60

 

 

            I walked slowly home.  I didn’t know where else to go.  I let myself in the back and crept silently up the stairs. As I crossed the landing, I could hear my mother snoring deeply in her room.  I paused outside my own room; breathing fast, my brain pounding in my skull, my jaw tight, not allowing me to speak even if I had wanted to.  I gave up anyway; I gave up before I even let myself entertain the thought of waking her.  I went into my room and closed the door behind me.  I stood where I was, peeled off my wet, sick splashed t-shirt and threw it to the floor.  I kicked off my boots, removed the drugs from my back pocket and threw them on the bed. I pulled off my jeans and kicked them away.  I climbed under my duvet in just my boxers, dragging out my little tin from under the mattress as I did.  I knocked my notebook out, and watched as it thumped down to the floor, revealing the biro still tucked inside the last page I had written on.  I snarled impatiently, reached down and punched it right under the bed.  There was no point in any of that now, I realized angrily. All I needed now was sleep, and to get that I would need a little helping hand.

I rolled myself a little joint, and sat with my back to the wall, and my arm slung loosely around my middle.  I sat and smoked, and replayed what had just happened in my head.  It made me sick.  Nothing was ever going to be good enough for that man.  I gritted my teeth against the bad taste in my mouth.  Go to school, I thought, go to school and be a good boy, then get your head shoved under water anyway.  Being good and toeing the line would get me nowhere, because Howard would still give me a good kicking any time he felt like it.  Why hadn’t I realized that before?  Why had I been such a fucking idiot for so long?  Scuttling around, living under his thumb and his rules, avoiding my friends just to avoid a beating.  There were no rules, because the guy was insane, and insanity does not follow rules.  Howard didn’t follow rules, did he?  No, he fucking didn’t.  He didn’t keep to his word, did he? No.  He just enjoyed violence. That was it. That was what it came down to.  All his talk about keeping me on the right path, that was bullshit, all of it was. When I thought back over what had happened in the kitchen at the club, it became obvious to me, and I didn’t know why I had not grasped it before.  He liked violence. He got off on it.  It was like me and the music.  Music calmed me down, made me feel better, lifted me up and chilled me out.  I trembled on the outside, and on the inside there was a roar of rage thudding to get out.  The man was a total fucking lunatic and nothing was going to change that, nothing.

I sat there and smoked, thinking up ways to kill him.  I felt detached from reality and the rules it expected us to follow. Thou shalt not kill.  Well how about if someone is doing their best to kill you?  Would it alright then?  Would the law let me off?  If they knew what he was like, what he was capable of?  I thought about poisoning him.  There had to be way.  Maybe I would ask Anthony what he thought.  We could come up with a plan, couldn’t we?  Then I started to think about waiting until he had fallen asleep. Creeping into their room with a massive fuck off knife in my hands.  Pulling back the covers and plunging it, right into his chest, right into his twisted black heart.  I closed my eyes and then opened them again. The pot was loosening my limbs, and sending them to sleep, one by one.  Drowsiness was creeping in, and my head wanted to loll forward, and my eyes wanted to shut down.  I felt it all gradually growing numb within me, and didn’t feel anything anymore, not fear, or anger, or anything.

I stubbed it out, pumped the vanilla scented air freshener around the room and snuggled down under my duvet to sleep.  I was just floating into oblivion when I heard him come in downstairs.  He was still worked up by the sound of it.  Slamming doors.  Crashing into things.  I closed my eyes, yanked the duvet up over my head and held my breath in the darkness.  Would he come for me? Knowing mum was out cold, would he want to start again?  Had he got what he wanted in that kitchen, or was his desire yet to be quenched?  It seemed I was not on his agenda however, as he stormed right past my door and into his own room.  I let my breath back out, slow and ragged, thinking thank fuck, thank fuck he didn’t come for more.  I briefly considered sneaking downstairs and fetching a knife to keep under my pillow, just in case.

I could hear him talking then.  He threw something against the wall, maybe his shoes, or something that was in his way.  I heard my mum murmuring back in a thick, sleepy voice.  I curled into a ball, encased in darkness.  He was still talking, and she was talking back, protesting, her voice sounding high and thin, as the bed springs began to creak over the top of it.  Howard started swearing at her.  He sounded angry.  I pressed my hands to my ears and tried to locate the entrance to sleep I had been so close to before he came home.  It was then that the noises begun, and there was nothing I could do to block it out, nothing I could do to stop them entering my ears and my mind.  She was moaning, he was groaning, and the thump of the headboard, the screams of the bed springs told their own story.  It didn’t sound like anything nice, or fun.  It sounded like an animal, taking what it needed to survive.  I threw back my cover, reached out blindly for my Walkman, not knowing exactly where it was, but finding it instantly with my fingers on the desk.  I yanked it into bed with me, pulled on the headphones and pressed play.  I pulled the duvet back over my head, closed my eyes and tried to push it out.  I concentrated on the music.  It was the very song that had got me into trouble earlier. Down, down you bring me down, I hear you knocking at my door and I can’t sleep at night….I nodded along with it, squeezing my eyes shut, pushing out everything else, what was happening next door, what had happened earlier, all of it.  It was just The Roses, just Ian Browns voice inside my head, and a magnificent spiralling wall of guitars and drums that went on forever, as long as I kept on rewinding it back to the start…Your face, it has no place, no room for you inside my house, I need to be alone…Don’t waste your words I don’t need anything from you, I don’t care where you’ve been or what you plan to doooooo…

 

The next morning I woke up with one thing, and one thing only on my mind.  It was the most important thing.  It propelled me from my bed and sent me scrabbling around the room for clothes to throw on.  It was the most vital thing in the world.  It had slammed me in the head the second my eyes had opened.  The club they had told me about. The club that played the good music.  We had to go.  We all had to go.  I knew it.  I knew it would be alright, because everything is always alright when you have good music! Everything else, soapy water and pint glasses and drugs in alley ways and mothers crying, all of that would fade away, I knew it would, it would cease to exist in a place like that. It would cease to matter. If only for a while.  We were going to find that club, the one that played the good music, and we were all going to go and get off our heads, and have the best night of our lives ever. We were going to remember it forever.  I dressed and flew out of the house while my mother and Howard still lay snoring.

I rushed around to Mike’s and pounded on his door.  He answered it, yawning widely and tugging his tatty dressing gown around himself.  I flew inside, and he stopped yawning then, and his expression became tense and sober, and his nostrils worked, and his lips clamped shut and he shook his head at me as he closed the door. “You’ve got to be joking,” I heard him say.  I had no idea what he meant.  I didn’t care.  I jumped up and down like a kid in a sweet shop.

“Hi Mike!  Morning Mike!  Listen to this, I’ve got the best night ever planned! You’re gonna’ love it!”

He stared at me as if I were crazy. “You know your head is cut right? What the hell’s happened?”

I had totally forgotten. I shrugged at him, and lifted my hand, raising my fingers and running them gently along the length of the cut.  It was about an inch long, and thick with crusty clotted blood.  I grimaced at the red smear on my fingers and shrugged at him. “I forgot about that. I’m not working at the club anymore Mike. That’s what that is.”

“So you’re not gonna’ try and tell me you fell off your bike then?” he crossed his arms and sighed at me.  I smiled a little.

“No mate. It seems me going to school all week to please my mother got Howard a little wound up.” I turned and headed into the kitchen.  Michael followed, shaking his head angrily, grabbing the kettle from the side and shoving it under the tap to refill it.

“Fucking bastard,” he growled. I sat down at the table.  I felt okay.  I felt good.  It was partly being back in his house, like the old days, relaxing with the knowledge that there were no parents about to show up and look over your shoulder. And it was partly thinking about tonight, thinking about the club and good, happy times.

“Forget about it,” I told him. “Have you got any passport sized photos? We might need some.”

“What for?”

“Fake I.D’s,” I replied with a grin.  Michael got two mugs down from the cupboard and sloshed milk into each one. “I’ve got some photos somewhere, we just need to get some done for you, then this friend of mine can sort them out for us.”

“Why’d we need them?”

“To go to a club!” I cried, the excitement flooding me again, making me feel giddy with it, making it impossible to sit still. I gripped the edge of the table with my hands and grinned like a lunatic at Michael.  He stared back at me with wary eyes.

“What club?  Are you okay mate?  Really?”

“Yes! Definitely okay!  I’m just really excited!  There’s this club you see, over in Belfield Park, and it plays the music we like Michael!  It plays good music!” I bit my lip and stared at him, still fidgeting and squirming while he took the information in.  “It’s called Chaos,” I burst out, when he refused to join in.  “Ever heard of it?  We can go tonight Mike, if we get these I.D’s sorted! How cool right?  A place for us?  A place that plays our kind of music!”

Michael nodded in interest and then turned his back to make the teas. “Okay. Sounds like a plan.  We can do that.” He placed the mugs on the table and sat down opposite me.  “Sounds cool.  Billy and Jake too?”

“Yes!” I cried, clapping my hands together.  “Call them!  Can I borrow the phone while I’m here?  I’ll call this guy to sort out the I.D’s.”

“Who’s the guy?”

“Oh, that Lawler bloke. He’s okay.” I picked up my tea and blew across the surface of it.  I wanted to laugh out loud.  I wanted to jump up and down again.  I didn’t want to think about anything bad ever again, just fun, just good times, and good friends, and good music.  That was how it should be, I reasoned, that was how it should always be! “So excited,” I told him. “I can’t wait to see what they play. I am never going back to K’s again in my life. It’s diabolical the shit they play there, and what’s even more depressing are the fucked up sheep who try to dance to it!  They haven’t got a clue!”

Michael nodded in vague agreement with me. “So tell me what happened with Howard,” he said. I made a noise that let him know it was a subject I did not want to be dragged back into. I glanced down the hallway, wondering where Anthony was.

“The usual, I told you. But I’m not going back there, not ever. That’s it. I can just stay out of his way now.”

“But you go to school all week and he still lays into you?” Michael shook his head in disgust and rubbed a hand against his face. “Danny, please, let’s just tell the police.  Or a teacher.  Someone. I’m begging you mate.”

“Can’t,” I shook my head and sipped my tea. His fist thumped onto the table top.

