My bed bounces as he sits on the end.
‘I need your help, Hope.’
I love the sound of those words. Dad needs my help.
‘I’m very worried about your friend, Tom.’
I start to correct him – Tom’s not strictly speaking my friend – but he talks over me. ‘You know how his father was very anti-PharmaCare, led a smear campaign five years ago that we completely squashed in court?’ I nod solemnly, like I see Rose do, as he continues, ‘I have concerns Tom might be getting led down the same path, by friends of his father’s.’ Dad tips his head, smiling cautiously at me. He looks genuinely worried. ‘You mentioned you were trying to help him? Well, I’d appreciate if you keep a closer eye on him. Shadow him. Make sure he stays out of danger. He’s already at a disadvantage, not taking Leata. The last thing he needs is to be used as some vehicle to spread negativity by people who want to harm PharmaCare. Will you help him?’
I sit up straighter, nodding vigorously. ‘Of course I will. I was already trying to do just that in a way. I mean, I want to help Tom, I think I – ’
‘Good girl,’ Dad interrupts me. For the first time, in I don’t know how long, he bends over me, kissing me briefly on my forehead. I breathe in the comforting scent of a hard day’s work: faded aftershave and clammy skin.
He turns off the light. His kiss stays with me. Within seconds, I’m asleep.
Him
Friday at school passes pretty much the same as Thursday. Tom’s refilled his Ribena bottle from the whisky bottle he bought at the supermarket, using Nathaniel’s ID – the provisional licence that Dad sneakily kept back from the DVLA to pass to Tom, ‘To use in pubs and clubs. Don’t tell your mum’.
He’s taking small sips, sitting in his corner of the study room as Daisy laughs quietly to herself. She’s hacking into other pupils’ Facebook accounts making anti-Leata statements. Now and again he looks over to catch her staring at him. She flushes and retreats behind her laptop. Lyn-Mei is tapping her phone furiously and Alfie’s playing a game. Pavlin is trying to get into his dad’s laptop. He’s using some hacking program for guessing the probable combination of a password. Tom just had to supply a long list of words and numbers.
‘I think we’ve nearly cracked it,’ Pavlin says, getting excited, as Tom’s phone starts buzzing. It’s DS Miles again. He’s already had two missed calls from him this morning. He sighs, answering this one.
‘Tom – I’m going to swing by your school now to pick up the laptop,’ Miles says cheerfully, ‘I happen to be going that way.’
Tom looks over at Pavlin. He wants to give him a bit more time; see what’s on it first before the police bag it and file it, and reassure themselves: case closed. ‘Can you make it right at the end of day? I’m busy with classes.’
Miles reluctantly agrees and Tom ends the call – just as Pavlin’s hands spring off the keyboard. ‘Got it!’
‘Shit, yeah?’ Tom rushes over as the home page comes on. Something snaps in his stomach as he stares at the familiar background picture – Tom and Nathaniel as round-faced little kids beaming into the camera as if everything is right with the world. ‘What was the password?’
‘Truth89.’
‘Figures,’ Tom makes a half-smile, almost laughing for the first time in months.
’89?’
‘The best year of his life, Dad always said. His first year at university. The Stone Roses played live.’
A distant bell sounds; Daisy, Lyn-Mei and Pavlin start moving to their next class. Tom decides to miss History. He’s more concerned with right now. Alfie has a free but he’s too distracted by Zombie Attack to notice Tom clicking through his dad’s stuff.
He trawls through pictures from over the years, files of research notes and articles for the type of stories his dad said sucked out his soul. His dad’s recent internet searches have been cleared like his emails. The only thing that leaps out at Tom is the title of a document recently saved onto an external file. ‘Cloud 9’. He makes a note of it and starts to log off, stopping when he remembers his dad’s calendar. His heart accelerates as he scans the month leading up to that day. Blinking hard, he stares at the screen. He fumbles for his phone.
‘Mikey? It’s Tom. I’ve got a question,’ he spits out soon as Mikey answers the shelter’s phone.
He sounds like he’s sucking on a cigarette before his gruff voice answers, ‘The feelin’s mutual, Tom. You tell the police about Matt’s bag?’ He sounds pissed off.
‘What? Well, yeah.’ Tom pushes a nervous hand back through his hair. ‘The case detective made one of his friendly visits. It just came up. Why?’
