6

 

May 1993

The plan was partly detailed in my notebook, and partly kept inside our heads.  It made me smile every time I thought about it, and every time I looked at my mother and sensed her lies, I would think, well you don’t know everything either.  Michael was like the driving force behind it, spending hours in my room with me, coming up with tricks and pranks, and ways we could get rid of Bradley.  More often than not we would end up rolling around the floor with laughter.  It helped a lot, having him on board, in fact I still couldn’t believe how quickly he had come to my aid.  I’d never had a friend like that before.  I’d never known anyone who wanted to help you, even if it meant them getting in trouble themselves.  I buckled down at school, those next few weeks.  I avoided trouble with Higgs.  I had to really.  I had to stay in mothers good books in order for her let her guard down.  She relaxed you see, when I wasn’t being a pain.  She thought I wouldn’t notice her new hair style and her new clothes.  She thought things like that went over my head, but they fucking didn’t.  I watched her from a safe distance, and heard her giggling softly down the phone.  Sometimes she was late home from work, and we all knew why, but nothing was said, everything was a cover up, you see.  I thought about her when I wrote in my book, and I thought about her when I listened to music.  She was always in my head back then.  It was like a constant war going on within me, and probably within her too.  Sometimes I looked at her and felt nothing, like I had been adopted or something.  Sometimes I wondered where I had come from.

Billy had got me into The Clash, and they were old, but fucking amazing.  I felt jealous of anyone who had been young back then, when punk was all kicking off.  It must have been amazing!  All that rebellion and fighting back!  Yes!  There was this one line, from ‘Lost In The Supermarket’ that I really liked, and it kind of summed up the way I felt when I looked at my mother at that time; I wasn’t born, so much as I fell out, no one seemed to notice me, there was a hedge back in the suburbs, over which I never could see.  It was something like that, anyway, and I loved it.  Not just the bit about falling out, because I could really relate to that, but the bit about the hedge.  Obviously I didn’t imagine a real hedge, more like the way there is always something in the way, stopping you from seeing the truth.  Like you have to wait until you have grown before they will let you see anything.  Does that make sense?  Well, it did to me.

Of course, I eavesdropped when I could.  I was an expert at it.  It was my way of gathering information, stocking up on ammunition.  “You can’t really blame him,” I heard John saying to her one day.  They were in the kitchen.  But if I leaned over the banisters I could hear them just fine.  “After the last guy, I mean.  That was no fun for any of us.”

“God, am I really going to be paying for that forever?” she had shot back at him.  I could tell by her voice that she had a fag on the go.  “Christ, we are all allowed to make mistakes you know!  Plus, yes, me and Danny had an agreement, but he’s broken his side of it, so why can’t I break mine?  I like Frank, okay?  He’s a decent bloke.”

I wanted to direct words into Johns head then.  I wanted him to say what I was thinking.  You always say that!  You always think that!  And you are always wrong!  John just sighed at her patiently.  “Well you’ll have to deal with all this yourself when I’m gone,” he chose to remind her instead. “So I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m an adult John, darling!  Thank you for your concern, but you really don’t need to worry about a thing.  Frank is a nice guy, we are having a bit of fun, and as for Danny, well the day I take orders from a thirteen year old kid is the day hell freezes over, all right?”

All right.

I had to wait a bit of course.  Bide my time, like always.  I had detentions to see out at school, which sort of got in the way of the plan.  Detentions were torture.  Just knowing the gang were out there somewhere, having fun and laughing without me, gave me this deep physical pain in my body.  This ache of longing that I could barely stand.  But finally, my patience was rewarded.  Mum invited the wonderful Frank over for dinner.  You could tell this was her way of being adult about things.  “You can meet him,” she had told me, her tone very dark and full of warning.  I merely grinned in anticipation.  This of course was exactly the opportunity I needed.  “Then you can see for yourself what a nice normal guy he is, and stop worrying, how about that?”

“Fine,” I told her, meeting her eye.  “Brilliant.  Bring it on.”

At school, I told Michael that the plan was on, and that he needed to be part of it.  His eyes lit up and his grin touched his ears.  “Be at mine for six,” I told him.  “You’re the uninvited dinner guest.  You’re locked out your house or something, okay?”

The plan was perfect, and the thought of it tickled me no end as I stood out in the back garden that afternoon, kicking a football against the house.  I had a fag on the go, and this was the first thing John noticed when he appeared around the corner and glared at me.  “You are not supposed to be smoking!” he barked at me, all fatherly like.  I stopped kicking the ball and laughed at him.

“You’re not supposed to be such a dick, but hey, that’s life!”

He sucked in his breath for a moment.  Then he took a step backwards.  “Right then, you can deal with this yourself.  I’m going out. Tell mum I got that job at the shopping centre.  Tell her I went to work!”  He said this as if I should care or something.  I just flicked ash at the grass and laughed at him.

“Ooh no, I won’t have big brother to hold my hand, what will I ever do?”

“Idiot,” he told me, and marched off.

“Arsehole!” I yelled after him.  I chucked the cigarette down when I heard my the car pulling up out the front.  I came around the house slowly, and cautiously.  I watched her get out of her little orange Fiat, and I watched the guy get out the other side.  I could tell right away that they were involved.  Only an idiot would have thought otherwise.  It was all in their body language, their secret smiles, their soft laughter and crinkled up eyes.  He was tall and slim, with floppy blonde hair.  He could have been any age to me; twenty two or forty two.  I folded my arms and regarded him as simply another opponent, and I already had a feeling that this one was going to be easy.  Mum clocked me and right away looked shifty.  She cleared her throat, slammed the car door and approached me warily.

“Danny, this is Frank, Frank this is my youngest son Danny.”

The guy smiled awkwardly.  He didn’t stick out his hand or anything. “All right?” he said instead, hands in pockets.  He was wearing a sharp silver grey suit.  Looked exactly like I thought he would.  He had car salesman stamped all over him, and Michael was right, he had sleaze stamped all over him too.  I took him by surprise then, plastering this dopey look all over my face and thrusting my hand out at him desperately.

“Good to meet you!” I beamed.  He looked momentarily terrified of course.  Your mothers’ boyfriends never want you to be too friendly.  They want you to like them of course, only not too much.  If you hadn’t already guessed, too friendly was the approach I was going for with this guy.  I pumped his hand really hard, and followed them eagerly into the kitchen, while my mum shot me nervous looks over her shoulder.

“What do you want to drink Frank?” I asked him right away, as he pulled up a chair.  He looked stunned again.  I guessed my mum had probably warned him I would be a pain in the arse or something.

“Um, I don’t know…a beer maybe?  If you have one?”

“We have beer,” I told him, fetching one quickly from the fridge.  I gave it to him, grinned like a lunatic and sat down next to him.  My mother was just staring at me then.  She was frozen to the spot in horror and confusion. I choked back laughter and gazed back up at her.

“I have to get changed,” she said then, her voice coming out slowly, as if her brain was slightly detached from her mouth.  “We’re having takeaway.  You guys can decide.”

“I’ll get the leaflets,” I announced eagerly, leaping up again to grab the pile of takeaway fliers that had gathered up on the hall table.  My mother passed me, as she headed up the stairs. She had one hand wandering around in her hair, and the other hanging limply before her.  She opened her mouth as if to say something to me, and then seemed to change her mind and hurried up the stairs instead.  “Oh John’s at work!” I called up to her brightly.  She froze on the top step and stared down at me frowning.

“What work?”

“I dunno,” I shrugged. “He said he had a job.  Oh, I better not leave Frank alone out there!”  I rushed back into the kitchen, my chest swelling with some sort of glory.  I had a bounce in every step, and after another fifteen minutes with Mr. Bradley, I was grinning so much my face hurt.  He was squirming away by then, his eyes flicking constantly to the door, desperately waiting for my mother to come and get him off the hook.  “She really likes you,” I told him for about the twentieth time.  This alone seemed to be unnerving him.  I was sat as close as I could get to him, my knee pressing against his.  “You pick the dinner,” I kept telling him.  “Go on you pick.  I don’t mind.  I’ll eat anything.  And she won’t touch a thing.  She’s always on a diet or something.”

Bradley had the leaflets in a neat little pile.  He kept tapping them against the table to shuffle them into place.  “Oh no, no, we’ll wait for your mother,” he told me with a weak smile.

“I need to talk to you about something actually,” I whispered then, leaning closer. “Before she comes back down!”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, like man to man, if you don’t mind?” I stared up at him, wide eyed and gorgeous, just like my mother had always said I was, as if I were pinning my boyish hopes entirely on him.  He looked dumbfounded and appalled. “It’s just,” I went on, with a little dip of the eyes and a sniff of the nose. “I don’t have my dad around you see…so I haven’t got anyone to talk to about these kind of things…”

“Uh, what kind of things?”  He got up from the table then.  He couldn’t stand it you see, me leaning in like that, gazing at him in hope.  Useless spineless selfish fuck like all of them.  I had victory already.  He got up and lingered in the doorway, crossing and uncrossing his arms, while he stared out at the hallway.

“Personal kind of things,” I went on eagerly, even though just being in the same room as him was making my stomach feel sick. “You know, father to son kind of things?”  That was the clincher of course.  Guys like him never want to hear the father word, or anything that might remotely point to a future.  He turned his back on me and walked to the hall table, tapping the leaflets against one palm.  I got up and watched him.

“I’ll call up the pizza place shall I?” he yelled up the stairs.  There was a tap at the back door.  It was Mike.  I ushered him in, triumph written all over my face, as I held up a hand for a silent high five.  He looked perturbed but pleased.

“Nice one,” he mouthed.  I nodded.  Jerked my thumb towards the hallway, where Frank Bradley could be heard mumbling on the telephone.  “You’re locked out of home,” I whispered to Michael. “Got nowhere to go.”  He nodded in approval.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just follow my lead.”

Just then mum strolled casually into the kitchen.  Frank Bradley was right behind her, his eyes bulging at the rear view of her tight fitting jeans.  I felt a hard tightening in my chest, at the sight of her, and him closing in from behind.  She looked okay now, I thought in amazement.  She had this calm and knowing smile stretched out across her face, and her eyes regarded me cooly as she stopped and took in Michael. “Danny, not now, we’re about to have dinner.”

“He’s locked out!” I cried at her, gripping him by the arm and dragging him forward. “Aren’t you Mike?  He’s got nowhere to go!”

“My mum went out,” Michael shrugged dutifully, hands in pockets. “Dunno when she’ll be back.  She’s always going off places and not telling me.”

I watched my mother suck in her breath, her rib cage rising up with her slim fitting t-shirt to reveal a slash of her belly.  She had her hands on her hips and her eyes on me.  They said, I know what you are doing, I can see right through you.  “I wonder why,” she murmured instead, and turned to Bradley. “Let’s go and sit down.  The boys can call us when the pizza arrives.”

I waited until they had closed the lounge door behind them, before I turned to Michael and grinned. “It’s going well then?” he asked, slipping into a chair at the table.  He lolled in it, one arm dangling off the back.  I sat down next to him.  I clasped my hands together.  I was starting to sweat.

“I had him getting all hot and bothered,” I whispered. “You know, threw a load of cringey stuff at him.  Gotta pile it on thick though.”

Michael snorted in amusement. “I thought he was looking all hot and bothered for a different reason.”

I rolled my eyes. “Shut up.  You have to help me.  Say anything you like.  Do anything you like.  Just help me make him squirm, yeah?”

“Understood,” he nodded and saluted me.  “Don’t worry.  I know who his last few girlfriends were.  Could be pretty awkward!”

