51

 

That should have been it.  That should have been enough for him.  I mean, he had me didn’t he?  Right back where he wanted me.  Shitting myself so badly I could barely remember how to breathe, let alone walk.  He helped me home with the weight of his arm around my neck like a chain.  He talked a bit, and as we walked I sensed another change in him.  Every now and then his arm brought me in closer, his hand a claw on my shoulder, and I swear I could hear his heart pumping in his chest, and his breathing getting faster.  It was that thing I always sensed under his surface. The thing that swam and rippled and hunted underneath.  The thing he ultimately had little control over.  The thing that wanted to come and out play every now and then, rearing its monstrous head and showing him how fun life could be.

We got home and he steered me inside and closed and locked the door behind us.  He nodded to the stairs and we walked up them side by side, him snorting with amusement when the heavy sound of snoring followed us down the landing from my mothers room. “Think I’ll have a little word with her in the morning,” he whispered then. “I’ll tell her all about your little stunt, and how I caught up with you and talked some sense into you.  She’ll be really impressed with me.  She’ll be really touched I cared, and didn’t just let you go.  I’m gonna’ tell her you got a bit freaked out by the wedding and everything. I’ll tell her you’re okay about it now.”

He opened my door and sort of dragged me in, using his arm to trap my face right against his heaving barrel chest, and there I could feel it vibrating all over him.  He was crawling with it, alive with it all writhing and fizzing inside of him. I just wondered how bad it was going to get.  “That’s it, that’s it,” he was saying, as if trying to soothe me, as if in some twisted parody of father and son relations, we had bonded over Halloween style terror in a beat up old caravan.  He told me to sit on the bed, so I did, and he closed the door and stood right next to me.  His was breathing in and out very fast, air whooshing in and out from his widened nostrils.  I sat and waited.  I felt numb and broken inside.  “Stupid little prick,” he said then, his anger choking his voice.  I stared at the floor and chewed at my lips. “What are you?” he asked me and kicked my leg. “What are you?”

“Stupid little prick,” I told him.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

I looked.  I hoped there was nothing but fear in my eyes, nothing else that would enrage or disappoint him. “Stupid little prick,” he said again, with his small eyes glinting and a moistness to his lips. “Learnt your lesson?” I nodded.  “Need any more?” I shook my head, keeping my eyes on his.  “Don’t believe you,” he said and thumped me in the back of the head.  I curled forward, over my knees, squeezing my eyes tight shut, clamping my teeth together over my tongue.  He punched me again, in the back of the neck. “Run away again,” he was saying, panting over his words, as the blows continued to rain down, on my head and my back. “And I’ll drag you back and make you watch while I cut your mother from her neck down to her cunt.  Got it?”  I fell forward then, down to the floor where I bunched up small and kept my arms over my head.  “Got it?” he asked again.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll start anew tomorrow,” he said from above.  “We’ll start fresh.  We’ll draw a line under this and pretend it never happened.  We can be like father and son, if we try. If you do what you’re told and be a good boy.”  There was one solitary kick that collided with the side of my head, and that was it.  He stepped back, and he breathed out, and I knew he was finished, and I knew that if I had looked up and seen his face, there would be calm upon it.  Calm, and satisfaction, and just the tiniest, smallest trace of guilt.  “That’s better,” he said, walking towards the door. “See you in the morning.”

I stayed on the floor for a while, my head buried under my arms, wrapped up with pain and darkness.  The thought of getting up and doing mundane things like turning off the light and climbing into bed depressed me beyond belief.  I thought I might as well just stay on the floor if that was the way things were going to be.  I might as well just stay down, if that’s what he wanted, if that’s what made him happy. I would just stay down and crawl about on my hands and knees and never lift my head, never raise my eyes or speak a word or anything.  He’d be happy then, the murderous psychotic bastard…

Eventually I did get up, and when I did anger came with me.  It came out of nowhere, crashing into me like a train, making me stomp to the wall to turn my light out, whip back my covers and throw myself into my bed.  It wasn’t anger at him though, or anyone else.  It was me I was angry with.  It was me I wanted to kick and punch and stab.  It was me I hated so much I wanted to punch my own face in.  Stupid fucking idiotic prick.  Pathetic little twat, even trying it.  I decided never to tell anyone about it.  I would do like he said, unpack my bag in the morning and pretend it had never happened.  I guess, for a while at least, I gave up.  I didn’t want to run, or hide, or fight back or anything.  I just wanted to be left alone.  I just wanted music, and my hand stole out from under the duvet to fetch my Walkman from the bedside table. I pulled it into the darkness with me, placed my headphones on and pressed play. I’ll start this off, without any words, I got so high, I scratched til I bled.. Kurt rasped into my ears, and I cried a bit then, for stupid reasons, like wishing he was still alive, and wishing I was dead…love myself better than you! I know it’s wrong, but what can I dooooo?

So after that, time passed.  I didn’t fight back like Anthony and Michael wanted.  I didn’t see the bright side, or the beauty like Lucy wanted.  I just kept going.  There was acceptance, and resignation.  I sought out whatever would soothe me, drugs and drink and music and being alone.

Don’t know how long I would have wandered on like that, in my own fuzzy little haze, in my self-constructed numb existence.  One day tumbled into the other. I didn’t pay attention to much.  But then things happened, things unravelled, and so did I, things that I’ll tell you about next…things that led me to where I am standing right now.

50

 

Some distance back, I leaned against a tree and lit a cigarette, while my shoulders shook gently with amusement.  He was lucky really, I mused.  He was lucky I could see the funny side.  He was lucky that I was feeling rich and sleepy with satisfaction, chilled and calm from our time away.  I kept one hand shoved into the pocket of my jeans, while I smoked the cigarette and kept my eyes on the caravan.  I imagined him sat in there, with his bag, shitting himself, and this made me chuckle softly in the darkness.  It was funny, really.  You had to laugh about it.  I couldn’t wait to tell Jack.  It was the stupidity more than anything.  He’d had two weeks on his own with Jack, and hadn’t thought about it then?  Hilarious.  The kids mind was fucked.

