46

 

December 1993

John phoned to say he would not be home for Christmas.  The news made my mother  distraught and tearful, but I was not surprised in the slightest.  He had a new girlfriend and was enjoying his course, and getting on with his dad.  I knew all this because he wrote me letters once a month which I never replied to.  As much as his absence and his wonderful new life enraged me privately, I still couldn’t exactly blame him.  I sneered in the background at my mother’s obvious distress.  She didn’t need to worry.  I’d been right about Howard smoothing things over for her.  Sometimes he behaved more like her father than her fiancée.  She didn’t need to work, he told her.  He earned enough for the both of them.  As if to prove this fact he showered her constantly with nice things; shopping trips, visits to the hair and nail salon, meals out at swanky restaurants.  I couldn’t help but notice that her main objective in life now seemed to be looking as good as possible.  It made me wince at times.  Watching her swan about in new clothes, and flash jewellery.  I wanted her to know that I found it vulgar.  I did this by becoming as scruffy and dirty as I could get away with.  It didn’t matter to me, you see, all that stupid shit.  New clothes and the latest styles, and price tags.  It seemed like the more expensive something was, the more Howard valued it.  It turned my stomach.  To really appall them I started buying clothes from the charity shops when I needed something.  I took genuine pleasure in the way they rolled their eyes and wrinkled their noses when I walked into a room.

I watched them from the background, from the sidelines, where I lived, the invisible kid, the good boy.  I saw another side of her when she was alone.  Sometimes I would discover her, sat by herself, and just staring into space, as if she had no idea what it was she was meant to be doing.  She’d sit for hours, flicking through glossy wedding magazines.  She had a whole pile of them stacked up on the coffee table in the lounge.  If she was happy on the inside, in those moments, it was impossible to tell.  She didn’t look it to me.  When Howard was around, she altered.  She seemed childlike and gushing, like a little girl. She would wrap herself around him like a purring cat, appearing small, and coy and fragile.  I sensed that he liked her this way.  He would pick her up and carry her about.  Fawn over her and spoil her.  He would massage her feet and her shoulders, and paint her toenails for her.  They became one person, instead of two.  I found myself wondering time and time again, what love was.  Was theirs some great love story?  Was that how they saw it?  What did they talk about when they were alone?  It intrigued me as much as it disgusted me.  Because when she was alone, she seemed scared and unsure.  She looked haunted and uneasy.

As for me and Howard, well, I did what I could to stay on his good side.  I did what I was told, when I was told, without comment or complaint.  Wash the dishes.  Go to the shop.  Clean my room.  I did it the way I was supposed to.  Without even a roll of the eyes or a curl of the lip.  This seemed to work for a while.  This seemed to appease him and puff him up.  He would pat me on the head and tell me he was pleased.  He would have long conversations with his father on the telephone during which he would talk about how well he and I got along.  But I knew I wasn’t wrong when I sensed something quivering under his surface.  He could play the good father as much as he liked, but I knew the truth, I knew what lay underneath.  Sometimes, usually when I had been sipping vodka or whiskey in private, I felt the destructive urge to test his control.  I’d find myself looking at them, regarding them with nothing less than cold loathing.  I’d toy with the idea of flinging my dinner to the floor or telling them both to fuck themselves, or just reaching across the table and sticking my fork into one of Howard’s beady little eyes.

Sometimes I would try it.  I would taunt him, just a little bit, in front of my mother.  With a drink stoking the whirling mess of emotions in my belly, I would wonder if rocking the boat and provoking him to violence was my last hope.  It was a fine line to tread though.  If I pushed it too far, played the joker too long, or risked giving him a dirty look, then he would merely fall silent.  He would refuse to take the bait, instead just staring back at me with dead and hooded eyes.  There would be a reprisal when I least expected it.  A blow to the back of the head when I passed him on the landing, a kick to the shin when my mother got up from the table to wash the dishes.  I bit down on hatred and violence and said nothing.

My mother hated me smoking.  I was bored on Christmas Eve, when they refused to let me go over to Billy’s for a get together.  We were sat in the lounge watching The Generation Game. I’d already sat there for so long, sat on my fucking hands so that I didn’t use them to rip my own ears off, or gouge my own eyes out, that I was starting to tremble.  I’d had a few swigs of vodka up in my room earlier, and the heat was building in my chest and in my brain, as I glanced over at them, entwined on the other sofa.  I watched them pick up their cigarettes from the coffee table.  Howard lit his, and then hers.  They puffed quick bursts of grey out across the room. I dug around in my back pocket, found a squashed roll up and stuck it between my lips.  I’d lit it up and taken at least three drags before their eyes turned on me.  My mother, her mouth hanging open, her own cigarette dangling.  Howard, his eyes bulging, his lips taut and white.  “Excuse me?” she said, blinking rapidly. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I made a face like I didn’t understand the question.  Howard got up then.  Stormed right over to me and plucked the cigarette from my lips.  “Always with the jokes, eh?” he growled, sitting back down and stubbing my smoke out in his ashtray. “What a funny boy you are!”

I got up.  Walked in a leisurely fashion across the room to the door. “I’m sorry,” I told them.  “I got it wrong.  I thought you wanted me to be just like you.”

Christmas morning was a horrible piss take from start to finish.  I lay in bed for as long as I could, refusing to open my door every time my mother knocked on it.  She kept making these hopeful and depressing little trips up and down the stairs, knocking politely on my door to ask when I wanted to come and open my presents.  I let her know how hilarious I found this by laughing out loud and turning my music back up.  Just because you’re paranoid….don’t mean they’re not after you! I sung to myself, sitting up on my bed and dragging out my little tin.  I winked at Kurt up on my wall.  He knew what it was all about, I could tell.  A little slug of whiskey here and there.  Gotta find a way, to find a way, when I’m there…gotta find a way, a better way, I better wait!  I rolled a joint, got dressed and smoked it out of the window, and tried to work out the best way to escape.  Escape was something that appealed to me more and more as the days wore on, as life dragged out, limp and dull and pointless and cold.  I dreamed up elaborate ways to achieve it, but I hadn’t got much further than that yet.  I would need plenty of money for one thing, and saved as much as I could from the club, stuffing notes and coins into a sock I kept at the back of my drawer.  But the problem was, I liked my music, I needed my music, and that cost money too.  It also kept me sane.  Like the grass, and the whiskey as well.  I needed it.

It was cold outside.  Cold enough to snow my mother kept saying.  The sky had a stark and vast greyness to it.  It looked heavy and silent.  I glanced down at the street, already full of the sounds of squealing children, trying out brand new bikes and scooters.  I rolled my eyes in disgust and shook my head at them. “All pointless, waste of time and money,” I scowled at them.  I stubbed out the joint, tucked the butt safely away in my tin and shoved the tin back under my mattress.  I left the window open and pumped a generous amount of vanilla air freshener around the room.

The next knock on the door was no so polite and did not belong to my mother.  I felt my shoulders bunching up protectively and I glanced once more out of the window, thinking about escape, and running, running far away from this soulless pretence of a day.  I opened the door and Howard jabbed an angry finger into my chest.  “You’re taking the bloody piss!” he growled and steered me firmly out of my room.  “Your mothers’ gone to a lot of trouble, and as usual you’re up here being moody and ungrateful! There’s a bloody breakfast going cold for you down here!”

I hurried down the stairs, away from his awful clawing hand, and ducked quickly away from the kiss my mother attempted to greet me in the hallway with.  She followed me desperately into the kitchen, holding out a wrapped gift.  “Happy Christmas honey,” she gushed behind me. “You’re probably getting too old for all this now aren’t you?  Do you want to just open this later?  There’s more in the lounge!”

I slipped into the chair by the back door, and took the package from her.  “Thanks mum.” I put it to one side on the table and watched her smile struggling.  She was red in the face from cooking, wispy bits of hair floating around her face.  She was wearing a tight black dress and stupidly high heels. “I hope you like it, I did try my best, there’s lots more under the tree!  Do you want some breakfast?”  It was too late to argue as she was already piling food onto my plate.  Howard sat back down opposite, and I felt my stomach curl up in protest. The sight and the stench of it, and the view of Howard, plucking pieces of sausage out of his tightly rammed together teeth.  I swallowed and pushed the plate away.  She sighed instantly, her shoulders sagging.  Howard put his knife and fork down slowly.  “No, it’s alright,” she said to him quickly, holding up a hand before she reached for her wine glass with it.

“It’s not alright,” he disagreed, his tongue doing circuits around his pursed mouth, as he rooted out the pieces of food that always seemed to get stuck between his teeth.  His eyes locked with mine.  “He should eat the food Kay. It’s common courtesy.  He always does this.  Refuses to eat meals, or pisses around with it, then raids the cupboards later. I’ve told you a million times that’s what he does.”

I stared back blankly, refusing to flinch.  I was thinking about getting the hell out of there.  I was thinking about doing whatever I could to avoid spending the day with those fuckers.  “Come on, it’s Christmas,” my mother was urging us, her wine glass pressed to her lips as her eyes darted nervously between us.  “No arguing from you two.”

“I’m not arguing,” I said evenly.  “I didn’t say a word. I just want to be left alone.”

“Just open the bloody presents and stop being so rude,” Howard snapped, picking his fork back up and stabbing viciously at half a sausage.  “Your mum went to a lot of trouble for you, not that you care.  Did you even buy anything for her?”

“No money.”

“Rubbish!” he snorted. “What do I pay you then? You’ve got money, you’re just too selfish to spend it on anyone but yourself.”

“Come on, that’s enough,” said mum, eyeing the unopened gift on as if this alone was the source of all the tension.  She lingered at the side of the table, too restless to take a seat, too jittery to eat anything.  She clung to her wine glass with one hand, to the back of Howards chair with the other.  “It’s fine, he can open presents later.  He’s never liked opening them with an audience, you know!” She gave a little laugh and looked at me. “Have you Danny?  Not even when you were small.”

“Always take his side,” Howard muttered, shaking his head in disappointment and dabbing at the corner of his mouth with one of the napkins she had laid out.  “Always make excuses for him.  You don’t even realize you’re doing it half the time, you do it so much. Then you wonder why he’s such a fuck up.  You wonder why.  When you just go and undo everything I’ve done, all the rules and whatever.  I don’t know why I bother.”

She lowered her eyes, drank the last of her wine, and pulled her hand away from his chair.  She walked to the sideboard and grabbed the open bottle of wine by the neck. “Hey can I have some of that?” I asked brightly, my eyes never leaving Howards.  I watched his thick neck growing crimson in colour.  His shoulders lifted and bristled, his head lowered, and his eyes burned back into mine.  I knew exactly what those eyes were telling me, but I didn’t care.  I wanted to get out of there.  I wanted him to drive me out.

“Oh I don’t know about that love,” she said, glancing at Howard in case he knew the answer.  Howard shrugged his big shoulders while his face looked like he was chomping on glass.

“Why the hell not?” he replied churlishly. “You let him do everything else he wants.”

