by Kevin Brooks
“Oh, right. What’s the skateboard got to do with it?”
“We play kind of skateboardy stuff…”
“Fast and punky?”
“Yeah, that kind of thing.” I had both my hands back now, and was feeling a bit more relaxed. “We were looking for a name when we first started,” I explained, “and someone came up with Kate’s Bored. It’s pretty stupid, I know, but we couldn’t think of anything else.”
“Then you shortened it to The Katies?”
“Not really, it’s just what they started calling us.”
“Who?”
I shrugged. “The kids who come to see us.”
“You’ve got fans?”
“Not proper ones…They’re just a bunch of friends who follow us around.”
“That’s brilliant. It must be great.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good fun. I mean, we don’t get paid much or anything…not yet, anyway. We’ve got this big gig coming up…”
I stopped talking then. Candy wasn’t listening to me anymore. She was sitting upright and staring wide-eyed over my shoulder.
“Are you all right?” I asked her. “What’s the matter?”
She didn’t seem to hear me. Her eyes were frozen and her face had gone white.
“Shit,” she said quietly.
“What? What is it?”
“Don’t look around,” she whispered, hurriedly lighting another cigarette. “Don’t say anything. Just pretend you know what I’m talking about—OK?”
“What? What are you—”
“Please,” she hissed, looking over my shoulder again. She was smiling now, but it wasn’t the smile I’d got used to. It was a smile of fear.
Her hands were shaking.
Her lips trembled.
Then a shadow fell across the table—and the air turned cold.
chapter two
The big black guy who sat down between us had the emptiest eyes I’ve ever seen—empty of feeling, empty of heart, empty of everything but himself. He was tall, well over six feet, with a heavy head, close-cropped hair, and a burnt-looking stubble of beard. His face was a death mask.
He didn’t so much as look at me, just sat down and stared hard at Candy. His eyes went right through her. She wasn’t there anymore. She was a ghost. Fluttering eyes, twitching lips…
“Hey, Iggy—” she started to say.
“What you doing?” he said to her.
His voice was black and hard.
“Nothing.” She smiled. “I was just—”
“Don’t give me ‘nothing.’”
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“Who’s the boy?”
Candy flicked her eyes at me, then immediately looked back at Iggy again. She seemed in awe of him, almost bewitched, her face a conflict of hate and fear and adoration. Iggy just sat there, unmoved. He still hadn’t acknowledged my presence. It was as if I didn’t exist. I was nothing to him—just a piece of furniture or a stain on the table. Which had suited me fine…for a second or two. Now it was starting to scare the hell out of me.
“Who’s the boy?” he repeated.
“I…I just met him,” Candy stuttered. “At the station…”
“Business?”
She hesitated a moment, nervously licking her lips, then said, “Yeah…yeah, of course—”
“Yeah?” said Iggy, his eyes glistening white. “So what you doing in here?”
“We were just going,” Candy said, trying to sound casual.
“Don’t shit me, girl.”
“I’m not… honest, Iggy. He just wanted to get something to eat first. Then after that—”
“He paid yet?”
“Yeah…”
“How much?”
“The usual.”
“Show me.”
Candy stubbed out her cigarette and started digging around in her purse. Iggy kept on staring at her. I didn’t know where to look. I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew was that it didn’t feel good. My heart was thumping and my mouth was dry and my stomach felt sick and bitter. I glanced nervously around the room. Everything seemed normal—people eating, people getting in lines, no one caring. The streets outside were a little less busy now, the sky a little darker. The evening was almost over. The day people had gone; the nightlife was coming down.
“There,” said Candy, showing Iggy a handful of notes. “See? I wouldn’t lie to you, Iggy, you know I wouldn’t…”
He didn’t look at the money, didn’t even blink, just kept on staring—silent and dark—crushing Candy into a cowering silence. As she sat there, wilting under his eyes, a £10 note fell from her fingers and fluttered down to the table. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Pick it up,” Iggy told her.
She picked it up.
“Put it away,” he said.
She folded all the money into her purse, then looked up at Iggy again. He didn’t move. He just waited for her to lower her eyes, then nodded once, sucked his teeth, and slowly turned toward me.
I knew it was coming. I’d been waiting for it. And, despite everything, I really thought I was ready for it. But when his eyes finally fixed on mine and a surge of fear flooded through me, I knew I was wrong. I’d never be ready for this. This—the ice-cold void in Iggy’s eyes—this was a different world, a world I knew nothing about, a world of violence and pain and darkness. I felt so small, so weak, so stupid.
“What d’you want?” Iggy said to me.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“Come on, Iggy,” Candy pleaded. “He’s just—”
“Shut up,” he told her, still staring at me. “I asked you what you want, boy.”
“Nothing,” I said, swallowing hard.
“Nothing?” he said. “You paying good money for nothing?”
“No…” I muttered. “I didn’t mean—”
“You paid the girl?”
I wanted to say, Paid her? Paid her for what? I haven’t paid her for anything, but she’d already told him I had, and I could feel her looking at me, begging me not to say anything different.
