The Secrets We Keep

by Jonathan Harvey

  And it was in that car that Spanner taught me a thing or two about life. Well, life as he knew it. I lapped that up too, even if it was all mostly about how to behave if I ever got stopped by the police. Looking back, I’m amazed I took him seriously. If he was that good at handling himself with the filth and being the slippery snake he claimed to be, how come he was in and out of the nick all his life?

  His main piece of advice to me was this – when being stopped by the police, do the following:

  Be polite.

  Act dumb.

  Then stutter.

  ‘You stutter, Danny, they panic. They don’t want to be seen to be making a young lad anxious. Looks bad on them if they arrest you.’

  ‘Oh, the homespun words of wisdom from me Grandma’s knee,’ I’d say. Which made him piss himself. Even though I didn’t really know what it meant and it sounded a bit showy-offy. But it was something my dad used to say to my mum if she nagged him about something. And it didn’t half used to wind her up.

  Sometimes I’d see Huge looking at us through one of the prefab windows as we’d sit in the car gabbing. God alone knows what he was thinking. Was he fearful for me? Was he worried? Envious? Did he think Spanner was doing the sort of things he did? He didn’t stare for long. Especially if Spanner gave him the old evils. Then he’d duck away like a nosy suburban neighbour caught twitching the nets.

  ‘He’s a weirdo, him, isn’t he?’ Spanner’d say.

  ‘He’s all right,’ I’d say. ‘He’s harmless.’

  A whistle between his teeth told me Spanner definitely thought otherwise. ‘He’s a nonce, Danny. It’s not right, what he does.’

  Right? Right? It was hard to get your head round right and wrong in there. It just was. There were pros and cons to Huge’s behaviour, of course there were; but it’s just what went on, and there didn’t seem anything odd about it, it was just the nature of the beast. Shit happens, etc. And at the end of the day, everyone got something out of it. Huge got his end away, the lads got their perks. ‘Right’ was a concept I couldn’t fathom.

  I can now, don’t you worry.

  Well. You’d think, wouldn’t you?

  ‘Can you find out where my mum is, Spanner? I asked Huge, and he’s not had any luck. She’s moved, only she’s not told me where it is she’s gone.’

  He looked at me a while. And then went, ‘I’ll have a go, son. I’ll have a go.’

  I liked it when he called me son.

  I’d always thought what I was missing was my twin brother.

  But actually, in that moment, I realized what I’d really, really wanted was a proper dad.

  Night lad

  On my fourteenth birthday Huge summonsed me to his office. It wasn’t a place I’d been to much, and I assumed he wanted to wish me a happy day.

  Wrong.

  He had his poker face on the minute I went in and I, wrongly, thought I was in the shit.

  He was stirring a cup of tea in a bone china cup. There was a saucer. There was even a matching teapot.

  ‘I’m afraid I have bad news, Danny.’ He avoided any eye contact with me, preferring now to keep his gaze firmly on his tea. ‘Your father is in hospital and it looks like he hasn’t got long left.’

  Truth be told, I was gutted. I’d much rather he’d just wished me a happy birthday.

  ‘I will take you there shortly to say your goodbyes.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Danny?’

  ‘What if I don’t want to go?’

  ‘What you want is of little consequence. We’re going. I’m sure you’ll regret it one day if you don’t.’

  ‘But I can’t stick him, sir.’

  ‘Bit of a disciplinarian, was he?’

  I shook my head. No point telling him anything. Already he was referring to the Brummie Bastard in the past tense. And I kinda liked it.

  Huge drove to the hospital in his Bentley. He let me sit up front with him but he put some classical music on the radio, which sent out the warning: no conversation. Didn’t bother me. I sometimes wondered if he was a little bit scared of me since the caravan incident. The favoured boys were the pretty but putty ones who lapped up his attention, and laughed at his jokes.