She sighed before picking up another glass and filling it half way with wine.  She placed it on the table and I picked it up and downed it before they could change their minds.  Howard glared at my mother and shook his head at her anxious expression, letting her know she had failed again.  I wiped my mouth, pushed back my shoulders, braced myself for war and asked her for another glass.  Alarm leaped into her eyes then, as if she had suddenly worked out exactly what I was playing at.

“Don’t fucking push it,” Howard warned me through a mouthful of food.

“I’m bored!” I cried out then, shoving back my chair and leaning forward with my hands on the table. “You’re allowed to drink on Christmas day for fucks sake!”

“Watch your mouth.”  The words, spoken through grit, each one a warning, each one a promise.  I smiled at him, tasting the violence.  I pushed my face towards him.

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself ape-man?  Why don’t you go drive your piece of shit car right over the cliff top?  Why don’t you talk with your mouth full and choke on your fucking sausage?  Why don’t you…” I didn’t get to finish because he tore the words from my mouth with an open palm.  It nearly sent me to the floor, but I caught my balance, and staggered towards the door.  I heard my mother gasp in horror.  I heard Howard’s chair legs screech against the floor.  I held onto my face and left the room.  Howard’s mad babbling started to fill the silence behind me.

“He can’t get away with stuff like that! There has to be a line Kay!  There’s got to be a limit!  We can’t just stand back and take that from him! You saw him goading me!  From the moment he got up! And you let him drink wine for gods sake!”

It went on and on.  I didn’t know how she could stand it.  I didn’t know how she couldn’t see him for what he was.  Why she didn’t fight back, scream at him, tell him he was wrong and out of line.  I ran up the stairs, two at a time, flung myself into my room and gathered everything I would need; Walkman, tapes, vodka, tin and jacket.  I shrugged it on and dashed back down the stairs. “There’s only so much I can take, and I’ve told you that before!” he was still ranting on in the kitchen.  “Only so much I can take Kay!  Wedding or no wedding!”

I slammed the door behind me in triumph and marched away from them.  I imagined them as ghosts as I walked away, transparent and fading until they simply ceased to exist.  I didn’t allow myself to think of later, of revenge, I just hurried on, hurried away from them.  I lit a cigarette and wiped the blood from my nose and scurried over to Michael’s, with a plan in my head.  I rapped twice on the door before Mrs Anderson opened it in a frilly red apron and leopard print dress.  She held a metal spoon in one hand, and the smells of a roast dinner underway wafted down the hallway to my nostrils. “What?” she barked at me, her lips a permanent red scowl.

“Quick word with Mike?”

He appeared behind her, still in his dressing gown and tightening the belt as he walked up.  He was frowning at me. “You okay mate?”

“Michael,” his mother turned and addressed him sternly. “You are not going anywhere.  We are visiting your brother at twelve o’clock!”

“I know, I know, just give us a minute.”

She clicked her tongue and stalked briskly back into the kitchen, holding her spoon aloft.  Michael came up to the door and tugged his dressing gown up to his neck as the cold air swirled into the hallway. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked me darkly.  “You’re bleeding.”

I wiped my nose along the sleeve of my jacket.  “Oh yeah.  Stupid bike.  Look, I know you’ve got stuff to do, but I’m heading to the base for the entire day. Got booze, got smokes, got weed.  I’ll be there when you can get away. Call Billy and Jake too.”

“Nice one,” he nodded at me.  “I’ll be there.  Soon as I can.” I smiled in relief and started to walk away.  “And get a fire going yeah?” he called after me.  I nodded back at him, shoved my hands into my pockets and got walking.

When I got to the base, I stood for a moment outside the caravan.  My shoulders relaxed and my spine tingled with something pretty close to excitement.  I took a quick gulp of the vodka in my pocket and then got to work building a fire.  It took a good hour, just walking in and out of the woods dragging logs back with me.  I enjoyed it though. I even worked up a bit of a sweat underneath my clothes.  I smoked a cigarette after that and wandered about in the trees collecting as many sticks and twigs as I could to build up a supply.  When I finally got it going, when the flames really took hold and warmed my face, I jumped to my feet and whooped for joy.  I felt really fucking good.  My cheek and nose stung, but even that was good, even pain was good, everything was fucking good!  I was warm with vodka and throbbing with a reckless kind of joy.  I got wrapped up in one of the blankets we had stashed in the caravan, and sat on a log, poking at the flames with a long stick.  I felt good, and I felt even better as the skies darkened around me.  I felt a long, long way away from my mother and Howard.  I considered staying there forever.  Never going back.  They didn’t know about the base.  Didn’t have a clue about it.  They would just think me missing, gone.   I could see out the New Year too, out there on my own.  I could keep the fire going, night after night and just sit about in a dream, drinking and getting high and not giving a shit about anything.

My mind drifted back to escape.  Running away.  Stealing their money, packing a bag and just going.  Just walking out of the door and not looking back.  Maybe I would hitch my way up to see John.  Maybe I would go back to Southampton and try to track down my dad.  I imagined myself with a bag on my shoulder and money in my pocket, and I imagined them opening up my room and finding me gone, forever.

I finished my smoke and flicked the butt into the fire.  The trouble was, in reality, a strong fear gripped me every time I seriously considered packing a bag.  A fear that shook the breath from me and at the same time a lonely sadness would wash over me, and I knew that I wouldn’t do it.  In reality, I would talk myself out of it every time.  Now that I knew that monsters like Howard existed outside of scary movies and books, it was easy to believe that the world out there was full of them.  And I would remember what I really was at the end of the day; just a stupid frightened kid.  So I would tell myself to wait, wait until I was older, and bigger, wait until I had the answers.

The last light of the day was dwindling by the time the boys made it to the base, and the sky was streaked with darkening clouds.  A warm spray of pink and orange was just visible through the trees, where the sun was slipping down onto the ocean.  I looked up with a lazy grin, when they came traipsing through the undergrowth, all dressed in new clothes.  Billy was proudly carrying a brand new portable CD player under his arm.  “You’re gonna’ love this!” he told me insistently as he set it down.  Jake dumped a four pack of Carlsberg beers on the ground along with a massive bag of crisps.  Michael did a twirl, showing off his new leather jacket.  I was happy and relaxed, jabbing at the fire with my stick and sparking up the spliff I had rolled in anticipation of their arrival.

“So what did you get?” asked Billy, pressing play on his stereo and perching on a log.  Michael tightened his scarf around his neck and sat down next to me.

“Didn’t hang around to find out!” I laughed, holding up my vodka and joint. “Got all I need right here!”

Jake sat down on the other side of the fire, ruffled a hand through his hair and yawned.  I thought they all looked the same then, weary eyed and full of warmth and dinner.  “Where the hell are you getting all this from?” he asked me. “Every time we see you, you’ve got booze and grass.”

“Secret supplier,” I grinned.

“Secret friend?” Michael asked.

I shrugged. “Suppose so.” I passed the joint to him and he took it and pushed something back into my hand. “What’s this?”

“It’s from Anthony.  Read it later mate.”

I turned the envelope over in my hand, before sighing in defeat, as all the guilt and sick disgust came flooding back.  I pushed the envelope inside my jacket and stared at the fire.  I watched the angry flames licking and rolling, and they reminded me of people, fighting and lashing out, before recoiling and preparing to strike again.  Anthony was a subject Mike and I never touched on.  He was the unspeakable thing that rested like a weight between us whenever we were together.  I honestly had no idea why Michael still wanted to be my friend, knowing what he knew.  It still kept me awake at night.  Thinking of him in his cell tortured me and gave me nightmares.  I didn’t know what to do.  So I just kept on doing nothing.  And when I could drink, I drank, and when I could get high, I got high.  And sometimes, when Howard lost control and lashed out as he had done earlier, I felt a stab of satisfaction, because it was all I deserved for what had happened to Anthony.  The letter lay like a dead weight of guilt inside my jacket.

Michael released this long, drawn out sigh, and when I glanced his way, I could tell that he hadn’t had the best of days either.  “Really would like to know where you’re getting this from,” he said.

“Why do you care?” I shrugged.

“Because I do.  I just do.  Because I’m your friend.  Who’s giving it to you?  Or are you buying it?  How do you afford it?”

“It’s just this guy I know.”

“What guy?”

“He’s called Jack.”

“So how do you know him?”

I smiled awkwardly, and lifted my vodka to my lips. “He’s a mate of Howards.”

Michael stared at me angrily. “Shittinghell!” he cried at me.  I swallowed my vodka and my guilt and stared back at him, with a tentative smile.

“What Mike?”

“Oh Christ, just shittinghell, that’s all Danny. What are you thinking?  Are you insane?”

“Probably.”

“Why the hell is a friend of Howard’s supplying you with grass and booze?” His eyes were too close I decided then.  Too close and too dark, and too full of the truth of it all.  I shifted away from him ever so slightly and drank more vodka.

“I dunno,” I admitted, and this was true.  I really had no idea why Jack Freeman seemed to be on my side, or why he sometimes gave me drinks, and cigarettes.  I didn’t know why he’d suggested I buy a bit of grass from him if I wanted.  The thing was, I liked it too much to question it.  Like booze, I liked the feeling it gave me; of drifting away from this boring, tedious disappointing life.  It pulled my mouth into a smile that was real, and it made the music sound even better, and it relaxed by bones, and my churned up gut, and it made my thoughts run and twist and dance, and it helped me to fall asleep.  So I didn’t question it.  Not really.  At first it had felt a little strange, a little dangerous.  I’d wondered helplessly if I was being set up somehow.  But nothing happened.  Howard did not know.  All that happened was I nearly always had booze and fags and grass when I needed it, and I thought that was pretty cool to be honest.

Michael was staring at me as if he wanted to hit me.  “You’ve not even thought about it?”

“No, not really.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Don’t want to.”

“What is wrong with you?” he fired at me then, his voice rising and causing Jake and Billy to stop mid-conversation and stare at us.

“What’s wrong with you?” I shouted back at him. “You’re fucking smoking it aren’t you?”

Michael breathed slowly through his nostrils and passed the joint on. “Not anymore,” he told me. “Not if it’s gonna’ get you in trouble.  I need to meet this man.”

“Why do you?”  I was getting angry now.  I suppose it was the vodka.  It would make me feel all dopey and happy as long as life stayed that way around me.  But if things kicked off, it made me want to as well.  I glared right at him then, and if truth be told, I quite fancied the idea of fighting him. “You’re not my fucking keeper Michael! You don’t need to know everything, and you don’t need to worry about everything!”

“I’m just trying to get you to think about it.  I’m just trying to look out for you.”

I hung my head and clutched at my hair. “Ah no, just stop it, just stop it.”

“What?”

“You’re pissing me off,” I looked up and told him.  “Just stop it, stop being like the fucking dad or something.  Just forget about it.  Just have a drink, have a smoke, have a laugh. Have some fucking fun.”

He was quiet for a moment.  Billy and Jake looked on nervously, and then they rolled their eyes in relief when Michael nodded at me in agreement.  “Okay then,” he said stiffly. “Alright. I will.  We’ll have some fun.  Whatever you say mate.”