“Why not?  Why the fuck not Danny?  You’re just gonna’ keep letting him get away with it?  He won’t stop, no matter what you think.  And do you know what I’m really scared about?” I met his eyes and shook my head slowly. “That he’ll go too far and fucking kill you one day…you only have to look at the size of him, the size of you…That’s what scares me mate.  Do you think I want to go to your fucking funeral knowing I could have done something to stop it?” He was looking at me in this terribly pained way that was almost more than I could stand.  I wanted to tell him again about the music.  I wanted to start a list of songs I was hoping to hear there. I was already wondering if their D.J took requests.

“Mike,” I put my tea down and sighed at him.  “It’s not that simple and you know it.  So please. Don’t go on.”

Michael shook his head at me, and leaned across the table. He looked pale, I thought then, like he hadn’t been sleeping well recently. “Tell your mum then,” he pleaded. “I’ll come with you. We’ll wait until he goes out, and we’ll go and tell her together.  Tell her everything.”  I scratched my head and tried to think of a way to explain to him what my mother had been like lately.

“She’s not herself,” I told him slowly. “Something is wrong with her. And Mike, I did tell her once, I told her what he’d done and she didn’t believe me then. I don’t see why she would believe me now, all this time later.”

“The police,” Michael said again, pleadingly now.  I sighed in frustration.

“Mike, we can’t trust them. Look what happened to Anthony, and we still don’t know exactly who was involved in that.  You have no idea what he’s capable of…I mean…” I trailed off for a moment, my mind momentarily dragging me back to the sink full of murky glasses and bubbles, the rush of water up my nostrils.  “If anything else happens to you or Anthony, I would never forgive myself Michael.  And I’d end up in care or something, because my mum’s in no fit state to take care of us both.  Worse things happen there Mike.  They really do.”

Michaels lips trembled slightly as he pressed them together.  “Stay with us,” he said. I felt a little annoyed with him, as the last of my excitement plummeted to the floor.

“Not safe,” I told him adamantly. “And if he goes to prison, I’d be dead anyway. He’s got people everywhere, he said.  They’d get me, or he would when he got out. No.  I’ve got a better plan.”  Michael’s eyes widened and he waited for me to explain.  I licked my lips and considered telling him the thoughts that had consumed me last night.  Thoughts of poison, and knives, and blows to the back of the head.  “Wait ‘til I’m sixteen and just move out.  They won’t stop me, and if they do I’ll just run away.” I grinned at him then, hoping to raise his spirits. “Me and you could get like a bed-sit together or something!  And jobs.”

To my relief Michael grinned back at me, and his shoulder relaxed slightly. “That would be so cool.”

“Course it would.” I slurped down the rest of my tea and got up from the table. “Come on, we need to sort out these I.D’s and talk to Billy and Jake. Tonight is going to be the best fucking night ever Michael. I am telling you.”

By the afternoon, the plan was in action and they were all on board, and as excited as I was.  We would all do the usual; tell our parents we were sleeping at Billy’s and Billy would tell his he was staying at Michael’s.  We would sleep at Michael’s afterwards, in order to dissect what I hoped would be the best night of our lives so far.  I got ready up in my room, taking painstaking care over my choice of clothes.  I desperately wanted to wear one of my Nirvana t-shirts, but I also wanted to wear the Oasis one I had bought recently, and then there was my Clash one, my Jim Morrison one.  I wanted to look like me, like I hadn’t tried too hard, but I also wanted to make a statement about who I was, and what I lived for.  In the end I went for Nirvana, tipping Kurt a wink as I pulled it down over my head.  I had this fluttering restless sensation in my gut, which I supposed was excitement, although it was hard to tell when it was accompanied with the usual knot of dread I carried around with me.  I dragged out my tin and plucked out the wrap of speed I had got from Jaime.  I stared at it for a while, trying to decide whether to take some now or later.  Offer some to Michael again, or keep it to myself?  Unable to make my mind up, I stuffed it into my back pocket along with the pills I planned on taking towards the end of the night.

I left my room and crept lightly down the stairs.  I was in the hallway, tying up my boot laces when I heard the creak of the leather sofa, and the grunt that was unmistakably Howards.  “Oi, where d’you think you’re going?” his voice called out. I glanced nervously up the stairs.  I knew mum was in bed yet again with another migraine.  Why the fuck wasn’t he at the club? That knot of fear was coming to life again, clenching and unclenching painfully inside my stomach and I knew why.  “Hey!” his voice boomed out, making me jump. “I’m talking to you!”

I had my laces tied, I reached out for the door handle, but he was already behind me, his shadow darkening the door, his bulk filling the space behind me, and as I fumbled with the catch and opened the door a crack, his hand shot out, slamming it shut again.  His large, sneering face loomed over my shoulder, his mouth rasping whiskey breath into my ear.  I kept my eyes on the door, and my hand on the catch.  “Don’t you fucking try and walk out when I’m talking to you.”

“I’m going to Billy’s,” I said stiffly. “Mum knows. She said I could.” I attempted to open the door again, but he kept his hand there, holding it shut.

“I don’t think so.  I think you can stay here and keep me company. You’ve given me a bad headache you know. I’ve taken the night off work because of you.  I’ve had to pay the bar staff extra to collect the glasses. You’ve dumped me right in it!”

I blinked and shook my head, incredulous at the audacity of the man. “What do you expect? I’m not working for you after what you did last night! I don’t wanna’ be anywhere near you.”

“You’re staying in,” he replied, his hot breath coating my cheek.  “You’ll do as I tell you.”

“No.” I shook my head, my eyes still fixed on the door. “You got no right. You can’t stop me.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said, and plunged a fist into my side.  I doubled up instantly, choking on the pain.  It was sickening, rocketing throughout my body from the point of impact.  I shook my head, desperately. Please don’t, I thought, please don’t try and stop me going there.  I needed to go there, I had  to go there, because what else was there?  What else?

“Stop it,” I tried to tell him, forcing the words up with a cough. He grabbed my arm, turned me around and held me back against the door.  “What have I ever done to you?” I looked into his eyes and asked him.  I tried to see, I tried to find the answer there, I tried to search his eyes for pity, or remorse, for anything remotely human, but all I could see was the burning glint in his eyes.  And I could feel it pulsing from him again, the waves of violent intent, the urge he was compelled to satisfy.

“You exist for one thing,” he informed me. “And you’re getting out of line again.  This is my house, and my rules, and if I say you’re not going out, then you’re not fucking going out!”

I stared back at him, breathless with pain, tight-lipped with anger.  I could feel it stirring again within me, the blood pumping faster and harder through my veins, and I liked it and I wanted it.  I wanted to kick him in the balls again, and then stamp on them for good measure.  I wanted to be able to do something to him that would make him stop, and pause, next time he wanted to take a shot at me.  Something that would rein him in, make him think twice.  There was no way he was stopping me going out.  No fucking way.  If we had to fight to the death in the hallway, then so be it.  “You are pure fucking evil,” I told him then, my mouth moving upwards into a parody of a smile.  “You know that?  Evil.  I don’t know how you even sleep at night.  I hate you more than you will ever know, and if I ever get the chance, I would fucking kill you in a second!”

He rocked back in his heels, his small eyes just gleaming slits in his vast and leering face.  He moved them slowly up and down my sagging body, and then he struck again, his fist shooting into the pit of my belly.  I crumpled in half, gasping and grunting.  He laughed, and I went down, onto my knees, my stomach exploding inside of me.  “You won’t ever get the chance you little shit stain, it’ll be killing you and don’t you ever forget it!” My head was hanging down, my hair all over my face, my body crippled with the blows, when his foot lashed out, catching me in the face and sending me back into the door with a dull thud.

“Mum!” I screamed out then, somehow finding the energy within me to bellow it out.  I glanced through my hair, saw the sudden panic in his eyes, and opened my mouth again.  “Mum! Mum, help, help!” I had bought myself time, so I turned to the door, clawing at it and clinging to it.  There was the unmistakable sound of the bedsprings creaking in their room.  Howard looked uncertain, licking his lips rapidly and staring from me, up to the landing, and back to me.  His nostrils were twitching, his big chest jerking up and down as his breath whooshed in and out of them.  I hung onto the door handle and used it to pull myself back up.  My back now turned to him, I didn’t waste any more time, I didn’t look back at him, I just scrambled desperately with the catch, got it open, made a gap big enough for me to squeeze through, and I was out. The cold night air slapped my face, taking my breath from me once again.  I opened my mouth, sucked it in and stumbled forward.

Sharp spikes of pain made me wince and cry out, but I was laughing as I ran, as I forced my feet to move, one after the other.  I ran to Michael’s house and hammered on it like a madman.  I looked over my shoulder just once then, half expecting to see Howard’s raging face behind mine, but he was not there.  He had not followed.  Anthony wrenched the door open in a panic and I nearly fell in over the doorstep.  I bundled myself in and he closed the door and examined me in shock. “Danny?  What the hell?”

Michael appeared in the kitchen doorway, holding an open can of lager and frowning in surprise and concern.  “Oh my god!” he cried, when he saw me.  I could feel the wetness on my top lip, so I pressed a hand to it, and stared blankly at the blood on my fingers. “What now?  For fucks sake!”

I couldn’t speak for a moment.  My gut was twisted and writhing in pain, so I leaned against the closed door and just breathed and grinned at them.  Pain was okay, I kept telling myself, it’s just data, it’s just information being sent to your brain, it won’t kill me.  “I’m okay,” I told them when I had the breath to.

“You’re not fucking okay!” Anthony exploded, stepping towards me and lifting up my chin. “Did that fucker just do this?  Mike get some tissues or something!  Did that bastard do this, Danny?  Jesus Christ!”

I moved my face from his hand. “He tried to stop me coming out,” I explained. “But it’s okay, I made it look!  We can go!” They looked at each other darkly.  Michael came up the hall, ducked into the downstairs toilet and came back out with a clutch of toilet paper in his hand.  He passed it to me and I held it to my nose and lip.

“Last night as well,” Michael said then, his dark eyes moving from me to Anthony. “He laid into him at the club, cut his head.”  Anthony’s face was creased in concern. He reached out and pushed my hair to one side, wincing when he saw the size of the cut to my forehead.

“Well that’s fucking it!” he cried then, turning around and kicking the nearest thing to him, which happened to be the door I was leaning against.  He ploughed his hands back through his short dark hair. “Fucking bastard!  Fuck!”

I laughed a little.  I don’t know why.  I just felt like it.  I rubbed the tissues into my nose until the blood was all mopped up. “He’s off on one,” I remarked. “Dunno why.  He’s been drinking too.  Maybe things are going tits up for him, I dunno.”  Anthony shook his head at me, his eyes wide and black with anger.

