What You Don't Know

by David Belbin

  ‘And you,’ Nick said.

  King had no scheduled hours at the Power Project. Nick had yet to see him of a morning. That didn’t mean King wasn’t doing his job. There were two teenage girls in the back of his car, one black, one white, both smoking cigarettes. By talking to them, Chantelle and King were helping. Impossible to gauge how much, but they were two more people than Nick had helped today. He felt inadequate. He had to make up some moves.

  It was a bright, clear afternoon. Nick decided to go for a walk, a think. Rather than heading for his bus, he crossed Lower Parliament Street, strode uphill along the right-hand side of the Victoria Centre. The walk began in a dull, traffic-heavy stretch, then turned into a meander through posh Mapperley Park’s liminal zone, the wide streets where the smart shared a border with rough St Ann’s. Nick had considered moving here. Crime was high, but it was both nearer work and classier, leafier than the location of his own flat. More expensive, obviously, but he had decent money coming in.

  ‘Hey, Nick!’ It was Jerry, in her school uniform. ‘Finished work early?’

  ‘S’right.’ He was opposite Alexandra Park, which housed Jerry’s hostel and many others like it.

  ‘Sorry I had to cancel our lesson the other day. Something came up.’

  ‘No worries,’ Nick assured her. He had assumed, from the message she left on his machine, that Jerry didn’t have the money to pay him.

  ‘What are you doing round here?’

  ‘I like to walk sometimes, especially on days like this, helps me think.’

  ‘It’ll be dark soon. Want to come in for a brew? I’ve missed you.’

  She gave him an open, relaxed smile. Nick was reminded how few real friends he had. Still, he hesitated. Jerry was hardly a friend. In his school teaching days, this would have been inappropriate, going home with an attractive, vulnerable fifteen-year-old. Jerry seemed to sense his awkwardness.

  ‘Alice will be on shift. She was only saying the other day how she hadn’t seen you for ages. Come on!’

  ‘What have you done at school today?’ he asked, and Jerry told him. They entered the drive that led into Alexandra Park. A familiar four-by-four followed them in. It slowed for a moment, maybe because of the pot-holed road. Nick clocked King Bell at the wheel. Had he seen Nick with Jerry, assumed something inappropriate?

  ‘Look who I’ve brought with me,’ Jerry told Alice as they walked in.

  The hostel worker was slumped in an armchair in the hall, a Benson & Hedges almost at the filter.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ Alice said. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes.’

  While Jerry made him a drink, Nick could talk privately with Alice.

  ‘You’re still volunteering at the centre once a week, they tell me,’ Alice said. ‘That’s neat of you, when you’ve already got a job out of it.’

  ‘Haven’t seen you there for a while,’ Nick said, cautiously.

  ‘It’s where I meet my dealer!’ Alice quipped. ‘Nah, I’m doing all right. Bit of weed to keep me from going potty. I’m thinking about giving that up, too, going to Narcotics Anonymous. They’ll only take you if you’re straight.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Nick said. ‘Is it like AA, where you have to believe in submitting to a higher power?’

  ‘Gotta be a higher power, or what’s life about?’

  Nick didn’t reply. He hadn’t believed in God since he was twelve.

  ‘That’d be a deal breaker for you, would it?’

  Nick shrugged. ‘How’s Jerry getting on?’

  ‘Doing school work, far as I can see. Stays in a lot, which is a good sign. Not many of ’em do. Complains about how crap her teachers are.’

  Jerry went to the sort of school where the teaching was ninety per cent trying to keep the kids in order and ten per cent handing out basic skills information. The proportion of kids who went on to college was low. Of those, the number who ended up at university was minimal. Jerry was bright enough to get into a good uni, no question. Her ambition ought to be realistic. But the number of kids from care who went on to university was, Nick knew, virtually nil.

  ‘Here you go.’ Jerry set down a mug of tea, strong with only a little milk, the way he liked it. ‘Are you going to tell us about your new job?’

  ‘Early days. Not a lot to tell. Didn’t you break up today? Got coursework to do over the holidays?’

  ‘I didn’t invite you back for a free lesson,’ Jerry said, her voice rising.

