Weirdo

by Cathi Unsworth

  “Or what?” Samantha’s glittering eyes ran up and down her mother with undisguised loathing. “What is it, are you jealous or something?” she said. “That I’ve got a boyfriend who’s a hundred times more intelligent and better looking than yours? A boyfriend,” her mouth curled upwards, “who’s actually older than me? What a novelty that is, eh?”

  Amanda heard the slap before she realised what she was doing. She looked down at her tingling palm and then across at Samantha, crouching down in the corner with her hand to the side of her face, looking up at her in outrage, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. It seemed as though she was watching her in slow motion, from the end of an extraordinarily long tunnel.

  “You bitch,” Samantha’s voice was an incredulous whisper. She scrabbled to her feet, putting her hand on the door handle. “You’ll pay for this!”

  She pulled the door open and was out of it, slamming it behind her before Amanda could gather her senses, before the red mist had cleared from her eyes.

  * * *

  Alex slumped across the bench at the top of the town square, watching a constant stream of people come and go. Glancing over his shoulder for the umpteenth time, he saw the hand of the clock in the shop behind him had only moved forwards a minute, even though it felt like ten. He pushed his hands further down into his pockets, dug his chin deeper into his collar. He was cold from sitting out here so long, and starting to feel foolish. There had been plenty of time for Debbie’s words to revolve around his head, like the music of a carousel.

  “She used Corrine to help her go after you. Corrine told her who you were and where you went drinking, she even did her hair for her that night.

  “Have you got any idea what Samantha Lamb looked like five minutes before she met you? She had a blonde wedge and pink legwarmers!”

  Not to mention the earful his mother had given him, wanting to know what he had done to upset Debbie. The hardness that came into her eyes when she asked him what he was intending on doing with himself today, as if she couldn’t guess …

  “She’s sending you mad, trying to draw the perfect picture of her. You’ll never do it, and d’you know why? The person you think she is don’t really exist!”

  Alex launched himself up off the bench. He couldn’t stay here any more, it had been half an hour and he couldn’t tolerate the row going on in his head. Turning abruptly on his heel, he barrelled straight into someone going the other way.

  “Ooof!” the impact knocked the wind out of Alex’s chest. Looking up, he realised with shock that he’d walked straight into Julian.

  “Sorry, mate,” he put his hand out to touch the other boy’s shoulder.

  “S’all right,” startled by the impact, Julian’s first action had been to make sure his record was still in one piece. “Nothing broken,” he said, his eyes travelling upwards from his bag to Alex’s worried frown. Then all the friendliness drained out of Julian’s face.

  “Not with Samantha today?” he asked.

  Alex cringed inside. “No,” he said, looking over his shoulder, in case this would be the exact moment she chose to make her appearance, “I mean, I …”

  “I saw her when I was buying this,” Julian swung his bag, “Soft Cell record. She called me a poof.” He raised his eyebrows challengingly.

  “No,” Alex felt the colour pouring into his face. “She din’t, did she? I don’t know why she said that, shit, I hope you don’t think that’s what I think, Julian …”

  Julian raised a palm to stop Alex’s burbling. “I always thought you were all right,” he said. “But she in’t. I don’t know what you’re doing with her. That girl’s mental.”

  He shook his head and strode away down the centre of the marketplace. Alex stared after him, his mouth hanging open. Then he turned around, eyes rapidly scanning for a girl who still wasn’t there. The clock now read four-thirty.

  He hurried away towards the bus stop.

  * * *

  Rivett pulled the car up round the back, out of the bright lights, under the dark stairwells of fire escapes, laundry hatches and service doors, the rows of industrial-sized bins. So different from the elegant façade, that offered a smiling, vanilla-painted face towards the tourists, the service end of the Albert Hotel resembled a dark fortress, where slitty, frosted windows exuded the minimum of light and air vents belched hot blasts of second-hand oxygen into an atmosphere already heady with the aroma of rotting four-star meals.

