34

 

            And so I had to remind myself yet again.  Patience.  Early days.  All that crap.  I was getting restless though, that was the trouble.  I was vibrating under the surface.  I talked to myself at night in my head.  Thought about what I had, and who I was.  Lee Howard.  The co-owner, the sole manager of an up and coming nightclub.  My own boss.  My own man.  Plans whirling in my head constantly, about the refit for the club, about the direction I wanted to take it in.  I hadn’t got there in a hurry.  I hadn’t got to the top of my game by rushing things, by moving too fast.  Being patient and clever had got me everything I had ever wanted.  The job, the cars, the woman, the power, all of it, in the palm of my hand.  Everything.  Nearly everything.  Everything except for that fucking kid.  That kid was fast becoming a thorn in my fucking side.  A constant nagging headache.

I found myself mulling it over at work.  It would invade my mind, without my permission, at the strangest of times.  Going over paperwork at my desk, or whilst on the telephone to a supplier.  It would leap into my head, bold and gleeful, taunting and goading me.  I would be in the middle of a conversation with the cleaners about doing their check lists properly, and I would hear it in my head; that little fuck up telling me he was going to fucking kill me.  My mind would wander away with it.  I would feel my fists tightening at the end of my arms, my muscles tensing.  I had the feeling I was treading on dangerous ground, but I was not sure why, or how.  I wasn’t exactly sure why it enraged me so much to realize that I had not yet made the little bastard cry.

He was trying to ruin things between Kay and I.  I knew it, I knew he was.  In his own, sneaky little way.  He was at it all the time.  Putting ideas into her elderly mothers mind, trying to turn her against me.  He had a big mouth.  He had gone back on our deal.  I could see how Kay was weakened in his presence.  She liked to think she was tough, but she was unable to keep it up for long.  I had seen it many times.  Her resolve would soften, her tears would fall.  She wanted him to like her, and his behaviour made her uneasy.  I seethed in silence when I thought about the party.  She never should have let him go to that party in the first place.  What was she thinking?  I told you so, I said to her afterwards, I bloody told you so.  “You want him to like you all the time,” I pointed out to her, “and that’s not doing him any favours! That’s not how it works.  It just means he has no respect for you, none whatsoever.”

I was right.  I was fucking right about it.

I recalled my overriding feeling towards my own parents as a child, and it was fear.  Pure and simple.  Fear of doing the wrong thing, fear of upsetting or disappointing them.  I did my best to avoid this fear by doing what was expected of me, doing my best, making them proud.  It absolutely sickened me when I watched the way that boy strolled about, thinking he could do whatever the fuck he wanted.  At age fourteen!  It shook me to the core.  The defiance in his eyes.  All the time.  All the time it was there.  And what made it worse, the tougher I was on him, the more defiant he became.  I will fucking kill you.  If I had ever dared to say that to my parents…

He should have been in line by now.  Like everything else.  That was how it was supposed to be.  That was how I had envisioned it.  I hate you and one day I will fucking kill you.  It popped right into my head when I was serving customers on a busy night.  I saw his little face over theirs.  Piercing blue eyes under lank blonde hair.  Hate and defiance.  I was perplexed by his attitude; I had no idea what to do with a rebellion.  Every time I thought about that boy threatening me, every time those words trundled through my mind, my entire body would prickle with rage.  The words would set off a powerful physical reaction within me.  My breathing would intensify, air rushing in and out of my nostrils as my teeth clamped together.  I would feel my body shudder, and then begin to tense, hair by hair, muscle by muscle, limb by limb.  And then it was like there was nowhere for it all to go, and it felt almost impossible to stand it.  My fists would curl up, one by one, and the sensation made me feel restless and unsatisfied, like a dog that has not had a walk for days.  The intensity of it all would consume me and I would be unable to sit still, unable to concentrate.  When I closed my eyes at night, all I could see was that boys scowling, petulant face, his messy hair hanging all over the place, and I would long to seek him out, to grab him, to squeeze him until he was begging and crying and saying sorry, I’m sorry.  There were words I needed to hear him say.

I did what I could to alarm Kay.  I put in longer hours at work, until she came to me with red-rimmed eyes, anxious that things had gone wrong between us.  “I have to put in the extra hours,” I assured her. “The refit is under way, and I need to be there or it’ll all go tits up.  I need to put the work in now honey, to make a better future for us all.”  It was all paying off, I told her.  There was a buzz on the street about Nancy’s.  It was becoming the place to go.  She lapped it up, as I knew she would.  It was easy to placate her.  The right words, chosen carefully.  I was doing my best to make them happy, to provide for them.  I was working my arse off, night and day.  I wanted to make her happy and proud of me.  I hoped that one day, Danny and I would be friends.

“You’ve got a big mouth,” I told him at the dinner table one night.  Kay had rushed to answer the phone in the hallway, so I nudged the door shut with my foot, and lowered my knife and fork to the table.  I clasped my hands together under my chin and looked him right in the eye.  He was sat like he always sat.  Elbows on the table, his cheek resting in one hand as if it was far too much trouble to hold his own head up and eat his food.  He pushed the mashed potato around the plate, a slight snarl on his face, as if the food offended him somehow.  “I kept my side of the deal but you didn’t keep yours.  I told you not to make an enemy of me, but you didn’t listen.  Now I’m going to be your enemy until the day you die.”  He got up then, scraping back his chair, too arrogant to want to listen to a word I said.  He went to walk past me but I caught his skinny arm and held it tight.  I tugged him towards me, until my face was next to his and I could whisper softly into his ear.  There were lots of things I wanted to say to him, but I had to be patient.  There were so many things we needed to get straight between us that it was frustrating only having a moment.  “You know, I’ve always thought I’ve got it in me to kill someone,” I told him in that moment. “Only thing that’s stopped me before is the fear of getting caught…but you know then I got thinking the other day, about kids like you.” I tightened the grip on his arm until I heard him release a gasp.  It felt so thin and weak in my grip, I felt like one more squeeze and it would snap. I had to stop myself.  That is the thing with violence sometimes, you know.  It can take you further and further.  “Little shit stains no one would even miss if they just disappeared…Kids who run off all the time ‘cause they’ve got into trouble.  Run off.  Disappear.  Who would know?  Who would care?”  I shrugged my shoulders calmly, dropped his arm and turned back to my dinner.

It wasn’t enough.  In fact talking to him in snatched moments like that only seemed to make me feel worse.  That night I lay awake for hours while Kay snored gently beside me.  The night of the party came back to me again and again.  It was bad enough that the boy always had his mouthy little sidekick with him, but now he had the criminal older brother watching out for him as well.  Keep checking over your shoulder, he had said to me, his voice a smooth whisper, a promise dancing in his dark eyes.  I saw the look in those eyes and I recognized it.  It was cold, and hard and it was what prison did to a man.  You won’t see me coming, he had told me.

Enough was enough.  Scumbag kids threatening me, warning me off, sticking their noses in.  Sulky little motherfucker storming around the house I paid for.  I finally made up my mind on a sultry September night, just days before the new school term began.  I had been patient for long enough.  I was avoiding my own fucking home, just so I wouldn’t have to see his sneering little face laughing at me.  I was looking over my shoulder, staring into the crowds at work, wondering.  It was becoming a joke.  So I picked up the phone and dialled the number of an old friend.

“D.I Freeman?” the gravelly, whiskey soaked voice rasped from the other end.  I let out a raucous, appreciative laugh.

“Jack!  You old bastard!”

“Lee?  Lee Howard? Fuck me!”

“The one and only. How the fuck are you, old man?  Long time no see!”

“I’m hung over mate, how the fuck are you?  How’s that new place you got going?”

“It’s blinding mate, gonna’ be unbelievable.  That’s why I’m calling you Jack.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, got a proposition for you old man.  How would you fancy a new job and a new place to live?  Got a situation here that’s right up your fucking street.”

32

 

            I got ready for the party up in my room.  I’d had my outfit planned out for days.  My favourite black jeans, with the ripped knees.  My baseball boots.  My new Nirvana top, and a faded checked shirt chucked on top.  I didn’t brush my hair.  I had thick tangles all over it, and a couple of really hard knots at the back underneath.  I didn’t care, I liked it.  The more Howard moaned on about my hair, the worse state I wanted to let it get into.  I sat on my bed with my hair tucked behind my ears to roll a few smokes.  I waited until About A Girl had ended, then slid the smokes into my back pocket, took out the cassette and slipped that into my other pocket.  Before I left my room I paused to look in the mirror and smiled at the cut to my lip.  It made me look tough, I thought.  Like I’d been up to no good.  Fuck it.  I was going to have a hell of a night and not give a shit about anything.  I wasn’t going to be afraid, not once.  I wasn’t going to hide.

Down in the hallway my mother came from the lounge and buzzed around me as if she were excited on my behalf.  She frowned at my lip. “How did you do that?”  Howard had reared up behind her, seemingly from nowhere, filling the hall with his arrogant bulk.  He rolled his eyes as my mother turned her face up to him.

“Mucking about doing stunts on the bike,” he said with a chuckle. “Isn’t that right Danny?  Being a bit silly wasn’t you?”

I didn’t answer him.  I pulled from her fussing hands and opened the front door.  “Listen,” she said, touching my shoulder. “Absolutely no drinking at this party okay?  Are you sure Michael’s dad is going to be there?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be popping over later to check,” Howard announced then, a flicker of a smile on his face as his eyes met mine.  “You know, just to be on the safe side.”

“Don’t let him do that!” I said in exasperation to my mother, as I wrenched the door open and stepped out into the evening.  “Tell him to mind his own business!  You said I could sleep over there!”

“Yes, yes I know, alright,” she said hurriedly as she ushered me out. “Just have a good time but behave yourself, and we’ve got a deal. Okay?”

“Okay.  Thanks.” I stalked away before either of them could change their minds and turned the corner to head towards Michael’s house.  The front door was open, music spilling out onto the street, and I could already see Michael on the doorstep, smoking and laughing with some older boys.  He threw down the butt and cried out when he saw me.

“Whoo hoo he’s here!  The birthday boy is here!”  He reached out and grabbed me into the house, pushing a cold bottle of beer into my hand.  The house seemed impossibly full of people, and the music was thumping from the top to the bottom.  “Hey, hang on a minute,” he said in the hallway, his eyes frowning as his smile fell away from him.  “What you done to your lip?”

I lifted the beer and downed nearly half of it without stopping for breath.  My eyes were on Michael, and on the inside I was telling him, I was saying the words for him to hear and to know he did it, Howard did it, what should I do?  Mike waited, and his face was angry, as if he could somehow hear those words in my head, as if he already knew.  I lowered the beer, laughed out loud and clapped him on the back.  “Nothing!” I yelled over the music. “Who cares? Let’s get wasted!”

Michael just nodded at me.  I grinned carelessly and pushed my way through to the kitchen.  There was long limbed Jake, sat up on the side, swigging beer and swinging his stick like legs back and forth. “Danny boy!” he cried out, reaching behind to grab a white plastic bag, which he held out to me.  “Happy birthday mate!”

I took the bag and pulled out a quarter bottle of Bells whiskey. “Nice one Jake! Thanks!”

“Nice top,” Billy told me with a curt nod of his head. “Come and taste this first.  Been working on this for ages, just for you.”  He had taken over the entire kitchen table with a selection of spirits and mixers, and was stirring the contents rhythmically in a large plastic bowl.  He thoughtfully spooned a cupful into a waiting plastic beaker and handed it to me.  “Tell me what you think.”

I sipped the drink cautiously.  It was sour and extremely strong, and I coughed quickly, forcing it down before it came back up again.  I shook my head, my eyes watering as I handed the cup back to Billy. “More juice or something,” I spluttered at him. “Too strong! You’ll kill someone!”

“Okay, okay,” he said, nodding as he went back to his bowl and started to pour more liquids in randomly.

“Hey the birthday boy himself!”

I spun around to see Anthony thrusting his way through the people towards me.  He cut a distinctive figure, as his bare, toned torso slipped between the other kids, his dark eyes bright and alert and fixed entirely on me.  He had a drink in one hand, and draped his other arm around my shoulders, which for that moment made me feel like the most important person in the room.  “Hi Anthony!” I grinned up at him. “Great party already!”

“Happy birthday to you mate, you got a drink?”

“I got this!” I showed him the whiskey from Jake.  He nodded and looked around at all of us.

“Fair enough but go slow eh boys?  I don’t want any puking, fitting or collapsing okay? I don’t want any of your folks banging on my door ‘cause you got poisoning!”  We all nodded in dutiful reply.  Anthony still had his arm around me, and pulled me slightly to the side then, as if he wanted to confide in me away from the others.  I unscrewed the cap from the whiskey and sniffed it.  I was feeling better already. Better than I had in ages.  I was feeling like me again.  The old me, the not giving a shit, the arguing back, the snarling urge to scrap, was all seeping back.  “I got something to say to you mate,” Anthony was telling me, his tone lowered slightly.  He removed his arm from my shoulder then and placed a hand on the wall next to us, as if to steady himself.  Then he leaned down towards me, and I could smell the cheap beer on his breath.  “Mikey is worried about you, you know?  He seems to think this boyfriend of your mums is giving you a hard time.” He raised his eyebrows at me.  “Eh?  Is that right?  Is that how you hurt your lip?”

I lowered my eyes from his, while I struggled with the question he was asking me. I was going to say nothing, I was going to throw him off the scent, but then I looked up into his face and when I saw the look he had, I stopped.  He looked desperately concerned somehow, and I don’t know why, but it made me nod back at him.  I couldn’t take it back then.  I watched the anger fill his eyes and I watched his jaw tighten and his back stiffen up.  He glanced away briefly and then he spat on the floor and glared back at me with fierce eyes.  “I fucking hate that kind of shit,” he hissed, shaking his head at me.  “Bullies mate.  Listen to me.  Mike says you’re the best friend he ever had, so that makes you pretty cool in my eyes.  Let me tell you something Danny.  If that arsehole over there gives you any more shit, you just tell me alright?   I know plenty of people who will kick the shit out of him on my behalf, okay?  I only have to say the word.” He stared at me expectantly so I nodded in reply.  “I’ll tell you something else,” he went on.  “Our dad was like that when we were kids.  If you did anything wrong, or if he was just in a bad mood, he’d just smack you one, just like that.  But one day I got big enough you know?  Bigger than him.  I smacked him back.  Fucking knocked him right out.  Right down on the kitchen floor.  He never tried it again, I can tell you that.  He never laid a hand on either of us after that.  You’ll be big enough one day, you know that right?”  I nodded again but a little unsurely.  Anthony had obviously not seen the size of Howard, I thought.  “Go on then,” he told me. “Go and enjoy your party.  It’s what it’s all about mate.”

