It’s About Love
Steven Camden
Real life is messier than the movies. A bold, thought-provoking novel from the exceptionally talented, Steven Camden.He’s Luke. She’s Leia.Just like in Star Wars. Just like they’re made for each other. Same film studies course, different backgrounds, different ends of town.Only this isn’t a film. This is real life. This is where monsters from the past come back to take revenge. This is where you are sometimes the monster. And where the things we build to protect us, can end up doing the most harm…
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Text copyright © Steven Camden 2015
Cover illustration © Leo Nickolls
Cover design © Leo Nickolls
Steven Camden asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007511242
Ebook Edition © ISBN: 9780007511259
Version: 2018-04-10
For Birmingham,
my heavy armour
Contents
Cover (#u9bf51fb5-8e5e-565c-955d-bf93f677fbd2)
Title Page (#u5783d1a4-c37f-5693-a530-2f1b71d95666)
Copyright (#ud570f6ac-fb74-582e-839b-92605e90a822)
Dedication (#u02326ef5-8b82-5d82-a598-6b3ac95d7154)
Part 1: Waiting (#u344af606-fcd6-511e-ac36-c7575b245046)
Chapter 1 (#u1542dca6-c3de-58e5-b8d1-cb91d208c48b)
Chapter 2 (#ud7ea5d60-0f1c-5638-b9fe-4cede6acbc3e)
Chapter 3 (#u4fff3e54-7dff-58c5-8478-fe3b9f53bdd3)
Chapter 4 (#uddcc6791-93e1-5354-8031-c0c12575309e)
Chapter 5 (#ue48544d5-36db-565d-8b3e-8cfcb801f157)
Chapter 6 (#u75aa44ca-ce1d-5f3e-a7a5-a45a1bcd487b)
Chapter 7 (#u79568ae2-8264-59e3-a6c8-2f9736601f46)
Chapter 8 (#uf15e496f-4891-5ef8-8b35-a1f17edbfa4c)
Chapter 9 (#ue987953f-51fc-505e-8430-c8ef516d77b8)
Chapter 10 (#u090fb73d-3aa8-5c2d-bb11-c1179c4e0924)
Chapter 11 (#u2ff063ec-67be-54eb-ac67-f834bd4fa494)
Chapter 12 (#u5c8e5b57-4861-5f3e-940b-58011f965718)
Chapter 13 (#ucac81156-63b7-5f03-a0a4-ec743e0d0690)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part 2: Facing (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part 3: Changing Breaking (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part 4: Him who can’t hear, must feel. Idiot vs Maker (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Part 5: Part 1. Beginning. Epilogue? (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Read an extract from Tape (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Books by Steven Camden (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
INT. EMERGENCY ROOM – NIGHT
Black.
Hum of a strip light and radio static as a dial tries to find a station.
Fade up to a face. YOUNG MAN. Wheat-coloured skin. Dark hair cropped close. Radio static settles on ‘Fly Me to the Moon’.
Cut to wide shot. Emergency Room. Moulded red plastic chairs and cream walls. YOUNG MAN stares straight ahead, thick shoulders slumped, dark butterfly of blood spread across the chest of his white shirt. A POLICEWOMAN sits in the chair to his right, her body turned towards him.
POLICEWOMAN: Do you understand me?
YOUNG MAN just stares out. Circular clock on the wall above them says eleven thirty. Sinatra sings.
POLICEWOMAN: I need you to tell me what happened.
YOUNG MAN frowns.
Cut to black.
YOUNG MAN (VOICEOVER): Start where it matters, he said. Start in a moment where things hang in the balance. Start with a question. Then you can go back to wherever you like.
That’s fine, but you show me one moment where things don’t hang in the balance. Go on. Exactly.
So where to start?
(#ulink_4edaab63-2522-50ac-8b79-2c655089c813)
(#ulink_648145c4-2bc5-5145-b21f-6febbf655853)
EXT. – DAY
Diagonal rain.
I’m standing under the bus shelter outside the crappy little shopping arcade. I’m wearing my battered blue hand-me-down Carhartt, but I’m gonna get soaked walking up the hill.
It’s Friday morning, last day of my first week.
Wait for the rain to stop and be late, or walk into the room like a drowned rat? Either way, I’m getting stared at.
It’s been a week of sitting in circles wearing sticky labels with our names on. Most of them seem to already know each other from schools around here. Kids who look like money. Who speak with words my brain uses but my mouth runs a mile from. Kids not like me.
“No umbrella?”
The voice is scratchy, but well spoken. I turn.
She’s wearing one of those long black North Face coats that cost like a hundred and fifty quid. The top half of her face is hidden by the massive white umbrella she’s holding on her shoulder, but I can see her mouth and her chin and chunky plaits of dark hair either side of her neck.
I look over my shoulder, then back at her. “You talking to me?”
She tilts her umbrella and I see her face properly. She’s mixed race. Dark shining eyes. Tiny freckles dot her cheeks. And she’s smiling.
No, she’s staring.
“Yeah, Travis, I’m talking to you.”
Rain trickles off the edges of the umbrella, her safe and dry underneath.
I feel to look away.
She frowns. “Travis Bickle? Taxi Driver?”
I know who she means, but I don’t move.
She holds her left hand out in front of her like a gun, pointing at me. I watch the rain hit her fingers and notice a ring that looks like a mini snow-dome made of amber.
I look down. Tight black jeans and black All Stars stick out from the bottom of her coat.
“You’re doing film studies, right?” she says.
I look up, turning my head slightly, trying not to seem uncomfortable.
She’s staring.
Her eyebrows are raised. “I saw you in the circle the other day,” she says. My stomach and shoulders tighten.
She points at her umbrella. “You want to share?”
I look past her, but feel her eyes on me as I shake my head. “Nah, I’m good.”
She stares for a second, then shrugs. “OK. See you in class, Travis.”
And she walks away.
I watch her white umbrella float through the rain to the traffic lights, cross the road, then turn into the church graveyard and out of sight.
Good choice. Not here for mates, remember.
I look at my phone. 8.50 a.m., Friday 6th September. Seven sleeps left.
What’s he doing right now?
An old woman walks under the shelter to my right, pumping her little purple umbrella like a Super Soaker.
“It’s not dry, is it?” she says, as she opens her bag and starts looking for something. I watch the rain fall off the edge of the shelter roof.
“I said, it’s not dry is it, young man?” I feel her look up.
I turn to her. Her hair is the colour of cobwebs. She stares at my face.
What you looking at?
“Strong silent type, are we?” she says, looking away.
I don’t answer, as I walk out into the rain.
I chose to come here.
I chose to catch two buses to reach a college on the other side of town. Mum and Dad didn’t even make me get a job. Dad said as long as I stick it out they’re happy to give me a little allowance, and what I saved from working with Tommy over the summer should last me till Christmas, if I’m clever.
Never had a bus pass before. Never needed one.
They had film studies at the Community College, which I could’ve walked to. But Tommy had started working for his uncle properly as a builder’s apprentice, and Zia had to take the supermarket job to prove to his dad he’s dedicated enough to join the family business, so it’s not like I would’ve been with them anyway. Plus the film course here looked wicked. Theory stuff, but the prospectus said there’d be lots of writing and practical bits too. Maybe I’ll get to make something of all these ideas. That’s why I came. New start. Blank page.
A place far enough away that nobody knows me.
And a place where nobody’s heard his name.
I walk in soaked.
Everyone stares.
I try to tilt my face down without making it obvious.
Get your head up, you idiot.
The tables are arranged in a squared horseshoe facing the front. No more circles and name badges. The teacher guy’s half sitting, half leaning on his desk. I look straight to the back of the room. The umbrella girl’s sitting in the back left-hand corner. The chair next to her is empty.
“Is it raining?” says Teacher Guy.
A few people laugh. I feel my face getting hot as I scan the room for another empty seat. There aren’t any.
“Have a seat, we’re just talking favourite films.” His voice is local, with a bit of somewhere else mixed in. He’s younger than most teachers I’ve known, but what does that really mean? I avoid everyone’s eyes as I walk to the back and sit down next to Umbrella Girl. My socks are soaked and my jeans are stuck to my thighs.
The ring on her finger has something inside the amber, and I think of the mosquito from Jurassic Park. She doesn’t look at me.
Don’t look at her then.
Teacher Guy carries on. “So. We’ve had Twilight, Avatar, and, what was the last one?”
A kid with blond hair and a suntan puts his hand up. “Avengers, sir.”
Teacher Guy points at him. “Right. The Avengers. Thank you. You can put your hand down, and less of the ‘sir’, OK? I’m Noah. We’ll stick to first names, I think.”
Great. Another ‘cool’ teacher who wants to be friends. Call me Noah, I’m just like you, let’s be mates. Tell you what, Noah, let’s not, yeah? Hows about you just teach us a bunch of stuff about film and shove the rest of it—
“Is there anyone here whose favourite film isn’t a huge Hollywood blockbuster? Not that there’s anything wrong with blockbusters, but something different. How about you, at the back?”
He means me. Everyone turns to look.
“Waterboy!” says the blond kid, staring back, and nearly everybody laughs. Hot needles prick my face and my hands ball into fists under the table. I spotted him first day. He looks like he should be in a toothpaste advert.
Teacher Guy’s standing up now, and I can tell he takes care of himself. His hair’s the dark curly bush that mine would be if I let it grow, but he’s got that stubble I’m years away from having. He’s wearing dark jeans and a light blue linen shirt and his shoulders look strong. Noah. I dunno if I could take him, but he’d know he’d been in a fight.
His eyes are on me. Everyone’s are. Umbrella Girl’s turned in her seat. Better choose something good. I can taste rain as I look straight ahead and say, “Leon.”
Noah’s face flickers briefly and his expression changes, like he’s gone from just wanting my answers to trying to see behind my face. Other people in the room look confused as their eyes go from me, to him, then back to me again, and even though I don’t want to be looked at, I feel good. I’ve surprised him. The blond kid’s staring back at Umbrella Girl and I can feel her smiling. Noah’s still looking at me, his head tilted like he’s remembering something. Then he nods. “I see. Interesting choice.”
Umbrella Girl sticks her hand up. “I love that film too, sir, I mean Noah.”
Noah looks at her, then at me, and it’s kind of like everyone else goes out of focus.
“All right then. You two can be partners.”
He claps his hands and everyone’s back.
“Right. Everybody turn to the person next to you. If you don’t know them, introduce yourself. You’ve got fifteen minutes. I want discussions – best films, worst films, important films, funniest films, films that matter. Get everything down, make notes, scribbles, doesn’t matter, no idea is stupid, get talking. Go!”
