11

 

 

Dear World, I wake up desperate to see Joe, to talk to Joe, to see how he is, and tell him about the farce I am surrounded by.  He will make it seem funny, and we will laugh about it.  But I do not feel very well.  My head is killing, and my stomach hurts.  I know this is because I need to eat something.  I am not stupid World, in case you were beginning to wonder.  Well, obviously I am, but you know.  So I make myself some breakfast once I am dressed.  I decide to go for a huge coffee, an apple and yoghurt.  The yoghurt is always a good plan, because it comes in a pot, which tells you the calorie content on the side.  I like this information, it makes me feel secure.  I eat my breakfast in the kitchen alone.  I am assuming mum and Les are still asleep.  I roll my eyes.  Gremlin trots in for some fuss, so I decide to take him with me to thank him for his loyalty.  I think about Marianne, and decide to call her, or visit her after I’ve seen Joe.

My day mapped out in my head, I leave the house quietly, glad of the peace and glad that I do not have to see or speak to anyone.  The morning outside is warm, but fresh.  I can tell it is going to be a scorcher once it gets going though.  I eat my apple on the way around to Joe’s house.  I am hoping Travis and Leon will not be there, and I am immediately reassured by the absence of the red fiesta.  They are usually together, so there is no reason to suppose that only Leon is out.

As I approach the front door, I see Will and Tommy playing with cars on the doorstep, and I can hear the screaming from within the house.  I stop, and look around, and imagine the neighbours all hushed and waiting inside their own little boxes, rolling their eyes and whispering about the family next door.  Will and Tommy look quietly shocked, but they keep playing, they keep pushing their little cars up and down on the doorstep.  Will is in his school uniform, and has his book bag and lunch box sat neatly next to him. They have two pieces of wood propped against the step, and they are using them as ramps, so the cars go up one ramp onto the step, across to the other end and then down the second ramp.  They do not look up at me or speak to me as I walk up to the door, where I stop again, and listen, and think twice about going in.

“You fucking useless bastard, get your bleeding hands off me!” That is Lorraine screeching.  She sounds madder than hell, like she can’t even breathe.

“What’s your fucking problem? You’re just never happy are you? Miserable bitch! You’re just never happy!”

“Get your fucking hands off me before I call the police!”

I decide to go in.  I am scared for Joe.  I hate and loathe Mick, and Lorraine scares the shit out of me, but I make myself be brave, just like I did yesterday, and I step over the kids, pulling the dog in with me, and walk into the lounge.  They stop screaming when they see me.  The lounge is all messed up, furniture is overturned and it looks like someone has hurled a cup of tea at the wall.  Mick has Lorraine by the throat, pinned to the wall, but she looks anything but scared, and part of me doesn’t blame Mick for not letting her go.  I can imagine those talon like fingernails slicing into his face the second he does.

“What do you fucking want?” Mick yells at me.  I look past him, to where I can see Joe in the kitchen.  He is standing next to the sink, where it looks like he has been assigned washing up duties again.  He looks blank and cold.  Mick releases Lorraine and she immediately socks him in the chin.  He staggers back, and she makes a run for it, past me and out of the house, slamming the door shut behind her.  I spin around to the window, and see her marching towards her car, head held high, dragging Tommy and Will along with her.  I hear a thud and spin back to Mick.  He has started to kick the hell out of the kitchen door.  I watch him in shock, my mouth hanging open as he lands strike after strike on the thin wood, and bits of it splinter off and land on the carpet.  My eyes meet Joe’s, and I can see the problem here.  He is on one side of Mick, and I am on the other.  I swallow, and take one step forward, thinking I am probably swift enough to nip around him, grab Joe and get the hell out of the back door.

But I don’t have time to do this, because Mick gives up on the door, hurls a shelf loads of DVD’s onto the floor and reels back into the kitchen, towards Joe. “Get out!” he bellows, obviously wanting to be alone. “Go on get out! Get the fuck out, all of you!” Joe does not move. He seems rooted to the spot.  Mick launches himself at him, grabs him by his t-shirt and hauls him out of the kitchen.  “Get out I said! Get out!” Joe stumbles towards me, I snatch up his hand and pull him towards the front door.

“I’m grounded,” he mumbles at me.

“I don’t think you are now,” I tell him, and shove him out of the house.

I pull the door shut behind me.  Joe is just standing there in confusion.  I push him again to get him moving. “Come on let’s go to the park or something,” I say, and propel him forward.  He finally starts moving.  He drops his shoulders with a sigh, puts his hands into his pockets, and walks.  “Jesus Christ, someone should call the police,” I say to him, glancing back at his house.  “What was all that about?”

“They went out last night, to the pub,” he tells me, looking sideways at me with a frown on his face.  “They got hammered.  They started fighting when they got in, because he caught her flirting with another bloke or whatever.”

“They’ve been fighting all night?”

“No they passed out, then started again this morning.”

“Bloody hell Joe.”

“Nothing new,” he shrugs in reply.  “Weekly occurrence, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know how you put up with it.”

“Neither do I.” I look at him and he grins at me.

“Well just wait till I tell you what’s going on at my house,” I say, as we head to the park with Gremlin.

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah, I think it might trump yours.”

“No fucking way.”

“Yes fucking way.”

We arrive at the park on the fields, and slink over to the bottom chamber of the slide. I let the dog off the lead, and we duck our heads and go inside the little hut.  Joe sits down on the floor with his back against the wall.  I sit on the tiny little bench and start to giggle. “What?” he asks me.

“Just got the image of your mum socking Mick in the chin in my head, that’s all.”

“Was pretty funny.”

“Where are Leon and Travis?”

“Stayed out last night.  You know, working.” He looks at me and raises his eyebrows.  I nod.

“Oh, I see. Much more to get rid of?”

He shrugs. “Fair bit.”

“Jesus, your family are unbelievable.”

“Tell me about yours then.  Make me feel better.”

“Okay, okay.” I settle back on the bench, resting on the wall, and cross one leg over the other.  I watch Joe pull a small tin out of his back pocket, and realise that he is going to roll a joint.  I hesitate for a moment, and then I think fuck it, he deserves it, so I say nothing.  “Okay, so you know Les has moved in, and Sara has moved out?”

“Yeah, mum said.  How’s it going?”

“Hilarious to be honest.  I can’t stand to be around either of them.  It’s all got to stay a secret because of dad.  I go out for a run yesterday, then when I get back, dad’s fucking there!”

Joe looks at me with widened eyes. “Ooh!”

“Yeah, you know how he just turns up like that?  I go in and Les is nowhere to be seen.  Fucking hiding somewhere, the gutless prick.”

“Oh my god, what are they playing at?”

“Sad, isn’t it? So dad leaves, none the wiser.  I say to mum why don’t you just tell him? He’s not your husband anymore.  It shouldn’t matter.  Not that I think much of Les, but you know.”

“Your dad’s a cunt,” Joe says and I smile at him.

“Thanks.  He is, isn’t he?”

“He’s got Maria but your mum can’t have anyone?”

“Well, exactly. I think she should tell him. I’m going to give them a week then tell him myself.”

Joe is spreading tobacco along a cigarette paper.  He roars with laughter at me.

“Are you really gonna’ do that?”

“Why not? I would love to see the look on his face.”

“But he won’t like, try to kick you all out, or something?”

I shrug at him. “Probably. Who cares? I don’t want to live in his house anyway. My mum should just find somewhere else to rent.”

I watch Joe run his tongue slowly and carefully along the sticky edge of the cigarette paper, before adeptly rolling the joint up.  “But do you think Les is all right?” he asks me, his eyes on his work.  “Or do you think he’s going to be an arsehole?”

“I don’t know,” I sigh. “He seems okay every time I’ve seen him.  Sort of weedy and wimpy really.  Seems harmless.  Not like Mick.  Not yet anyway.”

Joe snorts at me. “Yeah well I remember him being a prick from day fucking one, so you’ll probably be okay.” Joe pulls a lighter out of his pocket, holds it to the end of his creation, and inhales deeply as the joint lights up.  I lean back against the wall and watch him lazily.  I wonder what time it is.  Joe pulls his knees up, and rests one arm across them.  He seems thoughtful for a moment, lost.

“Why do you think your mum stays with him?” I ask then, watching him carefully. “When he does stuff like that to her?”

“Oh don’t worry, she gives as good as she gets. She starts it half the time.”

“I know that, but you know, it’s not right is it? It’s not how marriages are meant to be.  It’s not normal married behaviour to grab your wife by the throat and all that.” Joe lifts his gaze to mine and holds the joint out to me.  I don’t know what to do for a moment, so I just make a face at him, so he knows that I am thinking.  He waits, saying nothing, while I make up my mind.  Finally, I lean slowly forward and take it from him.  He wraps his other arm around his knees.

“Mick is like her match,” he says to me.  “They’re exactly the fucking same, if you think about it.  Act now, think later.  Get mad, lash out.  Shout and scream the place down.  They fucking love it don’t they?”

“I don’t understand why.” I take a long drag on the smoke.