I gave him a brief smile and a thankful nod.  I sensed that he was angry with me though.  He wanted to say much more, but he had stopped himself, probably as worried as I was, about where the argument would lead us.

Later that evening, when I was sure that no one was watching or wondering, I tugged out the letter from Anthony and read it.  Hi Danny, how the hell are you? How is everything?  I mean, really?? Really hope you are okay, but Mike is worried about you the whole time. I can’t do anything in here, but don’t worry about it, I’ll be out in no time.  I think that guy is dangerous Danny.  If there is any way that you can get away from him, or move out, I think you should.  You’re a nice kid Danny and me and Mike think a lot of you.  Don’t let anything get you down.  Stick with your friends!  They are there for you.  One thing I’ve learnt in this life is you have to fight back mate.  Like I did with my dad.  One way or another, any way you fucking can.  There will always be some cunt trying to keep you down, keep you under control, but don’t let them, don’t let them win! Don’t let them keep you down.  Fight back any way you can.  Hold your head up high because none of this is your fault. I know what you’re thinking but you’re wrong.  Fight back and stay strong and I’ll see you as soon as I’m out, and if he’s still around, I’ll sort the fucker out.  See you soon mate.  Get your fucking hair cut!  Your friend, Anthony.

 

It was awful, I thought desperately.  Fucking awful.  I felt like crying, and I wished that Michael had never given me the letter.  Tears stabbed at my eyes, and the guilty sickness rolled into life in my belly, turning and writhing until I had to get up and run into the bushes to vomit.  I didn’t know what to do.  I leaned weakly against a tree, clutching the letter in one hand, sweating and dry heaving.  What should I do?  Fight back?  What did he mean?  Get my fucking head ripped of more like.  Get myself killed.  I was drunk and stoned, and suddenly so deeply depressed by it all, that the only thing that made any sense was the pain I felt when I smashed my fist into the nearest tree.

45

 

 

            At the end of October Michael held a Halloween party at his house, on the very same day that he turned fifteen.  I’m not exactly sure how he managed to persuade his mother to go away for the weekend, but I don’t suppose she needed that much convincing to leave him all alone.  Through the grapevine I had heard that Anthony had been sentenced to another eighteen months in prison.  It was soul destroying to even think about it, so I tried not to.  I tried to keep my distance. I kept my head down and full of music.  He invited a houseful of people and lit a bonfire in a metal bin in the back garden, which they all ended up dancing around.  My mother let me go out because I told her I was sleeping at Billy’s house.  I had bought a small bottle of whiskey from Jack Freeman, and the only way I could summon up the courage to go over there was by taking several swigs of it before I left.  Then I walked out of the house with my eyes watering, and I felt like I was dicing with death with every single wobbly step I took towards Michaels’ party.

That night, fuelled by the whiskey in my pocket I put on a fine show of being one of them again.  I ignored the concerned looks they gave me.  I steered them away from conversations I did not want to have.  I chattered on endlessly about the record shop and the music I had been discovering there.  I pretended that everything was fine, that everything was the way it should be, and that there wasn’t this great awful unspeakable thing hanging between us all.

“Are you all recovered from your accident now?” Jake decided to ask me in the kitchen, when we were both searching for more to drink.  I could have laughed at the careful, hesitant way he placed his words.  I chuckled and slapped him on the back.

“Nothing is an accident in this life, Jakey-boy!” I told him, while he frowned down at me.

“Are you alright?” he asked me then, not smiling. “You seem pretty wasted.  Maybe you better slow down a bit.”

I took a moment to look him up and down.  He was wearing a pin striped suit and a black trilby hat.  “What have you come as?” I asked him. “Your fucking dad?”

He lifted his hat off his head and held it unsurely in his hand. “No, I’m a gangster.”

“Fucking hell!”

Michael appeared behind him then, his face plastered in white paint and decorated with bright red slashes of fake blood.  I shook my head at his make-up, grinning recklessly and unsteady on my feet.  I downed the last of my whiskey and slammed the bottle onto the side with a bang.  I wondered if I ought to tell them where the real horror show was, where the real monster lived, back at my house, curled up on the sofa with my mother and a cup of tea.  Instead I rolled my eyes at them and tried to slip away. Michael put his hand out and caught my shoulder.  I was in such a state that I couldn’t even allow myself to look into his face.  Why would I want to?  When all I would find there would destroy me even more?

“You’re like the invisible man lately,” he said to me, a brief smile touching his lips before fading away again.  I felt his eyes searching my face, and shrugged under his hand. “Always got something on, eh?” I nodded.

“Yeah, you know, homework, and stuff…”

“Just hope you’re not out doing stupid stunts on your bike, that’s all…”

I stood there for a moment, while the hurt spun through me, making my lips tremble and my hands close into fists.  I heard him sigh, and his hand fell from my shoulder.  I swallowed, looked ahead and walked away.  I felt shit after that so I found Billy and told him if he took me back to his house now I’d let him share something cool with me.  Looking intrigued, he nodded his head and we left the house.

I felt drunker when we walked out into the night air; it was like the whole bottle of whiskey returned to smack me around the head, and Billy automatically slung an arm around my shoulder to steer me in the right direction.  We went into his house the back way, and I got the giggles when he started shushing me, as we crept up to his room.  He pushed me inside and closed the door, and started to organize blankets and pillows for me. “Where’s your brother?” I asked.

“His mates house.  Shh, I said! I don’t want my folks to see how wasted you are.”

“Don’t worry about it Bill,” I murmured, finding a wall and propping myself against it as wave after wave of giddiness washed over me.  “I’m a good boy now you know?  Did you know that Bill?  I’m really good!” I attempted to walk over, got my foot stuck in a blanket and landed in a heap on the floor. Billy frowned down at me anxiously.

“Says the boy who’s completely hammered. Just shh will you. You’ll get me in trouble.”

“I’m still good!” I insisted, wanting him to know this.  I rolled onto my back and pointed up at him.  “I’m a really good boy I am Bill, not doing nothing wrong!”

Billy sighed, chucked a blanket on top of me and climbed into his own bed fully clothed.  “What’s this thing you’ve got to share then? What’s so important?”

I pushed the blanket off of me and sat up urgently. “Bill, Billy, don’t go to sleep yet, that’s right, wait a minute.”  I hiccupped, smiled a drunken smile and patted my shirt pocket.

“What?”

“Secret surprise Bill!”

“Well come on then, I’m knackered.”

“Don’t go to sleep, don’t go to sleep, not yet, hang on.” I shoved my hand into my pocket and tried to pull my tin out.  It was jammed and I couldn’t quite get my fingers in to grip it properly. “Oh fuck it, where is it? Come on then, come on.” I finally got a hold and tugged it out to show him. “Here it is Billy, I’ve got it now.” I crossed my legs, picked up a magazine from the floor and set it on my lap.

“What you got?” Billy asked, wrinkling his nose.

“It’s grass.  Give me a second.”

Billy was silent then, just watching me.  I couldn’t quite make my fingers work properly, so it took longer than I would have liked, rolling the joint, and while I was at it, Billy got bored and leaned over to press play on the stereo.  He turned the volume right down, and Nirvanas Pennyroyal Tea rolled out gently from the speakers, filling the room instantly with a calming kind of sadness.  I nodded from the floor. “I fucking love this album Bill.”

“Me too. Got it on constantly. My mum doesn’t approve of Rape Me though.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s not getting it.  It’s not like he wants to rape anyone for fucks sake, it’s not about that.  It’s like fuck you, isn’t it?  Like come on, do your worst, I can take it!”

“I know, I told her that,” Billy agreed. “I’m not the only one….ahhhhh, I’m not the only one…I don’t want to be sick again,” he said then, watching me. “I don’t think it agrees with me. Who’d you get that from anyway?”

“A friend.”

“Well what friend?”

“You don’t need to know everything Bill,” I laughed at him, finishing it off. He shrugged from the bed.

“Well you never tell us anything these days Danny. You’re hardly even with us most the time. You don’t hang around us.”

“Yes I do, I see you every day at school.”

“No not like that,” he argued, his expression unhappy. “I mean properly, like friends, like a gang.”  I lit the joint and puffed a slow smooth stream of smoke up towards the ceiling.  “Mike really misses you,” he said then. “You’re meant to be his best friend. But you never seem to want to be with us…” I looked at him for a moment, taking a second drag, and he held my gaze, frown lines on his forehead. “He really tried to help you, you know…I mean, he’s really worried about you Danny.  He doesn’t know what else to do.”

I took a third drag and passed it up to him.  He took it with a wince, as if he didn’t really want to. “I know,” I sighed. “But the thing is, I’m just trying to stay out of trouble.”

“Well it’s not the same without you.”

I rested my head back on the edge of his bed. “I just wreck things Bill.  You’re all better off without me.  That’s what it is.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he said, passing back the joint. “Don’t talk like that. That’s bollocks mate.”

“It’s true,” I said, shaking my head at him. “You don’t know…you don’t even realize.”

“Tell me then.”

“Nah,” I shook my head sharply and offered him a grin. “Forget about it Bill. I’m here now aren’t I?”

He crossed his arms over his belly and grimaced. “Feel sick.”

I laughed. “You twat.”

“Just say you’ll hang about with us more then.”

I laughed again, smoked the spliff and closed my eyes. “See what I can do…” I murmured.  We didn’t talk again after that.  Just passed the joint back and forth and then tumbled down into sleep, the sombre music still playing on, framing our moods.

December 1993

After Michael’s party I did my best to please them all, and became an expert at putting on a brave face, a show, to keep them all happy.  It was an interesting thing, manipulating the truth, and sometimes I found myself questioning just exactly what the truth was.  Sometimes I found myself wondering where I was…But let everyone else think that everything was okay, and it was easy for them to believe, because they wanted to.  Let Howard think that he had won, that the fight was over, and he would believe it too, because he needed to, because it suited him to.  Let them all think whatever the fuck they wanted to think, and they would leave me alone, not actually knowing the truth about anything.  Everything was just fine.  Fuck it.

The only person I found myself wanting to share some small element of truth with, was my mother.  This was mostly because she was too thick skinned, too delusional, too wrapped up in her own little bubble of a world, to even notice half of the time.  It was rare that I would come across her without Howard, but when I did, I would do my best to grate on her nerves.  If I found her alone, I’d experience this putrid rush of hatred for her, and it was a black and ugly thing.  I’d want to hurt her, both physically and emotionally.  When she was alone, she looked different, I thought.  She appeared weaker, and thinner, fragile and transparent.  She looked like decent sleep mostly eluded her, and she would chew and worry at her nails, fretting about stupid things, like her job at the Co-Op.  Apparently her boss was being an arse about her three week absence, and was not giving her the overtime she was used to.  “Don’t worry about it,” I felt compelled to hiss into her ear when Howard had left the room. “He’ll take care of it for you, won’t he? You don’t even need a job, do you?  Just let him control everything, yeah?”  She would just look up at me, her expression totally dazed, as if she had no idea who I was, or why I would speak to her so viciously.