Shuffling and chatter. The blond kid’s looking back at me again. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand and cold water runs down to my elbow.
“It’s a love story, you know. Leon,” says Umbrella Girl. She’s doodling on the cover of a new A4 lined pad.
I peel off my jacket and let it hang inside out over the chair. My black T-shirt is dry, but my arms are cold as I take my notebook out of my bag. It’s a new one. Ring bound. I pull my biro out from the binding and open it up, tensing my bicep more than I need to. I don’t look at her. I’m glad she’s on my right. “No, it’s not.”
I start to write the date, like we’re still in school, then scribble it out hoping she didn’t notice.
“Course it is,” she says. “Not a conventional one, but it’s a story about love.”
The fact that she’s even seen it makes me like her, but it’s not a love story.
“It’s about revenge,” I say.
My right arm is still tensed as I scribble over the date again and I can smell cucumber shampoo. Umbrella Girl stops doodling. “No, revenge is what starts it, what she thinks she wants, but it’s about sacrifice. The choice to love.”
I look at her. Who speaks like that?
Her skin’s the colour of wet sand, like Dad’s, and her ear has almost no lobe at the bottom, like an elf’s.
“I guess we saw it differently,” I say.
“Which is why it’s so good! Tragic love story. Amazing soundtrack, too. I’m Leia.”
I blink longer than I should do. You’re kidding me.
She drops her pen and holds out her hand.
Leia? I look around the class. Everyone’s deep in discussion and right now, in the moment, I feel older. Like school was a long time ago.
I shake her hand. It’s smooth and cool and only half the width of mine.
“I’m Luke.”
And she smiles, our hands still together.
(#ulink_22adbe77-c1e5-5662-8814-14b57d28b213)
Whenever I go to a new place I always imagine it as a movie set. I think about how every brick and wall and door and corner and roof had to be chosen and built by somebody. How the people who move through and around the spaces are characters playing their roles and, most of all, I’m aware at all times, somebody could be watching me.
I’m walking past the refectory to the college car park. It’s not raining any more, but the sky is still dishwater grey and my socks are still soggy. Sitting through two hours of comms & culture and then an hour of English was hard and I’m wishing I could just do film studies without the other two, but I’ll need them for the points if I’m even gonna consider getting to uni. Uni? One week at college and now you’re Stephen Hawking?
“Later, Waterboy!” The blond kid shouts. He’s standing with a chunky rugby type and a skater-looking ginger boy outside the double doors. He raises his thumb sarcastically, flashing his grin. Prick. I stare at him as I walk, holding his eyes, face up, until the wall of the reception block cuts the shot.
“Prick.”
“Talking to yourself?”
And she’s right next to me on my right, out of nowhere, her steps matching mine. Her umbrella’s rolled up and she’s holding it like a cane. Her eyes are level with my mouth. She is so fit.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” she smiles.
“You didn’t scare me.” I stare ahead. The footpath’s made from the same red bricks as the buildings.
“You forgot my name, didn’t you?” Her eyebrows are raised. I glance at her, then look away.
“How could I forget your name? You’re the princess.”
And as we walk towards the car park, I’m imagining the camera moving out and up, circling round us.
“Where did you go to school?” she says, and the camera hits the floor like a bowling ball. My stomach knots. Tommy’s picking me up. “Not round here,” I say, as I scan the car park for a blue Peugeot 306, praying he’s not already here. Then Leia’s phone rings and saves me. We stop walking. She looks at the screen, then pushes decline.
“Not important?” I say.
She’s still looking at her phone. “Brothers,” she sighs, and slips it back into her pocket. “What other subjects are you doing?”
She’s got a brother. I’m looking over her shoulder for Tommy. “Communications & Culture and English.”
“Me too, English, I mean. We must be in different classes.”
“I guess so.” Why is she still talking to me? What does she want?
“Why were you at the bus stop if you drive?” she says. “Are you seventeen?”
Jesus, she asks more questions than Lois Lane.
A small gang of girls who look like a pop group walk past us and start down the hill. I shake my head. “Not until next month. My friend’s picking me up.”
Leia nods. “He’s pretty cool, right? Noah, I mean?”
I nod back. She says, “The thing he said about keeping a notebook is so true, I’ve kept one for years.”
I think of the notebook in my bag right now and picture all the ones under my bed, filled with ideas; random lines, things people said, thoughts, dreams, memories, snippets of scenes, things I couldn’t say to anyone but that felt like they had to come out. I say nothing and just stare at her. There’s something about her eyes.
“It’s lazy.” She points at her right eye. “Not loads. I used to have a patch when I was a kid.”
I look away and pretend I’m checking the road. Leia hits my elbow. “Don’t worry, I’m not offended. Aaaaaaarrrggggghhhhh.”
I turn back to her and rub my elbow even though it doesn’t hurt.
She shrugs. “Like a pirate? Eye patch?”
“Good one.”
That sounded sarcastic. “I mean, not good that you’ve got an eye patch …”
“I don’t have an eye patch. I used to have one.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant. I’ve gotta go.”
“I thought your friend was picking you up?”
“Yeah, I need to ring him. I’ll see you later.”
I start to walk back the way we came and take out my phone, hearing her voice. “Yeah. Later, Skywalker.”
I can feel her watching me, but I don’t turn back. I’m not here for friends. Even pretty ones who know about films.
I hear the horn before I see the car. Our navy blue carriage to freedom. Passed down through three older O’Hara brothers and now it’s Tommy’s. He pulls up outside reception and the passenger door swings open.
“Yes, Shitface! How’s big school?”
Tommy’s my oldest friend. We’ve been mates since we were three. He’s the youngest of four brothers, all of them one year apart, all of them carbon copies of their Dad, Micky; Irish catholic, black hair, sharp chin, long limbs and blue-grey eyes. Dad and Micky have known each other since school.
Tommy was the best footballer in our year by far. I’m all right, but he was something else. He played for the Aston Villa youth team until they kicked him out for trouble. Tommy’s skinny, but he can fight. Even though I’m bigger than him, when we mess around, he’s always a handful.
One time he bit a dog. We were nine and being chased by Mr Malcolm’s Doberman, Dusty, after we’d been stealing apples from his garden. As we were running down the alley behind the supermarket, Tommy just stopped and turned round, gave this weird howl like a werewolf, and when Dusty went for him, Tommy wrestled Dusty to the floor and bit him on the neck. Dusty yelped and ran off and Tommy just sat there looking up at me, grinning. He still brings that up proudly whenever he gets the chance.
He insisted on picking me up today. The car’s seen better days, but it’s real and it moves.
“So how was it then?” he says, leaning forward to check out the campus buildings through the windscreen. Something about him being here feels weird. Like I don’t want to be seen.
He’s wearing dirty grey overalls and a black T-shirt and his hands and cheeks are speckled with white paint. His voice is deep and his top lip’s got the shadow of a potential moustache.
An older girl wearing expensive headphones and a denim jacket walks past the car. I feel my stomach drop as Tommy beeps the horn. I look down as the girl turns round.
“Yes, princess! Need a lift?” He’s leaning out of his window.
I pretend to tie my shoelace, waiting for it to be over.
“Whatever then, your loss!” He slaps my shoulder. “You know her? She was banging. What you doing?”
I sit up and shake my head. “Can we just go?”
As we drive down the hill, we pass Leia, umbrella under her arm as she talks on her phone. I turn away from the window.
“So come on then?” Tommy lights a cigarette as we pull up at the island behind a black BMW.
“It’s fine,” I say.
“Fine? It better be more than just fine, Luke. It took me nearly half an hour, man. What bus you get?”
I crack open my window. “The 87 and the 50.”
“Two buses? Shit, they better be teaching you some important stuff.” Tommy whacks my thigh. “Girls though, yeah?”
And I picture Leia, her fingers pointing at me like a gun. “Dunno. Not really noticed.”
“Yeah, right, dark horse Luke Henry? Them posh girls love a bit of rough, eh? Just don’t forget to sort me out once you’re plugged in, yeah?” He raises his finger like a politician. “Share and share alike, Lukey.”
“You look like your old man, Thomas.”
“Like you don’t?” He takes a long drag and looks down at himself. “Some of us have to work in the real world, mate. We can’t all be nerds.”
(#ulink_dd108e43-6237-5218-9ff2-498d0e06386a)
INT. CAR – DAY
Close-up of TOMMY’s mouth as he pulls on a cigarette. YOUNG MAN next to him and scenery outside blurry in the background.
Tommy turns the engine off and the pair of us sit, staring up at the back of the supermarket. Next to the fire door, a row of industrial-sized bins are lined up and there’s a greyness in the air that I don’t want to say is just this side of town. You just said it. Whatever it is, it feels familiar and I can feel my body starting to relax.
“What did Zia say?” I ask.
Tommy flicks his cigarette out the window. “To wait out back and he’d dip out. What time is it?”
I look at my phone. “Half four. You should get one of them air fresheners, man, them little trees.”
“What you saying? You saying my car stinks?”
“Like an ashtray.”
“You wanna walk?”
My phone beeps. It’s a text from Dad.
How wis fist wk big man? Dodx
I picture him lying on his back under some battered old car, taking ten minutes to type the message, his thick thumb hitting four buttons at once.
Good thanks. See you tomorrow
Tommy tuts. “Where is he, man?”
I look up at the concrete building. “He’s probably being watched. What did he say the manager guy’s name was again?”
“Dunno. I’m starving though.”
Then the fire door pops open and Zia pokes his head out, like a meerkat sentry. He looks both ways, then nods at us. He’s shaved his beard back to rough stubble and he’s wearing a hair net. Tommy laughs. “He looks like my mum after a shower.”
“Yeah, ’cept your mum’s beard’s thicker.”
He tries to dig my thigh, but I grab his fist and squeeze.
“All right, all right, get off, Luke!”
I hold him a second longer, then let him go and open my door.
“Yes, boys!” whispers Zia. The whites of his eyes sparkle next to his skin. Fists bump, then he says, “Wait here,” and he’s gone. The fire door clicks closed and me and Tommy are standing with our backs against the wall.
Tommy points up at the security camera facing the car park. I nod. The door opens again and Zia hands me a small, torn cardboard box. I can see Babybels, a ripped pack of Jammy Dodgers and a can of Relentless. I look at Zia.
“What’s this?”
Zia frowns. “Dinner.”
Tommy looks into the box. “Dinner for who? A crack head?”
“If you don’t want it, don’t eat it, man. I have to be careful what I take, don’t I? We have to put the damaged stock out the back and if I tear expensive stuff, Pete the Prick flips out.”