  Gina peered up at it through the windscreen the way a condemned man might take in his first view of the scaffold. Things had not been going well for her since she returned from the cop shop. She had found a sentinel waiting for her on her doorstep, a grizzled man in his early forties who went by the name of Wolf. Wolf was an unpleasant enough character to be around at the best of times, a man with flat grey eyes and a cluster of hairy moles sprouting up from his rubbled countenance that lent him an appearance more warthog than lupine. He was older than the rest of them and very suspicious.

  Wolf made it clear that her card was marked. He followed her into her hallway, put a hand between her legs and forced her up against the wall, his fingers knowing exactly what to do to push the breath out of her, render her silent with fear.

  “You turned Rat stupid with this, didn’t you, bitch?” he hissed, his facial hair like wire wool rubbing against her face, the smell of stale sweat, engine oil and decades’ worth of patchouli curdling in her nostrils. Dead fish eyes boring into her, letting her know there would be no reasoning, no compromises with him.

  “Well, I in’t so stupid. Things are gonna change round here … now I’m in charge.”

  Gina stifled the scream welling up in her throat, a strangled, bird-like gasp escaping instead. When he finally released his grip, her legs buckled and she slid down the wall, while he went upstairs and helped himself to her and Rat’s entire stash.

  “I get word of any other business going on in our patch while Rat’s away,” were his parting words, “I’ll cut that treacherous cunt right out.” A smile snaked across his lips, a dull gleam coming into his cadaverous eyes. “Give me something to look forward to.”

  A smile that was still dancing in front of Gina’s eyes as she watched a fire door open.

  “Off you go, Gina,” said Rivett. “Your public awaits.”

  “Len,” she said, putting her hand on his lap. “I know who’s taking over, I know where you can find him. He’s got everything,” as hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep the tone of her voice from rising, “that belongs to us.”

  Rivett lolled back on his headrest, an amused expression on his face.

  “Go on, my little Venus flytrap,” he said.

  “I’ll tell you,” he saw himself reflected back in her black eyes as she spoke, her fingertips kneading into his flesh, “if you take me away from this.”

  “Awww,” he crooned. “And where should we go to, my sweet? Somewhere where no one can find you?” He put his hand on top of hers and lifted it firmly up and off him, dropping it back on her lap. “Still expecting me to sort out all your problems after all we’ve just been through? Two-timing me with a Dutchman? Really, Gina,” his expression hardened along with his voice, “it’s time you were a big girl.”

  He leant across and undid her seatbelt. “Now,” he pointed, “don’t keep the man waiting.” Gina saw a figure standing there, silhouetted against the light.

  “I keep telling you, it was Rat’s idea, not mine,” she said. “Now you’ve got him banged up, do you really think his mates are going to share anything with you?”

  “And do you really think,” Rivett’s voice was a whisper, his eyes dark, glittering, fathomless. “That I’ll let them? In my town …”

  Gina’s mouth fell open, but there were no words left to say.

  “Right,” Rivett nodded, putting on his genial voice again. “You just concentrate on paying off your debt and let me worry about everything else.”

  With a loud click, the passenger door opened. Gina’s
head spun round and took in a tall, thin man with sandy hair and a pointed face, a moustache on his upper lip, a gold belcher around his neck above a pastel Argyle sweater.

  “She’s all yours, Eric,” said Rivett, turning his key in the ignition.

  “Much obliged, Len,” the other man said, hauling Gina out of her seat.

  “Have fun.” Rivett chuckled as the door slammed. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

  * * *

  Wayne turned the car north onto Marine Parade, slouching towards Edna’s. He’d spent nearly four hours looking for Samantha, and having exhausted all the pubs in town, then the ones along the front, the ’musies and the skating rink, he was just about out of ideas.

  He pulled in just before he reached the Hoyles’. This had been his idea, and the main reason he’d insisted on coming out was to stop Amanda from bringing her parents into it. She had been in such a state when he got home that she’d actually been considering it, convinced that one of her dad’s policemen friends could find Sam and bring her home.

  Wayne had managed to make her see how bad an idea this was. He’d been sure that his CB buddies could help him track the miscreant down. But, normally so full of opinions and advice, tonight they had all gone strangely quiet.

