Faking It

by Portia MacIntosh

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ Henry says cheerily.

  I jump out of my skin, not expecting to find him standing just outside his bedroom door.

  ‘Morning, kid,’ I say. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was looking for you,’ he says. ‘To find out what we’re doing today.’

  ‘What we’re doing today,’ I repeat back to him, as though I know what he means by that.

  Hang on minute – am I supposed to actually entertain the kids on a weekend?

  ‘Are you going to play your game today?’ I ask with an encouraging nod.

  Henry looks puzzled.

  ‘I thought I wasn’t allowed,’ he says. ‘Because it’s family time and we do fun stuff.’

  Jesus Christ, does Emma not let the kid play video games on a weekend? I know I’m supposed to be pretending to be her, but that seems a bit tight. I’m not sure I can enforce that one.

  ‘Do you want to play your game today?’ I ask him.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘After the fun stuff.’

  OK, so I just need to think of some fun stuff to do with him for a bit, and then I’ll sit him down with his Switch and something with loads of sugar in it, and then I can sit and read for a bit. I really, really need some chill time. I’m still not used to the pace of being a full-time mum.

  I’ve got it!

  ‘Have you ever been to Blackpool?’ I ask Henry, because I’m a total fucking idiot. Luckily, he doesn’t think anything of my question.

  ‘No…’

  ‘Shall we go today?’ I ask.

  ‘Is it fun?’ he replies.

  ‘It’s tons of fun,’ I tell him. ‘You’re going to love it.’

  I think I’m going to as well. Blackpool is barely more than an hour’s drive from here, although it always felt like so much longer when I was a kid, and not only will it be fun for Henry but it will be a real nostalgia hit for me – a good one, from good times. Everything else so far has been a sinking feeling in the depths of my stomach.

  I knock on Millie’s bedroom door.

  ‘Hey, Millie… Millie, wake up… do you want to come to Blackpool for the day?’ I ask.

  ‘Mum, that’s mortifying,’ she calls back.

  ‘Mum, that’s mortifying,’ I say quietly, mimicking her high-pitched voice.

  Henry laughs.

  ‘Ooh, would you like to invite Josh?’ I ask him. ‘We could see if Josh and his uncle Marco want to come with us?’

  ‘Yeah!’ he replies enthusiastically.

  ‘OK, you get dressed, I’ll make the call,’ I say giddily.

  It’s hard to tell who is more excited about a day at Blackpool with their friend: Henry or me. At least I feel as if Marco is my friend – I’ve never had a hot friend before, so that’s new. I thought he was just my accomplice, my partner in crime, but now that I’m inviting him for days at the seaside, sure, why not? Let’s say we’re friends.

  I run up to my room to grab my phone, and to start getting ready. Perhaps I really am the person who is the most excited!

  17

  It is possible that, in an attempt to preserve some of my few happy family memories, I have been remembering Blackpool in a more favourable light than is probably accurate.

  Henry and I got ready, put our things in the car and headed over to pick up Marco and Josh, who had a similar spring in their steps. The drive was actually quite pleasant – my childhood memories usually involved sitting in traffic for what felt like forever – with the boys nattering about all sorts in the back, and Marco and I chatting away in the front. There wasn’t really any traffic, and we found a parking space (and it was even one I could fit the Range Rover into without having a panic attack) – it was shaping up to be a great day.

  I should have known, the second we stepped out of the car, when it started raining, that it was a bad sign. Still, it’s January, we knew we weren’t going to be getting a tan, so we arrived wrapped up nice and warm in our coats. That said, I don’t think we’ll be bothering with walking on the beach at any point today – it’s just too miserable.

  I did wonder, as we walked along the street – which seemed to be lacking the frantic but fun frenzy I remembered being everywhere as a kid – whether or not the Pleasure Beach still runs as normal when it’s raining. Can roller coasters run in the rain? I’m sure they can, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to leave them outside, and, anyways, it’s not even raining that heavily.