Together, Mike and I hit Bradley with everything we had.  We started slow, we started gentle, but by the time the pizza was half demolished, we had given up on being subtle.  We made sure we remained polite, over eager, and over friendly, so that way my mother could not send us out of the room, or anything.  We did most of it out of her earshot too.  Questioned him about his past girlfriends, what went wrong and why.  Interviewed him for possible father material.  Asked his advice on girls at school.  Whatever we said made him turn crimson.  Just looking at him made the poor man twist and writhe in his seat.  Finally, he could take no more, and scuttled off home, throwing some poor excuse my mums way.  To give her credit, she took it well, as if she had been expecting as much.  I felt like yelling one nil or something, as he sidled out of the door, but I couldn’t let myself.  I couldn’t look at Michael by then either.  He had been shuddering and snorting throughout most of the dinner, trying and failing to contain his personal amusement.  My mother merely watched Frank leave, sighed and got to her feet, casting a weary eye over the two of us.  “That went well,” I had the nerve to comment as she headed towards the hall way.  “Didn’t it mum?”

“Fine.  Would have been nice to get some time alone with Frank, but oh well, I’ll see him tomorrow I suppose.”

“I think he’s really nice,” I beamed at her.  Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, before she smiled, revealing her teeth.

“Good,” she said. “Very good.  I’m glad you feel like that Danny.  Because so do I.  So maybe you won’t mind seeing a whole lot more of him from now on, eh?”  She lifted her eyebrows at me, sipped her wine, and tossed her hair as she left the kitchen.  I could hear Michael drumming his fingers against the table top, and when I turned to look at him, he licked his lips at me.

“Sounded like a challenge to me mate.”

I nodded at him stiffly. “Yeah.  So much for just fucking friends, eh?”  I felt the anger twisting within me.  “Her fucking boss,” I growled.

“Plenty more to play for,” Michael reminded me casually. “That was just the beginning.  He won’t want to be anywhere near your mum by the time we’ve finished with him.”

 

7

I was waiting for something.

I felt it in my bones.  I felt it in my muscles when I moved.  In my veins, and under my skin.  Everywhere.  I felt it everywhere.  I was waiting, and the feeling told me I would not have to wait much longer.  Call it intuition.  Or instinct.  Whatever.  I trusted it, and I knew it.  I’d never been wrong before.

I’d seen her.  The one I wanted.  She came in every Friday night with her friends.  I didn’t think they were her real friends.  She doesn’t look that comfortable with them anyway.  She looked like she was trying a bit too hard.  She threw her head back when she laughed.  She had wide blue eyes.  Beautiful.  She gazed into their faces when they talked.  She absorbed whatever they said, whatever they cackled.  Maybe they were her workmates, I thought. Yeah, made sense.  People she vaguely knew, people who knew only vague and superficial things about her. They didn’t care for details.  I thought, they were missing out.  Because there was something about her.

She hadn’t noticed me yet.  My intention.  I would remain unseen until I had learnt more.  I liked the way she dressed.  I noticed that first.  Classy.  If the dress had low cleavage then it would be knee length.  If the dress was above the knee, then the top was modest.   She had dark blonde hair. Not too trashy.  The fringe bounced into her eyes when she leant into the conversation.  She tucked it behind her ears, raised her hand to her mouth when she giggled appreciatively.  I didn’t imagine her friends were saying anything particularly interesting or useful.  I thought she liked to please.

When she walked to the bar, the crowd parted.  Eyes flicked up, then down.  Men stared back into their pints, and their foreheads creased with the clash of desire and fear.  She knew it, because she always walked tall.  Head held up, but not high.  A smile that was encouraging, yet modest.  She waited her turn politely, expecting no favours.  She was not surprised, but she was gracious when a man let her take his turn.  She folded her arms across the bar, clutching a ten pound note in one softly curled hand.  Dry white wine, and a Southern Comfort with coke.  I watched her walk back to her friends, and one night there was a man with them.

Unlike him, I didn’t feel fear.  I was not afraid of her.  He had young, arrogant good looks, yet he was feebly unable to handle her.  I felt a flush of interest, of the feeling of watching a story about to unfold.  They were in it, and have not realised that I will be too.

It’s wasn’t going to happen slowly, over time, spread out evenly over dutiful Friday nights.  When it happened it would happen fast and it would happen hard, and that would be it.  She’d know it just as I knew it.  She looked like an angel, I thought.  In defiance of the lines on her face, her eyes lit up with nothing but hope and the urge to see good in people.  She trusted.  She would trust me.

4

“First of all you need to listen to all this old stuff,” Billy told me, emptying the contents of his school bag onto my bed.   I watched in awe as an endless stream of cassettes and vinyl poured out.

“Wow, thanks,” I said, but then I thought of something. “I don’t have a record player though.”

Billy fanned the music out with one hand.  “What about your mum?”

“Nope.  She doesn’t listen to any music.”

Billy made a disgusted noise, curled his lip and sat down on my bed. “Typical,” he said with a roll of the eyes.  “Okay, not these then.  I’ll get my dad to tape them for you.”  He scooped up the vinyl collection and deposited them carefully back into his bag.  I sat down and started to look through the tapes in amazement.

“Your dad must have a huge collection,” I said, admiringly.

“Massive,” he sighed. “He’s obsessed. He’ll tape you anything you want, and probably a load of stuff you don’t want too.”

“Old hippies,” Michael commented lazily from the window.  He was perched on the windowsill, with a lit cigarette between his fingers, and his eyes on the street for my mother.  Jake was sprawled in long legged fashion in the chair at my desk, a bored expression almost constantly on his lean face.  I started to sort the tapes into piles, my excitement building with each one I handled.  I felt a little stab of awe which I tried to squash down.  They were my friends, which was cool, but I didn’t want to be in awe of anyone.  Still, I had to admit it felt pretty good, having them lounging in my room after school, while my mother was out pounding the streets job hunting again.  Billy was the livewire of the group, I had noticed.  He was always positive, always cheerful, always looking for the humour in a situation.  He had no interest in school, often being hauled to detention for messing around and being disruptive, but he was serious when it came to music.  I could empathise with this.

“You’re insane if you’ve not listened to these yet,” he said the, hurling The Stone Roses cassette at me.  “Because for one, they are important, and for two, they are British.  Put that on and be blown away mate.”

“Okay.”

“You listened to Bleach yet?  Nevermind?” He had already taped these for me, and at the mere mention of what had now become my two favourite albums of all time, my heart accelerated a little, and my mouth dried out in anticipation of all the words I wanted to spout about them.  I nodded, wide eyed and he grinned knowingly. “Blows fucking Guns and Roses right out the water, doesn’t it?”

“Thanks Billy,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

“No problem. Come over to mine anytime.  My dad will love it.  His record collection is an education in itself.”

“You passing that on or what?”  Jake said with a yawn, directing his question to Michael, who turned and handed the cigarette down to him.  I liked Jake a lot.  Contrary to my initial beliefs about all of them, he had no aggression within him whatsoever.  He was the calm, quiet one, I suppose.  Long limbed and lanky and always yawning as if life bored him immensely and he was only here because he had to be.  He only spoke when he needed to, and when he did, he often said something worse listening to.

“You sorted things out with Eddie Higgs yet?” Michael asked me then, slipping down from the window and booting his own school bag across the floor. “Fuckinghell I hate that kid.”  He was referring to a boy in our class.  A boy who had challenged me to a fight at the beginning of the week.  This presented an awkward situation for me.  Normally I would have loved to oblige, but I had my bargain to keep with mum you see.  I had explained this to the others, who seemed to understand, but the problem was escalating daily.  Higgs now thought I was a wimp who wouldn’t fight him, and I couldn’t let that go on much longer.  So I just shook my head in misery at Michael.

“It’s killing me,” I complained.  “I need to find a way to beat him up without getting caught.”  The others laughed, so I smiled back happily.  “What is his problem anyway?”

Michael dropped onto the bed beside me and crossed one leg over the other. “Me and him go way back,” he explained.  “Hated him for years.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“You know those kind of people?” Michael said urgently then, leaning forward, light and intensity leaping into his dark eyes.  I smiled, recognising the look.  “You ever meet those kind of people, and within seconds of meeting them, you want to punch their face in?” He looked around and we all nodded in agreement. “Well he’s one of those, isn’t he?  Slimy, smarmy faced little posh boy cunt.  Can’t stand him. And he’s got it in for you Danny, ‘cause you’re with us.  That’s all it is. He comes from a posh family though.  You should see where he lives! And plus, his dad owns that big shopping centre outside town?  Or he manages it or something, I dunno.  Anyway, all the other kids suck up to Higgs, so he doesn’t pick on them.  ‘Cause that’s all he is at the end of the day.  A bully boy.”

“We need a fight,” Billy said then, with a firm nod. “It’s been ages.  Us against Higgs and his pansy friends.  I feel it coming.”

“Me too,” agreed Michael.  I grinned.

“Outside of school,” I said. “So we don’t get caught, and I’m in.”  I got up then, remembering my mother. “We better get out of here anyway guys. My mum will be back soon and she’ll go mental.”

We trotted over to Michael’s house instead, as his mother was never home.  I had yet to meet her.  It was nice having an adult free place to go to though.  Michael passed around cokes from the fridge and lit another cigarette to share.  We sat out on the doorstep, which was a relief, because I hadn’t quite got used to the sickly sweet smell of his kitchen yet, and some days it was stronger than others.  “You’ve not heard from this stalker guy then?” he asked me out of the blue. I frowned at him. “You know, since you moved in?  He hasn’t found you yet?”  The other two were waiting and watching in interest, so I shook my head and shrugged casually.  To be honest, the thought of crazy James following us here, or finding us again, had not occurred to me once.  I wondered then if it had occurred to my mother, or had she totally forgotten about those last few months back home?

“He won’t find us.”

“How do you know?  That’s what stalkers are good at.  Finding people.”

“The police were involved,” I recalled brightly. “They warned him off.  I bet he wouldn’t bother.”

“So like what did he even do?” Billy questioned. I shrugged again.

“Dunno.  Just hung about.  Followed my mum.  Called the house all the time.  That sort of thing.”

“Must have been scary shit,” Jake commented, taking the fag from Michael and drawing deeply.  I wasn’t sure.  I couldn’t actually remember being scared, to be honest, just fucking angry.  Angry at everything and everyone.  But that was all over now, wasn’t it?  Me and my mum had our deal.  “Where’s your dad?” Jake asked.

“No idea.”

“What seriously?” frowned Michael. “You don’t even know?”

I grinned. “Where’s yours?”

“Buggered off for a bit. That’s what he does when him and mum fight too much.  Then he comes back.  He always comes back.”

“When did you last see your dad?” Billy was asking me.  If anyone else had asked me so many personal questions, I would have got mad, I think.  But they weren’t asking in a nosy way, or a judgemental way.  They were just getting to know me, and I liked it.  I didn’t mind.

I scratched my head and tried to remember. “Think I was about nine.”

“So what happened then?”

“Dunno really.  Mum said he got into trouble and had to stop seeing me for a while.  I didn’t see him much anyway, so it didn’t feel like a big deal at the time.”

“Interesting,” Jake said, nodding slowly at me. “You should try to find out you know.  That’s your best bet of keeping loser boyfriends away from your mum.  Your dad back on the scene.”  I wondered if he maybe had a point. “Who’s John’s dad then?”

“He was her first love, her husband,” I replied easily, as I knew all the answers to these questions.  I had heard it all often enough.  “They had John really young and got married.  But it didn’t work out.  He saw his dad every weekend though, until he moved to Leeds.  Then it was like a few times a year.”

“What a pain in the arse,” Michael was laughing then. “Families! Fucking mental, all of it is.  I’m glad my mum is hardly ever around. We get on better that way. The only one worth anything to me is my brother.”

