, we explored eachothers bodies.  I felt a yearning for her all week long.  Her parents would not allow her over on school nights.  Mid-week she would drop into the record shop to say hi after school.  I’d make her tea and she’d sit up at the counter with me and Terry, and we’d do all we could to influence her tastes in music, practically fighting over the record player to play her what we wanted her to fall in love with. 

But Friday night was what we all lived for, what we all kept in sight.  We travelled towards it from Monday, with our arms reaching out for it in hope and love.  We got ready in the bed-sit, and Anthony would throw beers at us, and Jake and Billy and Lucy would arrive together, dressed to kill.  I seized these nights and I never wanted them to end.  They were better than ever now that I was surrounded with my friends, and had no fear to accompany me back home afterwards.  Those nights were filled with the music we sang along to, the people we saw ourselves in, and a short walk back to the bed-sit for tea and toast before it was all over until next week.  I couldn’t help but feel an almost desperate sadness roll over me every time an amazing Friday night came to an end.  I didn’t like good things ending. The only thing that made it bearable was the promise of another one.  Lucy would go home.  Another Monday would roll around.  I would hop on the bus and make another sombre journey back into the past.  With my face against the window, the closer we got, the more my eyes scanned the streets and the alleys for any sign of him.  My mind told me not to do it, not to torture myself, but my body told me I had to do it.  The club was only a short distance down the street from the record shop, yet it didn’t start to show any signs of life until around six o’clock, by which time I was always safely back in the bed-sit, curled up with Kurt and a nice cup of tea.  Another day done, another day I had made it back home safe.  Another day, and still nothing had happened.  I would sit still and listen out for the scrabbling fingers of fear within my belly, and they were still there alright, they were still a part of me and every breath I took.  Sometimes I felt like I was walking a tightrope every day, balanced precariously between the normal world, and the world of pain and fear and hate I had left behind.  Sometimes every time I placed a foot forward, I felt the potential to fall, and just keep falling.

Sometimes when alone, I would think about my mother.  I didn’t want to, but somehow, she dominated my moments, she invaded my thoughts.  I would find myself wondering about her home on Cedar View, her life in her big new house.  Lucy walked past her sometimes, when she was digging in flowers in her front garden.  She told me that she looked thinner than ever, with dark circles hanging beneath her blue eyes.  She told me that she asked after me, but never asked where I was.  I didn’t know whether her life had become everything she had ever dreamt about, or everything she had ever feared.  I was relieved she had not tried to find me so far.  What would I say to her now?  How are you?  How’s the decorating going?  How’s the psychopathic husband?  Have you found out about that yet?  I wondered how he was dealing with the rage, and the desire to attack and cause pain.  It was what he lived for, wasn’t it?  I wondered about her, and her life, and I wondered if she knew what she had done. 

Thinking about and playing with the past did me no favours, and I realised this, but it was hard to give it up.  It was hard to pretend I was someone new, unaffected by the past, and what had gone on there.  They liked to think I was fresh and new, and brave and moving forward, but it wasn’t as simple as that.  The scars remained.  My body, peppered with reminders.  I was still only sixteen years old, and at times I found this staggering and unbelievable, because I felt so much older, like a decrepit old man wearing the mask of a fresh faced baby.  Then other times, I felt it the other way around; I felt small and weak and young and in fear of the entire world, the entire future.  I felt like I had been robbed of something I could not even explain to myself.  There was an undeniable emptiness that filled me when the good times faded out.  There was a hole, a space within me, that drugs and drink and music and friends kept at bay most of the time, but it was still there, it was always there, waiting for me to fall back in, and it crept back when I was alone, when the night was over.  I shivered, and the only thing I could do was write about it and try to find words for it.  “Aren’t you going to let anyone read what you’ve written?” Lucy would ask me sometimes. “You know, show it to someone, or try to get it published or something?”

I would slam the book shut and smile at her. “Not yet.  Be like handing over a piece of my soul.  And besides, no one would understand what the fuck I’m on about.”

