Sweet Sorrow

by David Nicholls

  ‘I want to speak to my solicitor.’

  The policewoman laughed. Were they allowed to do that, laugh at us? ‘Do you have a solicitor?’

  ‘No!’ I said, indignant.

  ‘Then how about we call your parents?’

  ‘No. No, you can’t do that.’

  ‘I’m sorry, son, you’re sixteen and you’re in shock. We’ve got to let them know.’

  ‘You can’t. They don’t live together.’

  ‘Well – who do you live with?’

  ‘My dad.’

  ‘And his number?’

  ‘We don’t have a phone.’ Exhausted, the policewoman let her head drop forward. ‘We can’t afford it,’ I said, halving the lie: we did have a phone and we couldn’t afford it.

  ‘Well, can your mother afford a phone?’

  ‘Yes, she has a mobile phone.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘I don’t know her number.’ This much at least was true. The scrap of paper was kept in my bedroom and I’d not used it often enough to memorise it.

  ‘Come on, son, don’t waste my time. Her address?’

  ‘I know what the house looks like.’

  ‘The landline then.’

  ‘She lives with this guy; I never call her, she calls me.’

  ‘Your address then. We’ll send someone round to your dad’s.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Mike. That man there. He’s got my mum’s number.’ The policewoman stood. ‘I need to make my phone call now.’ I had it in my head that I would only be able to make one.

  ‘’Course. Just don’t run away this time, okay?’

  It was getting late, the corridor filling with town-centre casualties, and I was no longer the only boy wearing clothes sticky with blood. I found the phone booth and, to my relief, local phone directories. I flicked through the grubby pages and found the number. In the scratched aluminium of the booth I could just about make out my reflection, face pale, hair gelled with sweat and the blood from my hands. I dialled the number, and imagined the phone ringing in a long, wood-panelled corridor. I cleared my throat, ready for my nice-young-man voice. The phone rang and rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Polly?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Polly, it’s Charlie here. From the play?’

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Yes, Benvolio. From the play?’

  ‘Yes, I know who you are.’

  ‘So – are you and Bernard in bed?’

  She sighed. I seemed to be making everyone sigh. ‘Charlie, it’s very late. Is something wrong?’

  ‘No. No, I just need to tell you something. To ask you a favour really, to pass on a message.’

  ‘Can it wait until Monday?’

  ‘No, no it needs to be now. The thing is, you know the little cottage at the start of your driveway? The gatehouse? The thing is – I’m sorry – but there’s someone waiting for me there.’

  Forceps

  I wish the nurse had not shown me the forceps. Each cube of crystal made a clear tinkling sound as she dropped it in the kidney dish, and she seemed to be enjoying herself, digging and probing, humming and muttering. In a Western or an action movie, I’d have been given a stick to bite on as she doused the wounds with rough liquor. Here, I simply mashed my face into the paper towel that covered the trolley. ‘Ooh, nice big one,’ said the nurse, and there was the rattle in the dish.

  Turning my head I saw my mother standing in a gap in the screens. She was wearing her best black party dress, her make-up smudged, her face flickering between fury and concern and fury again, and I had the feeling, not for the first time, that I’d taken her away from something. She looked extremely beautiful to me, and painfully disappointed, and I was grateful to have the sting of the antiseptic spray as an excuse for my red eyes.

  In the car, the discomfort meant that I was obliged to lean forward in the seat as if I might at any time open the door and pitch myself out onto the dual carriageway. This seemed a viable option. Mum, who had been obliged to leave her own dinner party – she had dinner parties now – had abandoned concern and settled comfortably into fury.

  ‘Garage glasses! Honestly, who the hell steals garage glasses?’

  ‘I wasn’t stealing them.’

  ‘When they steal at the golf club, they steal bottles of vodka and gin. They steal joints of meat! They steal money.’

  ‘I wasn’t stealing the glasses, I was getting rid of the glasses.’

  ‘Yes, Mike told me, so you could steal money!’