“I’m going over there,” he said flatly. “I’m going over there to teach him a lesson. See if he’d like to pick a fight with me!”

I put my hand to his chest. “No.  Don’t. Not now.  Not tonight.”

“This can’t go on Danny,” he told me seriously. “We have to do something mate.  I’m serious.”

“Just not tonight,” I begged him, looking to Michael for help. “Please not tonight. We’re going out remember?  To the club that plays the good music?”

“You can still go,” Anthony replied. “I’ll rip his head off while you’re gone.”

“Not tonight,” I said again, firmer this time.  I nodded at Michael and put my hand over the door knob.  “We’ve got to go Mike yeah?  Meet the others?  It’s important, right?”

Michael came to the door and pushed his unfinished lager into Anthony’s hands. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said to him, anxiously. “Promise me you won’t go over there, while we’re gone? Promise me. I don’t want you back in jail again.”

I watched Anthony’s shoulders falling slowly in defeat.  He sighed and rolled his eyes and shook his head all at once, as we pulled open to the door to leave.  “Alright,” he agreed, but then he put his hand out and caught my shoulder. “But we talk about this seriously in the morning, agreed? We can’t let this go on any longer, alright?”

“Alright,” I grinned and told him.  “See you later, okay?” We slipped out of the door and escaped into the night.  Into our night.  We ran, side by side, and we did not look back.  We ran to where we would meet Billy and Jake out on Somerley road, to where we would hop onto the next bus that would take us into Belfield Park.  I screwed up the bloodied tissue I still held in my hand and hurled it into the nearest bush, while examining my friends with wide-eyed anticipation. “This is gonna’ be the best night ever!” I promised their doubtful, shadowy faces.

59

 

            To everyone’s surprise, not least of all my own, I made it to the end of that week without missing a single day of school.  It was hard, but made easier by the force of Michael and Lucy, propelling me forward.  By Friday though, my will was rapidly fading.  The daily walk to and fro to school made me think about hamsters, running on the wheels in their cage.  They think they’re going to get somewhere, they think they are going to get out, but they’re not, and they don’t realize they are trapped forever.  Treadmill, I would think, as I wandered the corridors of school, treadmill.  So I went through the motions like the rest of them did, and I wondered if any of them knew that all they were really doing was toeing the line, obeying the rules.  I considered the future they said lay ahead of us with a cold kind of detachment, viewing the day that school became employment, as just the jump from one treadmill to the next.  They all thought they would be free, but they wouldn’t be.  I found myself staring around at people, wherever I saw them.  Were they happy, I wondered?  I watched the schoolchildren dutifully following the rules that would lead them into a decent adult life, and I watched the adults that passed us by, driving off to work in their small cars with their suits on.  Were they happy about it?  Or were they just being good?  That was what they were doing, I thought when I watched them; they were being good, staying in line, doing everything the way they were meant to.

It made me question whether Howard was actually doing me a warped kind of favour, by encouraging me to stick to the rules and be a good boy.  It would serve me well in later life, I reasoned, as I trudged back and forth to school that week, with my head hanging low and my eyes burning into the ground. I would know what to do when the time came.  I started thinking about the people who didn’t toe the line, the people who skirted around the edges of it all, ducking and diving, running and hiding.  People like Jaime Lawler with his shifty eyes the colour of the sea on a grey and dismal day.  He scurried around town with his cap pulled low, friends with everyone, yet trusted by no one.  “See you Friday mate,” he said to me one day, as we passed him on the street on the way to school. I felt the weight of Michael’s stare on my back then.  Jaime Lawler was the scourge of the town, I realized, a hunched up figure selling his wares in back alleys and teenage bedrooms.

Friday night loomed its head; something I both feared and desired.  Michael did not want me to go back to the club.  “Sneak around to us,” he kept pleading. “We’ll stay in and let Anthony cook for us, he’s really good!” I tried to explain to him that Howard expected me at the club, that it was part of the chores he expected me to do, and I couldn’t just not go, not without a massive amount of fuss.

“I can’t piss him off,” I said, seeing the regret and the disappointment in Mike’s eyes and hating myself for it.  “I better not rock the boat.”  I didn’t tell him the real truth though; that as much as I trembled at the thought of going back to the club with Howard, I was excited by it as well.  Maybe it had something to do with the mind-numbing and soul destroying week I had just endured at school.  The thought of another week like that made me shudder. The pointing and the whispering, and the giggles that followed me wherever I walked.  The wary look in the teachers’ eyes.  The strange and uncomfortable feeling of a pen between my fingers.

So I went.  I ran down the stairs when he yelled for me.  I caught a glimpse of my mother asleep on the sofa. “Is she alright?” I asked him as he steered me through the front door and out into the night. “She’s always asleep.”

“Migraines,” he grunted in reply. “Doctor gave her some stronger stuff for them.”

We drove to the club in total silence.  I sensed a dark atmosphere that made my skin crawl with goosebumps.  He stared down the road with hooded eyes and rigid shoulders.  There had been arguments on and off in the week.  I knew some of it was work related, because I had heard him shouting down the phone at people.  But some of it was between my mother and him.  Slamming doors, and my mother in tears, and my name, floating about between them.

Inside the club, I moved quickly away from him and approached the DJ as he was setting up, with a few suggestions for later in the night.  “Just try it,” I told him. “Try I Am The Resurrection later in the night and they’ll go mental for it, I promise you.”

The young man offered me a familiar roll of the eyes. “You should get a job collecting glasses at Chaos, in Belfield Park,” he told me.

“What’s that?”

“Kind of club that plays the music you like,” he said wearily.

I retreated to my duties as the club began to fill up.  The words rolled around and around inside my head, making me smile and nod.  Kind of club plays the music I like. Oh my god.  I had never even entertained the idea that such places existed! I slipped quickly and easily back into the routine of the club.  The horrors of last weekend seemed a long way away from me then.  I moved around the club, collecting glasses, enjoying the way I felt just a little bit older, just a little bit taller than I had done all week at school.  Here, no one knew me, so no one was pointing or whispering.  Here, I was just a kid who had a cool job collecting glasses in a nightclub.

Towards the end of the night, I was perched up on a stool at the bar, stack of pint glasses resting on it behind me, and my feet swinging just inches away from the floor. I was taking a short break, watching the crowd of drunken people as they swayed and weaved on the dance floor, and I was in a world of my own until I heard the DJ make an announcement on his mike. “This is for the annoying kid who collects your glasses,” he said dryly. “He reckons you’ll all love it.”  I sat up straight, filled with a sudden awe and excitement as he started playing The Stone Roses song I had requested.  I thought, they’ve never played the Roses here before!  This is an education for some of these people! The crowd were drunk enough to react wildly to anything, and they seized the opportunity to jump and push, spilling drinks and banging heads.  I was just smiling from ear to ear.  I knew all of the words and sang along.  People looked my way and whooped and hooted and held up their drinks to me.  It was amazing.  I felt amazing.  And it was a fucking good song.  I was singing along, drumming my heels against the bar, and tapping my hands against my knees when I felt the shadow fall over me.

Howard bumped against me and stayed there, arms crossed rigidly over his puffed out chest, his expression full of scorn. “Look at them going mental,” he sneered, his top lip curling up. “Did you pick this then?”

I nodded. “Been asking him for ages.”

“This is not a fucking rock club you know,” he said, his voice growing tight with the anger I could see filling up his face.  “I’ll have a bloody riot on my hands in a minute!”

“They like it,” I tried pointing out, with a weak shrug. “The Stone Roses are still really popular.”

“Only to people like you.”

“They seem to like it too,” I said, and nodded back at the crowd.

Howard was  silent then.  I felt myself getting trapped in it, as it drew out, longer and longer, dripping with promises.  I looked away from him, and could still feel his eyes burning into me, just staring and staring and staring, saying nothing and yet telling me everything.  I fidgeted nervously on the stool, and then finally I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I slipped down from it, picked up the glasses and slunk off to the kitchen with them.

It was a bad move.  He followed me. “Don’t you just walk off when I’m talking to you,” his indignant voice warned me from behind. “You should know better than that.” I was in the kitchen, and my stomach dropped and my hands began to tremble when he joined me there, slamming the door behind him.  Fuck, I thought.  It was the only word that filled my head.  Fuck, fuck, fuck!  I tried to remain calm as the blind panic swamped me.  I put the plug in and turned on the taps, and squirted washing up liquid into the sink.

“I thought you’d finished,” I said.

“Like fuck.”

“Sorry then.”

“You’re not sorry.  I think you need reminding whose club this is, smart arse little prick thinking you can tell my DJ what to play!” He stepped closer to me at the sink, crossing his arms again.  My nostrils twitched as the air grew thicker around me.  I could smell both whiskey and rage spilling from his pores. “I think you need reminding who the boss is.”

I swirled a limp hand in the water to froth up the bubbles. “No I don’t.”  Steam rose up in front of my face.  My stomach was on fire with the pain of fear.  I was aware of every single hardening muscle in my body as he stepped closer again and placed his hands down onto his hips.

“You know you really piss me off,” he said in a low, soft, snarl.  “All week you’ve been doing my fucking head in.” I kept quiet, waiting for him to tell me why exactly. “Got your mother in my ear, prattling on about how wonderful you are, just for going to fucking school like you’re meant to!  She thinks the sun shines out your bloody arse for it!  Fucking Saint Danny is it now eh?  Mister goody two shoes eh?  Now I’ve got to watch you try to take over my club! Getting the DJ to play shit to aggravate the punters!” He was winding himself up, I could feel it.  I licked my lips slowly.  I wanted to believe there was a way out of this, but I could feel it coming from him, pulsing like a heartbeat; the desire for violence.

“Okay,” I said. “I won’t do it again then.  I won’t ask for any songs. You didn’t mind before, that’s all.”

“I mind now.”

“Okay then.” I shrugged a little and braved a look at the ghastly face that was leering closer and closer to mine, and I could see the rage making his small eyes bulbous in their sockets, and the ropey veins bulging in his neck. “Maybe I better stop coming,” I said then. “If I get on your nerves so much.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said, and my throat was like sandpaper. “I mean, I could get a job somewhere else, couldn’t I?”

