Black Swan Green

by David Mitchell

  Hugo laughed like I’d made a really funny joke, so I grinned like I had. He missed 12 three times in a row.

  ‘Hard luck,’ I said.

  ‘Rowing’s phenomenal. All rushing, muscles, rhythm and speed, but only the odd splash, or grunt, or crewmate’s breathing. Like sex, now I think about it. Annihilating your opponents is fun, too. Like our sports master says, “Boys, it’s not the taking part that matters. It’s the winning that counts!”’

  I threw a 13, 14, then 15.

  ‘My God!’ Hugo made a blowing, impressed face. ‘Not suckering me here, are you, Jace? Tell you what, how about fleecing me for one pound?’ Hugo slipped a sleek wallet from his Levi’s and waved a £1 note at me. ‘The way you’re playing today, this smacker’ll be yours in five throws. What does your piggy bank say?’

  If I lost I wouldn’t have any money until next Saturday.

  ‘Oooooo,’ crooled Hugo. ‘Don’t chicken out on us now, Jace.’

  I heard Hugo talking about me to other Hugos in his rowing club. My cousin Jason Taylor is such a space cadet. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay!’ Hugo slipped the pound note into his top pocket. He then threw a 12, a 13 and a 14. He made a surprised noise. ‘Wonder if my luck might be turning?’

  My first dart hit the brick. My second pinged off the metal. My third missed.

  Without hesitating, Hugo threw a straight 15, 16 and 17.

  Footsteps clopped from the back door to the garage door. Hugo cursed under his breath, and flashed me a look that said, Leave it to me.

  I couldn’t’ve done anything else.

  ‘Hugo!’ Aunt Alice stormed into the spare garage. ‘Would you care to tell me why Nigel’s in floods of tears?’

  Hugo’s reaction was Oscar-winning. ‘Tears?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Tears? Mum, that boy is unbelievable sometimes!’

  ‘I’m not asking you to believe anything! I want you to explain!’

  ‘What’s there to explain?’ Hugo did this lost, sorry shrug. ‘Jason invited Nigel and me for a nice game of darts. Nigel kept missing. I gave him a couple of pointers, but he ended up storming off in a tizzy. Spouting foul-mouthed “French”, too. Why’s that boy so competitive, Mum? Remember how we caught him making up words just to win at Scrabble? Do you think it’s growing pains?’

  Aunt Alice turned to me. ‘Jason? What’s your version of events?’

  Hugo could sell Nigel to a glue factory and Maggot would still say, ‘It’s just like Hugo said, really, Aunt Alice.’

  ‘He’s welcome back,’ Hugo assured her, ‘once his tantrum’s blown over. If you don’t mind, Jace? Nigel didn’t mean what he called you.’

  ‘I don’t mind at all.’

  ‘Here’s another idea.’ Aunt Alice knew she’d been stalemated. ‘Your Aunt Helena’s low on coffee, and your father’ll need a strong mug when he wakes up. I’m volunteering you to go and get some. Jason, perhaps you’d show your non-stick cousin the way, since you’re obviously such allies.’

  ‘We’ve almost finished this game, Mum, so—’

  Aunt Alice set her jaw.

  Isaac Pye, the landlord of the Black Swan, came into the games room at the back to see what the fuss was about. Hugo stood at the Asteroids console, surrounded by me, Grant Burch, Burch’s servant Philip Phelps, Neal Brose, Ant Little, Oswald Wyre and Darren Croome. None of us could believe it. Hugo’d been on for twenty minutes on the same 10p. The screen was full of floating asteroids and I’d’ve died in three seconds flat. But Hugo reads the whole screen at once, not just the one rock that’s most dangerous. He almost never uses his thrusters. He makes every torpedo count. When the zigzagging UFO comes he lays in a salvo of torpedoes only if the asteroid storm isn’t too heavy. Otherwise, he ignores it. He only uses the hyperspace button as a last resort. His face stays calm, like he’s reading a quite interesting book.

  ‘That’s never three mill’yun!’ said Isaac Pye.

  ‘Almost three an’ a half million,’ Grant Burch told him.

  When Hugo’s last bonus life finally erupted in a shower of stars, the machine did bleepy whoops and announced the All Time Top Score’d been topped. That stays on even if the machine’s switched off. ‘I spent a fiver getting up to two and a half mill’yun the other night,’ grunted Isaac Pye, ‘an’ that were the bullock’s bollocks, I thought. I’d stand you a pint, lad, but there’s two off-duty coppers in the bar.’

  ‘That’s good of you,’ Hugo told Isaac Pye, ‘but I daren’t get caught on a drunk-in-charge-of-a-spacecraft rap.’