Tommy takes out a Babybel. “Couldn’t you just get some crisps or something?”
Zia pulls the box back out of my hands. “Look, if you wanna give orders, go Chicken Cottage, yeah? I’m not a waiter. You want this or not?”
I put my hands on the box. “Course we do. Thanks, man. What time you finish?”
Zia lets go of the box and sighs. “Ten. We gotta stack up the shelves for the staff working tomorrow.” He scratches his velcro stubble. Tommy pulls open a Babybel and the three of us just stand there. One supermarket employee, one builder’s apprentice and me. A year ago we’d all be in school uniform.
Zia clicks his fingers. “Yo, check this out. I thought up a new bit. Upgrades, yeah? Like with phones, but for your friends and family.”
Tommy looks at me and rolls his eyes. Zia carries on. “So I’d be like, OK, I’ve got the standard Tommy friend, yeah? But I wanna upgrade, cos the new one has got better features and that, like he never asks to borrow money, and he doesn’t say dumb stuff and get us into trouble.”
Tommy pushes Zia. “Shut up, man. Why am I the one who gets upgraded? You say dumb stuff all the time.”
I smile. “That’s not bad, man. You think that up today?”
Zia nods. “Nothing else to do while I’m stacking sugar.”
“Yeah, well I’ve heard it somewhere before,” says Tommy.
Zia frowns. “Shut up, that’s mine. It needs work, but it could be good.”
Tommy smiles through a mouthful of cheese. “So you gonna sort out an actual gig then?”
Zia stares at him. “Maybe I will.” Something clatters from inside. Zia looks back over his shoulder. “I gotta go. Come get me later, yeah?”
We nod. Fists bump.
Me and Tommy start towards the car, but stop when Zia calls out, “Lukey!” We turn back. “One more week, eh?”
Tommy looks down. I give an awkward shrug. Zia does his good Samaritan smile. “Ring me if you wanna talk, yeah?”
Then he slides inside and the door shuts, leaving me and Tommy standing there, silent. I stare at the ground.
“You all right, Lukey?”
“I’m fine.” I start walking.
As we get to the car, Tommy points at the box. “Yo, the Relentless is mine.”
I look at him as I open my door. “Course it is.”
He opens his. “What you saying then? FIFA at mine?”
I nod. He smiles. “Friend upgrades, that is pretty funny.”
I stare up at the supermarket building, at the security camera, and picture a dark room with a wall of black-and-white screens. I zoom in on one and see me, standing next to the car, staring up into the lens.
One more week. Is he thinking about me?
(#ulink_19f48c70-fd03-554e-9276-0b545bde48ee)
Mum said: Life’s a record on loop; we just have to learn to love the song.
It’s after midnight when Tommy drops me off.
Mum works nights at the weekend and she turns the heating off when she leaves, so the house feels like an empty cave. I kick off my shoes and climb the stairs.
The landing light has no shade so the bulb shines a circle across the ceiling and walls. Standing outside my room the landing stretches away to my left, towards his door. I feel it pulling me. Like I always do. Like part of him is always here. So I walk towards it.
The gloss painted wood, something pulsing behind. The cheap silver handle. The dark jagged letters carved into the white:
MARC’S ROOM
I remember sitting in my pyjamas on the landing right here, my hair still damp from the bath, listening to him play the first Eminem album. Knowing the words were bad, but not really understanding and feeling like I wanted in on the secret.
I picture inside now. The perfectly made bed with his barbell underneath. The football posters. The black veneered shelves full of trophies, nearly two years untouched. Two years of waiting, weighing everything down, pressing things into their place. My hand moves up to my face. Not long now.
I push my bedroom door closed behind me, take Leon from my DVD shelves. I switch off my light, open my laptop on my bedside table to face my pillow, slide in the disc and lie down on top of my covers. The Columbia Pictures logo comes up, the lady holding the torch as the trumpets play, and I feel the tingle in my blood. My heads sinks into my pillow as the camera flies over the water, then trees, and the strings start to play and the names of actors appear and everything’s all right. I get to go somewhere else.
Morning sunlight splits my ceiling in half. I stare at the crack in the ceiling plaster that cuts from the corner in towards the lampshade like a thin black root and I feel my face.
I reach down into my bag, pull out my notepad, grab a pen from my bedside table and …
A waterfall of rain.
Leia’s staring from behind it. Her hair’s out in a big afro like from some old 1970s cop show. She’s wearing the big black coat, but the front is undone and there’s a clear V of naked skin. It’s like inside a tent or a cloud or something, everything washed in white. Leia licks her lips and raises her hand to point straight at me with two fingers. The water hits her hand and her face goes out of focus. Then there’s fire, behind her and on both sides, tall flames that don’t touch her but feel like they’re all around. Her face becomes clear again and she’s wearing an eye patch and the water is gone. Her head tilts. She smiles, then her mouth mimes a gun shot and she’s stepping forward, fingers still pointing, as she moves closer and her coat is falling open. Flames dancing. Closer, and her skin, and closer, and the fire behind her, and more skin, and closer and closer and
I lower my pen and stare at the ceiling. What the hell’s all that about? You think she dreamt about you?
My laptop’s still open from last night. I close it, then slide off my bed down into press-up position on the floor. Back level, I feel the warmth spread across my shoulders and I smile. Thirty reps, then fifty crunches and repeat. Every morning for two years. At least my body will be ready.
I can hear the TV as I come downstairs.
Mum’s lying under her duvet on the sofa, half watching a chunky man cooking something with fish. The curtains are open. Dad’s old varnished wooden clock, shaped like Jamaica, ticks like a mantelpiece metronome in between Marc’s trophy for under-sixteens’ 800m champion and a glass-framed photograph of a younger me and him on a climbing frame, me watching as he swings from the bars.
“Make us a coffee, Luke.” Her heavy eyes don’t leave the screen.
INT. – DAY
Close-up: Bubbles and steam cloud clear plastic.
I stare out of the window over the sink, holding the milk, as the kettle starts to boil. Our small square of back garden is overgrown and next to the fence I see the old deflated leather football nestled into the grass like a white rock.
I spoon coffee into the big mug with the black cat on it and keep stirring as I pour the hot water three quarters to the top. I shake the plastic milk carton like I’m making a cocktail, bang it on the sideboard to bubble it up like Marc showed me, then stir slowly as I add a little to the coffee, making a whirlpool of froth to the top edge of the mug.
Some people have machines that do it for you; in our house you do it yourself.
Mum’s eyes are closed and she’s mouth breathing. I kneel down next to the sofa, resting the mug on the floor and see she’s still wearing her nurse’s clothes under the duvet. Her skin’s pale and, with her mousey hair in a ponytail, she looks young for a mum. I hold my hand up next to her face. My skin’s darker than hers, but lighter than Dad’s, and I think about genes and twisted strings of code. Then I notice the photograph of Marc in his Aston Villa youth kit tucked between the cushion under her head and the arm of the sofa.
“Mum. Mum, why don’t you get into bed?” I put my hand on her shoulder.
She jerks awake and sits straight up, kicking the coffee all over my lap. I shout out and fall back as the hot coffee burns my thighs through my jogging bottoms. Mum looks terrified.
“Luke!” She falls forward off the sofa half on top of me, grabbing my shoulders. “Are you OK?”
The photo of Marc drops on to the floor. I can feel the heat branding my skin. “I’m OK, Mum. It’s all right.”
She sees the photograph and lets go of me to pick it up. Then she pulls the duvet away and looks down at the dark brown patch on the cream carpet. “Oh, look what you did! You need to be careful, Luke.”
“Me?”
“This is gonna need shampooing. Get a cloth, hurry up!”
So I go to the kitchen, my thighs pulsing from the heat, to get a tea towel to clean up the mess I didn’t make.
Walls work both ways. What keeps you safe, keeps you separate.
(#ulink_8a0bfecf-c8f0-5473-9fc3-35c3c853679d)
“Of course there’s a difference! These ones are Honey Nut, Dad. They’ve got honey and nuts in …”
“But I don’t want honey and nuts.”
I laugh. Zia’s putting on a voice for his dad, playing both parts in this little comedy routine, hunching over and everything, pretending to adjust his glasses. Me and Tommy are his audience, sitting on the lime-green leather sofa. I can see our dark reflection in the black screen of the massive TV behind him.
“Are you kidding, Dad? Let’s treat ourselves, yeah?”
“I don’t want a treat, I want breakfast.”
“But Dad, you’re the West Midlands Carpet King, you can afford to splash out on a better cereal. Look, these ones are called clusters, they look good.”
“Cornflakes.”
“How about Cocopops?”
“Cornflakes.”
“Fine, but let’s at least get the Crunchy Nut, yeah?”
“You think I became successful by eating crunchy nuts? What’s wrong with you? You used to love cornflakes, you too good for cornflakes now?”
I laugh and Zia stops his routine.
I nod at him. “This is good stuff, man.”
Zia bows. “My life is my scrapbook.”
He’s got no idea how cool that sounded, and I make a mental note to write it down later.
“Has your dad seen you do it yet?” says Tommy.
“Are you mad? In fact, we should go. He’ll be back soon.”
Me and Tommy stand up.
“You should show him, man. You’re getting good,” I say.
“Oh yeah. ‘Hey, Dad, Tommy and Luke reckon I should jack in the supermarket job you’re making me do and sack off your plans for me and the family business. Yeah yeah, they think I should try and become a stand-up comedian. They think I’ve got potential.’”
His face is pure sarcasm. Zia’s dad doesn’t even like us in the house, let alone giving his only son career advice. Tommy looks round the room. “Yo. Your sister about?”
Zia digs his arm. “Shut up, yeah? It’s not funny.”
“What? I’m just saying.”
“What are you just saying, Tom?”
Tommy blinks slowly. “I’m just saying, that I think Famida is a rare beauty and I’d like to make her my wife.”
I laugh. Zia stares at Tommy. Tommy carries on. “My older, foxy wife.” He closes his eyes and smiles like he’s just tasted the best ice cream in the world. Zia goes for him and they’re in a two-man rugby scrum. I watch their reflection in the TV.
Zia joined our school in Year Five, but he really came into his own when we moved up to secondary. He was the kid who always said the cool thing at just the right time. Some of the one-liners he rocked to teachers were incredible. Like the time when Mr Chopping was laying into us in chemistry and shouted, “Do you think I enjoy spending my time with immature young boys?” and without even blinking, Zia was like, “I don’t know sir, I’d have to browse your internet history.” Brilliant.
I punch them both and they stop wrestling. Tommy cracks his neck and takes out a cigarette. Zia cuts him a look. “Don’t even joke you idiot, come on, let’s go.”