I looked up.  Jake and Billy were nodding very seriously. “Anthony,” Billy told me.

“He’ll be out of prison soon,” Michael went on, and he had this huge happy grin plastered all over his face, as he lazed back in the doorway and blinked in the afternoon sun.  I felt warm and happy just looking at his expression, and I already liked Anthony, even though I knew nothing about him. “He’s the coolest person you’ll ever meet, I swear.  You’ll love him Danny.  And when he gets back, it will be one big party in this house, I can tell you!”

I nodded and smiled, as the talk turned back to school, Higgs, teachers and girls.  I sat back and listened, a swell of smug warmth filling me up from the inside.  It was a nice way to feel for a change, and it was all because of them, and the way I felt, nestled there within their tight little group.  I had envisioned and prepared for months of loneliness and scrapping, as I settled into the new town, but things were looking up.  Michael was counting girls he liked off on his fingers, and the others were laughing and agreeing or disagreeing.  I opened my mouth once, with the name of another girl on the tip of my tongue, but I closed it again and kept it to myself instead.  Lucy Chapman, I thought to myself though.  Lucy Chapman had nut brown hair that swung from one shoulder to the other when she giggled in class.  It caught the sun from the window and dazzled my eyes behind her.  She didn’t know I existed of course, but it wouldn’t stay that way forever.  Lucy Chapman, I thought to myself, and said nothing.

When I got home I came face to face with a problem though, an issue, shall we say.  One I had known would come eventually, one I had hoped we could delay as long as possible, especially if my mother genuinely expected me to avoid fights.  She was in the kitchen with John and they were drinking champagne.  Suspicion clouded my heart, but I had good reason to be cynical.  She was dressed in a suit, with a tiny little skirt, and spiky heels.  She was all made up, her face flushed and her demeanour giggly.  I could smell it already; I could smell them.  “I’ve got a job!” she beamed at me, gripping my arm with one hand and jumping up and down in her heels like an excited little child.  I held on to the floor, already resentful of her cheer.  I waited, while John looked on cautiously, inspecting my mood from behind. “You are looking at the brand new receptionist at Franks Cars!” she told me.  She rattled on about it for a while of course, while I said nothing.  I thought how young and girlish she looked when she was happy.  “Hours are great,” she was saying. “Money is great!  All the guys there are so lovely! Oh it’s such a relief to have something decent sorted!”  I kind of nodded and stole past her.  I suppose she was waiting for me to congratulate her or something, but there was a hard knot taking up the space in my belly, and I knew why.  I made my excuses in a mumble and got up to my room.  I slammed the door on her high pitched excitement.  I stared at the door and longed to kick it.  Was I the only one who could see where this was heading?  Guaranteed, I was the only one with my heart ringing in my chest like a warning bell.

5

            So it all kicked off after that, didn’t it?  One way or another, if I look back now, that was the start of it all.  She just didn’t want to learn her lesson, did she?  I noticed things right away, things John would think nothing of, like how sharply she dressed for work.  It was suit jackets and short skirts, and killer heels.  She wore her hair up, I suppose to try to look elegant and classy, but she had the figure of an eighteen year old girl, so that was never going to work.  It all set my teeth on edge, if you want to know the truth.  It was bad enough that she was the only female employee at Franks garage in town, but men would have started sniffing around her if she’d been cleaning toilets in hotels, or sat on the till at Asda.  Whatever.  They would find her, but the deal was, no loser boyfriends, remember?  No fights for me, no loser boyfriends for her.  Well, I’d like it on record that it was she who broke her promise first.

One morning before school she asked John if he could keep an eye on me that evening, as she was going out for dinner.  He met my eye awkwardly before nodding in reply.  He didn’t even want to ask where she was going, or who with, you could tell, but I wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily.  “Where are you going then?  Who’re you having dinner with?”  The questions hung like ice in the kitchen around us. That was her guilt, right then, right there.  It was in her face, her silence, the way she couldn’t meet my eyes, the way she started shoving things into her handbag so she would appear busy.

“Just to the seafood restaurant down on the quay?” she directed the answer at John, even though it was me who had asked the question. “Meant to be divine!  Everyone raves on about how good it is!”

“Who with, I asked, who with?”  My body language must have been quite aggressive by then, as John saw fit to give me a warning kick under the kitchen table.  I ignored him.  She didn’t want to answer, that was obvious.  “Who with?” I asked again, my voice tight and low.

“It’s just Frank,” she said with a light hearted chuckle, throwing her bag onto her shoulder, and waving a hand at us dismissively.  Her neck had gone all red though. “Just as friends.  He’s showing me around, that’s all.  Introducing me to people, that sort of thing.  Right, I better be off boys…”

“You’re going to dinner with your boss?” I got to my feet and glared at her.  She rolled her eyes, giggled and headed for the door.

“Oh Danny, don’t be silly, please don’t start.”

“Are you serious?  Your boss?”

“Oh don’t go all moody on me because I dare to have a social life!” she snapped back at me. “I haven’t been out in ages.  You can think what you like.”

“Oh so will the whole town!” John kicked me again, harder.  “Stop fucking kicking me!” I turned and snarled at him.  Mum just shook her head .

“I’ve heard enough. I’m going to work.”  She slammed the door behind her, so I directed all of my fury at John.

“Dick brain!”

“Shut up idiot.  She can go out if she likes.”

“Take her side as usual!”

He got up from the table and sighed. “Who cares?  Whatever.”

“You don’t care?  You really don’t care?  She’ll be bringing home another loser before you know it John!”  I was gripping the edge of the table with both hands.  I was holding onto it for some reason.  There were these tremors shaking through me, one by one, and I felt uglier by the second.  John just shrugged at me.

“You don’t know he’s a loser.”

“They’re always losers John! Why the hell do you think we moved here?  Have you forgotten the last one?  What about the one before that?  He was a criminal!”

“Oh Christ Danny, give it a rest!” John walked out of the room then.  You can see what I had to put up with.   All he cared about was getting away, getting to Leeds to live with his precious dad.  I followed him, and found him at the living room window.  I could see the boys arriving outside to call for me on their bikes.

“All you care about is yourself,” I told John in a hiss. “It’s okay for you. Off to Leeds with your dad.  I’ll be stuck here with whatever idiots she lets in!”

“I’ll talk to her, all right?  Tell her you’re worried.  We’ll keep an eye on this guy.”

“We’ll do more than keep an eye on him,” I promised before I stormed out of the front door.

My rage intensified as the school day wore on.  I pushed and shoved my way through it, handling it as if it were a battlefield surging with enemies.  I stalked the corridors stiffly, realising that Michael had been right; the place was a shit hole and most of the kids were twats.  Barely any of them, except for the gang, had bothered to make me feel welcome or get to know me.  It felt like they had all made their minds up about me on day one, and that was that.  I started to get paranoid as the day wore on, imagining that they all hated me because Eddie Higgs had been spreading untrue rumours about me and my family.  I didn’t know this for sure, of course, but it seemed to make sense.  I felt drawn to him in history.  I couldn’t stop glaring at him, wondering if it was true.  I stared and stared at his angelic face, which was perfectly framed by sleek blonde curtains, and felt more repulsed by the second.  He had a very clean cut look about him, it had to be said.  I couldn’t imagine him smoking behind the bike sheds, or stealing from his mother.  But there was something unsavoury about him, all the same.  I paid close attention to him that day.  By the time we got to history, I’d seen enough of the way he operated.  He slid through the school day, greasing his way with snide remarks and icy put downs.  He looked down his nose at anyone who was less than perfect, while his own brilliance and self-worth shone in every classroom.  The teachers loved him, didn’t they?  They hung on every sweet thing he said.  He was very informed, when he spoke.  He knew a lot more than me, that was for sure.  He carried with him the air of someone who never doubts himself, and finds everyone else somewhat lacking.  He smelled of sea air and wealth and revelled in being pointlessly bitchy.

I finally caught his eye and mouthed the words I had been longing to say to him all week; “I want a fight.”  He made a semi-interested look and sort of shrugged, and then nodded.  It was on.

When the bell rang, we hurried from the classroom, bashing and bumping against each other, fuelled by the desire to maim one another.  The nominated fighting place was behind the canteen, where the large industrial bins offered a kind of privacy.  We were tailed enthusiastically by my friends, and his.  I wasted no time, pushing my face towards his, wrinkling my nose as if the stench of him offended me, and then giving him a quick, hard shove. “Come on then dick face!” I invited him to come back at me. “Let’s go!”

“Hang on a minute,” the boy said, holding up a finger, and smiling widely. “There’s something I wanted to ask you first.  Isn’t it your mother working at Franks garage?” I didn’t answer him, because I wasn’t there to have a fucking conversation with him. He rubbed at his chin in mock uncertainty. “I’m sure it is, you know. Have any of you lot been by there lately?  You can see her when you walk by the window! My dad said he went in there to see her, you know.  The cars are all heaps of shit, but he went in to look at her.”

“Shut your face,” I warned him.  There was a redness in my mind then, pure blood red clouds spreading across my vision.  If he wasn’t careful he was going to get himself killed.  He ignored me, chuckling for the benefit of his sniggering friends, and licking his lips as he nodded appreciatively.

“She is well sexy,” he informed them all. “Like a model or something! A really slutty kind of model though.”

That was enough for me.  I didn’t want to give him the chance to speak again so I smacked him in the mouth.  He went down, the crowd went ooh and ahh, and I landed on top of him, punching as hard as I could, seeing nothing but red mist, red clouds.  I didn’t even hear them yell teacher.  I didn’t see any of them running away.  I just felt the hands grip me under the arms and haul me away from Higgs. The mist cleared long enough for me to see him wailing and crying like an infant, as he scrambled onto his knees.  I didn’t care.  I walked away with the teacher, feeling calmer by the second, like those punches had put things right.  I breathed in and out slowly, and concentrated on the rhythmic throbbing of my knuckles.  I felt all their eyes upon me as I was marched away, so I held my head up high and was glad.  None of them would mess with me now.  A part of me wished my mother could have seen me then.

She drove me home in silence.  I’d said nothing in reply to the sermon the head teacher had delivered to me in his office.  What could I say?  I suppose I could have tried to enter into a dialogue with him about it.  I could have asked him if he had ever seen red mist like that, if he had ever longed to punch someone’s face in.  I could have tried to explain it to him, I suppose.  How the feelings had built up in me all week until I just couldn’t stand it any longer.  I could have asked him what he really thought about cherubic faced, acid tongued Edward Higgs, but the truth was, I didn’t care.  I felt better, but it would have appalled any of the adults to know that.  I was in detention for the next two weeks.  Mr. James had given my mum a good dressing down about my behaviour so far, how shocked he was by the start I had made in his school.  He had given her plenty to think about, that was for sure.

In the kitchen, I waited for her to let rip.  I felt the familiar urge to laugh, which was pretty dangerous territory to be in right then.  She was looking at me like she wanted to kill me.  She looked even younger when her face was all flushed and furious, which made it even harder for me to take her seriously. “You’re trying to spoil things for me Danny,” she said rigidly, her eyes unable to meet mine.  She seemed out of breath, as if her anger was making it difficult for her to breathe properly.  Her eyes skirted the room, hitting the ceiling, the floor, the walls, anywhere but right at me.  “My first week at work, and I already have to leave to come and pick you up from school, for yet more fighting. You’re trying to make me look bad and spoil things for me, I know it.  I know exactly what you are doing.  I knew it this morning!  I just knew you were going to do something to drive me insane!”

“Do you even want to know why I hit him?” I asked her, and watched her eyes grow wider and her mouth fall open.  I crossed my arms in defence.