  Isaac Pye did a Wurzel snigger and ambled back to the bar.

  Hugo entered his name as JHC.

  Grant Burch asked it. ‘What’s that stand for, then?’

  ‘“Jesus H. Christ”.’

  Grant Burch laughed, so everyone else did. God, I felt proud. Neal Brose’d tell Gary Drake how Jason Taylor hung out with Jesus Christ.

  Oswald Wyre said, ‘How many years did it take you to get that good?’

  ‘Years?’ Hugo’s accent’d gone just a bit less posh and just a bit more London. ‘Mastering an arcade game shouldn’t take that long.’

  ‘Must’ve taken a pile of dosh, though,’ said Neal Brose. ‘To get that much practice, I mean.’

  ‘Money’s never a problem, not if you’ve got half a brain.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Money? ’Course not. Identify a demand, handle its supply, make your customers grateful, kill off the opposition.’

  Neal Brose memorized every word of that.

  Grant Burch got out a pack of cigarettes. ‘Smoke, mate?’

  If Hugo said ‘No’ he’d damage the impression he’d made.

  ‘Cheers,’ Hugo peered at the box of Players No. 6, ‘but anything except Lambert & Butler makes my throat feel like shit for hours. No offence.’

  I memorized every word of that. What a way to get out of smoking.

  ‘Yeah,’ Grant Burch said, ‘Woodbines do that to me.’

  From the bar we heard Isaac Pye repeat, ‘“I daren’t get caught on a drunk-in-charge-of-a-spacecraft rap”!’

  Dawn Madden’s mum peered at Hugo from the smoke-fogged bar.

  ‘Are that woman’s boobs for real?’ Hugo hissed at us. ‘Or are they a pair of spare heads?’

  Mr Rhydd sticks Lucozade-yellow plastic sheets over his windows to stop the displays fading. But his ‘displays’ are only ever pyramids of canned pears, and the plastic sheets make inside his shop feel like a photograph from Victorian times. Hugo and I read the notices on the board for second-hand Lego, kittens needing homes, good-as-new washing machines for £10 O.N.O. and ads promising you hundreds of extra pounds in your spare time. The cold-soapy, rotting-orangey, newsprinty smell of Mr Rhydd’s hits you the moment you’re inside. There’s the post office booth in one corner where Mrs Rhydd the postmistress sells stamps and dog licences, though not today ’cause today’s Saturday. Mrs Rhydd’s signed the Official Secrets Act but she looks quite normal. There’s a rack of greetings cards showing men dressed like Prince Philip fishing in rivers saying ‘On Father’s Day’ or foxgloves in a cottage garden saying ‘For My Dearest Grandmother’. There are shelves of alphabet spaghetti, Pedigree Chum and Ambrosia Rice Pudding. There are packs of toys like blow-football and play-money that never sell ’cause they’re too crap. A Slush Puppy machine makes cups of snow in felt-pen colours, but not in March. Behind the counter are cigarettes and shelves of beer and wine. On high shelves are jars of Sherbert Bombs, Cola Cubes, Cider Apples and Navy Tablets. These come in paper bags.

  ‘Wow,’ said Hugo. ‘Thrillsville. I’ve died and gone to Harrods.’

  Just then Kate Alfrick, Julia’s best friend, breezed in, and got to the counter at the same time as Robin South’s mum. Robin South’s mum let Kate go first ’cause Kate just wanted a bottle of wine. She can buy alcohol ’cause she’s turned eighteen.

  ‘Ta very much.’ Mr Rhydd handed Kate her change. ‘Celebrating?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Ka
te. ‘Mum and Dad are coming back from Norfolk tomorrow evening. Thought I’d have a nice dinner ready to welcome them home. This,’ she tapped the bottle, ‘is the finishing touch.’

  ‘Jolly good,’ Mr Rhydd said, ‘jolly good. Now then, Mrs South…’

  Kate passed us on her way out. ‘Hello, Jason.’

  ‘Hello, Kate.’

  ‘Hi, Kate,’ said Hugo. ‘I’m his cousin.’

  Kate studied Hugo through her Russian secretary glasses. ‘The one called Hugo.’

  ‘Only three hours in Black Swan Green,’ Hugo did a funny stagger of amazement, ‘and I’m being discussed already?’

  I told Hugo it was to Kate’s house Julia’d gone to revise.

  ‘Oh, so you’re that Kate.’ He gestured at the wine. ‘Liebfraumilch?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate said, in a what’s it to you? voice. ‘Liebfraumilch.’