  The hospital was red brick, Victorian. Its windows were long and narrow, and the floors polished like mirrors. I remember thinking I wished I still had my BMX bike so I could ride down them dead fast. The nurses wore starchy white hats and all looked furious. Good. Hopefully a few of them were knocking him about a bit like he used to do to my mum. Payback time.

  He wasn’t like a shadow of his former self; I recognized him immediately. He was still built like a brick shithouse, it’s just that now his skin was yellow and his brow as shiny as the floor with sweat. There were tubes. His breathing rattled like Mum’s twin-tub. Huge hung back in the corridor. A nurse touched Dad’s arm.

  ‘Mr Bioletti? Your son’s here.’

  His eyes opened. Closed again. Then opened.

  ‘All right, lad?’

  I nodded. ‘All right, Dad?’

  ‘I’ve not got long.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Sit down.’

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to stay. I wanted this to last for as brief a time as possible.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said with more menace, and so I did.

  Then he closed his eyes again, and I thought he’d fallen asleep. I looked out of the ward to the corridor and saw that Huge was staring in, observing. What was he worried about? That I was going to smash a window and jump out and run away?

  Dad opened his eyes. He motioned me to him. I sighed and leaned forward in my chair. When he spoke, it was hardly a whisper.

  ‘Lad?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s something you need to know before I go coz your mammy’ll never tell you.’

  I don’t even know where my mammy is, I wanted to say, but I didn’t.

  ‘Your brother didn’t die.’

  He took a deep breath.

  ‘Your Mam give him away.’

  He took another deep one. My head span. Jesus.

  ‘She was cleaning for Mrs Albright and she give him to her. Gone to Canada. Your brother’s alive.’

  I stared at him. And the effort in him talking to me and spilling his beans must have taken it out of him, coz he fell asleep then. So deep, in fact, that I thought he’d died.

  I got up and went into the corridor.

  ‘Ready?’ asked Huge.

  I nodded and we left.

  In the car on the way back to Hansbury, Huge was like, ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  Low profile. Under the radar. Don’t give too much away. Clearly that was becoming my motto.

  Years later, our Owen got into that musical Blood Brothers. He was always going on at me to take him to London to see it. When we went, I was in for a shock. Seeing my mother’s story on the stage, set to music, screwed my head a little.

  But the thing is, I never knew whether or not to believe my old man. He was a cruel git sometimes. But why would he make something like this up? It made complete sense that Mum might have done that and regretted it. I know they struggled financially having just me to feed, so God knows what it would have been like with the two of us. It would make sense of their rowing, his disapproval of her, her subsequent drinking. It made sense that they’d never taken me to my brother’s grave, or told me where he was buried.

  Was my brother going by the name of Albright and living out in Toronto or somewhere? My doppelganger, walking this planet with a Canadian accent?

  And with that information, what was my dad trying to do? Twist my melon? Help me? Make me hate my mother for lying to me?

  On the journey back to Hansbury, with the strings of Handel (I asked) playing in the car, I buried that information somewhere deep inside me. By the time I got out of the Bentley it was as if the day had not even happened.

  I was an only child. I had a dead brother.

  I was
very good at burying things.

  I still am.

  All good things must come to an end

  I honestly thought I was doing the right thing, you see. There was this bird, and she’d come to Hansbury Vale to have a look round. She was from the local council and she was a social worker or something. She had a clipboard anyway, and dead long red hair like her off of Carrie, and skin equally as pale. Like a ghost. But this look on her face, deadpan, honest to God, you could’ve told her the funniest joke in the world and she’d’ve still looked like she was bored shitless at a funeral. She slithered round the different buildings and outhouses and stared blankly at what was going on – we were being shown a film about a mouse being dissected, God knows why – and then she’d be gone from the room and you’d see her half an hour later during break, standing near the bogs and the like.

  She was an outsider.

  She was checking us out to see how the set-up worked.