“It’s just the way some people are,” he shrugs. “It’s why it didn’t work out with my dad.  Because they were too different.”

“But I thought they say opposites attract?”

“I don’t know.  But he wasn’t up to it.  She obviously wanted someone who would stand up to her and fight her back.”  I hold the joint back out to Joe and he takes it from me.

“Weird,” I say, resting my head back on the wooden wall behind.

“Fucked up,” Joe agrees.  “I thought that was what women like.  The bastards and all that.”

“I don’t!”

“Well not you obviously. You’re some kind of freak.”

I sit up indignantly, but Joe is grinning at me.  The wall is too hard, my back is aching, and my head is getting fuzzy and tired.  I slip down to the floor and lay on my back, with my legs hanging outside the hut.  When Joe passes me the joint again I take it without thinking.  “Do you remember that time the neighbours called the police on them?” I ask him, blowing out smoke and watching it drift slowly up to the wooden ceiling.

“Oh yeah,” says Joe, nodding.  “We were what? About twelve?”

“Think so. And it was Leon that got fucking arrested!”

“Shit yeah!” Joe exclaims, smiling a wide amazed smile, as he begins to remember. “It was New Years Eve, wasn’t it? All your family were around, and mum and Mick got into a fight in the kitchen about something.  Me and you were out there with the phone I got remember?”

“How can I forget?” I ask him, laughing. “You were so chuffed you got a bloody phone for Christmas at last.  You made me sit and listen while you showed me all the amazing things it could do!”

“Shut up! I felt so embarrassed, when they started fighting right in front of you.”

“My parents were just the same mate, remember?”

“Oh yeah.  Fights or silence, right?”

“Yep.”

Joe takes the joint and lies down next to me.  We are both flat on our backs, giggling and staring at the ceiling, which is covered in abusive graffiti, some of which is our own work.  “We just sat at the table, trying not to look at them,” he says softly beside me.  I can see it in my head like it was yesterday.

“She slaps him one.  He slaps her back, then they start really grabbing each other, until Leon runs in.”

“Yeah, he grabbed the fucking frying pan and clocked Mick over the head with it.  Jesus Christ there was blood everywhere.  He had to have eight stitches in a and e.”

“And the police turned up.”

“And arrested Leon.  Mum and Mick fucking told them to.”

I turn my head and look at the side of Joe’s face.  “Joe, I’ve never really thought about it much until now, but you do know that is fucking disgusting don’t you?” I watch as Joe nods back at me.  “He was about fourteen then?  He was just trying to protect his mum.  I’ve never ever felt sorry for Leon before, but thinking about it now, that was pretty harsh on him.”

“He’s hard to feel sorry for.”

“Do you think your mum and Mick ever feel sorry about that? Letting him get taken away, when it was them fighting in the first place?  I couldn’t live with myself.”

Joe snorts again. “They always think they’re right,” he replies.  “Doesn’t matter what you say or do.  Doesn’t matter if you prove them fucking wrong or whatever. Neither of them are ever fucking wrong, ever.  So no, I don’t think they would ever feel guilty about that.”

“Madness,” I say.

“I’m really feeling fucked up,” Joe says quietly, and lifts his hands up to his face.  He presses them down onto his eyes and groans slowly and softly under them.  “Are you?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

“I think I made it too strong.”

“I think you did.”

“I feel a bit sick.”

“Me too.”

“Just lie still,” Joe advises.  I have closed my eyes too.  I close them and the darkness of my own mind surrounds me tightly.  It is a relief.  I do feel sick.  I feel really really wrong.  I try to fight it.  I do what Joe said and just remain still.  I feel totally and utterly detached from everything, like I am physically floating alone, separated from him, and the hut, and the hot July morning.  In the end I have no choice but to open my eyes, roll onto my belly and vomit spectacularly.  Most of it lands on the grass outside the hut.  I am dimly aware of Joe patting me on the shoulder, and then on the back.  “Sorry,” he is saying.  “Sorry mate.”

“Ah, that feels better now.”

“Sorry mate, I’m such an idiot.”

I drop my head onto my arm and close my eyes and just breathe in and out nice and slowly.  My stomach is empty and growls accordingly.  But my head is already feeling clearer.  I am coming back.  “Bloody hell,” I mutter. “You’re trying to kill me.”

“I made it too strong,” Joe repeats pathetically, rubbing at my back with his hand.  I can sense his sadness strongly.  I laugh at him.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m such a twat.  They’re all right about me, aren’t they?”

I want him to lighten up.  I want him to laugh.  So I take the piss out of him, which usually works.  “What, that you’re gay?”

His hand drops away from me quickly.  “I am not fucking gay!”

“All right, I’m only joking.” I lift my head and look at his face.  “Calm down you freak.”

“Well I’m not! Fucks sake.”

“Well I know that, don’t I?”

“Do you?”

“What?” I am so so confused.

“Nothing,” he snaps at me, and sits up.  He rakes his fingers back through his hair, and leaves them there.  He looks totally wrecked.

“Sorry,” I say from the floor.  Then; “I think I better go home.”

“Oh no, don’t.” Joe looks back at me, biting at his lip.  “Stay.”

“Okay, okay,” I say, and I reach out and pull him back down by his arm.  He lets me and I snuggle into his side, like the other day on his bed.  I close my eyes and feel the sleepiness rushing in.  As I drift away, I am thinking about everything, you know, how everything can just pass through you all at once?  Images, and memories, thoughts and feelings, and I feel pretty numb, so that is all okay, and I tighten my hold on Joe’s arm, and I am warm and fuzzy all over as he presses his lips down on the top of my head, and I want to tell him that he is the one constant thing, the one thing that means anything to me, the one person that has never let me down or saddened or sickened me, the only one person who gets me, and that I love him.  But I cannot speak.  I open my lips very slightly, but nothing comes out.

10                                                                

 

Dear World, I am sat at the kitchen table in my house.  I am staring at the fish and chips on my plate. It stares back at me, all fat greasy and pale.  I am trying to figure out in my head how many calories there are.  I am guessing maybe at least a thousand.  Les has bought the fish and chips.  Mum is gushing over this, as if buying fish and chips is the most admirable thing a person can do for you.  I wasn’t even allowed to go to my room with it.  I could have taken Gremlin and fed the greasy shit to him.  But no.  I’ve got to sit at the fucking table, with my insane mother and her weasel-eyed houseguest, watching them swap loving looks with each other.  I present them with a steely silence that I am childishly determined not to break.  My mother utters empty words about us all getting along nicely, and pretends not to notice the filthy looks I give her.  As for him, I do not look at him at all.  I am not going to be a stroppy bitch like my sister, but I am not going to fawn all over this stranger either.  As far as I am concerned, he is a cheeky bastard, and no good is going to come out of any of this. What is she going to do when dad shows up? Hide the bloke under her bed?

I feel resigned to living with this joke of a situation, and push my fat wet chips around my plate with my fork.  I am not going to eat any of this shit.  I can hear Les gobbling away, and when I inadvertently glance up, I see he has chip grease smeared on his chin, and he laughs at something my mum has said, which is not funny, and he leaves his mouth open when he laughs, and I can see all the chewed up food in his mouth, and I want to kill myself.  I get up abruptly, screeching back my chair and walk out of the room.

A perturbed silence follows me up the stairs.  I go into my room and close the door.  I feel sullen and angry and spiteful and irrelevant.  I think of my mother, and I almost wish for dad to find out about Les. To stand back and watch it all explode around her.  To laugh in her face.  But the prospect of dad finding out is actually quite scary.  I shiver and throw myself face down onto my bed, and I close my eyes and in my dark mind I can see Joe, and his fucked up eyes.  Even though it is completely insane and dangerous, the more I think about it, the more I can understand what he is doing and why.  His brothers have never asked for his help before.  His brothers have never asked anything of him before, except for him to fuck off.  Leon, especially, has never needed or desired Joe to exist.  Now suddenly he does.  He needs him.  He asked for his help.  This proves to Joe that on some level, Leon trusts him, maybe even values him. I am concerned about him, but I can understand why he is doing it.  I am not going with him obviously.  I am too chicken, too scared, too childish and afraid.  Joe is not afraid of anything, and I don’t know why, or how that can be.  Look at him.  Throws himself at his older brother for a fight he would not have won.  Sneaks out from a grounding, risking round two with his mum and Mick, to deliver Class A narcotics to a complete, and undoubtedly shady stranger.  It is insane, I think, my face still pressed into my duvet.  But he’s not afraid to do it, is he?  Why isn’t he?

Then I think about the way he has been brought up.  Lorraine is not one of those cuddly, touchy-feely mothers and she never has been.  It has always been fend for yourself in their house.  She has always worked, so she has always had to rush out of the door, leaving the kids to it.  Secretly, I think she just wanted to get away from them for a few hours.  When Joe was little, Leon and Travis would be left in charge.  You can imagine the insanity that would follow.  She would come home to chaos and a wrecked house.  I can remember sneaking quickly out the back door more than once, so that she would not know I was involved.  You could hear her shrieking half way down the street.  That was her way.  Scream, shout, smack, wallop.  I have seen my own mother wince on more than one occasion when witnessing Lorraine chastise her sons.  Luckily for me, neither of my parents has ever raised a hand to me, or to Sara.  People are all different, my mum will repeat this every time I dare to question Lorraine’s parenting skills. People are all different, and they all lead different lives, and you cannot hope to understand a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes.  That last bit always makes me choke.  I don’t know how Lorraine manages to walk a mile in her own shoes, let alone me trying it.