“No I do not want to know why you hit him!  Are you insane?  What is wrong with you?  I already heard it all from Mr. James thank you very much!  I had to stand there and take a bloody parenting lesson from him! A complete stranger telling me I need to be tougher on you!  Well he’s not the first person to tell me that, is he Danny?”  She had crossed her own arms now, and stuck out one bright red shoe to tap against the lino.  Her lip pouted while her tenth clenched.  “Exactly what my own mother has said to me from day bloody one! Too bloody soft, that’s what she’s always said, isn’t it Danny?  She said I would regret it one day, and she’s bloody right isn’t she?  Beating up another kid!  For nothing!”

“There was a good reason,” I told her.  “Do you want to hear it?”

“No I do not want to bloody hear it!” she screamed this at me, thrusting her face towards mine, before shaking her head dramatically, and raking both hands back through her hair.  She spun away from me then, as if she could not bear to be near me a second longer.  “I can’t do this, I can’t do this right now, I have a bloody job Danny! I’ll deal with you later, and don’t you even think about leaving this house!”  She slammed out of the door for the second time that day without looking back at me.

I went up to my room after she left and put some music on.  I felt sort of down and deflated, but I didn’t understand why.  I lay on my bed for a while, just staring at the ceiling and listening to The Stone Roses tape Billy had leant me.  It irked me a bit that she hadn’t wanted to know why I had punched Higgs, but I knew it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.  Part of me wanted to tell her, wanted her to know how well I had defended her honour in the school playground, but another part of me never wanted her to find out how Higgs had spoken about her. The more I thought about it all, the warmer my cheeks grew.  My legs and feet twitched on the bed, as the anger resurfaced again. I nodded along to the music, and tried to concentrate on that, and in the end the words all got too big for my head, so I had to roll over and drag my notebook out from under the mattress.  I sang as I wrote, my head resting in one hand, while my other hand moved rapidly across the pages. I can hear the earth begin to move, I hear my needle hit the groove, and spiral through another day, I hear my song begin to say… I smiled, and you wouldn’t believe how much better I felt just purely from having that tune in my head.  I was beginning to realise that music was so much more than just noise, or singing.  It was more complex than that.  It was the way it made you feel.  Why did one song make you feel one way, and another song make you feel the opposite?  Was it the lyrics, or the topical content, or was it the melody, the key changes, the chorus? I didn’t have a clue, but it was like being on some sort of journey, the way I felt about music then.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  I had even begun to leave my music on when I went to sleep.  I’d plug my headphones into the stereo and sleep with them on, so that I could drift away with those amazing spiralling guitars thrumming through my dreams.  I heard the phone ringing then, but I finished what I was writing first, and to me it was the perfect summing up of how I felt about my mother right then; kiss me where the sun don’t shine, the past was yours, but the future’s mine, you’re all out of time. I threw down my pen, laughed in triumph and ran for the phone.

It was Michael.  “You’re a legend mate!” he told me exuberantly when I picked it up.  I rolled my eyes and grinned stupidly, leaning back against the wall in the hallway.

“Nah.”

“Yeah you are! Higgs was fucking crying mate, crying!”

“Yeah well, good, I hope his nose is broken!”

“His face wasn’t looking too pretty was it?  You got quite a punch on you for a little guy!  Bloodyhell!”

“Thanks.  Well, he asked for it, being a snide little dick all the time, saying things about my mum…”

“Too right he did! Little bell end.  You showed him.  What happened with Mr. James though?”

I sighed rather dramatically, my mood perking up even more now that I had Michael’s attention.  It was probably fair to say I was basking in my own confidence right then. “He flipped.  Sent me home.  Had a right go at mum!  Got detention for two weeks.”

“Oh crap.  Bet your mum went mental on you though.”

“She didn’t have much time,” I told him with a giggle. “Had to rush back to work and her precious boss. The one she’s going out to dinner with later.”

“She’s really going out with him?” Michael questioned curiously.

“Yep. Gross isn’t it?”

“Have you met him yet?”

“Nope. Why?”  Already my suspicions were aroused.  It was the way he put the question you see, it was the tone.  I liked to think I was pretty good at picking up on the way people said things, often being a clearer indication of what they were really trying to say.  Michael paused before replying, and again, even his pause was a concern for me.

“Ah well, it’s just I hate to be the one to tell you, but he sort of has a bad reputation around here, that guy.”

I felt my whole body stiffening.  My skin prickling.  My blood turning to ice.  “What do you mean?” I asked him.

“Well, you know, with the ladies and that.  He has a bit of a reputation.”

“What do you mean?” I asked again, because I honestly did not know what he was getting at.

“With the ladies,” Michael said again. “You know.  Sorry mate.”

I bit down on my lip and dragged my teeth across it.  “I told John,” I said after a few moments.

“Huh?”

“John.  My stupid fucking brain dead brother!  I told him!  I told him this morning.  Another loser.  I just knew it.”

“Well don’t freak out, he’s a nice bloke and everything.  Just really friendly with the ladies that’s all.  Why don’t you tell your mum what I said?  I mean, it’s not just me saying it Danny, like everyone in town knows he’s a heartbreaker.  You should warn her mate.  She’d appreciate it.”

I didn’t say anything.  My guts felt black and solid and unmoveable.  I was staring at the carpet and not seeing anything.  My mind swam with red again, in and out, like a bloody massacre in the ocean, in and out, in and out.

“Danny?”

“What?”

“I’ve got to go.  My mum is home.  You want to come and call for me later? We haven’t shown you our base yet.”

I was confused.  “Base?”

“Yeah.  Call for me about six, and I’ll show you.  It’s so cool.”

“Okay,” I said numbly.  “Okay then.”

I struggled through the next few hours, pacing the house, returning again and again to the window to watch for her car.  Michael’s information trembled within me, making the palms of my hands slick with sweat.  Maybe I was making a big deal out of nothing, but all I could think about then was crazy James, and her fucking promise.  When she finally came home she swept through the house with very little time to get ready, and very little energy to deal with me. I followed her up to her room, chewing at my lip, feeling like a little child again for some reason, running after her skirts.   I watched her tearing through her wardrobe like a fiend, dragging clothes out and slinging them down again in distaste.  I glanced around at the dull magnolia walls and remembered that she had painted them all pink in the old house.  Pink walls, pink carpet, pink curtains.  “Mum?”

“No. I’m not in the mood to speak to you right now Danny.  Out.”

I watched her hold a lilac coloured dress to her body.  She turned to one side and then the other in the long mirror, but her face was crumpled up with disgust and she quickly hurled it to the floor, even though I thought it looked amazing on her.  “I need to talk to you mum.”

“Not now.”  Her tone was clipped, and cold.  It was the worse tone ever.  It was the tone that made me resort to childishness in a bit to get her attention, it was the tone that made me feel about five years old again, whining and sobbing and yanking at her dress.

“It’s important.”

“It can wait.”  She strode towards me then, her eyes down, her lips taut.  She slammed the door in my face.  I remained on the other side of it for a few moments.  I felt the hot red anger creeping back into my cheeks.  The heat was steadily flooding my body, tingling violently through every single nerve until I could bear it no longer, and marched stiffly back to my room.  I lay slowly down on the bed, pressed play, and stared at the ceiling until I heard her leave the house.  Then I ran from the house, ignored John yelling out that I was grounded, grabbed my bike and was gone.  Fuck them.

I dumped my bike in the back alley and called for Michael.  This small framed, and scowling woman answered the door to me.  She had the same dark hair and eyes as her son, but that was where the similarities ended.  He obviously didn’t get his robust build from her, I thought.  She looked tiny, like she hadn’t grown past age twelve or something.  Her hair was curled and shiny, and rigid with hairspray.  Her eyes were mean, her expression pinched, and she looked worn out, and at the same time, gagging for an argument.  “Who’re you?” she barked at me, fag in one hand as she looked me up and down.  Michael appeared quickly behind her, rolled his eyes at me and squeezed past.

“This is Danny, mum,” he told her. “He’s new round here.”  He motioned for me to get moving, so I did.  The woman teetered slightly on her heels as she watched us go.

“You don’t wanna be hangin around with my son!” she called after us in a shrill voice. “Nothing but trouble, the pair of em!”

I waited until we were out of the alley, and on our bikes, before I let myself grin at him.  He looked stressed, but amused. “Nice to meet your mum,” I said, and gave him a punch on the arm.  He laughed instantly.

“Nice isn’t she?”

We rode off towards the park, side by side. I couldn’t stop grinning for some stupid reason.  I felt a bit like me and him were in a special club together.  Boys against their mothers, or something.  Michael didn’t speak then; he just led the way.  Up the hill and across the field, towards the woods.  After a bit the undergrowth was too thick to ride through, so we dismounted and pushed our bikes along.  Eventually Michael pointed to a building ahead, that could just be glimpsed through the trees.  “That’s it,” he said.  As we got closer I saw that it wasn’t a building, but an old rusting caravan.  It looked like it had been stuck out there for years.  The exterior was green and mossy, and covered in thick tangles of brambles and nettles.  The rood had caved in slightly down one end, bent in from the pressure of the ivy that choked it.  I copied Michael and threw my bike down next to Billy and Jake’s.  Michael was grinning as he knocked twice on the door, paused, and then knocked twice more.  He winked my way.  “Secret knock.”

“Cool.”

Just then the battered old door, which looked slimy with mildew, was flung energetically open, and Billy greeted us by thrusting a can of beer into our faces. “Share it!” he barked at us. “Jake sneaked two out his dad’s store cupboard!”

Michael took the beer, and I followed him inside.  We were stood in the kitchen area, complete with sagging worktop and cracked sink.  The floor felt bouncy beneath my feet.  Jake sat down the other end at the table.  The roof above him nearly touched his head.  It looked like the seats or sofas had rotted away long ago, so the boys had fashioned benches out of upside down paint cans and planks of wood.  It worked.  Sort of.  I mean, actually it was all kind of disgusting, and it had a really offensive wet smell about it, but it was somewhere to go, wasn’t it?  “What do you think?” Michael asked me, as he sat down on the other side of the table and looked proudly around.

“So cool,” I told them all. “Brilliant hideout.  Does anyone else know about it?”

“Not so far as we know,” replied Michael.  “Come on in.  Have a seat.”

Before long it was dark outside, and I knew my mum would be back, and probably going mental, but I was reluctant to leave.  The thought of them still being there without me, and the fun and the conversation carrying on in my absence, was almost too much to bear.  It was strange, I guess, how quickly I had felt at ease with them all.  I felt like I was one of them, and I didn’t have to try too hard, or pretend to be something I wasn’t.  They seemed to like me exactly the way I was, and it was nice like that.  Michael was sat hunched over the remains of the beer we had shared.  “My mum is pissed off with me already,” he was telling us with a sigh.  “Think it has something to do with me existing.”

“Come and stay at mine,” offered Billy, lighting a cigarette. “My mum will love it.”

“I’d swap your mum for mine right now,” I told Michael. “I mean it.  I’m serious.” He smiled back at me easily.

“You have no idea what you’re saying mate, but okay then, it’s a deal.  At least yours is hot!  And she stays put.”

“Yeah, stays put and attracts losers,” I reminded him with a frown.  I watched the boys swap amused looks with each other.  Of course they knew all about her dinner date with the famous Frank Bradley.  “It’s not funny,” I warned them. “This is exactly what she always does, and she promised me she wouldn’t.  I’m not taking it you know.  I’m not letting her get away with it.”

Jake laughed at me good naturedly. “What the hell are you gonna’ do?  You can’t do anything!”

