by Neil Cross
He met Ashford in a horse-brassed local pub at 5 p.m. It was already filling with the after-office crowd—people who, for whatever reason, didn’t want to go home, people who would rather spend yet more time with the people they spent all day with, all week. The sight of them depressed him—the gelled hair and the Next suits, the cheap cufflinks and shoes.
One wall of the pub was lined with booths, in one of which he found Ashford. On the bench next to him were a series of bulging carrier bags, full of folders and papers. On top of that, he’d laid his grey tweed jacket, frayed at the cuffs. His shirtsleeves were rolled up. He rested his elbows on the table; his forearms were matted in coarse, black hair. He held a cigarette in one hand and a pint of lager in the other. A large whisky chaser waited in a chipped tumbler. For such a pale, slight man, his five o’clock shadow seemed very heavy.
He looked up, saw Sam and made a courteous stab at half-standing. Sam dismissed him; offered his hand and they shook across the lager-pooled table-top. Sam removed his overcoat and scarf, dumped them on the bench opposite Ashford.
‘What can I get you?’
Ashford looked at the whisky, the pint glass.
‘Stella,’ he said. ‘Please.’
‘And another of those?’
Sam nodded at the whisky.
Ashford stubbed out the cigarette on the edge of the over-spilling ashtray, and said, ‘Why not? Thank you.’
His forced jauntiness belied his exhausted appearance. He reminded Sam of a wearied, resting firefighter.
When Sam returned from the bar, the ashtray had been replaced. He never saw who replaced it. He and Ashford bade each other good cheer, which was sufficiently ironic to make Sam smile. He supped the head from his pint, then drank off half of it, slaking a thirst he didn’t know he had.
He inspected Ashford and tried to imagine his life. But there was nothing there, no clue. Sam couldn’t see family or the absence of family in his bruised-looking eyes; neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality; neither house nor flat. He looked at him through adult eyes, but saw only a teacher. He could imagine no habitat for him beyond the indurate 1950s architecture of Churchill Comprehensive.
He said, ‘I appreciate you seeing me like this.’
Ashford drained the final half-inch from his pint, set aside the glass and supped the cold head from the second.
‘You’re welcome.’ He slid a Benson & Hedges from its packet.
‘So,’ said Sam. ‘How bad is it?’
Ashford lit his cigarette, took two shallow puffs and exhaled. He tugged at the upper arch of a small, neat ear.
‘Look, first things first. This conversation is off the record.’ He indexed Sam’s worried expression and laughed. ‘By which I mean simply that it’s unofficial. I’m not going to deny speaking to you or anything like that. I’m not being Deep Throat here. But there are certain matters about which the school will shortly be in contact—’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as Jamie’s continuing poor attendance.’
Sam groaned. He closed his eyes.
Ashford tilted the whisky down his bristly gullet. He winced, perhaps somewhat theatrically, and set the glass resoundingly down on the table.
He said, ‘Mr Greene.’
‘Sam, please.’
‘Sam. Has Jamie ever mentioned a boy called Liam Hooper?’
‘He hasn’t mentioned anybody. He hasn’t spoken three words since Christmas. So, is this kid leading Jamie astray or what?’
Ashford made a sour face and washed it away with lager.
‘Not as such. Liam Hooper is what we used to call a problem child.’
‘In what sense?’
Ashford went quiet. He looked at the table with an expression Sam couldn’t read. There was something bitter in it, humour perhaps, or irony. And something like melancholy, the rehearsal of an old, private joke.
He looked into Sam’s eyes and said, ‘Do you know Stuart Ballard?’
‘I do. He’s a friend of Jamie’s.’
‘Well, Stuart’s also in my tutor group. Last week, he took me aside after registration to have a word with me. About Jamie and Liam Hooper.’
Sam’s hands and feet were cold.
‘What sort of word?’