I roll over onto my back and stare at the ceiling.  I can hear the murmur of chat and laughter coming from downstairs.  I try not to think anymore about Joe.  My mind, and its obsession with potential violence and gore, wants to think up all the many ways this could blow up in his unassuming face.  Such as the stranger being a psychotic who takes the drugs, refuses to hand over the money and beats Joe to a bloody pulp when he protests.  Or the true owners of the drugs catching up with him, mistakenly thinking this skinny young kid is the one who stole their goods.  I press my hands against my eyes, willing away the images of fists and feet and weapons putting an end to my best friends short existence.  I am going to have to talk to him again.  I am going to have to spell out the dangers to him, the ‘what ifs’ he obviously has not thought of himself.  How long is this going to go on for?  How long does it take to get rid of that much cocaine?  How the fuck are they doing it? Oh Christ, I feel sick just thinking about it.

If I had any kind of mother I would go downstairs and ask to speak to her.  I would probably cry in her arms and tell her about it, and she would comfort me and then do something about it.  She would sort it all out.  But I am beginning to realise that adults are not any better at sorting things out, than we are.  In fact, dear World most of the time they seem to be even worse at it. I mean, why doesn’t my mother speak to my dad honestly about bloody Les?  Why doesn’t she offer him more money for rent if Les moves in?  It’s not so much him moving in that enrages and appals me, it’s her stupidity and cowardice in not telling my dad.  This is his house.  He bought it from the council, so he likes to tell anyone who will listen; he bought it from the council.  Yay, I feel like saying when he tells this story.  Well done.  Really proud of you dad.  Now he technically has two houses anyway, I bet he tells everyone he fucking sees in the street about it.  He moved in with the woman he cheated on mum with, Maria.  She already owned her house, so the greedy bastard bought in with her, and now owns half of that one as well as ours.  Why does he need two houses I ask you?  Why does anyone?  Greed and stupidity.  I am surrounded by greed and stupidity dear World. You and me both know it.

Anyway, just because he owns our house, and mum pays rent to him, he thinks this gives him the right to show up whenever he wants to.  He will never ever phone first.  Bastard.  I have told mum a million times that he can’t do that.  He can’t do that as our landlord and he can’t do that as our father.  He just can’t.  When he left, he was all, oh we’ll sort something out about the kids, see them every weekend, have them at ours, all that worthless shit.  That didn’t last long.  I’ve been to Maria’s house three times in three years, and I wouldn’t go again if you fucking paid me.  You would have to tie me up and drag me by the hair.  So he shows up here whenever he feels like winding up mum on the pretence of caring about his daughters.

Right, I’ve had enough of this.  I am so wound up I want to punch the wall.  I want to pick up every single object I can see in my room and hurl it at the floor.  I look at the desk and wonder how it would feel to just swipe it all right off.  I have never done that before, but I bet it is fun.  I jump off the bed and look at myself in the mirror.  I turn sideways, and then I turn the other way.  I decide there and then to go for a run.  It will make me feel better in so many ways.  So I get changed into my jogging trousers, sports bra and t-shirt and drag my trainers out from under the bed. I do a few stretches, and then go downstairs.

My mum comes out of the kitchen automatically, tea towel in hand, hopeful expression on face.  I totally blank her and go out of the door before she can even think to ask me to take the dog.  I start running right away.  I used to get embarrassed when I first started.  I used to think people would laugh at me, so I would either get up early and run, or do it in the evening, just before dark.  I don’t care now.  Now you can see I have lost weight, and I feel proud of that, proud to show it off, and proud to show them how I have done it.  I am still doing it.  I get to the fields and run around the perimeter.  The whole field is empty.  The park is deserted.  There is no one in sight, and this feels wonderful.  I feel the freedom lift my vile mood slightly.  It feels good to be running, to be charging along, my feet hitting the earth, totally and utterly alone.  My mind starts to clear.  The clutter starts to drop away.  I lift my knees, and embrace the earth, my feet pounding on it, my arms pumping, my hair flying back from my face.  Until I started jogging, I never understood how exercise could make you feel better.  It seemed a bizarre concept to me.  But I get it now.  You feel kind of in tune with your body, with your physical self.  I think I’ve always been ridiculously in tune with my emotional self, but not the physical, not until now, not like this.

I feel and hear my heart pumping, my breath forced around my body, blood careering through my veins.  I think about my body as a machine now.  I do not accept that my knees ache.  I do not allow myself to consider that once around the field is enough.  I want to control my body and make it do what I want.  It is not going to let me down anymore.  I force it on because I own it.  I am in the driving seat.  I am operating the controls.  This brings a crazy smile to my face as I start to run around the field for the third time.  I am amazed at how my body does it.  I make it do it.

I only stop running because I trip over a fucking brick and go flying into the ground.  I am fine.  I am worried about twisting my ankle, or some such thing, because if I had to stop jogging for a while, then I would have to eat even less, wouldn’t I?  But I am fine, and nothing hurts.  I sit back on my arse and look wonderingly at the brick, and look around to make sure no one saw me fall.  There is still no one in sight for miles around.  I am panting and my chest is heaving quickly up and down, and now that I have stopped, I can feel a tight gripping pain down the right side of my chest.  So I sit back and just breathe, and stare up at the sky, and think okay, maybe that will do.  Of course, there is a part of me that says it will not do, so get the fuck up and run on.  But the pain is getting worse, and I know I can’t.

I do feel better though World.  It was like every negative thought, every tensed and angry muscle, every piece of sadness, started to fall away as I ran.  They just drifted away, they fell off me, they fell out of me, they backed off.  I breathe in lungfuls of summer air scented by cut grass, and think about going home.  Not an attractive idea, but the alternative is staying out here on my own.  Could get depressing.

I haul myself to my feet and walk slowly towards home.  I am thinking about a large mug of coffee, followed by some mints.  I have recently discovered that having packs of mints around when you are dieting is really handy.  Next to no calories, and they give you a little rush of energy and make the thought of food go away again.  I think about Joe, in his bedroom.  I wonder how he is feeling, what he is thinking.  I wonder what has been said, if anything, between Travis and him about me.  My cheeks flush with warmth automatically at the thought of Travis.  I have not really let myself think about what happened at the party.  It still scares the shit out of me.  I can strongly picture Travis and Leon talking and joking about me.  Maybe it was a dare from Leon.  I wouldn’t put it past him.  I shudder.  That horrible bastard.

When I get home, my dads work van is in the driveway.

I want to laugh.  I really do.  I want to throw back my head and roar with laughter right out there in the street.  Okay then.  Here we go.  Here we go.  He must be on his lunch break.  He’s a painter and decorator and has a couple of lanky lads working for him.  I don’t want to see him but I have to see this.  I just have to.

I open the door and go in, and there is my dad in the kitchen, mug of tea in hand, wearing his paint splattered work trousers and shirt.  I look at him and he looks at me, and I wonder as usual what he thinks, or feels when he sees me.  Because I am sixteen years old and I have yet to work out exactly what I think or feel about him.  The only answer I can give you World is not much.  Not much at all.  When he lived with us, he made me feel small, so I kept out of his way if I could.  After he left, I started to feel increasingly shy and awkward at seeing him.  Now I realise that I have always felt this way around him, my own dad, like he is a stranger.  Like he is a distant relative who shows up from time to time, and isn’t really interested in kids, but has to make small talk with you to be polite.  That’s how it is.  He is someone I am perpetually too shy to approach or talk to. He is someone who cares too little to ever ask me what I am doing, what I am interested in, or what I want out of this life.  So we skirt uncomfortably around each other, and it is all an avoidance tactic.

“All right?” he says to me with a wink.  He always winks.  What does this mean?  That we are somehow close, or share a secret?  It’s laughable.

“All right,” I say back, and that is usually as far as it goes.  My mum is leaning against the kitchen cupboard, with her cup of tea.  She gives me a strained, wide-eyed look, that I can only imagine is her way of begging me not to drop her in it.  I look around and vaguely try to picture where Les could be hiding.  It makes me want to laugh.  I kick off my trainers, and make a fuss of Gremlin, because my dad hates dogs, and would never let us have one when he lived here.  I stroke and fondle his long ears, and even go as far as planting a loving kiss on his squashed up nose.

“Ah look at this,” says my dad to my mum. “The bleeding dog gets more affection than I do!”  This is his little try at humour, so I smile dutifully and head for the stairs.

“Sara is at your dads,” mum says then.  I stop and look back.

“Is she?”

“Yes, you know, because me and her had that little fight?” My mum gives me that look again. Ah okay, I see.  Dad does not know about Les.  Even Sara, in her anger has not dropped mum in it.  I can’t see her lasting long there though.

