White Goods

by Guy Johnson

  As instructed, Mum, Della, Auntie Stella, Uncle Gary and me headed straight back to the caravan, with Mum fretting all the way there about where everyone was gonna sleep now-we-had-an-extra-one, reassuring Uncle Gary at the same time that-it-really-was-no-bother.

  ‘Then why do you keep going on about it?’ said Auntie Stella, trotting up the steps to our mobile home.

  ‘I was just-.’

  ‘We can always go to a hotel,’ Stella had continued and Mum went quiet, thinking. Thinking on it long and hard. It had seemed like a good option, but we all knew we’d never hear the end of it.

  Mum sighed and gave her final offer.

  ‘You lovebirds can have the bunks and the boys can go in with Della.’

  ‘Oh Mum, that’s not-.’ Della began, but she was cut short.

  ‘Oven on Della, warm them plates before your father gets back.’ For a second Mum paused in the doorway of the caravan, caught up in her thoughts, like she had forgotten something again, but the moment passed. I wondered if it was the abandoned hat that was bothering her, but I said nothing. ‘Right, salt and ketchup!’ she uttered, moving forward and letting the rest of us in.

  As I stepped in, I smelt something. It was a smell I recognised from earlier that day: the smell from Uncle Gary’s car. Just outside the entrance to the caravan. It didn’t make any sense.

  ‘Are you coming in or what?’ Mum called back at me, annoyed that I’d come to a standstill. ‘You’re letting out all the heat.’

  ‘Coming,’ I told her, puzzled by the strange waft of petrol. But I was quickly distracted, as the caravan was soon humming with a very different aroma: fried chicken and warm vinegary chips, accompanied by a full orchestra of ecstatic groans and slapping, greasy lips, a quality sound that gave Ian’s musical triumph a run for its money.

  We stayed up really late. Della had brought along her tape machine, so we had Abba on for a bit, Boney M too, but then Mum had a moan and we had to have Barbara and Neil forced upon us and the party died a bit. But Gary brought out a pack of cards and more drinks came out too – cokes for us kids, spirits amongst the grown-ups – and it livened up a bit. It got very warm with all the bodies and clouds of smoke emitting from Mum and Auntie Stella’s lungs.

  ‘Couple of old dragons,’ Dad whispered to me, giving me a cheeky wink. ‘Both of them.’ A moment of father-son collusion between us that stuck in my head.

  After a while, Auntie Stella suggested a card game that involved taking off your clothes – it must have been the heat and the gin – Dad pulled his face of approval, provoking Mum to pull hers of quite the opposite and we were back to the party fizzling out again. This time for good.

  ‘Come on, Gary,’ Auntie Stella said, getting up, and a look of embarrassed panic hit the room.

  ‘Time you kids got to sleep,’ Mum uttered and started ‘shooing’ us with her hands. ‘Come on. Quick-quick.’

  ‘We’ll just put our heads under our pillows,’ Ian grinned. Della laughed too. No doubt I had a confused look on my face, as I got more words from Ian. ‘One day,’ he offered, ruffling my hair. One day: this was an explanation he offered for quite a lot. One day.

  ‘One day you finish the bloody sentence and I might have the foggiest.’

  This was in my head; not out loud. Just for me.

  The misunderstanding between me and Della happened at about 3am. It’s stuck in my head for two reasons. One, it was so unfair: what she said, what they thought I was doing. Two, because of what I saw – what woke me in the first place and what I was really trying to do when Della woke up and caught me.

  The cold woke me first: a chill about my shoulders, icy. I was sleeping on the floor, in a sleeping bag with my arms on the outside. The chill was from a draft of some sort and I lay there in cold ignorance for a long while before I realised its origin – the caravan door was wide open. This was odd, because I remembered Mum asking Dad to lock it up, as she had panicked us all off to bed.

  ‘Before it starts up!’ she’d said, looking in the direction of the small bedroom, where Auntie Stella had apparently put down her welcome mat for the night. For once I hadn’t asked for an explanation and applied Ian’s one-day theory in silence. It could wait. But Dad had definitely locked the door – he had made a big fuss, doing it all in slow motion just to wind-up Mum a bit.