On occasion I would come across her at the kitchen table, head in hand as she chain smoked her cigarettes.  To see her stressed or concerned made me want to scream brutal laughter right into her face.  What the fuck did she have to worry about?  I would see her rub her temples as if a headache threatened, and I would start to slam the cupboard doors and bang things about on purpose just to get a reaction out of her.  She would stare at me as if I bewildered her, as if she could not believe what she was seeing and hearing. “Why are you making all that noise? Why are you doing that?  You’re doing it on purpose, I know you are!” And I would laugh at her, laugh and curl my lip and walk out of the room, wondering if she knew why, wondering if she knew anything at all.

On the way home from school one day, I nipped into the newsagents on Somerley road to buy NME and a can of coke.  The guy behind the counter was this spotty faced nervous looking young man with thick black glasses.  I waited until he was busy serving another customer, and then I slipped a miniature sized bottle of vodka up my sleeve, paid for my magazine and coke, and walked out.  I had a feeling that even if he knew, he was not going to say anything, and I was right.

Outside I laughed to myself and pulled my headphones back on.  Dumb, by Nirvana had just started, and the lyrics were beautiful in their simplicity, their impact hitting me right between the eyes and making me smile and laugh like a fucking lunatic. I’m not like them, but I can pretend, the sun is gone, but I have a light, the day is done, but I’m having fun, I think I’m dumb, or maybe just happy….think I’m just happy.  I laughed as I walked because I was all of those things right then; not like them, dumb, and happy.  I was happy, as I unscrewed the cap from the vodka.  Nothing mattered anyway, I thought then, shrugging my shoulders at my own musings.  Nothing mattered, and I felt happy because I had finally figured out the truth of everything, and the truth was that life was shit and had no meaning.  I took a sip of neat vodka to toast this simple and undeniable fact.

When I walked into the kitchen, I saw my mother sat at the table, and when she lifted her head to look at me, I saw that her face was a mess of smeared make-up and running tears.  She told me that she had been fired, and fresh tears spilled from her mascara smudged eyes.  I dumped my schoolbag on the table and opened the fridge to see what I could get to eat.  I could feel her eyes burning into my back.  “Danny?  Did you hear what I just said?”

“Yeah, heard.”

“And?”

“And what, am I meant to give a shit?” I slammed the fridge door and faced her with a shrug. “So what?” I demanded, the aggression sweeping through me as I stared at her shocked and hurt expression.  “What’s the big deal?  You hated that shitty job didn’t you?”

She blinked back at me, her blue eyes shining tragically from the circles of smeared make-up that surrounded them.  “Excuse me, can you stop swearing please?”

“Why the fuck should I?  They’re just fucking words.  Get over it.”

“Oh okay!” she shouted, waving a hand at me and turning her back. “Whatever!  You say what you like, go on, thanks a lot. Go to your room if you haven’t got anything nice to say.” I watched her rigid back as she picked her coffee up from the table and took a sip.  “Of all the days to start being like that,” she went on, muttering to herself. “I’ve just been fired and you can’t even say anything nice.”

“What are you so upset about?” I yelled then, flinging my arms out to either side of me in pure frustration.  “I don’t get it!  Your precious boyfriend will sort it all out for you.  You can be a kept woman or whatever! He’s rolling in money, he’s always going on about it, you don’t even need a job. I don’t get why you’re upset!”

“I shouldn’t expect you to understand,” she replied rather timidly, dabbing at her eyes with a screwed up tissue.

“I don’t even care!” I ranted on, getting into my stride now, as the vitriol ripped through me.  I wanted to stand there and scream at her while I had the chance.  I wanted to shock her, hurt her, wake her up.  I wanted her to open her eyes and see me for once.  I wanted her to know about me, I wanted her to know how fucked and twisted and frightened I was inside.  I wanted to tell her.  “He’ll sort everything out!  He always does! He’s the big boss man, don’t forget!  He’s the fucking king!  He’s the fucking biggest bastard in the world!”

“He’s asked me to marry him.”

She did not get up, or turn around, or look at me.  She just said the words with her back to me, with her hands around her coffee cup, with her shoulders bunched up to her neck.  There was no physical or verbal indication whatsoever about how she felt about this statement.  I was silent for a moment with my mouth hanging open.  And then I felt this awful shaking laughter thrumming through me, and I closed my mouth in an attempt to suppress it, but that was futile.  My shoulders started to shake with it.  My eyes started to swim with water.  So I gave into it.  I laughed behind her back, I laughed loud and hard and long, and I walked out of the house and away from her, still sniggering and giggling and wiping my eyes as they ran. I walked out, back into the sharp coldness of the day, and I kept walking and I kept laughing.

I kept walking until I was at the beach.  It was freezing cold.  Icy winds whipped across the sand, spraying it into my face as I sat down hard.  I laughed, and when I could laugh no more, I began to cry.  There was no one around.  So I let them come.  I had not realized that I‘d still had hope inside of me.  I had not realized that a big part of me had been clinging to the hope that Howard would get bored and move on, or that they would split up, and he would be thrown out, tossed aside, gone.  But now I knew that there had been hope, as I felt it sink right out of me, right down into the cold wet sand.  I had not known that it was a painful thing, when hope shrivels up and dies inside of you, and so I made a promise never to hope for anything ever again.  I remembered the tiny bottle of vodka in my pocket, and my can of coke in the other.  I opened them and mixed them up in the can.  I drank it down in three hungry, sobbing gulps, and when it was gone I hurled the can and the bottle into the sand, and there was so much inside of me then, so much I could not contain, that I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands, as hard as I could, hard enough to draw blood.  I closed my eyes and claimed the pain, made it mine, my pain.  When there were no more tears left to cry I started to laugh again.  I looked at my hands, at the tiny crescent shaped cuts in each palm and I laughed until my stomach hurt.

44

 

October 1993

Three weeks after she left to care for my Grandma, my mother returned.  Howard informed me on Sunday night, that she would be back in the morning, and that I could go back to school finally.  The coincidence of this was not lost on me obviously.  It would give them the entire day alone together, plenty of time for Howard to work his charms.  That night I’d laid awake for hours and hours, my guts churning at the thought of returning to school.  As strange as it may sound, I’d fallen into a sort of routine with Howard during those weeks, and I suppose I’d got used to it.  He’d been right really.  It was simple if I followed his rules.  He was nice to me I suppose, in his own way.  With my friends out of the picture, with no distractions or rebellions, we had come to an understanding of sorts.  He seemed happy, when I look back.  He would try to engage me in conversations.  He had even started to ask me what music I thought would draw people in at the club.  The night before my mother came home I lay awake, thinking about it all.  I thought about what I’d been for three weeks, what he told me I was; a good boy.  I thought about carrying on, keeping it up, staying in line and playing along with the twisted version of happy families he had constructed so violently in my mothers’ absence.   Let him win.  Just live with it.  And then I would take the knife out from under my mattress and feel the weight of it in my hands.

Holding it like that made me think about fighting back, and made me think about Michael, and Anthony, and war.  I pictured his big face, and the way his little eyes glowered and glared, and I imagined sticking the knife right through one of them, right up into his brain.  I’d hack his balls off and sling them around his neck.  I would feel something; this little shudder of fire within me, this hardening, and I would tap the knife against my other palm.  I could make life difficult for them forever, I would think.  I could be the thorn in their side for as long as I liked.

But then my mind would take me back, whether I wanted it to or not.  Take me back to scenes that made my body want to shrivel up and wither away.  I would remember the view I’d had from the floor, of the carpet, and the wall, and the piles of magazines under my bed.  I’d remember seeing his boot coming in and going out, as I tried to cover my head with my arms, and my body would tremble and moan at me, and remind me how small and vulnerable it really was, how fighting back was for idiots and suicides.  It floored me with shame and guilt, but I never wanted to find myself in that place again.  So there you have it.  I was a coward at the end of the day, and it was a shock even to me.  My best friends’ brother was in prison, and it was my fault.  You can’t even imagine the weight of guilt that settled upon my shoulders every single day upon waking.

I came down the stairs cautiously when I heard her in the hallway.  She dropped her suitcase, pushed her loose hair back behind her ears and held her arms out to me.  Howard was right behind her, arms crossed, shirtsleeves rolled up and a warm and confident grin dominating his face.  I glanced at him, wondering whether I would be able to detect just the tiniest bit of guilt or fear, but there was nothing.  He seemed pleased to see her and keen to show off how hard we had been working in her absence. “All better I see?” She asked, throwing her arms around me on the last step.  I winced and pulled away, and heard her click her tongue at me and laugh nervously. “Oh sorry I forgot, too big and cool for a hug these days.”

I looked at her, saying nothing.  I looked into her face and tried to recognize her, but three weeks was a long time, and my entire world had changed.  I was not the same boy anymore, and I eyed her warily.  “He’s a teenage boy, what do you expect?” Howard laughed and pulled her into him.  She melted against him, wrapping her arms around his thick middle and shaking her hair back again.

“Well I’m just glad he had you to look after him honey,” she said, and I wanted to vomit, so the best thing to do was get the fuck out of there.  I picked up my schoolbag, slung it across my chest and opened the front door.  “Your Gran is fine by the way,” my mother said then, when I was half way out. “Thanks for asking.”

“Ah teenagers,” Howard joked again, his chin on her head and his eyes on mine. “Don’t be too tough on him babe. He’s been an excellent help to me at the club.”

Her eyes widened. “Really?  That’s brilliant Danny!  Well done.”

“Yeah,” Howard went on, rubbing her back with one hand in a circular motion, as his eyes remained on mine.  “Been earning himself a bit of money helping out.  Might even get him involved in the music side of things, you know.  He certainly knows his stuff.” He gave me a wink over her head that chilled me to the bone, and I looked once again at my mother, and the way she buried her face in his chest, sighing and closing her eyes as if she had never been more satisfied or at home.

“I’ll be late,” I said gruffly, and pulled the door shut behind me.  The morning was chilly, the grass on the front lawn dusted with sparkling frost.   I folded my arms over my school blazer and started walking fast.  Get through it, I told myself as I stormed along towards school, just get through it.  I felt pretty grim and nervous to be honest, as I walked along on my own.  The only way I could make one foot go in front of the other was by pulling on my headphones and pressing play, and thinking about what I had planned after school.  It was a treat really.  Something I had been promising myself ever since I had discovered it.

Down the road from the club was a little record shop.  It hadn’t been there long.  I had to walk past it to get to the post box when Howard sent me out to post letters.  It was small and narrow, and I couldn’t see much just walking past, and a lot of the time it said closed on the door, but I’d promised myself after school, I’d go there.  Alone.  I’d push open the door and wander in and I’d take the money I had saved up from helping at the club.  It was enough.  It would get me through the day.  It was something to look forward to.

