48

           

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

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

“He looks a mess…” I heard John say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s okay,” I shrugged.

“So when is it?  The wedding?”

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

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

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

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

“What are you up to?  Revision?”

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

“Nah.”

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

“Oh yeah?”

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

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

“Hmm?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Nothing.”

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

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

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

“Just killing time.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah?  Like another country?”

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

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

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

“Wouldn’t you get lonely?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah.  And?”

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

47

 

April 1994

After Christmas, my mother and Howard talked about one thing and one thing only; the wedding.  It seemed to cause them as much stress and tension as it did joy and excitement, and dominated nearly every conversation that I overheard.  “It bores me so much I want to kill myself,” I complained to Terry in The Record Shop as the big day loomed ever closer.  Terry was in his usual spot, perched on his high stool behind the counter, music magazine in one hand, large mug of tea in the other.  He was, as ever, dressed in a band t-shirt, today it was Led Zeppelin, and a loose pair of bemuda shorts.  He was a big man who moved as little as he could get away with.  I had quickly discovered this was to my advantage.  I could pass him things, you see.  I could fetch him things, knock down spider webs and dust, carry about heavy boxes and run around the shop hunting records down for the rare customers that wandered in.  I could do any of these things, and offered to on a regular basis just to avoid being shooed out of the shop for not buying anything.

“Weddings are for the female of the species,” Terry informed me with a yawn, barely looking up from his magazine.  “I don’t think they interest men one little bit.  I think men just go along with it all. I imagine she has a file, or a book?  Everything organised down to the last detail?”

“Yes!” I cried, my arms folded on top of the counter. “She has this bloody ring-binder she nicked off me!  Full of all this crap from magazines, about perfect hair and perfect nails and perfect bloody cakes!”

“Just like my sister,” Terry nodded curtly, his eyes down. “It’s like an infectious disease that runs rife among them.  They’ll have a job getting you in a suit though, won’t they?”

I snorted, and cupped my chin in my hand. “I don’t even want to go Terry.”

“Are they having a honeymoon?” he inquired then. “Going anywhere nice?”

“I dunno,” I said, narrowing my eyes. The thought of them going away had not occurred to me before then.  I suddenly saw myself, with the house to myself, with freedom! “I try not to listen to any of it.” I smiled. “She’s got my brother coming down,” I said then.  I was really just plucking useless information out of the air to keep him talking.  He bored of people easily and seemed to greatly prefer his own company to anyone else’s.  I would have liked to have pointed this out to him whenever he moaned about business being slow, but I daren’t say anything to annoy him.  Time in the record shop was my salvation and my hope.  I tried not to give Terry any reasons to send me on my way.

“Brother eh?” He licked his thumb and finger and turned the page of the magazine.  He sounded bored already.  I was boring him.

“Yeah, he’s giving her away.  I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“Haven’t you got somewhere you need to be?” He had looked up from his magazine and was eyeing me curiously.  He had asked the question with a sigh, so I knew that my time was running out.

“I’ve nearly got enough money for another record,” I told him urgently.  “So I was coming up with a shortlist you know? So I know what I’m getting.  So you don’t let it go to anyone else.”

“Fat chance of that,” Terry huffed, turning another page. “You’re the only one keeping me in business, right now.  Go for it.  Have a hunt around.  You can put a pile next to the record player and I’ll keep ‘em for you til you can pay for ‘em.”

I already had a record on the counter.  I held it aloft, gripping it tightly with a smile stretched across my face.  It was the single Loser by a guy called Beck.  I’d seen it on MTV and really liked it.  Terry made a face and laughed. “Getting tired of all that grunge I see,” he remarked. “Going for something different.”

“Never!” I retorted. “I just really like this, have you heard it?”

He nodded wearily. “Stick a record on will you.  Not that one.”

I bit my lower lip.  I felt a rush of childish delight that I knew I would be unable to explain to anyone, not even Billy.  Putting a record on meant coming around the other side of the counter.  It was a privilege that Terry, as far as I knew, had never bestowed on any other customer.  It meant he trusted me.  Coming around the corner of the counter, my heart rate quickened and my palms grew itchy with anticipation.  I had to breathe in and squeeze past Terry on his stool to reach the record player. He had this long shelf set up against the wall, with this amazing 1950’s style player on it, and stacks of records to sit alongside.  The pile was normally a mix of new stuff, and all of his favourites.  Every Smiths and Dylan album going was always in the pile.  I had to stand on tiptoe to reach properly, and I found myself holding my breath, biting down on my lip as I began to flick through his treasured LP’s.  Next to the record player Terry kept a large radio cassette player plugged into the wall.  He kept it tuned into the radio, but was never loyal to any one station.  Instead he turned the dial incessantly, always on the lookout for something better, something worth his attention.