  ‘Tony!’ she’d hissed in the loudest whisper and he’d quickened up. So, it should have been locked tight – not wide open.

  But it wasn’t only the nighttime breeze that woke me up. There were other noises – voices - coming through the open door.

  I stayed in my sleeping bag a bit longer and tried to figure out who the voices belonged too, but I couldn’t. So I got up: slowly, quietly, creeping in small steps, not wanting to wake anyone or be caught. My instincts told me something secret was going on.

  When I got to the door, I poked my head out, still moving at a measured pace, hoping no one would see me. It was cold that night, despite the sunny day, and, as my breath crystallized in the chilled air, I thought it might give me away. Whatever was going on, if I’d got caught, there would have been trouble.

  You weren’t supposed to get up once you’d gone to bed; one of Dad’s golden rules. (‘Rotten rules,’ Della called them.) I didn’t want to take any chances – Dad had a temper at times and a backhand with an equally fierce reputation. So, as I poked my face past the caravan entrance, I did it very slowly, getting my head out just enough to see.

  They were over by our cars. Three of them. They had a dog, too. Talking, low voices. Smoking too. Two of them smoking; the third not. There was a bit of jostling, the non-smoker getting a gentle shove and there was quiet laughter, too. But it wasn’t that simple, I could tell; there was something else going on. Something about the non-smoker; something very uncomfortable.

  A conversation had started and I tried to listen. I heard bits, but it was whispered and broken up by passing night noises. There was a flick-flick-flick sound throughout that cut into the words, keeping the sentences apart.

  ‘Come on.’ Flick-flick.

  ‘I should be-.’

  ‘Just come with us, that’s all.’ Flick-flick

  ‘If they realise I’m not-.’

  ‘We’ll do it. Like we said.’

  ‘You wanna listen to him, you do.’ Flick. ‘He’s out of control.’ Flick. ‘So let’s go.’ Flick. ‘Unless you want us to wake everyone up. Just like we said we would.’

  ‘No. No I don’t.’

  ‘Good. This way.’

  ‘Come on. Like he says.’

  Flick-flick-flick.

  When they moved on, I followed them without thinking. Despite the cool night. Despite knowing I could get into big shit with Dad for getting up when I should have stayed in bed. But I couldn’t leave the non-smoker. So, I followed. Not thinking. Not thinking at all and forgetting something. Forgetting something I couldn’t be without. Forgetting something that I didn’t remember until it was way too late and the panic had set in.

  They went in the direction of the castle-come-nightclub. They walked on the road that went down the middle of the site and I followed on the grass, flitting between caravans for cover. At the end of the road, they headed down towards the outdoor swimming pool. I kept following, further and further, all the way. Once at the pool, they headed on to the old castle.

  There were a few lights left on at the castle – shining through windows at the top. But it was blacked-out in the reception area and the restaurant. All closed for the night. This didn’t thwart their mission, though; didn’t even make them pause to think. The three of them just kept on going, one of them dragging the dog along harshly, and it was clear that they knew how to get in.

  ‘Where d’you get them?’ one asked, as a jangle of keys interrupted the quiet.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Just keep it shut, ok?’

  And in they went, all three of them, not bothering to lock up, not suspecting that anyone was following. But I did follow, quietly and not too
closely, wondering what was coming next.

  And then it became clear, I could see where they were going, but I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand the point to it all.

  I waited and watched. I saw it all. And suddenly, I really missed it: the coat, my comfort blanket. How could I have come out without it? It was cold, even inside the building and, as I looked on, I felt scared and knew I had to get out of there before they decided to leave and lock up again. So, as silently as possible, I backed away, out towards the reception, back towards the pool area and then I ran.

  I ran like I’d never run in my life – not before or since. Feet hitting the ground with a heavy thud, but picking up like lightning, speeding me back. I didn’t look back, to see if I’d been seen; I didn’t have time. I just needed to get back and put myself inside my parka-shaped cocoon of safety.