  ‘I know,’ Nick said, ‘but I’m still interested, if you want help.’

  ‘All right.’ Jerry gave him a surprisingly shy smile. ‘My English books are in my room.’

  The front door opened and there was loud laughter, loutish shouting.

  ‘I thought it was too quiet to last,’ Alice said. ‘Take Nick to your room, Jerry. Don’t look a gift horse in the gob. Off you go.’

  The room had two beds. Posters on the wall from Smash Hits: Blur, Pulp.

  ‘Roommate out?’

  ‘Left. Got the place to myself, time being.’

  He had been in the room before, but then he was being paid and it was a prearranged visit. Nick felt awkward.

  ‘Let’s get to business then.’

  She unlocked one of her drawers. He glimpsed jewellery, Calvin Klein perfume, a packet of condoms. He looked away.

  ‘I have to keep my coursework locked up or some bastard would thieve it. Not to cheat. Just to fuck me up. Sorry about the language.’

  ‘It’s okay. Tell me about the assignment.’

  For the next half-hour, sitting on the edge of the lower bunk, he went into teacher mode. It was absorbing and enjoyable. He’d forgotten how fulfilling it could be, working with a gifted student. There was a knock on the door.

  ‘I’m off,’ Alice said. ‘Can I have a word, Nick, before I go?’

  ‘Course.’ Nick joined Alice in the corridor. He noticed that she’d brushed her hair.

  ‘Don’t let Jerry take advantage,’ Alice said. ‘It was nice of you to give her a free lesson. I expect you need the money.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Nick said. ‘I enjoy it. And I have a job now; it’s not like I’m desperate for the private tutoring work. I’ve stopped advertising for new students.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Jerry’s not working, then?’

  ‘Don’t think she ever was,’ Alice replied. ‘She had money for a while, was secretive about where it came from. So I just assumed … but it’s as likely some family member crawled out of the woodwork, gave her a load of guilt money then backed away when they saw how needy she was. That kind of thing happens a lot.’

  She paused. Nick knew he was meant to say something, was being given the chance to suggest a drink, or at least a social opportunity that might lead somewhere.

  ‘Got plans for the weekend?’ This was as far as he wanted to go.

  ‘Here Sunday. I’ll probably get plastered tonight and spend tomorrow recovering. You?’

  ‘Family stuff.’ This was only partly misleading. Nick would, after all, have Sunday dinner with Joe and Caroline.

  ‘I didn’t know you had …’

  ‘My … it’s complicated.’

  ‘It usually is. Try and have a good one, anyway.’

  Pleased to have knocked her back without offence, Nick returned to Jerry’s room.

  Jerry smiled at him. She’d undone a couple of the buttons on her shirt. The smile was more embarrassed than cheesy. Nick remembered this scenario well. Adolescent girls liked to test out their sexuality on the younger, more attractive male teachers. But then you had the rest of the class to keep them in check. Other girls would tease them mercilessly if a crush became obvious. Whereas he and Jerry were alone together. Mistake. He tried to take it in his stride.

  ‘Do you mind if we go into the office?’

  ‘Do we have to?’ She leaned down to pick up Macbeth, giving him an eyeful. No bra.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  You’ve been waiting to make this play. You’ve seen him look at your legs
, so you know he’s tempted. You’ve always fancied him a bit but, before, you were taken, and you’re a one-man woman. Your first lover might have given you the elbow, but he’s left his mark on you and you miss him terribly. Once you’ve been with me, he warned, you won’t have any use for boys. And you don’t. Beany can try all he likes.

  Teach says he’s got a new job, but he’ll keep helping you if you want. You don’t tell him that you can’t pay him any more, but you drop a hint. You want him to make the first move.

  He leaves the room for a minute. This might be your last chance. You undo your bra and take it off the complicated way, without removing your school shirt, so as not to be caught topless if he suddenly returns. You pull the bra out of your left sleeve and bung it under the bed. Then you undo another button. Are you being too tarty? Your first lover liked you to look innocent, really young. He liked you to pretend that every time was your first time. But Teach seems less pervy.