I nodded again rather uselessly.  I felt sort of dazed. “Okay,”I said. “Thanks Anthony.” I wanted to say more to him than that, but I realized right away that there were no words adequate enough to convey what it meant to me.

“Not a problem,” he said, moving away from the wall and swaying on his feet, though I couldn’t be sure if it was from the drink, or the music.  I remembered my new tape then and pulled it from my pocket.

“Hey I just got this today, can we put it on?”

Anthony took it and turned it over in his hands.  “Okay, alright, but we’re not playing rock stuff all night. Got to have the dance stuff too.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You’re welcome.” He turned around and walked smoothly out of the kitchen with my tape in his hands.  I turned to find Michael hovering near by and I passed him the whiskey and grinned.

“Okay?” he asked me.

“I am now. Your brother just offered to kick Howard’s arse any time I want.”  Michael laughed, a huge smile instantly lighting up his eyes, as he punched the air triumphantly.

“Yes! I fucking told you didn’t I?”

My best memory from that night came early on in the party.  Billy got sick of Anthony’s dance music and snuck off to put Nevermind on.  He returned to us moments later, grinning fiendishly beneath his mop of red hair, already strumming his air guitar to the opening chords of Smells Like Teen Spirit.  We hooted and yelled, we jumped to our feet, we threw our arms around each other and thrust our drinks into the air.  Everyone stopped and stared, and I caught glimpses of their bemused faces, their rolling eyes, and it only made me love it even more.  Knowing they were watching us, knowing they didn’t like it, or they didn’t get it, or it wasn’t for them, just unified us even more.  We got off on it, we felt it explode inside of us, it was ours and we owned it.  We leapt up and down, headbanging, spilling our drinks all over the floor, screaming along, taking over the whole kitchen, taking it all with us.  We knew all of the words, but the bit that got to me the most then, as we clung to each other, as we stared into eachothers crazed and knowing eyes, was the bit that went; I’m worse at what I do best, and for this gift I feel blessed, our little group has always been, and always will, until the end. Well it was kind of beautiful, but I never would have said that to anyone.  We were just four scruffy grungey kids going mental in the kitchen, pissed off our faces, and they were all watching us and laughing at us and wondering what would happen to us.  “With the lights out it’s less dangerous!” we roared back at them, jumping, turning, gripping hold of ourselves. “Here we are now! Entertain us!”  I was inside a moment that I never wanted to end, the four of going insane, and I knew that if anything could set your heart on fire, it was music like that, moments like that.  I felt a descending sadness that the moment would inevitably end, just like the song would, just like the party would, just like everything would.

Antony humoured us with a patient smile for the next four songs, and by that time we were wiped out and shining in sweat, and we collapsed around the table together, our eyes meeting and gleaming with pride.  Anthony returned to the kitchen with a small tin in one hand.  He paused at the table, waited for the music to kick in and then held up a finger and nodded.  “Primal Scream,” he informed our waiting faces. “Believe me, you’re gonna’ love this.”  He gestured for Michael to scoot along the bench, and sat down on the edge. “Now boys,” he said, opening the lid from his tin.  I leaned forward slowly, my nostrils working.  There was a thick sweet smell coming from the tin. “We’re gonna’ calm things down a notch now, chill things out a bit yeah?” We smiled, and reached for our drinks but he shook his head at us. “Now hang on.  Wait for this.  No more to drink unless it’s water.”

Michael dropped his head into his hands. “Ahh!  I’m thirsty!”

“Water,” Antony told him unwavering.

“What’re you doing?” Jake asked him.

“Calming things down a bit.  Hang on.”

We were all quiet then.  We watched him sprinkle tobacco onto a large cigarette paper.  Then he took some musty green leaves from his tin and sprinkled them on top.  I was hot, hot all over, I felt like my brain was going to explode inside my skull, I was so hot.  It wasn’t just the heat, or the music or the dancing, it was everything; the here and the now, us.  I watched Anthony rolling the paper up, sticking a roach into one end and screwing up the other and I knew that any of us would have done anything he asked right then.  That was how it felt.  I understood why Michael wanted to be like him.  I did too.  I wanted to be him.  We watched, our mouths hanging open, our eyes wide and absorbing, as he lit the joint and inhaled.  He then smiled and held it across the table to me.  “Have a go on that birthday boy,” he said to me, as I took it carefully in my fingers.  “First time?”  I nodded.  His smile widened, touching his eyes.  He patted the table and stood up. “Well take it easy then.  No puking on me.  And if any of you do need to puke, do it outside yeah?”  He laughed at us softly and walked out.

“Wow,” was all Billy could breathe when it was his turn.  His green eyes were fixated on the joint as he examined it between his fingers. “My parents used to smoke pot in the sixties.  Maybe we’ll turn out like them!”

We laughed.  Before long all we could do was laugh.  Our eyes watered.  Our stomachs ached.  We couldn’t string sentences together without crumbling into giggles.  I found myself drifting backwards, towards the wall behind.  Once my head found it, I became stuck there.  I could only swivel my eyes from one side to the other.  My mouth was fixed in this permanent dopey smile.  Eventually I became aware of the sound of Billy throwing up somewhere, and Jake, laughing and laughing and laughing.

Anthony, in my eyes, the hero, the saviour of everything, arrived just in the nick of time with an armful of delivery pizzas.  They were the most delicious things I had ever smelled in my entire life.  He gave me a friendly shake of the shoulder. “Tuck in lads,” he said. “Then you’ll be raring to go again. And hey, look I found outside!” He stepped back so that we could see Lucy and Zoe standing nervously behind him.  Zoe had a bottle of wine swinging from each hand.

On some level, at least at the back of my muddled head, I understood and accepted that the party was going to end in carnage.  One way or another.  I had a deep seated feeling that there was shit to yet hit the fan with Howard, and I considered this in a rather detached way, as I floated in and out of consciousness some hours later.  My head was resting on my arms, which were folded on the table top.  I could hear Michael talking close by.  He sounded like he had a sore throat.  Billy was asleep on the table and had been for some time.  He lay completely stretched out, his head thrown back and his mouth a gaping hole of emerging snores at one end, his tatty trainers dangling off the other.  I lifted my head to gaze at him, and had a fuzzy memory of Anthony carrying him in from the garden.  What crossed my mind then, as the full impact of the drinks that had gone before began to hit me, was the memory of Howard saying he was going to check on us.  Had he?  Had he been and gone?  Had my mother kept him away like she’d say she would?  Or worse than all of that, was he still to come?

I groaned a little and shifted back on the bench, suddenly realizing as I moved, that someone was leaning on me.  Oh yeah, I remembered.  Lucy.  How long had she been there?  What had we been talking about again?  I yawned and stretched out my arms.  “Lucy?”

“Mmm?” She opened her eyes and smiled up at me. “Was I asleep?”

“Think we both were.”

“Oh my parents…they’ll murder me.”

“Thought you were sleeping at Zoe’s?”

“Oh yeah.  You’re right.  I am aren’t I?”

“So no need to worry.”

“No need to worry,” she echoed. “But maybe sobering up a bit is a good idea, if I’ve got to get Zoe home. Have you had a good party Danny?  A good birthday?”

“The best,” I told her, and I meant it.  I slipped my arm around her shoulders without even thinking about it.  She didn’t object though.  She just wriggled into me and rested her head down upon my chest.  I sort of missed a breath then, and stared down in awe at the back of her head, at this shine of nut brown hair.  I stared at it and thought about kissing it.

“Where does your dad live Danny?”

The question caught me off guard, coming out of nowhere.  It was just the sort of question Lucy would ask though, I realized.  I glanced across the table at Michael, who was attempting to roll a cigarette with Zoe asleep on his lap.  “I don’t actually know,” I told Lucy with a little shrug.

“Really?” she asked, while her arms snaked slowly around my middle.  You wouldn’t believe me if I said it, but the crush of her slim arms against my mottled middle was the best feeling in the world ever.  A pain that took my breath away. “You really don’t know?”

“Haven’t seen him in years.”

She looked up then, and her face was so close to mine, I could have stuck my tongue out and licked the tip of her button nose.  “Well when was the last time you saw him? You don’t mind me asking do you?  Everyone tells me I’m too nosy.”

“I don’t mind,” I shrugged. She grinned, and her eyes looked all dewy and sleepy.  Her head went down again, bumping against my rib cage.  It was funny, how her doing that made me feel bigger and stronger, like a man almost.  I hugged her to me and stroked the round of her shoulder with my hand.  “It was when I was about nine,” I told her. “’Cause I remember he turned up for my birthday and took me to McDonalds.  Then it sort of faded out after that.”

“Do you know what happened to him?  Do you know where he went?  Or why?”

“Not really. All mum says is he got in trouble.  Had to go away.”

“But hasn’t he ever like phoned you?  Or written to you?  Or anything?”

“Nope.”

I heard her release this massive sigh.  She was totally relaxed against me.  Almost asleep again, I wondered, stroking her shoulder.  I could feel one of her hands playing with my t-shirt, rubbing the material between her fingers. “Awful,” she sort of shuddered. “I can’t imagine that.  I mean, I know I’m lucky my parents get on so well, but if they did ever split up or something, I know my dad wouldn’t just vanish from my life.  I know he wouldn’t.”

“It is a bit shit if you think about it,” I agreed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to upset you on your birthday.  Just tell me to shut up.”

“No it’s okay, I like talking to you.”

“Did he look like you?  Was he anything like you?”

“Hmm, mum says he was nothing but trouble.  Everyone says I look like my mum though.  She says he was fine for a while and then he just got bored.”

“That’s not very nice!”

“Nah.  I don’t think I’d get bored of having a kid.”

“God, me neither!” She tightened her arms around my middle then, just for a second, but it was enough to squeeze the breath out of me again, and I winced above her head. “Do you know what my mum says?” she asked me then, lifting her head and turning her face up to mine again.  I shook my head, smiling.  “She says children are the most precious thing in the world to you.  That when you have them, you realize what love means.  What do you think of that?”  My smile stretched.  I wanted to laugh at her and her drunken, wide eyed face.  I wanted to hold her face and kiss it.

“I don’t know,” I told her. “Maybe that’s how it should be?”

“That’s how I’d feel,” she said, defiantly.  I picked up a strand of her hair and watched it slip through my fingers like silk. “Do you think you’ll ever try to find your dad Danny?”

“I dunno.  Maybe.  One day.  If I feel like it.”

She was staring at me with this really dopey look on her face.  She was frowning a bit, but smiling madly, and her eye makeup had smudged around her eyes, making them look even bigger and browner.  Anthony’s music was pulsing through the walls again, and the music was a swelling within me, of so many things, love and lust and energy. I stared at her and she stared at me as if she were examining me, figuring me out.  I stroked her hair back from her face.   I felt like I was in a scene from a movie, or something.  We were lost for a moment.  Just the two of us, in a bubble of life swept up and intensified by the music.  The song was incredible.  I later found out it was called Come Together, and I later found out that Primal Scream were pretty fucking amazing to play at parties.  “You are so sweet Danny,” she said then, and she pressed her finger against my cut lip.  I winced a tiny bit and then kissed the tip of her finger and grinned hungrily, wanting more. “And one day, I think, I am going to marry you.”  She was moving off me as she said it, and it made me laugh out loud the way she said it, all matter of fact and prissy. I wanted to tug her back down onto me.

“Really?” I asked her.

“Yep,” she replied firmly, using my knee and the table to help herself struggle up from the bench. “But right now I really, really have to get home…get Zoe home I mean.”  Michael took the cue and pulled Zoe up from his lap by her arm.  She stared around at us in a confused, blinking daze.  Lucy limped around the table, and slipped her arm around Zoe’s waist, and with Mikes help they hoisted her to her unsteady feet.  We watched them go, just smiling.  A few moments later Anthony poked his head around the kitchen door.

“Think I better walk those two home,” he said, and was gone again. I looked at Michael and we grinned at each other. For once, his face appeared peaceful and calm, as he lit the cigarette he had taken ages to roll and blew smoke swiftly across the table.

“You should have kissed her,” he said to me after a time.  “When are you two going to get it together anyway?”

“Patience,” I said, running my tongue slowly over my lower lip, savouring the taste of her finger that lingered there.  “When I do kiss her, it’s going to be special.  It’s going to be just me and her, and it’s going to be special.”

Michael was shaking his head “You soppy bastard.”

33

            “Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be…” It seemed important to murmur along with the music, as Michael and I sat on the back doorstep side by side, soaking up the last remnants of the party.  We had both been sick at some point, Billy was still snoring, Jake had disappeared somewhere, and we were sat shakily on the step, our sweaty faces turned upwards to receive the cool night air.  We were passing the last of the whiskey back and forth, taking the tiniest sips each time, grimacing every time the liquid scorched our throats.  It was nice sat like that, my elbow banging into his every time we passed the bottle back.  “As a friend, as a trend, as an old enemeeeee…” The music was lower now.  People had dispersed home, passed out, or coupled off.  I liked the feel of the summer air on my bare arms, and the way the slight breeze lifted and rustled through my hair.  Every now and then I just inhaled it all, sucking the sweet smell of damp cut grass into my lungs, absorbing the melodic beats that soothed my ears from inside the house.  Anthony and the remainder of his friends were gathered in the lounge; we could hear the gentle murmur of their conversation punctuated with laughter.

“Your brother is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met,” I told Michael, passing him the bottle and pulling out the last of my roll ups.  I lit it, and shoved the lighter back into my pocket.

“I know, I told you.”

“How did he end up in prison then?  He just seems so good.”

“He was worse than us at our age,” Michael explained with a shrug. He passed me the bottle and I passed him the smoke. “Always in trouble, he was.  They had to send him to jail in the end. This was his first time in adult jail though.”

“Maybe he won’t want to go back then,” I mused.  I shifted my arse on the cold step.  The thought of what he had said to me in the kitchen made my stomach suddenly feel alive with butterflies.  “I really really don’t want him to.”

“Me either,” said Michael, his voice low.  I looked at him and he was squinting into the darkness at the end of the garden.  We swapped the bottle and the smoke back over.