I wondered how long I ought to wait.  I had all night.  Kay had taken a couple of sleeping pills to send her off.  She’d be dead to the world until morning.  I wondered how long I should let him sit in there, stewing and trembling. I supposed after a while he would begin to relax and feel safe.  He would start to make plans about who to call, and where to go, unless that is, he planned on living in a shitty little rusted up caravan for the rest of his life.  It wouldn’t have surprised me.  I looked at the ground then, and saw stones scattered at my feet.  I considered picking up a handful and sailing them through the air, to clatter eerily against the side of the van.  A huge cat-like smile had filled my face under the moonlight.  I was still wearing my Mickey Mouse t-shirt.

I finished the cigarette, dropped it and ground it to dust under the heel of my boot.  I looked again at the wreck he had run into.  Green with mildew and mould, and sagging in the middle.  I pictured him crouched in the darkness, listening out for sounds, with only his fucking bag for company.  It reminded me of a fly stranded in the middle of a spider web.  Helpless.  Stupid.  Alone.  I had looked for that bag when he’d gone down the stairs for pizza.  I had known something was going on, because the guilt was written all over his face.  His eyes were shifty, and there was something about the way the mess had all vanished so quickly, that made me suspect what he had done with it.  I’d looked under the bed and found the bulging holdall, and I’d thought to myself, well look at this, that ungrateful little shit is planning a runner.

I thought about smoking another cigarette, but I was getting a bit bored and restless.  It wasn’t really much fun playing the hunter, if the hunted knew nothing about it.  So I pulled away from the tree and started stepping carefully over the undergrowth to reach the van.  I took great care not to step on too many twigs or sticks, moving silently and smoothly, feeling like a panther, a lion.  When I got to the door of the caravan I stood there for a moment just smiling madly to myself and trying not to laugh out loud.  The urge was strong and getting stronger.  The entire thing was just so fucking hilarious!  I was going to enjoy this, that was for sure, but I had to rein myself in just a bit.  I had to play it a certain way, and not go too far.  There were two reasons I felt like this.  One, I hadn’t been lying when I’d told him I wanted to be a dad to him.  I had thought of nothing else while we were in Florida.  I wanted to do right by him, and be involved in his life.  It had taken me a while to admit it to myself, let alone anyone else, but the fact was, I did want the boy to like me.  I thought he ought to be looking up to me, you know?  Respecting me, and wanting to follow me.  Sometimes I caught a glimpse of this, you know, in his face, in his wondering eyes.  Especially when we were at the club together.  He watched me, I know he did.  But two, this was the first time he had tried to run away.  This was serious.  So I stood still for a moment or two longer, considering the best way to play this, and then, as my physical being filled and throbbed and surged with the power of control, I stepped up and kicked the door wide open and presented myself to him.

“Boo!” I yelled at him, and then I threw back my head and screamed my laughter at the ceiling of the caravan.  The boy was sat on the floor, right in front of me, clutching his goddamn bag to his chest, clinging to it for dear life.  He screamed out in fright and shock when I burst in on him.  It was so funny.  Like something from a horror movie!  His face was a fucking picture.  Bright white, big blue eyes stretched in disbelief.  I booted the door shut behind me, and slapped my thigh, still shaking and roaring with laughter.  “Your face!” I cried at him. “You should see your fucking face!”

The boy did not look at all amused.  He was frozen to the spot, barely breathing, his eyes so wide they looked like two blue moons floating in his pale face.  I squatted down gently in front of him and cocked my head to one side to take him in.  “Now hey, this isn’t a very good start to our new family life, is it little man?” I asked him in a friendly tone.

“Y…you followed me here!” he stuttered, his voice shaking as much as his body.

“Oh I already knew all about this place,” I told him with a wave of one hand. “Don’t you worry about that sunshine. I knew you’d come here, that’s why I didn’t bother chasing you. Just had myself a nice leisurely stroll in the moonlight.”  I gestured with my hands to the dank and foul smelling environment that surrounded us. “And now here we are eh?”

Danny pressed himself back into the broken and rotting cupboard behind him.  “How did you know about it?” he hissed. I smiled and leaned forward, only stopping when my nose was almost touching his.

“I keep tabs on you mate,” I told him. “Didn’t you realize that?  Oh yeah, I know all your little places, all your friends.  I know everything about your sad little life, didn’t you know that? ‘Cause that’s my job see.  To look out for you.  To know what you’re up to.” I ran my tongue very slowly over my lower lip.  Again, I questioned whether it was possible to smell, or taste fear.  It seemed like it was.  It seemed like the caravan was thick with it, like it was swirling in the air all around us, clinging to our skin, invading our senses.  “That’s how I knew about this place,” I went on gently, while he panicked and shivered before me.  “You don’t have any secrets Danny.  That’s why there’s no place you can run to where I won’t find you.  I’ve got eyes everywhere, you see.  Plenty of people on the pay roll, does that make sense?” I grinned and chuckled a bit.  I was enjoying myself a lot.  I watched his eyes flick to the door, and then back to me.

“I’m not coming home,” he said then, slowly, shakily placing his hands down behind him so that he could push himself up. “I don’t wanna’ live with you anymore..I’m not. Let me go, just let me go, and you’ll never have to see me again. Isn’t that what you want?”

I stood up and allowed him to stand. “You think I want you to run away?” I asked him, genuinely puzzled.

“Why would you want me around?”

I sighed and placed a hand on the wall behind him. “You still don’t get it do you?” I asked him as patiently as I could. “Even now, even after I just explained it all to you earlier. Let’s go back to the part where I remind you that I’m your step-dad now, and you do whatever I fucking say, right? You remember that bit don’t you?”  I looked at him expectantly and he nodded.  Tears were swelling in his eyes, making them look liquid.  He was trying to hold himself together alright, trying to stick to his tough guy image, but I could see he was right on the edge.  “Okay then, so if I was to say to you, look Danny I can’t stand the sight of you, I want you to fuck off and never come back, what do you think you ought to do?”

“Go,” he said in a whisper.

“Correct,” I nodded, pleased with the answer. “Now if I was say to you, Danny I quite like having you around, you’re useful at the club, and it keeps me happy, and I’m quite getting used to this family thing now, what do you think you should do?”