  ‘Bit sweet. You look drier. More the chardonnay type.’

  (The only wines I know are red, white, fizzy and rosé.)

  ‘Could be you don’t know your types as well as you think you do.’

  ‘Could be, Kate,’ Hugo combed his hair with his hand, ‘could be. Well, we mustn’t keep you away from your revision any longer. Doubtless you and Julia are hard at it. Hope we’ll bump into each other again, some time.’

  Kate did a frowning smile. ‘I shouldn’t pin your hopes on it.’

  ‘Not all my hopes, Kate, no. That would be rash. But the world can surprise you. I am a younger man, but this much I do know.’

  At the door Kate looked over her shoulder.

  Hugo had this cocky See? expression ready.

  Kate left, cross.

  ‘How,’ Hugo reminded me of Uncle Brian, ‘appetizing.’

  I paid Mr Rhydd for the coffee. Hugo said, ‘That’s never real crystallized ginger you have in that jar, right up at the top?’

  ‘Certainly is, Blue.’ Mr Rhydd calls all us kids ‘Blue’ so he doesn’t have to remember our names. He blew his cracked Mr Punch nose. ‘Mrs Yew’s mother was partial to it, so I’d order it in for her. She passed away with a new jar barely touched.’

  ‘Fascinating. My Aunt Drucilla, who we’re staying with in Bath, adores crystallized ginger. I’m sorry to send you up your ladder again, but…’

  ‘No bother, Blue,’ Mr Rhydd stuffed his hanky into his pocket, ‘no bother at all.’ He dragged his ladder over, climbed up and groped for the far jar.

  Hugo checked nobody else was in the shop.

  He eeled forwards on his chest, over the counter, reached between the rungs of the ladder, just six inches under Mr Rhydd’s Hush Puppies, took a box of Lambert & Butler cigarettes, and eeled back.

  Numb, I mouthed at him, What are you doing?

  Hugo stuffed the cigarettes down his pants. ‘Jason, are you okay?’

  Mr Rhydd shook the jar down at us. ‘This’d be the badger, Blue?’ His nostrils were sockets stuffed with hairy darkness.

  ‘That would indeed be the badger, Mr Rhydd,’ said Hugo.

  ‘Jolly good, jolly good.’

  I was shitting myself.

  And then, as Mr Rhydd eased himself down the ladder, Hugo snatched two Cadbury’s Crème Eggs from the tray and dropped them in my duffel coat pocket. If I’d struggled now or even tried to put them back, Mr Rhydd’d’ve noticed. To top it all, in the moment between Mr Rhydd’s foot touching the ground and Mr Rhydd turning round to face us, Hugo swiped a packet of Fisherman’s Friends and stuffed that in with the Crème Eggs. The packet rustled. Mr Rhydd wiped dust off the jar. ‘What’ll it be, Blue? Quarter of a pound do you?’

  ‘A quarter of a pound would be excellent, Mr Rhydd.’

  ‘Why d’you’ (Hangman blocked ‘nick’ then ‘steal’ so I had to use the naff ‘pinch’) ‘pinch the fags?’ I wanted to scarper away from the crime scene as quick as possible, but a slow queue of traffic’d built up behind a tractor so we couldn’t cross the crossroads yet.

  ‘Plebs smoke “fags”. I smoke cigarettes. I don’t “pinch”. Plebs “pinch”. I “liberate”.’

  ‘Then why did you “liberate” the—’ (now I couldn’t say ‘cigarettes’).

  ‘Ye-es?’ prompted Hugo.

  ‘The Lambert & Butlers.’

  ‘If you mean “Why did you liberate the cigarettes?” it’s because smoking is a simple pleasure, with no proven side effects except lung cancer and heart disease. I intend to be long dead by then. If you mean “Why choose Lambert & Butlers in particular?” it’s because I wouldn’t be seen homeless smoking anything else, except for Passing Cloud. Which that tragic old dipso doesn’t stock in his village grocery, of course.’

  I still didn’t get it. ‘Haven’t you got enough money to buy them?’

  This amused my cousin. ‘Do I look like I haven’t got enough money?’

  ‘But why take the risk?’

  ‘Ah, the liberated cigarette is the sweetest.’

  Now I knew how Aunt Alice felt in the garage earlier. ‘But why’d you take the Fisherman’s Friends and the Crème Eggs?’

  ‘The Fisherman’s Friends are insurance against Mr Tobacco Breath. The Crème Eggs were insurance against you.’

  ‘Insurance against me?’

  ‘You’ll hardly grass on me if you also had liberated contraband on you, would you?’

  An oil tanker inched past, puking out fumes.

