‘You weren’t at the match,’ he says, eyes roving across my swollen cheek. His voice hasn’t quite broken and his words are squeaky. He can go up and down an entire octave in the space of one word.
I’m trying to come up with an excuse, some explanation for my current state, when I start to list toward the wall. My vision blurs, my legs liquid. As I slump Lucas steps forward and catches me. My face smushes against his football shirt, the material thin. He smells of sweat.
When I open my eyes again I’m under a duvet on the sofa, a pillow beneath my head.
Lucas is sitting cross-legged on the floor. His reddish brown hair is cut short, close to his head, and as he rakes his fingers through the spikes and down, toward the back of his skull, it makes a shushing sound.
I push myself up to sitting and realise my face is clear of blood, the cut under my right eye covered with a plaster.
‘I found a box in the cupboard,’ he says, as my hand finds the dressing. ‘Thought it was important to stop the bleeding.’
‘What was the score?’ I say. My voice is hoarse and, hearing it, he runs to get me a glass of water. I try to take it from him but my hand is shaky and so he holds it to my lips and tilts it gently till I’m done.
‘We got beat. 5–0.’
‘Brutal.’
He shrugs.
I notice the flecks of mud spattered on his cheeks and ears. He is covered in freckles, just like his mum, and they make it hard to tell what’s earth and what’s skin.
‘You need to go to hospital.’
‘No.’ I’m seventeen, still a minor. The minute they tap my name into the system there’ll be trouble, my history with social services. At the very least they’ll send someone round.
‘Your head. You need to get checked over.’
I don’t reply and we sit there quietly. Every now and again Lucas checks my cuts, ices my bruising and brings me water.
‘Please don’t tell anyone,’ I say eventually. The shame of him having seen me like this is worse than the throb in my kidneys. ‘Not your mum and dad . . .’
‘Not nobody,’ he says and this time his voice is deep, his tone unwavering. He hears himself and startles.
A month later and my bruises have healed. Mum hasn’t brought anyone home since and has yet to mention what happened.
Its Lucas’s thirteenth birthday at the weekend and so tonight I’m taking him for food and then to see a film. To mark the occasion I’ve chosen somewhere nicer than our usual chicken-shop fare. The food isn’t posh – just your standard burger and chips – but they have metal cutlery and staff who come and take your order at the table.
Waiting for him outside the restaurant I see him approach, and tense. This is the first time we’ve seen each other since my beating and I’m worried he’ll want to talk about it, that things between us will be different.
He greets me with a smile.
‘All right?’
‘All right.’
We’re quiet then, looking at each other.
‘Shall we go in,’ he says eventually. ‘I’m starving.’
We’re in the queue waiting to be seated when I notice the man in front. Chatting to the woman next to him. The wallet in his inside pocket is fat with notes, his watch designer.
I’m tempted, but the way our bodies are angled makes it risky and it would be too weird for me to try to engage him in conversation. I’ve just decided not to bother when a waitress drops a pile of plates on her way to the kitchen. The man turns sharply to address the smash and his jacket gapes. I take my chance. The wallet comes easily but as I free his watch from its clasp I fumble and my elbow knocks against his paunchy middle.
The man looks around. Pats himself. He knows something is wrong.
‘Come on Lucas,’ I whisper, ‘this queue is taking too long. Let’s go.’
The man puts out his hand, blocking the way. He’s realised what’s missing.
‘You,’ he shouts to a passing waiter. ‘Call the police.’ He jabs a finger in my face. ‘I’ve been robbed.’
I’m not worried. This has happened before and I’ve always managed to offload the stuff before I can be searched. I slip the wallet into Lucas’s front jacket pocket and am about to do the same with the watch when the waiter claps me on the arm.
‘It was him,’ says the man. ‘I know it was him.’
‘Empty your pockets,’ says the waiter. He sounds bored, like a parent being called in to referee warring children.
I refuse.
‘Empty your pockets,’ he says, his boredom fading a little, ‘or I’m calling the police.’
I do as he says.
The designer watch sits heavy in my palm.
I’m scared about what’s going to happen next. Still, this is my first offence, I’m only seventeen, maybe I’ll get off with a caution?
But then the manager turns to Lucas.
‘And you.’ He gestures at his coat. ‘Empty them.’
Lucas is horrified but he does as he says. When his hand lands on the wallet he’s confused. He looks up, mouth open, searching for an explanation. Then his eyes land on me. A beat and he understands. His shoulders slump and for a moment he does nothing, paralysed by my betrayal, then he brings the wallet out into the open.
The waiter looks at it and sighs, like we are all a terrible inconvenience.
‘I’ll call the police.’ He signals to the man. ‘Keep an eye on them till then.’
I stand outside the Tarker house and ring the bell. I want to say sorry, to them and to Lucas, try to explain.
Mrs Tarker answers the door. When she sees me her lips cinch into a thin line.
‘Jeremiah.’
‘I wondered if I could come in,’ I say, waiting for her to step to one side, ‘if we could talk?’
That day at the restaurant, I tried to take all the blame. Told the police over and over that Lucas had nothing to do with it. They wouldn’t believe me.