“Where we going, anyway?” I say.
Tommy puts his cigarette back and shrugs. Zia puts his hands on our shoulders. “Doesn’t matter. We got wheels!”
INT. CAR – DAY
Close-up: A pine tree air-freshener swings from the rear-view mirror to the sounds of boys laughing.
We don’t have anywhere to go and Tommy’s happy just driving around, so that’s what we do. I get shotgun and Zia’s in the back behind me. There’s no stereo in the car, but it doesn’t matter cos just driving with no sound feels good. Like a music video on mute.
Then I have an idea.
We drive round to old Mr Malcom’s house and nick apples from the tree in his front garden, then park outside our old school. It’s only been a summer since we left, but it feels like forever. The black metal front gates are locked and it looks kinda small.
“Shithole,” says Tommy.
Zia nods. “Load up.”
Standing in a line in front of the gates, we cock our arms back and try to hit the technology block windows.
I’m the only one to reach, my apple exploding on the thick double-glazed glass. “Eat that, Mr Nelson.”
We stop by West Smethwick park and watch the second half of an under-twelves game. It’s Yellows vs Reds. Within minutes, Tommy’s shouting instructions to the Yellows’ defence.
Some of the parents stare.
The Yellows win 5:1.
At about four we stop at Neelam’s on the high road and get masala fish and ginger beers, then park up near the bus stop and eat in the car. Heat from our food steams up the windows.
“We could go anywhere,” says Zia through a mouthful of naan just as I was thinking the exact same thing; how we could just choose a direction and drive. All we’d need is petrol money. Tommy nods and I wonder what places they’re both imagining. London. Manchester. Paris.
“Wolverhampton,” says Tommy.
“What?”
He looks at me. “We could drive to Wolverhampton.”
I stare at him. “Wolverhampton? That’s where you wanna go?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” He takes a big bite of his naan. “Jamie says wolves girls are well up for it.”
Zia leans forward in between our seats. “I never went to Blackpool.”
Tommy scoffs. “What the hell’s in Blackpool?”
“What the hell’s in Wolverhampton?” says Zia. “At least Blackpool’s got a rollercoaster.”
Tommy thinks about it. “Oh yeah, the Pepsi Max one, eh?”
Zia’s nodding. “Exactly. The Big One.”
Tommy nods back. “Yeah, sick. I’d go Blackpool. We should go to Blackpool. What you saying, Lukey? Blackpool road trip soon?”
The two of them look at me, chewing in sync, and it feels like they’re on one side and I’m on the other.
I shrug. “Yeah, Blackpool. Wicked.”
(#ulink_330976d0-1a19-57f1-9be0-1d214b6c9b97)
Zia said: My life is my scrapbook.
INT. PUB – NIGHT
The cackle of old man laughter.
I step out of the toilet into the noise of The Goose. It’s already pretty full and I can’t see across the room, but I can hear Dad’s deep laugh from the corner. I weave between bodies, tensing my shoulders the whole time in case I’m bumped.
Most people in here know each other, or at least they know of each other. I’m Little Lukey, Big Joe Henry’s kid, to the older ones, and to everyone else, Marc Henry’s little brother. I’ve been getting served at the bar since I was fifteen.
As I pass the bar, Donna smiles at me. My brain sends mixed messages to my face and I half smile, half grimace. What the hell was that, you idiot?
The flatscreen TV up on the wall shows Sky Sports News and it looks out of place, like a rectangular piece of future pasted into an old photograph. Don’t start with that stuff. Not here.
Dad’s sitting in the corner on the leather bench with two workmates from the garage on either side of him, all five of them still in their dark blue overalls, like some old boy band with Dad as the lead singer. The wall behind them’s deep burgundy and holds cheaply framed pictures of the local area from like a hundred years ago.
Whenever I see Dad with other men, even now, his size still hits me. He’s another half bigger in every direction than the closest guy to him. I think of kids looking up at him when we’re in town, their eyes wide, like they’ve discovered Big Foot.
“You OK, son?” He’s looking at me as I sit down on my stool across the circular table.
“I’m fine, Dad. Just déjà vu.”
Dad’s mate Lenny sticks out his bottom lip as he looks at me. “Catching your old man up, aren’t you, college boy?” He bends his arms like he’s a posing body builder and I turn in my seat.
“He’ll be bigger than me,” says Dad, smiling proud and nodding at me. I sit up straight and look at him. His square face is tired and scuffed with oil, but his eyes sparkle. I think of him driving me to pick up my GCSE results and the pair of us sitting in silence in the car after I opened them and got what I needed.
Lenny points at me. “Just don’t forget us when you’re rich and famous, eh?”
He nudges Dad. Dad does his polite laugh and I watch the little fans of wrinkles spread from the outside corners of his eyes.
“What’s on your mind, Lukey?” His voice is like thick gravy and everything about him has that calm that comes from knowing that nobody can really mess with him. It makes you feel safe. Mum used to call him her ‘handsome Shrek’. He knows what I’m thinking about. Him asking me what’s on my mind is his way of letting me know that he knows, and that now isn’t the time or the place to talk about Marc coming home.
It’s never the time or the place.
I shrug and shake my head and he carries on his conversation about fan belts. I sip from my half of Guinness, letting the metal taste swim around my teeth, and watch him, turning the volume down in my head so the scene goes silent. I try to picture him my age, nearly seventeen and unsure of himself, or scared, or confused or even slightly nervous, but I can’t. Dad’s emotions only seem to do the primary colours; happy, sad or angry. I know that can’t be true, all the other shades must live underneath his skin.
I look round the room of mostly men. A collage of weathered faces from different generations and I think about how each face has a life attached to it. A string of details that stretches out of the door, along local roads to where they sleep. A wife, a kid, an old sofa, an empty fridge. The spaces they own, somewhere else. How they choose to come here, and how people like to keep the different parts of their lives separate.
“Stop thinking will you, Lukey?” Dad’s frowning. I stare back at him, trying to let him know how stupid his statement is, but I know what he means, and sometimes I wish I could.
Dad finishes his pint and sighs. “You know where too much thinking gets you.”
By the time Tommy shows up with Micky, Dad and his mates are telling the same story for the seventh time, with slurred edges. Micky rubs his knuckles over my head. “And how’s Mr College?” I look at Tommy as Micky grabs my shoulders. “Shame some of your brains couldn’t rub off on this one.” He points at Tommy with his thumb, then sits down and gets immediately absorbed into the group of grown-ups. Tommy doesn’t say anything. Dad sends me to the bar and Tommy takes my seat to go through the same customary greeting and piss-taking from each tipsy mechanic in turn that I got an hour and a half ago.
Donna’s changing a vodka bottle from the spirit rack. She smiles as I place my empty glass on the rubber beer mat.
“Same again, Lukey?” Her voice is a beam of light cutting through the coarse bush of testosterone. What the hell are you talking about?
I look down.
“Two pints and two halves please. Micky and Tommy are here.”
Donna puts the vodka bottle down and starts to pour the drinks. I’m watching her as she moves, like she’s operating a machine she’s known forever and, like I do most times I speak to her, I get a flash of lying on my side on our living room floor under my duvet. I’m ten years old and pretending to be asleep while her and Marc fool around on the sofa behind me. Getting a sneaky glimpse of her black bra.
“So how’s college?” She places two halves on the bar and starts on the pints.
“All right, yeah,” I say, and even as the words are coming out of my mouth, I know they’re too quiet.
“What? I can’t hear you, babe, speak up.” She just called you babe.
I punch out my words to cut through the pub noise, just as things fall quiet. “It’s all right. Just started this week.”
My stomach drops as people turn to look at me. My head goes down as I wait for them to stop staring. Donna puts a full pint next to the two halves and they look like a single parent Guinness family. I stop myself saying it out loud. She’s laughing.
“That’s good. Knew you were the one with the brains.”
Her eyes lift my head up and I’m looking at her. Her black hair cut short like only some girls can do, her chocolatey eyes, the warmth in her smooth face. Her mum’s Italian and you can tell. I crack a smile and feel the skin of my cheek, and I want to say sorry. Sorry for what happened.
“Be uni next, eh?” she says.
I hold out the tenner Dad gave me. “Dunno about that.”
Donna holds my hand as she takes the money. Her thin fingers are strong.
“You get out of here first chance you get.” And she’s smiling, but there’s something else in her face, and she knows I see it. I look down again and she lets go.
“You do what you want, handsome. Ignore us bitter old ones.”
I take my change and feel Marc’s name crawling up my throat. I know she’s been counting days too, walking around under the same cloud of my big brother. Handsome?
I swallow, then look back at Donna. “You’re not old.”
Donna leans forward on the bar, her thin arms pushing her boobs forward. I try not to stare.
“Just the bitter I need to work on then.”
And then she’s gone, down the bar to serve an old man.
She called you handsome.
And I know it doesn’t mean anything, but I feel warm, and I’m wondering if this is how Marc felt every time he was with her.
Some old timer leans over the bar and stares at Donna’s body. I feel my muscles tensing as I look at his cracked blotchy face. Then he’s looking back at me, staring with cloudy eyes and he nods the nod, the one that lets me know that just like everyone else in here, he respects what Marc did.
Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm.
It sounded like something from an ITV courtroom drama.
ABH, with greater harm and higher culpability.
One year and six months.
I remember I had to look at Dad to see whether that was better or worse than they’d expected. Dad’s face didn’t move. Mum was already crying. I was wearing my funeral suit, my eyes trying to find somewhere to settle that didn’t feel wrong.
The room was four different shades of beige and the wooden gate that separated Marc from everyone else was so low it didn’t make any sense. The magistrate gave a little speech about Marc’s disregard for another human life. How Craig Miller could’ve died and how, by driving round looking for Craig, unashamedly asking people where he was, Marc had demonstrated a premeditated intent to cause harm. Nothing about Craig’s history of terrorising people since I could remember.
The charge, combined with Marc’s record of minor charges for affray and violent conduct, led the magistrate to extend the sentence to twenty months.
Mum wailed, like twenty months was so much worse than eighteen. Dad’s face still didn’t move. I stared at Marc, standing firm in his white T-shirt, his chin up, like he was posing for a photograph, and I wanted to shout at the judge. To explain. Make it better.
But I didn’t. I just stood there, next to Dad, watching my older brother as the magistrate spoke.
The hammer banged. Dad held Mum as she cried and reached out towards the stand. Marc sighed and shook his head. “It’s OK, Mum. I’ll be all right.”
Then he looked at me, as the two officers led him away, and he smiled.