“Oh yes I can.  I will.  I told you, I’m not taking it this time, I’ve learnt my lesson, unlike her.  Look what happened last time! Guy turned out to be a fucking maniac, dribbling at the window!  You think I’d trust her taste in men ever again?”

“So how?”  Billy was giggling at me.  “What are you gonna’ do?”

I shrugged.  “Come up with a plan.  Stop them.  Split them up.”

“Hey I like the sound of this,” Michael said then, straightening up in interest. “I like the way your mind works!  We’ll help you!”

“Will you?”

“Yeah! Hell yeah, what are friends for? We’ll come up with a plan, we’ll call it Project Sleazebag after Frank Bradley and his sleazy ways!”  Michael was getting excited now, practically wriggling on his seat with it.  “We’ll teach him a lesson, how about that? Teach him to stay away from people’s mothers!”

We all laughed.  I could have hugged him, to be honest.  I wanted to thank him, but in front of the others it would have sounded wet.  I had already decided I wasn’t going to stand back this time.  I wasn’t going to let another stream of stupid bossy men worm their way into my house and my life.  They were all the same, because she didn’t have a clue.  As long as they were good looking, that was all she cared about.  I’d been there before, but it didn’t have to carry on, did it?  I wasn’t helpless, for fucks sake.  We left the caravan shortly after the plan was agreed on, and we rode home together, with smiles on our faces and the wind in our hair.  I felt terrific then.  I felt like finally, I had people on my side!  Finally, I was going to do something, I was going to be in control and stand up.  In a way, it was that attitude, that plan, forged with new friends in a rusting and mouldy old caravan, that led me to where I am now.  In many ways, I wish to God we had never started it.

3

            The rest of the weekend was pretty dull.  They found the lead for my stereo though, which was a bonus.  With my music on, and the door shut, I felt more compelled to sort my new bedroom out.  It wasn’t anything amazing, obviously.  They’d let me have the room bigger than Johns, which I think was partly to appease me, and partly because he was off to Leeds after the summer to start his university course.  I had the view of the street, which was good.  Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day, Axl screeched as I unpacked and I had to agree with him on that.  I covered the pale green wallpaper with music posters and bits I’d cut out of magazines, and with every piece of paper I stuck to the wall, I thought about what the ginger kid had said to me.  So fucking over.  What did that even mean?  He did like Guns ‘N’ Roses once, but now he didn’t? I stole two more cigarettes from my mums’ bag and smoked them out of the window, while I thought it all over.  I kept my eyes on the street, watching for any sign of those boys, but there was none.  I felt abandoned for some reason, unworthy of their attention.  I was bored by Sunday, and started to write in my notebook.  My mum called it a diary, but it wasn’t one, and her saying that always annoyed me.  Diaries have dates and things.  This was just a lined notebook, and I wrote whatever the hell I wanted to write in it.  Sometimes it was what I’d done that day or whatever, but most of the time it was just thoughts and feelings, and words.  Words from songs, or words from my head.  It helped pass the time, but if anyone knocked on my door, I was quick to shove both notebook and pen under my mattress.

Monday morning found me strangely calm to begin with.  I got dressed in my scruffiest jeans and a t-shirt I had saved up pocket money to buy back home.  It was black with Jim Morrison on the front.  My mum didn’t like The Doors either, by the way. You’d think she’d at least appreciate something from her own generation, but she didn’t.  She started fussing around me in the kitchen, trying to tidy my hair and acting all excited for me.  The calm seeped right out of me then.  I actually felt it hit the floor when it dropped out the legs of my jeans.  Instead this knot of something started to build inside my stomach, getting harder and tighter, so that there was no room for breakfast.  “No fighting,” my mum was telling me, counting off on her fingers. “No cheek, no mucking about being the clown, no getting into trouble of any kind!” I wanted to tell her to stop assuming the worst of me, but that would only have given her more ammunition for later.  “Don’t forget to go to the office first to pick up your uniform! Do you want me to drive you? Do you know which road to go down after you cross Somerley?”

I nodded and rolled my eyes at her. “Yes, you already showed me.” I was out of the door, and reaching for my bike, when she tried to go in for a kiss.  I ducked away, so she pulled back and placed her hands on her hips.

“Oh okay, I don’t know why I bother! Be like that then! Have a nice day Danny!”

I rode off before she could shout anything else.  In my mind there was no point starting the day with niceties, when I already knew it was going to end with a slanging match.  I rode quickly, keeping my eyes on the other uniformed kids heading the same way.  The school was smack bang in the middle of Somerley estate, which was across the main road from ours.  The houses were different though, I noted as I cycled through.  They were red brick and looked older, more run down.  The gardens were all bigger, but most were in a terrible state.  I found the bike sheds and secured my bike, and then set off, my sole intention being locating the boys from the park.  I had strict instructions of course, to go and introduce myself to the head master, and collect my school clothes, but that could wait.  He’d be meeting me soon enough.

I knew where to look for kids like them.  The bike sheds, the toilets, anywhere they could skulk about and cause trouble unnoticed.  I pushed my way through the corridors as if I owned them.  My heart was thumping faster and faster, and I almost longed for some faceless kid to shove me back so that I could lash out.  My hands were curled into fists as I marched on, and the first bell had already rung by the time I found them.  They were coming out of the boys toilets, just as I was going in.  It was the dark haired boy, and it was me that won the struggle with the door, batting it back at him so forcefully he was knocked off his feet.  I entered the toilets and let the door slam behind me.  The other two boys had backed up silently, not sure what to do, or say. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” I told the dark haired boy, and stuck my hand out to him. “This place is huge!”

Unsurprisingly, he ignored my hand and climbed quickly to his feet.  “Danny, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Didn’t catch your name the other day.”

“Michael Anderson,” he told me, and threw his fist solidly into my face.  I managed to side step it a little, and it knocked my cheek and sent me flying back into the door.  The next thing I knew we had a hold of each other and we were down on the wet tiles, scrambling and panting.  It didn’t last long, of course.  Some teacher must have heard the noise, and came flying in, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows.  He took hold of our arms and dragged us down the corridor to the headmasters office.  We were both flushed in the face, a little bloodied, and trying not to smile.

The head master was a large black man called Mr. James.  My mum had told me previously that he was very strict, and wouldn’t stand for any nonsense.  You can see the way her mind worked.  We slouched solemnly into the office and he rose from his chair to regard us with nothing but disgust.  He narrowed his eyes at me, lifted his wrist and briskly tapped the face of his watch.  “You must be Daniel Bryans, my promising new student?” I nodded without meeting his eye.  He clicked his tongue and stuck one brown loafer forward.  I stared at it wordlessly.  “Well what can I say? Quite some introduction eh? Take a seat.” He nodded at a grey plastic chair on the other side of his desk, so I took it without a word.  “And what have you got to say for yourself Mr. Anderson?” he addressed the dark haired boy cooly, with a slight sigh at the end of the question.

I glanced up to see the dark boy shrug, his eyes averted to the floor.  There was a trail of blood coming from one nostril, and I could see a spattering of red on his white school shirt.  I glared at him in triumph, but he kept his gaze down.  “Nothing sir.  Sorry sir.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Mr. James had a deep voice that boomed around the small office, and seemed to bounce back at my ears from every cluttered surface.  “Go and get cleaned up and back to class,” he snapped, waving a hand at the dark boy. “You’re in afternoon detention for the rest of the week and I’ll be sending your mother another letter. Go on, get out of my sight.”

He looked up then, and caught my eye.  I thought I saw the corner of his mouth move upwards slightly, before he spun out of the room and closed the door softly behind him.  Mr. James positioned himself on the other side of his desk, but remained standing.  I understood that tactic all right.  It was supposed to make me feel even smaller.  He placed his hands down on the desk, leant towards me and regarded me curiously, while tilting his head to one side. “So what about you young man?” he asked. “Got anything to say for yourself?  Want to explain how you can get into a fist fight on your first day in a new school?  Is this the way you always start off?”

“Just got in a fight sir.  Sorry sir.”

He lifted his eyebrows in response. “I’ve had the pleasure of looking through your school records,” he said. “They make colourful reading, to say the least.  The only positive thing they have to say about you in the last year or so is that you are good at English, and like to write stories, is that true?”

I grimaced a little and looked at the door. “I dunno sir.  I don’t think so.”

“Well you better be good at something Daniel, or you won’t be impressing me in a hurry will you?”

I gave a half hearted shrug.  I didn’t want to piss him off exactly, but I didn’t want him having any high hopes for me either.  I kicked the carpet with my shoes. “Sorry,” I said again.  I spoke the word and realised it felt just the same as when I said it to my mother.  It was just a word, I thought, just a word that you said when you’d been caught.  It slipped out automatically, I mused, and it was always there, on the tip of my tongue.  Sorry.

Mr. James released a sigh that he directed up to the ceiling along with his eyes. “I have a worrying feeling I’m going to be hearing that from you a lot young man.”

At the end of the day I was shown to detention.  It was a classroom, filled with bored looking kids, scrawling aimlessly on notepaper, and I immediately took the seat next to the Michael boy.  I stared at him for a while, trying to instigate some kind of reaction.  I didn’t know about him, but I was ready for more.  We’d been interrupted before anything had been settled.  I didn’t like to leave it like that, so I wrote a note offering to finish the fight after detention and passed it to him.  I watched him read it, and then he smirked a little, screwed it up and shoved it into his pocket.  He carried on writing and did not look at me again.

I spotted him pushing his bike away after detention, so I wheeled mine right up to him.  He stopped and held up a hand.  “Whoa there mate,” he said, with a laugh. “I don’t want to fight you again.”

I was confused. “Why not?”

He offered a bright smile that confused me even more. “’Cause neither of us will win,” he shrugged. “We’re too evenly matched.  You going this way too?”  I nodded, narrowed my eyes in suspicion and fell into step with him.  “This school is a total shit hole,” he started to say, as we pushed our bikes along. “It’s fucking shit, everything about it is shit.  The teachers are shit, so are the lessons.  Most of the kids are total twats one way or the other. It does my head in.” I nodded when he looked my way.  He grinned.  “You were totally insane this morning! Total mental!”

“Well you asked for it,” I started cautiously.  My mind was whirling as we walked.  My first thought was that he was being nice to be as a joke, or as part of a trick.  Maybe the other boys were lying in wait somewhere. “All that shit at the bench the other day.  Hanging around outside my house the whole time, trying to scare me or whatever.”

“Ahh we were just bored!” Michael snorted in amusement. “We were being nosy.  Nothing ever happens around here, ever.  We were just checking you out.”

“Yeah well I can fight any one of you any time you want!” I told him then, fixing him with what I hoped was a fierce stare. “No one pushes me around.”  Michael nodded at me, so I nodded back.  We climbed onto our bikes then and started to ride slowly back home.

We crossed Somerley Road, and on the other side I had to stand on the pedals, bearing down with my full weight to keep up with him.  He pointed to the houses around the corner from ours, the ones I had passed on the way to the park. “I live there,” he said. “My mum’s out if you wanna’ come in?”  I stopped my bike and eyed him. “I’ve got fags,” he added with a grin.

“All right then.”

I followed him to the alley that ran behind the row of houses.  We pushed our bikes through piles of split bin bags and smashed TV’s until we came to his back gate.  The gate was open, hanging awkwardly from the top hinge.  Michael slammed his bike down into the overgrown grass, so I did the same.  He gestured to the rusting skeleton of some indistinguishable car that was sat on bricks, going nowhere. “Don’t think my brother’s ever going to get around to fixing that, do you?” he asked in amusement.  I stopped behind him at the back door, as he fished a key from his pocket and unlocked it.

“Is he not home either?”