So I said, “Uh…yeah…yeah, I paid…”
“You ain’t paid her for nothing,” Iggy said, looking at Candy like a butcher looking at meat. “You ain’t doing nothing with a piece like that. Not less you got something wrong with you. You got something wrong with you?”
“No.”
“You fishy?”
“I don’t know—”
“You don’t know?”
I looked down at the table.
“Hey,” said Iggy, “look at me when I’m talking to you. Look at me.”
I looked up. He was smiling now, his mouth a blackened cave rimmed with gold-capped teeth.
“Look at her,” he told me.
“What?”
“Look at the bitch.”
I looked at Candy. She was lifeless, moist-eyed, staring blankly at the table.
“You like it?” Iggy said. “You want it?”
I couldn’t answer.
He laughed at me, a cold hissing sound. “How much?” he said.
“I don’t—”
“How much you give her?”
I looked at Candy again.
“Don’t look at her,” Iggy said. “Look at me. I asked you how much.”
I shook my head.
“All right,” he said. “What d’you pay for?”
“She was—”
“She tell you what it is, yeah? You know what you’re getting?”
“I was just—”
“What? You was just what?”
“All right,” Candy said quietly. “That’s enough.”
Iggy went silent. He kept on staring at me for a moment, sucking thoughtfully on his cheek, then he sniffed hard and turned to Candy.
“You what?” he said, raising an eyebrow.
She could barely look at him now—head down, eyes hidden, hands fiddling nervously with a small piece of card in her lap, rolling it into a tube, unrolling it, twist
ing it, folding it…
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I was just talking to him, that’s all. I didn’t…We didn’t…He’s just a kid. He doesn’t know anything.”
Iggy said nothing.
Candy smiled through her tears. “It won’t happen again—”
“Too right,” Iggy said coldly.
“You don’t have to—”
“What?”
“Nothing…I’m sorry. Please don’t—”
“Shut up.” He turned to me and cocked his head at the door. “Out.”
I stared dumbly at him.
“Get out,” he repeated. “Now.”
I looked at Candy, then back at Iggy again. “Look,” I tried to explain, “it wasn’t her fault…”
But he wasn’t listening.
His face had hardened and he was starting to get up. I was too shocked to move. All I could do was sit there and watch as he got to his feet and straightened up and…God, he was big. He was enormous. Big, tall, heavy, wide, hard, rock-solid…he towered over the table like a steel black giant.
As he kicked his chair back and started moving toward me, Candy suddenly leaned across and shoved me in the side.
“No!” she said desperately, looking at Iggy. “No, it’s all right…Look, he’s going. He’s going now. You don’t have to do anything. See? He’s going.” She glanced at me, her eyes pleading for me to go, but she needn’t have bothered—I was already halfway to my feet. Candy reached for my chair. I felt her hand brush my thigh, then she quickly moved back to her seat and looked up at Iggy again. Still standing over me, he glared at her, his jaw set tight beneath his skin, and for a moment I thought he was going to kill her. I could see it in his eyes. He was going to kill her, and then me…I really believed it. Eventually, though—after what seemed like an age—his face began to relax and he slowly sank back into his seat.
“Lucky boy,” he said quietly.
I stepped back from the table and steadied myself against a chair. My legs were shaking and my throat was tight. I could feel the silence all around me—the hush of violence, sucking the air from my lungs. I could hear people looking on, whispering and muttering, but I couldn’t see them. All I could see was a narrow black tunnel, with me at one end and a death mask at the other and a pale white ghost floating somewhere in between.
I tore my eyes away from the mask and glanced at the ghost, but she wouldn’t look back at me. Her lowered eyes said, Go, please…for God’s sake, just go.
I didn’t have enough guts to say no, so I just turned around and started to leave.
“Hey,” said Iggy.
I didn’t want to stop—I wanted to keep going and never come back—but I couldn’t help it. It was that kind of voice.
I stopped.
Paused.
Then turned around.
Iggy was leaning back in his chair and staring at me with a piercing chill in his eyes.
“You like a smile?” he said softly.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what he meant. I watched curiously as he grinned and raised his hand, then slowly drew his thumbnail across his throat.
“I see you again,” he said, “you’ll be smiling to the bone.”
chapter three
I don’t remember much about the train journey home. I remember going to the doctor’s and getting a tube back to Liverpool Street, and I vaguely remember waiting on the concourse, then walking along the platform and getting on the train, but after that…my mind’s a blank. I can’t remember the journey at all. All I can remember is thinking: thinking about Candy, thinking about Iggy, thinking about me…thinking myself into a hole. Candy…Iggy…Candy…me…Candy…Iggy…Candy…me…voices…faces…bodies…eyes…Candy…Iggy…Candy…me…
And the next thing I knew, the train was slowing down and pulling into Heystone station.
Not many passengers got off the train. A couple of half-drunk commuters, a beardy old man in a deerstalker hat, a busy-busy woman in clackety shoes…and that was about it. They didn’t hang around—out into the parking lot, into their cars, and they were gone before the train had left the platform. I waited for it to leave, watching it rattle out of the station, away up the tracks, disappearing into the distant darkness…until there was nothing left to see. I stood there for a while, staring at nothing, listening to the station clock clacking away its digital seconds—clack…clack…clack—then I turned around and went looking for a taxi.