“And I swear…that I don’t have a gun…no I don’t have a gun,” I sang along softly, until he nudged me.  “What?”

“Shh a minute.  Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Shh.”

I followed his gaze, my heart already starting to thump into action, but all I could see was a mess of shadows and darkness.  Maybe the creak of the broken gate in the breeze.  Mike nudged me again.  He pushed his elbow into mine and kept it there. “I heard something.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “Like what?” I whispered.  Michael shifted forward, tipping his head from one side to the other as he tried to make sense of the jumble of shapes.

“The gate,” he murmured, and we both stared at it, and as we stared, we both heard it.  The gate creaking, and the creak growing louder and louder.  The creak then tapered off, and was replaced by the sound of approaching footsteps.  I felt my stomach shrivel up inside of me.  I felt my entire body becoming drenched in cold.  We looked up, both of us, we stared in horror as Lee Howard’s impossibly large figure seeped out from the shadows.  I felt Michael’s body freeze beside my own.  Our elbows remained locked together, two sharp points trembling against one another.  Howard approached us in a jaunty manner, like a friendly bear, swinging his chunky arms, while a sly smile slid across his face.

“What we got here then eh?” he asked. “Couple of little smart alec gay boys sat out on the step?” He laughed at himself.  Actually threw back his head and guffawed at us.  He stopped right in front of us, towering over us like something from a horror film. We could see all of his small, straight teeth gleaming in the moonlight.  “No one answered the front door kiddies,” he told us, his hands settling on his hips.

“What do you want?” Michael demanded, and I could tell he was trying to make his voice sound tougher than he felt right then.

“Came to check on things like I said I would,” Howard replied, self-satisfaction curling up his lip as he spotted the bottle between Michael’s hands.  Mike realized too late and tried to hide it behind him, but Howard leaned down and snatched it from him.

“Hey!”

“Hey what?  You boys aren’t supposed to be drinking!” He eyed us smugly, pushing the bottle into his back pocket.  I fixed my eyes on the ground then.  The urge to be sick was coming back.  My stomach was turning over and over as cold waves of nausea hit me one after the other.  Howard lifted one foot and placed it on the step in between us. I stared at it in revulsion.  The shiny black leather.  The little heel.  The pointed toe.  “Whiskey, my little friends, is for adults,” he said, leaning down over his knee towards us, bringing his big face just inches away from ours. We both shrank back automatically and as we did, his smile lengthened.  His eyes found mine. “Your mum sent me over in the end Danny. I didn’t even have to insist pal.  She was getting worried about the noise coming from here.  Worried someone might call the police, and you and me know you don’t need any more attention from them, don’t we?  So I said I would come over and check.  I told her you were probably all fine.  But best to check no one’s letting underage kids drink, eh?”

“We only had a sip,” Michael spoke up rigidly. “No harm done.”

“Well I’ll be the judge of that thank you,” Howard said, his eyes flicking up and into the kitchen. “Looks like you’ve had more than a sip anyway. And who’s that on the table eh? Passed out from drinking is he?”

“No, he’s just asleep,” said Michael.

Howard looked back down at us.  He sniffed loudly, and then again. “You know what else I can smell? Pot.  Weed.  Can you smell that?  Go on, take a sniff.” He made an awkward face and scratched his beard. “God I hope no one’s been a naughty boy and brought illegal drugs to the party! Wouldn’t that be silly? That would be unbelievably silly wouldn’t it?  Boys already in trouble with the police smoking weed at a party!”

“The party’s over,” Michael informed him coldly. He kept his voice steady, but I could feel the cold tremor in his elbow.  “You can go now. We’re all just gonna’ go to sleep.”

“So where’s your dad?”

“Huh?”

“Your dad.  Your dad dummy.  Danny said your dad was going to be here the whole time, to keep an eye on things.  So where is he then?” He tipped his head in sympathy. “Or was that just another lie Danny? Because you’re pretty damn good at lies aren’t you eh?”

“He went out,” Michael said quickly. “He had to go out, but he’ll be back in a minute, won’t he Danny?”

I looked at him in bewilderment, my mind vacant and frozen.  He nudged me again with his elbow.  My cigarette dangled, forgotten from one hand.  “Ah,” said Howard, leaning forward and plucking it from my hand.  He dropped it and ground it to dust beneath the heel of his cowboy boot. “Looks like Danny’s lost his tongue as well as his mind here tonight. Come on then little man, let’s get you home eh?”

I felt the panic sweep violently through me then, and I knew it was partly because of the drink, and the weed, but it was suddenly so all consuming, it was horrible and I could barely breathe.  I stared right at Michael and opened my mouth.  I wanted to scream out to him to do something, to help me, but nothing would come out, not one single fucking word.  A hot trail of sweat snaked down from behind my ear to my neck, and somehow, sensing all of this, Michael’s hand clamped heavily down on my arm and held on tight. “You’re not going anywhere,” he told me.  “You’re staying the night remember?  Your mum said.”

“Yeah and she also said no drinking!” Howard barked then, his voice going up a level and making us flinch, as his forehead came crashing down over his stone like eyes.  They burned angrily into me, and I looked away, down at the ground, transfixed by the way it suddenly seemed to be moving and shifting beneath my feet. “Do you remember that eh?  You remember what she said to you before you left the house? Eh fuck brain?  She said no drinking, didn’t she?  As per fucking usual she trusted you and you blatantly lied to her face.  Now I’m not pissing around here mate, get the fuck up and come back home now, or I’m really going to embarrass you in front of your little friend!”

“You’re not gonna’ fucking touch him right!” Michael yelled then, his grip tightening painfully on my arm.

“Hey what’s all this then?” Anthony.  It was Anthony.  I looked over my shoulder to see him striding through the kitchen.  I closed my eyes and dropped my head.  Thank fucking god.  He stood in the doorway behind us, his head cocked to one side in curiosity. “Hello, who’s this fucker boys?”  A group of his friends had appeared behind him.  They stood, solemn faced and cross armed.  I desperately wanted to move, to get up and scurry inside the house where it was safe, but I was afraid my legs were too weak to hold me and I would simply fall to the ground in front of them all.

Michael climbed to his feet though, dragging me up with him.  “This is Lee Howard,” he told his brother. “The guy I was telling you about.”

Anthony stepped forward quickly then, a gleam of delight leaping instantly into his dark eyes.  “Oh yeah?  Really?  Is this him?  Come to pay us all a visit?”

“Who the fuck are you?” Howard growled in reply.  I felt brave enough to check his face then and what I saw surprised and pleased me.  The taut expression was one I had not seen before.  He looked angry and embarrassed, unsure even, pissed off he had been caught.

“Michael’s brother,” said Anthony, his tone flat, his face cold.

Howard hitched his thumbs through his belt. “Oh the one just out of prison?”

“That’s me.  So anyway what’s going on boys?  This fella’ trying to ruin your fun?”

“He’s trying to take Danny home,” Michael said in disgust. “And he doesn’t want to go with him.”

“Ah no, that’s not on is it?” said Anthony, shaking his head.  “Coming and upsetting him on his birthday?  Ah that’s not nice.  He’s staying here with us mate.”

“He is not supposed to be drinking!”

Anthony ignored him and looked at us. “Go on in boys.  Get your heads down.  Party’s over.”

Michael wasted no time pushing me through the door and past Anthony’s friends.  Neither of us dared to look back.  We hurried through to the lounge, where we discovered Jake, fast asleep and curled up in an arm chair.  I plonked myself down on the sofa.  I was shaking.  Michael turned the music off and looked at me.  “It’s all right,” he said, sounding uncertain.  “Anthony will scare him off.  He’s been gagging to get the chance.”  I nodded back silently, pulled my legs up onto the sofa and wrapped my arms tightly around them.

Just moments later Anthony appeared calmly in the doorway.  “It’s alright,” he told us with a shrug.  “He’s gone.  Said you could stay the night.”

I released this small, nervous laugh as Michael crossed the room to slap his brothers hand.  I felt stupidly and deliriously drunk and happy and relieved all at once.  “God.  Thanks Anthony.”

“You were quick,” said Michael. “What did you do?”

“Do?”  Anthony turned to go.  “Didn’t have to do anything Mikey.  He wasn’t gonna’ take on three of us was he?  I told you. Fucking bullies man.  Fucking hate them.”

When he was gone Michael fell onto the sofa beside me, pressed his hands to his face and giggled in nervous relief.  “Shittinghell,” he said behind his hands. “I’m sorry mate, but there’s something about that fucking man…Jesus Christ, I was shitting myself.”

“I feel such a dick,” I said then.  He dropped his hands and glared right at me.

“Fuck off!  Don’t be stupid mate.  Seriously.  It’s all cool.”

I nodded.  Okay then.  I let my head drift back.  I closed my eyes.  I felt safe, and yet not safe.  Two hours later I woke up suddenly, bathed in sweat and threw up violently, all over the lounge floor.  The room was black and silent. The walls heaving, the shadows alive with evil.  Everything was fucking horrendous.

The morning brought sunlight, mercilessly bright as it exploded through the gaps in the curtains, and attacked my aching head.  I woke up to head pain, creeping nausea and a mixture of emotions.  I was going to be sick, so I had to make myself move, and weave my way through the sleeping bodies in order to reach the downstairs toilet on time.  I puked and heaved until my guts strained with the effort.  When I sat back on my ankles I saw the crusty splatters of sick that had dried on the legs of my jeans overnight.  I dropped my head into my hands and moaned.  I guess it was my first proper hangover, and it was vile.  My brain felt like it was going to implode inside my skull.  It hurt even just opening my eyes and looking at things.  My mind swam with memories from the night, but I latched onto one and clung to it, refusing to examine anything else that wanted my attention.  Lucy.  Her finger on my lips.  Telling me she would marry me one day.  I tried to hold onto her, but my mind jumped to Howard, reliving the way he had emerged from the shadows like some kind of horror show.  I stared at the lumpy yellow sick in the toilet bowl, and already, there was this little ball of fear tying itself up tight in the pit of my belly.  I breathed out, and thought about Anthony stepping in and helping me, how amazing that was.  But I still had to go home at some point.

I put if off for a while.  I sat in the kitchen and listened to the house come alive with the sounds of groaning, and vomit splashing into the toilet bowl.  Survivors grouped together in the sunlit kitchen, our faces pale, our smiles weak.  I had that feeling again, despite the pain and the nausea and the fear of going home, I had that feeling of a moment being intense and beautiful.  Of belonging.  The radio was on.  Meat loaf was telling us he would do anything for love…but he wouldn’t do that, and we were swapping looks, sniggering.  Anthony, the star of the show, made us all coffee and handed out painkillers like sweets.  Jake declared rather unhelpfully that he had peaked too soon, slept through most of the party and as a result felt just fine.  Billy on the other hand, could not stop throwing up.  “I’m poisoned, I’m dying,” he said on return from the toilet. “I need my mother.”

“Your mother doesn’t need you!” joked Anthony shoving a cup of strong coffee at him.  “Get that down you.  No one is going home until they’ve stopped puking.”

I sat and listened, breathing it in, as stories of the party were swapped and shared.  It was unanimously declared to have been the best party ever.  “Wait til you’re my age,” Anthony laughed at us, shaking his head.  “You guys haven’t seen anything yet.  Makes me jealous actually.  You’ve got it all ahead of you!”

Michael laughed at his brothers words, and I again I noted the loving admiration in his eyes, and it made me smile despite the horrible banging pain in my head.  I knew I had to stop delaying the inevitable, and get on home.  I nodded to myself when I recalled Anthony’s words, his promise.   When the day had slid casually into afternoon, I slid out from behind the table where a card game had started, and I announced flippantly that I was off home.  I felt the silence of them behind me, as I headed for the door, and my cheeks flushed.  “Thanks guys,” I told them. “Best party ever.” I stepped out into the day.  I meant to go quickly before any of them could say anything terrible like good luck, and I nearly made it, but then Anthony spoke, quietly and firmly, looking up from the card game.

“Remember what I said yeah?”

I nodded thankfully.  “Yeah.  Thanks Anthony.”

After that I trudged slowly home, with the sunlight hammering my head.  I pulled back my shoulders, clung to Anthony’s words, and swallowed my fears.  I could have sunk to the ground in relief when I saw my mothers’ car parked in the drive behind Howards.  I found the back door open, and the pair of them sat at the table, smoking and drinking coffee.  There was a brief stab of concern in my mothers’ eyes when she ran them up and down and took in the state of me, but that was quickly replaced by exasperated anger. “Well look at you,” she said, in this hard flat voice.  “You certainly look and smell like you had a hell of a night.”

I looked down at my vomit splashed boots.  “Okay,” I said. “We had some drinks.  We shouldn’t have.  I’m sorry mum.”  I gave a little shrug of my shoulders and hoped I looked as pathetic as I felt.  “I’m paying for it now, believe me.”

I raised my eyes long enough to see hers staring at me, narrowed and cold.  “I hope you don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.”

“No.  Was just saying sorry, that’s all.”

“Lee came to check on you because I asked him to.  I was getting worried about the noise.  He came to check on things and found you and Michael drinking whiskey, already off your faces!”  I nodded in reply, letting her know I did not deny it.  “He gave you a chance to come home and sober up, but you wouldn’t come.”

“He shouldn’t even have been there!” I cried then, finally allowing myself to look at him.  He was sat in the chair the way he always did.  Leaning right back, his big thighs spread wide open, one hand curled around the coffee cup on the table and the other cupped around one knee.  “It’s nothing to do with him,” I tried to point out. “If you were worried you should’ve come over! We were fine!”

“Fine?” My mother snorted in disbelief, got to her feet and began to stalk around the kitchen as if her anger made it impossible for her to remain still any longer.  “I’m going to ask you something now Danny and for once in your life I want you to tell me the truth.  Lee was worried it smelt like pot over there, like cannabis.  Now you look at me and you tell me the truth young man, were any of you smoking cannabis over there?”

“No,” I said it quickly and firmly, staring back into her eyes. “It was incense.  He smelt some incense burning.”

