‘There’s been an accident, David,’ Mark had said. ‘Your dad … I’m so sorry, David. Your dad – your dad has been killed.’
Chapter 4
His Radioactive Spider
David squints into the onrushing wind and rain, twisting his body and changing direction with the effortlessness of a falcon. The cloud below him is patchy and each break reveals a map-like view of the town below.
His super-vision homes in on the road and the river, the one dull and dark, the other catching the light and shimmering like a curved sword.
He sees the car too; sees it leave the road and career up the embankment, sees it launch itself off the edge and hit the surface with a firework splash, the water shining in the headlights.
David forces his way down, never taking his eyes from the car as it begins to sink. The screams of the driver are in his ears as he launches himself towards the car. But out of nowhere he is struck a massive blow and is knocked sideways, smashing into a field on the other side of the river.
He gets groggily to his feet and looks up, trying to see what hit him, and is dimly aware of a dazzling white shape heading towards him once again when it hammers into him like a train.
He is sent tumbling over and over in the dirt of the ploughed field. He crouches down and soars into the air, heading back towards the water and the car. He has to get to the car!
David hurtles through the trees at the river’s edge and bursts out above the water where he can see the roof of the car just slowly disappearing beneath the surface.
He throws himself down, but before he can reach the water he is intercepted and smashed into again. He falls into the water and shields his eyes from the light now shining above him. It lets him flounder and look for the car, but only because it knows he will never find it. He hears a banging and turns to see where it might be coming from.
‘David!’ says his mother, opening the door. ‘I thought you were asleep. Did you not hear me knock?’
‘What?’
He squints, adjusting to this new reality.
‘Look at the state of this place!’
David raises himself up on the bed and looks around. It is a mess – even by his standards: clothes strewn everywhere, empty mugs, wrappers, comics.
‘It’s not that bad,’ he protests.
‘Just get this room cleared up,’ she says after a moment. ‘Pick these clothes up and put the comics you’re not reading back in the boxes. You know how upset you’d be if they got damaged. Holly is here to clean – not to tidy up after you.’
David does a double take.
‘What? Who?’
He sits up so quickly he bangs his head on the wall behind him.
‘Ow! Fu—’
‘Holly Harper,’ says his mother, scowling. ‘She’s here to –’
‘What are you even talking about?’
‘I told you,’ she says. ‘Holly is going to be cleaning for us now.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘I’m sure I did.’
‘You didn’t!’ he yells.
His voice fills the room like an animal slamming against a cage. His mother flinches and steps back. She hesitates before responding.
‘What on earth is the matter?’ she says quietly. ‘What difference does it make to you?’
David swallows hard and tries to calm himself.
‘Why do we even need a cleaner anyway?’ he mutters.
‘Ha!’
‘Why her then?’ he says.
‘Why not her?’
David returns to his comic. Or rather he turns his face in that direction. But his brain is fizzing. Holly? Holly in his house? In his room? How? What?
‘So if you could just tidy up like I asked,’ says his mother, shaking her head.
‘OK, OK,’ he says.
‘If you could do it today, I’d appreciate it. I can see you’re very busy, but Holly will be here tomorrow. So …’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes – tomorrow,’ she says, waving her hands in the air in exasperation. ‘What has gotten into you?’
She leaves the room, sighing, and heads downstairs. David gets up from the bed and goes slowly to the window, peering through the blinds. Holly’s sunlounger is there but it’s empty.
He starts to gather up the comics from the floor and find the appropriate bags and boxes for them to be filed away in. He likes having them lying around and the act of putting them away always makes him sad. But he promised he’d look after them. He promised.
His father had bequeathed these comics to him and David wonders if he has gifted some secret knowledge of himself that might be decoded in their pages. These comics – they are all David has of him that is not transient or mutable.
This room – his father’s old office – is a reliquary now. The desk, the chair, the scope, the comics – they are objects of devotion. His mother will never understand that. How can she?
His mother, their friends, Joe, Dr Jameson – they all want David to move on but he’s not going to pretend that he is the same as before. He isn’t the same. Nothing is the same. He isn’t going to betray his father like that.
He isn’t going to forget – how can he? – and smile and laugh just to make them all feel better; to give Dr Jameson the satisfaction that he’s cured him. He isn’t ill. He’s different. He’s changed. Fundamentally. For good.
It was after his father died that the superpowers came. All comic-book heroes – and villains – have a moment when they stop being an ordinary human being and are transformed. The Fantastic Four were exposed to cosmic radiation, Wolverine and Captain America were experimented on, Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider and so on. Well, for David, the trauma of his father’s death was his radioactive spider.
Before that the world of the comics and the rest of his life had been separate things. It was obvious where one stopped and the other began. But now it’s much more difficult.
Having superpowers is a blessing and a curse. Everyone who reads comics understands that. You have great gifts but with them comes a huge responsibility and the need to have a secret life. David hasn’t chosen this life – it has chosen him.
He can’t tell anyone about his powers. They wouldn’t believe him anyway. To reveal his alter ego would endanger all those around him. That’s the deal. There is nothing to be done about it. At least he only seems boring. So many people really are.