The last song had ended and a new one had begun.  I sensed a change in the atmosphere that made me stop flicking through the records.  Terry had lowered his magazine onto his rippling belly and was looking right at me. “You heard this?” he asked softly.  “What do you think?” I waited and listened.  I nodded.  Yes, I had heard it before, on the radio at home, or somewhere, maybe on MTV.  But I could not remember what the song was called, or who the band were.  I turned slowly to inspect Terry’s own reaction, which was something I did a lot of in private, and I saw the fat man looking very intense.  He had his eyes narrowed right down to slits, as he squinted through them, as if sight was something that hindered listening to music properly.  I did not need to measure his reaction once my own had got underway.  The opening lines growled into life, I need to be myself, I can’t be no one else, I’m feeling supersonic, give me gin and tonic, you can have it all, but how much do you want it? There was just something thrilling and unexpected about the words themselves and how they sneered into life, something wonderfully and unashamedly aggressive and challenging.  It did that thing that happens sometimes when you hear music that effects you.  It set all my hairs on end, made me shiver from head to toe, and I wanted to clap my hands and nod my head and bounce up and down and sing along.

“I’ve heard this,” I whispered excitedly to the fat man, who I knew would not speak again until the song had finished.  I obeyed his rules and kept quiet after that.  I found myself starting to move a little, just bobbing up and down, and it was amazing the way it shot this pure joy right through me, spinning me far away from my mothers’ impending marriage to a psycho.  It made nothing matter, and yet everything did.  The chorus kicked in and I nodded my head, remembering now why I had picked up on it the last time I head heard it, because it was just fucking brilliant; you need to find a way, for what you wanna’ say, but before tomorrow, ‘cause my friend said he’ll take you home…he sits in a corner all alone…he lives under a waterfall, nobody can see him, nobody can ever hear him call… And then the guitar, oh man, making me want to play along, even though I didn’t have a fucking clue.

As it drew to an end, I found myself gazing at my feet, scratching my head and grinning, wanting to hear it again and again.  I was thinking about the words, like I always did, what they meant, what they were supposed to mean.  Sometimes I imagined the friend in the song to be Anthony, because taking me home was saving me, and sitting in a corner was…well you know the rest.  Like all good music, it smashed me with joy yet touched me with pain.  It left me wanting more.  I felt as high as a kite.  I couldn’t say any of these things to Terry of course so I just pointed at him. “Put it on my list,” I insisted. “Soon as you get it in!”

“Oasis,” he remarked cooly, lifting his magazine back up. “Gonna’ be fucking massive, and just what we all fucking need, I’m telling you mate.”  He didn’t need to tell me.  I already knew.

People always say they can remember exactly where they were when a big news story broke.  You know, like Kennedy being shot, or Martin Luther King being assassinated, or Elvis being found dead on his toilet.  I didn’t used to care, or pay much attention, until it happened to me.  I will remember forever and ever where I was, what I was doing, even what I was fucking wearing the day I heard that Kurt Cobain was dead.

I was in The Record Shop again.  I had only been in about five minutes, brimming with excitement, clutching the money to pay for the stack of singles and albums I had piled up behind the counter.  Beck’s Loser, Oasis’ Supersonic, Talking Heads’ Remain In Light and Pixies Surfer Rosa.  See?  Remember them all.  I was wearing blue baggy jeans, and I had just been thinking that I must have lost a bit of weight because I had to keep hitching them up, and I was feeling just a tiny bit pissed off about this.  I wanted to be getting bigger for fucks sake, not smaller. I had on an old Clash t-shirt I had picked up in a charity shop, and my beloved baseball boots which were coming apart at the soles. I went around the counter, and clutched the records to my chest, inhaling the musty smell of them while Terry chucked my money into the till.  He was drooped over his stool, mug of tea steaming in front of him, and a stack of dusty cassettes to one side, waiting to be shelved.  “You still don’t have a record player to play them on do you?” he asked, struggling to disguise his own amusement.

“Gonna’ ask for one for my next birthday.”