My mother reached for me then. “Come here then, let me smell your clothes, I’ll soon be able to tell!” She made a grab for my new top but I sidestepped her and swiped her hand away from me.  “Come here!” she cried in anger, reaching for me again.  She got hold of my arm, pulled me to her and sniffed my clothes.  “Stinks!” she yelled in triumph, looking at Howard, who merely rolled his eyes and gestured with his hands as if to say I told you so.  I tried to wrench free, but she held on tight. “Don’t you lie to me! Lee came to see if you were okay and you repay him by letting Michael’s brother threaten him!  Did you know about that, did you?  You’re lucky we didn’t call the police ourselves!”

I waited until I felt the grip on my arm lessen, and then I tore myself away from her and headed into the hallway.  “You lied to us!” she called after me.  “You said you wouldn’t drink, and that was a lie, and you said Michael’s dad would be there and that was another lie!”

“Yeah, so what I lied?” I turned around and shouted back at her.  I threw my arms out to either side of me. “I just wanted to have some fun for once!  Then he has to turn up and ruin it all as usual!”

“He was looking out for you! I asked him to check on you!”  She sounded weaker now, I thought, close to the tears of desperation I had seen her cry so many times over me.  Sensing this, Howard rose from his chair, stood behind her and began to massage her shoulders.  I watched the way her small body leaned back into his, and it was like all of the fight and fury leaked out of her and she just sagged against him.  It looked like she was being slowly eaten alive by him and in a way I realized that she was.  She shook her head at me, and tears shone in her eyes.  “Danny we let you go to that party in good faith.  You said there would be no drinking and we believed you.  How can I ever believe a word you say?  All you’re capable of is lies!  And Lee said you’ve been horrible about your bike!  What is wrong with you?”

I curled my lip at her.  “Yeah ‘cause I don’t want it. I don’t want anything from him ever!  So tell him not to bother!  Take it back to the shop or burn it, I don’t care!”

“How can you say that?” she wailed at me, raking her hands down her face. “How can you be so ungrateful?  And what on earth did you say to your Gran yesterday?”

“What?”

“Your Gran Danny!  She called me last night in a right state! What on earth did you say to her about Lee?  She’s a frail old woman for gods sake!”

“I told her you ought to be careful,” I replied shrugging defiantly.  I pushed my hands into my pockets and felt my legs shaking down below.  It wasn’t fear though, it was nothing like that, it was anger, black and thundering, rolling through my body, causing all of my limbs to vibrate violently.  “I told her the truth, that you know nothing about him!”

From behind her shoulders, Howards eyes stared into mine.  They appeared dull and lifeless, inhuman as they watched me trembling with rage.  I stared back at him, and I could feel the anger behind my eyes, thumping and clawing to get out.  “You wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you between the eyes!” my mother cried at me.  Howard nodded at this.

“I spoke to her to smooth things over,” he announced then, in this very calm and reassuring tone, as his fingers flexed and curled over her thin shoulders.  He winked at me.  “She’s quite excited to meet me now isn’t she honey?  Think we’re going to go and visit her soon.”  She nodded in reply, and fuck I felt it then, the rage as it escaped and rolled over me in snarling vicious waves.  My breath came sharp and shallow.  I felt like I would erupt from the inside, and spew my blackness right across the kitchen.  I pulled my hands from my pockets and pointed at my lip.

“He did this!  He did this!  Not the bike!  Him!”  I was trembling so hard my legs felt weakened, and I had to lean against the wall, as I pointed at Howard, and he stared back at me, his eyes deadly and his smile thin.  “He slapped me mum!  It’s the truth!  Yesterday morning!”

She was shaking her head very slowly and her colour had drained.  She looked me up and down, and she frowned, as if she had no idea who I even was.  Then she folded her arms tightly around her body and clutched herself, while Howard’s arms remained draped over her shoulders.  I could see it, right there in her eyes, and it was like being smacked in the face all over again, but worse, far worse, it was like I was drowning in pain, and I started to pull back, to retreat.  “I don’t even know you,” she said, and her voice was dry and rasping. “The lies that come out of your mouth Danny, the lies! How can you even stand there and….” She trailed off, her mouth too dry to finish the sentence.  I watched her struggle to swallow, struggle to work her tongue, and I looked above her head and he was encircling her from behind, closing her off, and he was smiling at me.  The lips moved to reveal the teeth and the thin eyebrows shot up then down in a smirk that made me tear myself from the wall.  I blundered heavily down the hallway, my eyes filling with stinging tears, the walls and the stairs blurred as I rushed up them.

I locked my bedroom door behind me and fell onto my bed.  I covered my face with my arms, and choked on sobs.  I felt like I was falling.  I was gripping and clawing and snatching out for something to hold onto, but there was nothing and I was just falling, faster and faster.

30

 

            Well the boy still looked at me sort of funny, but give it time, I thought, give it time.  Patience was the key.  It was still early days I assured myself whenever I experienced a flicker of doubt, which was seldom.  I didn’t generally see the point in self-doubt, or guilt, the sort of things that tortured Kay so pointlessly.  I wasn’t like her, you see, I didn’t question myself on a daily basis.  I walked through life with my eyes ahead.  The past is dead and gone, and the present is a stepping stone to the future.  I had kept my eyes ahead for a long time, you see, knowing that I would recognize what I was searching for when I found it.  I was close now, I could feel it.  I could feel it in my bones.  I was almost exactly where I wanted to be in life, with just a few loose ends left to tie up.

I was impressed with myself, to be honest.  My parents assured me I had good reason to be.  Stooped slightly by the arthritis that had followed him into old age, my father was still a big, proud man.  “My son the businessman!” he would smile and shake his head whenever I returned to Essex.  “My son the entrepreneur!”  He loved it.  He loved telling people that I owned a nightclub, that one day I would own a string of them.  My younger brother had been weak, and feebleminded, a disappointment to us all.  It was me they had poured their hopes and dreams into, and I had always felt proud and grateful to carry this burden for them.  In fact, it was their attitude and determination that propelled me through life when I was younger and shaped my personality into one that never faltered, never questioned what had to be done.

My father Jerry had been a bare knuckle fighter back in his day.  One of the best.  I can still recall the feeling of pride that lit and grew inside of me when I went to watch him fight.  He made mincemeat of all of them, back then, took them all down to their pitiful knees.  People used to call him Jerry the Bear, because of the solid, lumbering way he was built.  He still kept in good shape despite the arthritis, and he still carried with him the fearless reputation of a man not to be messed with.  He used to run a gym, back then.  He would train up these undisciplined young boys to be fighters.  I had nothing, he used to tell them, I had nothing and I could have been no one, but I worked hard and you can do the same.  It was an ethic to be proud of, something I wished to emulate and carry forward for him.  It was a noble thing, I felt.  To start with nothing and to work your way up, to climb higher and higher through bloody mindedness and sheer willpower.  I used to help him out in the gym, and then as soon as I was old enough, I started collecting and washing glasses in the local pub.  My parents had encouraged me, of course.  It didn’t matter to them what line of work I went into, as long as it had a clear route to the top.

Like I had told Kay’s boys over the dinner table that night, I had done the lot over the years.  Collecting glasses, washing up, cleaning toilets, working the doors, serving behind the bar, you name it, I did it.  Picked up drunks from the floor, mopped up puddles of sick and broke up fights.  Seeing those kinds of people trail in and out, the ones that reeked of piss and whiskey and dribbled their words of self-pity down their chins, they made me even more determined to reach the top.  I liked a drink myself from time to time, but I never relinquished control.  I let other people do that.  To lose control was to be weak.  Those people that weaved in and out of pubs and clubs, babbling nonsense and falling over their own feet, they had lost control, they had handed it over, and lived life in a shambles.

By the time I reached my mid-twenties I had grown into a bear of a man myself.  Chip of the old block, people said when they saw me coming.  Those were the days I earned a fortune with my shaved head and my shiny black bomber jacket, standing sternly on the doors of the roughest nightclubs in Essex.  There was rarely any trouble when I was on a shift.  And every time I returned home with a pay rise or a promotion, my father would take my hand in his and pump it up and down, while his blue eyes glittered with pride.  I lived a frugal existence, saved my money, stashed it away, but it was all going to be worth it one day.  I had a goal, and it was unmoveable.  It would happen, and that was all there was to it.  By the time I was thirty I would be managing a swanky London nightclub, and by the time I was forty, I would own one.

Nancy’s had come along at just the right time for me.  It was the first place I had sunk my own money into, and in the long run it was going to be worth every penny.  This was the decrepit dying piss hole I was going to turn around.  This was the place people would be talking about in months to come.  It would become the towns’ main attraction, the ugly duckling transformed into a swan.  It would make my name and I would be someone.  The other half was still owned by Tony Philips, this ailing alcoholic I had no intention of sharing the limelight with for long.  For the moment, as long as he remained drunk and in the palm of my hand like everybody else, then everything was going to plan.

And now of course, I had Kay.  The top prize.  The icing on the fucking cake.  She summed it all up didn’t she?  Who I was, and what I deserved.  I had known that the first time I set eyes on her.  She seemed to carry this rare, warm glow within her.  It was like a golden haze that surrounded her, spreading out to whoever was near, touching them with light and hope.  Now that she was mine, people liked to tell me how lucky I was.  Jammy bastard, the men leering over the bar informed me.  Lucky sod.  To be honest, such comments offended me.  Luck didn’t come into it.  It had nothing to do with luck.  I co-owned and managed a nightclub that was already clawing its way up from the bottom, bringing crowds in and creating a buzz around town, and I lived with a beautiful woman because I deserved to.  Simple as that.

She hadn’t been difficult to impress, of course.  She just wanted someone to be nice to her, to pay her attention and spoil her.  She just wanted someone to be honest and true, and not mess her about.  She was enthralled by Nancy’s, and my stake in it.  She was touched by my relationship with my parents.  To her, I was someone going places.  I was a catch.  It did not really surprise me when I discovered how easy she was to wind around my finger, or how adoringly she hung onto my every word.  She was relieved you see, to have someone on her side for once, to have someone to lean on, someone who sympathised.

Well I’d seen kids like Danny before you see.  They were ever present in my fathers’ gym, snot nosed kids, wet behind the ears and spoiling for a scrap.  Thinking the world owed them a living.  Mollycoddled and pandered to, but we soon knocked the snot right out of them.  Took them apart and built them back up the right way.  Kids these days were even worse.  They had it far too easy.  They were not getting the things they really needed to survive in life; guts and determination.  Nerves of steel.

The boy was a slight problem, that was true enough, but this did not deter me, not one little bit.  In fact I was rather relishing the challenge.  Like with the club, what was the point in having everything handed to you on a plate, finished and perfect?  I liked to stamp my mark down on things, you see, polish them off in my own image.  Challenge made life more interesting, and the end result, the success, far more satisfying.  The boy was a problem, but the problem was his, not mine.  I was close to achieving everything I had ever dreaed of in life, and it was laughable to conceive that a thirteen year old brat of a kid was going to get in the way of it.

Early days, I reminded myself at the end of each one.  Early days.  The boy had a choice, I reasoned, a simple choice.  If he made the right choice, then everything would be okay, and everything would fall into place, and he would stop looking at me as if I were some kind of monster.  He would start to look at me in a different way, I was sure of it.  I considered that by now he knew he had met his match.  That the game was over.  I had my feet well and truly under the table, and he knew it.  And all that business had been a godsend anyway.  It allowed me to play the victim before Kay.  To plant seeds in her sweet, stressed out little head and watch them grow.  And she had begged me in the end.  Move in, she had said, move in with us, I can’t do it on my own anymore, I can’t cope.  I could help her.  I knew how kids like that ended up if no one watched out for them.  There were plenty of the little bastards roaming the streets all glassy eyed and looking for trouble at night.  Plenty of underaged losers spewing up their alcopops and shagging their friends girlfriends in dirty alley ways.  In years to come, they would replace the fat slugs that slithered onto my bar stools, burping into their beers.

The boy was simple to me.  A spoilt brat who had gotten used to having his own way.  He didn’t want to share his mother with anyone else and he believed that bad behaviour got him what he wanted.  He had guts though, at times.  It amused me.  Stupidity as much as anything, but there was a fire in those eyes I longed to put out.  It made things interesting and it made me wonder how long it would take to get him in line the way I wanted.  I wondered this in the same way I wondered how long it would take to get the club up to scratch.  Well, it was all just a matter of time, patience and hard work, to be honest.  The boy made it easy for me in every way.  He was always in trouble, always fighting and scrapping, so who would notice a few more bruises?  Who would believe an attention seeking liar?  He liked to think he was tough, but I knew the truth of it.  I knew I would have to take him apart before he understood what being tough really meant.  I would wipe out the cold defiance in those blue eyes, I would obliterate it and replace it with something else.  Sometimes, you needed to experience how shit and disappointing life could be before you finally sharpened up and recognized the rules.

If the boy broke the rules, or forgot the rules, then things would be tough for him.   I had no problem with this.  In fact I was rather starting to see it as my responsibility to set him on the right path.  He didn’t have anyone else, did he?  No father, no brother, and as for Kay, well, I adored the woman inside and out, but she was totally inadequate sometimes as a parent.  I saw it, time and time again.  Half the time she didn’t even know where he was, and didn’t even think to question.  He shuffled through the house smelling of cigarette smoke, and she didn’t bat an eyelid.  She offered him no direction, no purpose.  She rarely corrected him.  She seemed happy to just allow him to float along, causing trouble when it suited him.  Well it was simple in my eyes.  Kids messed up, you punished them, and showed them the way.  The only thing that had surprised me slightly was the rush I’d felt that night in the kitchen when I’d introduced his face to the table.  It had come out of nowhere, this swelling, this roar of adrenalin and power.  I’d wanted to breathe it in, suck it up, inhale it.  It was still there when I woke in the morning, still tingling through my muscles.  I’d felt my chest expand with the memory of it.  A smile had crept across my face when I received the phone call to pick him up from the station.  Guilt, I felt no guilt.  I would teach the boy how to be a man, and one day, I knew he would thank me for it.

31

 

August 1993

Two days before my fourteenth birthday, I received an urgent phone call from Michael.  I answered it half asleep, which was the state I seemed to exist in permanently; not quite with it, with the constant urge to blink at the world around me.  He told me his mum had gone away for a bit, and his brother was home from prison.  Get over here now, he said, his voice tight and hushed with emotion.  I got dressed in a daze and hurried over to him.  He answered the back door to me, and he looked dizzy with excitement; his dark eyes shining brightly, his smile so wide it touched his ears.  His chest was bare, and browner than ever, as he seized me by the arm and dragged me through the door. “Get in, get in here,” he hissed, showing all of his teeth.  I allowed him to drag me inside, and there was this young man, who was unmistakably Michael’s older brother, sat on one side of the kitchen table.