  Turns out it doesn’t matter because, obviously it being January, the Pleasure Beach is closed. I didn’t stop to think about whether or not Blackpool might be, shall we say, dormant at this time of year, but of course it is.

  Now that we’ve been here a little while, seeing the place through adult eyes, it has to be said, there’s something inherently disappointing about Blackpool. I’m not actually surprised my mum stopped bringing us here. Firstly, it didn’t actually seem all that easy, to see the sea when we first got here. It feels really touristy, and not in the good way – I’m sure it’s great for a hen party, what with all the raunchy giftshop tat (most of it penis-shaped) about. I don’t know if the donkeys work at this time of year but I’d probably burst into tears if I saw one because what always seemed like an adorable concept when I was younger probably hasn’t aged well.

  We’re currently inside Pirate’s Cave amusement arcade taking shelter from the rain. You know the type of place, an open-fronted space full of arcade games like penny machines and those electronic horse-racing games, things like that.

  Marco and I are figuring out what we can actually do here for fun, given that most of the big stuff is closed for the season, while Henry and Josh charge around the arcade, which is also surprisingly empty. But while there might not be anyone here, the machines are alive and the club music is blaring out of the tired old speakers. It’s like a ghost town – if the ghosts forgot to turn the electricity off.

  ‘Mum, Mum,’ Henry starts breathlessly, having just worn his little legs out running over to me, to tell me something clearly very important to him. Sometimes it takes me a few seconds to realise he’s talking to me when he says Mum. ‘If you get enough tokens you can trade them for walkie-talkies. Can we try, can we try?’

  ‘Of course, you can,’ I say. Well, look at them, look how excited they are. They actually look as if they might be on the verge of having fun.

  I take a £20 note from my purse and send them to the booth to get what they need to start playing.

  ‘Are you any good at stuff like this?’ I ask Marco once we’re alone.

  ‘No one is good at stuff like this,’ he tells me with a smile. ‘But if you were your sister, you’d probably say it was the taking part that counted… not that I think your sister would be here in the first place. To be honest, I don’t think my brother and sister-in-law would either – you should have seen the look on their faces, when I told them what we were doing.’

  ‘Snobs, the lot of them,’ I joke. ‘Unless they just know something we don’t…’

  ‘Like Blackpool being almost entirely closed in January?’ Marco teases. ‘I didn’t really think about it either.’

  I notice Henry and Josh heading back towards us with a plastic tub that, on closer inspection, is full of pennies.

  ‘What have you got there?’ Marco asks them.

  ‘This is what she gave us,’ Josh explains. ‘We said we wanted to win the walkie-talkies.’

  ‘Well, you can’t do that in those God-awful penny machines,’ Marco says, his brow furrowing angrily. ‘Come on, let’s go back.’

  We march over to the booth angrily with our kids in tow. With each step I take, my boots stick to the carpet. I meaningfully tear them off the ground, one at a time as I walk, which must only make me look angrier.

  ‘Hello, there’s been some sort of mix-up,’ Marco tells the women in the booth.

  She’s an older lady… I’d say she was in her seventies, but she might just have had a hard life, and be younger than that. Her face is scrunched up and her eyes d
art between us casually. She takes a drag from the cigarette that I’m not even sure she’s supposed to be smoking in here, before blowing smoke rings at us, which would be much more impressive if she wasn’t sitting inside a metal cage, because the bars ruin it.

  ‘No refunds,’ she says in a raspy voice. Wow, not only is she a genuine villain but she’s a living breathing (just about) advert for not smoking.

  ‘The boys want to win the walkie-talkies,’ Marco explains.

  ‘You need tokens for that,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah, so they didn’t want pennies,’ Marco continues. ‘They wanted pound coins or whatever.’

  ‘You buy game tokens to play those games,’ she explains.

  ‘Wait, you buy tokens to play the games and you trade tokens to win the prizes?’ I ask.

  ‘Different tokens,’ she says casually as she exhales more smoke.

  I subtly edge the kids away from her a little more.

