by Cj Flood
‘You’re right.’ He held his hands out and half laughed. ‘I don’t. And I’m not sorry, to be honest with you.’
He took another step backwards, closer to the camp.
I stayed where I was, on the road.
‘I’m sorry we’re not on the same side, Iris,’ he said, without lowering his voice, and then he turned, and I listened to his flip-flops crush the long grass as he walked to his caravan.
In the trees, a pair of owls called to each other, finishing off each other’s sentences so perfectly it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.
I watched Trick go, and I wanted so much to call after him, but I had no idea what to say.
Twenty-two
The smell of garlic and onions filled the house. I sat in the kitchen listening to the radio while Dad chopped mushrooms and peppers, and opened tins of sweetcorn and pineapple. The mince sizzled away. Dad had invented his own version of lasagne. It was amazing.
Every now and then, he’d bang a utensil down and exclaim something.
‘That mad little bastard! I told Sam to stay away!’
First thing this morning, WPC Baker had rung. Punky, Sam, Dean and Leanne had been seen running out of our road the night the shed was broken into. Punky had been caught smashing a fence with a stretch of chain the night after. When I’d got up this morning, Dad had been hiding all of Sam’s trainers.
‘He won’t dare go out without shoes,’ he’d told me, taking a black bin liner of them out to the pick-up. ‘Not brave enough. That’s his problem. Was as a littl’un. Used to terrify your mum. She’d find him just about to step out of a first-floor window, or winded in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. The whole thirteen he used to jump. Absolutely fearless.’
His expression had changed then, and he’d remembered me.
‘I don’t know what to do with him, Iris. I don’t.’
All day my heart had felt like it was being pulled down by something, maybe by my large intestine. Like they’d been dancing together in the night and gotten all tangled up. Everything was a mess. Everything had always been a mess – but I was suddenly aware of it. Sam and his friends had broken into the tool shed. They’d threatened Trick.
It was still light outside, just, and air blew in through the open windows and door. It smelled sweet, like drying hay and manure and mown lawns, and I tried to imagine we were just a regular family preparing for dinner. I tried to remember how that felt.
Any bad feeling left over between me and Dad disappeared under what Sam had done. We tried to joke around as if it were the old days, but my stomach churned the whole time. Dad was trying too hard, and my laugh sounded mental.
When the food was nearly ready, Dad told me to go and call my brother. I didn’t want to talk to him, but I did as I was told. I didn’t want to make things in the house any worse.
Sam hadn’t been down all day, and his room was quiet. Dad had told him to turn his music off for once. He didn’t answer when I shouted from the bottom of the stairs, and I was scared suddenly. He wasn’t even in there! He’d sneaked out. And Dad was slaving away over that stupid dinner. I walked up the stairs and called him again. Dad was going to go mad. I knocked on his bedroom door.
‘Sam?’
I pushed it open. His room was immaculate as ever, except for him, lying on his back on the floor with his headphones on, eyes closed, smoking.
I nudged him with my foot, and he looked at me.
‘Out,’ he monotoned, without lifting his head.
A small bottle of vodka sat next to him.
I turned the music down.
‘Tea’s ready,’ I said, as evenly as I could.
He reached for the vodka, but I was too quick.
‘No way,’ I said, shoving it in the back of my waistband. There were a few centimetres left in the bottle.
‘Iris . . .’ he said half-heartedly. He took his headphones off and stared at me miserably. My anger disappeared.
‘He’s making lasagne, Sam. It’s taken him ages. He’s done proper garlic bread and everything.’
‘Not hungry,’ he said, dropping his head onto the floor.
‘Wait,’ I said, even though he clearly wasn’t going anywhere. I ran downstairs, hid the vodka in my room and filled an old tea mug with water. I took it back upstairs and held it out to him.
‘Drink,’ I ordered, out of breath from running.
He didn’t move.
‘D’you want Dad to come up? Because he will. He’s gonna make you eat this lasagne.’
‘Jesus, Iris! Just shut up a minute! Close the door.’