‘Didn’t your dad teach you? Never tell the police anything. If I got stabbed, mugged, thrown off a cliff, I’d never report it. They came round this mornin’ botherin’ me at St Paddy’s of all places, didn’t they. Askin’ about why I had Matt’s stuff.’
Tom rubs his head. Why would the police be that interested in Dad’s bag? The same reason DS Miles wants the laptop urgently? The hairs on the back of his neck prick up.
‘I don’t need this shit, Tom,’ Mikey continues. ‘See … they’ll think I was researching the story with your dad, it’s – ’
Tom catches the tone to his voice. ‘Researching what story, Mikey?’
He listens as Mikey starts to backtrack, saying, ‘I didn’t mean nothin’.’
Tom inhales deeply. ‘I just got into Dad’s computer.’ He pauses. ‘On the day Dad died – he was meeting someone. At Richmond Park.’
It’s Mikey’s turn to draw breath.
Her
On the bus home, I take a gamble that his number’s the same as it was when we first got phones the summer five years ago. Want to hang out tonight?
Him
He arrives home. His mum said she’ll be back to make dinner. He told her she doesn’t have to. Dad always did the cooking. Besides, they will only sit there silently shovelling food round the plate. Whisky’s the only thing that fills him. Speaking of which. He gets his hidden bottle and pours a mugful in the kitchen. He’s taking a first glorious sip when his phone buzzes with a text. What the fuck is Hope up to now?
Can’t. Busy sleeping.
She responds in an instant.
Coffee tomorrow morning?
Catching first train 2London. A genuine excuse this time. Mikey had relented, inviting Tom to help serve breakfast at the shelter. He knows more, Tom’s sure of it. There’s more to why Dad killed himself.
Like there must be more to why DS Miles was so keen to get to the laptop. More behind that U-bend smile, when he arrived at school to pick it up, pressing on Tom the fact that, ‘Yeah, your dad didn’t need to press charges over any credit card fraud. Like I thought, it was the shop’s fault – they mistakenly duplicated your dad’s gun purchase.’
Her
Cool! I’ve gotta go 2London Sat! I’ll come with u!
Him
It’s not your thing. I’m serving food at a homeless shelter.
Her
ALL people are my thing! I LOVE the homeless!
6
Every hour you spend on negativity is a wasted hour
Leata
Her
The train carries that morning-of-the-night-before-stench. I pinch my nose as I lead us down the aisle searching for seats. Tom behind me, no doubt still wearing that gobsmacked expression. Clearly he never thought I’d turn up at far-too-early-o’clock. I squeeze past a group of chattering Spanish students into two free seats across a table. A seriously overweight man is already sat there, wedged in by the window and gorging on a paper-wrapped pasty like it’s his final meal. Millie always says it’s not hard to tell who’s on Leata and who isn’t. Like that T-shirt slogan popular a few years ago, ‘Choose Leata, choose life’. I sleep in mine now.
Tom’s staring at me like I’m some puzzle to work out as he collapses into the seat opposite. He’s wearing his usual uniform of grunge. Today’s anarchic T-shirt reads, ‘Burn, burn, burn’, red on
black.
‘Why are you even coming to London?’ he asks suspiciously.
‘I have a bloggers’ meeting at PharmaCare later.’ Fingers crossed Tom won’t require too much babysitting and make me late for it … for Seth. My stomach collapses into a pile of goo. Seth. I’m ready for him. Millie’s make-up bag of JOLIE, check. Powder-blue blazer and sexy leather leggings, check.
Check: this morning’s blog teaser post. Today I’m helping out NAD Boy I told you about. And later on meeting A.N. Other. Yes! HIM! Thank you gorgeous followers for shipping me with Realboystuff. Back laters for an update on both boys!
Tom fixes his eyes out of the window. His hair always falls over his eyes, whatever length – which right now is too long. I tilt my head; you know he might be considered vaguely hot if he bothered to look like he knows it.
‘Do you need to wear them all the time?’ I ask, pointing at his glasses. It was a few years ago I noticed he got them.
‘Not all the time, no,’ he answers bluntly, adjusting them. ‘… just like to,’ he chews on his mouth, taps his knuckle on the table agitatedly.
Cue a sympathetic smile from yours truly. Time to get working. ‘Speaking of which, my pill message this morning was, “Adjust your focus from microscopic and life will appear brighter.” Broader smile. ‘Things are never as bad as they appear, right?’