“He’s in prison.  Come on in.”

The kitchen was dark, as was the hallway beyond, but what I noticed even more was this thick sweet smell that seemed to immediately clog up my nostrils.  It was really strong.  I had no idea what it was, but the closest I could get to identifying it was realising that it smelled a bit like Grandma Sylvie, my mum’s mum.  Michael dumped his bag on the kitchen table and started swinging the cupboard doors open in search of food.  I gazed around curiously as he did.  The table was covered in junk; piles of newspapers and magazines, overflowing ashtrays, and a large plastic basket of dirty washing.  The sink was full of unwashed crockery, and there were several empty wine bottles lined up on the draining boards.  That’s when I realised what the smell probably was.  Booze.  Stale booze.  I stepped forward and something crunched beneath my shoe.  I looked down and saw broken glass scattered across the floor. “Oh whoops sorry,” Michael turned and said to me.  He offered a brief shrug of the shoulders. “My mum’s been too busy to tidy up lately.  Had a few parties.”

“Oh.” I lifted my foot from the glass.  I was starting to relax a little now, quicker than I had thought I would.  Obviously the other boys were not about to jump out and smash my face in. “You lived around here long?”

“My whole life,” he said with a sigh. He slammed the last cupboard door and turned his attention to the fridge instead. “Rubbish eh?  It’s a boring old shit hole just like that school. Jake lives in the flats near the beach?  The shitty ones I mean, not the swish ones the other way.”  I had no idea what he meant, so I just nodded. “Billy lives round the corner.  We’ve been mates since Infants school.”  I leant back against the table and listened.  Michael slammed the fridge door shut and turned to face me.  It was weird then, for a moment.  When I looked at him I didn’t recognise him as the boy from the park, or the street outside my house.  It was like looking at a totally different face.  His dark brown eyes were warm and sparkling with mischief, and his smile was lazy and looped casually up to his ears as he spoke.  “Billy has this huge crazy family! Like a hundred brothers and sisters, seriously! His parents were hippies, or something. Jake’s dad is this ex-army bloke though, boring old fart, never cracks a smile. And his mum is sort of a fatso, I mean, she never leaves the place!” He produced two cigarettes from his trouser pocket and held one out to me, so I took it.

“I’ve just got an older brother,” I told him. “But he won’t be around much longer either. He goes to University in Leeds after the summer.”

“You get on with him?”

“Nah,” I laughed. “He’s Mr. Perfect he is.  Golden boy. Makes me sick most the time.”

“Doesn’t sound much like you,” Michael grinned, chucking me his lighter.

“Nah, he’s nothing like me.”

“Listen,” Michael stepped past me then, sucking on his lit cigarette, and taking me lightly by the arm as he passed. He walked back outside, so I followed. “Sorry about that, the other day at the park?  We were being twats to you.”

We sat down on the doorstep, smoking like pro’s. “That’s okay,” I shrugged, and I couldn’t stop the smile that escaped me.  There was this tentative brimming of hope inside me, for some reason.  I liked him.  “Sorry about this morning.”

“That’s okay, we deserved it,” he laughed.  He was watching me carefully now, cigarette poised between finger and thumb as his hand dangled over one knee.  “So you can hang around with us if you like,” he said then. “If you don’t know anyone else.  But I mean, people will probably tell you not to, like teachers and neighbours and stuff. They don’t think much of my family round here.”

“Do you think I’d give a shit what any of them thought of me?” I asked him very seriously and he laughed in return.

I put off going home for as long as I could, and when I finally showed up, my mother met me at the back door, blocking the way in.  She held onto the door frame, her hips thrust aggressively to one side, while her nostrils flared dangerously.  “Where the hell have you been? Get in here now! I am just about ready to explode!” She said all this so quickly it was almost just a mumble of fury, but at least she moved and let me in.  “Have you been smoking?  I can smell smoke!” I dropped my bag on the floor and went to the sink for a glass of water.

“No,” I said with my back to her. “Just been around people who have.”

“Liar,” she snarled behind me, and I wanted to smile, so I kept my back turned. “I am missing cigarettes all the time Danny, and I know when you are lying! So don’t you dare stand there and lie to my face! I am so bloody angry with you young man! The head master called me! On your first day!”

I drank the water and started to refill the glass again. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I got in a bit of trouble today.”

“You got into a fight Danny!” she screeched, really erupting now.  I turned slowly and saw her stood there with her fingernails in her cheeks. “On your first day! A fight! How could you? I shouldn’t be surprised though should I?” I had to rub a hand against my mouth pretty hard to disguise the smile that was threatening.

“I’m really sorry,” I told her, eyes down. It was my best shot.  “Look some kids were picking on me, that’s why. I had to stand up for myself, didn’t I? Otherwise it would just carry on, right?”

She pushed one hand violently through her hair and shook her head at me.  I felt just a small stirring of guilt in my belly, but that was okay.  I was used to that.  I bit my lip and kept my eyes down, while she looked on. “What do you mean picking on you? Fighting is not the answer Danny! I’ve told you so many times! We came here for a fresh start, for goodness sake…”

“You mean you came here for a fresh start,” I corrected her.

“Excuse me?”

“Well I just mean, saying we makes it sound like me and John got into a mess and had to run.” I risked a look at her, and could see she was fuming, yet also calming.  She had her own guilt, see. That was the way it worked between us.  She threw a little at me, and I threw a little right back.  In the end, we both had to back off, because neither of us would ever win.  I shrugged my shoulders a little and tried to look pathetic. She was waiting for me to say more though.  She was waiting to see how I was going to get myself out of this one. “What I mean is, it was actually you who picked another loser boyfriend who went all weird on you. Just saying.”

“Yeah I know what you’re saying,” she snapped, and finally turned away from me. I watched her shoulders drop as she snatched her handbag from the table and started to rummage around in it desperately.  “But whatever you think about all that business Danny, and yes, it was an unpleasant time for all of us, but I moved us here for the best, is what I’m trying to say. I moved us here for the right reasons.  A new start for all of us.”  I waited.  Now it was her turn to get herself out of it.  She stuck a fag between her red lips and lit it up.  With one hand on her hip, she cocked her head at me and puffed a quick stream of smoke into the air above. “You said you would behave better. You’re not sticking to your side of the bargain.”

Ha! I knew I had her then.  Had she really forgotten so soon about her side of the bargain?  I smiled a little at her, a nice smile I mean, as if I was a little kid just remembering something nice his mummy had promised him. “Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll do better tomorrow, I promise.  I didn’t exactly mean to fight, it’s just these kids were giving me a hard time, but it’s all sorted now anyway…so don’t forget, you have to stick to your side of the bargain too? Remember that?”

She gave me a quizzical look, cigarette held in mid air. “I do,” she said it slowly.  Then she tried to turn the attention back on me.  “What do you mean it’s all sorted now anyway?”

I sensed my victory in more ways than one, so picked my bag up and headed for the door. “I’m friends with them now,” I told her as I went. “And your side was no more loser boyfriends, remember?”

A muffled groan followed me up the stairs, and I grinned in response.  She had probably thought I would forget about that one, but no such luck.  She had promised me after crazy James, promised me, no more boyfriends.  I closed my door behind me, gave Axl a withering look and pulled my notebook out from under the mattress.

1

June 1996

It’s funny, what goes through your head.

Do you want to know what is going through mine right now while I think about what knife to choose?  As I gaze down at the cluttered and crumby choices in the drawer before me?  The drawer divider stares back at me, cracked and stained. The colour of dirty vanilla ice cream, each segment coated with crumbles of dust and food. Two things are going through my head simultaneously. I like it when that happens. It’s a bit like fireworks going off in my brain, one thought sparking off another that overtakes and consumes it, before scattering into a million more.  I am trying to make the right decision, about what knives to take, because I don’t want to get it wrong.  There are probably a million ways I could get it wrong.  Life is like that.  You make decisions here and there, never knowing at the time how magnificently one innocent choice could fuck things up for you.  I am aware that I have to put thought into it, I have to fight through the mush my mind has become, and come up with a clean, sharp solution.  But while this is all going through my head, I have song lyrics too.  I nearly always do, to be honest.  They come at me all the time.  They crawl through my ear canals and into my messy brain, and they set up camp, and they control me.  Feels that way anyway.

So here I am.  Staring at knives.  Trying to be quiet about it, so that I don’t wake anyone up.  The song that is going through my head isn’t about knives, or stabbing though.  It’s about a car crash I think.  Not sure why it comes to me now, but it does.  I’m standing warm against the cold, now that the flames have taken hold, at least you left your life in style. There’s more, and if you know anything about music you will know it’s from a Stone Roses song, and if you knew anything about me you would know that I love them, like I love all music, I mean, I fucking love music, all music. But those are the lines in my head, and I have no idea why, but they are circling, around and around and around, so slowly, so rhythmically, that I can almost feel my head begin to nod with them, like I am being slowly sung to sleep.

I am barely breathing as I lower my head, and narrow my eyes on the choices.  I am hearing those words in my head and I am thinking; one big one and two small ones is the way to go.  That’s what you want.  I will need more than one.  Just in case.  If I only take one, and I drop it or something, then it’s game over, isn’t it?  I have to take a big one, I just have to.  I’ve been dreaming about a big knife for years, you see.  I used to fall asleep at night with the vision of one in my head.  Shining behind my eyes.  The tip on fire with blood.  I used to imagine the feel of it, the weight of it in my hands, and I used to think about how it would strengthen me, in so many ways.  So I have to take a big one.  But I need little ones too.  Little ones I can hide in my clothes.

A noise comes from the other room.  It startles me for a moment, and reminds me to get on with things.  I reach for the cutlery drawer tentatively and I feel a bit like a child again, my hand stealing cautiously and without permission towards the biscuit tin. I lick my lips.  They are dry, and cracked.  A residue of blood coats my tongue and the metallic tang spreads to the roof of my mouth.

My hand moves in stealthily, and my fingers curl stiffly around the handle of the biggest knife there.  It has a serrated edge.  Nasty.  Am I really going to do this?  Has it really come to this?  I shrug my shoulders at my own questions.  Maybe I always knew it would.  My hand shakes so I lay the knife down on the side and peer back into the drawer, the music still tumbling through my mind, as I consider what this act will make me, if I go through with it.  A killer? Yeah, well.  I talk to myself in my head for a bit.  I’ve been doing that a lot lately too.  These rambling and wired conversations kick off, and it’s like there is more than one of me, in there, rabbiting on.  I’ve been quiet on the outside, but my friends don’t mind this.  They allow me this.  They can’t hear the babbling of voices that go on inside.  The conversations that all end with the same conclusion before I fall asleep.  You want to know what that is?  Well, nothing matters.  It’s that simple.  I thought it anyway, a long time ago, but I was younger then, so I wasn’t always sure.  I know it now.  Nothing matters.  Nothing.

I pick up the small brown handled cheese knife.  I think I am alive and buzzing with so many things, yet I am also dead.  Dead man walking.  So it does not matter.  Have a life or die.  Whatever. This knife is good.  I can stuff it down my sock, inside my boot.  I nod and place it next to the other one.  Get on with it.  Don’t back out.  Don’t forget what happened, don’t lose sight of why you are doing this.  This voice is strong and gnarled, it has a low throaty sneer to it, like a bitter old man.  Get on with it, it says.  I feel a bit torn.  I need to make the right decisions and not fuck up, but I need to hurry up too.  Need to get out of here.  I grab a third knife.  Small and flat, with a rusty edge.  Think it will do.  Okay, so I am not going to bother with bin liners and cleaning fluids, or anything, but I still need to be prepared to a certain extent.  If time has taught me anything, it is not to underestimate the bastard.  He’ll just laugh at me, and it will all be over in seconds if I am not careful.