“Go!” he cried out then, face crumpling, tears falling, and he tried to go, tried his best to push past me, but it was a struggle he was never going to win. I wrapped a hand around each of his wrists and held him back calmly with his hands up in front of his face.  His bag had thumped to the floor.  “I want to go!” he was sobbing now, struggling and shaking his head in this very pitiful way.  “Let me go! I don’t want to go back with you..I want to go, let me go, let me go..”

“You’ve gone and got yourself right worked up, haven’t you?” I said, my tone still gentle and calm. I seemed to know instinctively how to play this.  There was a time for knocking his block off, and a time for reasoning and patience.  It wasn’t his fault really, I realized.  Everyone had always let him do what he wanted, no one had ever really cared, and for the last two weeks he’d been with Jack.  Well Jack was Jack. He wasn’t one for laying the law down, far from it.  The man had no discipline in his own life, for gods sake.  He was scared, so I held him firmly.  “Calm the fuck down and take a look at yourself, crying and whining like a fucking girl!  I thought you were tougher than this!  I thought I saw that in you! You don’t want to be a whining little weakling do you Danny?  Do you?” I shook his arms and he yelped in pain.

“No!”

“Good, then don’t be,” I nodded at him. “But I’m not letting you fucking run away, what would be the point in that?  What would you learn from that?  Nothing!  I would find you anyway.  I would bring you back.  Isn’t it better just to stay with us and do as you’re told? Be a good boy and learn from me?”

He stared back at me, chest heaving and eyes leaking, and I could tell he was thinking about it, thinking about a cold fuck you and starting up again.  I put his arms in one hand, and used my other to hold onto his face and tilt it up to mine. “I’m your fucking dad now mate, don’t you get it?” I whispered to him softly, dangerously. “Don’t you get that?  Don’t you see?  You just need to stop fighting and being silly, and just go with it, just accept it. Your real dad never gave a fuck about you did he eh?  Not like me.  I do.  I care. You want that don’t you?  You want a dad don’t you?”

To my dismay he just kept on shaking his head in my grip.  I couldn’t understand it.  The ingratitude.  I felt the disappointment like a pain in my heart and the anger tightened up all of my muscles.  I held his face and squeezed it.  “Well tough shit little man, you got no fucking choice!  ‘Cause that’s the way it’s gonna’ be!  Now you need to think about it don’t you?  What your options are?  Keep trying shit like this, and threatening me before the wedding, keep testing me and have me drag you back every time, have me come down harder on you every fucking time.  Have me take a look at your mates again eh?  Still seeing them behind my back aren’t you? I know you are. That Anderson kid, all alone now eh?  His mum’s never there is she?  And when she is she’s off her face.  No one gives a shit about that kid do they?  Maybe he’ll just vanish one day, you ever thought of that?” I watched his eyes grow wider and smiled down on him. “Maybe he’ll bump into the wrong person in the wrong alley one day and no one will ever fucking see him again, eh? You know I’ll do it Danny, you know I fucking will!  I will if you make me.  And what about your mum eh?  You know I treat her like a fucking princess these days, like fucking china.  But that can change any time you want it to, oh yeah.  Maybe I need to start getting tough with her, when she lets you get away with stuff eh? It’s her fault too, isn’t it?  She wouldn’t complain you know, because she fucking likes it rough, I’m telling you mate. You want to see that do you?  You want to see what these hands can do to a tiny little face like hers?”

The boy did not move, or flinch or blink.  He just stared right up into my eyes and I stared right down into his, and we stayed like that for a while.  You know sometimes you feel like you can see right into someone’s soul if you stare into their eyes for long enough.  And they can see right into yours.  It felt like that.  Like he was seeing all of me, and I was seeing all of him.  I stared at him, until I saw it fade, until I saw all of the fight drop out of his eyes, and until I felt it all drop out of his body, and then I let him go and nodded at his bag on the floor. “Pick up your stuff. I’m taking you home.”

It was easy after that.  I walked him home with my arm slung around his shoulder.  He held his bag and walked along and said nothing.

49

 

            On the day they were to return from their honeymoon, I found myself glued to the lounge window, reminding myself of my first days in the house.  When I had been the new boy, angry and resentful, glaring through the dusty glass as Michael and the boys circled their battered bikes around the close.  I smiled a little at the memory, as here I was, doing the same thing now.  Clinging limply to the net curtains, my forehead pressed against the window, as my eyes scanned the road for a sign of their taxi.  She had phoned from the airport to let me know what time to expect them, so now here I was, waiting, waiting for it all to start again, and a hot sweat had already broken out across my neck and shoulders. I scratched at it irritably.  I wanted to scratch off all of my skin.

They had been gone for a fortnight.  She had sent me three bright and exuberant postcards, detailing every part of their Florida honeymoon.  We are having the time of our lives, she said, we are browner than ever! The words stuck in my throat when I read them.  Each and every postcard was ripped into pieces and thrown into the bin.  For me, the last two weeks had been a lull.  A torturous period of waiting and reflecting, and scratching.  And now, as I watched for the taxi, I wondered if I ought to go and hide.  I had spent the two weeks under the watchful eye of Jack Freeman, who ended up passed out on the sofa most nights.  He was no bother to me.  He didn’t give a shit about hoovering and washing.  He threw money at me when I asked for it, and didn’t bat an eyelid if I stayed out late.  He always had whiskey and grass and other things, and he never said no.

With my face pressed against the glass, I let my body go limp when the taxi finally rolled in.  It was them, and my chest began to tighten instantly, painfully.  I breathed in, and then out again, noting how difficult it seemed already.  The taxi parked, and Howard and my mother climbed out from the back, their tanned faces grinning broadly.  I squinted and then frowned at their matching Mickey Mouse t-shirts.  Fucking idiots, I thought to myself, shaking my head in bemusement.  Howard was chatting casually to the taxi driver as he helped them hoist their luggage from the boot.  My eyes followed my mother, striking in her skin tight jeans, her sun kissed hair loose and bouncing from shoulder to shoulder.  She looked like a movie star, I thought wonderingly.  Howard, my stepfather. Just running the word around my mouth made me want to spit, or vomit.  His t-shirt fitted him snugly, his muscles rippling smoothly beneath it, as he hauled out the last case and paid the driver.