One by one, I sensed my friends relaxing around me.  They stopped checking over their shoulders quite so much.  They stopped peering and squinting into the distance and around corners, on the lookout for trouble.  I didn’t want to disappoint or scare them, by warning them not to relax too much.  Anthony still met Jaime every once and again for a pint at The Ship.  They were friends, I guessed.  “Course I see him about,” he told Anthony when questioned about the movements of Howard. “But he don’t know who buys what from me, he just holds the strings, takes his cut.  I wouldn’t ever wanna’ mess with that bastard.  I try and keep my distance much as I can.”

Sometimes when the three of us were lazing around in the bed-sit, spaced out on a bit of grass, and sprawled across the two beds that were never packed away, Anthony and Michael would broach the subject with me tentatively.  They would suggest that it was over, that Howard had given up, and let us go.  “He got what he wanted in the end anyway, didn’t he?” Michael would shrug very hopefully. “Your mum, all to himself.  You out the way.  He should be bloody happy with that!”

I pulled my sleeping bag up to my chin, and laid my hands back down on Kurt, who was curled up on my lap inside it.  “Mmm,” I replied, knowing they wouldn’t like to hear what I really thought.  “I don’t think that was all he wanted though.  I’ve thought about it a lot.”

“I bet you have,” Anthony nodded, his eyes solemn.  “I don’t doubt it.  But maybe now it’s time to stop, yeah?  Start forgetting about it and getting on with your own life.”

“He would have done something by now, surely?” Michael asked, looking at his brother for support.  Anthony nodded in agreement. 

“I think he’s a very patient man,” I told them.  They looked at each other again.

“You have to stop it,” Anthony warned me then.  “Things are good, yeah?” We’re all working, having fun and sticking together.  You’ve got Lucy, and a cool job, and that little runt of a dog in there.  And nothing has happened.  He’s had plenty of chances Danny.  I really think it’s alright.  I really think it’s over.”

I forced a smile, just for him.  “Yeah, you’re probably right. Time to forget about it and relax.”

But it was easily said, I reflected later when my stomach refused to let me sleep well at night.  It was easy to believe there were no monsters in the wardrobe in the light of the day.  Easy to believe nothing lurked under the bed when I was able to kneel down there and check.  Not so easy to believe that eyes did not follow my every movements, when I thought I was alone.  I did not really want to listen to the hairs that stood themselves on end all over my body, when I climbed back on that bus at the end of the day. I did not want to believe my eyes when they urged me to stare into every shadow, on the way home from Chaos on a Friday night.  There were times I would be bouncing around on the dance floor, and I would become utterly convinced of a snarling face in among the crowd.  It was there, and then it was gone, leaving only a dead weight of fear in my belly and a dryness to my mouth.  But I was just drunk.  Or I was just tired.  I was just imagining things that were not there, and I was having trouble letting it all go.  My stomach was so used to being all tied up in knots, that it was a painful, confusing process when it attempted to unwind.  I knew that more than anything, my friends wanted me to be happy.  They wanted it to be over, and so I tried to relax, for them.  I felt like I would never be able to repay what I owed them, so I did my best to just be happy, and carefree for them.  But every couple of nights I would wake myself up screaming.  I would hear their feet hitting the floor in alarm, and I would hear my own screams going on and on, even after they had clutched at my shoulders, and shouted in my face to convince me it was not real.  I would flail out wildly with my arms, as I tried to fight Howard off, or my hands would be crawling around my own neck to ease his hands from choking me.  My own voice would echo coldly around the bed-sit; “It’s not over! It’s not over!  It’s not!”  I knew that, just as much as Howard knew it.

76

 

 

            I returned home, but I could not remember the journey.  There were no thoughts inside my head.  Only, black, smoking rage.  I found myself sat in the car in the driveway, breathing heavily through my nostrils, as the windscreen steamed up before my eyes.  The next minute I was at the front door, shouldering my way roughly through it, slamming my body against the wood until it yielded to me, and I couldn’t remember climbing out of the car, or if I had locked it behind me.  I was in the hallway then.  They had painted it an off white.  Antique Cream, they called it.  The new carpet was a dusky yellow.  A huge mirror hung on the wall next to the lounge and I stared back at my reflection, and saw a hulk, a brute, steaming, sweating, my insides burning, my brain frying, and I wanted to smash my skull into the mirror.  I looked down and to my right.  We had bought a new table for the hall, solid dark mahogany, with a two deep drawers to store notepaper and telephone directories.  The phone sat in its cradle on the top.  Next to it, a sparkling crystal vase stuffed full of lemon and white flowers.  The phone went first.  Dragged from the socket and hurled against the far wall.  Then the vase went.  I threw it into the kitchen.

