I was still turning round in the mirror, looking at myself.
‘I know things aren’t good at the moment,’ said Mum. ‘Davey needs you, though, Robbie. You won’t forget that, will you?’
‘Don’t you worry. I’d look after a house full of Daveys for this. You’re in credit, Mum.’
I got back into bed and we had another big love, then she got up to go. I snuggled down. She looked at me and laughed. ‘You’re not sleeping in it, are you?’
‘Sleeping in it? I’m living in it!’
‘You won’t go to school in it, though?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll keep it under my jumper. No one’ll know.’
She was right, though. Wearing a shirt with fudge-packer and that written on the back of it to my school – suicide. But no way was I taking it off. I’d just have to be dead careful, that’s all. Or dead. One or the other. Just then I didn’t even care.
See why I love my mum? She’s got no money, she has such a hard life, and still finds the time to save up and get me this. A shirt like this, let me tell you – they don’t come cheap.
‘I love you, Mum.’
She bent down and kissed me. I curled my toes. I felt about five years old. It was great.
‘Don’t forget – look after Davey, won’t you?’
‘Don’t worry. I’m here for him.’
‘I know you are, love. Night!’
‘Night, then.’
She left. I went to sleep thinking, I’m the luckiest guy in the world. Drums, who needs them?
That was the best night of my life so far. If it never got any better than that, I’d die well happy.
Billie
They take your shoelaces and belt off you before they lock you up so you can’t hang yourself. It’s this welded box. No windows. The door’s as thick as your leg. Solid steel. When it closes, it’s like the rest of the world just disappears. You can scream and howl and bang – it makes no difference. All you can do is sit there and try not to go mad.
Barbara – what a cow! Going on about my mum – she knows I can’t bear it. It’s her way of dumping me. Then she can say, See – it wasn’t my fault. Billie blew it again.
And then calling the cops on me. The armed-response unit. So that’ll be on my record now. Thanks, Barbara. Just what I needed. They had me fooled for a while. Barbara and Dan, and Hannah and Jim at the Brant. Just for a bit I thought I might actually get my head sorted out, get myself some kind of a life. But it’s like a game they play. It keeps them in work.
I bet they’ll charge me with assault, even though I never laid a hand on her. It won’t even be the WASP now – it’ll be the Secure Unit. Prison for kids. And if that happens, they can take my belt and my shoelaces away all they like, but I won’t live like that. I’ll find a way somehow, even if I have to bite my own veins open, I swear it.
Get it over with, Billie. Just stop mucking around and just … get it done.
I don’t know how long they left me there. Hours. They had that bastard Farrell on the desk when I came in – he’s only in the job because he can bully people. I knew when he came off shift because the nice one came in with a cup of tea. Jolly. He’s the most miserable-looking copper you ever saw in your life, but once you get to know him he’s not so bad. For a copper. The first time I saw him he came into the cell with a cup of tea and stood there looking like his mum had just died or something.
‘They call me Jolly. You can see why.’
‘No, I can’t see why,’ I told him – pretty fed up at the time.
‘It’s my name,’ he said. ‘Jolly.’
I didn’t get it at the time. It made me laugh later on, though. This time he came in with my shoes and stuff and sat on the bench next to me.
‘Armed assault this time, Billie. You’re moving up fast,’ he said.
‘They’re never getting me for armed assault! I never touched anyone.’
Jolly sat there and watched me for a bit. ‘Well, you got away with it again,’ he said at last. ‘There’s no charges. You’re still on a lucky streak.’
‘Lucky? And me in here? You must be joking.’
‘Pretty lucky, if you ask me,’ he said. ‘Waving half-metre shards of glass in people’s faces. She could have had you for threatening behaviour if nothing else.’
I was bent down doing up my laces. I looked sideways up at him. ‘Armed-response unit,’ I said.
He just looked back.
‘Armed-response unit,’ I repeated.