Outside the station, everything was quiet—the streets, the parking lot, the surrounding fields. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. No cars, no mad people, no flashing lights…
No girls.
No threats.
No fear.
No chaos.
And no taxis, either.
The rank was empty. Closed for the night.
I didn’t really mind. My house isn’t far from the station—along Station Road, over the bridge, down Church Lane, and into the avenue—and it was a nice clear night, fresh and wintry, just right for walking. So off I went—walking slowly, breathing deeply, trying to sort myself out.
Sometimes, when I’m walking, the sound of my footsteps helps me to think. It’s the steady rhythm, I suppose, the metronomic sound of feet on concrete—tap, tap…tap, tap…tap, tap…tap, tap—ticking away like a heartbeat, settling your body and freeing your mind to think. It doesn’t always work, but I was hoping it would that night, because my mind and my body were still in a state of shock: The scary-snakes were still wriggling around in my belly, making me feel sick; my jaw was aching from gritting my teeth; my heart was tearing itself apart; and, worst of all, an annoying little voice kept whining away in the back of my head, reminding me over and over again what might have happened, what could have happened, what nearly happened. You were lucky, really, it kept telling me. You know that, don’t you? You were lucky. It could have been a whole lot worse…
I knew it.
I knew a lot of things.
I knew that Candy was a prostitute and Iggy was her pimp. I knew she sold her body, that she spent all day doing things I could only imagine, that she probably wasn’t even called Candy. I knew she’d been leading me on, playing some kind of game, amusing herself at my expense. Yes, I knew all that. I didn’t want to know it. I wanted to believe she was just a girl…just a girl I’d met at the station…a girl who liked me…
But I wasn’t that naïve.
No, there was no getting away from it—Candy was a prostitute and Iggy was her pimp. And that should have been it, really. The end of a very short—and very embarrassing—love story: boy meets girl; girl smiles at boy; he buys her a doughnut; she tickles his fingers; he turns to jelly; then pimp meets boy and scares him to death and boy goes home feeling stupid.
The End.
That’s the way it should have been.
And that’s the way it was—up to a point.
I was scared to death.
I did feel stupid.
I was going home.
But there was something else…something that wouldn’t let go…something that started with the touch of her fingers.
The touch was still there.
Candy’s touch. I could still feel it, impressed in the memory of my skin: hot, cold, electric, eternal, the touch of another. It was exhilarating, tingling, intoxicating. And as I walked the streets, I couldn’t stop looking at my fingers, staring at the contours and whorls, searching for the spot where she’d touched me. I kept wanting to feel my skin, to feel the memory from the outside, but I was afraid that touching it might somehow remove the feeling inside…
And that was just the start of it.
Deep down inside me, buried beneath all the chaos, I could sense a feeling I’d never felt before. I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know if it was a good feeling or a bad feeling or something in between…I wasn’t even sure it was a feeling at all. It was just something—an unknown shade, a barely perceptible signal, like a flickering candle on a distant hill. I knew i
t was there, but most of the time it was too faint to see, and even when I could see it, I couldn’t tell if I was seeing it or hearing it or smelling it or feeling it…
It was too many things all at once: a light in the darkness, a crying voice, the scent of freshly washed skin, some wonderful oblivion…
It didn’t make sense.
And neither did I.
I’d reached the end of the avenue now, but I couldn’t remember getting there. And I didn’t know why I was standing at the foot of the driveway outside my house, gazing up at the moon. But that’s what I was doing. And I must have been doing it for a while, because my hands and face were freezing cold and my neck was as stiff as a board.
God knows what I was looking for.
There was nothing up there for me.
I opened the gate and headed up the gravel driveway.
The house looked quiet—curtains drawn, soft lights, silent and still—but that wasn’t unusual. It’s an old vicarage, our house—a three-story gray-stone building set back from the street in a walled half acre of rolling lawns and pine trees and well-tended hedges. It always looks quiet.
Too quiet sometimes.
It wasn’t so bad when Mum was still living here and Dad was running his surgery from a couple of rooms on the ground floor, but Mum’s been gone for a while now, and Dad opened up a smart new office in Chelmsford last year, so now the house feels bleak and empty most of the time.
Not that I mind bleak and empty—in fact, I quite like it. Especially when it’s shrouded in comfort, which it is. Comfort, safety, warmth, tranquillity…
Home sweet home.
Dad’s car was parked at the top of the driveway. He’d told me earlier that he was going out that night and I was hoping he’d already gone, but it looked as if I was out of luck.
Not that it really mattered.
I just didn’t feel like seeing him, that’s all.
I didn’t feel like anything.
When I opened the front door, he was standing in the hallway putting on his coat.
“Where the hell have you been?” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s nearly ten o’clock.”
“The trains were late,” I told him, shutting the door.
He shook his head. “I just rang them—they said there weren’t any problems.”