I remained at the window, too nervous now to run, or hide, as the familiar feeling of inevitability washed over me.  I imagined how a man on death row might feel, with his life and his fate held in someone else’s hands, helpless and resigned.  I stayed near the window as they entered the house, dragging their cases and laughing and chatting.  My mother strolled into the kitchen, calling out my name.  I stayed where I was, shrunk back a little further, and already an idea was forming in my mind, as I asked myself why the hell I was going to put up with all this again?  I should have gone while they were away, I realized then.  I should have done it.

Howard stepped brashly into the room, all six foot four of him filling the doorway, his small eyes immediately picking me out. I saw his slow smile, and the way his tongue flicked out across his upper lip and I thought stepfather and felt sick.  “There you are,” he said, his tone dull and flat, whilst his eyes shone. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”  I could only stare back at him, my voice stuck at the back of my throat, as I remembered the last time I had seen him, and wondered what the payback would be.  He tilted his head to one side and his eyes narrowed down to slits.  “And have you been good while we’ve been away?  That’s the main thing isn’t it?  Have you been a good boy?”

I nodded in reply, just as my mother squeezed past him to reach me.  I saw the look that crossed Howards face as she did; the brief lip curl, the jealous sneer before it died again, and his smile broke out.  She threw her arms around me and pulled me close. “Oh missed you so much!” she squealed, which was obviously bullshit.  I patted her back rather coldly and she pulled back and her teeth seemed to be gleaming white in the middle of her tanned face.  “Have you been good for Jack?” she asked me, to which I nodded dutifully. “Oh good, that’s good. I knew he would call us anyway, if anything happened. Oh we’ve got so much to tell you!  Lots and lots of photos!  It was amazing, wasn’t it Lee?  Once in a lifetime stuff.  We even went swimming with dolphins Danny, with dolphins!”

She took my hand then and dragged me into kitchen.  I nodded and smiled and made polite remarks in all the right places.  I sat in the kitchen and flicked through three envelopes of photographs I didn’t give a shit about.  I made excuses as soon as it felt safe to do so.  I said I had homework to do, and shot back up to my room.  Once I was there, I sat on my bed and pressed my hands tightly together between my knees.  I stared down at the carpet and noticed that it needed vacuuming, that in the absence of daily room inspections I had neglected to bother with it, and Howard would notice right away.  I looked up and registered the clutter of mess on my desk, plates and cups and school books and tapes.  None of it in the right place.  None of it as it should be.  There was a hooded jumper on the back of my chair and some discarded socks on the floor.  Now, I started to shake, and I could not control it.  I shook from my neck to my toes, as I got up and started to do what I could to sort it out.  That awful clenching feeling was back in my stomach, the one that made it impossible to eat anything, and so I sat back down, my hands pressed into it, willing it to go away. I knew what my body was doing; telling me to be careful, to be wary, and it was right.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Howard tapped softly on my door and I had no choice but to get up and let him in.  The first thing he did was peer closely at my lock. “Hmm,” he said. “I don’t like that there.  Think we’re going to have to remove that at some point.” He closed the door behind him, and I watched his eyes scanning the room.  “Your mum had to go out to the shop,” he said. “You didn’t bother to get bread or milk in.  She needs a rest, but she’s had to go back out.”

“Oh sorry,” I said. “I would have gone.”

“Sorry won’t cut it and you know that, and look at the state of this!” He lifted his arms, gestured in frustration and dropped them again.  “Jesus Christ, I see Jack did a good job of keeping things in line!  Right well, now we’ve got a moment or two together young man, it’s time we got a few things straight isn’t it?”

“What things?” I asked, sitting back on my bed.  He glowered down at me.

“Stand up when I’m talking to you.”

So I got back up and I thought, so it begins, it begins, and I didn’t think I would be able to take it this time.  I should have run when I had the chance to.  I’d had two weeks of freedom, coming and going as I pleased, fairly decent sleep and a stomach relaxed enough to tolerate food.  Two weeks, I thought, without fear.  As I stood up, he dropped one hand onto the back of my neck, and pointed a finger into my face.  “You,” he said. “Have got a lot of making up to do to me.”

“What?  Why?”

“Why?” he laughed at me. “Why?  The wedding of course you little shit stain.  Did you think I’d forgotten about that?  Did you think you’d get away with it?  Threatening me?  Making your mother cry on her own wedding day?  Damn near ruined it for her, you did, and that is fucking unacceptable.”

I didn’t know what I was supposed to say, so I said nothing.  I knew that anything I did say in my defence would more than likely lead me into trouble, and so I kept my mouth shut and my eyes down.  He tightened his grip on my neck, shaking me a little.  “Eh? I’m talking to you! Lost your tongue already have you Danny?  Well that’s probably a good thing seeing as how nothing comes out of your mouth except crap and lies! Now I’m gonna’ take a minute to explain things to you, seeing as how you’re so thick and everything, seeing as how I always have to fucking spell things out for you!  So here’s how it goes right?  You know what I am now, right?  Your step-dad.  Yeah.  Thought you’d like that.  I’m your dad now Danny.  Your dad.”  I bit down on my lower lip, hard enough to taste blood, and my eyes burned down into the carpet, as he laughed his head off and rocked back on his heels in delight.  “Oh yeah, I knew you’d like that! But it’s true mate, so you might as well get used to it.  I’m here to stay, in case you hadn’t got your head around that yet.  You’re my stepson now, you know, you’re my family whether you like it or not.  So that means every time you get it wrong, every time you misbehave, or fuck up, whatever stupid little dramas you  get yourself into, it reflects back on me! Right?”  I nodded, and his hand loosened on my neck finally.  “Okay then,” he said.  “So when I tell you now to behave and be a good boy, it’s even more important, you understand? Now that you’re my stepson, it’s even more important, alright?”

I nodded again, and he dropped his hand from my neck and I rubbed at it slowly.  “Good enough,” he told me. “Hope you mean it this time.  Seems like I’ve given you more than enough chances lately.  Because I’m here to stay now, aren’t I?  Believe it or not, I would really like to just get on with you, just be one happy family.  I was thinking about it a lot while we were away.  I’m going to try to be a decent dad to you.  I won’t be clearing off anywhere like your real old man did.  You’d like that wouldn’t you eh?  Us all just to get along?”

