‘Fuck off, Harris. Leave me alone.’
‘Oh, Jesus . . . come on. Michael. Just let me –’
‘Let you what? What are you going to do, Francis? Hit me? Tell me what a loser I am? How I deserved to get battered at my old school?’ A tiny silence. ‘Or do you just want me to lick your shoes?’
Francis stood very still. Then he swallowed. ‘I . . .’
‘Is that what you’re after?’ Michael was shouting now. ‘Because if you come near me I swear I’ll deck you.’ He thought, At least I’m not crying any more. ‘I promise you, I’ll kill you, you bastard, you stupid fucking pansy –’
Silence. Or rather, not silence, exactly; just the sound of the rain.
Michael turned round and started to walk. He blinked the water out of his eyes, wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand. He heard his own footsteps on the path, soft but distinct, and he knew Francis was still standing where he’d left him, motionless, not following.
.
Prayers. English. Break.
And the rain carried on, determined, reasonable, merciless, as though the sky had decided to fall and was making a point of taking a long time over it. Michael watched it all the way through double Biology, until the window steamed up. Then he stared at the condensation. It was like the world was rubbing itself out.
When he got back to the common room at lunch the whole corridor stank of soggy wool and wet socks. Michael’s shirt was still damp and clinging to him; he’d left his blazer on the back of a chair to drip-dry but someone had knocked it into a sodden heap on the floor. He picked it up mechanically and looked round for somewhere to sit.
But he didn’t want to sit anywhere. There was a weird kind of feeling in the air: too many people stuck inside when they wanted to be outside playing football. Some of Shitley’s mates were half-heartedly kicking a ball of paper around next to the drinks machine, but you could tell they were spoiling for a fight, just waiting for someone to tell them to piss off out of the way. Even Dave Murray was staring morosely at the blank window, watching the drips roll down from where someone had written IAN SWEENEY IS A BIG FAT GAYER in the condensation. Michael didn’t like it; it made him uneasy, like he had something caught at the back of his throat. Too many people. Too many whited-out windows. He saw Francis sitting at one of the carrels, clicking his pen over and over again. He turned round suddenly, as if he’d felt Michael’s gaze, and looked straight back at him.
Michael turned round and left. You were supposed to stay in the common room to eat your lunch, but he didn’t care. Even if someone caught him eating in a classroom, that would be quite funny, really: if he got away with hitting Luke and then got shafted by a cheese-and-salad sandwich . . . He ducked into the English storeroom, praying that no one else was in there already. His luck was in; it was empty.
He sat down on a pile of books. Some idiot had left the window open – probably because it was a good place to smoke a joint before school, if you weren’t worried about getting chucked out – and the rain had blown in and soaked the carpet. The copies of Middlemarch he was sitting on were all creased and soggy where they’d got wet. He closed the window. The glass was almost clear, and you could see out to the lawn and the flower beds below. Then he sat down again. He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes.
The door opened behind him. Automatically he jumped to his feet and whirled round, which was stupid, because he wasn’t doing anything wrong, he was only sitting there . . . It was Francis. He closed the door quietly behind him.
Michael turned back to the window and stared out at the grey sky. Oh, for fuck’s sake! Why don’t you just piss off, Harris, I’ve had enough, I’m sick of all this, I’m sick of you . . . But he didn’t say it.
Francis cleared his throat. ‘Before you ask – yes, I followed you. And no, I’m not coming on to you. Don’t flatter yourself. I just need to talk to you.’
‘I don’t care.’ Michael didn’t meet his eyes. He picked up his stuff and walked towards the door. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Tough.’
Christ . . . if he hadn’t looked like he was enjoying himself suddenly, like it was a game . . . Michael clenched his teeth and took a deep breath. ‘Get out of my way, Harris.’
Francis leant back against the door and sighed noisily through his teeth. ‘Michael, for God’s sake! Listen to me. I mean, yesterday it was you trying to explain to me. And now –’
‘I said I’d deck you, and I will.’