  ‘I wasn’t stealing money.’

  ‘So what was it then?’

  ‘It was just … scratch cards.’

  ‘Which you then exchanged for …’

  ‘Money, but the money didn’t exist unless someone—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Scratched the card.’

  ‘Ah, so it was only stealing conceptually. Maybe they’ll send you to some sort of abstract, conceptual magistrate, maybe there’ll be some sort of theoretical, fourth-dimensional sentencing procedure. “Yes, I’ve got a criminal record, but it’s in a parallel universe.”’

  ‘I’m not getting a criminal record. Am I?’

  ‘If you’re found guilty of a crime, yes! You were stealing prize money! It’s the same as taking it out of Mike’s pocket!’

  ‘No it’s not.’

  ‘In the eyes of the law!’

  ‘What do you know about the eyes of the law?’

  ‘I know that you’re in trouble, Charlie, I know that.’ She indicated left, turned off the main road. ‘Mike said you had an accomplice.’

  ‘When did he say that?’

  ‘In the hospital, he told me there was someone else coming in and taking the money, the same face every shift. He had it on video. Who was that? Was it one of your friends? Was it Harper?’ I said nothing. ‘Honestly, Charlie, what happened? We didn’t raise a thief.’

  ‘Except clearly you did. So.’

  This time she said nothing, and we drove in silence as I bunched the stiff, stinking T-shirt in my hands. As a further indignity, my clothes had been too shredded and gory to wear so Mum had brought her lover’s oldest tracksuit, a baggy grey thing like prison garb. We drove into The Library estate. ‘I’m sorry you had to leave your party.’

  ‘Yes, well. They were playing Trivial Pursuit so I’d almost rather be in casualty. Almost.’

  ‘And how is it going with … Jonathan?’

  Mum glanced at me with narrowed eyes, then back to the road. ‘It is what it is, Charlie. It is what it is.’

  We turned into Thackeray Crescent and parked a short distance away so that he wouldn’t hear the car, but I could see the house lights on. ‘Does Dad know?’

  Mum exhaled. ‘So. Apparently some girl phoned asking for you, and she was worried and so he was worried because apparently you said you were staying at Harper’s.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘So he phoned me – that’s how desperate he was – and I told him.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Yes, because he’s your father.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Well, what was I meant to say?’

  ‘You could have just said I’d fallen off my bike.’

  ‘And landed on a nearby pile of champagne glasses? Come on, Charlie, he’s bound to find out.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘D’you want me to come in with you?’

  ‘Yeah, because that will make it better.’

  ‘No. Maybe not.’

  ‘I should go,’ I said, but neither of us moved.

  ‘Who’s the girl? New girlfriend?’ Until then, she’d only ever said the word with a mocking leer, but not this time.

  ‘I think so. She was. Before I stood her up.’

  ‘Is she in the play?’ I looked at Mum. She knew. ‘Dad told me that you’d fallen in love with Shakespeare.’

  ‘She’s in the play.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Juliet.’
>
  ‘No, in real life, silly.’

  ‘Why do you need to know her name?’

  ‘It’s not an unusual question …’

  ‘It’s Fran. You saw her at the pub.’

  ‘Fran.’ She weighed the name. ‘Hm. And is she any good?’

  ‘In real life or—?’

  ‘As Juliet.’

  ‘She’s amazing.’

  ‘Are you good?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do I have to come and see it?’

  I laughed to myself. ‘That’s what Dad said.’

  ‘No, I’d like to.’

  ‘No, you’re excused.’ And now it really was time to go.

  ‘Call me. If you need to, if he takes it badly.’

  ‘No, I think he’ll be pleased.’

  ‘And call me Monday morning too.’ Monday was the exam results day.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Well, because I’m your mother. Maybe you’ll get a surpri—’

  ‘I know I’ve failed.’

  She closed her eyes and exhaled. ‘Okay, let’s not have this argument as well. Let’s stick to one row at a time, shall we?’