‘She must have been scared silly,’ he pointed out. I waited. Finally, Jolly raised his eyebrows. ‘Not going to look good on report, is it?’ he said. He leaned in closer. ‘The chief spent fifteen minutes in there giving them a right roasting. I saw them in the canteen after. Pretty fed up they looked, especially when one of the lads asked if he could have an armed guard to get him down to the sweet shop and back.’
I started sniggering, but he didn’t crack a smile. He never does.
‘Think it’s funny, do you?’ he said. ‘You won’t when you meet any of that lot out there.’ He jerked his head to the outside. ‘And I thought your name was mud already.’
Very bloody Jolly. But it was true. The coppers hate me already. Now I’d made fools of the armed response. It’s not fair! It wasn’t me made fools of them – it was her, that Barbara.
Not that they need any help.
Jolly nodded and stood up. ‘Your social worker’s here.’
‘Where am I going?’ I asked, following him out of the cells. Jolly shrugged.
In the corridor we passed one of the coppers who’d been at the house on the way out. I couldn’t resist it.
‘What, you still here, not out terrorizing toddlers today, then?’ I asked him. ‘I heard someone had his sweets nicked round the corner. You could always go and blow him away.’
‘Well done, Billie, that’ll make you popular,’ said Jolly quietly.
‘Do you blame me?’
He didn’t answer. I took that for a no.
My social worker, Jodie Grear, was waiting out front. I was putting it on, strutting it up for the sake of the coppers, but once we were outside and she was opening her car for me to get in, reality hit home.
‘What’s going to happen to me?’ I asked her.
‘You’re in luck, Billie. I managed to get respite for you, for a few nights anyway.’
I got in the car. It was supposed to be good news. I suppose it was. I could have ended up in the cells overnight. But you know what? I think I might have preferred that to another carer. Five of ’em in four years. It does my head in. I’m thinking, Are they going to be hard bastards? Are they going to feed me well? Are they going to be nice? Do they want me to be part of the family, or just another client?
At least in the cells no one wants to be your mum.
Jodie started up the car and pulled away, chatting about stuff. Trying to make things feel normal, I suppose. That’s what they do. As if picking me up from the nick and trying to find me a bed for the night is normal.
‘Sorry,’ I said suddenly.
‘What for?’ she asked.
‘Hauling you out. You should be at home watching telly.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, love. It’s what I’m paid for.’
Yeah, I thought. It’s what you’re paid for. Jodie rattled on, but I had to turn my face away. People have to be paid to bother with me. I ought to be nationalized, me. I’m a whole bloody industry, all on my own.
We pulled up outside a terrace house. I had no idea which road it was on. I sat there staring at the door. Big old Billie, that’s me. But when you’re there staring at yet another front door and wondering what’s behind it, you feel about two years old.
Rob
I got up, got dressed, no socks. I had ’em last night. Where do they go, socks? So I tiptoed down the corridor and tapped on their door. Mam always knows where there
’s socks. I opened the door. Philip’s lying there, Mam’s a lump under the covers.
I cleared my throat. The lump moves and a face pokes out. Never seen her before.
I closed the door. Jesus Jesus Jesus. Where’s my mum?
I went downstairs. I got the cereal out. It was getting late. I was thinking I ought to get Davey up. I was scared. There was a movement upstairs – someone going to the loo. Him. I froze. The footsteps stopped. I sat down to eat my cereal and then they started up again. Along the landing. Down the stairs. It’s him. He came all the way down and stood behind me, but he still made me jump when he spoke.
‘Robbie.’
I jumped so hard I spilt the cereal down me front – down THE T-shirt! I started frantically mopping it up.
‘What is that?’ he said, staring at the T-shirt.
‘Metallica,’ I said. ‘Mum gave it me.’
‘Did she now?’ He pulled a face. ‘Well, don’t go wearing it to school. You’ll get battered.’ He nodded upstairs. ‘Two teas, there’s a good lad.’ I looked up. He winked.
‘Yeah, yeah, no problem,’ I said.
He turned to go. Upstairs, I could hear Davey moving about.