I didn’t close the door until he’d taken a swig from the mug.
I sat on his bed. It smelled of feet and deodorant. The whole room did. Every now and then his curtains blew into the room with the breeze.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said, dipping his finger into the mug to catch something.
I couldn’t wait for his hair to grow back. I hated looking at his fuzzy head. He took a long drag on his fag. I watched the tobacco blaze.
‘I mean it. Don’t look at me like that.’
He was slipping into his hard act. He changed his style of smoking, doing it the special way, where he put the filter to one side of his mouth and cupped the tip with his palm. He narrowed his eyes as he inhaled.
‘You’re not very convincing, you know,’ I said.
He blew a perfect smoke ring.
‘New trick,’ I said. ‘Wow.’
‘Wow,’ he mocked.
His cigarette had burned down to the filter, and was starting to smell toxic. I snatched it from his mouth and threw it out the window. We stared at each other, angrily, and then he laughed. I joined in, I couldn’t help it.
I looked at the king on the wall behind him. His arm pointed left, out the window in the direction of where the travellers were, and I imagined Trick curled up on the sofa watching telly, or eating his tea round their tiny kitchen table.
‘D’you really think it’s shit?’ I asked.
I reached over to trace the outline of a perfectly drawn vine with my finger. The wall was smooth and cold.
‘I think you should finish it,’ I said.
Sam laughed in that way that isn’t a laugh.
‘What’s the point? No one cares if you can draw a perfect replica of a medieval castle.’
‘I do,’ I said, and the words floated between us, simple and true.
He sighed. ‘Please will you stop looking at me like that, Eye?’
‘I just don’t understand. Why can’t you just make friends with Benjy?’
‘Why don’t you make friends with Matty? Not seen her for a bit.’
‘That’s different. Matty got me in trouble. Dad’s only just started talking to me again.’
‘Yeah, well. Benjy’s a baby. He still thinks he’s gonna get scouted for England and he can’t even tackle!’
He’d sat up now, and crossed his legs, and I could smell the alcohol coming off him. I made him drink the last of the water.
‘He doesn’t know anything,’ Sam said.
‘He knows loads of stuff. What d’you mean?’
Sam shrugged. ‘Nothing’s ever happened to him. Punky’s dad got stabbed. Even his mum’s been to prison.’
‘That’s not a good thing.’
‘Yeah, but he knows things. He’s done stuff. Benjy’s so worried about being good all the time. He’s such a mummy’s boy.’
Sam took a new packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. He peeled the cellophane off and screwed it into a ball.
‘Where do you even get the money to smoke so much?’
‘Punky’s brother brings them over.’
‘Punky’s an idiot, Sam. You’re horrible when you’re with him. You were horrible to me. It was embarrassing.’
‘You shouldn’t have been out there. I told you, he’s not right.’
‘You don’t know him.’
‘Yeah, like you don’t know Punky. He’s not lik
e everyone thinks. He cares about stuff. He sticks up for me.’
He lit a new cigarette, took a big drag.
‘He does go too far though. I’m not saying he doesn’t go too far.’
‘Is that what happened with the tools, then? Punky went too far?’
‘Don’t be sarcastic.’
‘I’m not! I just want to know.’
Sam looked at me, as if he was checking whether I meant it or not. He tapped his ash into the vodka lid.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It was messed up. We were drinking Supers in the alley – Punky’d got served at the corner shop – and your mate walked past. He had his shoulders right back, and that hard face he does, and he recognised me, obviously, seeing as he’s living in my garden, but he acted like he didn’t.
‘He was wearing flip-flops and that red vest, God knows when he washes that thing, and Punky stepped out of his way, a big exaggerated step, as if he was showing him respect, and your mate just passed by without a blink.
‘Leanne called something after him, I can’t remember what, she always does it, and then she asked Punky why he hadn’t said owt. She started saying he’d been cheeked, and Punky got all wound up. He started going on about coming down here, and showing him what hard meant.’