  I opened the car door and hesitated as if we were still speeding along the dual carriageway. Mum smiled stiffly and I twisted out of the car, wincing as the dressings tugged at the broken skin, and without turning around walked towards home.

  Shame

  He was standing with his back to me, one arm bracing the stereo shelf as if holding it up. Perhaps it was holding him up. Big band music played, a great clattering blare like something falling downstairs. Buddy Rich, I thought, from the sound of the drums. A cigarette was pinched between his knuckles, the remains of others piled high in the ashtray next to the whisky bottle. I could see, as he raised the glass to his mouth, that his hand was shaking.

  ‘Hi, Dad.’

  He swayed as he twisted to glance over his shoulder. ‘How much?’

  I sighed. ‘You mean how much did I steal?’ The best defence, I’d decided, was attack. If he thought I was a thug, I’d be a thug.

  ‘Yes, how much money did you steal?’

  ‘Not “Hey Charlie, how are you feeling? How’s your back?”’

  He turned quickly, stumbling, a moment of vertigo. ‘Mum told me you were fine, don’t give me that.’

  ‘Try “I was worried about you, Charlie.”’

  ‘Oh, you think I don’t worry about you?’

  ‘Can we turn the music down?’

  ‘You think I don’t lie awake and worry about you?’

  ‘Well maybe if you didn’t spend the whole day sleeping on the sofa, you’d sleep better at night.’

  ‘You don’t know how I spend my days, you’re never here.’

  ‘Why, what am I missing?’

  ‘Don’t change the subject. How much did you—?’

  ‘I don’t know. Couple of hundred.’

  ‘But you had a job!’

  ‘Yeah, three quid an hour.’

  ‘Well, if you need more money you work more hours, that’s what work is!’

  I laughed, and saw my father bridle.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I just don’t know if you’re in a position to lecture me about my work ethic. Or money.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?’

  ‘You know why I can’t work!’

  ‘Do I? Because you never actually talk about it.’

  ‘What’s there to talk about? What do you think I’m going to tell you?’

  ‘You’ve got pills by your bed! You think I can’t read the labels?’

  He looked dazed for a moment. ‘That is under control, that’s not for you to worry about!’

  ‘But I do worry! That’s all I do! How could I not – Christ, I fucking hate it here!’

  ‘Charlie!’ He recoiled – I saw it – as if from a blow, and I kept going. ‘And I fucking hate living with you! Every day, it’s like, “Is he going to shout at me? Is he going to have another go?”’

  Another blow. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘I come home and think it’s five in the afternoon, is he going to be pissed? Has he been crying? Has he left the house today? You’re miserable, Dad, and you’re miserable to be with.’

  ‘Charlie, I do know, I am aware.’

  ‘And I know there are reasons, but you don’t talk about them, you don’t talk about anything!’

  ‘Why are we even on this now? It’s you who’s been stealing money! Why?’

  ‘Because we haven’t got any!’

  Finally the music ended. Shaking, confused, Dad felt behind him for the sofa and let himself stumble backwards and fold over as if punched in the gut, and for an awful moment I had a terrible, spiteful sense of power. This is me, I thought, I’ve done this, and I don’t care.

  There was no sound except the soft click of the needle.

  ‘Why didn’t you stay together?’

  ‘It wasn’t my choice.’

  ‘But you could have waited. Kept a lid on things, for a year or two, even a couple of months. Other parents do it, for the sake of the kids or whatever, just ’til we were older.’

  ‘I told you, it wasn’t my choice!’

  ‘But you drove her away! If you could have just … held it together!’

  Time passed. Click, click. ‘Do I embarrass you?’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you ashamed of me?’

  Click, click, click. ‘I don’t know. Are you ashamed of me?’

  ‘Of course not. You’re my son, I love you.’

  ‘But are you proud of me, Dad? Actively, genuinely proud?’