  He decided to give it one more go. Anything to put off talking to Edna.

  “Breaker break, this is the Deuce,” he said into his mic. “Do I have any takers?”

  The unit crackled white noise. Wayne cursed under his breath.

  “Deuce to Bald Eagle, do you copy?” he tried again.

  Bald Eagle was a minicab driver. His real name was Reg Styles, but when he went on the air, he started to believe he really was an American trucker out there in the night. Wayne knew he was out working, Saturday being the cabbie’s busiest night of the week. Most of the others were only talking from their bedrooms.

  The road ahead of Wayne looked empty. He tilted his rear-view mirror so he could see the length of it behind him too. One more time, he told himself.

  “Bald Eagle, this is the Deuce. You got your ears on, good buddy?”

  “Ten-four, Deuce, the Eagle has landed,” with a hiss of feedback, the taxi driver’s voice finally came through. “In’t you found her yet?”

  “Negatory,” said Wayne. “What’s your twenty, Eagle?”

  “Just dropped a fare at Garveston, got wiped out there for a while. Coming back over the bridge now. There’s a lot of kids about tonight, but I in’t seen one that look like yours.”

  “Well,” said Wayne, “can you keep eyeballin’ for me?”

  “I’m getting another bleed out here,” the Eagle’s voice was lost in a violent spurt of feedback. “Catch you on the flip-flop, good buddy.”

  “Ten-ten,” said Wayne, thinking, Yeah, right. Just like everyone else round here, you ain’t interested unless there’s something in it for you.

  He replaced his mic on its handset, crawled a little further down the road until he was two doors away from Edna’s. He could see a light on beyond the front-room curtains, but thankfully, no sign of Eric’s car in the drive. The lesser of two evils, he thought, steeling himself to face his future mother-in-law.

  Despite all recent family rapprochements, there was something in Edna’s manner that put Wayne’s teeth on edge. That sense of hysteria bubbling under those chintzy dresses and that helmet of hair was much too close to the surface. Amanda had never fully revealed to him the root of the animosity between her parents, her daughter and herself, it was a secret locked so deep inside her he knew it might be a matter of decades before she ever confided in him, if at all. But it only took a few moments in their company for him to make a good guess.

  Wayne undid his seatbelt, taking a last look in the rear-view mirror.

  Saw a pair of legs walking along the road towards him.

  Wayne slid down in his seat, tilting the mirror as he did so, double-checking that his eyes were not deceiving him. No, it was Samantha, with different hair again, but that strange, blank expression on her face that Wayne had seen come over her many times before. When she wasn’t scheming, screaming or pretending to come on to him. Amanda was right. In the end, she would always go running back to Nana.

  But not if he got her first.

  He opened the car door. For a second, she stared straight past him, the noise not even registering. Until he caught her arm.

  “What?” she looked down at his hand, as if witnessing alien phenomena. Then her brain clicked back in and she sprang to life. “Get off me!” she shouted.

  But Wayne’s arms were strong from long hours of manual work. “No,” he said, “you’re not running back to Nana this time. You’re coming home with me.”

  Keeping one hand firmly clamped to her arm, he tipped his driver’s seat forward and pushed her into the back, paying no attention to her squeals and kicks of outrage.

  “You’ve got your mother worried sick,” he said, starting the engine, pulling away from the kerb. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself.”

  “She is sick,” Samantha spat, back to her usual insouciant self. “But that’s got nothing to do with me.”

  Wayne couldn’t stop himself. He knew Amanda wanted to tell her daughter their news herself, but at this moment, all he could think of was getting back at the little bitch for the continual aggravation she delighted in putting him through, to say something that might shut her cruel mouth up once and for all.

  “She’s not sick,” he shouted, doing a wild U-turn across the road. “She’s pregnant.”

  23

  Playground Twist

  March 2003

  “Well, Mr Ward, I appear to have found your man for you.”