‘Hope,’ he says, in the manner of an exasperated teacher, ‘if you hadn’t noticed: things are as bad as they appear for me. Don’t you get it?’
I tip my head. ‘Of course.’ Do I? What if my dad died? ‘It’s just,’ I take a deep breath. I must help Tom find positivity. ‘Every hour you spend on negativity is a wasted hour.’
He forces out a throttled, dry laugh; starts pulling out a bottle of Ribena from that seen-better-days Puma bag on his lap. Only when he’s taken a drink do I smell it. It’s not any blackcurrant goodness he’s just knocked back.
‘Really?’ I whisper. ‘At this time?’
Tom takes another, noisy, slurp as if that’s his answer to me. ‘It takes the edge off.’
‘Well so does Leata but it doesn’t give you a hangover.’
‘No, you just turn into an extra from the Matrix. And not the ones in the black outfits.’
I make a sigh of what’s the point, reach for my tablet from Millie’s oversized handbag. I think I hear Tom murmur, ‘That’s it, plug in the pacifier.’ Okay, I do hear him say that. But I choose to ignore it. Switch it on all the same. I feel a kind of relief when – yay – I have plenty of messages and comments to trawl through.
Aaaah, one from Seth – butterflies, go! He’s sent me a selfie; one brow cocked up. Can’t wait 4our minds n mouths 2finally meet. 6hrs & countin.
Mouths. I swallow back a tidal rise of nerves. Silly. You’re nearly seventeen. You’ve kissed loads of boys.
I flick over to Facebook. Millie’s tagged me in some charity-awareness thing. She’s always seeking sponsorship for some cause. ‘How you’re seen on social media, is how you’re seen,’ she says.
‘Look,’ I say to Tom. ‘Shall we do this? I’ve been nominated to video myself shouting out three things I love, in a public place!’
Tom enlarges his eyes like I’ve just suggested we jump from the moving train.
‘Everyone’s doing it!’
‘So says the lemming.’
I don’t know why – I should be offended. But the way he says it, that dry edge to his tone, there’s something nostalgic about it (is nostalgia even healthy? Google it) – and without meaning to, I laugh.
And my laughing – that makes him smile. Yes, Tom Riley smiles … a real smile, from years back.
And for just a moment there, a knife twists inside me: what am I doing?
Him
The train announcer broadcasts Vauxhall next stop. Tom starts to get up, watching Hope put her tablet and her phone and her make-up bag away. As they wait by the train doors, he questions for the millionth time why he’s letting Hope and her plastic positivity, Life’s great!, accompany him.
Does she really think she can save him?
Worse – why does a small part of him feel pleased she wants to?
He glances at her sideways as the train slows into the station. She’s holding that fixed smile on her round face, stretching her lips so it emphasises the dimple in her chin. Dressed so bloody inappropriately for serving breakfast. The Hope he used to know dressed more like a boy than a girl. Is she in there somewhere? The Hope whose dad was always having a go at her; teachers forever telling her off? The Hope who once turned her mum’s washing line into a zip wire?
He hears her draw a sharp breath as they step out onto the busy platform. Her eyes darting behind them as if she’s seen someone she knows. She says she’s fine when he asks, but she grabs on tight to the side of his dad’s jacket until they reach street level. He almost regrets it when she lets go.
They cross the junction under the shadow of the MI6 building, looming like Oz’s Emerald City. His dad said it was his dream place to get locked in. ‘All those secrets, Tom.’ He said that the last time they came here, to serve lamb roast at the shelter over Easter. Tom’s stomach clenches. Was Dad having his affair back then?
He can’t bear it; he reaches back into his bag for his Ribena bottle.
Her
Tom’s drinking again. His eyes are going glassy, his walk’s turning into more of a shamble. I’d be lying if I don’t admit I’m starting to feel a little panicked. Especially after thinking I spotted that nasty Slicer man at the station. The same straggly hair and foil-shiny jacket. It can’t have been him. Or if it was, it must be a coincidence.
‘Over there,’ Tom slurs, pointing at a wide green door in the arches beneath the train tracks. There’s a whoosh and rattle of metal as carriages travel overhead. Pigeons coo noisily once the train passes. It’s dirty and smells of wee. And there are horrid posters stuck to the brick wall that the street cleaners must have missed. Anti-Leata propaganda from that crazy PAL network.
We’re buzzed in via a security door. Down a corridor, past slim cabin-sized doors. ‘The pods where residents sleep,’ Tom explains as I peer into an open one.