  He didn’t speak. Instead he looked to the floor, frowning, then spoke quite clearly.

  ‘No. Not right now. No.’

  Fête

  I left the house, red-eyed and shaking, not even closing the door behind me. As far as I knew, my bicycle was still in the back of Mr Howard’s car, its front wheel buckled, another forfeit for my crime, and so I walked Forster, Kipling, Woolf, Gaskell and Mary Shelley. I walked round the town centre, where the late-night drinkers still staggered towards the Golden Calf or Taj Mahal, or slumped on the steps of the market cross. I knew that I could not return home that night, but where to go? Harper’s? Helen’s? They’d all want to know the story and I didn’t have the words yet, so instead I found myself walking through the silent residential streets, heading out to the ring road, crossing the motorway bridge, alongside the wheat-field, right at the bus shelter and up the wooded lane.

  I arrived at the gatehouse a little after three. It had been vacated in a hurry, the sofa-bed still unfolded but stripped of bedding, and I imagined Fran, embarrassed and angry, sitting in the passenger seat, sheets bundled up against her chest, while Bernard drove her home, pyjamas on beneath his hunting jacket. In the glare of the overhead bulb I noticed that the nightlights had been removed too, leaving a series of charred black dots around the edge of the room like holes punched in the wooden floor. Something else to be paid for.

  Naively, I’d hoped that Polly would respond to our adventure like the Nurse, shifting her bosom and chuckling indulgently at the plan, pleased and proud to have played a part in the union of young lovers. But on the phone she had been straightforwardly furious, a voice I’d not heard from her before. How dare we abuse her hospitality in this way? We were trespassers, no, burglars! She’d expected more of me – it seemed that everyone expected more of me, and I wondered what I’d done to raise their expectations.

  Four thirty in the morning now. I lay carefully on the sofa-bed, face down to protect the wounds. With no bedding, there was only the filthy rug for warmth, and I pulled this up to my chin, pinched my eyes shut and surrendered to exhaustion and Romeo-like self-pity; ah me, such bliss and misery, both found in this same bed!

  And such dread the next day. I would need to see Fran. What would be worse, the pain of seeing her or the agony of delay? In the night, stiffness h
ad set in, some deep muscular strain from my passage over the handlebars, and I groaned as I stored the sofa-bed away. I’d not brushed my teeth in twenty-four hours, still wore my mum’s lover’s awful tracksuit, required a speech for Fran but had none prepared. I drank the rusty water from the kitchen tap and swilled it in my mouth, rubbed my teeth and gums with my finger and set out.

  Summer had returned, the air heavy and still like something to swim through, and the village, when I reached it, had turned into a small metropolis, cars lining the lane to the church where the village fête was underway, bunting overhead, a calliope playing, squeals from the bouncy castle. There was even a jolly vicar shaking hands, and no one would have been the least surprised if Spitfires had flown overhead. It was an English idyll, smelling of petrol mowers and freshly cut grass, and as I hurried on to Fran’s house, I was more aware than ever of the heavy grey velour of my borrowed tracksuit, a sweaty, shifty convict on the run, ducking to peer through the privet of Fran’s front hedge. The bedroom window was open, the bedroom that I’d not yet seen and probably never would. Perhaps she was lying on the bed, thinking about me.

  Carefully, I lifted the latch on the gate and, looking both ways, stepped into the front garden. Transported to fifties America, I had an absolute compulsion to throw small stones at the window. From the rose bed, I selected a marble-sized ball of soil and tossed it at the window, the local bad boy. Another, and one more—

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Fisher!’

  Wholesome and healthy, Fran’s mother wore gardening gloves and a green apron, a small pruning saw in one hand, branches in another.

  ‘Hello, who are you?’

  ‘I’m Charlie. I’m a friend of Fran’s.’

  ‘Okay. Hello, Charlie.’ She blew at her hair, which was sticking to her forehead with sweat. ‘You can knock on the door, you know. It’s pretty much the same thing.’

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’