It seemed like I was staring at a Michael from the future.  It was odd really.  I could see exactly what he was going to look like in years to come.  Anthony sported the same thick black hair, though he kept his shorter than Michael did.  He had exactly the same almond shaped eyes, like melted chocolate, warm one moment, dark and menacing the next.  He gave you the feeling that he could shake your hand or hug you, just as easily as he could knock you out or smack you.  He was taller, and broader, his bare chest rippling with lean, hard muscle.  He was sat at the table in a pair of loose tracksuit trousers and nothing else.  As I walked in, he looked up and offered me a knowing smile.  “Well you must be the famous Danny,” he said to me, and I was smiling then, in spite of myself, in spite of the foggy daze that seemed to cling to me lately.  I couldn’t help but smile at him.  I liked him.  Right away I liked him.

“You must be Anthony,” I said, enthusiastically, as Michael gave me another friendly shove towards the table. “Nice to meet you!”   I sat down next to Michael.  Anthony nodded at me courteously.

“Nice to meet you too.  Mike’s been telling me all about you.”

“Yeah?” I glanced sideways at Michael, who nudged me in return, as he folded his arms over the table, still smiling that crazy, satisfied smile.

“Just filled him in on your legendary status around here,” he told me. “You know, breaking Higg’s nose, for starters!”

“Sounds like the creep deserved it,” Anthony remarked, before I could open my mouth to defend myself.  I closed my mouth, grinned and nodded at him.  His eyes were down, as he concentrated on tapping tobacco along the fold of a cigarette paper.  Michael nudged me again, his expression serious now.

“What happened after, you know?  The beach thing,” he asked me.  “When you went home and that.”  He had those frown lines on his forehead again, I could see them tensing just beneath his hair.  I forced a nervous smile which I doubted would appease him.

“Nothing.  He didn’t tell mum.” I turned my gaze back to Anthony’s deft fingers, as they rolled the cigarette quickly and neatly.

“Why didn’t he?” Michael asked.

“Got a deal,” I shrugged. Anthony looked up then, lifting the roll up and pushing a roach into one end.  He didn’t say anything while he finished it off, but he gave off the air that he was about to, so the both of us waited silently, our eyes on him, our breath held.

“Oh yeah,” he said finally, his shoulders stiffening. “Mike’s been telling me all about him too.  Sounds like a right piece of shit.”

“Prize prick,” Michael said instantly. “Isn’t he Dan?”

“Just one big giant twat,” I agreed happily, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as I imagined the list of expletives I could add to that if they wanted me to.  “You know what his latest thing is?” I asked them. “Picking on my hair!  He thinks it’s unsuitable for us to want to look like Kurt Cobain.  He doesn’t find him suitable as a role model, apparently.” I rolled my eyes in dramatic, amused fashion and grinned at Anthony.

“What?  And I suppose he thinks he is?” Michael cried, shaking his head in disbelief.  “What a cunt!”

“I think your hair is cool,” said Anthony, offering me another polite nod, as he stuck the roll up between his lips.  I grinned.

“Thanks.”

“Grow it longer, just to piss him off!” Michael suggested.

“Yeah, I’m gonna’.”

“Get a load of tattoos, when you’re older,” said Anthony, with a casual shrug.  He lit the roll up, located an ashtray and dragged it towards him.  I nodded slowly, gazing intently at the patterns and swirls that adorned his upper arms, and chest.  I wished I knew what they all stood for, what they all meant to him.

“I will,” I said. “Yours are so cool.”

“Trouble is they’re addictive,” he laughed. “You get one and that’s it, you want more and more.”

“So what is it like to be out of jail?” I asked him then.  He puffed smoke downwards and tapped the roll up briskly against the ashtray.

“Amazing,” he nodded at me.  “Even more amazing that mum and dad aren’t here to do my head in, isn’t it Mike?”

“Oh yeah,” Michael said, patting the table with both hands.  “Hope they stay away for ages!  Party time while they’re away!”

“Suppose I’ve got to find some kind of job,” Anthony said with a yawn, leaning back into the wall behind, his position so sprawling and relaxed that I sort of felt my body mirroring his; loosening, melting, ridding itself of tension.  “But I guess we better talk about this party of yours eh?  Shall we have a drink?  Here look.”  He grabbed a bottle from the crowd that stood lined up at the other end of the table.  Most were empty and corkless.  He snatched one and pulled it forward. “Looks like mum forgot to polish this one off before she went.”  He stuck the roll up between his teeth, pushed a pile of magazines to one side, found three empty mugs and plonked one down in front of each of us.  He opened the bottle and sloshed us each a drink.  “Cheers lads!” he announced, raising his.  Michael and I grabbed ours and copied.

“Cheers!”

“Cheers!”  I nodded as I sipped, having never tasted wine before.  It was warm and sweet and I just hoped it would not show on my breath too much when I went home. I sighed a little and looked back at Anthony, who had returned to his languid position against the wall.  He reminded me of a cheetah or a jaguar, as he lolled there smoking his roll up, all long loose limbs dangling, while his eyes remained sharp and alert.

“So there’ll be people I need to invite,” he was saying. “People to catch up with.”

“Obviously,” said Michael, nodding along.  I looked at him and tried not to smile too much.  I noted how different he seemed around his brother.  He seemed younger, of course, but not just that, he seemed quieter if you like, gentler, and you could see the way that he hung onto his brothers every word.  And now that I had the infamous Anthony Anderson right before me, I could also see how many of Michael’s mannerisms and characteristics came from him.  Mike’s warmth and humour, his fierce, don’t give a shit attitude, had all been finely honed in honour of his older brother.  Michael was a smaller version of Anthony, I realized, and I found this rather touching.

“We’ll kick things off around eight.” Anthony was telling us, as he leaned forward and topped up our drinks. “Invite who you like but tell them to bring their own drinks.  And make sure people have cleared it with their parents or whatever.  The last thing we need is mums and dads banging on the door in the middle of it.”  He raised his eyebrows at us and we nodded back at him faithfully, so he grinned and stubbed out his cigarette.  His smile was like Michael’s too, I noticed then, full of promise, and mischief. He rubbed his palms together in glee. “Gonna’ be a great night boys!”

On the morning of my fourteenth birthday, I was dragged out of groggy, unsatisfying sleep, to the sound of my mother tapping persistently on my bedroom door.  “Wakey wakey birthday boy!” she was cooing girlishly.  “Come on, I want to see you open your presents before I go to work!”  I blew my breath out over my drooping lower lip, threw back my covers and stumbled from my bed.  I opened the door and there she was, beaming like a vacant lunatic in her Co-Op uniform.  She did a little dance, with her arms full of presents wrapped in black and white striped paper.  The whole thing unnerved me; not least the presence of Howard, lurking sullenly behind her, with his fleshy arms crossed over his puffed out chest.  “Happy birthday Danny!” she sung, while I pushed out a tense smile as my shoulders sagged.  This was how it would always be, I mused.  Life; marred by the looming form of a vaguely censored monster.  He was never too far away from her.  It was as if he dared not leave us alone together for too long for fear we might put our heads together and figure out the truth about him.  I accepted the gifts she pressed into my arms and sat down on the edge of my bed with them.

“Thanks mum,” I said, wincing at the thought of opening them with an audience.  My stomach was already doing its new thing.  The stuttering realization of fear.  The climbing, scrabbling build up of bunching up nerves.

“Fourteen years old!” my mother clapped her hands together and declared, spinning halfway around to announce this news to Howard.  “I can’t believe it!  You’re getting so grown up!”

I have to admit, I was impressed with the first gift from her.  It was a brand new Nirvana t-shirt, white, with a black image of Kurt Cobain playing his guitar.  I was so surprised and excited, I started pulling off the one I already had on. “Mum this is amazing!  Thanks! I love it!”

“Ooh love, what have you done to your tummy?” I heard her asking me, as I tugged the new top down over my head.  In my excitement I had completely forgotten about the spread of colours on my abdomen.  My stomach sank even lower.  I pulled the t-shirt down and ran a hand back through my hair, and for a moment all I could do was stare at the floor, as a million things rushed through my head in a panic.  I opened my mouth.  What if I said it?  What if I pointed at him and told her?  I swallowed, picked up the next present and started to open it.

“Just playfighting,” I heard myself mutter.  “Just mucking about.”

“You should be more careful,” she told me, clicking her tongue.  “One of you will get hurt!” I nodded and then gasped again.  She had bought me Nirvana’s first album Bleach.  I had a taped version from Billy, but not the real thing.

“Wow mum!  Thank you!” I smiled in genuine surprise.  My mother laughed and looked pleased with herself.

“You’re welcome!  I’ll admit I did ask the man in Our Price to help me a bit!”

“Love it,” I said, turning the cassette over in my hands.  There was a snort from behind then.  Howard cleared his throat.  Tapped his toe twice.  My mother turned to look at him, and he smiled at her sweetly.

“You’ll be late for work,” he warned amiably. “If you don’t get him down to see the other one.”

“Oh Christ, you’re right!” she cried, checking her watch and making a face.  “Danny, open the rest of those later!  The main one is downstairs!  Come on!” I put the parcels behind me, and she tugged me from my room and out onto the landing.  We followed Howard down the stairs, and into the kitchen, but just at the door, she pulled me back and then placed her hands over my eyes.

“Mum?”

“It’s okay, it’s alright, just walk forward.  Into the kitchen.” I stepped warily forward, my hands slightly raised, until I felt the cold of the lino beneath my bare feet.  “Okay, look now!” she said and dropped her hands.  I looked.  Leaning seductively against the kitchen table, shining in the golden light that streamed through the  window, was a beautiful midnight blue mountain bike.  My mouth dropped wide open.  I was so happy, so surprised I could barely speak. I reached out for it, touched the handlebars and then dropped one hand onto soft, leather seat.

“Do you like it?” my mother asked from behind me.  It was the stupidest question I had ever heard in my life.  It looked brand new, but it couldn’t be.  I’d never had a new bike in my life, and neither had John.  They were just too expensive.  I was grinning so much it was beginning to hurt my cheeks.

“It’s amazing!” I told her, as she grabbed her workbag from the side and planted a clumsy kiss on my forehead.

“Glad you like it honey, I’ve got to run.”

“It’s amazing mum, thank you so, so much…” I crouched down, running my hand down the slope of the frame. “How did you ever afford it?”

My mother opened the door, her car keys swinging from one finger. “Ah well,” she chuckled, “You’ll have to thank Lee for that love.  It’s from him as well.  He even picked it out for you. I’ll see you both later!”

She left.  I froze.  My finger was stuck to the frame, my eyes fixed ahead.  Had I heard her right?  The pleasure and the excitement slipped right through me then.  I practically heard it crashing into the floor.  I finally moved my hands from the bike and dragged them slowly down my face, closing my eyes into them briefly, wishing it was not true.  I dropped them into my lap and glared at the bike.

“Well you heard her,” Howard spoke then from behind, and there was no mistaking the satisfaction that dripped from his voice.  “You gonna’ thank me properly, or what?”

I didn’t answer him.  I couldn’t.  My mouth was dry, and my throat raw and closed.  I wanted to reach out and touch the bike again, I wanted to drag it through the door, out into the sunlight and climb onto it, but I knew I could never do any of those things now.  I heard him stepping closer.  “Hello?” he snapped.  “Did you hear me?  I think you’re supposed to be thanking me properly.”  There was a pause, as he lit his cigarette and inhaled.  The smoke drifted up and over my shoulder, tickling my nostrils.  “Oi,” he said then, and poked me in the back.  I remembered the circle on my arm and started to shake.  “You’re meant to be thanking me remember.”

I breathed out slowly.  Every part of me wanted to crawl away in shattered pieces, but I tried to control myself, tried to hold it together, as my gaze lingered miserably on the beautiful bike that I would never be able to ride.  “You picked it out?” I asked him.

“Course I did.  Your mother wouldn’t have a clue about picking out a decent bike, would she?” He stood next to me then and placed his hands on the bike, one on the handlebars and the other on the seat.  “She wanted to get you a second hand one, but I said it was better to get new.  This is expensive you know.  You need to take good care of it and make sure you lock it up all the time.”

I shook my head. “You shouldn’t have.”

“You what?”

“You didn’t have to.  You should’ve saved your money, I mean.”

“Ungrateful little bastard,” Howard said softly, the cigarette drooping from his slack lips.  He let go of the bike and stood tall.  I kept my eyes to the floor.  I was scared that if I looked up into those tiny, deranged eyes I would either piss myself in fear, or explode with rage and neither would be a good thing on my birthday.

“I am grateful,” I told him tightly.  “I just mean you didn’t have to.”

“You seemed pretty happy with it a minute ago,” he said. “Until you found out I paid for it!”

“Look,” I said, dragging my eyes from the floor to meet his.  I took another deep breath to steady myself, to force myself on.  “You don’t like me.  Why’d you want to buy me this?” I gestured weakly at the bike and watched his eyes seem to glaze over with rage.  We stared at each other.  My shoulders rose and fell while my breath hissed through my nostrils.  I knew I should shut up.  Leave it at that.  Get to my room, to safety, but the argument was there, building up behind my tongue amidst a thousand others, the unfairness of it all. “You’ve only done this to impress her,” I heard myself saying.  “You hate me.  You’ve only done this to impress her and make me look bad, like you always do.”

His head cocked slowly to one side.  His cigarette dangled until he plucked it out with his fingers and breathed smoke up towards the ceiling. “Is that right?  I thought I was buying you a bike for your birthday to be nice.  But you know better, eh?”

I took a step backwards then, back towards the hall.  I licked my lips as Howard stared into me.  “I’ve been toeing the line,” I said.  “But it doesn’t make any difference with you.  You’re still a bastard to me the whole time.”

“Oh is that right?” he nodded now, dipped his whole head up and down as if he were bobbing about under the water.  His hands were on his hips, the fag had smouldered out, and his broad shoulders were twitching and rolling.  “So buying this bike is being a bastard to you is it?  I’m sorry Danny I didn’t realize! And I suppose getting you to clean your room and help around the house is being a bastard to you too, is it?”

I rubbed at my stomach with one hand, and stepped back again. “You know what I mean.” I said. “So I don’t want that bike thanks.  Take it back.  Get your money back.”