  ‘So, you won’t let us swap them? What are we supposed to do with all these pennies?’ Marco asks. He seems kind of annoyed, but he’s still so calm, as if it doesn’t ultimately matter. I suppose it doesn’t, the kids have parents who could buy them iPhones, never mind walkie-talkies, but it’s the principle of the thing.

  The woman just shrugs.

  ‘OK, well, I guess we’ll take £5 of game tokens,’ he says plainly, which surprises me. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who likes to be screwed over.

  The woman’s face twists into a smile as she takes his money. I can see why they call this place Pirate’s Cave now: she’s an absolute crook.

  We shuffle off, back into the heart of the arcade.

  ‘Why don’t you lads go offload these pennies into the machines?’ Marco suggests. ‘See if you can get anything good out of them, OK? And while you do that, I’ll try winning you some walkie-talkies.’

  ‘OK,’ they both say excitedly, almost in sync. They hurry over to a penny machine and begin dutifully feeding it coins. All you can win, other than a couple of different keyrings and some sweets, is more pennies. Honestly, these things are a total rip-off – in fact, this whole place is like one big scam. And we’ve given them £25 already. I’m sure walkie-talkies don’t even cost that much.

  ‘Do you really think you’re going to win enough tokens with a fiver?’ I ask him in disbelief as I follow him to a machine nearby, where we can still keep an eye on the kids.

  ‘How do you feel about breaking the law?’ he asks me, stopping dead in his tracks in front of a claw machine.

  In the most Blackpool way imaginable, this claw machine is for over eighteens only, although I’m not sure how they police that, with only that little old lady in the money booth, and no one else seemingly around. I dread to think what’s inside these anonymous prizes, hidden inside wrapping paper with the ‘over eighteens only’ symbol all over them.

  ‘How do I feel about breaking the law?’ I repeat back to him. ‘Erm, surprisingly, that’s more my sister’s arena. Why?’

  ‘This whole place is a scam,’ he tells me. ‘It’s almost impossible to win anything good, because the machines are rigged to only pay out every so often. No one is winning anything because they’re good at it.’

  ‘So, the chances you’ll win walkie-talkies with a fiver…’

  ‘Slim to none,’ he tells me. ‘But not impossible… so… how do you feel about breaking the law?’

  He’s got a cheeky smile on his face, which I really like; it makes me feel excited. Marco feels like a lit firework that I’m just waiting to go off, to see what happens.

  I smile at him.

  ‘This feels like a Robin Hood type situation,’ I reply, justifying whatever he’s about to do. ‘So… cautiously… do what you want to do.’

  My permission makes him smile.

  ‘Right, OK.’ Marco claps his hands together, before glancing around the room to make sure no one is looking. ‘Let me show you on this machine – and make sure I’ve still got the knack. Basically, if you know which buttons to punch, you can just put these things into maintenance mode. So, the claw is programmed to only work every so many times – a really small number. But once you do this…’

  I watch Marco subtly fiddling with the machine before something seems to change with it.

  ‘OK, have a go,’ he tells me.

  I smile as I nervously approach the machine. I’ve never been any good on these things – or so I thought. With a couple of pushes of the buttons I’ve got myself a prize!

  ‘Oh my gosh,’ I say quietly. ‘That’s amazing. Can I do another?’

  ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘We need to get your £20 back somehow. While you play with that, I’m going to go work my magic on a different machine, get just enough for walkie-talkies, and then let’s get out of this shit hole.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ I say with a big grin.

  I have a few more goes – it’s even more addictive, when you know you’ll win – before calling it a day at five prizes, which I quickly stash in my bag, reminding myself that they’re strictly for over eighteens. I highly doubt I’ve made my money back, but at least it’s something.

  ‘How’s it going, boys?’ I ask Henry and Josh.

  Their penny tub is running seriously low and it seems that even when they do manage to get some out, it takes far more than they’ve put in.

  ‘I don’t think you win anything from these,’ Henry says. ‘It seems like everything is stuck down.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it is,’ I confirm. ‘Come on, let’s go find Marco.’