“Okay,” I nodded and whispered.  “I get it.”

“Good,” he grinned and clapped his hands together loudly. “Now get this tidied up properly, you know the way I like it, everything in its place and I’ll come and check on it later.  The plan is I buy this house pretty soon buddy, and I don’t want you messing it up all the time. A place for everything, remember?”

“I get it,” I told him.

When he had gone, I fell to my knees and peered under my bed.  There it was, the holdall, the big one.  I dragged it out by the strap, and before I could think twice about what I was doing, I pulled open my top drawer and started to fling pants and socks into it.  I snatched up the clothes from the chair and floor and stuffed them in too.  I looked around the room almost desperately.  The mess on the desk, tapes and books and magazine.  I swept them all into the bag.  Then I grabbed my sock of money, my tin, my little bottle of whiskey and chucked them all in too.  When it was full, I zipped it up and kicked it under the bed, and sat down, my head in hands, my heart going crazy.  Should have done this fucking ages ago I was thinking.

Later in the evening, Howard came back up to check the room.  He ducked his head around the door and nodded. “Good enough.  Come on.  Your mum’s pretty jetlagged and off to bed soon, but we just ordered a ton of pizza.  Come on.”  It was an order, not a request, so I left my room and hurried down the stairs in front of him.  On the last step I looked back over my shoulder, expecting to see him right behind me, but he wasn’t there.  Gone to the toilet, I assumed, and went into the lounge.

We sat together in front of the TV, eating pepperoni pizza and washing it down with cans of coke.  They were watching Noels House Party and chortling away wearily, as they sat entwined together on the bigger sofa.  My mother started dozing off after a while, her head drooping, her eyes flickering, until she would jerk herself awake again and laugh self-consciously.  In the end she gave in to it and rose from the sofa.  “How long does jetlag last anyway?” she joked, with a tired laugh.  Howard got up quickly and scooped her up into his arms, making her squeal and giggle.  “Ah yes, you didn’t carry me over the threshold earlier!  You forgot!”

“Well now I shall carry you all the way to bed,” he grinned, rubbing his nose gently against hers.  “Night Danny,” he said to me. “Finish the rest of that off if you like.  Think us old folk are done in.” He carried her out of the room, and she waved a slow and dreamy hand back at me, and when they were gone, I sat up instantly, fear and adrenaline coursing through me like electricity.  Once they were gone, I could barely sit still.  I could not eat another thing.  My stomach was tied up in knots.  I did not know what to do.  How long to wait.  Where to go.

I needed to calm down.  One step at a time, I told myself.  One step at a time.  I turned the TV down and listened for their noises upstairs.  The shower, and the toilet, and the creak of floorboards.  The groan of bedsprings.  Low murmured talking, which eventually faded to nothing.  I turned the TV even lower and sat on my hands, squirming and waiting.  When I could stand it no more, when I thought my booming heart was in serious danger of erupting through my chest, I got to my feet and took several deep and steadying breaths.  “Do it now,” I whispered to the silent room.  “If you’re gonna’ do it, do it now.” I stepped out into the hallway and stopped to listen.  Nothing.  I took the stairs slowly, carefully, avoiding the ones that creaked, and again on the landing, I paused and listened.  I tiptoed into my room and dragged out my bag.  I looked around in a panic, wondering what else I should take, what else I might need.  I tried to calm down, tried not to chicken out.  My breathing was getting fast and ragged and I realized that what I was about to do terrified me.  I knew that I was in danger of changing my mind, as I had done so many times before, so I forced myself to think about the man sleeping in the other room.  The monster.  My stepfather, and all the years that lay ahead.  All the years waiting to be filled with bullying and fear, and I nodded at myself, and told myself to be fucking brave for once, to just get the hell out of there and figure the rest out later.

I padded softly back down the stairs, the bag on my shoulder.  I grabbed my denim jacket from the hook in the hallway and shrugged it quickly on.  I looked over my shoulder once, then opened the door, slipped out and closed it quietly behind me.  I walked quickly, fear building up in my veins, quickening my pace and my breath.  I crossed the neighbours lawns and rounded the corner.  I hesitated when I saw Michael’s house, and all of my instincts told me to go there, to go to him and explain everything.  There was still this massive wall between us, this thing that made our smiles tense and our eyes wary.  But I knew it would be the first place Howard would look for me.  It was too dangerous.  Too much to ask.  I had already wrecked his life enough.  So I hurried on.  It was nearly dark.  With the bag on my shoulder I reached the end of The Meadows.

It was then that I heard his gleeful shout.  It echoed out into the darkness, bouncing off the houses, and I spun around, and it was full of excitement and knowing, and there he was, back on the corner, staring right at me.  “Oi!” he bellowed again in case I had not heard him the first time.  “Where the fuck are you going?”

I turned around and ran.

I tore blindly through the streets and the alleys.  I disappeared into the darkness of the estate.  I hoped he would get lost in seconds, not knowing the shortcuts like I did.  The bag weighed me down, banging from one shoulder to the other as I ran, but I did not let it slow me down.  My hair whipped back behind me as my legs pumped up and down, and I felt my throat stripped raw as I devoured the evening air which hit my face.  I just ran and ran, and tried not to think about whether I could hear footsteps behind me or not.  There were no more shouts.  My heart was pounding, thud, thud, thud, booming through my ears, as I tore through the gate at the park and raced up the grassy hill.  I looked back over my shoulder once more, and there was nothing, no one, but I did not dare slow down, I kept running and running, not daring to believe in it.  I ran faster than I knew I was able to.  Faster and faster, as tears of panic streamed down my face and the screams piled up behind my lips.