 I heard a noise of fear and surprise, and whirled into the room.  It shone back at me, hurting my eyes.  The new floor we’d had laid, black and white tiles, sunlight streaming from the window and bouncing back from them into my face, and Kay was stood there, mopping at them in her dressing gown, her face frozen, her eyes wide.  The vase lay shattered all across the floor, the flowers limp in a puddle of water.  I was at her then.  I had to, before she opened her mouth and spoke.  I was at her, slipping both my hands around her throat, and the mop handle slipped from her hands and banged to the floor and there was a horrible, dreamlike silence as she stared up into my eyes, not seeing me, not knowing me.

It was over before it began.  I released her and walked out.  I ran up the stairs and shut myself in the bedroom.  I found the bed and crawled onto it and lay on my stomach with my arms right over my head.  My brain pulsed like a heartbeat.  Pain shot spikes around my temples and into my eyes. 

 

I heard her out on the balcony that afternoon.  I must have slept for a long time.  I woke up groggy and bewildered, rubbing at my forehead, greeting the last traces of my headache.  I sat up on the bed and could see her out there.  Still in that bloody silk dressing gown.  Did she think she was on a permanent holiday or something?  I stretched out my limbs, yawned, and blinked rapidly.  My head felt like I had been in a car crash or something.  Thick and thumping and wrong.  She was sat out there, at the little table, a mug of coffee in one hand, and a cigarette in the other.  I could see a paperback book on the table, and a small white plate.  She was smoking her cigarette, and sipping her coffee, and gazing out at the sea, as it shimmered on the horizon.  I found myself wondering what she was thinking about.  I wondered if I had left marks on her neck.  I wondered why she was still here, yet somehow I had known that she would be.

Her head jerked to look at me when I rose slowly from the bed, stretching out my limbs yet again, shaking them out, flexing the tight muscles.  I was hungry.  Must have slept through lunch.  My stomach was a dark pit of desires and needs.  I walked to the doors and eased them gently aside.  Her eyes took me in, and the hand holding the cigarette drooped slightly towards her lap.  She didn’t say anything.  I stared into her eyes and tried to read them.  I couldn’t quite tell what I saw there.  I moved forward and knelt down before her.  She looked a little surprised then, a little taken back.  She tapped her cigarette against the ash tray and put her coffee mug down. 

I put my big head into her lap, and I let the tears come.  My face, hot and hurting, rubbed into the delicate silk of her gown, and my hands moved up, to reach around her waist, to clutch her there, and I sobbed.  I sobbed, and her lap grew wet.  “I’m sorry,” I gulped, when I finally felt one of her hands landing lightly upon my head.  I rubbed my eyes into her gown, the tears balling up and rolling like beads across the material.  “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry baby…so sorry, oh baby….”

After a while, she cleared her throat.  “What is it?” she asked.  I lifted my head and looked into her still face.  She looked at once, pained and wary, weak and haughty.  I had no idea what she was thinking about me.  Tears spilled rapidly from my stinging eyes.

“Oh I’ve messed up, I’ve messed everything up!” I moaned, finding her hands with my own and holding them tight.  I felt her thin fingers like sticks inside my palms.  “My head…oh it was hurting so much, and I’ve took it out on you, I’ve taken everything out on you, and oh I am so sorry baby, so sorry…it’s all got too much!  All of it!  I can’t think straight!”

She smiled, slightly.  It came and went.  She pushed my head back down into her lap, and tugged one hand free of mine.  It came back to my head, pausing, before rifling gently through my hair.  “Calm down,” I heard her say to me.  “You just need to calm down.  It’s okay.”

“I went to the shop,” I mumbled from her lap.  “He was there.  I spoke to him.”

Her hand froze on my scalp.  “Danny?”

“Yes..yes baby, he’s okay, he’s back working there.”

“Well see, I told you didn’t I?” She sounded nervous I thought.  She swallowed and coughed.  “I told you he would be okay.  We have to respect his decision Lee.  He doesn’t have to live with us if he doesn’t want to.  Give him some time.”