Sam’s eyes were sparkling now, as he sat cross-legged in the middle of his bedroom floor. I didn’t know how much it was to do with the vodka and how much it was to do with the story, but I curled my feet under myself. I just wanted to understand.
‘That’s how we met, you know. Me and Punk. I got in a fight on the rec with someone he hated, and he came up to me after and shook my hand, and offered me a fag. He thought I did that kind of thing all the time, and I just went along with it. It’s like you just pretend and then it’s true,’ he said, and I remembered what it felt like to walk off the cricket pitch with Trick, those rockets exploding behind us.
‘So, anyway, we waited for it to get dark, finished our Supers. I hated it, but I walked fastest. I stayed at the front. They kept going on about it being my yard and how I shouldn’t stand for it and I just kept quiet and kept going.
‘Dean couldn’t believe the size of the gardens down our road, he thought we must be loaded, and Leanne was winding Punky up. I just ignored it all, thinking it’d be over in a minute, whatever was going to happen. The house was dark except for your room and I just wanted to go in and neck a pint of water and get into bed, but I couldn’t. So I stood there drinking my beer, and waiting.
‘Punky said Dad was a twat for leaving all his equipment down there, right next to them. He pretended to elbow the window at the back, and then Dean kicks the corrugated iron, hard as he can, and Punky just punches the window, knocks all the glass out with his elbow. He jumps in, and Dean follows him, and they’re just crashing around in there.’
His eyes were wide and he was talking fast. One of his feet juddered, up and down, on the spot.
‘Leanne couldn’t believe it – she grabbed my T-shirt and wouldn’t let go. Then they jumped out and started running, and we followed, and I really needed a drink of water because my mouth was so dry, but there was no way I could go home now.
‘We ran right past our house, up the road, and no one even noticed. I didn’t even think about Dad. Or Mum. It was like we were the only people in the world.’
He looked at me, out of breath from talking so much, and I was so involved that when Dad called up the stairs, I let out a little shout.
‘Two minutes!’ he said.
I held my throat. My pulse was throbbing there. Sam laughed at me, but I couldn’t join in.
‘Don’t think much of me these days, do you, Eye?’
I looked at him, sitting cross-legged, holding his mug of water as though it might warm his hands. His brown eyes were sad though his dimple was out. There were red creases on his cheeks from where he’d been lying face down all day.
‘I do,’ I said finally. ‘I just don’t think this is you.’
He held his arms out, arrogantly. ‘This is me, Eyeball, so you’d better get used to it.’
I shook my head. We stared at each other, and then his smile dropped.
‘Shit! What’m I gonna say? When he asks why I did it? What shall I say?’
I shrugged. ‘Tell him what happened.’
He breathed in, long and slow, through his nose. His eyes were flat and empty suddenly.
‘I’m pissed,’ he said, and he looked worried, then started laughing. ‘I’m chabongered!’
He stood, spun round in a circle. ‘Wheeeee!’
The kitchen door opened, and Dad shouted up the stairs. ‘On the table!’
Sam stopped spinning. ‘I’m dead. D-ea-d.’
‘You’re not. Just clean your teeth. And be quiet.’
Walking down the stairs, I looked over my shoulder to see how he was doing. He held on to the wooden banister with his left hand, and slid his right, palm open, across the walls. His mouth moved up and down slightly at the corners, into a smile and out again. He looked demented.
‘Teeth,’ I hissed, pointing to the bathroom. ‘You stink.’
‘I’m dead,’ he giggled as he brushed his teeth. Minty foam dribbled from his mouth.
I made him splash cold water on his face, again and again until he was angry with me, and then I left him wiping his neck with a towel, and I went into the kitchen.
Twenty-three
Dad wriggled a knife around the lasagne edges, scraping the welded bits of cheese and tomato from the dish so we got to eat the best bits.
‘How hungry are you?’ he asked.
‘Very,’ I said, though I felt too nervous to eat. He placed a thick stack of steaming pasta on my plate.
‘Sam okay?’ he asked.