When I reached the woods I crashed on.  Through the brambles and the thorns, stumbling and tripping, but never slowing down.  Finally I glimpsed the old caravan glinting through the trees and I raced on to it, my breath hitching, my stomach cramped up.  My eyes were growing wider by the second as I battled through the undergrowth, and peered into every shadow, every dark space, my hands gripping the strap of my bag.  I strained my ears to listen, but all I could hear was my own ragged, panicked breathing, and the crunch of the foliage under my feet.  I reached the caravan weakly, and leaned against the old door for a second or two, my eyes swivelling around at the dark woods that surrounded me. “Fuck,” I hissed, “fuck, fuck fuck!” The woods did not feel safe.  They did not give the impression that they would shield or hide me well.  They were a terrifying mix of noise and silence.  Eerie drawn out nothingness broken up by sudden, unexplained crashing or squawking.  Wildlife, I told myself with a nod, opening the door.  Foxes and rabbits, and owls.  I slipped inside and closed the door behind me.

48

           

On the day of the wedding, John drove all the way down from Leeds with his pretty blonde girlfriend in tow.  I got dressed in the dark grey suit my mum had hung up in my room for me, and came down the stairs when I was called.  I had a few mouthfuls of whiskey warming up my gut, and a smoke out of the window to take the edge off.  My mother was down the road at her friends’ house, and I walked into the kitchen and surveyed a scene that made me want to vomit.  My brother was stood with his arm around his girlfriend, this petite little blonde with a lilac dress on.  He was all dressed up in his sharp suit, with his short back and sides and his cream carnation in place.  As I stumbled into the room, Howard leaped in front of me and started attaching one to my lapel.  He was already in full flow, this big cheesy grin on his swarthy red face, trying to entertain and impress everyone.  He made me sick to my stomach.  John came forward when he saw me, his arm dropping away from the girl, and stretching towards me, as if to attempt a handshake or something.  He stopped though, and his forehead creased up and he stared at me as if he didn’t even recognize me.  It made me feel weird for a moment, the way he stared at me.  I felt like looking down at myself, checking I was still there.  Instead I walked past all of them, my lips pressed together, my eyes hard and my insides burning with rage.  As I walked I made a point of taking a cigarette from my shirt pocket and sticking it between my teeth.  I heard John gasp.

“Oh don’t worry,” I heard Howard saying easily as I stepped out into the garden. “We’ve given up on that John. We just let him get on with it.  It’s not worth the aggro believe me, ask your mother!” I could imagine his glassy eyes rolling in his face as he waved a hand at the back of me dismissively.

“He looks a mess…” I heard John say.

“Oh he’s been in mourning for that singer that shot himself,” Howard informed him with a snort and a chuckle.  “Given up trying to get him to cut his bloody hair as well. Teenagers eh?”

I leaned against the back of the house and lit up.  Part of me wanted John to come out and try again, and part of me wanted him to stay the fuck away from me forever.  I had nothing to say to him, I realized, not one single thing.  Jack Freeman was outside too, shuffling up and down the driveway in his tatty brown shoes, with a little roll up squashed between his tobacco stained fingers.  I looked him up and down wonderingly.  He had a smarter suit on than usual.  He looked up and nodded when he noticed me, and then went  back to his ambling walk.  I pressed my back into the wall, puffed on my smoke and watched with disinterest when the first shiny Rolls Royce pulled up.  Freeman wandered down to speak to the driver, and I looked at the long, sleek car and felt a growing sense of dread about getting inside it.  I loathed the thought of sliding in onto its cream leather seats, with John on one side of me and Howard on the other.  I didn’t think I could take it.  I really and truly thought it would push me over the edge if I had to get into that fucking car.  I dragged on my cigarette, my other hand jammed deep inside the pockets of my suit trousers. I pictured myself, moments ahead in time, sitting there, being driven to some pointless church in order to watch this monster devour my mother once and for all.  I just stared at it, hating it, hating everything, wanting to lash out, break something, attack the car, attack them, hurt them.

Just then Howard stepped out from the kitchen, and stood before me, and for just a moment his broad frame blotted out the sun, and I couldn’t see his face properly, I just stared up at him blinking in wonder.  He was all dressed and ready, shiny black shoes poking out from the ends of his dark grey suit trousers.  His hair had been trimmed, as had his beard and moustache and he looked every inch the proud groom to be, and I knew he couldn’t wait, couldn’t fucking wait a minute longer to get her.  I felt a crawling trembling hatred in my belly, and it was so heavy, I thought I can’t even hold my head up any longer, I can’t even breathe, or walk, or think or anything if this goes on much longer.  I wanted to fall flat on the ground and stay there.  He was already grimacing at me distastefully, as he plucked the cigarette from my hand and tossed it to the ground.

“You’re a mess, you little shit,” he growled at me, his tone agonized with impatience.  “You’re not ready!  That is not ready! Go and have a wash and brush your bloody hair..I told you!”

I bit my lower lip and looked him up and down.  The sunlight felt like warm gold drifting down on top of my head and I wondered if I could do it, if it were possible, if I could just go…I opened my mouth and let the words tumble from me. “I’m not brushing my hair for you…”

His eyes widened and colour shot up his neck and spread up to his cheeks, and he looked like he was on fire, set ablaze by the sun that settled just above his head. “You little bastard, you will do as you’re fucking told!” He shook his head at me and his nostrils flared. “If you try to ruin this day for us, I swear to god I will…”

“You’ll what?” I asked him, remembering that John and his girlfriend were still in the kitchen.  I pulled away from the wall and stood up straight.  “Kick the shit out of me? Get ya’ belt out again? Or maybe this time I’ll fall down the fucking stairs?”

He leaned down towards me, spit flying from his bared lips as he seized hold of the top of my arm so hard it felt like his fingers would sink through me, right down and into the aching bone.  “I am warning you…”

“I’m not coming to your stupid wedding,” I yanked my arm free and told him. Over his shoulder I could see Jack Freeman, stood on the driveway, smoking and watching us with silent grey eyes.  “If you try to make me, I’ll wait ‘til you’re down the front with mum, and when that bit comes when they ask if anyone has any objections, when that bit comes I’ll stand up and I’ll fucking object right?  I’ll scream my fucking head off and tell them all what you’re really like, and I won’t give a shit if they don’t believe me, ‘cause I’ll just make a massive scene and run out!  Do you wanna’ take that risk?” I stared into his eyes.  I barely breathed.  I waited for a punch to the belly, a kick to the shin, a slap to the face, but he knew as well as I did that John was only inside, and he could only glare back into me, his eyes bulging and his lips parting, and his teeth shining, and that was all. “Thought not,” I said, and walked away from him.