“I know, I know, I see that now,” I told her, squeezing her one hand between mine.  “I know you were right baby, you were right about it all…I think it just all got to me, all the moving house, and stress at work, and him running off, because I didn’t want you to be hurt and upset baby.  I didn’t want that.”

Her body felt stiff under my head.  I nestled my cheek into her thigh.  “He was okay though?”

“Oh yes, yes, full of it as always.  His boss threatened to call the cops on me if I didn’t leave.”

“Well just don’t go there again,” she told me, her tone a little brittle I thought, a little annoyed.  “Just leave him alone, let him have his space.  He’ll be fine as he is.  Perhaps he’ll call me or come and see me when he’s ready.  But I’m just going to wait Lee.  I just want to wait.  Alright?”

I felt tight with resentment and spite, but I reeled it in, and closed my eyes in her lap.  I took deep breaths and spoke softly to her.  “I know, you’re right.  I keep trying to be a dad to him, and it’s not what he wants, is it?  I just thought, you know, eventually…And work, god it’s a nightmare honey…so much to do, so much going on…oh I know it will all iron itself out eventually, but oh god, I’ve got to relax, I’ve got to stop taking on so much and taking it all out on you.  It just pains me you know?  Do you know?”  I gave her a moment to reply and when she didn’t, I sighed against her legs.  “Honey, I never thought I wanted kids until I met you, and then I realised I had just never met the person I wanted to have kids with…and now it’s too late. I thought I could be a dad to Danny but he never wanted to let me, did he?  That’s why it mattered so much to me, you know? That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to find him.  It’s not good baby, the way his life is gonna’ go, holed up in some shitty godforsaken place with druggies and criminals!  Throwing his life away…He could have worked for me, you know?  I was hoping he would.  I could have shown him the ropes at the club.”

“Well he is not like you,” she said then, and her voice came like an icy wind, slicing into my brain, bristling under my skin.  “He’s not into flash cars, and sharp suits, and fancy clubs Lee.  He just likes his music and his friends, so that was never going to happen.”

I forced the words out before I could think about it too much.  “I know, I know, I was wrong. I know that now.  I’ll leave him alone.”

“For now,” she added, her tone softening just a little bit, and her hand returning to stroke hesitantly at my skull.  “It’s best for now.  We can concentrate on us, hey?  Being on our own.”

“Yes, I know, yes, you’re right.  You’re right honey.”

The right words, I thought, chosen carefully. 

Leave him alone.

Alright then.

Give it time.  For now.  For now. 

75

 

 

            It was Anthony who opened the door to a strained looking Billy, five days after we had moved into the bed-sit.  He shuffled quickly in through the door, checking back over his shoulder as he did, his hands jammed so deep into his pockets that his shoulders appeared hunched right up to his ears.  Anthony looked him over with a quizzical frown. “Alright there Billy?  You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

            Billy shrunk past him.  “More like a monster,” he mumbled unhappily. 

            “You what?”

            Billy released a weary sigh, and looked at Michael and I, sprawled out lazily on the bed.  Anthony closed and locked the door, and turned to face him, folding his arms over his chest.  “I’ve got bad news,” Billy told us remorsefully.  I sat up then, my eyes narrowing and my mouth closing.  He was looking right at me, so I guessed it was my bad news.  Billy sighed again, and grimaced back at me.  “Howard attacked Jake.  Last night.  Beat him up.”

            There was an audible gasp from all of us.  Michael jerked up beside me, his mouth gaping at Billy. “You are fucking kidding me!” he cried.  I just stared.  Billy shook his head in misery.  To me, he appeared small and scared then, reduced to a childlike status, and I found myself wondering, what the hell Jake must look like.

            “After he finished work,” he told us.  “Out the back of the café.  Just crept up behind and attacked him.”

            I got up from the bed then, shaking my head and pressing my hands to each side of my face.  I was wearing my old Nirvana t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts.  We had been enjoying a lazy morning, our favourite kind.  Crappy TV on low, music on loud, a bit of a smoke, and Anthony’s cooking.  Billy looked like he was about to say more, but wasn’t sure how to.  I nodded at him, and he blew his breath out unhappily.  “He told Jake to give you a message Danny.”  We all stared back at him in silence, our breath held, our hearts thumping.  Billy swallowed.  “He had a knife and he cut off a chunk of Jake’s hair and told him to give it to you, and to tell you that if you don’t go home, he’ll start cutting bits off all of us.”