‘Philip?’
He turned his head.
‘Where’s me mam?’
He shrugged slightly. ‘She’s left us, Robbie.’
‘Where to?’
‘I dunno. Her sister in Manchester, I suppose.’ He turned round to watch my reaction. ‘It’s just us now, eh, son?’ he said.
I wasn’t his son. And yeah. It was just us now.
Davey came down. Philip put his arm round him. ‘Dat’s ma boy,’ he said. That’s what he says all the time.
Davey yawned and he turned round to look at me and he saw the T-shirt. His eyes almost jumped out of his head.
‘You’re not going to wear that to school, are you? Dad! Don’t let him wear that to school. He’ll get battered.’
‘That’s his lookout, isn’t it?’
‘But, Dad …’
‘Two teas – quick, like, eh, Robbie?’ said Philip.
I looked up at him and in that moment, while Davey was looking at me and not at him, he put his finger to his lips, nodded his head at Davey and winked again. Then he turned and left us to it.
It wasn’t fair, that, making me keep his dirty little secrets for him, like it was me and him in it together. Like I was his mate. If I was Billie, I’d have whacked him right there and then. Davey was going to find out – he was bound to. He had a right to know that his mum had gone and his dad was upstairs in bed with another woman. But I wasn’t going to tell him, because I always do what Philip tells me, every time.
I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me. ‘You’re shit,’ his eyes say. ‘I made you shit and I’m going to keep you shit, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’
He’s right. I am shit. I can never forgive him for doing that to me. And I can never forgive myself for letting him. So instead of just telling Davey anyway, I went round the house looking for a note. I wanted her to tell him, see. There was a note last time she left. I went round and round the house looking for it, but of course I never found one because if there ever was one, Philip had already taken it away.
But I knew what was going on, really. There was a note. The T-shirt was the note. The visit last night was the note. The time she’d spent with Davey before she came in to see me was the note. She wanted our goodbyes to be nice and if she’d told us face to face then it would have been horrible. But I wish she had told us, because now it was all on my plate – what to do about Davey and everything. And I hadn’t got a clue.
There was only one good thing in my life that day. Yeah – you got it. The T-shirt. That was all I had left of my mum. It was her goodbye and her thanks, and her way of saying she loved me, and her see you later. I was wearing it under my school jumper, next to my skin and that’s where it was going to stay. In my mind, I’d already decided it was never coming off, ever. Until I saw her again, anyhow.
I told Davey I’d left it at home to keep him happy. It was all right – no one could see. We’re at the bus stop. Kids gathering. The bus to Reedon High comes sailing past. I’m not taking any notice. I’m not even thinking. I’m trying to feel T-shirt and Metallica and good …
And then this splash comes out of nowhere. Big splash, right down my front. I pull my jumper out – and it’s only Ribena. I could smell it. Blackcurrant all over my school jumper. Which meant …
‘Who did that!’ I screamed. ‘Who did that?’
‘Someone on the bus – I saw it coming down,’ yelled Davey. ‘I think they spat,’ he added.
‘I’ll kill them,’ I roared. ‘I’ll bloody mash them!’ Because it was soaking right through … yeah! Right underneath to the sacred T-shirt. No way was I going to let Ribena get on my Metallica T-shirt. Blood, maybe. Piss, shit, bring it on. But Ribena and Metallica?
Never.
I hoiked off my school jumper. There was a big stain right on the pale patch next to the skeleton’s legs.
‘Who did that? I’ll kill them!’ I howled. I wasn’t thinking I was that mad.
Davey’s eyes practically fell out of his head when he saw what I had on. ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed. ‘You can’t wear that! It’s asking for it. Put it on – people’ll see.’
I’d had enough. I’d been bathed in snail juice, humiliated and left by the only person who really loves me. The T-shirt was all I had. I pulled it out and stuck it in his face. ‘I don’t care any more, Davey. This is ME,’ I told him. ‘See? This. Is. Me!’