I didn’t normally like the beach that much; it being the main reason my mum had moved us to this town.  But I liked it that day.  That morning it was something beautiful to me.  I stopped, just before I jumped down onto the sand, I stopped and stared.  The sea breeze was running wild through my hair, lifting it free of my neck, sending shivers of anticipation and adrenalin down my spine.  There was hardly anyone about, just the odd person walking their dog.  The sea was right there, vast and silver and shimmering under the sun, waves rolling and lapping calmly up onto the shore.  I smiled to myself.  I jumped down onto the sand and started ploughing across it, until I was down at the waters edge.  I took off my suit jacket and chucked it under one arm.  I started walking along like that, kicking my new shoes through the sand and the water, gasping a little when the water got in and drenched my socks.  I wished I had my Walkman with me, but it was back at home, up in my room.

I walked along for ages, splashing through the water with my hands in my pockets and my hair in my face.  I wondered where I would end up if I kept walking.  Wondered if I should try it and find out.  I kept walking, fuck knows for how long, or why. What else was I meant to do?  Had no smokes, nothing.  I started to feel depressed. It came over me as suddenly and violently as the joy and excitement had before.  I felt it hit my knees, making them weak and lethargic. I felt it pummelling my shoulders, trying to force me down.  My head felt heavier, my soul drowning.

I wondered if I would sit down or fall down, but then I heard someone calling my name.  I was so confused for a moment, thinking it was coming from me, and I had gone insane, but then I looked up the beach and there was this little figure of a girl, hunched up on the sand and waving at me.  Lucy.

I stopped walking and stared at her, and it was like all the breath and fight left my body and I was floppy and soft and weak and numb.  I didn’t know whether to go to her, or pretend I had not seen her.  She had her legs crossed, and her lap full of text books.  Revising, I thought, revising for GCSE’s.  She was alone.  Her nut brown hair blowing out in the breeze behind her shoulders.  Her hand stopped waving, and she brought her arm down slowly, unsurely, back to her lap.  The trouble was, I could just make out the hopeful expression on her face, and I knew what would happen to it if I just walked on.  I didn’t want to see that, so I made myself walk over to her, and every step felt like the sand and the water in my shoes were trying to pull me down.

I tugged off the tie and slung it around my neck.  “Hi Lucy,” I said when I had reached her.  She was smiling up at me, but it was a furtive, self-conscious smile, and she swallowed once or twice before speaking.

“Hi Danny. What are you all dressed up for?”

I had almost forgotten about my clothes, and the wedding.  I blew out my breath slowly and glanced down at my ruined trousers and shoes, and tried to decide if her question was even worth answering or not.  Finally I dropped heavily and suddenly down onto the sand beside her, pulled up my knees and folded my arms over them.  I looked at her briefly before looking away again. “My mums getting married today.”

“Oh,” she said.  She didn’t know what to say after that, I could tell.  I could feel her eyes on my face, and something heavy hanging in the air between us.  Then she cleared her throat.  “To that guy you hate? Ooh, sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay,” I shrugged.

“So when is it?  The wedding?”

“Now.  It’s happening now. I didn’t go.”

“Oh.  Wow.”  Again, I got the feeling she was stumped.  I almost felt like getting up and walking away again, leaving her to her text books and pens.  What the hell did she want to know about my skanky life for?  It would only dirty the shine on hers.  She dropped one hand onto the sand between us and started using her fingers to pull it into a little mound. “I don’t blame you then,” she said eventually. “For not going I mean.  If you really hate him.”

“Got all dressed up,” I shrugged again. “Just couldn’t do it.”

“Won’t you get into trouble?”  I looked up at her then and she was looking back at me sort of sheepishly, half smiling and half biting her lip and glancing down at her hand making a sort of sandcastle.  I shook my head and sighed.

“What are you up to?  Revision?”

“Oh yeah,” she said, laughing a little and snapping the French book on her lap shut with her other hand. “Well, I was meant to be meeting Zoe down here to get stuck into it, but doesn’t look like she’s gonna’ turn up!  Oh well. You started any yet?”

“Nah.”

“Zoe neither.  She’s having a hard time of it.  You know, at school and that.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, we’re not in the same tutor group this year, she’s stuck with Higgs, you know?”

I shook my head.  I hadn’t paid attention to anything at school for a long, long time, least of all the other kids.   Lucy sighed and rolled her eyes and leant forward over her books to scoop more sand up from in front of her.  “Well she is, and he’s being a right little shit the whole time, you know, making fun of her, making life difficult.  Revenge probably, you reckon?”

“Hmm?”

“You know, for all that stuff, way back.  The cinema and everything?”

I nodded at her.  I had forgotten all about it.  The war with Higgs seemed a long, long time ago.  Another life time even.  “Forgot about all that,” I admitted. “Seemed so important at the time…”

“Yeah,” she said, plucking a strand of hair from her mouth when the wind blew it across her face. “And now we’re nearly at the end of Year Ten!  I can’t believe it!  This time next year we’ll be about to sit our GCSE’s for real!” She shook her head and smiled, and her eyes were wide and happy. “Then we’ll be leaving school! Do you know what you want to do yet?”

I could have laughed really, at the lovely innocence of her.  I was in two minds.  Half of me felt like getting up and getting the fuck away from her and her wholesome loveliness, and the other half of me felt like knocking her down onto the sand and pressing my lips down upon hers.  Weird.  I laughed instead, and it didn’t come out good.  It came out rather hollow and bitter, and her expression changed, her eyes becoming wary again. “Nah,” I told her with  a shake of my head “No idea.  You?”

“Sixth form hopefully,” she nodded. “You’re not at school much, I noticed that.  Well if you are at school, you seem like you’re not really there, or you wish you weren’t there.”  Her eyes widened slightly then, as if she was cross with herself for rambling, and she smiled shyly as her hair fell forward from her ear.

“Thought everyone felt like that at school,” I joked, nudging her with my elbow.  She tucked her hair back behind her ear and grinned.

“You know what I mean.  You’re never there.”