“Right little smart arse tonight aren’t you eh?” he said then, and I saw that I could never win.  That whatever I said, or didn’t say, would be taken as defiance when he was in this kind of mood.  “Got a lot to say for yourself eh?  That right? When I thought I told you not to speak unless I asked you to.”  I didn’t answer him.  I stared back at the water and waited. “Right little mummy’s boy you been all week,” he drawled on. “Know exactly what you’re doing, you know?”

“What?”

“Being all sweetness and light, mummy’s little golden boy, when we all know what a crock of shit that is! She doesn’t know the half of it eh? She doesn’t even know what a fuck up her precious son is, does she?”

I kept my eyes on the water.  I could feel something rising within my chest, something I had not felt for a long, long time.  “I’m confused,” I shrugged at him. “I thought you wanted me to go to school, to get the truants people off her back. Thought that’s what you wanted. I did what you said, remember? I didn’t tell them about your drug dealing friend and I went to school all week.” I flicked my glance up to meet his again, and I could almost see the blood pooling in anger behind his eyes, but the thing in my chest, I knew what it was now, and I knew that I had every fucking right to feel it, anger and pure cold hate.  “I thought that’s what you wanted me to do,” I said again, staring at him.

“I don’t give a shit what you do!” he retorted, spit spraying from his lips.

“Well you obviously do!” I cried back at him. I immediately bit my lip and bit it hard. I stared into his bloodshot eyes.  I shook my head at him and resisted the urge to smile in bitter amusement.  “I can’t win. You were angry with me for skipping school and getting mum in a mess, now you’re angry at me for going to school, because she’s pleased with me? So I can’t ever win can I?” I tore my eyes from his and looked back into the sink. It was full to the brim, so I turned off the taps and began to lower the glasses into the water. I pressed my teeth down upon my lower lip. I’d said too much, and I knew it.  Howard was frighteningly silent beside me, and I could hear his angry breath wheezing in and out between his teeth as he stared at me.

I froze when the hand fell onto my neck.  There was the automatic urge to shake it off, to recoil away from something which stained and possessed me. But my body reacted by turning to stone, my hands frozen claws beneath the water, my feet planted to the sticky floor tiles.  The hand rested on my neck like a dead thing.  And then when it moved, it moved sluggishly, exploring my muscles as they trembled, intensifying the pressure slowly.  The thumb dug into the front of my throat, nestling in viciously beneath my adams apple, like a worm trying to burrow into a hole, while the thick fingers crept around to the back, making their mark, constricting the air flow. My eyes watered and my vision blurred on the rims of the pint glasses as they bobbed in the water.  “That hurts,” I whispered and to this Howard chuckled very gently.

“Good. Anything to shut you up.”

“Why don’t you leave me alone?” I winced under the pressure.

“Because I don’t want to. Because you piss me off.  You get on my nerves.  You make me angry.”

“How the fuck do you think I feel about you?”

His grip tightened like a bracelet of cold steel. I felt the air flow stop, and my hands flew out from the water, gripping and grasping at the vice that held me.  The pain was immense, shooting agony through my nerves. I tried to whip from side to side, I tried to duck down, pull away, anything to escape as he crushed down on my windpipe.  The grip relaxed as suddenly as it had tightened, and he was shaking with uncontrollable laughter next to me.  My eyes ran with water, and the hand remained on my neck, holding me in place.  This time the hand moved against my hot skin, pressing into it, his fingers pushing up my neck and underneath my hair, before sliding back down again, spreading out across my shoulder blades. I couldn’t take it.  I couldn’t live with it, I wanted to die, and I wanted to kill him, and I never wanted to breathe the same air as him again, so I made a sound of pure disgust and tried to pull away from him. The hand gripped my hair again, closed like a claw around my entire skull, and then suddenly the basin of water was flying up towards my face.

As I went down into the water, I felt the glasses trying to make room for me, rolling and bumping against each other, and my forehead cracked straight into one, and another smashed into my nose and cheek.  Hot water flooded my nostrils, as I struggled wildly, my hands scraping and tearing at the hand that kept me there.  He held me under the water long enough for me to start to think he was serious, for me to start to fear this was it, this was how he did it, this was how he finished me off. Not by beating me, not by cutting me up, but by drowning me in a sink full of pint glasses.  Pure and utter terror filled my brain and my soul and every fibre of my physical body, and then he yanked me backwards by my hair, and hurled me away, down onto the kitchen floor.

My back hit the wall, and I threw up violently between my legs, coughing and gasping for air, my belly heaving and tossing up soapy water.  I was amazed and horrified, and yet again reminded of how small and helpless I always was, and how there was never any way out.  He stood over me, his legs spread and his eyes dancing with laughter. I pushed back my soaked hair and glared up at him.  “You’re fucking insane!” I told him.

“Hey, maybe,” he replied with a shrug.  He appeared calmer already, his stance relaxed, his smile smug.  The red had seeped away from his face.  “You just remember to keep a polite tongue in your head, you just remember who the boss is around here.  Or every now and then I will have to remind you.”

“Just you remember to look over your shoulder!” I hissed back at him, wiping my face with my hands. Howard raised his eyebrows at me and squatted down.

“Oh yeah?  What is that supposed to mean little man?”

“One day,” I panted, as hatred hurtled through me, cold and sharp. “One day I’ll be big enough. That’s all you sick son-of-a-bitch…one day I’ll surprise you with a fucking knife in the eye, how would you like that?”  I stared into his eyes, and I meant it, I meant every word.  I even looked around the kitchen for a knife.  I wanted one and I wanted one badly.

His face remained calm, and mildly amused.  He clicked his tongue and shook his head at me sadly.  “I do sometimes wonder, what exactly it will take to get that smart tongue out your head?  And that fucking arrogant look off your face?  Eh?   I do wonder that sometimes, you know.  When I think I’ve finally got you all in line, and you’re being a good boy like you’re supposed to be, you go and show me that look in your eye again!  Like right now!  Makes me want to stamp on your face.”

“Go on then,” I challenged him, refusing to flinch.  “Do it!  Do whatever you like to me.  Then maybe I’ll go straight to the police and tell them who did it!”

Howard simply laughed at me. He dropped his head back a little way, closed his eyes briefly and let steady laughter roll from him.  Then his eyes snapped open and were back on mine, and he lashed out, striking me across the face and knocking me back into the wall.  I didn’t even try to get away.   I just covered my head with my arms as he continued to land blows on me, one after the another, thump, thump, thump slowly and methodically.  “Drive you mental yet?” he asked me in a weary tone.  “Just tell me when it’s driving you mental.”

“Fuck you!” I screamed back at him, kicking out with my foot and grazing his knee.  He laughed again and stood up suddenly.  I was shaking with rage. I felt like a volcano starting to tremble awake.  Howard cracked his knuckles and shook out his arms. “I’ll tell mum,” I said then, pushing my way up from the wall.  He grinned. “I will. That’s it. I’m gonna’ tell her everything, tonight. I won’t leave her alone until she believes me.”

He yawned at me. “You’ll have a good job waking her up,” he smirked. “She’s out all night on those pills. I like her that way you know.  Good and quiet.  See, she’s a good girl for me, not like you. I don’t have to remind her who’s in charge. But you.” He smile was a snarl as he pointed one finger down into my face.  “You.  You must like it.  That’s what I think.  You fucking ask for it, little man.”

“I’ll tell her in the morning,” I said, my back pressed flat against the wall. His smile merely stretched upwards.

“Try it,” he said, as he turned calmly towards the closed door. “And I’ll kill her.” His smile slipped down, receding into a straight, hard line, his lips almost transparent.  “Right in front of you,” he went on. “Just try it.” With that he opened the door, slipped through it and closed it softly behind him.

I shook my head at the closed door.  I wondered if he expected me to carry on with the glasses, and I just knew he fucking did.  I stayed where I was, just breathing, feeling the slime of soapy water and dregs of beer sliding down my back and chest beneath my t-shirt.  The corner of my forehead was stinging, so I put my hand there and brought them down to examine.  There it was, blood and mess strung out between my fingers.  My t-shirt was soaked through, my hair dripping all over the floor.  What I wanted to do then was take my own head by the hair and ram it again and again and again into the hard, tiled floor.  I wanted to smash it until it fell apart in my own hands.  I felt this climbing roaring agony inside my chest, a hysteria that aimed to reach the top and break through and explode.  I rubbed at my cold arms and decided I was never coming back there again.  I also decided that if I ever got the chance, if I ever found a way, if there was no way I would get caught, then I would do it, I would fucking kill that bastard before he killed me first.

I forced myself towards the door and tugged it open.  My head was already spinning and pulsing with pain.  I peered out.  The hallway was narrowed by the lines of cardboard boxes containing crisps and nuts.  I slid out through the door and hurried down to the end of the corridor, and emerged, blinking, back out into the hot, dark club.  I pushed urgently through the crowds, the doors in sight, desperate to get out.  As I neared the entrance, manned by two men who resembled bulldogs in leather jackets, I felt a hand snatching at the back of my t-shirt and I rounded in fear, my fist pulled back.  Behind me was the surprised face of Jaime Lawler, holding up his hands to me.  “Whoa sorry mate, didn’t mean to scare you!”

“Fuck off,” I said, and walked away.  I shoved my way outside, and felt the cold shock of the night air upon my wet clothes.  Jaime Lawler was at my side.

“What the fuck happened to you? You’re all wet!”

I reached out and shoved him. “I said fuck off!”

He held up his hands again, but kept walking. “Sorry!  Hey, relax, it’s just me, I’m on your side mate!” I shook my head, shoved my hands deep inside my pockets and marched on.  He laughed a little. “Come on, what happened? Someone shove your head down the toilet or what?”

“Just get lost!”

“Alright, alright, keep your hair on, I’m just joking mate.”  He walked briskly beside me, a faint smile upon his long, pale face. “I just wanted to check if you needed anything, that’s all mate. You know, for the weekend? Got a good deal for you this time.”

“What?”

“Whatever you want. What do you fancy?”

“How much?”

“I can do you a wrap of whizz for a fiver this time.”

I kept walking.  I kept my eyes on the black pavement as it rolled beneath my stamping feet.  Jamie Lawler kept up with me easily. “I can do you some downers too,” he was saying. “Take the edge off the next morning. Try it for free.”

“I haven’t got any money on me.”