Ashford scratched the side of his nose. ‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘You see? This is the bit I really shouldn’t be saying. I shouldn’t be discussing Liam Hooper with you, not least because Churchill runs a “no blame” policy, which by implication I’m breaking. So I can’t discuss Liam Hooper with you. But I think you should discuss Liam Hooper with Jamie.’
Ashford’s eyes flitted to the table. Sam saw that he’d torn a beer mat to shreds, each of which he was now laying in parallel lines across the table-top. The shreds were bloated and flaccid with spilt lager.
Sam said, ‘Is he being bullied?’
‘Look, I can’t say—not only because I shouldn’t, but because I genuinely don’t know, not for sure. All I know is that Stuart Ballard was sufficiently worried about Jamie to come to me, and Stuart’s not the kind of boy to do something like that lightly. Jamie’s a nice lad, you know. He’s not had an easy time of it.’
‘Isn’t there something you can do?’
‘There’s been no official complaint. My hands are tied.’
‘But you know about this boy.’
‘Everybody knows about this boy.’
Ashford took a long draught of lager.
In a different tone, Sam said, ‘What’s he doing? What’s he doing to Jamie?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Christ. Is he hurting him?’
He stood.
‘Christ,’ he said, and walked to the bar. It was crammed three-deep. He lowered his head and barged his way to the front. Nobody seemed inclined to try stopping him. He ordered three double whiskeys and carried them back to the booth. He sat down, pushed one whisky towards Ashford.
Gently, Ashford pushed it back to him.
‘Driving,’ he said.
It was clear that Ashford was already over the limit, but that hardly seemed worth worrying about. Sam downed a second whisky; lit another cigarette. He felt the smoke rush through him.
‘I don’t believe this. Tell me about this boy.’
It was like asking his wife to describe her lover. He waited while Ashford’s reticence drew Liam Hooper in monstrous proportions.
‘There’s not much I can tell you. What can I say? He’s a problem.’
‘Has he done this before?’
‘Done what?’
‘Bullying.’
‘There’s not much he hasn’t done.’
Ashford looked yearningly over the table. Clearly, he regretted refusing the whisky. But it was too late. Sam had downed the second and was already sipping at the third, a bit more steadily. His eyes looked hooded and dangerous and shone with a dull light.
Ashford lit another cigarette. He tapped its filter end on the edge of the blue ashtray.
Sam bit down on his lip.
‘How old is he, this boy?’
‘Year Nine. He’s fourteen, fifteen?’
‘Is he big?’
‘In what sense?’
‘Is he a big lad? Is he bigger than Jamie?’
‘That’s not really the point.’
‘But is he?’
‘Well. I suppose so.’
‘You suppose so.’
‘Yes.’
‘What is it about him? What does he do to cause so much misery?’
‘Look, I think you’d better speak to Jamie about that. Like I said, we’ll be sending out a letter shortly. You’ll have to come in to discuss Jamie’s future.’
‘Jamie’s future?’
‘He’s a persistent truant. The school has to take some action.’
<
br /> ‘But if he’s truanting because of this other kid …’
‘You or Jamie can make an official complaint.’
‘And what will that achieve?’
‘Off the record, very little in all probability. As I say, we have a no blame policy. We must be seen to be meeting our responsibilities to Liam’s special needs.’
‘And Jamie’s special needs don’t count.’
‘Jamie doesn’t have special needs.’
‘He needs an education!’
‘I’m talking about in the eyes of the school. Liam Hooper has special educational needs. Jamie Greene is a persistent truant. Jamie has access to various welfare services, including a counsellor with whom he can discuss his problems confidentially. But it’s up to Jamie to make use of those services. Until he does that, he’s simply a truant, whose behaviour has to be dealt with through the normal channels.’
‘But he’s truanting because of Liam Hooper!’
‘We don’t have official notification to that effect. While that’s the case, the school is powerless to take any remedial action. We have to meet our responsibilities to all our pupils, even when those responsibilities seem by their very nature to conflict. You’re a psychiatric nurse, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you of all people should understand what it’s like—’
‘What what’s like, specifically?’