‘Just coming,’ I said, using my fork to put the lasagne back into a neat tower. I didn’t look at him. ‘He’s in the bog.’
The radio was playing dance music to get people in the mood for Friday night, but the fast beat and horns were going right to my guts and making me feel scared. I got up and switched the station to local.
Dad sang along.
‘Oh how I want to break free . . .’ he sang. He saw me looking and closed his eyes as if he was lost in the music, and I smiled because he was trying.
He put two more stacked-high plates on the table, and took the garlic bread out the oven.
‘H-h-h-hot,’ he said, dropping it on the table with his bare hands.
‘Why don’t you just use an oven glove?’ I said, because it was our routine since he had set ours on fire by mistake – and then the door opened, and Sam walked in.
His eyes were red, but he looked sober enough. He wasn’t giggling or smirking at least. The neck of his T-shirt was damp and his clothes were creased from where he’d been lying on them all day. He stank of aftershave.
‘Eat it while it’s hot,’ Dad said, and his voice sounded weird and high-pitched. He sat down, and sliced at his food with his fork, eating it straight away even though it burned him. He pulled air into his mouth as he chewed.
I stabbed my pile all over with my knife so it would cool down. The pineapple was always scalding. Next to me, Sam cut a cross in the middle of his. He lifted the pasta flaps and blew.
Dad didn’t read for once. He stared out the window at the blue tits and robins and the goldcrest that landed on the bird table. Occasionally, he looked at Sam.
My appetite was fine, though I could feel the nerves as I ate, and I wondered what it would take for me to actually go off my food. I put some garlic bread on Sam’s plate, hoping it would soak up the vodka in his belly.
We ate without talking, and the radio chattered on, and it wasn’t long until everyone was finished.
‘So,’ Dad said.
He chucked the nubs of the garlic bread to Fiasco, one by one. Her jaws snapping shut around them was like a countdown.
‘We’re going to have to talk about this one, boy.’
Sam didn’t look up.
I piled
our plates and climbed around my brother to get out from the table. I scraped the leftovers we’d saved for Fiasco into her bowl.
‘Punky,’ Dad said, as if he were talking about an only very recently identified species of tree. ‘Tell me about him.’
I ran the taps, and frothed the water. If I made myself useful Dad might let me stay.
‘Sam?’
It was getting dark outside, and it was just enough so that the window worked as a kind of spyglass. In it I saw my brother raise his eyebrows.
‘What?’
‘Well? Where does he live? Who’s his mum and dad?’
‘Doesn’t really have any.’
‘No?’ Dad’s tone was strange. I didn’t recognise it.
‘Lives with his brother.’
‘Where?’
‘West End.’
‘And how old’s this brother?’
‘How do I know?’ Sam’s face screwed up. ‘Older.’
‘I can leave you to the coppers if you want, boy.’
Sam started talking in a machine gun monotone. ‘His brother’s older than him, twenty maybe. His dad died. He don’t see his mum.’
‘So? What happened then? With the shed.’
Sam looked at Dad for the first time, and his expression was earnest. ‘It was Punky’s idea.’
‘Well, obviously.’
‘I told him about the gypsies, and he wanted to see for himself.’ Sam’s eyes flicked over to me, and I rinsed the suds from a plate quietly as I could.
Dad rubbed his brow.
‘We thought if—’
‘We? I thought it was Punky’s idea?’
‘It was! I thought we were just messing about, but then Punky smashed the window and jumped through it and then we were legging it through the fields . . .’
He stopped himself, but it was too late. He’d sounded excited.
‘Sounds like fun! And you just stood there, did you? Through all this? Just let him get on with it?’
Sam dropped his head back onto his shoulders.
‘Get that look off your face,’ Dad barked, and he swiped at Sam’s chin with his fingers.
Sam sat up straight.
A minute passed while Dad tried to find out why Punky got chucked out of school, and if he had a criminal record, and what his brother did for a living, and Sam told him that he didn’t know and he wasn’t sure and he had no idea, and all the time I kept my hands busy in the sink, expecting every second to be told to clear off.