            “Oh my god,” breathed Michael in horror, stumbling up from the bed. “Shittinghell!”

            I looked at Anthony and saw that he was still, and calm, his dark eyes intense and focused solely on Billy. “And then what happened Bill?” he asked him.  Billy took a deep breath before going on. 

            “Jake came to my house, and my mum opened the door to him, and he said who did it, and she called the police.”

            Anthony nodded, eyebrows raised. “Seriously?”

            “Yep.  They came and took a statement off him, and said they’d go and find Howard, and they asked if we knew where Danny was, and we said no.”  Billy took another breath, licked his lips and eyed us nervously.  “And Jake didn’t tell Howard either.  He didn’t tell him where you lot are. You think he’s been arrested by now Anthony?”

            “Who knows?” shrugged Anthony, pushing his hand back through his hair.  He looked at me then, wonderingly.  “Well mate, sounds like the prick has lost it big time.  I don’t know whether we should be pleased or scared, eh?”

            I found the edge of the bed and sat back down. “Is Jake okay Billy?”

            “He’s fine, yeah,” Billy nodded. “Just a bit shook up, you know.  He said to tell you sorry, by the way.”

            I frowned. “What the hell for?”

            Billy shrugged awkwardly. “Dunno, I guess for not sticking by you when things were tough, you know, when you were skipping school and high and stuff.  He thinks he was harsh on you.  He didn’t know, you know?” Billy scratched his head and stuck his hands back into his pockets.  “We didn’t know,” he said, sounding confused. “We had no idea.”

            “Don’t worry about it,” I told him softly.

            “Did we do the right thing?” he asked then, his tone slightly desperate as he looked back at Anthony for the reassurance he so often gave us.  “Telling the police and that?  My mum, she just took over!”

            “Serves him right,” was Anthony’s reply.

            “It’s fine,” I agreed. “Maybe they’ll catch up with him, hey?  God.  Poor Jake though.  Tell him I’m sorry, will you?”

            “Sorry?” Anthony looked at me sharply.  “What have you got to be sorry for, you twat?”

            “He’s after me,” I sighed. “I’m not gonna’ let him go through you guys to get to me.”

            “What does that mean?”

            “He won’t get us anyway!” Michael blurted out then, staring from me to Anthony, to Billy, his brow creased, and his eyes fearful.  “He’ll be arrested by now, won’t he?  He can’t just attack Jake in broad daylight like that and get away with it!  He can’t do anything to us, now that’s on record, he just can’t!  Isn’t that right Anthony?”

            Anthony nodded sombrely. “He’d be nuts if he did.  Danny?”  I looked up.  “What are you thinking?”

            I bit down on my lip and slid from the bed again.  I felt their eyes on me curiously as I found my jeans on the floor and pulled them on.  “I’m thinking about going back to work,” I said quietly. 

            Billy gasped.  “Are you insane?” he yelled at me.  “After what just happened to Jake?”

            I sat back down to pull on my socks.  “I’ve got no choice Bill.  The fat man won’t keep my job open forever, and I haven’t even thanked him for those tickets yet, for christs sake.  I’ve messed him about enough.  I need to be there.”

            Billy turned helplessly to Anthony.  “Are you gonna’ let him do this?”

            “What?” he shrugged in reply, a sparkle in his eyes and a grin on his face.  “He can’t spend the rest of his life in this room, can he Bill?  He’s got no choice.”

            “You going now?” asked Michael.  “I’ll come with you!” he started searching the floor for signs of his own clothes.  We hadn’t exactly shown ourselves to be house proud so far in our new surroundings.  The floor was so covered with discarded clothes and dirty dishes and cups, that the carpet was barely visible.  He set about tossing and kicking things aside until he found his black jeans, and started to yank them on.  “I’ll go with you to work, then I’ll go and see Jake.  Come back and meet you when you’re done, yeah?”  He looked at me hopefully, shaking his hair from his eyes. 

            “Cool,” I nodded.  Billy groaned loudly and raked both his hands violently back through his stiff auburn hair.

            “Oh for fucks sake,” he complained. “I’ll come too.  Jesus Christ.”