  When I got in, I shut the door, grabbed my coat, which was hung up behind the caravan door, pulled it on and sat on top of my sleeping bag. I was surprised that neither the beating of my heart or the squeezing of my lungs woke anyone up. Both were rattling enough to wake the dead. But no one stirred. Most were deep asleep with the drink, I guess.

  I looked at Della. Still sound asleep too. But suddenly I felt I needed her. Needed to wake her, tell what had gone on, but just her – not anyone else. No, it just had to be Della. So, that’s when it happened: I unzipped the side of her sleeping bag and wafted it up and down, letting the cold air onto her legs, slowly waking her up, quietly like. I was looking down at her legs, where the chilly atmosphere was leaving goose pimples, when she actually opened her eyes. So I didn’t notice that she was looking directly at me.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ said a voice and I lost my own, suddenly unable to give an explanation, like my voice was blocked. When the moment had come, I hadn’t known what to say. ‘I said, what the fuck are you doing? What are you looking at down there?’

  Before I knew it, lights were on and everyone was back in the room. Everyone – even those I’d followed only minutes ago.

  ‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’ asked Dad, coming forward in just orange and brown nylon y-fronts, a hairy bollock looking out on the left. ‘What’s all the noise Del?’

  ‘Well?’ Mum’s voice. She looked directly at me and the lights seemed very, very bright. It happened so quickly that I was still holding onto the corner of sleeping bag that I had been waving about.

  Ian scratched his hair, acting as if he had just woken up.

  Uncle Gary and Auntie Stella appeared, wrapped in just a sheet, which was odd, as they were supposed to have a bunk each.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the latter demanded, shuffling forward a little, Uncle Gary tugging her back, as he nearly lost his bit of the covers.

  Mum threw them a sudden, short glare, and then her eyes were back on me, demanding.

  But I couldn’t say a thing. It was just supposed to be Della. Anything I said now would just have seemed lame, ridiculous. So, I said nothing. I couldn’t. I daren’t. I looked at Ian again.

  When everyone had calmed down and our sleeping arrangements were rearranged – Della and Uncle Gary swapped their places, despite much protesting – the caravan settled into silence once more. I had my eyes closed, but I couldn’t sleep. My mind was wired with images. Images I wanted to forget. And now I was guilty of a crime too – a crime they all thought I had committed against Della. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t at all.

  As I lay there, I could hear the unzipping of a sleeping bag and the rustling sound of someone moving about, but I kept my eyes shut. I only opened them when a hand was placed across my mouth, forcing my breath inside. It smelt: the hand. I recognised the smell and it took me back to what I saw. A pair of eyes glared at me through the dark.

  ‘You don’t say a word,’ Ian warned. ‘OK?’

  I couldn’t speak, so I nodded a yes, hoping he’d take his dirty hand away, unable to bear the stench for much longer.

  ‘Good,’ he said, returning to his place, where he lay, wide-awake, just like me.

  I turned away from him and faced where Della had been sleeping earlier, looking directly into Uncle Gary’s open stare. Holding my stare, I wondered just how many secrets this small, cramped space contained. Eventually, he closed his eyes, giving in to the heavy pull of sleep, and I guess I did the same.

  That was the year before Mum met misfortune in the claws of what was otherwise an everyday, domestic setting. My other beginning; I’ll take you back to that.

  Ian was up-to-no-good in our bedroom, and Della and Mum were in the kitchen, discussing my status as a weirdo and peeping-Tom, along with Ian’s suggestion that I shared a room with Della. I was listening in the back room, just out of sight.

  ‘Stop fretting about it,’ Mum had said, getting our dishwasher going. ‘It’s not going to happen. Young ladies your age need your privacy. Now, give me a hand with the washing.’

  When I came in, Mum was setting the dial on the washing machine, starting up a mixed load. Della was near the back door, with her arms folded. She gave me that look, the one she’d been giving me for over a year by then.

  ‘Right, nearly done. Della, you can pop that in the tumble drier when it’s finished. Won’t harm you to lend a hand.’