Marc Henry. The convicted hero. Wrong to the law, but right to anyone from round our way who knew Craig Miller, the nastiest piece of work around. Marc Henry. Local superstar. Guardian angel. Completely oblivious to the dead space he was about to leave behind.
(#ulink_e602c344-29ba-537c-8f95-25e17e7c6d56)
“She is so fit!”
Tommy’s voice is almost angry as he speaks, the smoke flowing out of his mouth like exhaust fumes. We’re standing outside the pub. He shakes his head. “I swear down, your brother, man. Lucky bastard.”
I cut him a look.
“What? I’m just saying, prison or no prison, Donna’s amazing. I’d … man, I don’t even know what I’d do.”
“Shut up, Tom.”
He’s right though. Donna would look sexy dressed as a chicken, and Marc was lucky to be with her. I rub my arms and feel my biceps tighten. Tommy takes another drag of his cigarette and the pair of us watch a wide smoke ring float up in front of us.
“Will you have a party? I mean, when he comes out?” he says, and I see a shot of me, wearing a shiny party hat, limp party blower hanging from my mouth, staring out.
“He’ll probably be even more hench, eh?” says Tommy, holding his thin arms in front of himself like a gorilla. I shrug. “No idea.”
“Course he will.” Tommy grabs my shoulders. “He’ll get a shock when he sees you though, eh? People’s champion.” He shakes me back and forth, like I just won a title fight. I shrug him off and then a car moves past and I recognise the driver.
“Noah?”
I watch the car drive past the chippy and turn up Barns Road.
“Who’s Noah?” Tommy’s squinting at me, and I’m not sure if it really was him, or if I just thought it was.
“Who’s Noah, Luke?”
“In the car. I thought I saw someone, from college.”
“Round here?”
“I dunno, probably wasn’t him. He’s a teacher.” I feel myself shiver from the cold as I try to picture Noah standing at the front of the class, but all I see is Leia, pointing her gun fingers.
Tommy snorts and spits a greeny. “No teachers round here, Lukey.”
I stare along the empty road and try to imagine where Leia is right now, what she’s doing.
“What’s your favourite film, Tom?” I turn to him. His shoulders are up by his ears, trying to hide from the cold.
“Dunno,” he says. “Don’t really have a favourite.”
“I know it depends on the mood and that, but if you had to say one, like now, what would you pick?”
And I watch him think, picturing shelves of DVDs stretching out either side of him, like Neo choosing weapons in The Matrix.
“Die Hard II.”
“What?”
“Die Hard II. Die Harder.” He’s smiling proudly.
I frown. “Die Hard II? That’s your favourite film?”
Tommy nods. “Right now, yeah.”
“What about the first one?”
Tommy lifts his hand like he was expecting me to ask.
“Number two is the same but with aeroplanes, so it’s better. The bit when he lights up the runway with the petrol from the plane and it blows up … that is so sick!”
I picture the scene, Bruce Willis lying bloodied on the snowy runway, throwing his lighter and watching the trail of flames jump up into the air, making the plane full of bad guys explode.
So many of our favourite things are passed down. It’s the younger brother template. The first Die Hard films were made years before we were even born, but through older brothers and our dads, we’ve taken them on as our own. We have that in common.
Tommy mimes flicking a cigarette – “Yippee Kayaaaay!” – then pulls open the door. Noise from inside spills out over us and, just for a second, I get the feeling we’re being watched.
Dad was actually on TV.
He never went to drama school or anything. He was in town with Uncle Chris and some agent spotted him. He was training to be a mechanic.
I know the story well.
Straight away, the agent got him a walk-on part in a science fiction series called Babylon 5. He told Dad it would be his big break. They flew him to California to film it and everything.
‘Big Alien Pilot’ was his character. His scene happened in the space station bar. He starts a fight with one of the main characters and gets beaten up, even though he’s twice the size of the other guy. We used to sit around as a family and watch it on video, Dad doing live commentary from the sofa. I reckon I’ve seen it a hundred times.
When you’re seven and you watch your dad on TV in blue skin make-up, a pair of prosthetic horns and a leather waistcoat, looking bigger than everyone else, it’s pretty cool. That’s my dad! type thing.
Then, as you get older and you start paying more attention to the ‘what if’ expression on your dad’s face as he watches, and you can feel your big brother and your mum doing the same, the magic kind of wears off.
Dad said they wanted him to come back as a different alien and get beaten up again and it turned out that would be all he’d ever get to do. The agent told him he could make a good living playing ‘the heavy’, but that nobody wrote decent parts for big men. Dad said he didn’t want to spend his life pretending to be monsters and bodyguards, so he came back, and finished training as a mechanic.
A year later, a nineteen-year-old student nurse having trouble with her first car came into the garage where Dad worked. Dad started checking it over and noticed that the girl wouldn’t stop staring at him. He tried to ignore it and went under the car. As he lay on his back, he realised that the girl was lying down on the floor next to the back wheel, just so she could see him.
Turned out she was a huge Babylon 5 fan and knew every scene from every episode. She also had a thing for big men.
Less than a year later, a giant and a pregnant nurse were married, and a month after that, Marc was born.
By the time I arrived Marc was nearly four. Four years of being the only child and then a baby shows up, crying and needing help with everything.
Mum always used to tell people that Marc’s first word was ‘ball’ and that mine was ‘Dad’. Kinda messed up that there are moments that end up defining your character before you even have a choice.
Marc’s face.
Blank expression, but he’s blinking. His hair’s shaved. Mouth closed. Thick neck. Strong jaw. His Adam’s apple moves as he swallows. Skin is perfectly smooth.
Then there’s something on his left cheek, a dot underneath his left eye. It’s red. And it’s turning into a line.
Like someone is drawing it. Like he’s being cut with an invisible scalpel.
The cut grows, curving up towards his eye, splitting skin. But there’s no blood. Just a clean red line. His expression shows no sign of pain.
His left eye closes as the cut crosses over it on to his forehead. It reaches half way up and then stops.
His fingertips dig under the skin at the bottom of the line and he pulls.
The skin comes away from his face, like wrapping paper, but there’s no blood, just more skin underneath that’s a shade lighter and it’s someone else’s eyes. It’s a younger face. Skin perfectly smooth.
It’s my face.
It’s me.
(#ulink_3ad64ece-1748-572f-b2c1-54807398529e)
I’m walking through the graveyard before the hill up to college, reading the epitaphs of strangers on the mossy gravestones.
Most of them seem to be for kids and there’s something really creepy about seeing a name carved into stone above two dates only three or four years apart.
Noah asked us to watch a film we like and choose a scene to use in the lesson and I realise that I’m excited.
As I step out of the graveyard on to the pavement, I see Leia across the road, starting up the hill. I think about calling out to her, but it doesn’t feel right, then the blond kid from film studies comes up from the underpass steps behind her.
I hang back, pretending to check my phone, and watch him catch Leia up. I stay on this side of the road and keep a good distance as they walk together, and I want to know what they’re saying. The blond kid is talking and gesturing, using his hands like he’s pitching an idea. He’s probably chatting her up. I hate him.
Everyone sits in the same seats.
I’m staring at the blond kid as Noah starts saying how he believes the best way to learn is to actually do stuff instead of just talking about it, and how, by Christmas, he wants us all to have our own draft scripts. A sheet of A4 paper goes round the class for us to all write our personal email addresses on. He wants them so he can send us links to check out. A couple of people look at each other wondering whether that’s even allowed. They gave us individual college emails in the first week, but everyone still writes their real one down for him.
Leia’s wearing a big grey sports sweater. The kind that looks like a hand-me-down, and that you can only wear if you have that ‘I don’t care what anyone thinks’ air. The sides of it are hugging her chest and I’m absolutely not stealing looks whenever I get chance.
We’re supposed to write a description of the scene we chose from our film and hand it in at the end of the lesson. Noah says it’s a good way for him to get to know us – that he wants to get to know us through our choices. I look at him and try to figure out if it was him I saw in the car on Saturday night.
It could’ve been.
The room is bubbling.
It’s not like at school, where the teacher would be telling people to shut up every two minutes. People are chatting and moving around and nobody else seems to be surprised by it, so I try not to be. The blond kid keeps looking over at Leia and I can feel myself staring at him like a guard dog or something, and I know I’m being stupid, but I can’t help it. I want him to see my face.
I’m writing about the scene in Reservoir Dogs where Tim Roth is practising his monologue so he’s got an anecdote about something criminal and nobody else in the crew will suspect that he’s an undercover cop.
I’m writing how I like that we see him practise. How I like it when we get to see the little things that happen before or after the action.
How I think most people don’t really consider what happens before they show up at a party, or what someone who isn’t the ‘hero’ is thinking in the moment, and even though I don’t like a lot of Tarantino movies, Reservoir Dogs would probably be in my top ten films ever. I’m writing all this stuff and it feels brilliant.
“Not saying much today are you, Mr Jedi?” Leia doesn’t look up from her page as she speaks.
I can’t see what she’s writing about and I want to ask, but the blond kid watching us is making me angry.
“Let me guess,” she says. “Another love story?”
“No.” And the word comes out of my mouth much colder than I meant it to.
“All right, easy Skywalker.” She’s looking at me now and I read the word RUSHMORE at the top of her page.
“My name’s Luke,” I snap, and I look at her without blinking. Leia looks a bit surprised and she’s about to say something back when the blond kid is standing in front of our desk.
“How’s it going?” He’s looking at just her. His voice sounds like he’s completely relaxed, like the lesson is happening in his house and we’re just guests.
Leia says, “Fine. Simeon, have you met Luke?”
Simeon?
Simeon looks at me, then back at Leia.
“You always find the interesting looking ones, don’t you?”
What did he say? I feel my face turning away from them and I go over the last word I wrote with my pen. He already knows her. Leia puts her pen down. “He’s the strong silent type.” And the fact that they clearly know each other and are talking about me is making my skin crawl.
Simeon holds out his hand.
“Good to meet you, Luke. I’m the platonic ex.” What?
“What?”
I look up at Simeon. His skin is perfect. Platonic ex?
“Yeah, me and Leia go way back.” He smiles his Marks & Spencer smile.
I feel completely awkward, like I’m the new cast member on some teen sitcom that’s been running for years and my eyes are darting round the room, checking if people are watching. Nobody is. Leia turns in her seat. “Ignore him, Skywalker. He likes to cause trouble.”
Take his hand. Let him know.
I shake Simeon’s hand, trying not to squeeze too tight and be that pathetic guy who has to demonstrate his masculinity, but firm enough to let him know I’m choosing not to.