  Mrs Nora Linguard was a small, smart woman, with iron-grey hair scooped up into a bun, a pleated navy skirt and a cream jumper, with a string of pearls around her neck. The Welfare Assistant of Ernemouth High for the past thirty years regarded Sean through bottle thick, horn-rimmed spectacles, a smile dimpling her round cheeks.

  They sat opposite each other, across a desk in her office. Two thick ledgers sat open in front of her. She handed the top one across.

  “This is the Admissions Register,” Mrs Linguard said, pointing to a name, written in blue ink, halfway down a page. “John Brendan Kenyon, date of birth 4.2.68, was admitted as a pupil here on the 8th of September 1981, transferred to us from Greenacres Secondary Modern. This was the year that the school went comprehensive.”

  Sean’s eyes lingered on the page, the proof of Noj’s existence in this time and this place.

  “And,” she flicked the pages forward to where she had marked another entry with a Post-it note. “He left us on July 27th 1984. That’s the good news.”

  “And what’s the bad?” Sean drew his gaze up to level with hers.

  “Well, if there had been a problem with this child, any special needs or social service intervention, I would have remembered his name, it would have brought a face to mind. Files are only retained for three years after a pupil has left the school, so his are long gone. Instead, I consulted this,” she tapped the thick volume in front of her. “The School’s Log Book, kept by the Head. This is where he records all the events of significance that occur over each term.”

  She looked at him meaningfully, her blue eyes like glass beads behind her lenses.

  “And of course, as you know,” she said, “June 1984 was a particularly eventful period in the history of the school. If your Mr Kenyon was mixed up in the Woodrow case, then I’m sure Mr Hill would have made a note of it. But I’ve searched the Log backwards from there up to the day he was admitted, and I can’t find a single mention of the boy.”

  “Mr Hill was the headmaster in those days?” Sean asked.

  “That’s right.” She nodded. “A war veteran, you know, fought at Dunkirk. He served the school for nearly as long as I have now, saw it all through from grammar to comprehensive and then,” she grimaced, her gaze drifting through Sean, “during those terrible days. I know I won’t
see his like again.”

  “It must have been hard for you,” said Sean, “having to deal with the fallout from that.”

  “Oh, it was,” said Mrs Linguard. “We had them all around the gates for weeks, the papers, the television, the radio. Digging around for stories, trying to apportion blame. Stirring up the mob.” She rolled her eyes. “You know how people talk. Especially when they’ve suddenly got an audience egging them on.”

  “I’m starting to get an idea,” said Sean. “Some of the pupils were hounded out, I believe?”

  “Yes,” she nodded, “but your Mr Kenyon wasn’t one of them.” Her brow creased. “Look, I know it may not be sensible to rely on memory, but those events are fairly etched on my mind and I don’t recall him having anything to do with it. To be perfectly honest with you, I simply don’t recall this child at all.”

  “You’d never have even noticed me in those days,” Noj’s voice in Sean’s mind. “Which is just the way I wanted it.”

  Sean motioned his head towards the Log Book. “Well,” he said, “it has been nearly twenty years. Do you mind if I ask, what are your strongest memories of the time?”

  Mrs Linguard paused, cupping her hands together under her chin. “The fateful form 5P,” she said. “The first person who had to leave because of what that girl did wasn’t any of her classmates. It was her teacher.”

  “Really?” said Sean. “I haven’t heard this before.”

  “Philip Pearson,” said Mrs Linguard, “was Corrine Woodrow’s form teacher for a period, before she got moved into the special class. He was a chemistry don, a quite brilliant mind. And a strong disciplinarian, one of the best. But he also had a knack for bringing some of the worst pupils out of themselves, the ones that were more sinned against than sinning, so to speak. That’s what he tried to do with the Woodrow girl. And that’s what got him in trouble.”

  As she spoke, shadows passed across her features, deepening the lines on her forehead, tugging down the corners of her mouth. “He made the mistake of talking to someone from one of the papers. Someone he thought he could trust. He imagined he was going to be able to calm the situation down by explaining some of the background. But of course they just twisted his words out of context, you know how they do.”