By the time my brother came up stairs and told me I had to come down and peel potatoes for tea my arm ached, my eyes were strained and my head was foggy. Writing with my left hand, in capitals, and in the manner of my father was proving more difficult than I had anticipated. Even the broad strokes of Winslow Homer take talent and precision. I was getting there but I feared it would take a while longer.
I went straight back to it after I had peeled the potatoes and cut them into chips. I would only have ten minutes or so but every minute was precious if I was to pull it off. The first thing I saw when I got back to my desk was a note written by my father. I had been so intently working and been so concerned with tiny details I hadn’t stepped back to view the work as a whole. At first glance, and in truth that was all the scrutiny it needed to pass, it looked like my father had written it. It wasn’t exactly right, a bit awkward and jolty in places, but I had hopefully explained that with the language. People always wrote sloppier and quicker when they were annoyed. When my mother shouted up to me that tea was ready I was almost ready too. I had about two thirds of the note written and reckoned by about six thirty I would be ready to present my plan to my sister. I went down to tea feeling like I was getting somewhere. I wondered what Sally was doing and immediately regretted it when my face went bright red.
After tea, after another tasteless meal consumed in bored silence, after standing in more silence as I dried the washing up, I went back to my room and continued on the sick note. At about six fifteen I was ready. I covered the other pieces of paper with a maths book, picked up the letter by a top corner and carefully held it on an outstretched palm. I carried it like a precious and fragile antique. Like an archaeologist with a rare piece of Roman pot teased from clay I was in constant fear of destroying it. Those few steps from my room to my sister’s were an agony of tense limbs and anxiety. Anxiety about the quality of the forgery and the certainty of the plan. In the next few minutes I would know if the letter looked good enough but even if it did I still needed to convince my sister to play ball. Without her help I couldn’t move forward but in order to get her help I would need to reveal my ability. I wasn’t sure if Steph would take to it kindly or not but I had planned either way. I took a brief glance in the direction of the hidden pages and sighed. I was about to throw the balls in the air and I had no certainty about where they would land.
I knocked on her door. “Hey Steph, can I come in?”
There was a brief pause and a loud tut before she answered. “I suppose!”
I pushed the door open with my free hand and stepped in. The red walls of Steph’s bedroom were barely visible beneath all the posters of Nik Kershaw and Dave Thorpe. I could understand the obsession with the British motor cross rider but I never got the appeal of Nik Kershaw. Probably something about the hair. I stood a few feet inside the room holding the letter. My sister stared at me for a moment before throwing her arms wide and exclaiming.
“Well? What do you want? I’ve got to get my homework done.”
“Hmm? Oh right, yeah, can you look at this?” I held out the bait. Steph looked at me with puzzled suspicion but took the letter and looked it over. She read it at least twice before looking back to me.
“Why would dad write that?” she asked finally. “You’re not ill and you didn’t have a dentist appointment today.”
I couldn’t contain the joy that was bursting forth in a huge grin on my face. He seemed to dance in my head. I moved closer to her and fixed her gaze with mine.
“He didn’t write it. I did!”
“Fuck off!” Then as she looked into my eyes she realised both the truth and the possibilities.
“You wrote this?”
I nodded, still smiling.
“That’s brilliant Ian, could you…?”
“Yes I could. Given enough time I can get you out of anything. I can sign permission slips, I can reply to letters from the head when you get caught smoking again, anything you like.”
Steph was smiling as well now. She stepped back and sat on her bed. I could see her mind working. Her lips moved and her eyes darted around like a lucky Arabian beggar trying to decide what his first wish from the genie should be. I had her hooked. Now I had to reel her in, turn the wheel just enough to keep her coming but not too much so she sees the net and thrashes free. The prize I was offering was big but if the price I asked was bigger she wouldn’t go for it. I stood there in her room and said nothing. I knew to give her time to form her plan. My sister was a Tomboy existing in the invisibility of mediocrity at school but I knew she was much smarter than that. She had a carefully crafted persona that allowed her to take life on her own terms. She needed to feel in control of things so I had to let her think she was. She would know that I wanted something out of this and it was natural that she would try to gain an advantage from that. The balls were beginning to fall as I wanted them to but this last bit was delicate. It needed to be played well, not too desperate, not too nonchalant. Steph was almost as good as me, I needed to treat her abilities with the greatest of respect.