“Ah that’s okay, I’ll get it off you next time I see you.” He shrugged his thin shoulders at me and stopped walking.  I did too. “I trust you man,” he grinned, and nodded to an alley running between two shops.  We lowered our heads and slunk over to it, wandering half way down until the walls grew so dark we could barely see eachothers faces.  The streets beyond were full of the noise of the drunk, yelling and screeching their way back home.  I hovered in an alley way with Jaime Lawler, my hair wet and my head leaking blood, my body shivering violently from head to toe, and I absorbed misery to take the place of the fading anger.

“Do you know a place called Chaos?” I asked him, as we made our deal. He nodded instantly.

“Yeah, in Belfield Park.”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s like a rock, or indie place, it’s alright. Cheap beer.  Place is a dive. Why, you thinking of going?”

“Maybe.”

“Well let me know, I can get hold of some blinding fake I.D’s for a tenner.”

I nodded okay and walked back out of the alley alone, my unpaid for purchases stuffed deep inside my back pocket.

58

 

When the lectures were all over, I slunk on up to my bedroom, which was starting to feel less and less like it belonged to me.  I closed my door on the murmurings that continued downstairs, and sat on my bed for a few strange minutes, staring at the door, the floor and the cracks in the ceiling.  I stared at these the longest.  I could identify with these.  Eventually the silence started to hurt my ears so I leaned over and pressed play on the stereo. I smiled a little when the music started. It was The Doors Strange Days album, one of my oldest tapes.  I could still remember where I bought it from.  A car boot sale back in Southampton, and I must have been about twelve years old.  It was definitely one of the very first albums I ever bought.  I’d gone back week after week with John. I’d bought music; second hand Guns ‘N’ Roses and The Doors.  He’d bought clothes, trying to compete with his friends.  Listening to The Doors now felt sort of disjointed and nostalgic. It was like being able to see through a window to a younger me.  What I remembered most was how angry I had always been back then.  How I’d watched my mother, spinning recklessly from one stupid boyfriend to the next.  How John had just rolled his eyes and ignored it all, letting it all wash over his head.  He should have paid more attention, I found myself thinking now.  Mum and I, locking horns over every little thing.  My smile faded when I realized that both of them were gone now.  I’d lost them both.  And a spiteful niggling little voice at the back of my head told me that this was all my fault, that I had pushed them too far too many times and this was why I was now all alone.

I took out my tin and rolled a quick joint.  I wanted to relax.  I wanted the pot to fill my head up with warmth and fuzz and detachment from everything. I wanted to lie back on my bed and drift into heavy sleep, not thinking or feeling anything. I wanted the fingers of fear to stop scrabbling inside of me.  I got on my bed and smoked, and thought about the scene which had just transpired downstairs.  The farce of care that I’d found myself surrounded with.  My mother, distraught and tear stained, wringing her hands constantly, looking at me as if I had just been diagnosed with a terminal disease.  Howard had done really well.  The man deserved an Oscar, the way he played the over protective, slightly stressed out father, with a constant look of strain etched upon his face.  I felt like applauding him at times.  I had to put an end to it as soon as possible.  I admitted I had tried a few things.  I told them how awful it had been.  I told them it was really stupid of me and I would never be doing it again.  They believed me.  I told them I was going to buckle down and do better at school, and stop skiving off with faked sick notes, and they believed me again. My mum even reached across the table to squeeze my hand as I babbled on.  It didn’t really matter what I said, as long as they bought it.  As long as they believed me and let me go.

Back in my room I took deep satisfying drags on the spliff and reminded myself that it was over, and I was safe.  I was not being shipped off to care any time soon.  And that, I reasoned, was what it was all about at the end of the day.  Staying safe.  Whatever it took.  Doing what they wanted, so I would be left alone.  I felt bad about running out on Anthony and Michael, but I would go to school in the morning and explain it to them.

I fell asleep for a while.  I woke up briefly when my mother called up that they were going into town, and then I drifted off again. I woke up a second time because someone was banging on the front door.  I sat up in bed, rubbing my face awake.  I’d done a really stupid thing and fallen asleep with the ashtray and half smoked joint on my lap.  I made sure it was out and placed the ashtray down on the floor.  There was another knock at the door, followed closely by a female voice, which called through the letterbox and trailed up the stairs to greet me.  “Danny?  Danny!  It’s Lucy!”

What the fuck?  I laughed a little and headed for the door, shaking my hair from my eyes and wondering what the hell she was doing here.  I appeared on the landing and could see the letterbox pushed open in the hallway.  “Lucy?” I asked, coming quickly down the stairs.  I pulled open the door. “Hiya’!”

She grinned in relief and stepped quickly into the hallway.  She was still in her school uniform, with her bag upon her shoulder.  “Anthony’s been looking everywhere for you!” she told me. I closed the door and shrugged apologetically. “He sent me over to see if you were here.  To see if you were okay.”

“Will you tell them I’m fine?” I asked her.  “I had to come home and get cleaned up and stuff, then I had a teacher and the truants officer come over to see me.”  I made a face and she made one back.

“Oh. Wow.”

“Yeah. Nightmare.”

“What did they say? What happened?”

“Oh I did most of the talking,” I shrugged. “I’ll be back at school in the morning. You can tell Mike that as well. I’ll be there. Tell him I’ll meet him out on the main road.”

She smiled and her shoulders relaxed with it. “Well that’s a relief.”

I placed one foot on the stairs and smiled at her cheekily. “You want to come up and listen to music with me?”

She looked surprised for a moment, her head moving back slightly and her eyes flashing. “Okay then,” she grinned. “Why not?” I took her hand and walked back upstairs, with her following behind me.  Inside my room, I closed the door and she stood beside the bed, her school bag dangling at her ankles.  She stared around, sort of frowning and smiling at the same time.

“What?” I asked her.

“It’s just…” She broke off and let the bag thump to the floor.  Her eyes ran along the length of my desk, up to my shelves on the wall and down to my bed. “Wow. It’s just, so clean and tidy. I’ve never seen a room this tidy. You should see mine!  My mum just closes the door on it. In fact, she tells me off if I leave the door open!”  Lucy laughed rather nervously and sat down on the edge of my bed.  She appeared unsure, and cautious.  I didn’t exactly blame her.  Looking around my own room gave me the creeps most days as well.  The desk was all ship shape, the way Howard commanded it.  School books in piles, stereo at one end with cassettes stacked neatly beside. The books on my shelves, organised in height order, with all of the spines turned outwards.  My bedside set of drawers, set out neatly with reading lamp, alarm clock and one book.  My bed, never a huddle or a mess, always made up and tucked in at every corner.  No clothes or shoes lying on the floor.  No piles of magazines or crumby plates, or half drunk cups of tea.  Everything in its place and a place for everything.

I sat down next to her. “My stepfather is a bit of a clean freak,” I told her. Her smile faltered just a little bit.  I wondered what, if anything, Mike and Anthony had told her.  Did she know the whole sorry story, or did she just think I was a stupid druggy who took too much and practically had a breakdown on the beach? I looked at my hands resting on my knees and decided I didn’t really want to know either way.

“So,” she said then, looking away briefly as her cheeks warmed up. “You’re okay now then?  You’re feeling better?  You look better.”

“I’m fine,” I nodded at her. “I’m really sorry about all of that. I’ve been a complete idiot.”

“You don’t have to say sorry to me.  I was just so worried, you know.  Seeing you like that. You’re not going to do any of that stuff again are you?”

I shook my head quickly. “No way.  Learnt my lesson. Promise.”

“Okay.  Good.”

She didn’t say anything for a while.  I was glad.  I liked that about her.  She didn’t feel the need to probe or lecture, or preach.  You could see everything she was thinking and feeling, right there on her face.  I leaned towards her ever so slightly, until our arms were touching.  We were both staring down at our knees.  The Doors were still playing.  I found my feet tapping along to the music. Lucy giggled then, and her hair fell down over her ears and into her face.  I giggled too, and bumped my shoulder into hers.  I was grinning like a lunatic.  I had the urge to grab her and wrestle her down onto the bed.  Tickle her or kiss her, and try to make her giggle again. “Who is this?” she asked me.

“The Doors. You heard of them?”

“Think so.”

“Sixties band,” I explained. “Used to be really into them. Haven’t listened to them in a while. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” she nodded. “Sort of..haunting.”

I laughed softly. “Exactly.”

I moved back then, pulling my legs up onto the bed and finding the pillow with my head.  I patted the bed with my hand.  “Come on.”  She stared, her hair falling back over her face, her smile widening shyly.  Then she took a little quick breath and pulled her legs up too.  It was awkward for a moment or two.  You know how it is.  Getting comfy.  She was blushing like mad as she lay down beside me.  And then I put my arm around her shoulder and she sort of snuggled into the side of me, and rested her head down on my chest.  I wondered if she could hear my heart, going totally crazy.  She seemed to fit in so nicely there, I thought, tucked under my arm, curled into me.  My feet were twitching with the music at the end of the bed.  She sighed.  We lay like that for a long time.  I thought it was the best feeling in the world.  I leaned down and planted a clumsy kiss on the top of her head, and she sighed again, and giggled.  Look up, I wanted to say to her, but did not dare, look up, and I will kiss you properly.

The next morning I met Michael out on Somerley road.  He was smiling like a lunatic as I approached, hands in pockets and school bag across my chest.  He slapped my back, bumping his body into mine, and then punching my shoulder while I laughed at him. “For gods sake,” I complained. “What you doing?”

“Ah it’s just so good to see you,” he told me, as we checked the road for traffic and crossed it between cars. “You know, properly.  And being normal!”  I grimaced in regret.

“Yeah I’m sorry about all that Mike. Haven’t had a chance to thank you and Anthony.  You know.  Everything you did.”

“No problem,” he shook his head. “Any time. Although not again in a hurry please?”

“No way.  I was a complete twat. I shouldn’t have put any of you through that.”

“Shut up, it wasn’t your fault you idiot.” He gazed down at the pavement as he walked, and nudged me with his elbow.  “Come on.”

“Yeah, Anthony said that too, but it’s not really the truth. No one forced me to take that stuff Mike.  I could have said no.”

“Come on, seriously forget about it. You’ve had a crap year! Who can blame you for wanting to get off your face, right? Think I’d hit the hard stuff too if that psycho was my step-dad! Shittinghell.  Anyway, listen, before we get to school, got loads to tell you. Anthony’s been a busy boy.”

I looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

“When he couldn’t find you, he went all over the place looking for you.  Not just looking for you as it happens, looking for this Jaime bloke too?” Michael shook his hair from his face and glanced at me.  I nodded at him, waiting for more.  I started to chew at my lip.  I was nervous enough as it was; heading back to school after everything that had happened lately, and now this.  I hoped he hadn’t placed himself in danger again.  “Well he found him.  Jaime Lawler, whatever his name is.  Bought a bit of weed off him to keep him happy. Poked around a bit you know? Went to school with his brother, so it was all pretty relaxed. They had a drink in The Ship together.”

“Really?”

“Yep.  Anyway, turns out, Jaime Lawler is the errand boy for Freeman. He works for him.  And Anthony reckons both of them work for Howard.”

“Oh,” I said, stopping and pulling him back by his sleeve. “That’s something I learnt too Mike. Howard knows Jack deals. He knows he deals to me and he doesn’t care.”

Michael stared back at me, his eyes penetrating with their intensity. He wettened his lips with his tongue and shook his head very slowly. “That bastard. That filthy lying drug dealing bastard. We ought to go right to the cops Danny. We should tell them everything.”

I smiled at him gently.  He looked so fierce, I found it sort of touching. “I’ve thought about that a million times,” I told him. “Jack is a copper Mike.  Or he was.  I dunno.  And Heaten, we already know he’s chummy with Howard. I don’t trust them.  And you don’t even want to know what he’s threatened to do to you and my mum if we mess with them.” I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat and started to walk on again. Michael nodded as he followed.

“I know Danny, I know, I get it. We’ve got to be careful. Anthony says. He says, if we be careful and tread lightly, we can trip them up somehow.  We need proof.  That’s what he said.”

“Billy and Jake,” I said, gesturing ahead. They were approaching the entrance to school from the other direction, pushing their bikes and talking excitedly.  I smiled briefly at the sight of them.  I thought how young and excited and innocent they looked.  I tried to imagine what normal things they were discussing.  Jake saw me first and did an instant double take, before punching Billy on the arm and nodding in my direction.  We met and fell into step together, the four of us again, like old times, going through the school gates.  I felt different though. I felt tired, and I felt older than them, and I felt a little bit like I wanted to cry, not because of everything that was happening in my life, but because of the looks on their faces.  Because they were so full of hope and direction and promise, and I knew it wouldn’t stay that way forever, because that was impossible.  I knew that some day, at some point, they would both face pain, and fear, and disappointment and desperation, and that was what made me sad.  That they would change.

“Hi mate,” Billy said, his grin fading in and out as if he was not quite sure if he should even have one or not. “Long time no see, how are you?”

I gave him a courteous nod. “Good thanks.  You?”

“Fine mate.  Fine.”

“You’ve been like the invisible man lately,” Jake remarked, eyeing me sideways as he pushed his bike along.  I couldn’t help but get the feeling he was giving me the once over you know, trying to determine if I was high or not.  “We’d nearly given up on you.”

“Well not all of us,” Michael sort of snapped at him then. Jake did not respond. He just shrugged very slightly and kept walking.

“Turned over a new leaf haven’t I?” I told them all to shut them up.  I don’t know if they believed me any more than I believed myself, but it closed the subject. Billy groaned at me.

“Got loads of tapes for you man. My dad’s been on one.  Taping all sorts of stuff for you.”

“Oh wow.  Tell him thanks a lot.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself? Come over after school, yeah?”

I looked at Michael.  He was smiling and nodding, so I did too.  “Okay,” I said. “Why not?”

By first break I was already struggling.  Double maths was no kind introduction back into school life.  I abhorred the subject and always had done.  Couldn’t see the point in it.  Couldn’t get excited or interested in numbers.  I fought for a while to stay with it, leaning forward over my desk, straining my ears to listen, scribbling notes as fast as I could to help me catch up.  The monotonous drone of the teacher didn’t help, and I soon became horribly aware of how far behind I had fallen.  My mind kept taking me off to other places, and I felt too weak to fight my way back.   I found my gaze drifting time and time again to the world outside the window. The skies outside were pale and grey, promising nothing, and all of it, the sounds of the classroom, the thudding in my own head, filled me with a grating irritation.  When the bell finally rang, I rushed for the door, with Michael at my heels. I was craving a drink, a cigarette, something stronger, and the privacy in which to enjoy them. Instead I found myself standing in line in the canteen, waiting to buy a crappy can of coke and a mars bar.  I ate the chocolate and drank the coke, and tasted nothing.  I followed my friends aimlessly around the corridors, reaching out with one hand to drag slowly along the cold beige wall, and I thought about cows, being herded in for milking, and I felt the narrow walls and the smell of floor cleaner crushing down on me, squeezing the life out of me and it was getting harder to breathe.  I made an excuse and rushed to the nearest toilet.

I sat on the loo with my head between my knees.  I scooped in several long breaths of air and told myself to calm the fuck down.  Beads of sweat had marched out across my forehead, and there were damp patches emerging under my arms.  There was a prickle of panic, coursing through my veins, and I hated myself for it.  I pulled myself together in time for History, taking my old seat at the back of the class, hoping I could just slump down, become invisible, get through it.  But every time someone looked my way, or whispered to the person next to them, I became convinced they were aiming it at me.  It became a battle just to keep my backside in the chair.  My arse kept shifting. The chair was made of stone.  My legs twitched because they wanted to get me out of there and my feet tapped restlessly, wondering where the music was.  I just became overwhelmed and bogged down by this feeling that I was in the wrong place, that I shouldn’t be there, that I did not belong.  I looked at the other kids and I felt nothing like them.  I didn’t care about the stuff they cared about.  Truth was, all I cared about, all I really wanted right then, was music and drugs.

I emerged from History, sweating and wanting to kick something.  Michael walked alongside of me, asking tentatively if I was alright, and I couldn’t even bring myself to answer him, that was how bad I felt by then.  I kept staring at the exits every time we passed one.  The temptation to walk out was getting stronger and stronger.  And then I felt this light little arm slip through mine, and I looked down, and it was Lucy, smiling in that giddy way of hers.  Her cheeks were already warmed with dusky pink, and right away, I felt myself relax.  I remembered us lying on the bed together yesterday. I remembered all the Sundays we had spent at the beach, talking, and not talking.  I put my arm around her and pulled her close, resting my cheek against the top of her head for a moment and breathing in the smell of her. There was something between us that needed no explaining or defining.

“How’s it going?” she asked me.  I sighed.

“Better now I’ve seen you.”

“Been that bad?”

“Worse than I thought,” I said honestly.  “Much worse.”

“Come on, you can do it,” she told me with a smile that believed I could. “It’s only school. And it’s nearly lunch time.  Half way there.”

“Can’t concentrate on anything.  Too much in my head.”

“Don’t worry about concentrating,” she laughed at me. “That will come later. You only have to be here in person, right? To keep them off your back?” I nodded. “Well then, that’s all you have to worry about then. Just be here.  And if you want help catching up, I’ll help you after school. Any time.”

“Thanks Lucy.  You are very wise, you know.”

“I know I am,” she grinned. “You should listen to me always.”

Her words, and her smile kept me going, through English and towards the end of the day.  She sat next to me for English.  She gave me fierce smiles whenever Higgs whispered or giggled or passed a note.  She squeezed my knee under the table, and winked at me when I looked her way.  I tried to keep my head down.  I tried to pretend I had not seen the watery pitying smiles from Mrs Baker and I tried to push out how sickened, how low and fragile I felt inside.  I gazed out of the window again.  I doodled in the margins of my rough book.  I knew what I was doing; just killing time, and I didn’t know if I could do it again.  Life is killing time I wrote on my paper.  Lucy peered at it, and then put a line through it.  Life is what you make it she wrote underneath before looking at me expectantly, as if daring me to disagree. Higgs and his friends sniggered throughout the rest of the lesson, and although it occurred to me that I had proved his original opinions of me totally true, I clung onto Lucy, onto what she was telling me.  If she hadn’t been there, anchoring me in place, I would have got up and walked out by then.

At the end of the day, the plan was to go to Billy’s to listen to music and do some schoolwork.  Michael and Lucy linked arms with me and led me there.  I didn’t want to go.  Not one bit.  I felt exhausted, and desperate for a smoke, but I was too weak and shaky to argue.  I let them all sweep me along, because it was making them smile, and I did not want to let them down again.

Up in Billy’s room, he closed his door on his parents and switched on the music.  I could have laughed then.  Laughed or cried, or both.  I was just so relieved to hear some music, and there was this huge collective sigh in the room, and we all just dropped and sprawled and spread our bodies around the room.  I ended up with Lucy, curled up together in Billy’s battered arm chair.  I let my head fall back into her shoulder and just listened as the others began to dissect the school day, as they scattered their text books and papers across the floor.  I possessed no more energy to join in, or to laugh or comment, but it was comforting enough just listening to them.  There was still a certain level of tension though.  You couldn’t escape it.  It was there in the way that Billy and Jake glanced at each other a lot, as if passing messages not meant for me.  It was there in the way they seemed to pause or hesitate before they spoke, as if fearful of saying the wrong thing.  Their laughs seemed planned, and hollow.  Michael was tense for different reasons, I realized. Because he was desperate for things to go well, for us all to get along, for things to be as good as they used to be.  The only one who seemed truly and totally relaxed, was Lucy.  I held onto her tightly and she held me back.  When Slide Away came on, I squeezed her tighter and whispered the lyrics into her ear, making her giggle and blush; now that you’re mine, we’ll find a way, of chasing the sun….let me be the one, who shines with you….in the morning we don’t know what to do…Two of a kind, we’ll find a way, to do what we’ve done…oh let me be the one who shines with you and we can slide away….She laughed and she kissed me on the cheek, and we were shut off from the rest of them then. “You’re crazy…” she breathed into my ear. I grinned. Pressed my lips up to her ear.

“Don’t know, don’t care, all I know is that you take me there!”

“Me too,” she whispered. “Me too Danny.”