            As for Anthony, he made me smile.  He dropped down onto his sofa bed, crossed his legs at the ankles and picked up his little tin from the arm of the chair.  He was grinning like a fool, this long, lazy smile lighting up his eyes, as he pulled the lid from his tin and set about rolling himself a little smoke.  “Proud of you all,” he announced cheerily, as we began to troop solemnly from the room.  “Get on out there and take no shit!  Fight back!”

 

            The three of us emerged cautiously from the darkness of the hall downstairs, blinking and feeling the urge to rub at or shield our eyes from the bright August sunshine.  No one spoke, as we rounded the corner and waited at the bus stop together.  And we were silent when we boarded the bus, paid our fares and took our seats.  It was only a fifteen minute bus ride back into Redchurch, and I felt the tension building in me with every second that passed.  I couldn’t shake the feeling of being a criminal, returning to the scene of his crime.  I looked at my friends, at their sick and frightened expressions, and I felt another layer of guilt settle over the first one.  I gazed out of the window and thought, I owe it to them not to be scared anymore.  When we got the stop closest to The Record Shop, we got up and jumped off the bus.  The sunlight was dazzling in that area of town, bouncing and rebouncing from every available surface, shop front and car.  I closed my eyes briefly, breathed in and then faced them with a smile.  I owed it to them to stand up, and I was going to show them, we had no reason to hide.  “Could be an interesting day,” I joked, as they walked me towards the shop.

            Billy was fiddling anxiously with the leather bracelets around his wrist. “What’ll you do if the cops come here to see you?” he asked me and I shrugged.

            “I dunno.  I really don’t.  Hey, say hi to Jake for me, won’t you? Tell him I said sorry, won’t you, that he got caught up in all of this.”

            “Well maybe he’ll be more on your side from now on,” Michael muttered somewhat darkly, as his eyes flitted restlessly up and down the street.  He patted me on the shoulder and attempted a smile. “I’ll be back around three, yeah?  After I’ve seen Jake I’m gonna’ pop into work and see if they’ve got me some more shifts yet.  Some girl quit last week, so I should get offered some.”

            “No problem,” I nodded, and watched them go.  I had an awful feeling Billy was going to say something terrible and depressing like good luck, but he didn’t. If anything he looked too nervous to speak, and as white as a sheet.  I turned around and pushed gratefully into the shop.  I was met with a warmth and a smell that was instantly and indescribably comforting.  I could have bathed in it.  I wanted to breathe it in, and let it settle through me, and on me. The smell of old things, coated in dust, smeared in finger prints, and aged by love.  Radioheads Bones was playing and I paused to hear the lyrics; I don’t want to be crippled and cracked, shoulders, knees, wrist and back…crawling on all fours…when you’ve got to feel it in your bones… I inhaled it all and approached the counter, where Terry looked up at me from his stool, a brief and surprised smile filling his face. 

            “Oh look who it is!” he boomed.  “All better now I see?”

            “Was the funniest thing,” I grinned back at him, resting my arms wearily on the counter top.  “Couldn’t stop puking for days.  You wouldn’t have wanted to catch it Terry.”

            “Got a delivery at the back,” he told me, jerking his head in that direction.  “Some old bird just dropped it off in the alley.  Four bloody boxes of records.  I can’t go near ‘em mate.  Makes me sneeze.”

            “I’ll put the kettle on first shall I?” I laughed, and he looked pleased and handed me his empty mug.

            “Oh, just to warn you,” he said then, “you’ve had a pretty constant visitor these last few days.”

            I paused in the doorway and forced another smile.  “Let me guess.  Massive angry bloke?  Wanting to know where I am?”

            “That’s the one,” Terry nodded grimly and made a little grimace of disgust. “Bloody thick necked twat.  Been getting right on my wick, he has.  You know I like my peace and quiet in here.  He your step-dad is he?” He sort of winced as he asked the question, as if the very thought of it offended him.

            “Yeah.  That’s him.”

            Terry rolled his eyes, made a little grumbling noise in his throat and swivelled on his stool to face me properly. “Fucking beefed up, testosterone fuelled, monkey brained psychopath by the look of him.”

            I laughed out loud.  I wanted to hug him.  “Yes!  That’s him!  Brilliant Terry!”