‘Exercising a duty of care,’ said Ashford. ‘To those for whom you have nothing but contempt.’
Suddenly, Ashford’s life was revealed to Sam. It was empty. When he went home, when he stepped through the doors into the partial security of whatever aggregation of bricks and mortar he had exhausted himself to pay for, he ceased to exist. There was nobody there, nobody at home. There was nothing inside. And when he emerged in the morning, freshly shaved, his thinning, greying hair showing the wet striations left by a plastic comb, it was as if he had winked into existence. His shadow was thin and short at sunrise. He sat at the wheel of the black Polo with the dented driver’s wing, the vinyl seats that smelt of cigarettes, Glacier Mints and alcoholic sweat.
‘What do you teach?’ said Sam.
Ashford blew smoke through his nostrils. He tipped the pint down his neck.
‘English,’ he said.
‘Aha,’ said Sam, as if that explained everything.
Sam didn’t know he was drunk until he willingly engaged the minicab driver in conversation. The minicab driver had several children, who (by all accounts) were a source of unending joy and permanent security in old age. Sam leant forward in his seat.
‘What would you do if your boy was being bullied?’
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror. His reflected eyes were intermittently obscured by the beaded religious good luck charm that hung from the mirror.
‘I would take the bully,’ he said, shaking a clenched fist, ‘and I would make sure he leaves my son alone. You understand?’
Sam understood.
He sat back and watched the suburbs go by.
‘And if he don’t listen,’ said the driver, whipped into a fury, ‘I break his stupid neck. I do time, no problem.’
Sam extracted coins from his pocket and counted them into the driver’s palm.
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Cheers.’
He staggered from the taxi. He slammed the front door too hard, unintentionally. He cringed, as if it were 2 a.m. He looked at his watch and was surprised to see that it was only eight o’clock. He tiptoed into the sitting room.
Mel was watching TV. Heat magazine was open on her lap. There was a tub of Ben and Jerry’s and a half-bottle of wine on the floor at her ankle. As he entered, she muted the TV—EastEnders had just finished—and placed the remote control on the arm of the sofa.
‘Blimey,’ she said. ‘I can smell you from here. Where have you been?’
‘Parent-teacher meeting.’
‘In the pub?’
‘In the pub. Is the boy home?’
‘Upstairs.’
‘How is he?’
‘Who can tell?’
‘I think he’s being bullied.’
Mel picked up the remote and turned off the television.
‘Who by?’
‘Some kid.’
‘How badly?’
‘I don’t know how badly. Bad enough to turn him into—’
He gestured vaguely, upstairs.
‘—that.’
Mel sat rigid on the edge of the sofa and blinked.
She said, ‘Poor baby.’
‘He’s not a baby, Mel. Remember?’
Mel hesitated.
Sam met her eyes. He saw an unspoken warning.
‘What?’ he said.
‘You be careful how you treat him,’ said Mel. ‘Put yourself in his shoes. Imagine what it must be like for him.’
He clicked his tongue.
‘Christ, Mel,’ he said, ‘Give me a break.’
‘Talk to him in the morning.’
‘I want to talk to him now.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘don’t. Wait until morning. Give yourself time to think about what you’re going to say.’
‘I know what I’m going to say.’
She ran a hand through her messy frizz of curly hair.
‘What I’m trying to say is: don’t talk to him while you’re pissed.’
‘I’m not pissed.’
‘Oh, I think you are.’
He followed her eyes down and saw that his fly was unzipped. A trailing hank of blue shirt protruded through the gap like a magician’s handkerchief. He tucked it in and zipped himself up. Then he sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette.
It was still early, but he felt drained, already hungover. He offered Mel a bed in one of the spare rooms. She told him she’d think about it, so he said good night and left her in front of the TV. At the foot of the stairs a wave of giddiness passed over him and he clung to the banister.