Francis ignored him. ‘I wanted to say – about yesterday, when I said –’ He swallowed and dug his hands into his pockets. Suddenly he looked about Luke’s age. ‘I behaved . . . Listen. I promise, I promise you, I never seriously . . . it never even occurred to me that you’d actually –’
‘I’d what?’ Don’t say it, Michael thought. You bastard, I wasn’t even going to kneel down – I wasn’t . . . you bastard. I swear, if you say it, I’ll kill you . . .
Francis frowned; started to say, ‘Well, when I told you to –’ He met Michael’s eyes. Then he looked over Michael’s shoulder, at the window, biting his lip. He said slowly, ‘I was really angry. You’d screwed me over and I couldn’t even work out why. And the stuff you said . . .’ He took a step towards Michael and then stopped as Michael moved back. ‘Look. Luke told me what happened. I got it out of him in the end. I knew – I thought there had to be something . . . But if you thought I’d told someone else about Evgard – why didn’t you ask me?’ He shook his head. ‘I mean, God, why didn’t you say something, you tosser?’
‘I don’t know.’ Because I couldn’t. That’s all . . . Because if I’ve learnt anything, it’s that you should never, never trust anyone. Because I knew you’d fuck me over eventually, and I was right. Because I thought you –
‘You don’t know? Christ . . . You stupid idiot, Thompson! If you’d just said –’
‘Get out of my way!’ He grabbed Francis’s arms and tried to shove him away from the door. For a moment he thought he could move him bodily out of the way, but Francis put his hands on Michael’s shoulders and pushed back like he was rooted to the spot. Michael made himself relax for a second, catching Francis off guard; then suddenly he threw all his weight forward and heard Francis’s shoulder slam against the bookcase. He reached out with one arm, trying to pull him away from the door, scrabbling for the handle behind Francis’s back. ‘Will you just move!’
‘Or what?’ They were both breathless. Francis had wedged himself between the bookcase and the door handle, so Michael couldn’t get past. ‘What, Michael? You’re going to deck me?’
Michael dragged roughly at his shoulder. He just wanted to get out. ‘Yes! Yes, I will, if you don’t move out of the way. I’ll knock your teeth out.’
‘Really?’ Francis grabbed his wrist with both hands, so Michael couldn’t get to the door handle. For a second Michael wanted to laugh. Christ, this was stupid, they were like little kids having a scrap . . . ‘Go on, then. Hit me. Go on . . . Hit me, and I’ll get out of your way.’
‘I will, I fucking will –’ Francis’s hands tightened on his wrist, twisting, like a Chinese burn. ‘Will you get off me –’ He pulled away violently, stumbled backwards, raised his hand ready to throw a punch.
He didn’t know why he stopped.
Francis just watched him. Then he looked away, turning his whole face, so Michael was looking at the bruise, the scab on his lip. ‘Go for this side, I would . . . for maximum effect.’ A pause. Then he looked back at Michael, steadily, with an odd, guarded expression on his face. ‘Don’t you want to?’
For a second Michael did. For a second, staring at that damaged face, he wanted to smash it completely. He wanted to make it unrecognisable.
‘It’s all right, Michael. I won’t hit you back.’
He almost smacked him one, just for that. You bastard, you snide, superior git . . . But there was something in Francis’s eyes; he wasn’t being disdainful. He was just telling the truth. He wouldn’t hit Micha
el. Not even if Michael hit him first.
They stood still, looking at each other, for a long moment; so long that Michael almost forgot who was threatening whom, so long it didn’t matter any more. Then he turned away and walked unseeingly over to the window. ‘OK. Whatever.’ His voice sounded funny, hoarse and strained. He swallowed. ‘Fine. What did you want to say?’
He heard Francis breathe out softly. ‘Michael . . . This morning . . .’ Then he stopped.
Michael waited.