“Popped by to tell your mum,” dad shrugs at me, so I nod back.

“Okay.”

“She’s getting skinny,” my dad says then to my mum, and looks back at me.  I frown.  This is what he does as well.  Talks to you through someone else.

“She’s doing ever so well on her diet,” mum says proudly, smiling at me. “I can hardly get her to eat a thing these days! And look, she goes jogging too.”

“Bleedinghell,” laughs dad. “Who would have thought it? Right little porker she always was.”

“Thanks a lot,” I sigh, and start up the stairs.

“He’s only joking Lou!” mum calls up after me. “No one can call you that now, can they?”

I go into my room and resist the urge to slam the door. They can all fuck off and die.  Seriously.  Fuck off and die.  I wonder if Les is hiding in her room, and I want to storm in there and shout at my dad to come and see.  Why should I hide their pathetic secrets?  I find I am now back at square one.  I am seething with rage and indignation and hurt and I am mystified as to why.  Why do I let their useless shit bother me?  Why does Joe not care about anything?  How does he do that?

I lie on my bed and close my eyes and let the anger fill me and consume me.  There is no point fighting it, or denying it, so I just go with it.  I think vile and nasty things about all of them. I imagine my dad’s brakes failing on his way home, and his van crashing into a wall, and his paint splattered body flying helplessly through the windscreen.  Ouch. But eventually, inevitably I turn the anger on myself.  I want to punch myself in the stomach, I want to smash my face into the wall and watch the blood run down.  I slide my hands down onto my stomach instead.  I search for the rise and the fall.  I feel for my ribs.  I calm myself down by thinking about fading away.

I hear dad go an hour later.  He calls goodbye up the stairs.  I think of Les, crawling out of his hiding place.  Mum comes up to see me.  She looks pained and anxious and guilty, and so she should.  I give her a withering look. “It’s not for long,” she tells me. “I know what you are thinking, and you are right, I should not be putting you in this position.  But Les has lots of places to look at, you know, new flats.  It’s not for long Lou, it’s really not worth upsetting your dad.”

“Why don’t you just tell him? Why can’t you have a boyfriend move in if you want to?” I sit up and ask her.  I have a blinding headache coming.  “He left you for Maria mum.  He cheated on you with her.” I see the hurt in her eyes, but I cannot undone what I have said, and for God’s sake, I cannot undo that it even happened, but it did.  He did it.  Plus, in case she has forgotten, he left her in the shit financially.  I remember her sat at the kitchen table, head in hand, staring down at her own workings out on a notepad as she struggled to figure out how to pay all of the bills herself.  I can remember us all hiding behind the sofa’s in the lounge, when the bailiffs turned up one afternoon.  How can she have forgotten that?  How can she not hate him like I hate him?

“Lou,” she says softly.  “You know your dad.”

“No I don’t actually,” I argue with her.  “I don’t know him at all.  Never have.”

“What does that mean?”

“You work it out.  Well if you want to live your life this way, with him controlling you, with him acting like you’re still his, when it was him that walked out on you, then that’s fine, you do that.” I lie back down and stare at the ceiling.  “Just don’t expect me to congratulate you.”

“You think I should talk to him about Les?” She is leaning against the doorframe.  She looks tired and old and frightened.  I cannot understand how people can live their lives like that.

“Nothing to do with me is it?” I retort in anger. “None of you care what I think.  Just do what you like.”

“Oh Lou, it is never as easy as that.  I wish it was, but it is so much harder than you know.”

“I don’t know anything,” I tell her.  “Hadn’t you better tell him he can come out now?”  My mum sighs and goes out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.  I roll over and find my pen and start to spread swearwords and insults all over my bedroom wall.

 

9

 

Dear World, it feels very strange, walking over to Joe’s with Lorraine.  Like fraternising with the enemy or something. I am wondering as we walk, what age you have to get to before you start to feel on an even level with grown ups.  Seventeen? Eighteen maybe?  I must be immature for my age.  Well, I know I am.  I just have to be near an adult to start feeling like a shy little kid again. Or maybe it is just that the adults I know have that effect on you.  Lorraine certainly does.  She has an amazing knack of making you feel about three years old. She clips along the pavement in her red patent high heels, clutching her handbag, and looking sideways at me.  I am surprised she doesn’t fall over, because I bloody would if I wore heels and looked sideways.  She must be an expert.  Finally she breaks the tense silence.

“What do you think of Les moving in then?”

I am surprised by the subject matter she has gone for.  She has never asked for my personal opinions on family matters until now.  She is from the ‘like it or lump it’ school of parenting. “I don’t know,” I tell her. “Sara’s moved out.”

“I know.  Your mum said. She’s in bits about it.”

“She’ll be back.  Probably. She likes to throw a tantrum.”

“But not you, eh?” I look at her and she gives me a little smile. “Just give Les a chance yeah?” she says then. “He’s a nice bloke, I can assure you of that. I wouldn’t let your mother anywhere near anyone who wasn’t decent.”

I just nod silently, but inside I am both raging and laughing at her.  Raging, because what right has she to tell me to give him a chance? As if I wouldn’t? If she knew anything about me at all, she would know that I am the least likely to person to even give my mother my opinion, let alone throw a fit like Sara has.  He could be a fucking axe murderer and I would just keep my thoughts to myself.  And laughing, because does she honestly think her statement is reassuring? Considering that she married a bloke who is one step away from a Neanderthal and who treats her three sons like second class citizens compared to Will and Tommy? Christ!

Thankfully we are soon at her house, and that is when the nerves start to kick in big time.  Honestly, it is a feeling ten times worse than before an exam.  I think of Joe and feel sick.  I think of Travis, and him trying to kiss me, and I am very nearly close to vomiting.  I keep my eyes down and my head low as we walk up to the front door.  Mick is in the front garden, bent over a car again.  He looks up and wipes his hands on his green overalls.  Lorraine stops next to him, and lights up a cigarette. She waves her hand at me.  “Go on in, he’s in there somewhere.” I go on towards the open front door, and hear Lorraine say to Mick.  “It’s all right, it’s all right, they’re just staying in. She’ll keep him out of trouble.”

I have to step over Tommy in the hallway.  He is still wearing his Thomas The Tank Engine pyjamas, and has red jam smeared all over his face.  He is lying on his belly, brooming toy cars up and down the hallway carpet.  I glance into the lounge, which is darkened, with the curtains closed.  This is because Leon and Travis are sprawled out on the sofa next to each other, with the TV on.  They have closed the curtains so they can see the TV properly.  Leon is smoking, with an ashtray on his lap.  He is bare chested, and just wearing tracksuit bottoms.  He barely looks at me, but Travis looks scarily like he is about to get up to greet me.  “Joe upstairs?” I quickly ask, pointing weakly to the staircase.

Travis nods at me, and his expression is hard to read. “Yeah,” he says, and sinks back into the sofa.  I nod and hurry up the stairs.  I find myself then taking deep breaths outside my best friends bedroom, and wonder how the fuck it has all come to this.  Finally I reach out with my clenched fist and rap on his door.  “Who is it?” he calls out gruffly.

“Me. Your ex-best friend.”

I hear him snort. “Get in here bitch.”

I feel a sense of relief and open the door, but my relief turns to concern when I see what he is doing.  Joe is sat up at his window, which looks down onto the back garden.  He has the window wide open, and is sat there smoking a joint.  My brow creases in confusion.  “What are you doing?”

He lifts the spliff to his lips and takes a drag. “What does it look like?”

I close the door, remember that they have no locks, and lean against it instead.       “Are you insane?” I hiss at him. “Your whole family are in!”

“I’m nearly finished,” he shrugs.  “You want some?”

“No I don’t.  I’m in enough trouble as it is, and so are you! Where did you get that from?”

Joe takes another drag, considers the joint done, and stubs it out on the windowsill.  He then takes the butt and hurls it as far as he can into the garden.  I just watch and shake my head, mesmerised by the insanity of him.  He slips down slowly from the window, smiles lazily at me and climbs onto the bottom bunk bed, which is his.  There are dirty clothes and cds and magazines in the way, but he swipes a hand at them and they all hit the floor.  He lies on his back and laces his hands behind his head. “You are seriously freaking me out,” I tell him, finally deeming it safe to come away from the door. I sit on the edge of his bed.  I suddenly feel the urge to touch him.  To hold his hand or something.  To tell him how sorry I am.  He is just smiling at me, and his eyes look fucked. His right eye is a little bruised and swollen, and there is another, bigger bruise on his forehead. “Where did you get it from?” I ask him again.  I am thinking maybe Ryan; because it was he we smoked pot with once before.  And I mean once.  At the park no less, with our bikes dumped on the ground around us.

“Leon,” he tells me.

“What? Why?”

“Owed me,” Joe shrugs at me, still smiling sweetly.  Oh Christ.  I should have known.

“I ought to go down there and tell your mum and Mick!” I say haughtily, and instantly see the alarm jump into his eyes.  He sits up and grabs my hand.

“Don’t you dare.”