Chapter 5
Winkers Are Wankers
David gets to the top of the steep, narrow stairs up to his attic bedroom and opens the door. To his eye-popping astonishment, there is Holly with her back to him in her tight sky-blue bikini, bent over, dusting the scope.
‘Hello!’ she says with a grin, turning round. ‘Don’t mind me. You won’t even know I’m here.’
David wakes with a start. The whole night seems to have been filled with dreams of Holly – restless, breathless dreams from which David emerges sweating and gasping as though from a fever or a fight.
His body is still twitching and he feels both thrilled and disgusted by the breadth of his imaginings and urges. Holly. Holly. Holly …
He slides out of bed, reluctant to leave its grip, and walks over to the window to peer through the slats. A blanket of pale grey clouds smothers the sky. This dull and unremarkable view seems to bring him to his senses and he yawns and gets dressed.
He goes downstairs, realising as he does so that he can hear his mother talking to someone. He almost turns round to go back upstairs, but instead walks into the kitchen to find his mother standing, holding a mug and talking, although there seems to be no sign of anyone else.
Then he hears a clanking noise and realises there is someone, obscured by the table, with their head and shoulders stuffed awkwardly into the cupboard under the sink. It isn’t until this person comes out that David sees that it’s Mark Miller from down the road.
Mark had been David’s father’s best friend. They’d played squash together most weeks. The
y’d gone to the pub most weeks too and they even went to the cinema together on what his mother had referred to as ‘man-dates’.
Mark has been around for as long as David can remember, and with both his parents being only children, he thinks of him as an uncle. David likes him. He is one of the good guys.
Mark feels that familial attachment too, David can tell. He is a lawyer. He dealt with everything after his father’s death and has been a massive help to his mother. He still is. Him and his wife, Marie.
‘This is so good of you Mark,’ says David’s mother.
‘Ah – it’s nothing,’ says Mark, his voice straining as he tightens something under the sink. ‘To be honest, I really enjoy doing this sort of thing. It’s a sickness really. Although don’t tell Marie, for God’s sake.’
‘I’m useless,’ says David’s mother. ‘I always mean to learn but then I never do. They do courses, don’t they? Adult-education courses, I mean.’
‘Marie is firmly of the opinion that this is the whole point of having a man about the place.’ He groans to himself. ‘Sorry – that was a stupid thing to –’
‘It’s fine. As you know, Daniel didn’t know a hammer from a spanner, so we’d have called you anyway. He wouldn’t have been offended in the slightest.’
David feels a momentary urge to spring to his father’s defence, but it’s true and he knows it. His father was not the do-it-yourself kind at all – and was happy to admit it. He designed buildings, but he had no interest in putting shelves up. But all the same, it doesn’t feel right. It feels disloyal, and everyone in the room seems to sense it. There is awkwardness all of a sudden.
‘OK,’ says Mark, sliding out from under the sink and sitting up, wiping his hands on a cloth. ‘That should do it. Any more trouble, give me a shout and I’ll take another look. I’m pretty sure it’ll be fine though.’
‘We can’t thank you enough,’ says David’s mother. ‘Can we, David?’
‘Er – no,’ says David.
Mark nods at him.
‘You’re welcome, mate. That’s what friends are for.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mark?’ says David’s mother. ‘There’s cake.’
‘Absolutely. But can I just wash up first?’
‘Of course – you know where it is.’
Mark went off to the downstairs toilet and David’s mother put the kettle on.
‘How about you, sweetheart?’ she says. ‘Tea and cake.’
David shrugs.
‘I haven’t had breakfast yet.’
There is something going on, David can tell. Why are they involving him in the conversation? Why is Mark calling him ‘mate’? Why is there cake? There’s never cake.
Mark comes back, takes the mug of tea that is offered to him and sits down at the table. David’s mother puts the cake on the table and tells David to sit down.
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s what people do,’ she says, with one of the infuriating non-answers that David finds so annoying. But he sits down anyway. David’s mother cuts the cake and gives him and Mark a slice each. Then she rubs her hands together as though she intends to warm them over a fire.
‘I’m … going to leave you to it, if you don’t mind,’ she says. ‘I’ve got to make a phone call.’
David catches sight of an odd exchange of glances between Mark and his mother before she heads off, closing the door behind her.
It? What exactly is the ‘it’ she is leaving them to?
‘How are things?’ says Mark before he bites into the cake, nodding approvingly.
David shrugs.
‘OK,’ he says, taking a mouthful of cake himself.
Mark smiles and takes a sip of tea. He is already wishing he hadn’t agreed to do this. David can see he is trying to shepherd some words into the right order. He stretches and eases himself back in his chair. It creaks. Get on with it. Get on with it.
‘Worried about the old exam results?’ says Mark eventually.
David shakes his head.
‘Well, good. You’re confident then?’
‘I’ve done OK, I think.’
Mark nods, having seemingly exhausted that topic.
‘Your mother tells me that you’re always in your room,’ says Mark at last. ‘What’s that all about?’
‘Well, no, I’m not, actually,’ says David. ‘I played tennis only the other day.’