Inside the building, I felt like a ghost as I slipped along the corridor.  Maybe there was something about me that let me go unnoticed, or turned people away from me, but it felt odd, like I was not really there. I kept close to the wall, my eyes down, my pace hurried and anxious.  The first person I saw that I knew was Lucy, pushing her hair behind her ears as she walked along towards her form room with Zoe.  She caught my eye, stopped in her tracks, but do you know what I did?  Looked the other way.  Let my hair cover my face and walked on.   I had to go and see Mr James after registration, which seemed a strange and pointless thing.  I sat on the other side of his desk, eyes down, and thinking about the last time I had listened to him speak; that speech he had given us about potential, the words that had got me fired up about joining the school paper.  He watched me carefully and asked me if everything was alright at home.  I nodded.  He watched me again and asked me if I had recovered from my accident okay.  I nodded that I had.  “I hope you’re keeping up the writing,” he said then, smiling this tentative smile at me. “Try out for the school paper again?”

I got up, crossed the room and opened the door.  I didn’t have to sit there and listen to shit like that.  His words stuck in my throat, making it difficult to breathe. “Better get to class,” I mumbled and walked out.

I scuttled about, avoiding everyone, not saying a word.  Leave me alone I wanted to tell them all, keep away.  It was better like that.  Safer.  When the bell rang I went out a different way and headed into town with my hands in my pockets and my eyes on the ground.  I didn’t lift my head until I had walked past the club, and when I did, I could see the guy from the record shop, and it looked like he was closing up early.  He was very overweight, and was struggling to haul in his advertising sign from the pavement.  He had one foot inside the shop, holding the door open, while he tried to wrestle the heavy sign in at the same time.  I flicked back my hair and approached slowly.  The Record Shop it said in bold black print on the sign, Vinyl and Cassettes, bought and sold.  The man nearly had the sign through the door, so I broke into a run then, desperate not to be shut out, and grabbed hold of one end for him.

“Let me help,” I said.  He looked at me like I was mad.  He blinked at me in hostile surprise.

“I’m closed,” he said, taking advantage of my assistance for a moment to smooth back his long thinning hair, which he had pulled into a low ponytail.  He had a scruffy blonde beard and moustache and was wearing a Bob Dylan t-shirt with a brown stain on the front.  I was trying to peer around his bulk into the shop.  I could smell it already, even out there on the pavement and it sent a tingle down my spine and made me think of Donald Madisons music area.  The smell of dust and vinyl and obsession.

“I’ll give you a hand,” I enthused, lifting my end of the sign up from the ground.

“Alright,” he relented, picking up his end and shuffling backwards until we were inside the shop. “But I’m still closed.  I’ve cashed up and everything.”

“It’s not even four o’clock,” I told him.  He shoved the door shut behind me and turned the sign around to ‘closed’. “I didn’t even know this shop was here until the other day,” I said.  The man paused with one hand on the door handle.  He looked like he was a bit out of breath, as his big gut heaved up and down.  I took a moment to run my eyes all over the shop.  I was mesmerized.  In a dream.  I felt the tension of the day dropping out of me, all of it, all of everything.  So much music.  There was so much music! The narrow length of the shop was packed, floor to ceiling with shelves, shelves jammed with records and tapes.  What little wall space remained was covered in posters of all the greats.  The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and The Smiths, Hendrix, Dylan, Neil Young, The Sex pistols, The Clash, even Nirvana!  I could have done a little happy dance when I spotted the Nevermind poster with the swimming baby up on the wall behind the counter.  I must have looked a bit weird, stood there in his shop with my eyes glazed over and my tongue lolling.  He sort of cleared his throat to get my attention and when I looked back at him, he had his arms folded and was tapping one foot.

“Not been here long,” he said to me then. “Won’t be here much longer neither if business goes on the way it has.  That’s why I’m closing at four smart arse.  I’ll save money if I close.”  I nodded, and smiled at him.  I didn’t want to go.  I wanted to stay in there forever.  So I smiled.  I think I had forgotten how to smile until that moment.  Maybe it was an extra special smile because of that, who knows, but it worked.  He smiled back at me, although his eyes narrowed in his doughy face.  He had features that reminded me of Father Christmas.  A broad nose and full lips, ruddy cheeks, and that scraggy bushy beard.  His eyes were chestnut brown and looked me up and down as he rubbed at his beard. “Oh let me guess,” he was saying. “Going by the state of you.  Grunge fan.  Nirvana?”

I nodded and grinned at him, beaming ecstatically.  “Yeah!  They’re the best!”

“Like Neil Young do you?” he asked me, this slightly snide tone creeping into his voice as he opened the door again.  I shrugged.

“Sort of.  Just getting into him really.”

“Hmm. Like the Pixies do you?  Sonic Youth?  Dinosaur Junior?”

I shook my head.  I had heard of Sonic Youth, but not the others.  He laughed out loud at me then, he slapped his thigh and it wobbled under the loose linen trousers he wore. “Call yourself a grunge fan then?” he said, his shoulders shaking. “Jumper of bandwagons!  Go on with you.  Go and do your homework before you tell me you’re a grunge fan.”  He ushered me out onto the pavement and I tried to protest, tried to resist, tried to tell him that I had money I wanted and needed to spend on music, but he wasn’t having any of it.  He was still laughing when he closed and locked the door on me.

So I went back the next day, straight from school, and he laughed out loud when he saw me coming.  “I’ve got money,” I said to him, helping to grab the sign and carry it through the door again.  “If you’ve got anything by the Pixies or Dinosaur Junior I want to buy it.”

He laughed and laughed, and locked the door behind me and waddled up to the counter, where he had just started to cash up the money.  I followed eagerly, a ten pound note clutched tightly in one hand, my eyes already climbing the walls and scanning the shelves.  He had a record player behind the counter and it was on.  I recognized the song instantly. It was There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, by The Smiths.  I nodded at the fat man as he sidled around the other side of the counter, still grinning away. “I’ve got this,” I told him eagerly. “Though it’s not my favourite one on the album.”

He stared at me shrewdly. “What album?”

“The Queen Is Dead,” I told him, and his eyebrows shot up.  He made a face and nodded and went back to his money.

“Smiths fan?”

“Oh yeah.  I like anything.  I mean everything.  I mean most of everything, anything that’s good, I mean, not shit like Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston, or fucking Meat Loaf.” I stopped myself before I could spew on any longer.  I slipped my hands back into my pockets and waited for him to respond.

“Hmm,” he said, picking up a stack of two p’s and sliding them into a money bag. “Music fan eh?  Is that it?”

“Yeah,” I nodded enthusiastically, and stepped closer to the counter.  His brown eyes narrowed, scrutinizing me.  I bit my lip and pulled my ten pounds back out to stare at.

“Tom Petty or Tom Waits?” he shot at me then.  I blinked.

“Waits!”

“Best song?”

I thought for a moment. “I Don’t Wanna’ Grow Up!”

“Beach Boys, Beatles or Stones?”

“Beach Boys.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“God Only Knows.”

The fat man nodded, and tapped his fingers against his mouth.  “Hmm. Sex Pistols or Clash?”

“Easy.  Clash.”

“Why?”

“Way more music.  And Joe Strummer.  And White Man In Hammersmith Palais.”

He tipped his head slightly. “That’s your favourite?”

I shrugged. “At the moment.”

“Hmm,” he said again, stroking his beard.  “Final question.  Best Bob Dylan song and why.”

I breathed out.  “Positively Fourth Street.  Because it’s just one giant fuck you isn’t it?  I like that.”

“Hmm,” he shrugged. “I’m gonna’ make myself a cup of tea to drink while I cash up.  You’ve got about ten minutes to find a record that will change your life.  Go!”

I ended up with Dinosaur Juniors Where You Been and REMs Automatic For The People on cassette, and a vinyl copy of Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box.  He didn’t say anything when he bagged them up and took my money.  He just had this smile on his face.  So of course I went back, whenever I could.   I went back whenever I had money, or whenever I just wanted to become lost within the walls of the shop.  Because that was what happened to me once I was inside.  I would feel like I had stepped into another world, where there was peace and solitude, and a comforting musty smell that cloaked me when I walked in and lingered on me for hours afterwards.  I would feel like I belonged, that was the simplest way I could articulate it.  I felt like I belonged there, and I was a part of it all.  The fat man, who I later found out was called Terry, would speak to me when he felt like it, and grunt at me the rest of the time.  He was always sat on a stool behind the counter, a cup of tea on the go, and his head in a music magazine.  If I was lucky he offered me a roll of his eyes or an amused chuckle.

The record shop filled my mind, when I was at school, or at the club.  I loathed being near Howard, but sometimes being at the club was actually okay.  Sometimes I almost found myself enjoying it.  I was lost in my own head of course.  Collecting glasses while I thought about the dusty Neil Young record I had discovered that afternoon, or the copy of Nirvana’s Blew, with the full version of Love Buzz on it.  I’d be so gone, wandering around in my own mind, nodding my head to a beat no one else could hear, that half the time my fear would drop away and leave me alone.  Howard was always up to his neck in it anyway at the club.  I’d catch glimpses of him rushing about, or yelling down the phone.  It looked like chaos to me at times, but he seemed to thrive on it, always storming about with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a slight frown creasing his large forehead.  I stayed out of his way and did as I was told.  The Friday night dj was a hell of a lot better than the Saturday one, who only played popular cheese.  The Friday played a bit of everything, so if I was lucky I got to hear Smells Like Teen Spirit every once in a while.  Jack Freeman was always there.  Sometimes he would be with other people, drinking and talking, smoking endless roll ups.  Sometimes he would be sat alone, looking like he preferred it this way.  I watched him, but I couldn’t work him out.  I thought back to the conversation I had overheard between him and Howard that day, the day it had all gone to shit.  But I was no closer to understanding what ‘work’ he did for Howard, or what his ‘links’ were.  He seemed harmless though.  Sort of bumbling and apologetic.  He reminded me a bit of that TV detective, Columbo, the one who always shuffled around looking like shit.  Sometimes he would lean over, pour a dash of his whiskey into my coke and tip me a wink.

42

 

            I put the phone down and turned towards the kitchen, where my toast was still under the grill.  There was a sudden knock at the door behind me, loud and intrusive, so I growled under my breath and spun back around to answer it.  I wrenched it open and these two little pale faces peered back at me cautiously.  Two of those twat faced kids.  The tall skinny one again, and the short ginger one.  They both jumped back a little when I opened the door.  They were all nervous and twitchy. “What now?” I snapped at them.

“Calling for Danny,” the tall one said, scratching at his skinny neck. “For school.”

“Oh he’s not going to school.” I watched them eyeballing each other in confusion.

“Is he here then?” the ginger one questioned.

“He’s here, and he’s not going to school,” I told them, before taking a long drag of my cigarette and puffing the smoke out over their heads.  “You know when you were looking for him yesterday?” They both nodded silently. “You know where he was?”  They looked at each other again, frowning, and then turned back to me and shook their heads, no.  “He was riding his bike along the cliff top.  Doing stupid stunts on his new bike.  Drunk or something.  Taking stupid fucking chances, trying to be cool, and the stupid prick rode too close to the edge and fell off.  Took a nasty tumble down. He’s too banged up to go anywhere for a while.” They stared at each other and I watched their eyes growing wider, their mouths tighter.  They didn’t believe me, I could see that, but I also knew that it didn’t matter one bit.  I held onto the door and shrugged.  “Stupid eh?”