“You what?”  He thrust his head forward from his rippling shoulders then.  His far reaching forehead had turned a purplish red, and his eyes were bulging.  “Do you want to say that again, in case I misheard you?  Do you want to say those words again?”

I took another step backwards. “I don’t want it,” I told him. “I don’t want anything from you.”

His expression was mortified, not just enraged but baffled, and disappointed, as if the words I spoke were the last words he had ever expected to hear.  He came at me then, and it was like he had to, because he didn’t know what else to do with all that confusion and conflict.  “Well you’re fucking having it if I say you’re having it!” he roared at me, grabbing the front of my new top and dragging me forward by it.  He pushed his face into mine, and I turned my cheek, and I could feel the blackness coming from him, the impossible shaking rage, and I could smell old Spice and peppermint mouthwash and Benson and Hedges fags. “You’re fucking having the fucking bike, alright?”  There was no way out so I nodded at him.

“Alright!”

“Look at it.”  He let go of my top and spun me around to face the bike.  He dropped his hands onto my shoulders.  I could hear his rapid, laboured breathing.  It occurred to me that he was trying to calm himself down, rein himself in, and it crossed my mind then to incite him to lose control, to provoke him further and see how far he went.  “Look at that bike.  I never had a nice fucking bike like that when I was your age!  Brand fucking new it is!  Most expensive one in the shop! You will be grateful for it, you hear?” I glared at the wretched bike, seething under the weight of his hands, and I pictured myself lashing out and kicking the bike, slamming it hard into the pavement.  He squeezed my shoulders then.  It felt like he was screwing them up, scrunching them in his claw like hands, and the pain was sharp and nasty hitting all of the nerves, whipping the breath to scream from me. “Do you understand?” he roared into my head.

“Yes!” I screamed back at him. “Yes!”

He let go.  “Now turn around and say thank you properly like you should have done in the first place.”

I was shaking as I turned around to face him, but it wasn’t so much from fear anymore, but from anger.  I ran my eyes over his big red face, as his piggy eyes glittered with spite.  I wished I had a flick knife on me.  I thought about how it would feel to shove a blade right into one of those round marble eyes.  “I hate you,” I told him.  He slapped me hard across the mouth.  The force whipped my head to one side and I tasted blood and I was glad.  I sucked it up between my teeth and let it sit on my tongue.  And I looked back at him and gave him a small smile. “I hate you,” I told him again. “And one day I am going to fucking kill you.”

I ran then.  I moved so fast he had no time to react.  He was stunned and rigid, still taking in the threat and I ran for the hall, skidding past the phone just as it started to ring.  I don’t know why I snatched it up and answered it.  I saw myself doing it and wondered why I wasn’t just running past it, running for my room.  “Hello?” I barked into it, my back to the wall.  Howard appeared in the hallway as if he had not even moved.  His head was low and slightly forward.  His lips had disappeared and his brow overshadowed his eyes.

“Daniel is that you?” My grandmas voice was on the other end, high pitched, brittle, and pissed off.  I pressed a finger to my mouth, and looked at the blood on it.

“Yeah it’s me,” I told her with a little laugh. “How are you?” I felt my lip throbbing as I spoke but I was pleased, pleased that it was just pain, pleased when I saw Howard’s shoulders relax into defeat.

“Happy birthday!” she was telling me. “You better tell me all the trouble you’ve been up to lately.  You better tell me all about this new man in your mothers’ life. She hasn’t brought him to meet me yet you know!”

“You mean Lee?” I asked, keeping my eyes on him.  Holding him back. “Oh yeah I can tell you all about him Gran.  What do you want to know?”

He backed off then.  Turned and slunk into the kitchen, and it was weird the joy that washed over me then.  I felt wired and alive.  I felt the blood pumping from me and I pictured him stood like stone in the kitchen.  Moments later I heard him slamming the back door behind him, and I dropped my head back onto the wall as the relief nearly floored me.

Later that night I was sat on my bed, listening to Bleach and still basking in this rare feeling of triumph.  My tongue flicked back and forth across my cut lip and I realized that it was okay.  That it was only pain, and pain was better than fear.  I had my notebook balanced on my knees and I left it there while I curled my fingernails up into the palms of my hands.  I pressed them into my skin until it hurt and I told myself there, see?  Just pain.  That’s all it was.  I replayed the beautiful words in my head. I hate you and one day I am going to fucking kill you.  I wriggled with pleasure and scribbled into my notebook.  I pictured the bike still stood in the kitchen, beautiful and pointless.  I swore to myself I would never ride it.  The music swept its rage up inside of me, setting my teeth on edge as I gritted them together and nodded along violently.  Doing what he wanted had got me nowhere.  So fuck it, I thought.  Fuck being a good boy and toeing the line, fuck it!  Fuck it, it’s no life just being bored and scared the whole time, fuck it! Pain is okay, I wrote in my book.  Pain is okay because it reminds you that you are still alive.

28

The custody sergeant was a man in his fifties, with dazzling white hair, and a handlebar moustache to match.  I found myself gazing at him in wonder, while he took down our names and addresses.  He reminded me of Captains Birds Eye.  He just seemed bored, I thought, bored of his day, bored of life.  We were taken through to be fingerprinted, which I assume they did on purpose to shit us up a bit.  It worked on Higgs, I can tell you.  By the time they were done, the angelic faced shit was a blubbering mess of snot and tears.  I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t been feeling so sick.

We had to sit and wait on a hard bench, where the custody sergeant could keep his weary eye on us.  Officer Heaton made the calls and then came to stand in front of us to give us a stern talking to.  Michael and I gave well practiced nods, kept our expressions solemn and ashamed, and called him sir.  Higgs sat and sobbed noisily the whole time.  Luckily for him, his parents arrived first to pick him up.  They stormed through the double doors, the mother all small and nervous and wringing her hands before she dragged her child away from us to wrap her arms firmly around him.  The father, who looked uncannily like his son, was nothing less than outraged.  I thought he was going to explode, or have a heart attack or something.  He was shouting and swearing and gesturing pretty violently towards Officer Heaton.  Michael and I looked on in vague amusement.  He was the colour of beetroot as he exploded in front of us all. “Those thugs are bullying my son!  Targeting him!  Why the hell have you arrested him, when it’s them attacking him!”  Officer Heaton took him aside in the end.  I wished we could have heard what was said, but when Mr. Higgs emerged, sweating under the arms of his short sleeved shirt, he merely stalked rigidly past us, and stormed out through the doors, with his wife and child scuttling after him.

The sick nerves kicked in after that.  I felt worse than ever.  Sweat had broken out in a slick sheen across my forehead, and between my shoulder blades.  I was starting to shit myself about all of it.  Getting picked up by the police again.  Pissing my mother off.  Howard.  Michael and I had to sit and wait on that bench for another agonizing fifteen minutes after Higgs left.  I sat and considered the passing of time as nothing less than cruel torture.  It was almost a relief when Mrs Anderson, in all her shrew faced glory came strutting hen like through the doors, with Howard just behind her.  At least the waiting was over.  There was a sickening twist of nerves in my gut though, making me gag once more, making my skin crawl.  The moisture evaporated from my mouth, and I could not look at Michael, as I knew the fear would be stamped all over my face.

“You might think it’s just boys being boys,” we could hear Heaton telling them at the desk.  “But it keeps being the same boys, and I’m sick of the sight of them to be honest.  One more offence like this and they’ll both find themselves up in front of the magistrate.”  He turned his eyes on us then, as we sat on the bench with our heads hanging, both of us unwilling and unable to meet their eyes. “Is that what you want?” he asked, and we shook our heads in unison.  “I suggest you stay away from Edward Higgs, including at school,” he went on, sighing loudly.  “I don’t want to see any of you back here a third time.”

“It won’t be happening again,” Howard assured him then, his smile broad and enticing.  He stood with his feet spread and one hand resting lightly on his hip.  He gestured towards me with his other hand.  “Things have been a bit unsettled at home, you know, with moving and everything.  I’m not making excuses of course, but hopefully this was just a silly moment of madness.  Things are more settled now.  Hey, how’s the sale on the house going anyway?  Meant to ask you the other night.”

I shifted my feet on the floor, looked up through my hair and saw the two men standing with relaxed poses.  I felt Michael jab me urgently with his elbow, but I was still not able to look at him.  He got up reluctantly when his mother stormed past him, shoving her way viciously out of the doors.  He trailed after her slowly, his feet dragging.  Howard came towards me then and gestured for me to get up, so I did.

I was staring in a half day dream, my eyes fixed on Michael, up ahead.  I saw his mother grab him by the back of his shirt.  She was squawking in that awful desperate voice of hers, the one that made her sound like she was close to killing herself.  I felt Howard slip his hand around the top of my arm as I remained still and staring.  “When will you ever fucking learn?” Mrs Anderson was screeching.

“Let’s go,” said Howard, his tone light and playful, his eyes on me.

“Where’s mum?” I asked then, as we went through the doors.  I was annoyed at how my voice came out, all strangled and weak like a fucking baby’s.

“Working her arse off, where d’you think?” he answered sharply. “They called the house, and lucky for you, I was in.” I looked up, but not at him.  I kept my eyes on Michael just ahead.  I felt strangely like I would be okay, as long as I could still see him.  As we walked towards his car, I felt his grip on my arm tightening.  I pulled back, but he tightened his hold even more, sending short bursts of pain up and down my arm, so I took a breath, forced my teeth down over my tongue, and said nothing.  He led me to where his silver Mercedes was parked, and the grip on my arm was growing tighter by the second, and as we reached the car, I gasped and winced, and I knew I was in trouble alright, and I remembered my face against the table that night and I felt this terrible panic roaring up inside of me.  Howard unlocked the car and finally opened the passenger door for me, and then I was sick.  It came out of nowhere.  Just frothed up over my teeth and landed on my boots.  “Fucks sake!” Howard cried, stepping back from it.  I just stared at it miserably, my shoulders sagging and my breath hitching.  There was no more.  Just that one puddle of pale cream sick steaming at my feet, the end result of too much vodka and too much sun.  “Get in,” he hissed, so I did.  He slammed the door, walked around the bonnet and climbed in the other side.

I gazed vacantly out of the window then, and I saw Michael getting into his mothers’ beaten up old Escort, and she was still screaming at him from the drivers’ seat, and when he said something back to her, she lashed out and slapped him across the back of the head.  The door closed on him and our eyes met.

Howard ignited the engine. “Let’s get you home little man,” he said chirpily.  I could feel the top of my arm throbbing and burning.

“It wasn’t our fault,” I said then, my eyes still on Michael, as both cars drove away.

“Oh well of course, you would say that wouldn’t you?”

“You can’t do anything to me, it’s not your right, if you touch me even one time I’m going to tell my mum.” I said it all so fast it was more of a jumble of words without spacing, without breaths taken in between, and although I was shit scared I forced myself to look up at him, to let him know how serious I was.  A small and knowing smile appeared on his face, as his eyes flicked calmly from the road, to me, and back again.  I examined the outline of his face from where I was sitting.  His beard and moustache, so painstakingly trimmed and groomed.  His large, straight nose was a dominant feature, as was his broad forehead, sloping  back into the receding line of hair.  He held the wheel with one hand while he dug around in the side of the door and retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.  He dropped the pack between his legs, plucked one out and lit up.

“Well aren’t you the little tough guy then?” he said to me, raising his eyebrows and looking strangely delighted with this.  “Giving me lip like that.  No one asked you to speak you know.”

“I mean it.”

“Oh you mean it, do you?  You mean it?  Well let’s get you home and have a little chat, then we’ll see what a tough guy you really are.”  His smile faded slightly now, and I sensed the atmosphere grow colder.  I turned my face to the window and watched the outside world, which suddenly seemed so far away, rush by in a whirl of colour and activity.  Howard drove smoothly through the town, and smoked his cigarette silently.  As we drove over the two bridges, he finished it and tossed the butt out onto the road.  “You’re really quite something, you know?” he said to me then, his elbow hanging out of the window. “I mean, I know your mum warned me, but it’s just one thing after another, isn’t it?  So what’s it all about then eh?  All this getting in trouble and being a smart alec?  What’s the problem?  All this dressing like a hooligan and listening to creepy music and giving your mother cheek?  You like being a troublemaker do you eh?  You like being mister tough guy and getting into fights?”

I stared out of the window as we sailed on towards the roundabout that would take us back to the estate.  I felt the sun beating down on my lap through the windscreen, warming the legs of my jeans.  I could smell my own vomit, somehow cheesy and dusty, wrinkling up my nostrils.  “I’m talking to you you miserable little shitbag!” Howard barked at me suddenly and aggressively, punching the steering wheel and making me jump.  He sounded anything but playful now.  “I asked you a question, don’t you dare ignore me!  I asked if you like getting in fights!”

“Sometimes,” I answered quickly, my face trembling.  “But it wasn’t like that.  They just chased us.”

“Yeah right,” he sneered. “That’s why the police picked you up and took you in, because it wasn’t like that, because it wasn’t like that! Bullshit you little liar.  And what about the drink then eh? Sitting on the beach boozing with your friends were you? I thought I had a conversation with you about toeing the line and behaving yourself.  Do you even remember that conversation?  Answer me dummy!”

“Yeah I remember.  And it’s nothing to do with you, what I do or…”

“Didn’t take you long to forget then did it?” he said, talking over me as he sped us towards home.  I glanced at him and saw his eyes were narrow and cold.  His face muscles twitched, and there was this weird unsettling energy about him then.  “I’m starting to think you didn’t listen to a word I said,” he growled, as he sped the final distance towards home and skidded the car to a halt in the driveway. “Right then,” he snapped. “Out you get. Looks like we’ve got some more talking to do little man.”

My heart was beating so fast, so hard, it was painful.  I thought about running, as I climbed warily out of the car, but he was already behind me, shepherding me quickly, urgently towards the house.  He seemed to block out everything, even the sun.  As soon as we were behind the house, and out of view, his hand was on my neck.  I was appalled and enraged, and sick of it, and I twisted sharply away from him, spinning myself inadvertently into the back door and pointing a warning finger his way. “Get your fucking hand off me! You’ve got no right!”

“C’mere,” he snarled, reaching behind me to unlock the door. I tried to duck under his arm, but he was too quick, kicking the door open and shoving me through it at the same time.  I stumbled into the table, and he was in, closing the door behind him and looking at me with glittering eyes.