  For some reason, I felt she had power. All day long I was working up the courage to speak to her. Lads kept going from class to have informal chats with her about how they were getting on, and what the teachers were like. It was all the soft lads, Huge’s favourites, the compliant ones.

  Lads that weren’t me, basically.

  I could picture them with her. Drinking tea out of Huge’s bone china bollocks and going, Oh yes, Carrie, this place runs smooth as clockwork, nothing to see here. Huge is fantastic and we’re like one big happy family.

  And Carrie sat there, noting it all down, thinking, Aren’t we the clever ones giving Huge his licence? Let me just write him another cheque for ten gazillion pounds.

  Lads stopped slipping out. Next time I looked out of the window I saw her in the car park. Next time the teacher wasn’t looking, I slipped quietly out of class. The class was so bloody noisy, no one noticed anyway. And I legged it to the car park. She was driving off. It must have been summer, coz her wheels were blowing dust up from the ground. I legged it after her and caught up with her, she can’t have been going that fast, and I banged on her window. She stopped, and looked like she was shitting herself – first bit of emotion she’d displayed all day – and wound her window down.

  ‘Stuff goes on here. Stuff no one talks about.’ I was gasping, out of breath from my quick sprint now. ‘My mate Guinness goes off on day trips with that MP Bishop. Hugh’s the same. It’s going on all over. He won’t do it to me coz I decked him and give him a black eye, Miss.’

  Now she was back to the default mode face. The poker face. The one with no emotion.

  I’d blurted. I’d splurged. I’d said what I’d come to say. And as she wasn’t saying anything back, I thought I’d blown it. So without waiting for a reaction I legged it back to the classroom. Once back inside, I returned to my desk. Still the teacher hadn’t noticed I’d been and come back. But a minute or so later, I saw Carrie’s car reversing back into the car park. And she parked up. A few minutes later she was getting out of her car with the clipboard. Then she went inside. And I started bricking it.

  That night I was called to Huge’s office. He was all on his own, Carrie had long gone, and he was completely furious. It was like he had smoke coming out of his ears.

  He wasn’t drinking tea now. He had a whiskey on the go.

  Not good.

  ‘How dare you? How dare you go around casting slanderous accusations about our kindest benefactor? Who comes to visit us out of the goodness of his own heart. Who offers only kindness and the civil hand of friendship. And you have to besmirch that generosity with your repugnant vulgarity? Claiming that he . . . I can barely say the words . . .’

  I said nothing. Just sat there. Like a gravestone.

  ‘I explained to Mrs Eastern that if what you infer is true, you should not be telling her but informing the police.’

  At this he shoved his phone across my desk.

  ‘Phone them. If you dare.’

  I stared at the phone.

  ‘If you have irrefutable proof. That things . . . untoward . . . have occurred. Phone them. Make yourself a laughing stock. Is this what Sam Korniskey has told you?’

  I remained silent.

  ‘Well?’

  I continued with the silent treatment.

  ‘What’s the matter, lad? Cat got your tongue?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Is this or is this not what Sam Korniskey has told you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘What has he told you?’

  Gravestone again.

  ‘Can’t hear you, lad!’

  ‘He never told us nothing.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Now we are trying a man and hanging him on the basis of what? Chinese Whispers?’

  I couldn’t bear to look at him.

  ‘I tell you what, though, Danny. Phone them anyway. Let’s see what happens. A wimpy little bastard like you, the runt of a very unfortunate litter. So wayward was he, indeed, that he was sent to live in council-approved care. Oh yes, Danny, very impressive, I’m sure the boys in blue would lap your story up. But let’s see how they rate your word compared to that of a Member of Parliament such as Sir Benedict Bishop!’

  ‘You’re all right, sir,’ I whispered.

  He almost choked on his laughter.

  ‘Oh, there’s really no need to point that out, boy. Really no need at all. You see – you are the plankton of the pecking order. Shout what you like, from the highest rooftop in the land. You will never be believed. None of you will.’