  In the last twelve months, we’d had nearly everything new in our house. Dishwasher, tumble dryer, TV, a video player. Stereo stacked up high in the front room, with a double tape so you could copy cassettes onto other cassettes. The latest arrival was on Dad’s side of the bed, on his bedside cabinet – a teasmade that was also an alarm clock and radio.

  ‘Saving you a job there,’ Dad had said to Mum, as if he’d really bought it for her. She just did her face: the Queen Victoria, Ian called it.

  All this new stuff was from the same place as everything else – Dontask. Justin’s mum overheard me talking about it once. She’d chuckled to herself, and I wondered just what I wasn’t getting this time.

  I wasn’t really supposed to go round to Justin’s house – even though his dad worked with mine – because his mum used the f-word like-there-was-no-tomorrow (according to Mum) and she didn’t like that kind of talk from another lady. I did go round, though; just in secret.

  After a while, I needed the loo, which was at the very back of the house. I had to walk past Della and, as I did, she pulled the face she reserved especially for me: letting her jaw hang loose, expressionless, and opening her eyes as wide as physically possible, she twisted her head as I went by. It was supposed to be an impression of me: a brain dead me.

  ‘Della,’ Mum scolded lightly. ‘Leave him alone. Alright Scotty?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said and quickened my pace towards the toilet.

  Whilst I was in there, I heard Della again, talking about me. Talking about that last caravan trip.

  It wasn’t fair. I wanted to explain, but I couldn’t. It was a year later and if I’d had to explain the wafting sleeping bag, I’d have had to explain the rest – what I saw. And I still couldn’t. So, I sat there, listening to her saying that stuff, trying to ignore it. Trying not to let it get to me. But it was hard and, after I’d flushed and was washing my hands, I started to feel resentful and angry. Angry with Ian for going off in the night; for what he let happen down at the castle. Angry with Della, too. I decided I’d start saying something about her, to get even. Yeah, I’d discover some awful secret about her. And I’d pass it on to everyone whilst I was at it.

  I stayed in the bathroom for ages – thinking and calming down, too. No one seemed to notice. I always found stuff to do, even when there wasn’t really anything.

  ‘That child could entertain himself in the desert.’ Mum.

  In the bathroom, we had a cabinet on the wall with three mirrored doors that I liked to play with. The two outer doors opened into the middle, so you could create an inner triangle of mirrors. It looked icy – silvery and cold; slices of glass splitting into more slices of glass. I could just about get my head in the middle of it all a
nd would spend endless amounts of time looking at my multi-reflections, all sliced and layered. If you moved the outer doors back and forth, the reflections and perspectives changed, moving about in shape and size. Mum caught me doing it once and laughed warmly.

  ‘Make sure you don’t pull it off the wall,’ she’d added, shaking her head as she left, a gentle smile curving her face.

  So, whilst I dithered between getting revenge on Della and calming down, I put my head in the middle of the three mirrored doors and got lost in my own reflections.

  ‘You still in there, Scotty?’ Mum said to me at some point, a hint of concern in her voice: what could possibly be taking me that long?

  But I didn’t reply and I could almost hear her shrug, before she carried on about her business. If I had spoken, would it have changed anything? Would it have broken up the chain of events? Had my silence been the real killer?

  Instead, I stayed in there, inside my small triangle of mirrors, looking at multiple reflections of myself and planned Della’s downfall. And that’s what I was doing when it happened.

  Music was on suddenly, very loud: Abba in Della’s room. I recognised the song: Hole in Your Soul. There’s a bit at the end, where the blonde one kind of screams and sings at the same time. It goes on for ages. Mum hated Abba, but she really hated this one in particular. I assumed that their conversation must have ended in an argument, with Della probably refusing to help with the household chores or something similar, because Della always put this one on when they had fallen out.

  Over this din I heard Mum calling out: ‘Della, Della, turn that racket off now and come and help me like I asked you! Della! DELLA!’

  And that’s exactly the moment it happened: the scream from Agnetha and the scream from our mother. Abba suddenly stopped, but Mum’s scream didn’t. In slow motion terror, we all came to the scene, getting there as fast as we could, but it was like we were in treacle. Terror-struck and running in treacle, that’s what it was like.