Our hands part and Simeon leans forward, trying to read my writing. My arm instinctively curls round my paper, covering it up. Simeon smirks. “All right Scorsese, I wasn’t trying to steal your ideas.” Him and Leia are smiling and I know it’s uncalled for, but I just want to punch him in the face. He wouldn’t be able to stop me and it would pop the awkward bubble he’s got me in. One punch and he’d be out.
“Anyway, we still up for the Electric later?”
Leia says, “Yeah,” then looks at me. “You up for it? They’re showing Ghostbusters One and Two. Classics.”
And it’s horrible. All of it, the staring, the nickname, his face, the fact that they’re cinema buddies, her smiling.
“No,” I say. “I’m busy.”
Leia’s face straightens, but she doesn’t seem that bothered.
Then people start packing up for the end of the lesson and I’m so glad I get to leave, I think I actually smile.
I buy a jacket potato from the refectory and take it all the way down the hill to the graveyard to get away. I sit on a bench dedicated to a man called Harold who used to clean the graves. A couple of crows are fighting over what looks like a chicken bone in front of a dirty white marble stone slumped at an angle.
I’m telling myself I have no real reason to be angry, that I knew a lot of people would already know each other and be all confident and that. But him? Her ex? Mr Squeaky Clean ‘I’m a young Brad Pitt’ Simeon?
Forget her. Keep to yourself. You’re not like this lot.
I dig a crater into the tuna with my white plastic fork. She said he likes to cause trouble. Maybe he was just saying it to wind her up, test me out.
She didn’t deny it though, did she?
She didn’t. How long did they go out for? Why are they still friends? Is that the kind of boy she likes?
I’m digging into yellow potato now. If he’s her type, then …
Digging with my fork.
They’re just a bunch of rich kids, they’re not like you, forget them.
But she seemed cool. Still digging.
Did she stare?
The fork hits the bottom of the box.
Did she stare?
I’m still pressing.
The fork snaps.
Yes. She stared.
(#ulink_8bac9dbf-8c43-594c-b713-990712acec62)
I get off my second bus early and walk round to Dad’s place.
I use the key he cut for me and, as I climb the dark stairs, I remember the afternoon I helped him move in. A year and a half ago. I remember watching his big body almost get wedged between the walls as he climbed up to the small attic studio flat. It’d been coming for a while; Marc getting sent down was just the rock that tipped the scales.
I come here sometimes when Dad’s at work. Mostly I just watch a film and then leave. The whole place is the size of our living room.
The only window is the skylight and in the afternoon it shines a rectangular spotlight on to the floor where the white lino of the kitchen corner meets the mud-brown carpet. It’s like a rubbish fairytale:
The Giant Who Lived in the Box Attic.
The sofa bed’s still folded out and the sheets are strewn. There’s an extra-large pizza box on the floor by the TV and empty lager cans on the draining board. I open the skylight to try and let out the man smell and start to tidy up. I stuff all the rubbish into a bin bag. I scrub the two plates and mug that have clearly been there for a few days. I fold the thin mattress of the bed back into a sofa and I use the dustpan and brush to sweep the carpet underneath. It feels like setting up a board game.
When I’m done, I sit on the sofa and look round the room. I always imagine this place is mine. My own flat, away from everyone. Just a toilet, sink, fridge, sofa, TV and enough DVDs to get lost in.
Simeon. The platonic ex. Forget them.
On the tiny chest of drawers in the corner to my left there’s a photograph of all four of us at Frankie & Benny’s. Dad got the waiter to take it. Him and Mum are in the middle, with Marc and me on the outsides. I take it from the drawers and hold it in my lap.
It’s Marc’s fifteenth birthday, so I’m eleven, fresh-faced, smooth skin, my hair longer and parted at the side. I remember Mum burning her mouth on her calzone and sucking an ice cube, Dad doing the ice-cream sundae challenge and winning a T-shirt.
I touch my face in the picture, feeling the smooth hard glass. Then it catches the light and I see my reflection. My face now, superimposed over our family. Breathe.
The afternoon quiet of the room. Just me on a fold-up sofa, in a shady attic, holding the past in my lap. Somewhere now, in a house probably twenty times bigger than this place, Leia is getting ready to go to the cinema with her platonic ex and his perfect skin.
I leave the photo on the sofa and lower down into press-up position, but on my clenched fists, like Marc used to do them. My weight presses down through my knuckles into the floor as I start and the pain is good. One, two. I turn my head to the side and my eyes run along the spines of the DVDs against the skirting board. Three.
Guilt is the worst. Four. Burn me with angry, choke me with sad, anything but guilt. Five, six. Guilt lives in your skin, like lead. Seven. Sitting there, heavy. Eight. And poisonous. Nine. Telling you not to forget. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
I see Ghostbusters, the white letters against black, and I stop. I can feel the muscles across my back pulled taut as I stay there, suspended, my knuckles raw from the friction and the pressure, and I see Leia, giggling as she hands the usher her ticket, Simeon smiling next to her as he wraps his tanned arm round her shoulders. I stare at the DVD.
“Come on, sleepy.” Dad’s voice wakes me up. I feel the pain in my neck as I sit up from resting on the sharp arm of the sofa bed. The light is on and through the skylight I can see a rectangle of black sky.
“Your mum was worried. Since when do you come on a Monday?”
I shrug. Dad nods. “I’ll drop you back.” His hands are smeared with oil as he ejects the Ghostbusters DVD and files it back into the row on the carpet.
I look at my phone and see four missed calls from Mum. It’s half ten. She’ll already be at the hospital. Dad hands me a twenty pound note. “Here, for cleaning up the place.”
He smiles. I take the money. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Come on, I wanna get to the chippy before it shuts.” He rubs his barrel stomach as I pull on my trainers and follow him out the door.
EXT. – NIGHT
An old black Vauxhall Astra drives along the night-time road, reflected streetlights rolling over its bonnet.
“So it’s going all right, then?”
He’s watching the road as he drives and I’m thinking, every conversation feels easier in the car. Staring forward and talking should be standard procedure.
“Yeah,” I say, “It’s fine.”
“Not too much homework?”
“We’ve only just started really. It’ll be fine, Dad.”
We’re behind the same bus that I catch home from town.
Dad glances my way. “And what about girls?”
I think about Leia and Simeon and my legs tighten. “No.”
Dad shrugs his boulder shoulders and I notice he’s not wearing his seatbelt again. “What? I’m just asking. New pond, new fish, strapping young shark like yourself. You’ll make a killing.”
I shake my head. “What the hell does that even mean? Sharks? In a pond?”
And he’s laughing. “I dunno. It’s an analogy.”
Now I’m laughing. “Oh, it’s an analogy, is it, Joseph? And since when do you make analogies?”
“Well, when your boy goes off to college and starts mingling with college types, you need to step your game up, don’t ya?”
He grips the steering wheel dramatically, pretending like he’s trying to control a spiralling jet fighter, and waits for my reply. I just look at him, then blow a raspberry with my tongue. “There’s your analogy, old man.”
And we laugh together as we turn on to the high road.
Our laughter fades out as we drive down ours and he pulls up outside the house. You can see the hall light is on through the glass top of the front door, but we both know the house is empty.
“You wanna cup of tea or something?” I say. Dad looks at the house.
“Better not, wouldn’t want to get too comfy, eh?”
I unbuckle my seatbelt. “OK. Enjoy your chips then.”
“Luke,” he says and I sense something coming. He turns to me, his chunky hands in his lap. “We can talk. I mean, if you want to.”
It’s not what I was expecting. I know how hard it is for him to bring it up. I’ve thought about it lots of times. All his size and strength didn’t count for anything when they sent his son down, and I know he would’ve done the same thing as Marc if he’d found out first. I know he doesn’t speak about it to anyone. I know not speaking about it drove the nails into the coffin of him and Mum.
“He couldn’t handle you seeing him, you know?”
And, just like that, there’s a tiny crack in the wall of him.
I can’t help staring. “What?”
Dad won’t look me in the eye, but he carries on. “He made me promise not to bring you, for visits. Your mum too. He didn’t want either of you seeing him in there. Me either. That’s why I stopped going.”
It’s the most he’s said about Marc since he’s been away and I don’t know where to look. Our road is dark and quiet.
“I told him. I told him, Luke. One’s enough. One good punch and walk away. One …” He breathes through his nose like an animal. “Him who can’t hear, must feel. Eh son?”
I say nothing. Just sit next to my old man, feeling more like a grown-up than I ever have.
Dad shifts in his seat. “Anyway, that chippy’ll be shutting. I’ll see you, Lukey.” And the moment’s over and I’m about to get out, when he grabs my head with his big hand and pulls it towards him, kisses me on the crown, then pushes me off. “Go on, get home.”
I watch the car drive away, the red brake lights as it reaches the corner, then it’s gone. One small scene. The least amount of words, but it feels like somebody just lifted up the heavy rock of my dad and showed me something growing underneath.
(#ulink_f852d6c3-3e6e-5c80-9b37-6687cfb1d435)
I’m walking up the hill to college. It’s Tuesday.
I’ve convinced myself that ‘brooding loner’ is my persona of choice. I’ll find a different seat in film, and if there isn’t one, I’ll just style it out and keep quiet till Leia gets the picture.
As I get to the campus, my phone beeps. It’s a message from Tommy:
Yo, hurry up and hook me up with one of them posh girls, Lukey, don’t be tight. T
I picture him sitting on a stack of paving slabs, smoking a cigarette in between middle-aged builders with thick necks and rubbish tattoos as I type a reply:
Sorry mate, they’re all only interested in me. Animals they are. I’m knackered to be honest. See you tomoz
I read the words and stare past my phone at the floor as I click send.
Groups of people are walking towards different lessons in different buildings and even though he’d probably do or say something to properly embarrass me, I’m wishing Tommy was here right now.
Leia isn’t there when I walk into class, but there aren’t any other spare seats besides the one next to hers so I just sit where I did before, and prepare myself to play it cool. A pale girl with the sides of her head shaved and a ponytail is playing music through her phone to the blonde girl next to her. They both stare at me as I sit down and I make myself not look away. Get a good look if you want.
Noah’s sitting at the front, just watching people as they talk, then Leia walks in with Simeon and I pretend not to notice.
“Hey,” she says, as she sits down next to me. She’s wearing a black Stussy hoodie and it’s probably a birthday present he got her when they were going out or something. Definitely. I nod without speaking and stare forward like I’m ready for the lesson to start. I watch Simeon slap palms with the chunky rugby boy as he sits down and I try and give him a nosebleed with my mind.
Just forget them.
Noah slams his hands down on his desk and everyone jumps.
He stands up slowly and turns to the whiteboard. He’s acting differently, like he’s waiting for something, and pretty much everyone’s eyes are trained on his back as he pulls out a marker and starts to write.