            Terry grunted. “He the cunt that runs that club down the road now?”

            “Yep.  He owns it.  Doesn’t like music though.  Nothing.”

            Terry’s eyebrows shot up towards his receding hairline.  “Fuck me,” he snarled. “God I could really get to hate some people, couldn’t you?”

            “I’ve left home,” I told him then, lowering my voice slightly, but keeping the smile upon my lips to let him know that all was good.  “Just so you know.  Moved in with Mike and Anthony.  That’s what he’s pissed about.”

            “Well who could fucking blame you?” Terry roared at me, making me laugh again.  “I’ll call the bloody cops if he comes in here again, shouting the odds.”  He shook his head and clicked his tongue and looked back down at his copy of NME.

            “You do that Terry,” I told him.  “And hey?”  He looked back up, wonderingly.  I felt a little embarrassed then, but I stepped forward and held my hand out to him.  I didn’t know how else to thank him for the Oasis tickets.  I wanted to let him know how amazing and beautiful it was, how it meant the world to me, and made me smile from morning til night, just thinking about October.  He frowned and raised his lip up and took my hand in a confused manner.  “Thanks,” I said, and shook it before dropping it and stepping back again.  Terry looked completely baffled. “For the tickets,” I nodded. “Fucking amazing.  Best present ever.  Can’t even….” I shrugged and shook my head and sighed.  It was useless.  There were no words in the world to describe what those tickets meant to me.  “Just…thanks Terry.  I owe you.  I mean, you’ve been bloody brilliant.”

            Terry rolled his eyes, and waved his magazine at me irritably. “Oh that!  Jesus Christ I got them to shut you the hell up!  Forget about it.”

            “Amazing though Terry…I can’t even…”

            “Oh go and put the kettle on and stop embarrassing us both,” he sort of grinned at me then, and there was a pinkness creeping into his soft round cheeks.  “I did it for the shop, yeah?  Can’t have staff working for me if they’ve never even been to a live gig for fucks sake!  Can’t call yourself a music fan if you don’t go and see it live!  Go on now.  Tea.”

           

            It was coming up to one o’clock, and I had just brought out another round of tea and biscuits for me and Terry.  I had spent all morning sorting through the boxes the old lady had left for him in the alley.  I found a copy of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, and Terry insisted I keep it. “Beautiful songs, bloody good singer,” was all he would tell me.  I put the tea and biscuits on the counter and turned to the record player.  Blonde On Blonde had just finished, so I took it off and slid it carefully back inside its sleeve. I flicked through the pile Terry had chosen.  He had a couple of Neil Young records in the pile, and Sandanista by The Clash.  I fancied something a bit livelier, so put that on while he was farting away in the toilet out the back.  I stuck my tongue out, urggh, he sounded like he was having a hard time in there, and I put the record on, closed the lid with care, and turned around, just in time to see a maniacal face pressed up against the shop window.  Howard.

            All at once, the rest of the shop just fell away from me and disappeared from view, even the music seemed to fade quickly away to nothing. There was just nothing, except me and his wild, leering face.  He seemed to materialise inside the shop without even opening the door or walking in.  He was just suddenly right there, filling the space as always, dominating the atmosphere and stealing all of the air.  An icy coldness flooded my veins.  “Well look who it is!” he declared in delight, the words rolling from his hanging tongue, dripping with glee, as he closed the space between us and slammed both his hands down upon the counter.  I jumped.  Moved back.  Felt the memory of fists against skin jarring through my body.  I watched his tongue flicking rapidly around the edges of his gaping mouth.  “The original whizz kid eh!  Finally crawled out from his hiding place! I ought to grab hold of you and drag you down the police station for what you did to Jack!”

            I forced myself to breathe.  It was like I had forgotten how to, but I opened my mouth, felt the air tickle the back of my throat and sucked it in, sending it swirling through to my lungs.  I ran my eyes over the monstrous man who stood before me, and then it occurred to me that I had never seen him appear so dishevelled before.  He was unshaven, and his hair and beard looked like they needed a trim.  His eyes were all wrong; like they had been forced open for too long, and now were too big and round and staring to close properly.  “And I’ll tell them what you sent him for, you sick motherfucker,” I said to him, speaking my words slowly and softly, and as I spoke, I remembered the fire of defiance that had lived in me such a long time ago, the constant urge to fight everyone, to rail against everything, to be heard.  I searched for it now.  I dug deep down inside of myself to bring it back to the surface, and I clung to it now as I stared into the eyes of a man who looked scarily close to the edge of reason.