If it goes the way I am planning, I won’t even run away afterwards.  I won’t need to.  I imagine myself sat next to the body, and I wonder how it will feel, watching his life slip away from him.  What will it feel like?  Breathing in my own existence while the life blood flows from his.  Will I find my own life in the taking of his?  Will I stop feeling dead?  Will my heart begin to beat again, with something other than fear and hate?  I wonder if I will feel free, when it is done.  If I will feel like it is over.  Or maybe I am wrong.  Maybe I will become something even worse than what I already am.  Maybe I will become yet another human monster, hunched and sorrowful, wandering the planet, rotting on the inside.

I line the three knives up alongside each other and place my hands on my hips, blowing my breath upwards into my hair.  This is it.  It is nearly time to go.  I did try to think of other ways, you know.  Last night.  I thought about everything.  The trouble is, and this may be kind of hard to explain to you, but the trouble is, once you start to think about killing someone, once you start to imagine them dead and gone, it is hard to shake free of it.  And to be honest, in some ways, I have planned this for years.  I have dreamt of this for years.  I have promised this for years.  I suppose the thoughts and the urges to rid my life of the enemy, the thorn, have been piling up in me all along.  That probably says quite a lot about the sort of person I really am.  They gathered momentum after last night, of course.  It’s been a battlefield lately, but last night was the final straw if you like.  The urges gathered strength and reason. They led me to a tantalising prospect, an irresistible possibility.

I cross my arms over my chest and lick my lips again.  I lick them repeatedly, and I feel like I am about to go to war, into battle, and the blood in my mouth serves as a taster for what is to come.  I can feel my heart throbbing under my skin, pounding it is.  I imagine the cocaine I have just ingested hurtling through my blood stream, crashing into sleepy nerves and cells and setting them on fire.  Can’t stop licking my lips.  I smile at the tingling that takes over my weary limbs.  The knives on the sideboard shine back at me, filling my chest with fight. Fight.  I mouth the word slowly, dragging my top teeth backwards across my lower lip.  Fight.  Who started the fight anyway, I wonder?  Who started it?  I have not got much time.  I grab the smallest knife and bend down to stuff it inside my sock, and then I tighten the laces of my boot around it.  The second small knife I push up the sleeve of my denim jacket.  The tip prods at the skin on my wrist.  A rustle of bedclothes in the next room panics me into action.  The largest knife I push down inside the waist band of my jeans.  I have still got to write the letters, and a creep of doubt and fear is tickling my spine.

My notebook and pen are set out on the side, so I take up the pen and start to write.  It flows easier than I had imagined, but I guess that must be the coke working its magic.  It always did make me talk a load of shit.  As I write the first letter, my eyes are drawn to my wrist, to the crust of blood circling my hand.  It chafes and smears against the notepaper, washing my words in rust red and flakes of last nights pain.  I don’t like the way I feel as I write to my friends.  It’s like I am slipping down somewhere, fading away, losing myself and in danger of losing the moment too.  I have to hang onto now.  I am not the same person anymore, I tell myself, I’m just what is left.  I’m no good to any of them now anyway.

Get on with it, one of the voices instructs me.  It’s loud and abrasive that voice, snappy and commanding, and it’s spurred on by the shitload of coke I sniffed in the toilet just moments ago.  So I get on with it, and the pain in my wrists, the pain in my back and head, it all propels me forward, it all jumbles and binds together, becoming like this ball of power, pushing me on towards the inevitable.  Write the letters, tell them what you need them to know, and get the hell out of here.  Something is gone, I think, as I write.  Something that was teetering anyway, something I had always feared losing to him, well it went last night.  It snapped inside of me, and now it lies broken.  That’s it.

And now he has to pay.

2

April 1993

So, it looked like there would have to be some kind of fight.  I knew it, and they knew it.  I suppose the only one who didn’t know it yet was my mother, but if I was right, she would know it soon enough.  It had been three days now.  I couldn’t let it go on any longer or they would start to think I was hiding from them.  I shook my head in disgust as I watched them from the window.  The grubby net curtains left behind by the last tenants served as the only shield between them and me.  Three of them.  They were always out there, always.  Circling slowly on their battered bikes, they reminded me of vultures, hovering on the perimeter of some unfortunate half dead prey.  Thoughts like that made me bristle, from my head down to my toes.  I stuffed my hands into my pockets and glared at them.  They would shuffle their bikes together and flick their mean eyed gaze to the house, where I lay trapped within.  They appeared hungry to me, huddling together, heads low and shoulders hunched, discussing me.  Their foreheads would almost touch, before they would all recoil again suddenly, dramatically, mouths gaping with laughter muffled by the window pane.  I reached for them, touched the glass with an outstretched index finger and knew they were laughing at me.  The new boy.

So what did they want?  I felt they were waiting for me to decide, waiting for me to make the first move.  A fight then.  Better than feeling like a prisoner, holed up in the new house, while my mother and brother moved our old lives into it behind me.  The boys had appeared on the first day.  I had watched them roll in on their beat up BMX’s, heads low, hair long and eyes flat.  Their arrival had made me pause in the doorway to the new house, cardboard box in arms.  Hello had worked its way to the tip of my tongue, but at the emergence of three piercing scowls, the word had evaporated in the air before me. The second day had been worse. I’d been sent out to retrieve my mothers’ handbag from the front seat of the car, and they had been out there again, just watching.  “Forgot your handbag?” the dark one had called out in a mock high voice, sending the other two boys into howls of laughter.  I’d gritted my teeth and gone back in.  That had cemented it.  I had a problem.  Again and again I returned to the living room window, drawn to the dusty panes like a moth to the light, not wanting to know they were after me, but unable to stay back and ignore their presence.

I had been thinking about the dark one.  The dark one was the ringleader, without a doubt.  Which made him the one I would have to fight.  Winning did not really matter at this point, and I knew this.  But starting the fight, and putting up a good one, would mean everything.  The dark boy was bigger than me, with jet black hair long on his neck and hanging down over his eyes.  Those eyes gleamed at me from across the street, whenever he chose to flick the hair from his face.  He looked angry, I thought.  I wondered if it was just me, or something else.

I wouldn’t admit it to anyone except myself, but I had not ventured far because of them.  I had just stood and viewed the street, reminding myself sulkily how wrong and alien everything felt.  My body was nearly always rigid with displeasure, arms crossed tightly, jaw jutting out, forehead creased with a frown.  Of course, they, my mum and my brother, just bumped and bundled past me, sighing and clicking their tongues.  I did as little as I could to help them carry our old life through the doors.  They did their best to skirt around my dark moods, making light of everything like they always did, while I merely stood and considered the injustices they forced upon me.  I wondered dismally if life had been this unfair to my mother at age thirteen, but she never told me anything, so I wouldn’t know.  I just felt like we were not supposed to be here, in this new place, and the unfairness of it all formed a constant lump in my gut, that twisted and churned every time I saw my mothers’ face.  Every time I looked at her, the same thought would fill my mind, literally going off like a bomb in there; I am being punished for her mistakes.

I got away with shooting her the odd hard look, but I couldn’t push it too far, or she would go off on one.  She thought the same when she looked at me though, I knew it.  The looks she gave me were cautious ones.  We tiptoed around each other, or we locked horns and fought.  That was the way it was, the way it had always been.  She made me laugh sometimes when she went off.  When she gave the full works, it was hair pulling and everything.  She’s even smashed plates and things. Why can’t you be more like your brother? You are the thorn in my bloody side! Funny stuff, if you were in the right mood for it.  I’d heard it so often by that age it barely registered.  My brother, Good Boy John I called him just to wind him up.  The golden boy.  I could have hated him, but he was too fucking nice for that.

I bided my time.  I watched and waited, gearing myself up for the challenges that lie ahead.  If mum or John vocalised their despair at my lack of movement, I would just turn and offer them my iciest stare.  You don’t have to be me, I thought, whenever I looked at them, you don’t have to go out there at some point and face those boys, and it was true. So she’d moved us to this seaside town called Redchurch.  She used to holiday there when she was a kid.  She raved on and on about the beaches, and the quay, and the ancient Priory church.  I didn’t give a shit.  She’d made it sound like we were moving to millionaires row or something, like we would be out on a fucking yacht every day or whatever.  Of course, she was on her own since my dad bailed out years ago, so all we could afford was a rented end terrace house on the housing estate at the edge of town.  It was like a box, identical to all the others.  Dull.  The kitchen was tiny, just big enough to squeeze the round table into one corner, although you had to suck your tummy in when you passed it to reach the back door.  The kitchen window gave a view of the postage stamp sized garden.  Like all the other rooms in the house the kitchen was painted magnolia.  The floor covered in cheap beige lino, and all the other carpets were grey. From the kitchen, the hallway led to the front door, with a downstairs toilet under the stairs, and the living room to the right.  I’m not saying we lived in a mansion or a castle or anything before, but this place just hung with inescapable dullness.  I felt nothing but apathy for it, and I needed some excitement.

What was amusing was watching her stride purposefully from room to room, in those first few days.  Always with this cloth headband on her head.  I’d never seen her wear things like that before, so it made me sneer a bit.  She had an outfit for every occasion, my mum, and denim shorts, red vest top and matching head band appeared to her moving house ensemble. I watched her scurrying about, lugging boxes, scrubbing windows, and knocking down cobwebs, and all the time she was spouting all this excited drivel at us; “we’ll soon put our stamp on it won’t we boys? Can’t wait to start decorating! Don’t you want to go out and explore Danny? There is so much to do around here!”  She was doing her best to be positive I suppose, I’ll give her that much, but there was guilt behind it, and that irritated me.  She wore a permanent fake smile, painted across her face, while her eyes gave her away as usual.  The smile had shown no signs of cracking just yet, and I knew that when it eventually did, it would be because of me. “Wait until you see the beach, it is gorgeous!” she was prattling on behind me.  “You’ll want to spend the whole summer down there Danny. It’s amazing.  And the town even has its own cinema you know? Did I tell you that already?  Why don’t you go out for a bit and have a look eh?”

To this I turned and looked at her.  I suppose she was getting sick of the sight of me, so I sighed in response.  As much as she tried to keep up this jolly front for us, I knew that my dark moods irritated her.  Unable to think of a response that was not rude, I looked back out at the street, my stomach giving a little lurch when I remembered that I would be starting school in two days.  “You’re really going to love it,” she was saying now. You are going to love it, I corrected her inwardly, you think it’s all amazing, not me.  At that moment John came into the living room with an armful of books.

“You could pop to the shop,” he started saying, without even looking at me.  He dumped the books on the sofa and trudged back out again. “You’re not exactly any help to us here,” he threw back over his shoulder.  I glanced at mum.  She had a bottle of cleaning spray tucked under one arm, and had picked up one of the books.  Her blue eyes regarded me cautiously.

“You can go out you know Danny.  Go on, go out and explore! You’re started to get on my nerves just stood there the whole time staring!  What are you looking at anyway?”  She dropped the book and came around the sofa.

“You guys can never wait to get rid of me, can you?” I shot back, arms folded, as she arrived at my side.  John groaned out in the hallway, but that was all from him.  He hated confrontation, and never liked to get involved in anything.  That didn’t stop my mother from calling on him constantly for back up though. He’d always do his best to be fair.  He’d try not to take sides, and he was really good at calming mum down when she lost the plot with me, but you could always see he hated it.  It made him uncomfortable, stepping in, playing the father figure.  We looked nothing alike, John and me, and everyone always mentioned it.  John was tall and broad shouldered, thick chested, and kept his mousy brown hair neat and short.  I suppose he was good looking, in a traditional, conventional kind of way.  Girls always seemed to go for him anyway.  He was the double of his dad, everyone always mentioned that too.  They never said I looked like my dad though; just that I had my mothers’ eyes as well as her temper.