When she was ready Steph spoke without looking at me.
“If I show mum and dad this you’ll be in so much trouble. You’ll be grounded forever and dad will probably need a new belt when he’s done with you.”
I did my best to look surprised and hurt. “Steph I…”
“I’m holding the evidence Ian, and if you want it back you need to do something for me.”
I dropped my head, defeated.
“What do you want me to do?”
“There’s a weekend trip to London. Mum has signed the slip to say I can go. I need one that says I’m not going.”
So that was it. I was frankly a little disappointed. My sister had the world in her hands and all she wanted was a couple of days. She was looking at me now, looking at me like a kidnapper holding a gun to my head. But I had the bullets.
“You’ll need to get me another slip. Tell your teacher you lost it or something. I’ll sign it from father saying you’re not going if you do something for me.”
“Why would I do anything for you Ian? I’m holding your forged letter here.”
“I need you to take that note to school tomorrow and give it to Mr. Eveleigh.”
“I’m not giving this note away! If I’ve got this you have to do what I say. Jesus Ian do you think I’m stupid?”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“Good.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
“What? Well a bit yeah. You could have shown me this without giving it to me. But you didn’t and now I’ve got the power. So yeah Ian, you are a bit stupid.”
“Except that there’s as much chance you wrote that as me. You’ve got no proof it was me, it could have been you or one of your mates. The only proof that I did it is in the knowledge you have that I can do it again. I could write anything next time. I could sign your slip for London or I could write to the school asking them to search your bag every day. I could decide you have a boyfriend and have him questioned about getting you pregnant. I could sign you up for all sorts of things, how do fancy being in the choir? You see Steph you may have a forged letter in your hand but that is all you have. I mean Christ why would I be using a fictitious dentist appointment as a cover? That’s so easily traced. Surely I would use something real about me? Only someone trying to set me up would be so clumsy. The truth is Steph that what you have there is proof that you can forge father’s writing and that you are trying to set me up for something. Perhaps it’s your first try and you thought you’d test it on me so that if it didn’t work you wouldn’t be found out. It’s very clever that, and it wouldn’t take a lot to convince mother or father that you, let’s remember how many times you’ve been caught bunking off or smoking, that you did this. Let’s also remember that I know about London. I wonder how many of your mates are planning the same thing? I bet mother would love to phone their parents and be the hero that stopped that plan. So, Steph, here’s what’
s actually going to happen. Tomorrow you will take that note to Mr. Eveleigh and you will get another slip for your London trip. I will sign your slip and everyone wins. If you do that I will destroy the other note I have in my room. O.K?”
Steph looked ashen. She was no longer smiling, no longer contemplating the riches she had coming. I could see she was angry but more than that she was confused. She had been lured towards the trap by the shining gold on offer only to find it wasn’t gold but fly paper.
“What’s in the other note?” she asked quietly.
“Don’t worry about the other note, just deliver that one.”