  You can’t hear the words of the conversation behind the door. You can hear the tone. He’s knocking Alice back. There’s nothing wrong with Alice. She’s pretty, nice body. Either Teach is very picky, or she’s too old for him. When he comes back in, he gives you that nice shy smile, sits down on the bed. He checks out your tits. Then he panics, says you should move.

  ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  You do up a button and, after that, make sure your arms stay folded, which is hard when you have to keep turning the pages of a book. Teach keeps his distance. In a while you start to concentrate on what he’s trying to tell you. Shakespeare isn’t so hard.

  ‘What does that mean? “Screw your courage to the sticking place.” It sounds dirty.’

  He doesn’t take the bait, consults the notes. ‘The sticking place is for a tuning peg on a stringed instrument. When the string hits the right note, you stick it in.’

  ‘Still sounds dirty to me.’

  This time, he gives you a fleeting, cheeky smile. After half an hour, he has to go. When you offer to pay him, he says, ‘Forget it, my pleasure.’ Can you really pleasure a bloke by being a good student, or is he just being soft?

  11

  Nick didn’t know what to do with himself during the long days off over Christmas. He refused to watch TV in the day, but went for walks, reread several graphic novels that he’d bought before he was sent down, listened to a lot of Radio 4 and Radio 1.

  Today’s big news story was about how an unidentified cabinet minister’s son had been set up by a female journalist. She’d sweet-talked him into buying, then selling a lump of hash to her. Before the story broke, his father had frog-marched him to his nearest police station, where he was given a caution. Radio 1 ran the story at length, but nobody on the youth station seemed to think that selling a lump of dope was a big deal.

  How long should Nick leave it before phoning Nancy? She’d said new year, which was four days away. Another day or two, maybe. He was thinking about this when she rang.

  ‘Were you waiting to hear from me?’ she wanted to know. Her voice was breathy, affected.

  ‘You bet. Had a good Christmas?’

  ‘Nothing special. How about you? Been away?’

  ‘No. I did have Christmas dinner with my brother and his wife.’

  ‘Get any nice presents?’

  Nick wasn’t used to having such polite conversation with Nancy. He mumbled something about a sweater and CDs. ‘You?’

  ‘Carl didn’t give me anything interesting enough to make me reconsider. I gave him the elbow yesterday.’

  ‘At your parents’?’

  ‘On the phone. He wasn’t the sort of boyfriend you invite to meet your parents. He was the sort of boyfriend who spends Christmas getting out of his tree with his mates, then sleeps it off until new year.’

  ‘Sounds like you could do with some company.’

  ‘Have you got a Christmas present for me?’

  ‘Of course,’ Nick lied.

  ‘Then get yourself over here tonight. Eight. I’ll be waiting.’

  You hate Christmas most of all. Some of the others go home, or to relatives, but you have nobody, nobody who’s bothered, anyway. You hate the forced jollity, the crap presents, the cheap perfume and cheaper paper decorations, the plastic Christmas tree. It’s been this way since you were taken into care. You can’t remember what it was like before. Worse, probably. You’ve blocked it out.

  Then he comes. It’s been over a month. You’d given up on him. You missed the attention, the affection and you missed having him inside you, your first and only lover. You were tempted to track him down at work, but he forbade that and, anyway, he claims he’s never in one place for long. He won’t tell you where he lives and he’s not in the phone book. You looked.

  He’s not visiting you; he’s visiting the hostel. Martine, the warden on duty, makes a fuss of him. You stay clear, let him see you’re there, then go to your room. Five minutes later, he opens the door.

  ‘I’ve only got a minute. They think I’m in the loo.’

  He kisses you the way a lover should, then takes a phone out of his pocket.

  ‘Merry Christmas.’

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I’ve put twenty quid’s worth of credit on it. My mobile number’s on there, too. Under the name ‘Man’. I’m still your man, right? There’s nobody else?’

  You shake your head.

  ‘Meet me up the street in ten minutes. Don’t make it obvious, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ You nod and he grabs your bum, pulls you towards him, slips his tongue down your throat. He tastes good.