“I’ve told her it was Leon and Travis that asked us to the party,” I inform him, in case he doesn’t know.  “I’ve told her about all the booze they let us have. They can’t just get away with things all the time. Arseholes.”

Joe lets out his breath and lies back down again. “It’s gonna’ kick off down there in a minute then,” he sighs. “I would say let’s go, but I’m fucking grounded.”

“How’s your head?” I give him an apologetic smile, which he returns wryly, as he gently fingers the bruise on his forehead.

“Fucking Mick,” he says softly.

“I’m sorry mate. I didn’t know what else to do. Leon was just standing there, just encouraging you both. No one else cared.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he tells me, with a yawn. “You probably saved me a trip to the hospital.”

“Well I’m still sorry.” I look around at his room, how he keeps all his things on one side, as if trying to create a physical barrier between him and Will.  All his teenager things on one side, and all Will’s kid things on the other.  Will has a wooden train track laid out across his side, and the top bunk bed is covered in soft toys. “Your mum said you had a bad hangover,” I say.

“Well I did.  Until, you know.” He means the joint. I nod.

“Oh. I see. I’m surprised it doesn’t make you sick.”

“Must be getting used to it.”

This is a comment I really ought to pick him up on, but the time just does not feel right somehow.  I think of mum and Les, and Sara, and experience that immense and heavy sadness again, like falling into a pit. We both jump when we hear the front door slam downstairs.  Moments later Lorraine starts screaming.  I look at Joe and he shrugs. “Your fault,” he tells me, and I am not sure if he is joking or not.  I feel strange and uncomfortable, and I have never felt like that around Joe before.  The silence between us is weighted with the one word we have not said.  Travis.

“Travis was just pissed,” I say, hardly able to look at him. “He was just pissed and being an idiot. You didn’t need to worry.”

“I saw him kiss you.”

“He didn’t really.  Well, he did.  But I was just taken by surprise.  And anyway, he was just pissed and I don’t know why he did it.” I lift my hands and drop them uselessly back in my lap.  I feel like crying.  Joe seems so distant, so cold to me, and I don’t like it, I don’t understand why. I have this overwhelming urge to lie down next to him and curl into his side, but I can’t can I? I can’t.

“I don’t know why I went for him,” Joe says then, and I look at his face, and he is frowning, but not looking at me.  His eyes are focused firmly on the wooden slats of the upper bunk bed.  We hear Mick join in the shouting downstairs. “You can do what you want,” he says. “You can let him kiss you, or whatever.”

I don’t know what to say to this.  I don’t want to say anything that might hurt him.  I don’t know why he attacked his brother either, but I just feel so sorry that I was the cause of all this.  “I’m never going to do anything that upsets you,” I say quietly, staring at his face, and I mean it.  His eyes flick towards mine.  He says nothing.  I feel tears flood my eyes.  My lip is trembling.  I simply cannot bear him to be angry with me.  Not now.

“You stupid twat,” he says with a sigh, and I laugh and cry at the same time.  I give in to the urge to be close to him, and pull myself up onto the bed, and lie down next to him, still crying.  He drags one arm out from behind his head and wraps it around me, and I cry harder. “What the hell are you blubbing about woman?”

“Just all this,” I manage to tell him, holding one hand over both my eyes, trying to halt the leakage. “And bloody Les has moved in.  And Sara has left home.  And I thought you hated me.  You should hate me.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong, twat-face.”

My shoulders shake against his arm with laughter.  We lie still for a few moments, listening to the row downstairs.  It is mainly Lorraine and Mick, screaming and bellowing in turn.  “You’re skating on thin ice with me!” we hear Mick shout.  We cannot really hear either Leon or Travis, but they must be arguing back.

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that!” Lorraine screeches. Joe pulls me closer and closes his eyes. I rest my face against his t-shirt and inhale the sweet smell of the weed he has smoked.

“One step away from throwing you out!” comes another classic from Mick. How many times have we heard that one since he moved in?

“This is the thanks we get!” Back to Lorraine.  I am cringing now, and wanting to get out of this crazy house.  I have caused this.  I should have kept my stupid childish mouth shut. I prop myself up on my elbow and look at the door.  The front door has slammed again downstairs, but I have no idea who has stormed out.  I glance down at Joe and see that he is asleep.  Or passed out.

There are sudden, steady footsteps on the stairs and they are coming towards Joe’s door, and I feel a panic seize my heart, because I fucking know, I can fucking sense who it is.  The door opens and they both walk in, Leon a scowling dark faced menace, and Travis looking stressed and pissed off, and jumpy all at the same time.

“Well isn’t this cosy?” Leon hisses at me.  I scoot away from Joe, who opens his eyes groggily, but does not move.  I lower my feet to the floor. Travis sinks his hands into his pockets.

“Thanks a lot kids,” he says to us, but his eyes are on me. “You dropped us right in it there.”

“That was my intention actually,” I tell him, standing up and crossing my arms.  They look at each other in surprise.

“Why?” Travis asks me.

“Because you’re a pair of fucking arseholes, that’s why. I don’t see why we should always get the blame.”

They look at each other again.  Leon is frowning so deeply I can barely make out his eyes.  He spreads his legs a little; his defiant stance, and his eyes shift to Joe, still lying on his bed.  “You going to let your little girlfriend talk to us like that eh?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Joe yawns in reply. “And she can say what she likes.”

“Last time we invite you losers to a party,” Leon says.  “You’re obviously still just a pair of little kids. Go running to mummy over nothing.”

Joe laughs at this.  He folds his arms back under his head and giggles away. Leon glares at him silently. Travis is still looking at me.  “It was him that attacked me actually,” he sees fit to point out, nodding towards Joe.

“Yeah, because he was hammered.” I sit back down on the bed then. I don’t like the look on Leon’s face. I feel the urge to stay close to Joe in case something erupts again.  I think, that should be it, they’ve aired their grievances, now they should go, but they don’t, although I can tell that Travis wants to.  His gaze keeps shifting sideways to Leon, and then jerking back to me. He is frowning, and seems fidgety.  “Is that all?” I ask finally, shrugging at them.

“No that’s not fucking all,” Leon snaps at me. “I need a word with my brother alone, if you don’t mind.” He nods towards the door, suggesting that I leave.  I raise my eyebrows at him, and glance at Joe.

“I’m not leaving,” I say.

“Look, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you,” Leon says, sounding frustrated.  I realise this is probably the longest conversation he and I have ever had. “We’ve got important things we need to talk about. Mick has gone out.  Now is the time.” His eyes are boring into Joe when he says this.  I watch Joe struggle up into a sitting position on his bed.  He folds his arms over his chest and smiles pleasantly at all of us.

“I’m not leaving,” I say again. “If I leave you’re just going to beat him up or something!”

“Christ, I’m not!” Leon says with a heavy sigh. “Joe will you tell her?”

“Let her listen,” Joe shrugs, “I don’t care.”

“Don’t be stupid, idiot.”

“You best go,” Travis tells me gently. I wonder if they have all gone mad or something! What the fuck is going on?

“I’m not going,” I tell them for the third time, and I stare back at Leon and I do not flinch, and for the first time I think to myself, you’re not so tough after all, you’re just a nineteen-year-old thug who thinks he’s a hard man.  You’re just a kid, still living at home with your mum, even though you hate it. You’re nothing. I watch his shoulders drop and he rolls his eyes up into his head. “So you either carry on with me here, or you talk to each other after I’m gone.”

“Are you sure?” Leon asks, but he is asking Joe, who just shrugs at him in reply. “Okay then, but don’t expect her to be very impressed with you.”

“She won’t tell anyone,” Joe assures him. I frown at him.

“Won’t I?”

“No,” he tells me seriously. “Swear whatever we say in this room now, you won’t repeat to anyone again ever in your life, or me and you can’t be friends, okay?”

I am open mouthed and hurt and intrigued all at once.  I blow breath out and shake my head at him. “Okay I swear,” I tell him. “I’m just gonna’ sit here and say nothing. Whatever it is has nothing to do with me.”

“She won’t tell,” Joe tells Leon again, and I can see something between them, something that has never existed there before.  Almost a kind of mutual understanding, not quite respect, but something more than the sneering resentment and annoyance that had always passed between them before. Travis just looks resigned to whatever is going on, and he leans against the closed bedroom door and keeps his hands in his pockets.  I try hard not to look at him at all.

“Right,” Leon says with another sigh. “I’ve got another address for you.” He pulls a scrap of paper out of his back pocket and passes it to Joe. I watch in silence as Joe looks at the paper, nods vacantly, then pushes it into his own pocket.  “About nine o’clock tonight, okay?”

“Okay,” Joe nods again, and looks briefly at me.  I sense he is enjoying this, this secret that they have between them; this new elevated position that he suddenly has with them.  Me, I just feel a warning bell of churning dread within my empty belly.