I went back to my room and sat back at my desk. I was a little disappointed at how the whole thing had played out but Steph had chosen her strategy, I had simply taken the logical course of action. I had hoped that she would see the possibilities if we worked together, if we put aside sibling rivalry and trusted each other. I couldn’t blame her for taking the offensive given the household we lived in but I felt a little sadness at another interaction that fuelled alienation between us. Still, at least I had predicted her behaviour correctly and planned for it. I moved the maths book and found the other letter, folded it neatly, reached into my blazer pocket for the business card and stood. I checked no-one was hanging around at my door, watching for clues, then I went to my bed. My father had built it a few years ago, a wooden frame screwed to the wall with a plywood base on top. There was space underneath it for boxes and bags and whatever else needed putting away. My father hadn’t got around to making drawers, or hadn’t been bothered to, so it remained a dark and cavernous dumping ground for old clothes and forgotten things. It was, on the face of it, the perfect hiding place. Of course, the fact that it was the perfect hiding place made it the worst hiding place. My sister would look under my bed at the first opportunity. I knew she would find a way to get me out of my room for a while so she could search so I needed to hide the letter securely. The business card would also need to be secured, I couldn’t risk it being stumbled upon in a frenzied search. I couldn’t take them to the bathroom with me, there was no good hiding place in there.
At the foot of my bed the frame was screwed to the outside wall of the house. I don’t know why but the brick work was a bit crumbly on that wall so the holes drilled for the wall plugs hadn’t been as tight as hoped. As a result, the screws wobbled a bit in the holes meaning the frame wasn’t secured tightly to the wall. I knew this, my father knew this, but no-one else did. When he had attached the frame to the wall my father had me help him. I got the wall plugs and screws ready, that sort of thing, not really helping but being around. It was my father’s way of being a dad, teaching his son something in the absence of any real emotional connection. He had cursed when the drill wobbled in the wall and spat out more brick dust than anticipated. He had said something under his breath about how this fucking house was going to be the death of him. I didn’t understand and knew better than to ask so I watched in silence as he pushed the wall plugs into the holes. He turned to me and told me that the screws would hold fine, they weren’t really needed anyway seeing as the frame was essentially free standing, and that nobody needed to know that they were a bit wobbly. I had nodded and carried on not really helping. It only struck me a few weeks later that the small gap I could create between the bed frame and the wall might be advantageous. I had used it since for hiding bits of porno and that day there was a page featuring a blonde woman on a snooker table hiding there. I had got that page by swapping one I had of another blonde woman, this time washing an American truck in a cowboy hat.
I knelt down and pulled gently on the upright of the frame closest to the wall. There was only the merest bit of movement, a few millimetres at most, and the porno page fell to the floor. I gathered it up and held it with the letter and the business card. I pulled the frame again and when it gave I slowly pushed the precious cargo into the gap between wood and wall. I let the pressure off and the bedframe sank back to the wall, clasping my secrets against it.
A few minutes later I was laying on my bed considering all that had happened that day when Steph came in without knocking.
“Mum says you need to have a shower before you go to bed.” She was smiling that wide smile that stupid people smile when they think they’ve been really clever.
“Why?” I asked nonchalantly.
“Because I told her you smell. She can’t be bothered to check so she said you need to have a shower.” Still smiling that idiotic smile.
“O.K” I said nonchalantly. “Happy hunting.”
She stopped smiling then and scowled instead. “You still have to have a shower so you can’t stop me.”
“I know. I don’t need to stop you. You’re too thick to find anything.” I was deliberately winding her up. People high on emotion don’t look properly. They throw things about, mess everything up, break a few things even, anything to wreck your room. They’re angry and they take it out on the room. They don’t look. They don’t assess or process or have a plan or approach it logically or even just stand still and look. They miss things.
“You’ll never find it, don’t bother looking. Go back to your room and cry over Nik Kershaw. I’m going to have a shower so get out so I can get undressed.”
“Fuck you!” She stormed off to her room. It had worked, she was fuming. I quickly got undressed, put on my dressing gown and went to the bathroom. As I closed the door behind me I heard my sister begin to crash about in my room.
I had a shower. I stood in the warm flow and thought about Sally. I admit there was a frustrated, awkward, fumbling wank involved which I felt very ashamed about afterwards. I did find her very attractive, she was very attractive, there was no denying it, but somehow there was more than that. I trusted her because she trusted me. She hadn’t belittled me or told me off or tried to gain an advantage over me. She had listened and believed and trusted me. It was a strange feeling that. I went to bed that night, after tidying up after my sister, thinking about Sally. Not in a sexual way anymore, she had become something more, something deeper, something more natural and symbiotic.