‘That’s not going to be possible.’ Her voice is firm but kind. She’s still angry but she did all her shouting last week, at the police station.
‘Please, I miss him,’ I say, and she registers the catch in my voice as I try not to cry. ‘I’m sorry.’
Her hand falls away from the door and I think she’s wavering, that she’s going to invite me in, when Mr Tarker appears.
‘You.’ He comes out onto the step and I have to retreat onto the path to give him room. ‘Do you know how hard it was to get into that school? How hard he worked? What impact it would have had on the rest of his life, on the opportunities that came his way?’
I stare blankly, not understanding.
‘Lucas breached the terms of his scholarship. He broke the law. The school kicked him out.’ He bunches his hands into fists and then releases them, fingers spread wide, and for a moment all I can see is The Great Saqisto at the end of a coin trick. ‘His whole future. Gone. Just like that.’
Hannah
Two days after Jem had rescued Pru, a Thursday morning, and Hannah emerged from the bathroom, mouth agape, shoulders tense.
She smiled, a crescent of pink and white, but no sooner had her cheeks turned upward than her lips gave way and she found herself once more slack-jawed and staring. She hid her face with her hand and closed her eyes.
She’d imagined this moment so many times, but not like this.
She didn’t know what to think, what to feel.
To her left was the tall thin case where John had displayed his small vintage dart collection. She looked at the arrangement of brass Kroflites, Unicorn Tungstens and 1960s Dorwins, snug in their pouch, their feathers golden, the tips razor-sharp, and remembered his delight the day he’d won them at auction. How she’d berated him for spending so much money on something so silly, how he’d laughed and told her they were an investment, priceless heirlooms he would one day pass down to their kids.
That had been back when he could still say things like that, before the years of trying, before they’d develop
ed the habit of flinching every time they passed a pram on the street.
She wanted to feel joy, to access the whoop and pelt of surprised laughter she imagined this news could bring; instead, she felt the cold loop of fear, like a rope round her neck.
If anyone were to find out the truth – about what she’d done, how this had happened – her life would be over. This thing she’d wanted for so long, taken from her.
She turned away from the display case and her eye landed on the old airing cupboard where she’d padlocked Jem’s custody bag.
Could she trust him? Should she?
Before she said anything she wanted, no she needed, to see if there were any clues, good or bad, as to what type of person Jem really was. The bag was tempting but it was sealed with tape and she couldn’t look inside without anyone knowing. On the other hand, his boxes in the spare room were there for the taking.
Upstairs, she stood at the doorway.
His possessions didn’t amount to much: four cardboard boxes, a microwave and a bin bag of clothes. She knew going through them was wrong, an invasion of privacy that would ordinarily make her cringe with shame, but this was no longer just about her.
Starting with the closest box, she unsealed the brown packing tape, lifted up the flaps and peered inside. She’d hoped to find a photo album or letters, maybe a certificate of some kind, but the contents were unremarkable. Pots and pans mixed in with books, a squash racquet and various pairs of trainers and shoes. The fourth box did deliver one thing – a small framed picture of what looked like Jem as a teenager and another younger boy with reddy-brown hair sitting on a wall, their arms resting on each other’s shoulders. It was the only photo he had and so it must have been important to him, and yet he hadn’t asked for it in his cell.
None the wiser, she re-taped the boxes and returned to the bathroom. She’d known it was unlikely she’d uncover anything definitive; still, she’d hoped.
The white stick was still on top of the cistern where she’d left it, the word she’d spent years longing for, that she never thought she’d see, contained in its tiny grey screen.
Pregnant.
It was like a spell.
Jem
I stop stealing. Without the income I have to get a job. I find one in a warehouse, picking and packing. Fitting shifts around my lessons is impossible and after a few weeks I drop out of college.
The Tarkers won’t see me, and refuse to answer my calls. I miss them, especially Lucas, but they haven’t set any of their social media to private and every now and again I take a look to see how they’re doing. Sometimes their feed is full of pictures from their favourite holiday cottage in Wales – the three of them bobble-hatted on beaches and taking muddy walks – other times they’ll share a clip from a birthday party or a prize-giving at Lucas’s new school. I try to read through the lines, to figure out how he’s getting on. It’s hard to tell.
Mum dies two weeks after my eighteenth birthday. Pills.
Kenzie sorts me out with a bar job in Palma. He’s established himself in the club scene over there.
After Mum the sun and change of scene is exactly what I need. I end up staying in Majorca for years, going from resort to resort. I still keep tabs on the Tarkers online. Mr Tarker creates an Official Great Saqisto page and I revel in the blurry shots of him in action at weddings and bat mitzvahs.
The summer I meet Alina is fun. We hang out, sometimes more. But as the months pass I realise the time we spend together means more to her than to me. That perhaps she thinks this is more serious than it actually is. I pull back, make sure she sees me with other women, but we remain friends. Still, every now and again when we drink a little too much she tries to kiss me, to take things back to how they used to be.
Eventually I decide to come home. I want to go back to college, finish my A levels.
I find a room in a houseshare and flit between bar jobs. My house is in a ropey part of Tooting (there are two attempted break-ins in my first week alone) but the rent is seven hundred a month. My A level plans come to nothing. Still, I read as much as I can.