“You’re weird, you know that?  All the other kids are getting into the fucking CD’s mate.  That’s the new thing!  You’re going bloody backwards!”

“I like old things,” I shrugged defensively.  I stayed where I was, behind the counter, stalling for time by gazing longingly at my records and wondering if he would allow me to turn off the radio and put one on.  We heard the news announcement at the same time.  We both lifted our heads instantly when we heard the words being spoken.  Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain has been found dead at his Washington home. It was a long, stretched out moment, dizzying and sick, and I felt like the bottom had fallen out of my world, just crashed on out under my feet.  I was standing on nothing.  Flailing.  The fat man was staring at me and I was staring back at him.  My mouth fell open in slow motion, registering the horror.  Terry’s face seemed to twist in shock, his eyes becoming loaded with despair and disbelief.  I was rigid and could not speak.

“Oh my god,” Terry whispered as the news reporter rattled on.

I held my records to my chest and shook my head.  “Can’t be true,” I heard my voice croak.  I walked stiffly then, around the counter and towards the door.

“Oh shit,” he was saying behind me.  “Not another one.  Jesus fucking Christ, it’s never fucking Michael Bolton or Phil Collins is it?  Hey?  Hey Danny, come on, you alright mate?”

“Can’t be true,” I said.  I wrenched the door open and started running.

I ran all the way home.  I stumbled up the driveway with my sweaty hair plastered to my face.  I barely paid attention to the two cars parked in the drive as I dashed past them, still clutching my records, all my coherent thoughts commanding me to get to the television, to find out more.   I ran into Howard and Freeman in the back garden.  They had the barbeque going and were lounging in plastic garden chairs, smoking and drinking beers.  There was an instant and undeniable light that leaped into Howard’s eyes when he saw me.

“Whoa look who it is! Our number one man!” Freeman greeted me as he often did, with just a silent nod of his head.  “You heard the big news yet eh?”  I scowled at the snake like smile that crawled across his face, and the delight that shone in his beady eyes, and turned away from them, into the house.  There was a roar of laughter behind me.  Their footsteps echoed mine.  “Don’t you love this about Danny?” Howard was asking Freeman. “He’s so bloody talkative!  So damn well mannered!”

I hurried into the lounge,placed my records on the sofa, turned the TV on and started to flick through the channels with the remote.  They came into the room behind me, and ordinarily the fear would have started to prickle through me, crawling down my spine, but I was too absorbed, too desperate to hear it was all a joke, a mistake.  “Ah looks like he already knows,” said Howard, drinking from his beer bottle.  “Oh damn, I was looking forward to telling you.  What a fucking loser eh Danny?  That so called hero of yours, that idiot junkie?  Fucking worthless piece of shit, blowing his own head off when he has a wife and a baby daughter to look after!”

I barely heard him, and I stopped flicking channels because I had found him.  There he was, locked inside the TV set like so many times before, on Top Of The Pops and MTV.  They were playing the video to Smells Like Teen Spirit, and there he was, in his striped top, peering through his blonde hair as he snarled the lyrics.  He came up to the camera lens, shook his hair from his eyes, and I mouthed the words as he sung them; I found it hard, it’s hard to find…oh well, whatever, never mind. My eyes tracked down to the information that was running along the bottom of the screen.  Kurt Cobain found dead in his Washington home.  I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.  I felt like there was no air to breathe and no point in trying.  My mouth fell open and I reached out with one hand, placing it shakily on top of the television set to steady myself.  I forced a deep breath of terrible, heart breaking shock.  I listened, in mounting sorrow, as the reporter relayed the information that he had probably been dead for a few days, that it appeared he had died from a shotgun wound to the head, and that a suicide note had been found at the scene.  But at the same time, there he was, alive and kicking, killing his guitar, thrashing the hell out of it, while the cheerleaders bounced up and down in slow motion.  They started playing shots from their other videos and from live performances, Kurt destroying his guitar and hurling himself into the drum set.

I wanted to reach into the TV.  I wanted someone to speak out, to voice a doubt, to suggest it was someone else, not him.  The footage then went on to show the thousands of distraught and weeping fans that had already gathered outside his home.  Howard made a disgusted sound from behind me.  “Oh fucking hell look at them all! Pissing and moaning!  What a bunch of babies. Christ, they all look like you Danny, like they’re fucking homeless! It’s a bloody uniform, the way you all dress.”