There is an awkward silence, as Joe looks at Leon, and Leon looks to Travis, and Travis looks at me, as if he wants to say something, but can’t. I just look bewildered, and wait, saying nothing.  “Okay,” Leon says heavily, and drags something else out from his pocket.  It is a small wrapped package and he passes it to Joe. Joe takes it quickly and puts it into his pocket with the piece of paper. Slowly but surely things are starting to add up for me.  Not exactly quick, am I World? I give a slight nod of the head, bite down on my lower lip, and wait. “Cool,” Leon shrugs at us all, as if we are all on his level now, whatever that is. He looks momentarily relieved, and almost smiles as he stuffs his hands in his pockets, and shrugs his wide shoulders. “Cheers,” he says, supposedly to Joe, and then he turns to go and nods at Travis.  I watch them leave and close the door behind them, and then I turn my steely gaze on Joe, and expect him to shrink and simper beneath it, but he does no such fucking thing.

“Worked it out yet smarty-pants?” he laughs at me, sinking slowly down on his bed again, his eyes partly closed.  I shake my head at him.  I want to be angry, I want to be dismayed and horrified and disappointed.  I stare at him in silence, wanting to feel all these things. I wonder miserably if I even know him at all.  I consider simply standing up and walking out of there, not saying a word.

“Not really,” I say instead, deciding to play dumb. “Why don’t you spell it out for me?”

“Fuck you,” grins Joe. “You’re not going to tell are you?”

“I think you are insane.  I think you have lost your mind completely.”

“You don’t want to make some money then?”

“What?”

“Come with me.  Go halves.”

“You’re fucking joking me. You’ve fucking lost it!”

“I’m not joking you. It’s up to you.  Come with me and make some money, or just forget all about it and don’t fucking tell.”

“Don’t tell anyone my best friend has turned into a low-life drug dealer?”

“More like a low-life errand boy actually,” Joe corrects me with a self-satisfied smirk.  I want to hit him.

“Who are you trying to impress?”

“No one.”

“Why then? Why do you want to be their errand boy for fuck’s sake? Are they forcing you to do this, or something? Haven’t you got any dignity?”

Joe sits up then.  He sits up hard and fast and thrusts his face towards mine, and his hazel eyes are so intense, so fired up so suddenly that I draw back from him instinctively and yet at the same time, if you can believe this, I feel the undeniable dual urge to both hit him and kiss him. What the hell is that about World?  Wanting to hit your best friend at the same time you want to kiss them? “Why not?” he spits at me. “Why the fuck not eh? What else is there in life eh? You’re always saying it yourself smarty-pants! Maybe I want to make some money!  Maybe I want to have my own money for once, so I don’t have to go begging to mum and Mick every time, and they always fucking say no, because they need all the money for fucking Tom and Will! Maybe I want my own money. What’s wrong with that?”

“You know what’s wrong with it,” I tell him softly.

“It’s not forever,” he says, lifting his hands and dropping them. “That stuff they had in the bag.  It’s a one off.  They’ve never done it before and never will again. But we’ve got to get rid of it somehow.  What are you going to do? Throw it in the river and pretend nothing happened? Or try to make some money out of it? Some serious fucking money.”

Joe sighs slowly and lies back down again.  I feel like the room is crashing down around me, like the walls are tumbling, brick by brick, such is the heaviness and the suffocation that surrounds and overwhelms me then. I think about the words Joe has spoken, and I think, those are not Joe’s words, that is not Joe speaking.  It is like Leon has crept inside his soul.

“You don’t need to impress your brothers Joe,” I tell him, watching his face closely as he shuts his eyes and screws them up tight.  “You don’t need to be like them.  You never have before. You don’t need to impress anyone Joe. You’re amazing the way you are, don’t you know that?”

“Go and look in my sock drawer.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it.  Go on.”

I wonder if this fucker of a day can get any worse.  I get up from the bed and my limbs feel like clogged up pipes.  I go to the bedside table and yank open the top drawer.  There is a pile of tangled and mismatched socks, but at the back I can see one black sock that is bulging.  I pick it up, part of me not wanting to know, part of me utterly hooked on the adrenaline that is swirling through me now.  I only have to glance inside the stuffed sock to see that there is a lot of money there.  More money than I have ever seen.  I look at Joe and he is defiant.

“Plenty more where that came from,” he says. I swallow. My throat feels like sandpaper.

“Oh Joe,” I say.  “I don’t want you to do this.  I really don’t.”

“Don’t be such a wuss,” he rolls his eyes at me.  I stuff the sock back into the drawer and shove it back into place.  He reaches out and closes his hand around my wrist.  “Think about it,” he says then, speaking very carefully and slowly.  “What the fuck have any of them ever done for us Lou?  Think about it. Your family. My fucking family.  This shitting place.  We can have some fun.  Some real fun for once.  If anything goes wrong, its Leon and Travis that get caught, not us. It’s them that go to jail, or whatever. All we are doing is delivering a parcel, yeah? Delivering a parcel to an address and getting paid. We have no idea what is in that parcel, do we?  We’re just doing a favour.  We’re just taking back something for us, for once.”

I want to say I have no idea what he is talking about, but the sad thing is I understand every word he has said. It is all up there on my bedroom wall.  He is right about two things, I realise that right away.  He is right to question what the fuck any of them have ever done for us, because it has always been me and Joe, at the bottom, ignored, patronized, put down, pushed aside.  Because we don’t argue back, and we don’t cause scenes, and we don’t make trouble for anyone.  We just fucking take it, don’t we?  We might as well be fucking prostitutes the amount of shit we fucking take.  And he is right about us having some fun, for once.

“How are you going to do it?” I ask him. “You’re grounded.”

“Sneak out,” he shrugs simply.  “You up for it?”

“I’m not even grounded.”

“Cool then.”

“Will it be dangerous?” I cannot believe I am even asking this.  I cannot believe I am even anywhere close to considering this utter madness.

“Not at all,” he grins at me. “You just knock on the door, or meet them somewhere, and give them their parcel. They give the money. That’s it.”

“How many times have you done this for Christ’s sake?”

“Just once,” he says. “Just yesterday. Well, twice technically. There were two places yesterday.”

“Why don’t they want to do it themselves?”

“They are. Some of it. They just want rid of it as quick as possible. Three of us is quicker.”

I bite my lip and sigh. “Where did they get it from in the first place?”

“I don’t even know that,” replies Joe. “I think they stole it or found it, but they won’t say.”

“There must be someone out there somewhere who wants to kill them.”

“I suppose.” Joe looks at me expectantly. “You want to make some money then?”

 

 

 

 

8

 

Oh World, what an awful moment. You hear people say it don’t you? I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. God it is more than that though. I don’t just want the ground to open up, I just want to not exist anymore World. “Joe!” I say, and Travis spins around, but Joe has gone. Travis looks back at me.

“Don’t worry about it,” he shrugs at me. “You can do what you want.”

I have to go after him.  This is all wrong.  I pull away from the wall, and push past Travis, and the journey to the kitchen seems unbearably long and complicated, as people, so many people, get in my way, and I have to push and shove and squeeze through them, just to get to Joe.  He is in the kitchen, leaning against the cupboards next to Marianne.  There is no sign of Josh or Ryan.  I open my mouth to say something to him, but before I get the chance, he lets out this angry noise and launches himself at me.  Or so it seems.  But it is Travis he is after. Travis has followed me, god knows why, and I have to move out of Joe’s way, as he goes for him.

Joe crashes into his brother, and then they are both on the floor, scrambling and tussling, while everyone who is in the kitchen just moves back dumbly, watching them.  I shout at Joe to stop it, and sort of dance around the edge of them, trying in vain to grab at Joe, and pull him away.  I am shocked by the viciousness that spirals and spins on the floor before me.  They both look possessed.  I have never seen Joe like this before.  I assume he must be completely wasted to do this.  I try again to separate them, calling Joe’s name and snatching at his clothes.  “Watch out,” someone warns me, and true enough, I am going to get kicked or punched in a minute if I am not careful.  That is when I feel a light touch on the top of my arm, and I look over my shoulder to see Leon, just behind me.

“Let them get on with it,” he tells me.  I look at my arm, and he drops his hand, and folds his arms across his muscular chest. I watch his eyes flick back to his brothers, punching the hell out of each other on the floor. As usual, his face portrays no emotion whatsoever, and yet his eyes are alive.  I shake my head.  I feel disgusted with all of them.

“Fine!” I shout, and storm out, away from them all.  I find myself out in the front garden, and suddenly I am throwing up into the flowerbeds.  As my vegetable stir-fry makes an unwelcome reappearance, I am hoping miserably that Fiona had not planted these flowers herself.  I hope they were here already.  Anyway, they are ruined now.  Just like everything else.  I let my backside find the doorstep and sit down heavily.  I wonder where Marianne is, as I drop my aching head into my hands, and close my eyes to the carnage that is all around me.  I still need the toilet, and I know I am drunk and probably overreacting, but I really don’t think I have ever felt so utterly alone and afraid.  I just do not understand what has happened.  I just do not know what to do about it.  I just feel small World, so small. I look up, trying to force myself to think, trying to clear my mind, but all of a sudden I have to leap to my feet again, because the boys are coming outside now.