57

 

 

By Monday morning I felt better.  I was alright again.  Michael packed up his school bag and went off to meet the others.  Anthony cooked me this huge breakfast with bacon, sausages, eggs, the works and came and sat on the sofa beside me while I tucked in.  My stomach had finally stopped hurting, and it was a massive relief.  At one point I knew I had been completely convinced that I was dying, that whatever I had taken had been slowly killing me from the inside out.  But Anthony had all the answers apparently.  “Bad drugs, no food,” he said, counting them off on his fingers, while his eyes rested on mine, dark and solemn, and looking into me as if he knew and understood everything.  He reached across to me then, and lifted up the edge of my t-shirt. I was alarmed, and swatted his hand away instantly, but he made a face that told me he already knew, had already seen. “Couple of right hooks to the stomach.” He shrugged, telling me it was simple and obvious. “No wonder you were in pain mate. I’m surprised you were able to walk!” I said nothing.  I just stared right back at him, and he passed me a cigarette and lit it for me.  I put my half-finished breakfast down on the floor and inhaled slowly, deeply.  “We need to talk,” he said softly.  He was still staring at the edge of my t-shirt and his expression was reluctant and pained.  I didn’t want to talk to him, not really.  Just sitting next to him was torturous, knowing what I knew. “I saw when you were out cold,” he went on. “So it’s still going on?  When he gets mad or wants to lash out at someone?  And your mum, she doesn’t know?”

I smoked the cigarette, my eyes on the floor.  Anthony sighed and stretched his legs out in front of him.  I didn’t know what he wanted me to say.  What could I say?  Yeah, things are bad, worse than you know, but look what happened the last time you tried to help me?  I glanced at the door then, remembering that Howard was out there, hunting me down as we spoke.  “Those other marks Danny,” Anthony said, nudging me with his elbow. “Cigarette burns, aren’t they?”

I looked right at him then.  My bottom lip trembled so I bit down on it hard.  “You can’t get involved Anthony,” I told him sharply. “I mean it Anthony. You can’t get involved. You only just got back out. You have to stay out of it.  Stay out of everything.”

“You’re right,” he said to me, smiling gently. “I shouldn’t get involved. I told Howard that much when he hammered on the door last night, looking for you. You know, he asked if I’d learnt my lesson, how do you like that? I told him I had. I told him it pays to mind your own business these days.”

“Yeah,” I nodded at him.  “That’s right.”

“It’s not right,” he disagreed. “And I can’t do that.  I can’t ever do that.”  I swallowed and glanced at the door again.  I thought about getting up and running out, getting away from him before it was too late.  My legs felt weak though, so I dragged on my smoke and tapped the ash against the ashtray when Anthony held it out to me.

“You have to,” I told him then, and when I looked at him I just hoped and prayed that he could see it there in my eyes, how deadly fucking serious I was. “I’m serious Anthony. You don’t know what he’s capable of. Do you want Michael to end up hurt?  Or worse?  He’s threatened it you know, and he has people that can do it, he told me.” I licked my dry lips and my hand shook as I lifted the cigarette back to my mouth.  Anthony sat forward, waiting for me to say more.  “I’m fucking serious,” I nodded at him.  “I wouldn’t joke about this, but Mike could end up dead if you mess with Howard, if you piss him off again. I’ve got to go.  I shouldn’t even be here, it’ll get you all in trouble.”  I stubbed out the cigarette and started to push up from the sofa, but Anthony was having none of it.  He caught my arm and eased me gently back down.

“Don’t be silly, you’re not going anywhere yet.  Sit back down.”

I sagged back into the sofa wearily, pressing my hands against my face for a moment and groaning softly behind them.  “Just stay a minute yeah?” he said to me. “Just talk with me a minute. He doesn’t know you’re here.”

I nodded and shrugged and dropped my hands down onto my knees.  “We said we hadn’t seen you,” he told me. “And I think he believed me.  I said you and Mike don’t even hang about together anymore, and he seemed to swallow it.  But Mike says that’s pretty much true anyway, yeah?”  I shrugged again. “Such a shame.  You’re such good mates.  He’d do anything for you, you know?”

“I don’t want him to get hurt,” I said, staring at nothing. “He lost you for an entire year, because of me.”

“No, not because of you, you idiot, because of Howard and possibly this other fucker Freeman. Tell me about him.  What’s his name? Where’d he come from? Who is he?”

“Friend of Howards.  From way back.”

“Jack Freeman, right?”  I nodded in reply. “So what’s he like?”

“He’s alright,” I said. “He’s nothing like Howard, I mean. He just lets us hang out at his flat and listen to music and stuff.  Most the time he isn’t even there.”

“Okay,” Anthony said slowly, nodding at me.  “So he lets you come to his flat and listen to music and smoke weed and stuff?  Okay, but why, why would he do all that?”

I could feel the force of indignation and suspicion behind his gaze, and I shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “I dunno,” I replied. “I dunno why people do things.”

“You should think about it Danny.  He’s Howards friend right?  Doesn’t that seem weird to you in any way? Does Howard know he gets you drugs and stuff?”

“No,” I shook my head quickly. “That’s why someone else sold me speed on Friday, ‘cause Jack thinks Howard is getting suspicious or something.  He thinks he’ll throw him out.”

“Throw him out? So what, he’s in Howards flat is he?”

“Hmm, I dunno.  Must be.”

“See, weird?”  Anthony sounded almost pleased I thought.  “He lets this guy move in his old flat, and suddenly this guy is palling around with you, giving you drugs and shit. Does that not seem weird to you Danny?  Do you not see what they’re doing?” I stared at the floor again, my mouth tight and my nostrils working.  I knew he spoke sense, and I could see what he was doing, putting all the pieces of the puzzle together in his own mind, and his dark eyes were alive with knowing and this fierce kind of energy.  “Who sold you the speed on Friday then?  Who was that?  You remember his name?”

“Jaime someone,” I told him with a sigh.  “Skinny guy, about your age.”

“I know of a Jaime about my age,” he said, talking faster and louder. “He’s one of the Lawlers, they’re this terrible fucking family of losers on the Somerley estate. Jaime is a bit older than me, but one of his brothers was in my class at school. Bunch of crackheads and criminals. Makes sense they’d have someone like him on board.”

“Look Anthony, I really better get going, if he comes back here or sees me leaving…”

“Hang on, we need to figure this out. When did Freeman show up here?  Can you remember?”

Of course I could remember that.  That day was etched inside my mind forever.  Me hiding behind the sofa, while they talked and laughed and enjoyed the spectacle of Anthony’s arrest from the bathroom window.  I felt horrible and sick inside.  I wanted to go.  I didn’t know how he could bear to be near me. “It was the day you got arrested,” I said then, and even as I spoke the words I wondered what the fuck I was doing, giving him that information. His eyes were glowing and his body was tensed up beside mine.  The bad memories were trying to get back into my head, angry memories from that day, knocking on the window of my mind like petulant ghosts.  I didn’t want to think about any of it.  To be honest, all I really wanted to do right then, was go and get stoned somewhere.  “I came back from the base,” I said, not looking at Anthony. “I fell asleep in the lounge and when I woke up I heard Howard and this guy…Jack. I could hear sirens and stuff.  I hid.  I didn’t know what the hell was going on.  Then Jack left.  And Howard found me.”

Anthony shifted restlessly on the sofa, and for a moment he covered his mouth with both of his hands.  “I’ve got to think,” he spoke through his fingers. “I’ve got to be so careful.”

“You think it will happen again?” I asked him. “I mean, if they got rid of you like that once, they can do it again, right?” I looked at him and my mouth was sucked free of moisture.  Anthony looked back at me.

“It was them,” he said firmly. “You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded.  I felt sick inside.  I wanted to cry. “He told me.  He told me he got rid of you and he’d do the same to anyone else that stuck their nose in. That’s why you’ve got to stay out of it Anthony, you have  to.  You can’t do anything, Anthony, you really can’t. Mike can’t lose you again!”  I bowed my head, unable to look him in the eye any longer.  The tears were swimming, threatening to fall.  I sniffed. “I’m sorry Anthony.  I’m so, so sorry.”

Anthony twisted to face me and clamped his hand down onto my shoulder. “You can’t let it drag you down,” he told me fiercely. “You listen to me.  It wasn’t your fault.  Not any of it.  Okay?”

“Michael lost you for a year, because of me…you were locked up!  Because of me.”

“Because of Howard, not you. And possibly because of this other guy.”

“I feel so shit about it…If you hadn’t tried to help me, if I hadn’t told you anything…”

“Listen to me, I stuck up for you because I like you okay?  I’d do the same for anyone in that situation.  I couldn’t stand the thought of that fucking gorilla giving you a hard time. Okay, I’ll admit I had no idea who the fuck I was messing with…but that’s not your fault right? None of this is your fault Danny.” He stared right into my eyes and did not flinch. He stared at me until I nodded back miserably.  “You’ve got to listen to me mate, or all this is gonna’ drag you down and finish you off, I mean, look what the fuck’s happened to you in a year!  You look a mess mate.  You look like you don’t give a shit about anything.  You have to understand something, alright.  They’re the adults, you are the kid, so none of this, fucking none of it is your fault.  That man is evil.  And I’ll bet we don’t even know the half of it.”

I managed to smile and nod at him.  There was a sort of lightness filling me slowly.  Just knowing that he did not hate or blame me, was an amazing feeling.  I felt a little bit like I had been untethered, set free. “Okay,” I told him. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he replied, getting to his feet. “We’re up to our necks in it.  But we’ve got to figure something out, bring them down somehow.  But he can’t know we’re up to anything.  He can’t know anything or we’re fucked. Maybe we start digging around a bit, yeah?  Play detective.  Play it smart.  I got one idea already.”

“What?”

“I’ll track down Lawler. If he’s who I think he is he won’t be too hard to find.  He knows me.  Might be able to score some grass off him and get him talking.”

The thought of it flooded me with fear.  I shook my head. “Anthony…”

“Don’t worry about it, don’t even think about it,” he commanded me. “All you have to do is keep your head down and stay off them drugs, yeah? You’ll feel better then.  More with it.  You’ll be useful to us then.  So no more silly stuff, alright?  Because all you’re doing is playing right into their hands, you know.  They’ve had an easy ride for a year, if you think about it.  Me inside. You apart from your mates, and drugged up out your mind, not questioning anything, not fighting back.” He laughed a little then and gave me a playful punch in the shoulder. “What about that eh? You forgot about all that didn’t you? Fighting back Danny.  The old Danny eh?  The boy Mike was always telling me about, getting arrested at school for fighting!  Giving people hell.  What happened to him eh? We need him back man.  You gotta’ get him back.”

After lunch Anthony announced that he was going to have a bath.  “Do all my best thinking in there,” he grinned.  He had been up there for twenty minutes or so, when I decided to leave.   I should have told him, or called up to him, but I didn’t.  I thought he would try to stop me.  I couldn’t stay there a minute longer.  I’d been growing jumpier by the second, thinking about Howard, still storming around out there looking for me.  So I walked to Jacks, and I took the long way around so that no one would see me.