He does a big letter S, then a capital H. A couple of people look at each other, then back at him. As he starts the straight line of an I people are starting to chatter. Noah steps back from the board without turning around and holds his arms out like a conductor.
What’s this guy doing?
And it shouldn’t be a big deal really, a teacher about to write the word SHIT on a board, but it feels like we’re all breaking the rules together. Then Noah steps forward and curves the I round and up into a U and writes SHUT UP. And everything’s quiet. He turns round and he’s smiling and I’m thinking, right now, that must feel amazing.
“You hear that?” he says. People are looking round, out of the window and shaking their heads. My eyes don’t leave him.
“Somebody just fell in the shower.” He tilts his head slightly as though he’s listening for it himself. “You hear it?” He raises his index finger.
People don’t know where to look, but I’ve played this game. I still play this game all the time on my own and I like him. I like you, Noah.
“No one?”
He’s starting to look a bit let down. Nobody else even seems like they might be getting ready to speak. Then my hand goes up. What are you doing?
“I heard it.”
Get your hand down now.
But I just keep it there, as everyone’s eyes turn to me. Noah cracks a smile. “Thank you …” He’s leaning forward, waiting for me to say my name.
I lower my hand. “Luke. My name’s Luke.”
I can feel Leia looking at me on my right, but I stay with Noah. He nods. “Good. Now the real question is, Luke, are they dead?”
And it’s like the scene is ours. Me and him with an audience either side of us. Simeon’s staring back, but I don’t care. This is why I’m here. What? This is why I’m here.
“No. He’s not,” I say, and my blood is electric.
“Ah,” says Noah, “so he’s a he?”
And the room is gripped and I can feel ideas flicking through my head like holiday photos in fast forward.
“Yeah, he’s a man. A young man, and he’s not dead, he’s just lying down.”
As the words come out of my mouth I picture Marc, curled up on his side in a white shower cubicle, like Michael Biehn at the start of Terminator, steam rising as water falls on him.
The girl with the shaved head frowns. “That’s stupid.”
People look at her. I stay on Noah, as he says, “Is it?”
“Yeah,” says the girl. “Why would somebody just lie down in the shower?”
Noah looks at her. “And that’s why it’s brilliant.” He points at her with one hand and at me with the other. “Because you want to know.”
My throat’s dry as I swallow, but I feel great. He said my idea was brilliant.
Then Leia speaks. “It’s what he does.” All eyes move to her.
I turn in my seat. She’s leaning forward, like she’s getting ready for a race. I stare at her mouth as she says, “He waits until his family have gone to work and then he runs a shower and he lies underneath it in the bath. It reminds him of the rain.”
Then she’s looking at me with those dark shining eyes and I’m looking back at her and it’s so clear. There’s something there. There’s definitely something there.
“Amazing!” Noah’s clearly excited. “You two have to work together.”
No wait … Brooding loner, remember?
But then Noah claps his hands and says, “OK, everyone! Pair-up and wait for your sound. Find your character. Start where it matters. In a moment where things hang in the balance. Show us that moment, offer us a question that we need to know the answer to. I’ll come round and hear ideas. Ready? OK. Go.”
(#ulink_633187df-86ac-5ef6-a124-d548f8b50e65)
For nearly an hour we talk ideas.
I suggest something, Leia listens, then she gives an idea and I respond, and back and forth again and again as we build up our character and his backstory together. Her ideas are brilliant, and the whole time we’re talking it’s like I forget everything else as I just watch this story we’re creating grow out of nothing on the table in front of us.
By the time Noah works his way round to us we’ve got a sketched-out scene and both of us are charged.
“Come on then,” he says, squatting down in front of our desk. His eyes are excited.
I look at Leia, she looks at me. “You wanna start?”
“No, you can.”
And her face lights up. “OK, so it’s morning, right, Luke?”
I nod. Noah watches her.
“So it’s morning, late morning, like half eleven or something, and he’s lying down in the shower. It’s a bath actually, one of those cool free standing ones with the feet and there’s steam as the shower’s raining down on him. He’s nineteen.”
“What’s his name?” Noah asks and we realise at the same time that we didn’t give him one.
I hear Marc’s name in my head. Then Leia says, “Toby. His name’s Toby.”
Noah nods. Leia carries on. “OK. The house is empty. His dad’s at work and his younger sister’s at college. She’s nearly seventeen.”
She uses her hands as she talks, like Mum does, and it hits me that maybe Toby is her brother’s name in real life and if she’s using real details then he’s the same age as Marc.
“So he’s a scientist. Physics, actually, and he’s working on a really complicated theory. The shower helps him think.” My stomach’s dancing as she speaks and my pen rings a circle round her email address that she scribbled on my pad.
Noah frowns, but in a curious way rather than unhappy. “Where’s Mum?” he asks.
Leia taps her pad with her pen. “She left, but when Toby was little, she used to have baths with him. They used to sit in the bath together and put the shower on and pretend it was raining. It’s a good memory, like his happy place, and now it’s his best place to think.”
Did her mum leave?
Noah’s eyes are narrow, like he’s following her train of thought. “I see. So it’s like his connection to Mum, even though she’s gone?”
Leia nods. “Yeah. Exactly. It gives him clarity.”
“I like it,” says Noah, then he looks at me. “And what’s this theory then?”
I glance at Leia and clear my throat. “Time travel.”
Noah’s eyes widen and I feel my face smiling. “Time travel?”
“Kind of. Not backwards in time, that’s not possible, but he thinks he might have figured out a way to see into the future. Maybe.”
Leia cuts in. “We’re not sure yet. He’s like this super brain, but kind of a recluse. He finished his first degree when he was fourteen.”
“And he has these dreams,” I add.
I made the dreams bit up on the spot and look at Leia nervously, but she nods with wide eyes to let me know she’s cool with it and for some reason I feel the urge to hold her hand. I don’t, obviously. Then it’s the end of the lesson.
Noah stands up and scratches his chin like he’s thinking and I don’t want this to be over. Leia looks up at him. “What do you think?”
The pair of us watch him. He slides his hands into his pockets and I can see the muscles in his upper arms through his thin cream shirt.
“I think it’s brilliant.”
And I laugh, out of nowhere, like a fat HA!
What was that? I feel myself shrug, but it’s all right because Leia’s beaming. Then Noah says, “I think you’ve got something here. Something to run with. Well done. Keep working on it together, yeah? You’re obviously a great team.” And I feel myself straightening up in my chair.
“We will,” says Leia.
I start to pack my bag and I’m glowing, like I just won a race.
Then Simeon is standing in front of our desk. “How lame was that?” he says, and my glow flicks off, like the bulb just popped.
Simeon’s rolling his eyes and pointing with his head towards Noah at the front of the class.
“What’s this guy’s thing for picturing people in the shower? What a perv.” He forces a laugh and I feel my shield coming up.
“Lame?” says Leia. “That was amazing! Wasn’t it, Luke?”
And even though it was, even though it was easily the best lesson I’ve ever had in my life, and even though she’s looking at me knowing that we just shared something that felt sort of magic, I just shrug.
“Dunno.” And I get up and leave.
Good lad. Keep it cold.
Sometimes I feel like I could turn myself inside out. Concentrate my mind, tense every muscle, and burst my skeleton out of my skin. One total action and then done. Let everything out and explode. Sometimes I feel like I could do that. Push the detonator and make a massive mess for other people to clean up.
But whenever I think it, the voice in my head tells me I’m all talk.
“What the hell was that?”
Leia’s walking after me as I head down the hill. I don’t turn around.
“Oi, wait up a second!” She moves round in front, facing me. I carry on. She walks backwards and it’s almost like we’re dancing.
“You’re in my way.”
She doesn’t move. “What’s wrong with you?”
And I think about the scene in Goodfellas, when Karen comes looking for Henry after he stands her up and she’s angry and shouting at him and his voiceover is describing the spark in her eyes.
Leia stops walking and I have to stop so I don’t walk into her. I look straight at her. “What do you want?”
“What do I want? We’re supposed to be working together!” I see three boys walking up the hill on the other side of the road. They’re looking at us.
“Stop shouting, man.”
And she instantly gets more angry. I can see her jaw tensing and her right eye is kind of twitching. “I don’t know what your problem is, but we’ve got work to do.”
“Why don’t you just work with Simeon?” And as I say it, I realise how pathetic I sound.
“What?”
“Forget it.” And I step around her and carry on to the underpass.
Leia skips after me. “What’s Simeon got to do with anything?”
And it’s like we’re in Hollyoaks or something, and I just want to press rewind and not open my mouth. Things go darker as we walk into the underpass and the strip lights make it feel even more like a staged scene.
“Luke. What’s the matter? What’s your problem with Simeon?” Her voice is soft and confused and I wanna hit myself. I want to bury my fist into my own face.
I shake my head. “I don’t give a shit about Simeon. I don’t even know Simeon. I don’t even know you.”
She’s looking right at me now, trying to work me out.
What’s she staring at?
“Forget it,” I say. I start walking away faster and feel the disappointment as Leia doesn’t try to keep up.
“So you don’t want to work together?” she calls after me. I turn back and she’s just standing there, wide shot, framed by the underpass entrance, looking at me and I hate the fact that she can’t just read inside my head. I’m an idiot. I know I am, but there’s something here. Between you and me. I’ve felt it. Just gimme a chance.
Why can’t she do that? Why can’t I say that? I want to. But instead I say:
“I’m gonna do my own idea. By myself.”
Then I turn and walk away.
(#ulink_6d095981-95cb-53ff-a105-94a3066ed613)
I used to watch the girl next door wash her BMX.
From Mum and Dad’s bedroom window she couldn’t see me.
Every Sunday morning, she’d wheel it out on to the dirty slabs by their back door, flip it over and clean it with a toothbrush.
Her name was Becky.
Something about the way she moved, the care she took, mesmerised me.
I wanted to tell her, let her know I thought she was amazing.
So I wrote her a note, on Dad’s yellow pad, and posted it the day we left to go up and see Uncle Chris in Yorkshire.
The two weeks we were away I thought about her every day. Yorkshire was so boring. Dad and Uncle Chris fixing old bikes. Marc cooking with Mum. There was nothing to do but walk in the wet fields and think about Becky. Her face as she opened the letter. Her writing one back. Me running alongside her as she rode her BMX to the park.
The drive home was all butterflies.
Then we pulled into our road and I saw the SOLD sign straight away. I didn’t even know her house was for sale. Through the front window I could see empty walls and stripped floorboards.