“I get bored,” I told her, meeting her eye.  “It’s boring.”

“So where do you go?  What do you do when you’re bored?”

“Nothing.”

Lucy laughed at me then.  She tipped her head back a little and her hair slipped like chocolate silk down her back and her eyes twinkled.  Her mouth was red and her lips full, like a constant teasing kiss.  She bumped her shoulder against mine.  “Maybe I should come and do nothing with you one day,” she said, and this time when I smiled at her, it was a real smile, I mean one that I really meant and felt.

“You’re welcome any time. But your dad wouldn’t like it much.”

“He doesn’t have to know everything about me,” she grinned. “So what are you up to right now?”

“Just killing time.”

“Oh, so sad about Kurt Cobain wasn’t it?”

I looked at her in in hurt surprise and her mouth snapped shut, and regret filled her eyes, but at the same time, she reached out and placed her hand down on my knee. “Fucking devastating,” I told her softly, shaking my head.  “That’s what it is.  Not just sad.  Fucking devastating.  Just another sad shitty thing in this sad shitty world. There will never be anyone like him again, not ever.  I’m gutted Luce.”

She held onto my knee and shook it under her hand. “I know.  I’m so sorry.  I knew you’d be really upset.  I started thinking about that night at Michael’s house, you remember?  When you guys kept putting Nirvana on, again and again and jumping about?  Good times.  Why do you think he did it?”

“Dunno,” I shrugged. “But you know what?  I don’t fucking blame him.  At the end of the day, it’s your life, and no one has the right to say you have to keep going through it if you don’t want to.  The stuff on the news is all crap, total crap.  Like we’ll all go and fucking kill ourselves if we listen to certain music! More like we’d kill ourselves if we didn’t listen to music! I know I bloody would!” I could have gone right off on one then, but I glanced at her and saw some sort of pity in her eyes that made me stiffen, and rein myself back in.  I shook back my hair and glared out at the ocean.  The sun was bouncing off of it, making me squint. “Anyway,” I said gruffly. “Just feels shit now.  Everything is shit.  All they play on the radio and the telly is shit.  You actually have to go out and hunt for good music you know, you actually have to hunt it down!  Now it feels like…” I shrugged my shoulders. “It feels like something is over, you know?  End or an era or something.”

Lucy was quiet then.  She eased her text books slowly from her lap and placed them in a neat pile beside her.  She drew up her knees, tugged her skirt down over them and wrapped her arms around her legs.  I wished desperately that I had another cigarette, but I didn’t.  I bit my lip hard, closed my eyes for a second and thought about a warm splash of whiskey trickling down my throat.  I peered at the ocean, holding one hand up above my eyes to shield the sun out.  It went on for miles, forever, just this endless arrangement of tiny green waves dipping and rolling, and even that made me feel depressed for some reason.  The vastness of it; it was too much.  I exhaled loudly and wanted to growl.

I heard Lucy sigh beside me.  “Beautiful isn’t it?” she said and I frowned sideways at her, guessing she meant the sea.  Instantly she smiled at herself, her cheeks reddening.  I smiled back at her, how could I not?

“It’s alright,” I said. “But I don’t get it in a big way.  I can take it or leave it I suppose.  I mean, I don’t get why tons of people want to live right by the sea, like it’s the best thing in the world ever.”

“Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up here,” she suggested brightly.  “Lots of good memories, I guess. Playing down here when we were little, and that.  So where would you like to live then?  If you could go anywhere in the world?”

I made a face as I thought about it.  Every now and again I could feel her arm brush against mine.  Sometimes it would stick there for a bit, before moving off again.  Like everything, it made me feel sad as well as happy, and I didn’t understand why.  Maybe it was because I never felt relaxed around anyone, despite how much I liked them or wanted them to like me.  There was something in the way all the time, some hardness I couldn’t get past.  It would make me feel sick with longing and then want to get up abruptly and storm away and find something to kick in.  It made me want to be with them, and yet be horrible to them at the same time.  “I dunno,” I said to her.  “Somewhere far away from here.”

“Yeah?  Like another country?”

“Nah.  Just like far away.  The countryside or something.”

“Really?”  She was leaning over her knees, almost brushing them with her cheek, and she was smiling at me, those brown eyes mischievously bright and I wanted to give in to her more than anything else in the world.

“In the middle of nowhere,” I told her.

“Wouldn’t you get lonely?”

“No, I’d have all these dogs and things running around, keeping me company.”

She laughed, her eyes going all crinkly and sparkly. “Dogs?  I didn’t know you liked dogs!”

“Yeah!” I retorted, grinning despite myself. “Course I do!  Who doesn’t like dogs? I’d have loads of them, just running around the place, keeping people away and keeping me company.”

“Hilarious,” she said, bumping against me again, and this time when she did it, I leaned back into her, and she didn’t move away, neither of us did.  I heard her sigh heavily.  My heart pumped loud and strong.

“Always wanted a dog,” I said then. “A dog would be a really nice friend.”

“Bless you,” she said, and then we were quiet for a long time.  We didn’t say anything, and we didn’t move, we just stayed there like that, pressed together, staring at the sea, and whether you know what I mean or not, it really did feel like the most perfect thing in the world ever.

When I finally had the guts to return home, I found they had gone.  All of them.  Mum and her new husband, and my brother and his girlfriend, all gone.  I sagged and sighed in the kitchen as I took it all in.  I wondered what else I had expected.  Then I heard a rasping cough in the lounge, so I wandered on in. Jack Freeman was slumped on Howards leather sofa, tray of Chinese takeaway on his lap and a bottle of beer on the coffee table.  He looked up and grunted at my bemused expression.  “Been told to babysit you,” he said with a roll of his eyes.  A grin pulled at one side of his rubber lipped mouth. “Don’t worry about it kid.  I won’t be getting in your hair much.  You know me.”

I thought of something then and slipped onto the other sofa, feeling the weight of the day seep through my bones.  “You got any grass?” I asked him.  He chortled and forked a heap of wet noodles into his smiling mouth.

“Yeah.  And?”

I didn’t say anything else.  I just gave him the eyes.  He had a thing about my eyes.  He nodded at his tin on the table and started to laugh.