I get a job glass-collecting in a bar on the Kingsland Road. It’s not ideal. My boss is a bully called Monty. A squib of a man, his teeth are tracked with metal braces to correct a fierce overbite. They make him lisp and spit when he talks. He greets everyone the same way, ‘Hello sailor.’
I become friends with his on–off girlfriend, Maya, who works behind the bar, and another member of staff, a skinny Aussie boy called Chickie.
My plan is to get into some kind of a routine, put a little money in the bank, then enrol in college. But the job is a zero-hours contract and some weeks I barely make rent.
I start stealing again, from customers, just a little here and there to make ends meet.
The Tarkers post less and less on social media, then they stop completely. Still, I make sure to check their accounts every week.
I wonder if I will ever stop missing them, if I will ever not wonder where they are and what they’re doing.
Hannah
December 21st and Hannah was sitting by her bedroom window with the lights off and curtains open. The sky was clear, the moon a white circle on the pond. A neighbour was having a Christmas party and every now and again, when someone nipped out for a smoke, she heard a snatch of Bing Crosby or John Lennon.
This morning had been spent at the GP, making her booking-in appointment with the midwife. The doctor had prescribed the high-strength folic acid all type 1s were recommended to take while pregnant and advised her to keep a careful eye on her blood sugar. Diabetes could play havoc with her levels, he’d said, and make her more at risk of miscarriage and other complications.
Still at a loss as to whether or not to tell Jem her news, for the last few days she’d been quieter than usual, scared she might give something away. Her biggest fear was that someone would find out the baby was his, that they’d entered into an illegal relationship. If she didn’t tell him she could guarantee it would remain a secret, hers alone to nurture and protect. Of course once she started to show Jem might suspect, but she could lie, come up with a make-believe encounter.
Telling him the truth also brought other, more complicated worries. She wanted his involvement in their child’s life to be entered into happily, of his own volition, not forced upon him by circumstance and the fact he literally couldn’t get away.
The person she really wanted to talk to about all this was Aisling. The last few nights she’d dreamed about her, nightmares, about how and where she’d died. In them she was running down hotel corridors, all the doors the same, trying to figure out which room Aisling was in so that she could break inside and save her. The hallways stretched for miles, every door she tried locked. She’d called for her and called for her.
She looked again at the pond and thought of Jem at the centre of it, diving down through the silt for Pru. Mr Dalgleish had been ordered to take compulsory sick leave and a wave of temporary DLO officers had followed in his wake. They were told they’d be assigned a permanent replacement in the new year.
She could still remember the code for the back fence she’d seen on Mr Dalgleish’s tablet. James Bond and the start of a race on school sports day. 00-73-21. They’d only recently changed it, so it would be valid for just under four more weeks, till 8th January, and then it would change automatically, to another randomly generated set of figures she’d have no access to.
Pulling a cardigan over her pyjamas, she slipped on some shoes, grabbed a torch and made her way down to the kitchen. Without turning on the lights, she went to the keypad and inputted the code. The light blinked green. The fence at the back of the house now off, she opened his cell door.
His red and white baseball cap sat on the pillow as usual and so she crouched down, felt underneath the bed and touched his side. He startled and then, realising it was her, shuffled out and removed his headphones.
‘Hannah?’
She put a finger to her lips, reached forward and
took his hand. He looked at her, questioning. She’d told him what they did was a mistake. Sensing his confusion, she smiled, trying to tell him she’d changed her mind, and led him toward the French doors.
Outside the garden was balmy, the plants limp, everything drugged by the continued heat. She guided him toward the bottom of the garden but as they neared the white line he started to pull back.
‘That day with Pru,’ she said, ‘I saw the code for the fence.’ They reached the perimeter and stopped. ‘I’ve turned it off.’
‘What, why?’
‘Because I think I can trust you.’
‘You can,’ he said.
‘Then come with me,’ she said, offering her hand.
He was wary as he crossed the line, conditioned to brace for the shock, and then when everything was OK he laughed.
Hannah opened the gate and they climbed down to the shore.
The rowing boat was under the tree, the bow full of old leaves. She swept the seats clean, pushed it into the shallows and hopped in.
‘Early Christmas present,’ she said, motioning for him to join her.
‘What if someone sees us? They could report you.’
When she didn’t answer he made his way into the pond and, water lapping at his calves, pulled himself into the boat. Hannah took hold of the oars and began to row, only stopping once they reached the middle.
‘See those houses.’ She nodded at Maraschino’s mansion. ‘That’s who the cupcakes were for, the ones you helped me with. The ones that are dark, they’re empty. Left to rack and ruin.’
They sat looking at the Heath and the glare of the city beyond. The water’s surface was burred with moonlight and it cast everything in a milky glow.
‘I thought you didn’t want to,’ said Jem. ‘I mean, before, you seemed to have wished we’d never . . .’
‘Things change.’
Hannah leaned forward, the boat rocking gently, and kissed him, then drew back a little, checking this was OK. A beat, his breath fast on hers, then he kissed her back, his hands gripping her waist.
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