On our door mat, among the post, was a sky-blue envelope with my name on it. I ran upstairs, shut my bedroom door and sat on my bed to read it. All it said was:
I’m on my bed, staring across at my bookcase of DVDs.
My bedside lamp’s pointed up at them like the Twentieth Century Fox spotlight. Mum’s at work at the hospital. It’s just after midnight.
Forget her.
I stare at the DVD spines and picture Leia standing in the underpass, staring confused as I walk away.
Forget her. She’s no different.
But she feels different.
She stared just the same, didn’t she?
My hand comes up to my face. Didn’t she?
My fingertip traces my scar. The curved sickle of torn skin that swoops from above the middle of my left eyebrow, down over my eyelid, across my cheek towards my ear. The glossy smoothness of it. Branding me.
I think about how there’s a version of me, somewhere else, in another universe, without a scar. A sixteen-year-old Luke Henry with a face that isn’t torn, who doesn’t live his life through the stares of strangers. I think about cells. How they die and regenerate and replace themselves and why can’t the cells of a scar be like all the others?
Nan said every scar is the memory of a mistake. A reminder to learn from. I get that. I understand. But do I have to see that memory every day for the rest of my life?
Look at you.
I picture Simeon, head cocked back in laughter, his perfect skin. It’s all so cliché. It can’t be that simple. Surely she can see past it.
What does she see when she looks at me?
Trouble. That’s what she sees. Just like everybody else.
I open my notebook in my lap and stare at the page. Zia’s words from the other day are written at the top: My life is my scrapbook.
My eyes close and my head goes back until it touches the wall behind me.
I use my neck muscles and push back, feeling the pressure in my crown.
“My life is my scrapbook.” Deep breath. “My life is my scrapbook.”
I stare across and read the spines on my top shelf, a jumble-sale mix of films I stole from Dad and Marc and other ones I don’t think either of them have seen; The Conformist, A Room For Romeo Brass, Somebody Up There Likes Me, Buffalo 66.
And then I have an idea.
I’m on my knees pulling out my notebooks. All of them. I spread them out on the floor around me. They’re all A4. Some have scribbled words on the front. Some have doodles and rubbish sketches. One of them has a crude picture of a hand gun in black biro against the brown of its cover. I open it up and flick through, looking for something, then I find it.
We sit opposite each other across the plastic table.
The room has small square windows pushed up near the ceiling and through them it’s afternoon. Spaced out pairs of people all sitting across identical tables from each other. The walls are off-white. A thick-set prison guard stands next to the door. I look across the table at Marc. Nervous. He just stares and says, “You shouldn’t have come.” I want to tell him I wanted to. I had to. He’s my brother. I can help him get through this. But I don’t. I just sit.
Then his skin is changing. Becoming dotted. Grainy. His facial expression doesn’t change, but his skin is becoming sandpaper. Rough and speckled.
“Marc. What’s happening? Marc?”
He doesn’t respond, his skin getting darker and rougher. And then his chin breaks off, the bottom of his jaw crumbling into sand, spilling down his chest. “Marc?” Then his shoulder, like old stone, disintegrates. Then his chest, caving into itself. “Marc!” Then all of him. His neck gives way, then his face, his expression never changing as all of him crumbles away.
I lay the notebook on the floor, open at the page. I can see it. I can see him. And I can use it.
I pick up my new one and I write: Marc
What you doing?
I write Nineteen
What are you doing?
I cross out Nineteen and write Marc. 20 yrs old.
You shouldn’t be writing this.
But I don’t listen. I just carry on.
Marc showers. He dries himself and walks back to his cell. He gets dressed. We can hear shouts and the occasional clank of metal on metal. He folds his towel up and lays it over the back of the chair, watching himself in the small shaving mirror stuck on to the wall above the sink. His dark hair is cut close, light stubble on his top lip and chin, cheeks smooth and fresh. Chiselled.
He stares at his reflection, lowering his chin until it’s almost touching the grey of his sweater, his shoulders rise and fall as he breathes.
Then he speaks. “I’m coming home.”
(#ulink_654a7e98-1e6e-5475-a375-73668bd04c7f)
I’m staring out of the window in comms.
From where we are on the second floor I can just make out the dimpled curve of the Bullring. The teacher lady’s leading a class discussion on immigration and it feels like I’m sitting in the audience on Question Time. An annoying girl with an anime face, dressed fully in American Apparel, has been talking about how disgusting nationalism is and how tabloid newspapers are to blame for most of the lesson. She’s really enjoying having centre stage and I’ve been trying to picture her and Tommy on a date. Him looking confused by the menu as they sit in some posh restaurant, her regurgitating snippets of popular opinion that she’s stolen from blogs.
The girl scans the classroom checking everyone’s paying attention to her and I remember Dad saying that people with the freedom to talk mostly do only that.
“It’s all just fear mongering,” she says, and I imagine Tommy in blue overalls in front of an open furnace, hammering a piece of metal that’s shaped into the word FEAR.
“They use our insecurities about money to whip up hatred,” she goes on.
I look down into my open bag at my notepad and think about how it’s film after lunch.
“What about you, Luke?”
The teacher’s talking to me. Louise. She looks like she might’ve been the lead singer in a band a long time ago. Her hair sprouting out of her head, like blonde fire with dark roots.
“Where do you stand on this?” And a room full of eyes are burning me. My feet are digging into the carpet as I try to look like I have an opinion.
“Where are you from?”
What the hell’s that supposed to mean?
“Birmingham,” I say, and a few people laugh. I can feel the cords in my neck.
Louise smiles and says, “No, I mean your family, originally?”
I look round the room. There’s a handful of other kids who aren’t white, so she’s not singling me out, but my back is still up.
Why is she asking me? What do I say?
Dad’s mum came from Jamaica and married an Irish man she met five minutes from where we live now, and Mum’s dad was French and married an English woman he met when she put a plaster cast on his broken arm. Where do I stand on this? To be honest it’s not something I ever really think about. We don’t talk about it at home. I know that I’ve never felt English, but I’ve never really felt Jamaican or French or Irish either. We’re from Birmingham. The one time we went abroad as a family, to Corfu, a girl from Belgium asked Marc where he was from and that’s what he said. The girl asked what country and Marc just smiled and said Birmingham was enough.
Louise changes her approach. “Question is,” she says, “should there be one rule for people born in a country and one for those who’ve come from somewhere else?” and the eyes on me are getting hotter.
What the hell is her problem?
I don’t know, Miss. Probably not. I don’t care. Ask someone else. Everybody’s shit stinks. I try not to hear it. Say it. My teeth grind together.
Louise shrugs. “Well?”
I shake my head. Say it, you chicken.
“No.” I cough out the word.
She stares. “And why not?”
Say it.
“Everybody’s shit stinks.” And Louise’s face drops as the whole class breathes in, and the words are just there, on the table in front of me like a puddle of invisible puke.
I wipe my mouth. My legs are twitching. Louise nods. “OK, thank you, Luke. Interesting angle, if perhaps a little coarse.”
And I can feel people fighting the urge to whisper and giggle, but it’s different somehow. It’s all right. The bell goes and as I stand up, I catch the eyes of the ginger skater kid, who was with Simeon, across the room. He’s wearing a grey Supreme hoodie. He nods at me, his bottom lip sticking out, like he’s agreeing.
I am the brooding loner. I nod back. And walk off, buzzing inside.
You’re welcome.
In the refectory I sit on my own near the wall at the end of a long fold-out table, eating a tuna-melt baguette.
I can see the ginger kid from comms a couple of tables down sitting with a gang of friends. I script their conversation in my head. He’s telling them about what I said in class and how I don’t give a shit. A couple of them sneak glances and I hold my head up proudly like, yeah, I’m that guy.
I take out my phone, then Leia walks in. I drink all of her in from bottom to top without blinking. Skinny jeans, oversized black woollen jumper with flecks of white in it hanging past her bum and a bright neon pink scarf. Her hair’s up in a high bun and there’s a pencil speared through it. She looks like an artist. I swallow my mouthful and try not to look up from my phone. Time to go.
But I don’t move. I think about the idea in my notebook, Marc getting ready to leave prison. How I want to show her. How I think she’ll like it. But I was such a melodramatic knob yesterday. She’s not gonna want to speak to me, and I don’t know what I’d say if she does. I take a massive bite, pushing the rest of my baguette into my mouth, trying to be done, and a flap of hot melted cheese drops on to my chin. I go to wipe it, conscious of Leia, still holding my phone. Then my phone beeps and I drop it. It bounces off the table and smacks on to the floor. Smooth.
As I pick it up, I glance over at Leia in the queue. She’s not looking. The boys at the other table are though, staring right at me. Mouthful of baguette, cheese goatee. I play it cool and open the message, nonchalantly pushing the cheese into my mouth like an afterthought. There’s a fresh crack that curves from the top middle of the phone screen to the right edge, like a personalised scar in the glass.
It’s Tommy.
Yo. Footy at six. I got us a game with my cousin. Zia’s in. I’ll still get you at three yeah?
I tap: Cool.
And carry on chewing.
“Are you on contract?”
I almost choke as Leia sits down opposite me. I don’t get it.
She points at my phone. “They’re real idiots about replacements. I dropped mine down the toilet and it took a month to get a new one.”
She opens the packet of her sandwich. I read the label. Rocket and crayfish. Crayfish? Maybe yesterday didn’t really happen. Yes it did. I look at my phone and don’t tell her that Tommy’s brother Jamie got us all the same knocked off Samsung Galaxy from a guy he knows who works at Argos.
“It’s just a crack.” I stare over her shoulder at the ginger kid and his friends, then say, “Listen, I—”
“I dreamt about you last night,” she says, putting her untouched sandwich down.
“I just … what did you say?”
“I said I dreamt about you, Skywalker. Well, you and me.”
She what?
“We were working on the script, in this big loft apartment in New York or something. It had these wooden floors. Have you seen Big with Tom Hanks?”
I’m still thrown. “Course.”
She points at me. “That apartment. That’s where we were.”
And I picture the apartment from Big, with the bunk beds and all the cool toys and I try to put Leia and me there in my head.
She dreamt about you?
And I don’t know where from, but words come tumbling out of my mouth in a rush. “I’ve got a lot on at the minute. Home stuff.” I look down as I say home, then look up when she doesn’t say anything. “That’s why I was a bit funny, I mean, in class and that.”
Leia shrugs. “Whatever. You know the only vegetables they do here is cauliflower cheese. Does that even count?”
“Leia, I’m trying to tell you, to say—”
“It’s fine.” And her eyes are telling me to shut up, but not in a ‘you should know your place’ kind of way. More like she gets it. Like she can read between my lines.
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