“Shut up,” I growled the word from the very back of my constricted throat.  It was all so wrong.  All of it.  He was just a young man, just twenty-seven years old, how could he be dead?  How could it be over?  I pressed one hand to my mouth and became slowly aware of the icy silence behind me.

“You better not have told me to shut up.”

I didn’t reply.   I chewed at my thumbnail and tried to take it all in.  They were talking about drugs and depression now, showing clips of him looking ill, or angry, as if that was all it came down to.  And it made me feel sick and angry, the flippant way they discussed the loss of this genius young man.

“Don’t get it,” Howard announced then. “Do you Jack? Don’t get all the fuss. It’s not like when Elvis died for fucks sake. Just some drugged up scruff who made whiny depressing music.  You wait now, bloody hoards of ‘em will start topping themselves! Come on, turn that off now. We’ve had enough of that shit.”

“I want to listen,” I protested, not looking at him.

“Pathetic,” he sneered, coming closer.  I stood my ground, spreading my legs and holding onto the TV. “Turn it off I said.”

I gestured in frustration. “It’s not finished, I just want to listen!”

“Don’t fucking argue with me, turn it off now, or I will!”

I gritted my teeth and stepped closer to the TV. “I just want to listen. You weren’t watching it.”

“What else do you need to hear for fucks sake?  Your hero is dead, little man.  There you go.  Who gives a flying fuck anyway?”

“Shut up!” I pushed the words through my tightly clenched teeth as my eyes bored into the TV screen, both my hands now balled into fists at my sides.  The thick hand crashed into my skull from behind, knocking me into the TV which rocked back slightly on its stand.  Then the hand was closing on my neck, wrenching me backwards and hurling me down to the floor.

“Don’t you ever tell me to shut up you little prick!” The hateful face was right in mine, breathing beer and juicy fruit chewing gum into mine.  I shuffled backwards, back towards the sofa, holding onto my head, and weeping.  I pressed my eyes shut then.  I didn’t want to see any of it anymore, didn’t want to hear it or believe it was true.  Howard straightened up and stalked arrogantly around the back of the TV where he ripped the plug right out of the wall socket.  There was only watchful silence from Jack Freeman in the doorway, and I didn’t care anyway, because nothing mattered, because everything was shit.  They’d killed him, they’d taken him from me… “You better watch yourself,” Howard warned me softly before leaving the room.

I crossed my arms over my knees, buried my head in them and let the sobs wrack my body.  I felt overwhelmed, by this gutting grief as it ripped right through me, and it felt like it would never stop, would never end.  I heard them laughing at me then.  In the kitchen, or outside, they were fucking laughing about it, so I jumped angrily to my feet and stormed recklessly into the hallway.  I rubbed my hands viciously into my eyes and thought well fuck it, you might as well kill me you fucking bastard!  “That’s right laugh!” I yelled at the kitchen.  A stunned silence followed.  I moved back, positioning myself against the front door, ready to run. I used each palm in turn to rub at my wet cheeks. “Just laugh then!”

Howard appeared in the kitchen doorway, his head slung low on his shoulders, while a deep frown hooded his stone like eyes.  His expression was disbelieving and stunned. He could not fathom why I had shouted at him.  “What did you just say?” he asked me, stepping into the hallway, and I could read him like a book.  He was pissed off and worried, doubting his power all over again, losing his good boy.

“You wouldn’t understand anyway!” I cried at him.  “You don’t even like any music! You have to have a soul to love music and you don’t fucking have one!”

The phone rang then.  It was so sudden, so shrill and loud and unexpected in the shrinking space of the hallway, that I jumped about a foot in the air and Howard visibly flinched.  I snatched it up before he could even move, pressing the receiver to my face with trembling tear stained hands.  I heard a snivelling in my ear, and I let the air flow freely from my sagging lips.  “Billy?”

The snivelling gave way to a hicuppy sob.  “Danny…have you heard it?”

“Yeah.  I’ve heard.  I’ve just seen it.”

Howard backed off slowly, his expression wondering and pensive.  He turned on his heel but paused to point one finger back at me. “Fucking pathetic,” he hissed and was gone.  I immediately sank back against the door, my legs going weak on me, my spine folding in, as I dropped my head heavily into one hand.

“I don’t want to believe it…” Billy was saying, his voice small and dazed. “Why would he do that Danny?”