“Well can we see him then?” the little one asked quickly, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.  I rolled my eyes and grimaced.

“No chance,” I laughed at them.  “He’s banned from seeing you lot.”

“Why?” the tall one demanded.

“Because I just found out what the other ones brother has been up to over there, that’s why!” I was enjoying myself now.  I relished the dumbstruck looks on their dopey faces, and the guilty way they shuffled backwards and looked at their feet.  “Got arrested for drug dealing yesterday didn’t he eh?  You know that already right?”  They nodded miserably, unsurely, and shuffled back even more, now they could see this was getting them nowhere.  “Had his own little cannabis farm I heard, right there round the corner, that’s what I heard. Did you know about that?  Course you did you skanky little pot heads. So Danny is keeping away from all of you from now on, you got that?  So stay away.”  I leaned out towards them, and dragged my eyes slowly across both their faces. Then I stepped back and slammed the door on them.

After all that annoying shit, I took a good amount of time making my breakfast.  I went for the full works to prepare me for the day ahead.  Three fat sausages, four rashers of bacon, two fried eggs, beans and toast and mushrooms.  I washed it all down with a huge mug of strong tea, and sat for a while at the kitchen table, my legs stuck out, my hands resting on my full belly.  I felt like a new man that morning.  I was looking forward to meeting Jack at the club later and having a chuckle about it all.  I felt calm, clean and energised.  I felt like I had never slept better, or woken up more assured.

When my food had gone down, I got up and cleaned up the kitchen.  Everything in its place and a place for everything.  Clean, tidy, in order.  Kay would be impressed when she returned, and we hadn’t even really got started yet.  I could have filled a skip with the pointless crap floating around in that house.  When I felt in the right mood, just cool and calm and together, I picked up the toast I had left to go cold on the side, and carried it up the stairs.  I pushed open his door and walked into his room breezily, whistling to myself as I crossed the room and placed the toast on his desk.  I pulled the curtains back, cracked open a window and turned to look.  The place was a shit tip.  Clothes on the floor and on the back of his chair.  Stacks of magazines sliding out from under the bed.  Loose socks, and random shoes.  Books on the floor, books on the desk.  I shook my head at him, as he moved and stirred beneath his covers.  I just breathed for a moment.  I could smell his shitty pissy smell, and I could feel his fear coming in waves from the bed, and I wondered if I could smell it too, rising up and tingling my nostrils.  Thick, pungent waves of fear, and grime.

“Made you some toast little man,” I announced then, retrieving my pack of cigarettes from my shirt pocket and plucking two out.  I stuck one between my teeth, yanked back his covers and tossed the second one at him.  He didn’t move.  He just stared back at me through his bruised eyes and I looked him over and I nodded, and I thought, you’re fine, you’re okay.  “That’s for you as well,” I said, nodding at the cigarette that had landed on his pillow.  “But not until you’ve got out of bed and had a fucking shower.” I lit mine and nodded at his silent, staring face.  “That’s right fella, you heard me.  Up out of bed, come on now. Out of your pity pit now, time to get cleaned up. We’ve got a lot of work to do.  And you fucking stink.” I wrinkled my nostrils and pulled the duvet right off the bed.  It would all need washing.  He’d been laying in his own piss all night, the vile little bastard.  He stared back at me, breathing heavily through his nose, his legs curled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them.  “Come on,” I said, breathing a fast puff of smoke into the air above his bed.  “I’m not joking, come on, up you get, get moving. Come on tough guy, show me how tough you are now eh?  Stop being a fucking baby and get out that bed!”  I waited, smoking my cigarette, and when he started to move, I felt this rush of joy and warmth and I smiled down at him. “Wha-hey! That’s the ticket! Go on then!”

My smile soon faded when I was forced to witness his agonizingly slow progress.  He was inching towards the edge of the bed, grunting and groaning, refusing to look at me with his hair all over his messed up face, moving as if every bone in his body was broken.  I was disgusted, and my patience ran out when he just sat there on the bed, his feet on the floor, and his head hanging.  His face was screwed up, and he was breathing too fast.  I let out a growl and snatched him up by his arm, forcing him onto his feet.  He cried out in pain, his mouth stretching open, and I dropped his arm in disgust and peered into his face as his head drooped down again. “Fucks sake!” I hissed at him. “Stand up and be a man for once in your life!  You like to make out you’re such a little tough guy, you fucking show me then! It doesn’t hurt that much, so don’t you dare make out it does!  I went easy on you, you little shit stain!  You ought to thank your lucky stars you’ve never run into my old man!  Now come on, move it, I want you cleaned up, the smell of you is making me sick!”

I jammed my cigarette back between my teeth and gave him an encouraging push towards the door.  He got going then, wincing and hissing and moving like an old man, while I followed hungrily from behind, resisting the urge to just shove him down the fucking stairs and be done with it all.  “Right, in the shower,” I told him, outside the bathroom. “And chuck out your clothes, I’m putting a wash on and stripping your bed.  Once you’re clean and dressed you can put it all back together again with clean bedding, and then I want you to clean and tidy your room.  I’ll bring all the stuff up and put it in your room for you.  I am talking hoovering, dusting, proper tidying, everything in the right place, yeah?  The windows, the skirting boards, the lightshade, the fucking works!  It’s like a bloody little rat infested pit in there and I’m not having it anymore.”

I stepped back and let him shuffle on into the bathroom.  He closed the door behind him, and I waited out on the landing, smiling and tapping my foot, and revelling in the obedience I had waited all fucking summer for.  I was pleased when he opened the door a few minutes later and tossed out his filthy stinking clothes.  “Good boy,” I told him, and picked them up and took them downstairs with a spring in my step.

We were alright for a couple of days, like that.  He was really good for me.  I watched him, time and time again, biting down on the pain, biting down on the urge to rebel, and he did everything I asked.  That morning he worked on his room, slowly and methodically, and when I was finally happy with it, I made him lunch and let him have another cigarette.  We sat at the table in the kitchen together, eating scrambled eggs on toast, and then we smoked in silence, and there was a sort of knowing peace and understanding between us.  He was clean for once.  He had fresh clothes on.  He had washed and brushed his hair.  I let him sleep for a bit in the afternoon, and then in the evening I took him to the club with me.  I repeated the story wherever we went.  People looked at him and laughed and rolled their eyes and asked him if he had learnt his lesson.  He was polite, and said that he had.  He washed up some glasses in the kitchen for me, and he mopped and swept the floor out there.

The next day we went to work on the rest of the house.  Room by room we hit them all.  We scrubbed and polished and sorted through.  We filled black bin liners with crap and rubbish, and it was so satisfying to me, getting rid of it all.  The house smelt fresh, from top to bottom.  Every surface shone and sparkled.  There were no more piles of crap because everything had a place.  The satisfaction spun through me, making me feel taller and prouder and lighter.

The only wobble came when the police knocked on the front door one day.  I was pissed off.  No one had warned me.  I didn’t have time to speak to Danny.  I just had to let them in. “Is it about the neighbours?” I asked them as they sidled graciously into the hallway.  Officer Heaton sort of shrugged and scratched his chin and looked a bit awkward. The other fellow, Osbourne was his name, said nothing.

“Sort of,” said Heaton. “It’s awkward really.  The younger brother has been making a total nuisance of himself down at the station, and at school too by the sounds of it.”

I shook my head and looked at them in pity. “Oh no.  Well that’s to be expected I suppose. Not too happy with his brother being carted back off to jail eh?”

“No, funnily enough, he’s not.  Is Daniel in Mr Howard? I’m afraid we have to talk to him for a moment, in private.  The Anderson boy has made some complaints, and we have to obviously do our jobs, and speak to him.”

I frowned and gestured to the lounge where the boy was seated, with a cup of tea.  I felt irritated beyond belief then.  I hoped to god they weren’t taking that Anderson scroat seriously.  The kid obviously had it in for me, and was looking for someone to blame now his brother had been banged up again.  I felt desperate to tell them this, and I felt desperate to tell them how much progress I had made with the boy.  He wouldn’t be taking up any more of their time, that was for sure.  He was on the straight and narrow now, with me.  Doing as he was told and being good.  I was doing a great job taking care of him, I wanted to tell them, as they pushed open the lounge door and piled in.  I’d made him nice meals, and everything.  Jesus fucking Christ.

I had to wait in the hallway.  I hovered around the door, listening in.  I hoped he would remember what I had told him that morning after his shower.  I hoped it would ring fresh and clear in his little head.  “Your friend Michael has asked us to come and check on you,” I heard Heaton saying to him. “He seems to think you didn’t get hurt on your bike.”

“What’s happened to Anthony?” I heard the boy ask quickly, and my back went up, and the hairs on my neck bristled and stiffened.  Why was he asking that for?  Why did he fucking care?  I stepped closer to the door, my lips pressed tightly together, my hands closing into fists behind my back.

“Anthony Anderson was arrested for suspected drug dealing last Sunday,” Heaton was saying to him. “He’s in remand at the moment, awaiting trial.  Do you know anything about any of that?”  There was silence, so I was forced to assume the boy was shaking his head at them. Heaton cleared his throat. “Well, Michael Anderson seems to think you didn’t get hurt falling from your bike.  Can you tell me yourself how you got injured Daniel?”

The answer was quick and firm.  “Fell off my bike.”  I sagged against the door in relief, before pulling myself together and backing off a little way.

“You’re sure?” Heaton was asking. “There’s nothing you want to tell us while we’re here?  Nothing at all? Michael seems to think Mr Howard is to blame.”

“Fell off my bike,” the boy said again, even firmer this time, as if he even believed in it himself. “Being stupid at the cliff.”

Good.  Good boy.  It was a relief in more ways than one.  Not only did it shut the Andersons up, it satisfied the police, and it made me feel at peace again inside.  I appreciated his loyalty and his common sense.  I would reward him for it later.  Give him some money for helping at the club.  He could save up for music he wanted then, I thought, nodding to myself in the hallway.

That afternoon the three boys rolled up on their bikes after school.  I saw them from the lounge window. The other two hung back, but the raven haired Anderson boy was like a little ball of fired up rage and frustration.  He started yelling up at the windows. “Danny! Danny! He won’t let us see you!”  He had his hands cupped around his mouth. “Danny! Are you alright mate?  Danny!”  When there was no answer to his calls, he started picking up stones and rocks and hurling them at the windows.  I didn’t bother answering the door or speaking to them.  I just picked up the phone and called the police.  The other boys had dropped their bikes and were trying to pull the Anderson kid away, but he kept shaking them off and pushing them away.  “Danny!” he kept yelling. “I need to talk to you!  Danny! I need to tell you what happened to Anthony!  It’s all a set up Danny! You have to listen!”