But Davey wasn’t looking. He was staring up the road behind me. ‘Here comes Riley,’ he whined. ‘Put it on, put it on, quick.’
I put it on quick enough then. No point in getting battered for nowt. And I was quick too – I move fast for a big lad. I got the jumper on in loads of time and stood there looking all innocent while Martin Riley, the King of the Chavs, and his little bunch of mini-chavs came up behind me. No one would have guessed that under that school jumper I had a detailed description of everything they hated most written all over my back.
Except that I’d not pulled the jumper down far enough. It was up at the back. While I was standing there feeling safe and right, Riley and his chavpack was reading – they could just about read – the word ‘Motherfucker’ writ right across my arse. The first I knew of it was him pulling up my jumper.
‘Gerroff!’ I yelled.
Riley read the rest of the message. His eyes bulged; his face turned puce. ‘You pervert,’ he barked.
‘I can explain,’ I said.
Then him and his mates closed in and I hit the deck.
Chris
Tuesday morning. Breakfast. My parents – or should I call them my jailers – ate their morning toast suspiciously. Mum’s quite good at hiding how she feels but Dad just can’t help himself. He kept casting me angry little glances as if he didn’t trust me. Mum was being … not smug, she doesn’t do smug. She does confident. It amounts to the same thing. It’s the same as smug, only better concealed.
In this respect, oddly, my stupid dad is better than my clever mum. It’s not intelligence. It’s instinct. She’d thought it through and decided that nothing could go wrong; their plans were watertight. But my dad knew instinctively that somehow I was going to find a way round it.
He was right.
I sneaked back home at lunchtime to get the stuff I needed for Plan B. I had hoped to have Alex with me, despite the fact that he’d proved himself about as trustworthy as a sack of scorpions. One last chance.
‘But I don’t want one last chance,’ he whined. I gave it to him anyway, but then we fell out on the way to school. I did a Bad Thing on the bus. We were sitting together as usual. I was swigging blackcurrant juice out of one of those squirty bottles when we went sailing past the stop where the Statside kids were waiting – and gu
ess who was there? None other than Roly Poly, the snail cruncher, standing there with his evil little brother.
I didn’t even have to think about it. I stuck the bottle out of the window and gave it a good hard squeeze. A long snake of purple juice wiggled its way down and – bingo! – splash! Right on the fat one’s front.
The results were spectacular. He started dancing about on the pavement, bending over almost double in his efforts to pull the jumper off over his head. It was bizarre. You’d have thought it was sulphuric acid or something, not a humble fruit drink. Then he actually dashed out into the road after the bus, as if he was going to catch it and tear it to pieces with his bare hands.
Wow.
As soon as we were out of sight, Alex turned on me. ‘You shouldn’t have done that. He’s going to kill you now, if he finds out that was you. Oh, mate! You’re on your own with this one,’ he said, sitting back and crossing his arms.
‘I always am on my own when you’re around, Alex,’ I told him. The hypocrite – he’d been laughing his face off just moments before. But he was right. I shouldn’t have done it. I wasn’t expecting Roly to go actually mad. What sort of monster is it that loves his T-shirt so much he’s prepared to try and beat up a bus for it?
‘Why do you always have to get into trouble?’ he said. ‘Why can’t you just be more like everybody else?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Why would anyone want to be like everybody else?’ I asked him.
‘Because that’s how you get on. Because it’s how the world works,’ he told me.
By the time we got to school, we were both steaming. I didn’t even bother reminding him he’d said he’d help me out at lunchtime.
I run the business from the garage. There’s an old PC where I keep my database and go online. The Wi-Fi doesn’t get to the garage so I have to run a cable through to the router. The business goes in phases; it was in a quiet phase just now because Mum and Dad had frozen my assets. That was the last attempt to make me knuckle down. Freezing my assets – like I was Colonel Gaddafi or something. The lengths these people go to is unbelievable. I’ll get sent to Guantanamo Bay at this rate.
Kill All Enemies Page 5