I walked with my head lowered and my hands in my pockets.  The Smiths were playing on my Walkman now.  It was the kind of song that made me want to wallow in sadness and despair, and that was pretty much what washed over me as I walked. Park the car at the side of the road, you should know, that time’s tide will smother you, and I will too, when you laugh at people who feel so very lonely, they’re only desire is to die… I heard children laughing, and I realized that I had just ploughed carelessly through a whole bunch of them on the pavement.  I guessed they were heading to the fish and chip shop for their lunch.  One of them called out to me, and I pulled the headphones down curiously.  “Danny?”

It was Higgs.  Eddie Higgs.  He was in the middle of the group, and he was staring back at me, his expression wondering, a slow smile lifting his lips.  It was weird looking at him.  My old adversary, the boy who had been the cause of so many of those explosive fights with my mother.  I felt a detached kind of curiosity, nothing more, but it made me realize then that Anthony was right.  I wasn’t the same boy anymore.  I was a shell.  An imprint of what I once was.  I saw him smiling and nudging the other kids, and then I suddenly felt horribly aware of the clothes I had been wearing since Friday, and of how awful I must look.  I couldn’t bear to see any trace of satisfaction on his face, so I turned quickly and kept walking.  I pulled my headphones back on so I would not have to listen to their laughter following me down the pavement.

I let myself into Jack’s flat with the key he had given me.  He was home.  Slumped in one of the tatty sofas, whiskey in one hand, a fat cigar in the other.  He was watching Countdown.  I paused at the door, my head suddenly full of Anthony’s questions, and Jack and I eyed each other warily across the room.  He puffed on his cigar.  “Well you look like hell,” he said finally.  I shrugged at him.

“That guy sold me something bad.  I’ve had the worst comedown ever.”

Jack merely chuckled at me. “Bit dramatic ain’t it? No such thing as bad stuff mate, you just probably took too much. Just ask Jaime for some downers next time.  Take the edge off when you come back down.”

I shook my head and walked across the lounge and into the kitchen to put the kettle on.  “I’m not touching any of that stuff ever again,” I said. He laughed again from the sofa.

“Whatever you say kid.  It’s your life.”

I located the kettle and filled it with water.  The area around the sink was cluttered and overcrowded with dirty plates and cups, and piled high with takeaway wrappers and containers.  The window was closed, holding the unique smell of boozy sweat and chicken tikka masala hostage in the airless room.  I shuddered and wondered what the fuck I was doing back there.  Why had my legs walked me there like some kind of robot, instead of walking me somewhere decent, like the record shop, or to Lucy?  I found the cup I always used, the cracked cream one with the black Labrador on the side.  The teabags lived in a metal tin next to the kettle. I rummaged around in it, found one in the dust at the bottom and dropped it into my cup.  I took the milk from the fridge, checked the date on the side and then sniffed it just to be sure.  I heard Jack clear his throat of phlegm.

“Lee’s looking for you, you know,” he called out. “You’re meant to be at home he reckons, seeing some people to do with school?”

I’d forgotten all about that.  I folded my arms in the doorway and waited for the kettle to boil. “He wasn’t very happy with me all weekend. I was in a total mess.”

“You just need downers.  Told you.”

“No.  Never again.”

“You won’t be wanting this back then?” He had picked up my little tin from the coffee table.  He waved it back and forth in the air. I rolled my eyes, went to make my tea, and then carried it into the lounge and sat down on the sofa.  Before he could say anything else, I picked up my tin and shoved it into my pocket.  He laughed out loud.  I stared at the TV.

“This is Howard’s place, right?”

I felt his eyes turn on me, measuring my question. “Yeah, it is yeah.”

“You rent it off him then?”

“That would be the name of the arrangement, yes young man. Why the sudden interest?”  I looked his way to see that ever present soft smile upon his lips and I felt immediately stupid.  I had said too much, too soon.  We never really talked much, so I had to be careful not to make him suspicious.  So I drank my tea for a while, saying nothing. When Jack poured himself another whiskey, he grabbed the rim of an empty glass sitting on the table and filled that one as well.  He passed it to me, and I took it without even thinking about it.  It was just habit, that’s all. Sitting there with him, getting wasted.  I couldn’t deny the urge was as strong as ever.

“Would Howard kill you if he knew about the speed and shit?” I ventured some time later when the whiskey had stoked up my bravado, and my curiosity.  Jack turned his calm eyes upon me again.

“Who knows?” he replied with a sigh. “But it’s the thought of your mother finding out that terrifies me the most.”

“So why do you then?”

“Why do I what?”

“Why do you sell it to me?”

“I don’t.  Not anymore.”

“But you have,” I argued. “You did, until Friday.”  I knew I was pressing him, pushing him too far, but I felt desperate and impatient.  I wanted something, anything to take back to Anthony, so that he would not have to risk going out to look for it himself.

“Look,” Jack sighed again. “I’m one of those people, right.  I don’t give a shit what other people do, as long as it don’t bother me, right?  Live and let live and all that.  Take it if you wanna’ take it, don’t if you don’t, it’s no skin off my nose either way.  I was just trying to be friendly that’s all.”

“And now you’re worried that Howard would be mad?  If he knew about it?”

Jack stared at me then, and his eyes were narrowed and he ran his tongue slowly over his lower lip before he broke out into a smile again.  “I think you need to look at yourself Danny,” he advised. “No one forced you to take anything, not once.  If you don’t want to do things, then don’t.  It’s your life buddy.  But I never heard you complaining about any of it until now, so what’s changed?  One bad comedown?”

“Howard doesn’t know?” I asked him once more.  I had finished the whiskey and I was aware that it had loosened my tongue.  I felt like I was walking along a tightrope, trying to keep my balance, while certain death waited for me on either side.  I could sense the danger in the air and I understood it.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Jack said. “He’ll be here any minute.”

The air in a room always seemed to alter when Howard walked in.  It smelled different and it clung to the skin.  I accepted another measure of whiskey from Jack and waited for the inevitable.  I thought about leaving, getting up and getting out, but where could I go?  Not back to Anthony.  I couldn’t risk leading them back there.  My mind wandered helplessly as I sat there.  What was to stop them setting Anthony up again?  If they had done it once, surely they could do it again?  When Howard finally arrived, he did not knock or use a key, he just strode on in as if he owned the place, which I remembered, he actually did.  He walked in big angry strides and tossed his car keys onto the glass topped coffee table with a bang that made me jump.  He stood like a tree, legs spread and head cocked. “Where the fuck have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve been everywhere looking for you.  You’ve not been at the record shop, or at Billy’s. You better not have been with those Andersons.” He raised his eyebrows at me questioningly. “’Cause I thought I already fucking warned you about that.”

“I wasn’t there,” I said. “I’ve been ill.”

“Yeah and that’s your own fucking fault! Don’t expect any sympathy off me!”

“True,” I nodded, glancing at Jack. “But it’s also his fault.”

Both men were staring at me now.  I didn’t really know what I was doing, or saying.  I thought maybe they would kill me.  Maybe they would just laugh at me.  But I had to get something from them, anything to make things a little clearer.  Howard nodded at the door then. “Come on,” he said. “The truants officer and a teacher are on the way over.”

“You don’t really want me to speak to them,” I said, and my voice was a whisper, but they still heard it alright.  I swallowed nervously as my throat began to tighten, warding off the oxygen it needed to breathe.  Howard looked intrigued.

“Don’t I?”

“I might have to tell them the truth about why I keep missing school,” I shrugged and glanced between them.  I suddenly felt horribly small and vulnerable sat there with both of them staring at me.  But I could definitely see the anxiety in their eyes, and as scared as I was, it pleased me and it was obvious, I thought.  Howard knew, and he did not want to talk about it.  Anthony was right.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said coldly.  I rose up from the sofa.

“So you don’t mind that Jack deals me drugs then?” I don’t even know where the courage to ask the question came from, but there it was.  And all Howard did was head to the door.

“What you two get up to is your business,” he snapped. “I told you already, Just don’t fucking do it in my house.”

“Okay,” I said, as we left the flat.  “I get it.” We headed down the corridor and down the flight of stairs, and I felt this little throb of fire burning in my gut.  I wanted to smile, and I wished that Anthony could have seen me then.  We walked out into the sunshine and towards Howard’s car, and I was just about to ask him what mum would think if I showed her my little tin and told her all about Jack, when Howard slipped an arm around my shoulders. He pulled me into his side.

“You can tell your mum, and these other people whatever the fuck you want,” he told me, as a thin cold smile stretched out his lips.  “But if I were you I would think about what happens to you next.  ‘Cause I know for a fact your mum is on the edge, as far as you’re concerned. It’s only me that keeps talking her out of getting you put into care, you know. So you think what happens if they all know about your drug habits.  Kicked out of school probably.  Arrested again if the cops are called in. Third offence right?  So you’d be up in court little man, with a pretty colourful record going ahead of you.  All I have to do is suggest care would be a better place for you, and she’d jump at it mate.  I’m telling you.”

He unlocked the car and opened the passenger side for me.  He nodded down at the seat, so I slid in and stared back up at him with slumped shoulders.  He grinned and leaned towards me, a glint in his eyes as he spun his car keys on one finger.  “Do you know what happens to boys your age when they go into care?” he asked and waited for an answer.  I just stared back at him and shook my head, as the heaviness of despair came crushing down on me yet again.  My mouth had gone dry, and my fire had gone out, and I already knew that I would not be telling anyone anything today.  “Pretty boys like you?” He was laughing at me now, licking his lips hungrily and revealing those neat rows of teeth.  “Let’s just say, you’d get a very warm welcome Danny, do you get my drift?  My brother found that out the hard way when he was a naughty little shit stain.  My parents sent him to a place like that, so I know.  You’d be eaten alive mate.  A little blue eyed kid like you. You’d be their fucking pet.” He laughed out loud, slammed the door shut and walked around to his side.  He climbed in, still laughing, and turned the key in the ignition.  Then he slapped my thigh briskly and winked at me when I looked at him. “There’s something for you to think about anyway kiddo.  That, and the fucking shit that will come down on those Anderson cunts if you ever threaten me again.” His eyes burned down, his lips tight and small, all humour dissolved now, nothing but violent promise behind those eyes. “Now shut the fuck up and be a good boy like I told you to be.”