43

 

            I had no choice but to sit and listen as the stones clattered endlessly against the house.  For some reason it made me feel under attack.  I was actually relieved when I heard the police car squeal into the close minutes later, to take Michael away.  I dropped my head into my hands and closed my eyes.  I was glad Howard was keeping them all away, I didn’t want to see them, any of them.  Once they had all gone, silence followed.  I sat and waited to see if Howard would come up or not.  Just waiting, started the fear chain reaction off in my body.  It was one thing after another, and always began with a drying mouth and the urge to swallow repeatedly.  The hard knot in my stomach which had become a permanent fixture, would start to quiver and writhe into life, and the knot would grow fingers, and those fingers would flex and claw inside of me.  My hairs would stand on end, and my breathing would become fast and shallow and panicked, as coldness seemed to spread to every nerve ending.  The dryness in my mouth made me lick my lips a lot, and it felt like there was something alive, and creeping in my stomach.  It was like there was an invisible weight hanging over me the entire time, pressing down on me, making it an effort to even breathe.  When he did not come up, I lay down on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

It hurt too much to lie on my back for long, so I twisted onto my side and stared at the wall instead.  I picked at a scab in my ear and felt vile, like a worm, a worm that had crawled into a hole.  Because of me Michael had lost his brother.  I still didn’t know exactly what had happened over there, and there was no way in hell I was going to ask Howard.  But he was gone.  They had taken him.  It was my fault.  Simple as that.  It was my fault and I knew it, and I would know it forever.  Because of me Michael had lost the only good thing in his life. I didn’t understand why he wanted to see me, except for to maybe smack me in the mouth.  And Anthony…shit, I couldn’t even bring myself to think about him, I couldn’t even….

I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror anymore.  I didn’t really care if I lived or died right then.  I’d seen my face, that morning Howard had hurried me into the shower.  I’d stood naked, in front of the steamed up mirror, waiting for the warm water to run in.  I’d spread my palms out against the glass, rubbing away the steam to reveal who I was.  What I saw there tortured and disgusted me.  This wasted, ravaged boy, battered and bruised and smeared in his own blood and piss.  His face distorted and swollen, his eyes blackened, his back a pulse of private agony.  I got into the shower and washed myself with a flannel.  I’d watched the blood running down.  I stared at it in a horrified wonder, as it swirled in pinkish circles around my feet.  I took a piss and saw that even my urine was tainted with blood.  Every little movement was a lesson in pain.

He’d been waiting for me out on the landing of course, when I’d emerged, stiff and shocked, with a towel wrapped around my middle.  He’d been smiling gently, while his small eyes seemed lively and excited.  I could see the hoover already half in my room.  “That’s more like it,” he’d said to me, with a brisk clap of his hands. “Don’t look so sorry for yourself now, see. That’s what being tough is all about.”

I’d stared at the floor.  And then I had taken this big breath, and asked the only question I had for him.  “How do you know I won’t tell what you’ve done?”

This electric silence had filled the small space we occupied together on the landing.  He’d stepped up close to me, his eyes dark and loaded with warning. “How do I know?” he asked in hushed tones. “How do you know anyone would believe a fucking word you said?  Your own mother doesn’t believe a word you say, so what makes you think anyone else would? I’ve already told her, you know, what a clumsy prick you were on your bike.”

I’d lifted my shoulders in a small, painful shrug. “Not all this would come from a bike.”  It was true, and I should have clung to it tighter, but looking into his face then made me wish I could suck the words back in.  He stepped even closer, with this sinister, almost tender smile stretching across his face.  He’d taken my face then, and pulled it up to look at his.

“Do you like being fourteen Danny?” he’d hissed softly into my ear.  “Do you want to make it to fifteen, or sixteen?  If you knew how quickly and easily I could erase you from this earth, you wouldn’t dare to ask me questions like that.  And what about your little friends eh?  Do they like their little lives the way they are?  Or should I fuck about with them a bit more eh?” His fingers had tightened on my cheeks, springing tears from my eyes.  “You think about that for a moment Danny.  You think about that.  I can work my way through the lot of them if you want.  If you want to make this their business, go right ahead.  Join them in. I fucking dare you.  Or you could just shut the fuck up and do as you’re told, and wouldn’t that be a better option for everyone eh?”  I nodded, quickly and firmly under his hand.  I just wanted to get away from him.  I couldn’t bear the stench of him.  You’re totally fucking insane, I thought in numb shock when I looked into his eyes, totally fucking insane.

I didn’t go to school for the next two weeks.  Howard went instead, to pick up my work and fill them in on my progress.  Some of my classmates had made me this huge get well soon card and signed it.  He let me have it, only after he had checked that Michael’s name was not on it.  My mother called a few times to let us know how Gran was doing.  I spoke to her once.  She asked about my accident and she sighed and wondered when I was ever going to learn my lesson.

The weird thing was, the more I repeated the story to myself, or others, the more I came to believe in it.  It’s strange how your mind can play tricks on you like that.  If I thought about it enough, I could almost see how it would have happened.  I’d been zooming up and down the little hills, close to the edge of the cliff, getting closer and closer to the grassy edge, daring myself to go faster and faster.  I’d looked away briefly, maybe distracted by a dog running by, or a kite in the sky, and my front wheel had twisted and slipped and down I had gone.  I’d hit all these rocks on the way down.  I was bruised and broken and jumpy and I wouldn’t be doing that again in a hurry.

Sometimes I mused about the stripes on my back, but Howard assured me they were nothing.  They would fade and vanish.  They were a lesson that I had learnt well, and that was that.  He told me one day that his own father had kept several belts hanging on the inside door of their larder when he was a kid.  All different lengths and thicknesses.  Depending on the trouble Lee was in, depending on the crime, he would be ordered to go and fetch a certain belt for his dad.  He’d smiled at me then and tipped me a wink that made me cringe. “See,” he seemed keen to point out. “Not as bad as him, am I?  No way.”

Michael had stopped trying to call and shout at the house, but one day when I was alone there, I found this package on the doormat.  It was addressed to me, naming me as Mr Daniel Bryans, and it had my full address written on it, but had not been stamped.  I’d taken it upstairs and closed my door behind me.  It was wrapped in brown paper and when I tore it off I found Nirvanas new album inside.  There was no note, and it did not say who it was from, but I knew.  I put the cassette on and sat and listened.  I pulled out the inner sleeve and glanced through the lyrics.  That was when I noticed what he had done.  There was a song called Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, and Michael had underlined some of the lyrics before giving it to me.  Hate, hate your enemies.  Save, save your friends. Find, find your place.  Speak, speak the truth.

It was….I don’t even really know what it was.  It was amazing and touching and terrible and heartbreaking all at once.   I didn’t know what to do.  I felt a little bit better, listening to it, knowing he did not hate me, knowing he still wanted to fight back.  But at the same time I felt wretched and pointless, and undeserving.  I didn’t know what to do about any of it, so I did nothing.  I did what Howard wanted me to do.

I’d started going with him to the club in the evenings.  “We’ll find plenty to keep you busy,” he would tell me on the drive over.  “That’s what boys your age need you know, to keep them out of trouble.” At Nancy’s he gave me jobs to do, like collecting and washing glasses, and changing the bins.  It was strange being there.  I felt on edge with nerves the whole time, yet sort of intrigued to be on his territory.  It was like another world to me.  The darkness, the flowing warmth from the bodies in the crowd.  The thumping music that swept them all up and got them all going.  The lolling bodies and leering faces, the couples groping in corners, the women throwing up in the toilets.  It was fascinating to get a glimpse into the adult world, and into his.  I could tell right away that everyone there respected him, feared him even.  He was not one for joking around with the staff, or anything.  He was one for getting the job done, and getting it done properly.  I saw him fire two people on the spot while I was there.  The rest of the staff kept their heads down, and I had the distinct feeling that they regarded me with pity.

I was allowed to perch at the end of the bar when the night was drawing to a close.  The refit was all done, and everyone murmured that the place was unrecognizable.  People remarked how swish it all was, how it was closer to an uptown London establishment than a dingy club in a seaside town.  I didn’t get it personally.  In fact I struggled to disguise my sneer when I looked around at what he had done to it.  All the fittings were black and silver chrome, there were mirrors everywhere, and black leather stools lined up at the bar.  In the corners there were soft black leather sofas.  It all left me with a bad taste in my mouth, although I wasn’t exactly sure why.  Somehow the place seemed to speak volumes to me about the kind of person Lee Howard was.  It was confident, brash and swaggering.  It commanded attention, dominating the end of the high street where once the place had sagged into oblivion.  Now there were black and silver flashing signs that called people in from the street. The doormen wore sharp silver suits and black boots with steel toecaps.

Howard had installed a bigger stage, and talked about having theme nights, old school discos and tribute bands.  He had just kicked off a student night every Monday, where people could buy a pint of beer or cider for just fifty pence, if they had their student union card with them.  Down at the other end of the bar I would see Tony Phillips, sinking beer after beer with two old men.  His bearded face appeared washed out and bloated under the harsh lights of the bar.  It was beneath these same lights that I would also see Howard’s friend, Jack Freeman.  He was there most nights.

He was a broad, shuffling man in a dark overcoat, his dark hair peppered with grey, was neck length but thinning on the crown of his skull.  He was usually unshaven, and had a pudgy floppy look about his cheeks and lips.  Some nights he would sit right next to me, and would buy me the odd coke, usually without saying a single word.  Other nights I would spot him down the other end of the bar, conversing aimably with strangers.  It was weird, but Howard seemed to really like the guy.  He would ask his opinions on things a lot, and then laugh out loud at his answers.  He often addressed him as D.I Freeman, which always made the older man erupt into phlegmy reams of laughter.  I didn’t understand the joke.

`           “So are you a policeman or what?” I asked him one night.  The man blinked and turned his head to look at me in surprise, as if he had gotten used to me never speaking.  He grinned at me then, this lip curling toothsome grin, that crinkled up the saggy skin around his eyes.

“Oh yeah course I am mate,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. “You bet.”

I frowned in suspicion and curiosity.  Well was he or wasn’t he?  I glanced around the club, which was emptying out slowly as closing time neared.  There was a group of young men in checked shirts and trainers at the other end of the bar, holding beer bottles by their necks and laughing raucously with two girls who looked like they had had too much to drink.  A woman around the same age as my mother had just staggered up to the bar, slammed her shiny red handbag down on the top and demanded a final vodka and coke.  I watched Howard appear out of nowhere to serve her.  I watched the smile he used with them all, this terribly fake one, the one he showed to the rest of the world, and I watched her lap it up, like they all did.  I wondered if that was how he had snared my mother.  I watched him in bewilderment, shaking my head slightly.  It was eerie to witness.  This well spoken, gracious man, flirting gently with the punters.  I watched his face behave in an ordinary, pleasing way, and I could barely believe it belonged to the same man who had talked so casually about cutting me up and throwing me out with the rubbish.

“Have you been friends with him long?” I asked Freeman then, and again, he turned to look at me as if he had forgotten I was sat there.

“Oh yeah,” he nodded. “We go way back.  I knew his dad.  His dad owned a gym you know.  Trained up boxers.”

“Great,” I said, raising my eyebrows and looking away. “That explains a lot.”