“Don’t you dare!” I heard myself squawking at him. “You dare touch me! You dare touch me!”  He threw back his head and laughed at me.

“Or what?  You’ll tell your mum?  You really think she’d believe a word you said, you stupid little twat? After all the lies you’ve told her!”  He shook his head and was laughing so hard his eyes watered a bit.  “She never believes a fucking word you say!  She told me herself!  Everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie or a story.  She’d think you were just trying to split us up again, that’s what.  She’d think it was another one of your pathetic schemes.  Anyway,” Howard stretched himself tall and looked as if he had news for me.  “She told me to help out with you, you know that?  Yeah!  She told me not to take any shit off you!”

“You’re lying,” I said, my eyes searching for a way out.  He was stood in the gap between the table and the sideboard, and the only way out was the door.  I edged towards it, my hands sliding out behind me, searching for the handle.  “And she would believe me.  She’s only just met you.  She’d believe me over you!”

He snorted at me. “You believe that if you like little man, but you haven’t heard the conversations we’ve had about you lately. She’s at the end of her tether with you.  Can’t stand you most the time.”  He placed his hands on his hips and thrust his face towards me. “And besides that, don’t you forget who’s in charge around here now mate. Who pays the fucking rent and bills!  So if I tell you to do something, you fucking do it, and if I tell you not to do something, you fucking don’t, get it?  Or is that too complicated for you to understand?”  He stepped closer then, his small round eyes hard and shining in his swarthy face.  He pushed his face right up to mine. “Is that too hard?” he asked me. “Shall I spell it out to you?  You…do…what…I…say, okay?  All right?  Can you get your head around that?”

I stared back into his eyes.  I did not flinch, or move back, or look away.  I met him.  And I swear to god, for just a moment, and most likely fuelled by vodka and adrenalin, I felt no fear.  I mean, really and truly. There was no fear because for just a moment, as I stared back into his eyes, I forgot I was younger, and smaller, and I was expanding instead with hot red hatred that seemed to fill and swell within me.  “Why don’t you just fuck off?” I asked him.  He looked surprised.  He pulled his head in and his eyes grew rounder.

“What did you just say?”

“Just fuck off,” I repeated, through gritted teeth. “You’re nothing but a bully, and me and my friends are gonna’ find out all about you and get you the hell out of here, just you wait!” My heart was still hammering like crazy, but the anger was intense and delicious, and I meant it, and I thought about Michael and his plans, and Project Arsehole, and I clung to it, I clung to any fucking thing that would summon anger in place of fear.

“Say that again why don’t you,” Howard invited, rocking back on his heels. “Tell me to fuck off again.”

I ran my tongue over my dry lips. “Fuck off you fucking piece of shit bully, go and fuck yourself!”

Howard made a noise then.  It was like an excited growl that squeaked at the end, and his right hand shot out and grabbed my face.  Those huge meaty fingers dug deep into my cheeks, and I tried like hell to wrench free, but he pulled me forward, then slammed me back into the door, and the back of my head bounced against the glass window. I blinked, tasting blood as the insides of my mouth mashed against my teeth, and a spiralling shock of pain reared up in the back of my skull.  He held onto my face, squeezing so hard I thought my bones would collapse and crumple in on themselves, and then I felt the other hand, the impossibly huge fist, as it ploughed into my belly.  He let me go, and down I went, spluttering, gasping, retching for air that would not come.  I went down onto my knees and there was no pain at first, just no room to breathe. It felt like I was drowning, and my lungs stretched and begged for air, and then his face was right in mine again, and it was a horrible, twisted, hating thing. “Do you want some more you little prick?” he was bellowing at me. “Come on, you like fighting so much, get up and show me!  I got some more for you here if you like it so much!  Come on, you like fighting so much, you fight with me!  Come on you big girls blouse!  Get up and take a shot!”

I couldn’t speak, or breathe.  The room was swimming before my eyes, but I put one hand onto the floor and used it to push me up, while my other arm wrapped around my middle, where it felt like my guts had exploded and died.  The pain was hitting now, pushing insistently through my punished organs, making my stomach heave again and again, and the back of my throat taste of vomit.  Howard was getting impatient, hopping about from one foot to the other. “Come on, come on,” he kept saying to me. “Get the fuck up and show me what a tough guy you are! Come on!  Show me what you got! I’ll give you one shot at me mate, one shot to show me.”

He had to wait, his barrel chest rising and falling as his breath arrived short, and excited.  I fumbled for the door handle and used it to pull myself up.  I started coughing, and taking huge breaths to refill my lungs with oxygen.  “Come on, come on,” Howard was urging me, his tone softer now, his eyes almost dreamy.  “That’s it now,” he said as I straightened up the best I could. “That’s it, come on, come on, you know you want to.  Think how good it will feel.  You can do it.  I’ll give you one shot to show me how tough you are.”

I straightened up a bit more.  My belly was a roaring fire of agony, and the taste of bile in my throat was getting stronger.  My stomach felt like it was in my back, crushed and whimpering, and I still had to take these huge long sucking breaths to recover, but as I did, I kept my eyes on Howard, and thought about where to hit him.  The eyes were too small.  The mouth had teeth.  I wanted the nose.  Like with Higgs that time.  I recalled the feeling of my fist smashing into the bridge of his nose, and I was decided.   I hung onto the door handle with one hand, and curled the other into a small, tight fist.

“Come on then you little shit stain,” he was sneering at me goading me into action.  “Take your best shot tough guy.  Come on.”

Okay, I thought then, okay I will.  Fight back.  I’d fight back.  I would smash him right in his arrogant face and see how he liked it.  I didn’t know if I could do it.  I was just used to fighting kids my size, in scrappy little playground scuffles, with fast punching and kicking.  There was that worried, nagging little voice at the back of my head again then, telling me that this was all bizarre and wrong, that adults didn’t do this, that all of this was leading somewhere darker.  I leaedt back against the door briefly, as the pain ripped and shredded through me, but I still felt the anger, it was still there, growling back into life.  That fucking bastard!

I made my move with the intention of catching him off guard.  I lunged at him suddenly, throwing my fist into his face with as much force as I could gather, ramming it into his nose.  The second I made contact, I felt the sharp pain careering back down my wrist, and I cried out, pulling my arm back into my chest, shrinking back against the door with it.  Howard had rocked back ever so slightly with the hit, but he was laughing at me.  He shook his head and a thin smile stretched out across his face.  “That’s the best you got?  That’s really the best you’ve got mister tough guy?” he asked me.  “That was pathetic! C’mere!”

He grabbed me away from the door and threw me down onto the kitchen lino.  Before I could get up, or roll away, he placed his boot on my chest, and pressed down, applying just enough pressure to keep me down there, squirming under his foot.  Tears sprung into my eyes, and I used my hands to shove and pull at his boot, but it was useless.  I had no breath left in me, you see.  I could barely breathe with him standing on me like that. “Listen here, you listen here now, you little shitbag,” he was growling down at me, and as I stared madly up at him, he looked like a giant, like a mutant of a man, his head touching the ceiling, his limbs like tree trunks, and I wanted desperately to call up, this is not fair! “Who’s the strongest eh?” he was asking me in amusement, his top lip rumbling up and down as he spoke. “Who is the real tough guy here eh?  You or me?  Come on, answer, I want you to tell me, who is the strongest?”

It took nearly all of my remaining strength and rage to force any words out with his foot crushing down on my ribcage like that, but just staring up into his leering face, made this intense rush of anger scream through me yet again, and I wanted to kill him, and that my friends, was the first time, and the first of many.  I wanted to be as strong and as big as him, I wanted to surprise him with superhuman strength and power.  I wanted to pick him up with one hand and squeeze the evil stench of life right out of him.  I punched at his boot, again and again.  “Fucking piece of shit bastard!”

Howard giggled down at me.  His sloped forehead creased slightly. “Do you want to say that again?” he asked me.

“Fucking…piece…of shit…bastard!”

He looked surprised, and then annoyed and pushed down harder with his boot, until I could feel the rest of the air within me being squeezed out. “Repeat it,” he dared me.  “Call me a piece of shit bastard again.”

“You!” I gasped up at him then, because I had no choice.  “You….the strongest!”

He laughed in sheer delight, rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and smiled back down at me.  “You are so funny,” he told me then, and finally lifted his foot away.  He stood over me then, one foot on either side of me, and I could only lay there, fighting for breath.  “You really make me laugh.  I see this fiery thing about you, and it really amuses me.  It’s not going to get you anywhere though, just so you know.  I’m here to crush it right out of you every fucking time.  You got that?”  He stepped over me then and walked over to the fridge.  I watched with disbelieving eyes as he pulled open the door, grabbed a cold beer and slammed it shut again.  “Now listen,” he said to me brightly.  “What do you say to this?  I got a deal for you.  You don’t tell you mum about our little wrestling match today, and I won’t tell her you got picked up by the cops for being drunk and fighting.  How about that?  That sound good to you?  That sound fair?  Because believe me mate, you really don’t want her finding out about that.  If she found out about that, believe me, you’d be on a one way ticket to fucking care!  I’m serious.  Is that what you want?”

I looked up at him and saw him smiling delicately, with his head tilted gently to one side, as he took me in.  His small eyes were full of it, I thought, loving it.  “Do you want her to put you in care mate?” he asked from above.  “Because let me tell you, once you’re in there, there’s no fucking way back out again, I can tell you.  My little brother was like you once, you know.  He was a naughty boy, so they sent him to care.”  He nodded at me and drank slowly from his can.  He lowered it and licked his lips. “True.  Oh and the things that go on in those places,” he sort of grimaced and shook his head.  “We never saw him again, you know.  You want that to happen to you, if you keep being a naughty boy?”  I saw no point in speaking, so I just stared back at him silently while his eyes burned down into mine.  “So I’ll do you a favour shall I?” he asked. “I won’t tell your mum what you’ve been up to this time, and you won’t tell her we got a bit carried away with a wrestling match, yeah?  Alright? Come on.  Answer me.  Show me some life.”  I nodded at him once.  “Good, thought so,” he said briskly as he turned away. “Good boy.”

I lifted my head to watch him saunter casually towards the lounge, still sipping from his beer.  I watched the way he rocked from side to side as he swaggered, like a fucking caveman, the arrogant fucking maniac.  I remained on my back for a while, just breathing.  I heard the TV come on in the lounge and I thought to myself, okay, if I didn’t know it before, I fucking know it now; the man is a complete lunatic.  I lay on my back on the kitchen floor while my mind travelled around the areas of pain in my body.  My hand throbbed from hitting him.  My head pounded at the back.  My cheeks ached.  I felt like I’d been run over, ploughed down and left for dead.  I wondered what the hell to do, and I realized that they didn’t prepare you for this sort of thing at school.  They didn’t have classes about situations like this.  They didn’t hand out leaflets on what to do if your mum invites a deranged psychopath into your home.  I forced myself to think clearly and saw that I had two options.  Get to my room and lock the door, or just get the hell out of the house.  I chose the latter.

I rolled onto my stomach and pushed myself onto my hands and knees, grunting quietly against the pain.  I held onto my gut, holding it into place.  I scooted on my knees to the back door, and used the handle to help me up again.  I saw there was a long crack in the glass pane, where my head had collided with it.  I rubbed groggily at the back of my skull and opened the door.  Vomit rose up then, suddenly and without warning, as the sticky summer air met my nostrils.  Another puddle of sick spewed from me, all across the doorstep.  Walk, I told myself urgently, fucking move.  I stepped over it, and although my legs had started to wobble, I made them move.  I closed the door behind me.  I could feel a splash of warm sick on my chin, so used the back of my hand to wipe it away.  With every laboured step, the pain in my gut made me grunt and wince.  I went to the only place I could think of.

When I kicked open his back gate, I saw Mike was sat out on his doorstep, smoking a fag.  His dark hair hung over one eye, and one side of his face looked bright red and angry.  I limped towards him, and felt his eyes wander over me curiously.  “Shittinghell,” he said softly as I lowered myself down beside him. “You look awful!  What’s happened?  You been sick or something?”

“Few times,” I nodded, and looked at the house. “Is she out?”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “She gave me a lecture about behaving myself then went to meet her mates at The Ship.  She has a quirky parenting style.  What about you?  Could’ve shit myself when Howard walked in.”

I shrugged and searched my pockets for a smoke.  I came up with nothing so he passed me his.  “Here.  You look really awful mate.  What happened to your face?”

“Huh?”  I touched my cheek with one finger. “Nothing.  I don’t know.”

“Did he smack you or something?” Michael was peering at me closely.

I rested my head in one hand and smoked.  I felt old and faded and sickening.  I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.  “Did he though?” Michael asked me again in a lower tone.  “Because if he did, he can’t do that Danny.  He’s not even your dad or anything.  He isn’t anyone!”

“Just…” I scratched my head and struggled to find an answer, something that would make him shut up for a while.  “Just a wrestling match,” I said finally and nodded. “You know what he’s like…trying to get me into it….so stupid.” Michael stared at me, his eyes narrowing slowly. “He’s obsessed isn’t he?” I said quickly. “What a wanker.  I got him one good though.  He thought I was just playing along, but I smacked him a really good one right in the nose.”

Michael laughed beside me.  “Yeah?  Did you?”  I nodded, forcing my lips into a weak smile.  I passed the smoke back to Michael, and he finished it off and hurled the butt into the grass.  Our smiles had faded quickly.  “He still shouldn’t do all that you know,” he said then.  “Not if you don’t like it.  Is he gonna’ come looking for you?”

“No way.  I can stay over, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, course you can. She’ll be too half cut to notice by the time she gets back.  You sure you’re okay though?  I mean…”

“Forget it, it’s nothing,” I told him, and started to get up.  I tried to do it without giving away the grating pain in my middle.  “Why don’t we have a drink or something?  Cheer ourselves up.  Everything always goes fucking wrong.”

Michael laughed cheerily and scrambled to his feet. “Are you nuts?  Thought you’d just been sick!”

“Who cares?”

“I like your thinking.  Okay then, fuck it.  Come on then, let me be your barman for the day.”  Michael hurried into the dark house, calling back over his shoulder. “What would you like, young sir?  We have everything in stock!”