  I nodded. I knew he was right, actually. You had to hand it to him. Fair play and all that.

  ‘But just to be on the safe side. And to avoid any reoccurrence of this sort of embarrassment. I think we can safely say we’ll bring to an end Sir Benedict’s trips out in the Rolls with young Master Korniskey. You can explain to him why this has happened. Leave. Now.’

  I got up to leave. As I got to the door, he was off on one again.

  ‘And just in case I didn’t make myself clear . . .’

  I looked round. He was smiling. He was – he was actually enjoying this.

  ‘You will never be believed, Danny Bioletti. Ever.’

  He pointed to the door. I left.

  The next time the Rolls came, it drove off with another lad. It drove off with a lad someone said was a Vietnamese boat child, whose parents had died in the boat on the way over to wherever they were going, and only he’d survived. It gave him a bit of cachet amongst the residents of Hansbury. Most of us were in there coz we’d screwed up, or our parents had, or they just plain didn’t want us or know what to do with us. His reason had an air of the swashbuckle to it – adventure on the high seas, and all that. I found him a bit of a knob, if I’m honest. He had violin lessons and, God forgive me, I hated him for it. So actually, that night I was quite pleased when I saw him getting in the Rolls and Guinness stomping round the car park like the disgruntled ex-wife. Through a broken window – I forget where I was – I then saw Huge coming out and taking Guinness by the shoulder and leading him inside.

  I knew then it was only a matter of time.

  I went back to my dorm. Lay on my bed, arms tucked behind my head, whistling silently to myself.

  Minutes later, the door burst open and Guinness bounded in, calling me for everything. I was the biggest knob on this planet, the most interfering twat he’d ever had the bad luck to bump into, the misfortune to live with. It was quite the performance. You had to give it to him: when he was on form he was very, very good. In the end, I jumped off the bed and rugby-tackled him onto his bed to shut him up. There’s nothing I disliked more than attention being brought to my door. And the sooner he shut his face, the better. But he just kept kicking and screaming and calling me this and calling me that. In the end I clamped my hand over his mouth, and for a fleeting second I realized what it must be like to kill somebody. In that second, I wished I could. In that second I found him so ungrateful, after everything I had tried to do for him, and the thanks, the hatred I was getting in return, well, wh
y didn’t I?

  Oh, I didn’t, of course. I don’t think I’ve got it in me. I certainly didn’t have then.

  Also. The minute I put my hand over his mouth, the little fucker bit me.

  Like I said: when he was on form, there was no getting near him.

  And it was such a shock, I jumped back and left him to it. But at least he wasn’t shouting and screaming like a demented loon any more.

  I shifted myself back to my own bed, quick smart. Checked my hand. No blood. But that bastard had nicked my finger in two places on the inside of the knuckles, indentations like paper cuts.

  Guinness was up off his bed, and pulling his mattress up.

  Look. Come on, look. See all this?

  He was beckoning me over to look under the mattress. I half-heartedly peered towards his bed. There under the mattress was a plastic bag. He yanked it out. The mattress thumped back down and he slid across the floor on his knees, presenting me with the open bag, telling me to look inside. I did. It was just full of tenners. Tenners and tenners and tenners and tenners.

  Where am I gonna get money like that now, eh? he was going. He never laid a finger on me. He just gave me pocket money. Thirty quid each time. Next week he was gonna let me stay overnight. And now . . .

  He was gonna LET you?

  It was my money. My escape money. With this money I was gonna get on a train and fuck off to London and see our Linda and live there and . . .

  He burst out crying.

  He was saving it. All the money he got, the handouts from Bishop. They’d been leading to something, but he was saving it to go and see his Linda.

  You’ve got loads there, Guinness.

  I know, but I wanted more. What if our Linda doesn’t wanna know me? What if I’ve got to fend for meself?

  And again he broke down in sobs. He looked so pathetic. Waterfalls cascading from his eyes.