“I get the feeling you’re not his biggest fan?” Freeman inquired, a teasing smile on his rubbery lips.  I glanced at him unsurely.  I thought about how dishevelled he always looked, always wearing the same heavy dark overcoat, and loose grey or blue trousers, with a white or blue shirt, open at the neck with no tie.  He looked like shit and yet he drove this smart new BMW car.  I shook my head at him, and he made a face and shrugged his big round shoulders. “Oh well fair enough, but I think he’s got your best interests at heart, you know.”

“Really,” I said and wrapped one hand around the tall glass of coke before me.  I wondered what he would say if he knew about the stripes that decorated my back, or the crusts of scabs that pinched and wept every time I moved.

“You don’t think so, obviously,” he nodded.

I stared ahead, at all the bottles of wine lined up in the racks on the other side of the bar, waiting for their turn to flow.  “I think he’s fucking mental,” I replied softly, so softly that he had to lean closer to me to hear.  “I think he’s an evil motherfucker.” There was a moment of silence between us and then Jack Freeman snorted loudly and patted me on the shoulder.  I winced and shook him off.  I wanted to sling my coke in his fucking sloppy old face.

“I like you mate,” he told me when he had finished chuckling.  “You make me laugh, plus, you’ve got balls, which I like.  Hey, you want some cigarettes?”

“What?”

“Cigarettes. You smoke?”

“Yeah.”

“I got a load you know.  Went on this booze cruise to France last month.  Bought loads for my old mum. Got back and she’d passed away while I was gone, can you believe that?” He grinned at me as if waiting for an answer, so I just shrugged. “Anyway, they ain’t my brand, can’t stand ‘em. You want some?  Look.”  He pulled back one side of his long coat, displaying the inner pocket.  He plucked out a pack of cigarettes whose brand I did not recognize and passed them to me.  I took them fearfully, warily, my eyes shooting around for Howard, my mind in a sudden muddle. “Take ‘em,” he laughed. “You look like you need ‘em more than me!”  So I took them.  I folded my hand over them and pushed them deep inside the front pocket of my jeans.  Then I went back to drinking my coke in silence until it was time to go home.

Some hours later I was lying on my bed in the darkness, my hands folded on my chest, Nirvana’s new album playing softly beside me.  It was strange and unexpected that the tap on my window came just as Radio Friendly Unit Shifter had begun.  I sat up in confusion and just stared at the window for a moment.  I was sort of frozen and stiff, hardly breathing, not understanding.  Then the tap came again, gentle, yet urgent, and I made myself move, and I crossed the room like an old man, and pulled back the curtains and there was Michael.  I gasped in surprise and slid the glazing back.  What the fuck? I mouthed at him, as a huge and wicked grin leapt across his face.  He mouthed shh at me and started to haul himself up onto the ledge.  I peered out to see how the hell he had managed it.  I could see his bike propped against the porch and worked the rest out from there.  “What the hell are you doing?” I hissed as he practically threw himself through the window and landed in a heap on the floor.

He sat himself up, his back against the wall and pressed a finger to his lips.  His eyes shot to the door, and so did mine.  We held our breath and listened, but all we could hear was the TV buzzing downstairs.  When nothing happened, Michael let his head drop back onto the wall and breathed out in relief.  “That was easier than I thought,” he said.

“Michael…” I started, but when I saw him gazing at me, I stopped, mainly because all the words I wanted and needed to say to him sounded so pathetic and inadequate inside my head.  His own smile had faded as his eyes ran over my face.

“You’re a hard man to find these days,” he joked, forcing another smile that did not touch his eyes.  “This is fucking messed up mate…”

I just shook my head, and I couldn’t even look at him then.  I just crouched in front of him and stared at the carpet.  “Mike,” I started again, quietly, uselessly.

“Sight for sore eyes aren’t you?”

“Yeah, and you.”

Michael sat forward slightly, looking me over. “Fell off your bike did ya’?”

“Yeah.”

“Bollocks.  It’s okay.” He leaned forward then, closer to my face.  His eyes were angry as he stared into mine.  “It’s okay, it’s me.”

“Okay.”

“Where the fuck is your mum?”

“With my Gran. She had a fall.”

Michael shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Fucking unbelievable.  She goes away and leaves you with him?  Fucking brilliant.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” he responded angrily, hissing the words through his clenched teeth.  “It fucking matters.”

I sat back on my heels, raised my eyes from the carpet and looked him in the eye. “What happened to Anthony?”

He rolled his eyes again and plastered a fake smile across his face for me. “He’ll be okay.  You know what he’s like.”

“But what happened?”

“Forget it,” he said, shaking his head, so that his hair toppled back into his eyes. “You don’t need to worry about that…It’s not your fault Danny.”  I said nothing to this.  There was nothing I could say.  He swallowed, glanced away and ran a hand back through his hair, sending it back over his forehead. “Howard set him up,” he said then, curling his top lip ever so slightly and shaking his head quickly. “I mean, I can’t prove it.  But I know it.  And he won’t let us in, he won’t let us anywhere near you.  He says you don’t want anything to do with us now, that’s not true is it?” He caught my eye and I frowned and shook my head at him. “I know,” he went on, speaking softly yet viciously, directing his intense gaze down onto the carpet. “He’s lying, like he’s lying about everything. We came back from the base Danny, and there were cops everywhere, and they were dragging Anthony out of the house, yeah?  Took him away. Busted, they said.  Someone tipped them off.”

“Busted for what?” I asked, my voice a strangled croak.

“Dealing cannabis,” he shrugged, breathing out through his nostrils. “But it was a set up Danny, a fucking set up.  Listen to me.” He swallowed again, and leaned towards me, shaking his hair from his face and looking me right in the eye.  His head was lowered, his eyes piercing. “They busted the house and found an ice cream tub in the bathroom, you know in the toilet cistern? Wasn’t ours Danny. Never seen it before in my life. Anthony has a little box you know.  You’ve seen it.  A box he keeps in his room. He only smokes enough for him, and that’s it.  You know that right?”

“Course I fucking do,” I sighed, my head dropping forward into my hand.

“Well it was a set up,” he continued. “Someone broke in Dan. Broke in and put it there and called the cops.  I know it.  I’ve tried to tell them, but no one will listen will they? ‘Cause of Anthony’s history.  He wanted him gone, didn’t he?  Howard?  He wanted Anthony gone, after he threatened him. You know it Danny.” He was staring at me intently and I knew what he wanted; a reaction, anger, a plan, anything.  I didn’t give him any of those things.  I gave him a blank face, impassive eyes and silence.  He sighed and licked his lips.  “Danny, I sent the police round.  I badgered bloody Mr James until he listened to me and called them. No one believes me about Howard.  Why didn’t you tell them?”

I couldn’t bear the look in his eyes then.  It was terrible, the confusion and the pity and the anger, and I couldn’t look at him so I rolled my eyes and pushed myself up from the floor.  I walked stiffly to my bed and sat down on the edge, pressing my hands to my face and yawning behind them.  “Danny?”

“Mike, I fell of my bike yeah?”

“What?  Bullshit, and we both know it. Why are you protecting him?”

“It’s not him I’m protecting,” I whispered hoarsely, my eyes shooting towards the door, and what I knew lay on the other side of it.  Michael got angrily to his feet and gestured at the window.

“Come on, let’s just get out of here.”

“Just don’t,” I said with another yawn. “I’m fine.  I’ll be fine.  Stop worrying.”

“Yeah?” he demanded then, hands on hips. “And what if you fall off your bike again?” I glanced up and he held my gaze, his eyebrows rising up under his hair and his foot tapping softly against the floor. “What if you get really hurt next time?”

I sighed again, looked away from him and climbed into my bed. “You better go Mike. You don’t want him to catch you here.”

“I’m not going anywhere if you’re not coming,” he replied adamantly and stalked across the room to the light switch. “You better shift over,” he said to me then. “You take one end, I’ll take the other.”

“Mike, you can’t.”

“Fucking can,” he sat down on the bed and pulled his boots off.  “I’m not leaving you here alone mate, I don’t care what you fucking say.  I’ll be like the invisible man, I promise.”

I shook my head at him but I was too tired to argue.  I couldn’t stop yawning and my head felt groggy with it all.  I lay back on my pillow and he turned off the light and crawled into the bed at the other end.  We were silent for a moment.  I had forgotten about the music, but it was still there, Kurts soft words were still rolling out into the darkness, and we listened for a while, lying like statues under the duvet; I wish I was like you, easily amused, find my nest of salt, everything is my fault, I’ll take all the blame, aqua sea foam shame, sunburn with freezerburn, choking on the ashes of her enemy….all in all, is all we are…all in all, is all we are…

            “Thanks Mike,” I said to him when the song had finished.  My voice was tight.  My emotions as ever intensified by the music, sponging off it, soaking up the sadness.

“Best mates?” he asked hopefully in the darkness.

“Best mates,” I told him.

He poked me in the morning, and I woke up suddenly, horrible images filling my mind, and leaking from me as my eyes flew open.  I took a huge breath, and my hand went to my neck.  Michael was pulling on his boots, his face flushed and concerned. “Got to get back to Bill’s,” he was mumbling. “I’m staying there while they find my mum. Have you still got your knife?”

I was muddled from sleep and shook my head at him. “No.”

“Here take mine,” he growled and threw one at me.  I hid it under the duvet and watched him walk to the window.  It was barely even light outside and I wondered what had woken him up, and got him moving.  “Can you come to the base?” he whispered back to me. “About twelve ish?  We can talk properly there.” I watched his eyes travel nervously to the closed bedroom door.

“I dunno,” I shrugged at him.

“He can’t keep you locked up forever,” he told me, pulling back the curtain and the glazing.  “Tell him you’re meeting Lucy or someone like that.”

“I’ll try Mike.  Hey, Mike?”

He had swung himself up onto the ledge, and in the darkness all I could see of him was a silhouette and two shining eyes. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.  About Anthony.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he laughed at me. “You didn’t do anything.  Just get yourself to the base, that’s all you have to do.  The war isn’t over yet you know Danny. He hasn’t fucking won yet.”

I lay on my bed for a long time after he left, and all I could see in my head was his face, and his carefree grin, and the confident way he had told me Howard had not won.  I felt his desire not to let Howard win, and I understood it.  Anthony was the only decent thing he had in his life; something worth fighting for.  It totally crushed me when I thought about him, locked up in some cell somewhere, not knowing what would happen to him, and tears would run down my face every time I pictured him there, stuck, imprisoned.  Look what he had tried to do for me and look where it had got him.  I felt wrecked as I lay there, like a person who was incomplete, shattered.  I felt like I would rather die than be alone again, but at the same time I could not face the idea of seeing them all at the base, meeting there with them, as if nothing had ever happened, as if everything being destroyed was not down to me.

I knew what I had done.  I knew the mistake I had made.  At the party, when Anthony asked about my lip, I should have said I had fallen over, or walked into a wall.  If I could have gone back in time to change it, I would have done.  Anthony would not have tried to help me, and Michael would still have his brother.  Twelve o clock came and went, and I had not moved.  I could not face them.  I couldn’t let Michael do it.  In Utero played endlessly beside me.  Every time one side finished I would flip it over and play the next, again and again and again.  It was almost as good as having Michael there beside me.