“I don’t know Bill. Don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s really true?”

“I don’t know…I think it is.  It looks like it Billy.”

“I can’t believe it,” he sighed hopelessly into my ear.  “I can’t. I fucking love that band man. I fucking love them…”

I could only nod.  I knew exactly what Billy meant, and exactly how he was feeling, and yet there were no purposeful words to explain it.  Later I wrote in my diary that it felt like we had been cheated, and stolen from.  Something had been taken from us, something we would never be able to get back, no matter how hard we tried, no matter how much more music we fell in love with.  It had been ours.  We’d all loved it, all of us.  It had united us like nothing ever would again.  I lay on my bed for the rest of that heartbreaking day, with Nevermind on constantly.  When Something In The Way played, the emotions got the better of me, floored me and battered me, and all I could do was cry.

My mother came up to see me when she arrived home.  She viewed my swollen eyes from the safety of the doorway and sighed in sympathy.  “I just heard, and I’m so sorry love,” she said. “I know how much you love that band.” She sighed again and gazed around at the posters that adorned my walls. “I know he was like a hero to you. I just don’t understand,” she said then, with a small and nervous shrug. “I don’t get it.  I don’t get why they do it when they have all that money and success!”

“Maybe he hated his life,” I told her stonily from my bed.  “Maybe he despised all that.  Maybe he hated waking up every morning.  Simple as that.”

“I expect it has more to do with drugs and depression,” she said knowingly, making me writhe with fury and contempt.  “They all seem to go the same way.  Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison.  Such a pity. And with all that money and fame you’d think they’d be happy!”

“For gods sake,” I spat at her then. “Money and fame don’t equal happiness mother, there is a lot more to it than that!  Like maybe his parents did a really good job of fucking him up!”

“Oh that’s nice!  That’s lovely!  Why do the parents always have to get the blame?”

“Because you reap what you sow.”

She shook her head at me, edging away.  “You what? What is that supposed to mean?  You don’t half come up with some crap Danny!”

“I think it’s true.”

“Well I don’t know where you heard that nonsense, but one day you might be a parent and then you’ll find out how bloody hard it is young man!”

I rolled my eyes and laughed at her.  “I’ll do a better job than mine!”

“What is your problem?” She made a stance that filled the doorway then, hands on hips, head cocked to one side, staring at me as if I were some kind of alien, not the very child she had grown inside her own fucking womb.  Her eyes flashed at me angrily, so I tore mine away, found Kurt’s poster above my bed, and fixed them there.

“If I ever have kids,” I said, “I won’t disappear and never see them again, and I won’t let psychotic bastards come into their lives and wreck everything!”

“Oh,” she snapped. “So now we’re back to Lee are we? Well I don’t have to stand here and listen to this thank you very much, I’ve heard it enough times by now.  I came up here to offer you some sympathy!”

“More like to gloat,” I grunted at her. “Just like he did.  Yeah, he couldn’t wait to laugh at me and rub it in!”

“Danny, it’s called teasing, and it’s no surprise he’s not a fan of that music…”

“He’s not a fan of anything except himself!  He stood there laughing and gloating, the bastard!”

“Danny, we are getting married next Sunday whether you like it or not…”

“Yeah, and that’s what you’re marrying mum,” I said bitterly, not taking my eyes from the poster.  “Someone who makes fun of me being upset about something that really, really matters to me.  But then you already know that don’t you?  You just don’t care.  Now just leave me alone and close the fucking door behind you.” I closed my eyes and dropped my arms across them so that I would not have to see whatever depressing look she gave me before she went away.

46

 

December 1993

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No money.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Quick word with Mike?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Secret supplier,” I grinned.

“Secret friend?” Michael asked.

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

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

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

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

“Why do you care?” I shrugged.

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

“It’s just this guy I know.”

“What guy?”

“He’s called Jack.”

“So how do you know him?”

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

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

“What Mike?”

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

“Probably.”

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

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

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

“No, not really.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Don’t want to.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

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

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

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

 

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

45

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fucking hell!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

“Secret surprise Bill!”

“Well come on then, I’m knackered.”

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

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

“It’s grass.  Give me a second.”

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

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

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

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

“A friend.”

“Well what friend?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Well it’s not the same without you.”

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

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

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

“Tell me then.”

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

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

I laughed. “You twat.”

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

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

December 1993

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, heard.”

“And?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He’s asked me to marry him.”

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

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