He was too fatigued to clean his teeth or undress. He went to urinate, left dark wet splashes on his thighs, then fell on the clean bed, fully clothed.
In the morning, he could tell by the precise quality of the stillness that Mel had gone home. He’d always been sensitive to presences in houses. She must have walked back after watching the late-night film. He knew he’d find an empty wine bottle, an unwashed glass and a dirty ashtray ranked on the kitchen worktop, next to the sink.
He rolled on to his back. There was a gentle pressure behind his eyes, as if they were being squeezed like supermarket fruit. He ran a dry tongue over furred teeth and wished he’d eaten something before going to bed.
He was under the shower, letting the jet of water massage his shoulders and scalp, when Jamie walked in. He wore a pair of boxer shorts and one sock. He nodded unspecific acknowledgement to his father, then took a piss.
Reaching for the shampoo, Sam looked at him.
He said, ‘What’s that?’
‘What’s what?’
‘That mark. There—on your ribs.’
Jamie looked down.
‘Dunno.’
‘It looks like a bruise.’
Jamie stopped pissing. He went to the sink and wiped a porthole on the steamy mirror. He jutted out his tongue.
‘Well,’ said Sam. ‘Is it?’
‘Is it what?’
‘A bruise.’
Evidently in equal parts mystified and irritated, Jamie looked down again. He prodded the mark with his index finger.
‘Dunno.’
‘How did it get there?’
‘I don’t know.’
The boy squeezed Aquafresh on to his toothbrush and began to clean his teeth. After a few horizontal strokes, he turned and faced Sam, his lips foamy white. The sock was half off his foot a
nd trailed wetly on the tiles, like a jester’s shoe.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Nothing.’
Sam squeezed shaving gel into his palm and massaged it into his coarse, greying-blond stubble. Menthol and tea-tree fumes stung his eyes. He stretched the skin on his neck and began to shave. From the corner of his eye, he watched as Jamie cleaned his teeth.
He said, ‘How’s school?’
Jamie had his head bent to the cold tap. He rinsed, spat, rinsed again.
‘It’s all right.’ He replaced the toothbrush in the holder. ‘Are you going to be long?’
‘Two minutes. You can wait.’
Jamie sat on the lavatory. He removed the single wet sock. Then he crossed his legs and began to pick at his toenails.
Sam smiled. For a reason he couldn’t name, it was a good moment.
He stretched his upper lip between thumb and forefinger, shaved the difficult scoop beneath his nose. He rinsed the razor under the shower head and replaced it in its cup. He held out a hand. Jamie threw him the conditioner. Sam massaged it into his scalp; closed his eyes and rinsed it away.
‘You need a haircut,’ said Jamie. ‘It’s going fluffy round the bald bit.’
Sam stepped from the shower. He rubbed at his crown.
‘Do you think?’
‘Yeah. You should get it cut short.’
‘I like it long.’
Jamie shrugged.
‘Whatever.’
Sam wrapped the towel round his waist, bent at the sink to clean his teeth. He paused, looked up.
Jamie seemed to be waiting for something.
‘What?’ said Sam.
‘I’m waiting for you to leave.’
‘Oh,’ said Sam. ‘Right.’
He hurried to finish cleaning his teeth, then stepped on to the landing. The bathroom door closed behind him. He heard the lock engage, then the sound of the shower.
He stood, kilted in a blue bath towel. Then he hammered on the door.
From inside: ‘What now?’
‘Do you fancy breakfast?’
‘What breakfast?’
‘Bacon sandwich?’
‘Go on, then.’
Sam hurried to the bedroom. He pulled on a clean pair of jeans and an unironed T-shirt and, barefoot, he hurried downstairs. He wanted to have the bacon frying when Jamie emerged from the shower. It seemed a vital component of preserving the delicate but good atmosphere of the morning.