  ‘I didn’t grass you off when you made Nigel cry earlier, did I?’

  ‘Made Nigel cry? Who made Nigel cry?’

  Then I noticed Kate Alfrick’s house, or rather a silver MG parked round the side. This guy who definitely wasn’t Julia opened the front door for Kate as she walked up her drive, carrying her wine. The upstairs curtains twitched. ‘Hey, look—’

  ‘Let’s cross.’ Hugo edged towards an oncoming gap. ‘Hey, look what?’

  We dashed across the road, to the path to the lake in the woods.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘No no no no no, you’re holding it like a Hollywood Nazi. Relax! Just hold it like it’s a fountain pen. There. Now, let there be light…’ My cousin reached inside his jacket. ‘Of course, it takes a lighter to impress the quality quim, but lighters do give the game away if found in your blazer pocket by prying Nigels. So Swan Vestas will have to do for this afternoon’s lesson.’

  The lake was nervous with riplets and counter-riplets.

  ‘I didn’t see you liberate those at Mr Rhydd’s.’

  ‘I took them from that grebo in the pub who called me “mate”.’

  ‘You pinched Grant Burch’s matches?’

  ‘Don’t look so appalled. Why would “Grant Burch” suspect me? I’d turned down his mucky cigarette. Yet another perfect crime.’

  Hugo lit a match, cupped it and leant towards me.

  A sudden jostle of wind snatched the Lambert & Butler from my fingers. It fell between the slats of the bench. ‘Oh, bum,’ I said, bending down to retrieve it. ‘Soz.’

  ‘Take a new one and don’t say “soz”. I’ll have to donate the surplus tobacco to the local wildlife, anyway.’ My cousin held out the pack of Lambert & Butlers. ‘The wise dealer never risks getting caught in possession.’

  I looked at the offered packet. ‘Hugo, I’m grateful to you for…y’know, showing me, and everything, but, to be honest, I’m not sure if—’

  ‘Jace!’ Hugo did a jokey-amazed face. ‘Don’t say you’re backing out now? I thought we’d decided to strip you of this shameful virginity of yours?’

  ‘Yeah…but maybe…not today.’

  Blind boars of wind crashed through the anxious woods.

  ‘“Not today”, huh?’

  I nodded, worried he’d be pissed off.

  ‘Your choice, Jace.’ Hugo pulled the gentlest face. ‘I mean, we’re friends, aren’t we? I’d hardly twist your arm into doing something against your will.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I felt stupid with gratitude.

  ‘But,’ Hugo lit his own cigarette, ‘it’s my duty to point out, this isn’t just
about smoking a humble cancer stick.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Hugo grimaced in a Should I or shouldn’t I? quandary.

  ‘Go on. Say it.’

  ‘You need to hear some hard truths, cousin,’ he took a deep drag, ‘but first I have to know you know I’m telling you them for your own good.’

  ‘Okay. I’ (Hangman gripped ‘know’) ‘understand.’

  ‘Promise me?’

  ‘Promise.’

  The green or grey of Hugo’s eyes depends on the weather. ‘This “not today” attitude of yours is a cancer. Cancer of the character. It stunts your growth. Other kids sense your not-todayness, and despise you for it. “Not-today” is why those plebs in the Black Swan make you nervous. “Not today” – I would bet – is at the root of that speech defect of yours.’ (A shame-bomb blew my head off.) ‘“Not today” condemns you to be the lapdog of authority, any bully, any shitehawk. They sense you won’t stand up to them. Not today, not ever. “Not today” is the blind slave of every petty rule. Even the rule that says’ (Hugo did this bleaty voice) ‘“No, smoking is BAD! Don’t listen to naughty Hugo Lamb!” Jason, you have to kill “not today”.’

  This was so appallingly true I could only try to smile.

  Then Hugo said, ‘I was you myself, Jace, once. Just the same. Always afraid. But there’s another reason why you must smoke this cigarette. Not because it’s the first step to becoming someone your turkey-shagging schoolmates will respect instead of exploit. Not because a young blood with a mature cigarette is a better proposition to the ladies than a boy with a sherbert dip. It’s this. Come here. I’ll whisper it.’ Hugo leant so close his lips touched my ears and 10,000 volts sang all over my nervous system. (For a split second I had a vision of Hugo the Oarsman out on the water, cathedrals and river banks blurring by, biceps stiffening and loosening under his vest, with girlfriends lining the river. Girlfriends ready to lick him where he told them.) ‘If you don’t kill “not today”,’ Hugo did a horror-movie trailer voice, ‘One day you’ll wake up, look in the mirror and see Brian and Uncle Michael!’