Egged on by Leon, whose eyes seem to be gleaming with excitement, Joe and Travis’s fight spills out into the garden.  I stand back, shaking my head from side to side in shock.  I can only assume that Hogan or Fiona have ordered them outside, for fear of their new home getting trashed any further.  This is disgusting.  Both of them are bleeding.  I have had enough, so I run off to get Mick.  Fuck it.

It’s either Mick or the police, I tell myself as I run.  Mick, or the police?  Mick or the police.  What would Joe prefer?  Surely his stepfather’s wrath would be preferable to getting arrested?  What the hell is Leon thinking? I keep running. I am surprised I don’t trip over my own feet and go sprawling into the concrete, but somehow I keep going.  I reach Joe’s house and hammer upon the door.  I have no idea what time it is, but it only takes a few moments for Mick to open up.

“It’s Joe and Travis,” I tell him breathlessly. “They’re killing each other!”

“Where?”

“Wick Lane.”

“Jesus,” Mick grunts, and follows me out.  I start running back, and he soon overtakes me, rolling up his shirtsleeves as he goes.  I have no time to wonder if I have done the right thing or not, but I can see they are still fighting as we turn into Wick Lane.  I can hardly breathe, I have run so much.  I give up, and stand back and watch, as Mick wades in and breaks their fight up the same way I have seen him do it a hundred times before.  He grabs each boy by the back of his shirt collar, yanks them apart, and then thrusts them back together again so that their heads clash in the middle.  Next thing I know, he has them both on their feet, and is marching them home, holding one on each side of him.  They both look stunned and exhausted, shoulders hunched, holding onto their heads.  I remember that I had always thought getting your heads banged together was just a threat your parents used, I can remember mine saying it to me and Sara enough times.  Just like, I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap.  Threats are realities in Joe’s family.  The amount of fights Mick has had to break up, I am amazed none of them have brain damage.

It takes Leon a while to decide to go after them.  I watch him chatting casually to Hogan, laughing even, as they shake hands and he makes some comment about a party not being a party without a fight, and then he throws down his fag end, and follows his family.  As he passes me, he gives me the briefest of looks.

“Are you okay?” asks a gentle voice at my shoulder.  It is Marianne.

“Not really,” I tell her honestly. “I’m gonna’ piss myself in a minute. Can we go?”

“I think we better.”

“What happened to Josh and Ryan?”

“Got sick and went home.  Joe was saying goodbye to them at the door, when he saw you and Travis.”

I look at her quickly.  “Don’t,” I warn her gravely.  “Just don’t.”

“Okay,” she nods. “It’s okay.”

 

We stagger back to her house, linking arms and weaving from side to side on the pavement as we go.  At her house, I finally get to use the toilet and then we go to her room and climb silently into her double bed.  She leaves her curtains wide open, and the bed is draped in moonlight.  I just lie there on my back, breathing slowly, my eyes closed tightly, trying not to be sick.

“I am loving this summer already,” Marianne tells me enthusiastically, curled on her side next to me.  She has removed her silver cardigan and is lying with her arms wrapped around herself, and her knees drawn up to her chest.  Even in the moonlight I can see the scores of white marks on her thin arms.  It makes me feel so sad and I can’t even explain why.  “It’s hardly even started,” she says, as if to make her point. “Isn’t that weird? Feels like so much has happened already since the exams.”

“Like another lifetime ago,” I say softly, echoing her own thoughts. I think to myself, that is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot, but now I can understand why. Sitting bowed over the exam papers in the hot, stuffy sports hall at our school, sucking the top of my pen and trying not to cough, does seem like a lifetime ago.  It really does.

“Do you think you’ll do well enough to get into sixth form?”

“I don’t know.  I think so.  I suppose I hope so.”

“What do you mean, you suppose you hope so?” Marianne asks with a little giggle. I wonder how much she has had to drink.  She certainly seems more relaxed and less uptight than usual. “What does that mean?”

“I just mean, going to sixth form, and all that, it’s not like it makes me feel really excited or anything.”

“You are funny Lou.”

“But it doesn’t. I’m not really that arsed if I get in or not.” This is true World. I just haven’t spoken about it to anyone before.  “My parents would be annoyed, I suppose, if I didn’t get in. They’d harp on about me getting a job instead.”

“Yeah, and that would be a pain,” Marianne yawns. “I’d much rather go back to school and muck about for two more years.”

“I don’t understand how they all expect us to know what we want to do with the rest of our lives, at our age.” I stare at the ceiling, not at Marianne, as I speak.  I am relieved that we are talking about something else other than Joe, and Travis. I had fully expected her to go into total meltdown about the whole thing, seeing as how she seems to find it all so fascinating. But now I feel a surge of words and thoughts crowding and pushing behind my tongue and inside my head. I am vocalising my thoughts as they come, and so I keep my eyes on the ceiling, and it is almost like I am totally alone in the giant bed, almost like I am writing on my wall. “It’s bollocks and it’s annoying. From about the age of twelve or thirteen for Christ’s sake, whenever we had to pick our options for GCSE’s. All those visits to the careers office. Work experience, all that pointless shit. How the hell does anyone know what they want to do at that age? I just want to be left alone, that’s all. You know the truth is, the truth is, none of it appeals to me. None of the career options, none of the crap that comes up on the computer, none of it.   I don’t want to do any of it. It’s become like this fucking mantra, this fucking chant that they all repeat endlessly, again and again, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? I just want to scream at them, actually I don’t want to do fucking anything, I just want to be left alone!”

Marianne is shaking with laughter beside me. “But what do you want to do?” she asks, pressing her small hands to her mouth.

“Ahh, see? Don’t you get tired of it? I don’t want to do any of those shitty jobs.  I don’t want to work in a fucking supermarket or corner shop, or clean toilets, or wait tables, or pull pints, or cut fucking old ladies hair, or mend cars, or look after children, or deliver pizza, or anything!”

“Lou, you wouldn’t be doing jobs like that.”

“Why wouldn’t I? Every grown up I know has a job like that.”

Marianne is quiet for a moment, and I can tell she is thinking about this. Then she sort of nestles her head into her pillow, and smiles sleepily at me. “Lou, you are too clever for jobs like that.”

“Being clever has nothing to do with it,” I correct her sharply. “Are you saying that all the people I know who have jobs like that are fucking stupid?”

“No, course not, not all of them, but..”

“Well they’re not. That’s just all there is. Boring, mind-numbing jobs. Getting up in the morning is hard enough, is it not? Without the joyless knowledge that the reason you are getting up is to go and stack some fucking beans in the supermarket?”

“Lou, calm down. There must be something you want to do.”

I stare at the ceiling again.  I don’t want to tell her what the only thing that remotely appeals to me is, because she would probably laugh, just like everyone else has.  Because the only thing I can think of, the only thing in the world I can plausibly imagine me hauling my lazy arse out of bed for, once all this education we’re so keen on is done and dusted, is something to do with dogs.  You know, looking after dogs.  Walking them and stuff. Just feeding them, and caring for them.  Something like that.  Maybe.

There is a silence that lasts so long I am sure Marianne has drifted off.  I feel pretty close to it myself, but then she shifts and yawns again into her pillow.

“They were fighting over you,” she says, and I can feel her watching me.  I shake my head.

“Don’t be silly.”

“They were. What happened with you and Travis?”

I don’t know how to explain it to her, because I don’t know myself what happened.  “Nothing,” I say instead. “Joe got the wrong idea. Or there’s something else going on between them, I don’t know.”

“Why do you find it so hard to believe they would be fighting over you?”

“Because they weren’t Marianne,” I open my eyes and tell her. “There’s more going on, isn’t there? Stuff Joe hasn’t even told me.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

“Anyway, Travis was drunk. And probably taking the piss out of me.”

I watch Marianne smiling ecstatically, as she rolls onto her back and stares gleefully at the ceiling. “Okay, think that if you want,” she grins. “But wasn’t that amazing? The way that man just strode in and separated them like that? Like they were animals.”

“I had to get him,” I say, closing my eyes again, and feeling wretched. “He’s a prick, but I had to get him. No one was stopping them.”

“You did the right thing,” yawns Marianne beside me. “Christ, what a party. I suppose we should have expected it really?”

I don’t answer her.  I want her to think that I have fallen asleep.  I stay quiet and still until I hear her start to breathe softly in sleep.  Then I open my eyes, and stare around at the moonlit room.  Marianne was right.  We should have expected it, and we should have stayed away.  I think about Joe, and I hope that he is okay, and I think about Travis, and my body shivers involuntarily from head to toe.  My stomach feels so empty and hollow that I run my hands down over it, and find it is concave. Just one small thing to smile about then.

 

I wake up feeling really light-headed.  Really weird. When I push back the duvet and lower my feet to the floor, I can feel all the blood rushing to my head, and the room swings and shifts, and I have to close my eyes quickly and cover my face with my hands.  I want to go home, but I feel strangely like I won’t make it.  I nudge Marianne awake. “Any chance of a strong coffee?”

“Sounds like a plan,” she agrees, with a yawn, and climbs out the other side of the bed.  I watch her cross the room and pull her dressing gown down from the hook on the door.  She pulls it around her clothes from last night and ties the belt, and then she shuffles slowly out of the door.