  We eventually catch up with him on his way to the booth.

  ‘I actually won more than we needed,’ he whispers quietly. ‘But I’m not trying to clear them out, I just want to get the boys their walkie-talkies.’

  Marco absolutely fascinates me. His skill set really isn’t something I’ve even encountered before – usually you only see hackers in corny action thrillers, which is where I learned the term ‘hack the mainframe’, which is probably why Marco was so amused when I said it. But while he might be able to hack into pretty much any system put in front of him, whether it’s the latest operating system on a PC or a claw machine in Blackpool’s least reputable arcade (of all the ones we walked past, we just had to walk into this one), he does only seem to use his powers for good reasons… or at least morally justifiable ones, like avenging scammed kids or making his employers pay what they owe. I just… I just can’t figure him out. Is he a bad good guy or a good bad guy?

  Marco strolls up to the booth and delicately places the strip of printed tokens on the counter in front of Blackpool’s biggest super villain. He smooths them out with his hands, all smiles, before pointing out the walkie-talkies on the prize sheet next to her.

  ‘We’ll take the walkie-talkies, please,’ he tells her.

  The woman’s twisted smile drops when she sees the tokens, but it quickly returns. She hobbles down off her stool and into the back room before returning. She takes the tokens and replaces them with a walkie-talkie – a single one.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I blurt.

  ‘That’s the prize,’ she says with a smirk. ‘You want two, you need double the tokens.’

  God, I can feel such an anger bubbling up inside me, making me so mad. I’ve been trying to keep a pretty Emma-authentic persona, but I want to go full-Ella right now.

  ‘You know what,’ I start, as I feel the words rushing to the tip of my tongue. They’re angry, sweary, shouty words that I know I probably shouldn’t say in front of the kids, but with the bad taste this woman has left in my mouth, my only option is to spit it all out.

  ‘OK, we’ll take another one,’ Marco says casually, stopping me before I get into it with this vile woman. ‘And… hmm… we’ll take a couple of those giant Minions too.’

  Marco slaps his pile of tokens down on the counter in front of her.

  I know he said that he only wanted to use the tokens to get the walkie-talkies, but he’s clearly just trying to teach this woman
a lesson now. And she deserves it.

  She hops down from her stool again, this time with less twisted delight, moving in near to slow motion as she retrieves a second walkie-talkie, which, surprise, surprise, is alone in the box she took the other one from. She also hands over the two life-sized Minions through a large hatch next to her. It’s kind of like the ones they have in post offices, where only one side can be opened at a time. I suppose you do need to worry about your safety, and keep yourself securely tucked away behind metal bars, when you’re ripping people off all day long.

  Marco hands the walkie-talkies over to the boys (who are so excited they look as if they’re going to explode) before handing me one of the Minions. He carries the other one himself, because they really are massive. I say they’re life-sized, but I’d imagine they’re much bigger than an actual Minion would be, if they were in real life. These things are nearly as big as the boys.

  ‘Erm, do you like Minions?’ I ask him as he walks out of the door, back into the rain.

  ‘No, not at all,’ he says. ‘I just wanted to take something big from her. She needs reporting.’

  ‘She really does,’ I reply. ‘Listen, thanks for all that. You definitely saved me from dropping a few F-bombs in front of the kids.’

  ‘Ah, it was nothing,’ he says casually. ‘But you’re welcome – I saw the shape your lips were making. I thought it was going to be worse than an F-bomb.’

  He laughs. I think Marco might be having more fun than anyone.

  ‘So, what’s next, lads?’ he asks them.

  ‘I want to go here,’ Henry says, holding up a flyer he must have grabbed from the arcade.

  Marco takes it from him to have a look before turning to me.

  ‘What do you reckon, shall we go to Anderson’s Amazing Weird and Wonderful World?’ he asks. ‘It’s a museum.’

  ‘If the kids want to go to a museum, I say let’s go,’ I reply. ‘I certainly never wanted to go to museums at their age.’