I shuffled my way into the lounge behind him and dropped onto the sofa, while he began to root through his mothers’ drinks cabinet.  Michael laughed, but I found the sound of it to be hollow, and anything but happy.  We would have a drink or two and fall asleep, I thought then, and I watched Mike as he poured us a shot of whiskey each with a shaking hand.

 

29

I woke up the next morning wrapped in an itchy green blanket on Michaels bedroom floor.  I seemed to be surrounded by rubbish and the messy teenage debris of his existence.  Jeans he had stepped out of and kicked aside.  Random socks with holes in them.  Grubby trainers, crumpled magazines and discarded food wrappers.  I stared at the yellowed ceiling and was immediately and miserably aware of the intense, cramping pain in my abdomen, accompanied by the urge to vomit.  My mouth was running fast with saliva.  My tongue wanted to loll, and my stomach was clenching.  I could hear Michael snoring softly on his bed, as I lifted the green blanket away from me, peered down and pulled up my t-shirt.  I gasped when I saw it; the perfect fist sized bruise, ugly and blackening.  I felt a mixture of awe and revulsion as I stared down at it, and it seemed like a stain, an unwanted mark forced upon my skin by someone I loathed. It made me want to scratch it away.  It made me feel like part of him was on me. I dropped my t-shirt back down and lowered the blanket. Tears pricked at my eyes and I wondered again, what the fuck to do?

I lay there for a while, in a depressed silence, trying to think, but every time I got a reasonable procession of coherent thoughts on the go, I would feel the blow to the stomach again, and see his face pushed into mine, and they would scatter, and fall away.  I wanted to curl up and cry.  I turned my head to look at Michael.  He had kicked his covers away, and was lying on his back with one leg dangling to the floor, and one arm lying over his forehead.  The side of his face turned to me, still looked a bit red. I swallowed and thought about telling him everything.  Why the hell didn’t I? Why had I lied about my bike?  Why hadn’t I told him about the tricks at home, and the nasty things Howard had been saying to me when mum was not around?  Maybe Mike would want to know. Mike, he didn’t take any shit from anyone, did he?

I glanced at my watch.  It was twenty past eight.  I wondered how Howard had explained my absence to my mother.  I thought only a little bit about telling her.  I had this feeling that her not believing me would hurt a hell of a lot more than a blow to the stomach could.  I kept hearing his words in my brain, over and over.  She would send me to care.  I would never get back out.  Worse things happened there.  I remembered her threatening it that time to John, when I had been on the landing, eavesdropping, and a tremor of fear shuddered through me.  I felt cold all over, despite the fierce August sun beating through Michael’s open curtains.

I lay there with my eyes closed.  I wondered for the millionth time what to do, what to say, how to say it.  I was tired, so tired.  The urge to be sick was coming back, and just as Michael began to moan and twist on his bed, I sat up quickly and reached for the bin he kept under his desk.  It was so full of crushed drinks cans and screwed up paper, I had to push it all down with my hand so there was room for me to be sick on top.  “You okay?” I heard Michael asking groggily, as I retched into the bin.  There was nothing left to come up, just sour yellow bile.  I nodded my head between retches. “Why you being sick?” I shrugged, wiped my mouth with my t-shirt and set the bin back down.  “Do you want some water or something?”

“Nah.”

“Something to eat?”

“No thanks.”

“Smoke?”

I shook my head and lay back down, trying not to irritate the bruise too much.  Michael swung both feet to the floor and yawned and scratched his head. “Why don’t you tell me what happened with Howard?” he asked me then.

“Nothing.”  I said it quickly, automatically, without thinking, and then I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see the doubt in his.  My head was pounding from the exertion of vomiting, and I knew then, why I didn’t tell him.  It was simple really.  I didn’t want him to know.  I didn’t want him to see me that way, floored and beaten, flat on my back with the bastards big foot on my chest.  I didn’t want to see myself that way; to me that was someone else, that kid on the kitchen floor, that wasn’t me, and I never wanted it to be me.  That’s not who I am, I thought in confusion.

“What’re you gonna’ do?” he asked me then. “Go home and face your mum?  You think Howard would’ve told her by now?”

For a moment I had no idea what he was talking about.  I opened my eyes and frowned up at the ceiling, and rubbed at my temples with one hand.  “Huh?”

“The cops,” he said, gesturing in impatience. “Think she knows?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” he said then, and he said it in this very firm, confident way which made me turn my head to look at him again.  He pushed back his thick black hair and underneath, his eyes were fierce with energy.  “Anthony will be back soon.  And he’ll sort that fucking twat out for you Danny.  I promise you.” I nodded and said nothing, but inside, I started to wonder, I started to wonder if this was a tiny fragment of hope I could cling to.

Eventually I crept back home, and I was playing a game with myself, pretending everything was alright, and there was no crippling pain in my belly, and there were no hairs stood on end on my neck.  I wanted to go to bed, listen to Nirvana and sleep.  What I found when I walked through the house, was my mother and Howard, entwined tightly in the lounge with the TV on low.  They both looked up and smiled at me as I passed by.  I stopped, and felt for a second like I had accidentally stumbled into another reality.  She tilted her head, her eyes were full of love, and she asked me how the sleepover had gone.  I shrugged in dumb uncertainty.  Howard squeezed her shoulder and winked at me over her head.  “You look pale,” she said then, frowning a little. “Are you coming down with something?”  I nodded, my expression vague.  Howard’s eyes remained brightly on mine.

“Off to bed, I’d say,” he said then with a nod.  I watched the way my mother looked back at him adoringly every time he spoke, and I watched the way her hands sought out his, reaching for them and bringing them down into her lap.  I didn’t feel like I could ever tell her anything then.  I just turned away from them and hurried up the stairs to my room.  Howard had obviously kept to his side of the bargain, I thought when I found my bed, and my music.  I wondered dismally what would happen if I didn’t stick to mine.  It’s a test, I thought then, folding my arms behind my head.  He’s told me to stick to the rules and now he is testing me.  I felt weak then, too weak to fight back, too weak to complain, so I just stayed in bed and listened to Kurt Cobain proclaiming I’m a negative creep, I’m a negative creep, I’m a negative creep and I’m stoned.   I decided I had no choice but to play along with things, and see what happened.

I tried really hard after that.  I was nothing less than a fucking suck up.  I did whatever they told me to, without complaint or attitude.  My mother was in a constant state of shock about it.  She kept widening her eyes every time I did what I was asked to do, she kept smiling inanely at me while my bruise changed colour daily, as it spread out across my abdomen like a violent rainbow.  I couldn’t wait for it to just disappear.

When my mother was at work, Howard would start to grumble.  He couldn’t help himself.  He hated mess.  It set him on edge, made him restless and irritable.  He brought the vacuum cleaner up to my room one morning when I was still in bed, tapped on my door and stood out on the landing, smoking a cigarette.  I opened the door and saw the hoover, and a whole bunch of cleaning sprays, and cloths beside it.  I felt the urge to scream fuck you at the top of my lungs, but I didn’t.  I just sighed and dragged the vacuum cleaner in through my door.  “Good boy,” he announced in this overly enthusiastic tone that reminded me of the way people praised their dogs.  He came forward, positioned himself in the doorway and frowned into my room. “Bloody mess,” he said, shaking his head almost sadly. “Don’t know how you can stand it.  What is that bloody awful racket going on anyway?”  I turned to my desk, picked up the Nevermind cassette and passed it to him without speaking.  He turned it over in his hands, cigarette jutting from one corner of his mouth. “It’s too loud,” he declared then. “How can you understand what they’re saying?  It’s just all noise and screaming!” He wrinkled his nose as if the cassette itself offended him.  I took it back and chucked it on my bed.  “Favourite band are they?” he asked me then, jamming one hand in the pocket of his jeans.  I felt my cheeks getting warm.  I felt my jaw stiffening.

“Yep.”

He snorted derisive laughter at me.  “ Yeah  I can see that!  Personally I think you look a right state dressing like that.  And all that hair!  You can’t even see where you’re going half the time.”

“Not your problem,” I reasoned, glancing at him briefly.  I plugged the vacuum into the socket under my desk.  He just leaned in the doorway, puffing his smoke all over my room.

“Bloody depressing shit, if you ask me,” he went on. “Well come on then.  Get a move on.  We can show your mum when she gets home.  She’ll be well pleased.”

I stared back at him, not understanding.  I looked behind him, wondering when he was going to leave.  He didn’t leave though.  He refused.  He stood there the whole time, shouting out when he thought I had missed a spot on the carpet.  Then he passed me the sprays and told me to clean the window and the walls and the skirting boards.  I said nothing.  What could I say?  I just did it, vacuumed and dusted and cleaned the whole room from top to bottom, not saying a single solitary word, until he was finally satisfied.  He gave it a once over, squinting and peering around, as if desperate to locate a speck of dust, or a rogue sock.

“All right,” he said then, narrowing his small eyes at me. “Good enough.  But you’ve got to keep it this way, that’s the thing.”  His thin eyebrows shot up into his shining forehead and a smile tugged at one side of his mouth.  He looked at me as if he were waiting for something, and I thought I had an idea what it was.  A fuck you.  I had one for him, I had a million, but I clenched my teeth together so hard I made my tongue a prisoner.  I kept my lips clamped down.  I breathed heavily through my nose, and I smiled back at him.

He should have been happy.  He should have known when he had things easy, shouldn’t he?  Well, later on today I guess I’ll find out if he’s as capable of regrets as I am, but somehow I doubt it.  So you see, I did try.  I did try to play it his way.  I did try to toe the fucking line he laid down for me.  But as that week wore on, it became more and more obvious, that the man had standards I would never be able to meet.  As the days tumbled by, I became so disgusted, so enraged, so bottled up with blood red mist and dark, dangerous thoughts, that I could barely even breathe in the same room as him.  My mother had nothing to say whatsoever.  Howard barked his orders from morning until night.  He handed out chores and jobs as fast as he handed out criticisms.  One thing he became particularly adept at, was handing out arduous tasks when he saw I was about to go out.  Suddenly the washing machine would need emptying, or the whole house would need vacuuming from top to bottom.  I realized I was still being tested, and it grated at me daily.  I felt like my nerves were being shredded, peeled away, one by one.  If I washed the dishes, he would say they needed doing again.  If I tidied my room, he would say I couldn’t go out until he had checked it.  He freaked out if he found even the tiniest speck of dirt or grit on the carpet, and he leapt about like a girl if his bare feet ever came into contact with crumbs on the kitchen lino.

He started playing the victim around my mother.  Another cunning stroke in his master plan, I guess.  He would get out his pack of cigarettes and then frown at them. “Oh that’s funny,” he would say. “I’m sure this was a full pack earlier.”  Her eyes would meet mine, dark with disapproval.  He did the same with his beers and his whiskey too.  He was always certain some was missing, but he never liked to make a fuss about it, of course.  It was okay, I heard him say, maybe I miscounted, maybe I’m wrong, just forget about it.  Bullshit he wanted her to forget about it, that was the real truth.  Bullshit, because everything that came out of his thin lipped mouth was utter bullshit, he just didn’t want her to see it.  I knew exactly what the fucker was doing on a daily basis; turning her against me, not that there was a lot of turning left to do.  I wondered every day, what would happen if I told her the truth?  Would she believe me?  Would she believe the colours on my middle?  After everything that had happened between us, would my word really mean a thing to her?  Sometimes it felt like both her and I were living in the palm of his meaty hand, and I could feel him squeezing us tighter and tighter, until one day there would be nothing left of us, nothing but empty shells, puppets.

On occasion I thought about calling John.  I even stood in the hallway once or twice, staring at the telephone in a sort of trance.  But then I would start to think about how it would sound.  Howard makes me tidy my room.  Howard thinks I steal his cigarettes.  Howard insists I behave myself, so I am.  Want to hear any more brother dear?  I could see Johns face, joining up the dots, thinking well, you bring it on yourself Danny, that’s the thing, and besides, it’s about time you calmed down.  Would he come running back if he knew?  I didn’t think so.  Then I would picture him, safe with his precious dad at the other end of the country, enjoying his course, meeting girls, having fun, and it made this fiery ball of hatred leap into life in the pit of my stomach.

I lay awake night after night, contemplating how normal life was unravelling fast.  That was the sensation I had.  Reality was changing.  The ground beneath my feet was shifting, become rocky and untrustworthy.  I realized that I didn’t feel like anyone else.  When I looked around me, I didn’t recognise them, and I didn’t recognise me either.  I didn’t know where I had gone, but the boy I was turning into was no one I cared to be.  He was a boy who took these things.  He was a boy who did not fight back, or complain.  He was a boy who clung to the unrealistic hope that the dark things around him were not really real, were not really happening, or would simply go away one day.  He would wake up in the morning and everything would be back to normal.  He would know who he was again.  He would know what to do.  On the day that Howard used the inside of my arm to stub his cigarette out, I lay awake even longer, contemplating the nature of violence.  The burn was a perfect little circle of violence.  I could not take my eyes off it.  The memory was already unclear, fogged around the edges, dulled by shock.  No words had passed between us.  He had taken my arm as if it belonged to him.  He had smiled a sinister smile, his lips parting slowly to reveal the tiny row of teeth.  His breath smelled of the peppermint mouthwash he used.  It felt like he was giving me an injection.  A moment of sharp, breath hitching pain.

Violence.  In the dictionary it described it as a rough, or injurious physical force, action or treatment, an unwanted exertion of force or power. I thought about it every day, what it was, what it meant, and why.  Like the marks on my stomach, I felt like the circle stained and marked me.  I worried that it could somehow seep through my skin, his violence, seep through and reach me.  I wondered if in time I would become infected by it; if the raging blood of his violent nature would run alongside my own, changing who I was, and who I would become.  The small things you see, the small things always add up to more.  They pile up on you, day after day.  That was what he was doing then, and it was working, as I felt the shame weighing me down, diminishing me.  It now horrified me to think of telling anyone.  The gang, for instance, they thought of me as a fucking legend; I was the new boy who had started school with a fight, and got arrested for breaking Edward Higg’s nose.  They thought I was tough, like them.  Michael thought I was tough.  What would he think of me if he knew the truth?  If he knew that this man who was barely more than a stranger could take my arm in the kitchen and press his cigarette into my skin, and that no words were spoken, that I didn’t even cry out, or make a sound?  He would look at me differently, that was for sure.  Did I want to fight back?  Yeah, more than anything.  I just didn’t know how.  I felt like I had totally disintegrated since Howard had arrived in my world.