            His top lip rose like a hungry dogs.  “Oh yeah?  You little fucker!”

            “Yeah,” I said. “I hear they’re looking for you anyway, after you attacked Jake for no reason!”

            His face loomed closer to mine, and I moved back instinctively. “Oh yeah?  Well smart arse I think you’ll find they’ve already spoken to me about that, and they were perfectly happy with my alibi!  I was with my bar manager Mark at that exact time, and he was only too happy to verify that for them!”

            “You mean you paid him, or threatened him to give you an alibi?”

            Howard snorted violently through his nose.  “Whatever.  I told the cops how your drug addled friends have always had it in for me.  They were very keen to know where you were, you know.  Maybe Jack’s made a complaint, eh? Could find yourself in all sorts of shit now.”

            I shook my head and bit down on the retorts that sprung to mind.  I didn’t want him here, infecting the air, wrecking my space and my peace.  I sighed, and I was tired of it all, of this never ending game of trading insults.  “Look I’m busy,” I told him. “Was there something you wanted?  A record you’re after?”  I heard Terry flushing the toilet out the back.

            “Don’t give me that you fucking little piss bag!” Howard spoke viciously, his nostrils flaring wide as spittle flew from his lips and sprayed the counter.  I watched the droplets land and spread on Terry’s magazine.  “You know why I’m here.  To take you home.  To give you another chance.”

            “I don’t think so,” I told him, looking him right in the eye.  I stared at him, I stared right into him and I willed him to see how much I meant it.  “Never gonna’ happen.”

            Just then Terry came shuffling around the corner, hoisting up his gut to buckle his belt under it.  His eyes clouded with rage when he spotted Howard in his shop, and he headed for his stool on his puny legs. “You again!” he bellowed instantly. “I thought I told you to sling your hook bully boy!  Go on!  Out you go!”

            Howard straightened up and stiffened, his hands falling away from the counter.  I regarded him curiously, and saw his face changing.  I saw fear there, I knew I did, fear, and panic and uncertainty. It fascinated me because I didn’t think I had ever seen him like that before.  It was the face of someone losing control, losing their grip.  “I hope you know the kind of scum you’ve got working for you,” he snarled at Terry.  Terry climbed onto his stool and waved an impatient hand at him.  Howard pointed at me. “This kid is a drug addict! He has a police record as long as my arm, did you know that?  You ought to check your till and your stock carefully fat man!”

            “Go on,” Terry repeated in absolute distain, waving a podgy hand as if swatting at a fly that was irritating him.  “I don’t want you in here causing trouble!  I’ll call the law!”

            “Oh really?” Howard fixed his manic stare back on me.  “Well then, little man, aren’t you the popular one these days eh?  Yeah.  Ooh everyone loves Danny so much!  Danny has so many people sticking up for him!  Don’t know why everyone thinks you’re so great when you’ve been nothing but a little fuck up from day one!”

            I just stared back at him, steady and unflinching.  I felt almost drowsy with the strength that was building up inside of me.  It made me want to smile, and laugh, and sit down and let it all through spin through my head.  Lee Howard, I thought, look at you, falling apart before my very eyes.  I didn’t have to say or do a thing.  Behind me Terry had picked up the phone and was dialling.  “Calling the cops!” he said to Howard. “Come in here, insulting my staff!”

            He was starting to retreat.  Backing slowly towards the door.  He had come for something and he was being forced to leave without it again.  He looked like he was panting slightly as he raised a finger again to point at me.  He nodded his head and reached out for the door behind him.  “This isn’t over,” he told me.  “I’ll be coming for you!  I’ll be coming for you you little cunt when you least fucking expect it!  You can count on that little man.  I’ll be coming for you.  You still got a lot of lessons to learn off me!”

            “Get out!” Terry yelled, and he went.  The door eased itself shut behind him.  I said nothing.  I closed my eyes and released a massive, shaky sigh of relief.  I could hear Terry muttering away indignantly beside me.  I opened my eyes and rubbed at my face and gave him a thankful, withering smile.