  Fifteen minutes later you’re doing it on the back seat of his big car. He likes to finish the dirty way. It hurts, but a girl does what she has to do to keep her man. That’s what the other girls say.

  ‘Gotta hurry, sorry,’ he says, wiping himself off.

  ‘When will I see you again?’

  ‘When I can. You’ll be easier to get hold of now. Keep it turned on, okay? Put it on mute when you’re at school. I’ll send you text messages. Do you know how to send a text?’

  ‘I’ll get someone to show me.’

  ‘Okay.’ He hesitates, senses that there’s something you’re not saying. He’s good that way. ‘Got everything you need?’

  ‘I could use some money for my extra English lessons. I’m behind.’

  ‘Sure.’ He opens his wallet and counts out a hundred quid.

  You check that it’s clear then get out and run back to the home. He didn’t once ask you what Christmas was like. He gave you the money without a second thought. Does that make you a working girl? Some of the girls in the home have mobiles. You’ll get one of them to show you how to do the text message thing. Then you’ll phone Teach, arrange another lesson. With luck, Teach will act like what happened last time didn’t happen. Older guys are good at pretending.

  *

  ‘You haven’t got either of them, have you?’

  ‘Joe taped me the Verve album. I played it a lot inside. Great to have it on CD. I don’t know this one at all. Erykah … how do you pronounce it?’

  ‘Like it’s spelled, Badu. Meant to be the best soul album of the year.’

  ‘Here, I got you something too. Merry Christmas.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have.’

  Nancy tried to open the album that Joe and Caroline had given Nick. He’d had no opportunity to play it, so the case was still shrinkwrapped. It was called Curtains. Joe had decent taste, cooler than Nick’s, so this was a good bet for Nancy. The cover detail reminded Nick of the curtains his grandparents had had in their front room. Nancy passed the CD back to him.

  ‘Do this for me, would you? I don’t want to mess up my nails.’

  He tore the plastic film and put the album on. Nancy snuggled up to him on the sofa. The music was lugubrious, intense but laid-back, Bryan Ferry with a touch of Leonard Cohen, backed by a fifties orchestra.

  ‘This is good,’ Nancy said. ‘I like this lot.’


  ‘Me too. They’re from Nottingham.’

  ‘I saw them once, when they were called Asphalt Ribbons. Their first album’s great. It must have come out while you were away. How did you hear about them?’

  ‘I keep my ear to the ground,’ Nick said.

  They undressed each other hungrily, then fucked on the sofa. Nick couldn’t remember a first time as good. Only one drink, no drugs, just a coal-effect gas fire, the right music and a full-length sofa.

  Nancy put the Verve album on. It was the first time he’d seen her standing upright, naked. You could never be sure what a woman would look like naked. There was always some surprise involved. The dark nipples on her full breasts were upturned. Her arms were thin but strong, as he’d just discovered. Her skin was very pale. He’d not been with a woman who shaved down there before.

  When Nick came back from the bathroom, he found Nancy half dressed, carving two fat lines of coke on the kitchen table.

  ‘I didn’t know you indulged.’

  ‘Carl left some behind. I was thinking of saving it for New Year’s Eve, but I don’t know where I’ll be then.’

  Nick nearly refused. Coke had bad associations for him. He wouldn’t sleep later if he had some. That aside, sex on coke could be great, and probably even better when you were both on it. He’d told himself that, given his new job, he should stick to spliff from now on, but, fuck it, there were no drug tests on the out. It would be rude to refuse.

  He did the whole line in one go, up his right nostril. Nancy followed suit. Then she took the Verve off and replaced them with the Chemical Brothers. She had put on a bra and knickers that were almost completely see-through. When she danced for him, he could feel himself getting excited again. Coke lets you live in the moment, and the moments rushed by. He began to dance opposite her. She ground her body against his, in rhythm with the music. The big beat was so loud that he didn’t hear the door open, only saw the alarmed look on Nancy’s face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Slut!’ Her ex-boyfriend’s voice cut through the music. Northern, high-pitched, no longer the cool, long-haired guitarist. Nick forced himself to unclench his fist, turn the music off. He was still on probation. He couldn’t get into a fight.