With mum beside me, I felt the niggling urge to nudge her away, to poke an elbow at her, but I didn’t.  Instead I folded my arms even tighter and looked back out of the window.  I noticed right away that the boys had gone.  I had not seen them go, and wondered what exciting distraction had finally torn them away from me.  I reached out then and scraped my finger nails down the pane.  I wouldn’t say I did this deliberately to annoy my mother, I just sort of did it without thinking, but she reacted like I had, leaping backwards, slamming her hands against her ears and looking at me in horror.  “For God’s sake Danny!” she practically shrieked at me. “Stop that awful noise and just do something!” I didn’t look at her then, but I could imagine her perfect red smile splintering on her face.  I turned to her reluctantly and right away the expression on her face made me decide to get the hell out of there after all.  It was the face she only seemed to give to me; all taut and tight, anger mixed with anxiety, fear mixed with love, I don’t know, but it was always the same and it always depressed me one way or another.  I narrowed my eyes at her.  Looked her up and down, which I knew she hated, because she had a real paranoia about being judged, by anyone.  I wanted to shake my head at her, maybe I did just a little bit, just at the sight of her, not quite forty with two teenage boys.  She was always wearing tight fitting clothes which made me question exactly how the hell I was meant to take her seriously.

I threw up my hands in mock and exaggerated defeat and stormed past her. “All right I’ll get out if it makes you happy!” I yanked open the front door and paused long enough to shout again; “happy now?”  They said nothing, but I could feel their relief.

I’d walked for a few fast minutes before I realised how warm the day was.  I slowed down, blinking in aggravation at the sun, and removed my shirt to tie around my waist.  Under the shirt I had this cool Guns ‘N’ Roses t-shirt I had picked up back home.  Black, with the guns and roses logo in the middle.  I could smell the sea. It twitched my nostrils and I wondered if I could even hear it.  The sky was pale blue, and streaked with low slung clouds.  I shoved my hands into my pockets and stomped along, my hair hanging down over my eyes the way I liked it.  I remembered then that I still couldn’t even listen to my music, as they hadn’t found the cord for my stereo yet.  That was part of the reason I’d spent so much time staring out of the window, I reasoned, as I marched on.  My mum had laughed when she saw me organising my small collection of tapes on the desk in my room, tapes I couldn’t even play until they found my cord or bought me some batteries. “You seem to love everything I hate!” she remarked, and then she had given me a stern look. “I don’t want to hear swear words coming from your room young man.” I’d smiled secretly at this.  What she didn’t know was that all the tapes I owned had swear words on them.  It wasn’t the swear words I liked though, not really, it was the music, you know the screeching guitars and the mad drums, but not just that, it was the lyrics.  She always moaned and said she couldn’t hear a word they were saying, but she didn’t listen, or she didn’t care.  The lyrics were brilliant, and I was always scribbling them down, so I could learn them or think about them.  I don’t know why, but they just always seemed apt to me.  It’s like I would be thinking or feeling something, for whatever reason, and then a song would come on and I would think, hey fuckinghell, that’s exactly what I mean! I had Axl Rose in my head as I walked then, and as usual the words were spot on; when I look around, everybody always brings me down, well is it them or me, well I just can’t see, but there ain’t no peace to be found. You see what I mean? Brilliant.

Nodding to the music in my head, I walked to the end of Curlew Close, and turned right.  There were more houses, identical to ours, with a wide expanse of green in the middle of them.  There were kids out, riding bikes and scooters in loops around the houses.  I stalked quickly past them, lifting my head long enough to see trees in the distance, up on a hill.  I remembered we had driven past a large park on the way in, so decided to go there.  Maybe there would be some woods, or some benches where I could smoke my cigarette in peace.  I was thinking about my smoke, and I was thinking maybe I would stay out for hours and make them worry about me, and I was also thinking what would happen if I ran into those boys?

By the time I reached the top of the hill I was a bit out of breath, and sweating under my hair.  I pushed it back and walked on.  My mum was constantly on about the hair.  She hated how long it was, which only made me want to grow it longer.  I had this huge poster of Axl Rose on my wall above my bed, and his hair was way longer, and looked so cool.  Before I started growing it she always made me have this nasty little crewcut. Fucking awful. I used to look like Bart Simpson. I crossed the road and slipped under the low fence that surrounded the park.  At the bottom was a football pitch, and some younger kids were in the middle of a game.  I slunk around the edge of them, and headed up the hill.  To the right was a swing park, which didn’t really interest me.  I kept on until I was at the top of the hill, and from there I could see woods in the distance.  I was getting desperate for a smoke now.  I didn’t think I was addicted yet though.  The first time I’d smoked at all was when I was twelve.  Me and this boy from my old school used to walk home together, and one day he just had some, so I gave it a try.  I’ve got to be honest, I found it pretty disgusting to start with.  I left it alone for about a year, and then I started pinching them from my mums’ handbag when she started going on about moving us.  It was the stress, you see.  I didn’t find it disgusting anymore.  I loved everything about it.  The taste, the smell, the feel of the fag between my fingers, lighting them up, everything, especially the thrill of not being allowed.  I spotted an empty bench under a tree, not far from the woods, and headed for it, one hand in the back pocket of my jeans, fishing out the stolen cigarette.

I sat on the bench, pulled up my legs, hugged my knees and lit up.  I felt momentarily happy.  I watched the smoke circling above my head and I felt my body loosening up for the first time in days, relaxing.  Behind me, I thought I could hear the distant roar and crash of waves, and guessed I must be pretty close to the beach my mother had been raving about.  I’d only taken a few tokes when I spotted the trio of boys enter the park down where I had.  I didn’t recognise them at first.  I had to squint down, hold one hand up against the glare of the sun and still I didn’t realise it was them until it was too late to move.  Not that I would have run off or anything, anyway.  I watched them plough through the younger kids football game, charging at the kids when they protested, sending them scattering like skittles across the grass.  They came up the hill quickly then, but I wasn’t sure if they had seen me or not.  I knew now it was them.  The three boys from the street.

Shit, I thought, and lowered my feet to the ground.  I had no choice but to stay put and try to appear either cool, or invisible.  So I sucked on my smoke and watched them get closer.  They had slowed right down now, and were slouching their way towards me, and I saw the tallest one flick back his hair and say something to the other two.  I took the chance to look them up and down and take them in properly for the first time.  They were all dressed alike, scruffy jeans with holes around the knees, checked shirts worn unbuttoned over t-shirts, and hair that was too long.

They stopped right in front of me, so I looked up at them expectantly and wondered whether I ought to smile or not.  For some stupid reason I felt the strongest urge just to grin at them.  The tall one stood back slightly, his arms crossed loosely around his middle.  He had pale brown hair that curled in wisps around his ears and danced across his forehead.  His face was lean, his cheekbones high and his hazel eyes sombre.  The smallest one had a kind of squat and stocky build.  His hair was a rusty orange, and looked stiff and wiry, while his eyes were a bright and inquisitive green.  He placed one foot up on the bench beside me.  I glanced at the dirty Adidas trainer next to me, and then looked back at them.  The dark haired boy was just staring at me, his only movement being a quick shake of his head to knock the hair from his eyes.  I had to concentrate hard now, to keep the scowl on my own face.  My lips wanted to smile, and there was a tremor of a giggle caught in my throat.  I sat up, straightening my back, reacting to a shiver of excitement that shot up my spine.  “You’re on our bench mate.” The dark haired boy said finally.  Again I had to fight hard not to smile, or laugh, because it just sounded so funny.  I looked at each of them carefully in turn, and then I glanced down at the bench I was sat on.  I drew on the cigarette and puffed the smoke out towards them.

“I don’t see your name on it mate.”

The boy raised his thick black eyebrows in return.  The other two looked at each other, and the small ginger one sniggered.  “You’re the boy who’s just moved in.”

I nodded. “You’re the boys always out the front.”

“What’s your name?”

“Danny.”

“Guns and Roses are so fucking over mate,” the small one said then, taking me a little by surprise.  He was sneering at my t-shirt, the one I was so proud of, and the other two were laughing softly now.  I tried not to let my confusion show.  Part of me wanted to explain that I had only recently been getting into music, and there was just so much of it, that I felt I would never be able to catch up.  I frowned a little at the small kid then. I wondered what he knew that I didn’t.

“In your opinion,” I told him.

“Where you from?” back to the dark boy.

“Southampton.”

“Why’d you move here?”

“My mum,” I shrugged, and told them. I was still trying to work out if there was any chance they were actually being friendly, but the persistent scowl on the dark boys face was not giving me much hope.  I could tell they were waiting for more. “She had this mental boyfriend,” I explained. “She dumped him and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.  Started following her everywhere and making weird phone calls, so we moved.”

“You mean like a stalker?” the ginger boy asked, leaning over his knee now, while his green eyes widened in interest.  I felt doubtful.  I hadn’t heard that word before, not in relation to crazy old James anyway.  So I shrugged.

“Think so.”

“So where’s your dad then?” the dark boy wanted to know.

I shrugged again. “I dunno.”

I saw a look pass between them, and it gave me the feeling that I was going to get away with it this time, that I was going to be able to walk away from this.  The other two boys had their eyes on the dark one, and I felt like they wanted to discuss me.  I also knew I was right, about him being the ringleader, the one I had to beat, and I felt that fizz of excitement course through me again, churning my guts and making my limbs feel restless. Finally the dark haired boy put his hands on his hips, dropped his shoulders a little, and sighed.

“Okay Danny, whatever your name is, this is our bench right? We come up here to have a smoke and a chat, so I’m gonna’ ask you nicely to get up and fuck off back where you came from, okay?”

I blew my breath out really slowly, and glanced down for a moment.  I took one last, long drag on my cigarette before tossing it behind me. I wanted them to think I was considering the offer.  What I really wanted to do was either laugh in his face, or smash my fist into it.  I quite liked the idea of a fight, to be honest.  I wondered how mental my mother would go if I came back home all bloodied and messed up.  But I was outnumbered, and I was smaller than two of them.  I was waiting urgently for some kind of fucking growth spurt, but my mum kept telling me not to hold my breath.  You have my build, she would tell me, making me want to tear out my own hair and stuff it into my ears so I wouldn’t have to listen to her.  Small and light, like a bird, she was fond of saying.  Yeah great, a fucking bird no less, exactly the look a teenage boy wants to have.  I shrugged carelessly and got up from the bench.  I tried to move as slowly and casually as possible, exaggerating all of my movements to make it look like the most boring thing in the world.  “Okay go for it then mate,” I told him, sliding through them and gesturing back towards his precious bench.  “I was leaving anyway.”

I started to walk away, but walked backwards for a bit. “Maybe I’ll see you guys in school on Monday,” I told them.  I nodded at the dark boy then.  “Maybe I’ll see you in school on Monday.”

“You starting at Somerley?” he called after me.  I nodded and kept walking.  “See you Monday morning then,” he said, and when I looked back at him one last time, I saw him nod at me.  His face was dark and serious, his eyes narrowed down to slits, his lips tight.  I understood that expression perfectly, so I grinned and laughed.

“See you then,” I said, and didn’t look back again.

I walked back with a small smile upon my face.  It was all spinning around and around inside my head.  The boys, the bench, the threat.  School.  When I thought about those mean eyed kids, I felt something fill the emptiness inside of me, and it was a relief.  I would either have to fight them, or win them over. Whatever happened, it was going to be interesting.