My sister did not find the other letter or the business card. Or the porno.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next morning, I got ready for school as usual. I retrieved the business card from its hiding place and put it in my inside blazer pocket as usual. My sister went out of her way to avoid me. It wasn’t until we were at the bottom of Arbutus Drive that we spoke.
“I’m not getting the school bus today, I’ve go somewhere else to be. Are you going to take the letter to Mr. Eveleigh?” I asked as we reached the junction with Westbury Lane. Steph turned to look at me with a look of anger and curiosity.
“Where are you going?”
“Are you going to take the note?”
“Yes, I’ll take the note. I don’t have a choice, do I?” She put her hand on my arm and her tone changed. She was angry at being cornered by me but she was still my big sister. Maybe she could see the tension in me, maybe she thought I looked scared or nervous.
“Seriously Ian, where are you going? Are you in trouble? If someone’s giving you shit at school I can sort it out. You don’t need to bunk off.”
“It’s nothing like that.” I appreciated her concern but I couldn’t tell her what I was doing. I didn’t think she would believe me and I didn’t want too many people knowing. I had told Sally because I somehow trusted her and needed her help but telling Steph would only hand her an advantage or put her in danger.
“I just need a few days to figure something out. I’ll tell you when it’s done but I can’t right now. Please just take the note to Mr. Eveleigh.”
“O.K” Steph said, removing her hand from my arm and turning to walk to the bus stop. I turned the other way and started towards Sea Mills square where I would take the number 41 to the bottom of Park Street. After a few steps, I heard Steph call out. I turned my head without stopping.
“Just be careful,” she called after me, “If you
get caught so do I!”
I smiled at her and raised my hand in acknowledgement, turned my head again and was gone.
I reached into my pocket and checked for the money I had taken earlier from my money tin. We got a little pocket money each week from our parents and our grandparents sometimes gave us a little bit as a treat. Mostly though I got my money from working. Between about March and October I spent Saturday mornings cutting the lawns of Mrs Taylor across the road from us. She was about eighty and had lived in the house since it was built in the 1930’s. The back garden stretched back about two hundred feet and was mostly lawn with a few apple trees dotted about near the back. I had never seen the place before I agreed to do the job and needless to say I hadn’t anticipated having to pick up rotten apples and mow around gnarly tree stumps. The garden sloped upwards which made the mowing and raking all the more difficult and most weeks it took me a few hours to get the job done. I don’t remember how much I was paid but I do remember thinking it wasn’t enough. On hot days, I would be invited into her dilapidated kitchen for some sickly-sweet orange squash, made with way more cordial than was necessary. I was always amazed at the old Bakelite sockets and light switches, the lack of fitted units and the peeling lino on the floor. My father had told me when he suggested I take the job that Mrs. Taylor’s husband had died a while ago and she was very lonely and didn’t know anything about DIY or gardening. By the looks of it she didn’t know a great deal about cleaning either but I guess grief can do that to someone. She was nice enough though, she always kept an eye on what I was doing but always paid me and said thank you.
So, I always had money in my tin. My father always told me not to waste the money I had earned on stupid stuff like sweets and toys and such. He was trying to instil some fiscal responsibility into me but it only left me feeling guilty about spending my own money. I had earned it cutting and raking and picking up fucking apples while my mates were asleep in their beds and I couldn’t even enjoy it. I began to resent it, began to hate my earnings, even looking at that tainted money angered me. Money that my parents were increasingly assuming could be used to pay for things like books and shoes and new carpet for my room. I was twelve and I was earning money that was going towards my upkeep. I was paying rent.
Those who broke the boy: The Sons of Charlemagne Book One Page 9