‘Excellent,’ says Mark. ‘We’ll have to have a game sometime. You any good?’
‘Nah,’ says David.
‘Me neither, so that’s perfect.’
David knows for a fact that this is untrue. Mark is one of those people who is passably good at any sport he tries. He’s seen him play tennis. David wouldn’t stand a chance. Mark sips his tea again.
Waiting for whatever it is that Mark is about to say is making David tense. What is it? Jesus – is it the scope? Does he know about David spying on Holly?
‘But I’m guessing it must be true that you spend a lot of time in your room, or your mother wouldn’t have mentioned it.’
David puts his mug down and sits back in his chair. It’s not the scope. It’s something else.
‘I don’t know why she’s been talking about me at all,’ says David.
‘She’s your mother,’ says Mark. ‘She’s worried about you, that’s all. Besides, she isn’t talking to strangers in the street or phoning in to the radio.’
‘I don’t like being talked about.’
Mark nods and smiles.
‘I can see that, David,’ he says. ‘Sorry. But I’m glad she feels able to tell me. And it’s not like I’m a stranger after all. You have to understand that she has a lot on her plate. It’s been hard for her.’
‘Because my father’s dead, you mean?’
‘Yes,’ says Mark. ‘If you want to put it that way.’
David chews his lip.
‘You’re a teenage boy,’ says Mark. ‘You should be out there having some fun, not in here talking to me.’
‘I just want to be left alone.’
Mark nods.
‘Maybe what you think you want is not what you really need,’ says Mark. ‘Maybe you need to talk to someone. Someone who doesn’t know you. Someone you can open up to. You were seeing someone, weren’t you, for a while, and your mum tells me you stopped going. Dr Jameson, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t want to open up,’ says David. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I’m fine.’
‘I don’t think you are.’
David shrugs.
‘When I was your age I did some crazy things,’ says Mark, chuckling at some recollection. ‘I’m not saying you should do anything quite so crazy – in fact I would strongly advise against it – but you want to look back, don’t you, and see more than the inside of your room or the pages of a comic.’
‘For God’s sake. I knew we’d get on to comics eventually.’
‘No need to be like that,’ says Mark. ‘No need for that tone. We’re friends.’
David stares at his plate and at the half-eaten cake. Mark smiles and leans over to tap his arm.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘We are friends, aren’t we?’
‘Yeah. Of course. But I’m OK. Honest.’
‘Are you sure?’ he says. ‘Because you don’t have to pretend if you aren’t. It wouldn’t be surprising now, would it? Your mum’s worried.’
David sighs and pushes the plate away.
‘She just doesn’t get me at all,’ says David.
‘Well, explain it to her,’ says Mark. ‘Explain it to me. Because as far as I can see, you’re wasting hours of your life reading old comics.’
Can he explain it to Mark? Maybe. Maybe he can. But the words won’t come.
‘You’d both rather I was on Facebook or Twitter?’ says David.
‘Frankly I would,’ he says. ‘At least they’re social. At least they let people in. You seem to want to shut everyone out.’
‘No, I don’t.’
&n
bsp; But it now occurs to him that he does. And what’s more, he does not in any way feel bad about it. He does want to shut them out. He just wants to be left alone. Where is the harm?
‘Good,’ says Mark with a warm smile. ‘Because your dad wouldn’t have wanted you to be miserable.’
‘I’m not,’ says David.
‘You often look kind of miserable, if I’m being honest.’
‘So do lots of people,’ says David.
Mark laughs.
‘Fair point. Indeed they do.’
He puts his mug down and gets to his feet.
‘I hope you don’t mind me butting in,’ he says.
David shrugs. He does mind. He minds a lot.
‘Just try and give your mum a break,’ says Mark. ‘She seems tough, I know, and together and everything, but I know she feels lost too, sometimes.’
Did she seem tough? Or together? David tries to imagine if this is true. Mark reaches out. David thinks he wants to take something from him but he is reaching out to shake his hand. David takes it and Mark squeezes it, manfully.
‘OK, mate,’ he says. ‘I’m going to get going.’
He goes to pick up his toolbox.
‘Mark,’ says David’s mother, stepping into the kitchen a little too casually, ‘all done? How was the cake?’
‘It was very good,’ he says, looking at David with a portentous expression. ‘It was very good.’
‘Excellent,’ says David’s mother, beaming and clasping her hands together – as she always did when she was nervous and didn’t know what to say.
‘Say hi to Marie,’ she says eventually. ‘Ask her to text me to let me know if we’re still on for Wednesday. She’ll know what I mean.’
‘I will. Bye. Bye, David,’ says Mark, winking at David.
David frowns. What does that wink mean? He doesn’t like being winked at. He objects to it strongly in fact. Winkers are wankers, everyone knows that.
But Mark isn’t a wanker – is he?
Chapter 6
X-Ray Vision
David lies on his bed, headphones on, watching movie clips on YouTube on his laptop. It’s hot and stuffy and he’s a little groggy. The sleepless night is catching up with him. He doesn’t even register that Holly has come into the room until she puts her hand on his foot.
Superpowerless Page 3