‘I thought they slept in dormitories.’
‘It’s not the army,’ Tom answers, moving through another door into a canteen area full of people. I hold my breath readying myself for a stench of the unwashed. Releasing it, the air smells normal. Of food mostly. And I’m pleased it’s clean. And bright. Apple-green chairs and pale blue walls, as if it’s mimicking nature. Shame then about the occupants. They couldn’t be less cheerfully dressed if they tried; clothes dark and well worn. Most sit alone; a few coupled together, talking quietly. No one seems to be having much fun. There’s not a Leata poster in sight to inspire them to change their lives. Positivity yields prosperity, someone should remind them. If you’re negative, you’ll never get out of here!
I stay close to Tom, weaving through white wooden tables. I wish he wouldn’t keep stopping to shake someone’s hand; scratch that Labrador’s chin. Now he’s pausing to chat with some man, asking him how he’s doing. As if he’s one of them!
A girl with blonde dreadlocks tugs on my sleeve. Her eyes are more glazed than Tom’s. ‘Hi, I’m Aggie. Who are you?’ she says. She can’t be much older than me, but her skin’s almost grey, weather-beaten. ‘Hope.’ I smile, tight-lipped. I don’t want to get caught in a conversation. Though maybe I should offer her a strip of my Leata. They’ll be good for the messages even if she doesn’t take the pills.
Tom’s on the move again. I trail him into a kitchen out back. It reeks of grilling bacon. A large woman with purple hair and a ring through her nose is cracking eggs into a pan on an industrial-sized oven. Wearing a black apron with CREW written in pink, she greets Tom like he’s a long-lost relative, ‘Stranger, where’ve you been all my life!’ pulling him to her, squashing him against her sizeable chest. I can hear her mumbling things about his dad. How sorry she is. Etcetera. Etcetera. I wonder about interv
ening – isn’t that my job here? Tom’s protector? Because, really – it’s not helpful, people reminding him about his dad. When what Tom needs to do is forget.
‘Mikey! Tom’s here,’ the woman yells and a slight, dirty-tanned man in a denim shirt appears from another door. His small, crinkly eyes mimic the tight black curls on his head. He walks with a limp, one leg dragging stiffly behind him like a punt. If I’m honest, he looks like he should be telling fortunes, not feeding the homeless.
I step back a little, feeling even more out of place.
This Mikey greets Tom with serious eyes before he turns to me. ‘Well, what d’we ’ave ’ere!’ he says, a sandpaper voice, the kind ravaged by tobacco.
‘Brought yer girlfriend, Tom?’
I’m not sure who flushes a deeper red, me or Tom.
‘This is Hope Wright,’ Tom shrugs. ‘My neighbour.’
Dirty-tanned man sucks in his breath as if my name offends him somehow. Lines appearing fan-like around his mouth. I look at Tom quizzically.
‘I won’t bite, girly,’ Mikey laughs, revealing yellow teeth and a stench of cigarette smoke that almost makes me retch. I don’t know anyone who smokes these days. ‘How about you get an apron on and help Tammy ’ere?’ He points at the woman with purple hair who’s started singing along to some country tune on the radio. ‘Tie yer ’air back, yeah?’
He steers Tom towards the door he came out of. ‘Come and ’elp me with stock, Tom.’ Making it pretty clear, I’m not welcome to follow.
Him
Mikey pulls an arm round Tom’s shoulders, guiding him into the room of supplies just beyond. ‘What’ve you brought ’er for?’ he says as he shuts the door behind them, tugging him over behind shelves with giant tins of baked beans. ‘Jack Wright’s kid? Really, Tom?’
‘She’s harmless. We used to be friends. She thinks she’s helping me “find happy”, that’s all.’ Tom pulls a pretend frantic face. Relaxing it, he adds, ‘Why didn’t you want Jack Wright to see you yesterday?’
‘’E’s the lawyer for PharmaCare, in’t ’e? I just don’t want to go causin’ trouble fer St Paddy’s. Things are bad enough. I’d be shut down like the rest if I didn’t get my money from other means,’ Mikey pulls a roll-up from behind his ear, curving his hands round to light it as if there’s a wind about. ‘My residents rely on me, I’m all they’ve got, yeah? What with their meth no longer being prescribed. Or any benefits they can get being cut. They’re being cast off, unless they sign up for some PharmaCare mental health treatment.’
Cloud 9 Page 7