It’s not nice being alone then, because it all comes rushing back.  The party.  Travis.  Joe.  The fight.  I feel genuinely sick to my stomach.  I wonder how much my best friend hates me right now.  I wonder when, or if I will ever have the guts to phone him, or go around to call for him.  Not today, that is for certain.

Marianne returns with a carefully laid out tray.  She has made us both a coffee and there is a choice of marmite toast, or cinnamon bagels for breakfast.  I look at both, and my stomach growls in protest.  I am aware of the little spiteful voice that warns me to not to take anything, except the coffee.  One bite, it warns, just one bite and that is it.  You’ll eat the lot, you know you will.  But the other voice, the sane one, that wants my legs to be able to carry me home to my own dear bed, tells me to fucking eat something, so I do.  I eat most of one of the bagels, and wash it down with strong, sugary coffee.  The effects are almost immediate.  My head feels clearer and less fuzzy, and I feel like I can trust my legs to hold my weight, and take me home. I thank Marianne for the food and the bed, and head for the door.

“Are you going to call Joe?” her little voice asks me, before I can leave.  I look back at her and a massive sigh escapes me.

“I don’t know,” I tell her, and this is true.  I really don’t know.

 

I walk slowly, wearily home, craving my nice comfy bed, my squishy pillow, some soft music, and my pen in my hand.  I crave being alone.  Letting whatever wants to spin through my mind just go right ahead.  I am sure I will feel a thousand times better once I have slept properly, and just been alone for a while.

But when I get to my house, a chaotic scene greets me.  I just stand on the front grass and try to take it all in.  My sister is lugging a suitcase across the garden.  Her boyfriend Rich is starting up the engine of his battered mini cooper.  My mum is weeping on the doorstep, and Hitler’s long-lost son is standing with his arm around her waist.  I am struck dumb by it all.  I just stand there with my arms hanging down at my sides, and my mouth lolling open, and my eyes shooting helplessly from my raging sister, as she huffs and puffs and hurls her case into the tiny boot of the mini, and my mum and Hitler’s spawn on the doorstep.  I don’t think I can realistically be expected to cope with this at my age.

My sister is either too angry or too selfish to even stop and say anything to me, and to be honest this is probably for the best, because what exactly can either of us say? She just jumps into the car, slams the door, sobs melodramatically and then Rich drives off with her.  Just like that.  I look around at the street where we live, wondering how many neighbours are watching us.  I raise my eyes just enough to see my mum take a step towards me, and I think oh no, oh no you fucking don’t, because I know I can’t let her, I can’t let either of them speak to me, or look at me, or touch me, or even acknowledge I exist, because all I want, all I need is my own fucking bed.

I put my head down like a bull, and charge through them and past them. They might be speaking, but I cover my ears with my hands and thunder up the stairs away from their bleating.  Inside my room I close and lock the door and turn and stare at the emptiness my sister has left behind for me, and think whoa, this is all mine then.  I gulp back tears and go to my bed.  I don’t want to think about any of this fucking shit. I put on Bob Dylan, they all take the piss about Bob Dylan, but they can all go and die, because I’ve liked him since I was twelve, and I’m pretty fucking proud of that actually. I put him on and crawl under my duvet and pull it right over my head, to block out the sound of my mother knocking and tapping up and down the blasted door.  I lie there and screw up my eyes, trying to create the perfect blackness to disappear into.  I want to take my fist and plunge it into my stomach.  I want to feel some physical pain to blot out all this crap.  I can totally understand why Marianne does what she does to herself. Fuck it.

What is wrong with these people?

I lie in my bed, under my duvet, and the tapping at my door comes and goes.  I think I drift in and out of sleep, but I can’t be sure.  I try not to think about Joe, or Travis, or mum, or Sara, or anything.  I don’t want to see anything, or hear anything, but I realise I am not going to be able to keep this up for long.

“I’m not going to go away, you know,” my mother tells me on perhaps her sixth or seventh trip up the stairs.  “There is a lot we need to talk about young lady.  Starting with where you and your friends actually went last night!”

Ha, she sounds cross! At me! Bloody hell, she’s got a nerve.  I throw back the duvet and my feet hit the floor with a thud.  I open the door, and she is stood there with a fucking tray.  She has made me tea and toast.  Bless her heart.  I take the mug of tea and go to close the door, but she deftly sticks her slippered foot in the way.

“You should be at work,” I tell her. She works in the 99p shop in town.

“Day off actually,” she says, jerking her head towards the stairs, as if this is adequate enough to explain why.  I am assuming she means Les.

“Right,” I sigh, “well look I don’t want to talk about any of that. You can do what you like. So can Sara. So can dad.  None of it is anything to do with me.”

“But Lou, I just want you to know that…”

“No,” I hold up a hand and stop her. “I don’t want to hear it. Nothing to do with me. You want to talk about the party we went to?”

Mum frowns at me, attempting to look stern. “Yes, actually. Lorraine is downstairs as we speak.”

“Is she?”

“Yes. She said you called Mick to break up a fight between the boys last night, and you were all at a party, drinking!” Her frown deepens at me. “You told me you were sleeping at Marianne’s. I don’t like being lied to by my own daughter.”

“I did sleep at Marianne’s.”

“Louise!”

“Okay, okay, sorry. Look, tell Lorraine Leon and Travis asked us to go to that party.” I have decided to drop them right in it, why the hell not?

“Oh did they now?”

“Yes, and they gave us loads to drink. Like loads. Totally free. Then they had a fight because they were all drunk.”

“Oh my,” my mother clicks her tongue and taps her slipper up and down. “Well I better go and talk to her then. But really, you should have known better! People can’t force you to drink you know!”

“No,” I agree, with a loose shrug. “But they can make it seem pretty attractive, can’t they?” I close the door on her. I smirk as I head back to my bed with the mug of tea. I wish I could be a fly on the wall now, and listen to her give it to Lorraine. I bet she’s trying to blame it all on me.

 

If I had my way I would stay in my room all day, and creep out at night to make myself some tea and toast, and use the toilet.  My phone is dead so I plug it in and sit and fear what text messages will or won’t come through from Joe. I keep thinking about this Les bloke, someone I barely know, down there in my house.  Probably with his feet up on the coffee table, watching TV in my lounge.  I have only met him a handful of times, and most of those have been brief and awkward.  I don’t know what I am supposed to say to him.  I don’t even want to have to look at him.  I just sit on my bed and seethe.  It is only the thought of Joe, and how much he must hate me, that drives me from my pit of despair.  I don’t want Lorraine to leave without telling me if he is okay.  So I creep down the stairs when I hear her loud cackling voice in the hallway.  She immediately stops laughing and talking and regards me very seriously, as if she is my mother as well, for God’s sake.  She has her handbag on her shoulder, and is on the way out.  Mum is behind her, and just at the back I can see Les.  He looks sheepish all right.  I peer at him briefly, wondering if my original assertions of him looking like Hitler were correct.  He is taller than mum, but not big built or stocky, like Mick.  He looks sort of weedy and nerdy to me, to be honest.  His hair is thin and too long and flops around his face.  He flips it about, from one side to the other, and you really just want to scream at him, fucking get it cut, it makes you look like Hitler! And as for the thin little moustache…oh dear Christ.  How can I converse with someone like that?

“Finally showing your face, eh?” smirks Lorraine, her bright red lips pouting at me menacingly.  I hold onto the handrail and tighten my grip.

“Is Joe okay?” I ask her, because that is all I care about.  She raises her tiny little over plucked eyebrows at the question.

“Apart from having a monster hangover and being grounded, yes he’s okay thank you. What did you all think you were doing?”

“Travis invited us,” I shrug at her, just in case mum has neglected to tell her.

“I know, your mum said, and I’m on my way home to have words with him and Leon, I can assure you of that.  But you and Joe are normally so sensible.  It’s not like you to behave like this!”

“It was all free drink,” I tell her, again, just in case mum has not. Lorraine swaps a weary ‘kids eh?’ kind of look with my mum, who sighs and shakes her head.

“You should know better,” Lorraine repeats, wagging a finger.

“Can Joe come over here please?”

“No darling, he’s grounded.”

“For how long? Well I can come over there then?” I’m not sure, now that I’ve said it, if I am really brave enough to do this, but the alternative is staying in my room forever, or starting the tedious process of getting to know Les. Lorraine and my mum swap looks again. “Please,” I beg, coming down a few more stairs. “We’ll do something to make it up to you.” I know I’m onto something now, because Lorraine lifts those minuscule eyebrows again and smiles slightly. “Babysitting, tidying up, walk the dog…” I reel off a few possible ideas.

“Well I don’t mind if you don’t mind Lol,” Mum says to Lorraine.  I expect she is thinking it will be good to have time alone with Les. They’ve had a traumatic first morning as a co-habiting couple. “She’s just worried about your Joe. You know what they are like. Like sister and brother, eh?” I don’t give Lorraine a chance to think it over.

“I’ll just get changed, wait for me,” I tell her, and thump back up the stairs.