‘Listen . . . When you told Shitley . . . was it because of what Luke did? Did that just freak you out?’ Francis swallowed and made a noise as if he was about to carry on speaking. But he didn’t.
‘Yeah.’ If you knew, Michael thought. If I could show you what it was like . . . if I could tell you . . . ‘Yeah. That’s right. It freaked me out.’
‘And that’s why you told Shitley I’d come on to you. As a kind of revenge.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And when you said, yesterday, you said you could explain . . . ? You were just going to say, Look, Luke wrote me these weird notes and I was a bit freaked out, I thought you’d told Luke about Evgard?’ His voice was cold, steady: just making sure he’d got it straight.
‘Yeah.’ Now, Michael thought. Now he’ll piss off and never speak to me again. Now he knows everything he needs to know . . .
A pause. Michael thought, In a moment I’ll hear the door. I’ll hear him leave.
‘What actually happened at your old school, Michael?’
‘Nothing –’ He’d spun round, without even thinking about it. Nothing nothing nothing. For a second he saw grinning faces, crowded round him, felt the press of tarmac on his knees, the smell of cold sweat. Go on, then, Clever Boy, don’t you want to – the pain, the liquid spread of warmth across his body . . . He choked the memory back. Please, please . . . Jesus, no, I can’t, leave me alone –
He took a deep breath, dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. ‘Lots of stuff. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Tell me.’
Tell him? Michael stared, waiting for a smile or a shrug or a movement, something to say, Don’t worry, I wasn’t serious . . . But the look on Francis’s face was a challenge. ‘No – I . . . Why?’
‘Because . . .’ Francis ran one hand slowly up and down the bookcase, like he was testing the edge of a blade. ‘Because otherwise it doesn’t make sense. I thought I had you sussed, I thought that we – but then you do something like telling Shitley that I’d . . . It’s like . . .’ He gestured in front of him, holding the space between his hands as though it was something solid. ‘Like you’re playing some kind of game, that no one else knows the rules to.’
For a moment Michael had a flash of pure, cold inspiration – God, what was it? an idea for Evgard, in the corner of his mind – but he didn’t have time to think about it. He looked at Francis: not at his face, but at his hands, spread out in front of him like he was waiting to catch something. He said, ‘I’m sorry I told Shitley you made a move on me. I said I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
Francis’s hands clenched, then came together palm to palm, fingers pressed flat against each other. ‘What did they do to you, Michael? What happened?’
Michael glanced at Francis’s face, and wished he hadn’t. He couldn’t tell him. He just couldn’t, whether he wanted to or not. ‘Look, I can’t – it’s over – I don’t want to –’ He stopped, lost for words, despising himself.
Francis pushed his hair away from his forehead with both hands, then ran one hand down the side of his face and grimaced. ‘It can’t be worse than what Shitley’s lot do.’
Michael shrugged, his shoulders and throat too tight to talk.
‘Can it?’
‘I don’t know! I don’t fucking know, all right? It doesn’t matter, any of it, it doesn’t matter, I can’t tell you about it, just please stop asking, OK? It just happened, that’s all, it’s over, it’s not part of me, it’s not written on my forehead – please, just piss off, just leave me alone –’
He hadn’t meant to say any of it aloud. It just came; the way the lump just came into his throat, gagging him. He turned away, shaking, and smacked his hands flat against the wall as hard as he could. What was it about people, always wanting you to talk about stuff? As if that could help anything. As if! Like his mum: Don’t bottle it up, darling, you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen . . .
‘Michael?’
He turned round slowly. Francis was there, at his back, one hand poised as though he was about to touch Michael’s shoulder. Michael thought: If I flinch, he’ll move away. If I step back, if I do anything . . . If I don’t want him to touch me, he won’t.
He stayed absolutely still. He might even have been holding his breath; just waiting. For a second he was frozen, quiet, almost prepared to let Francis touch him. Then he recoiled. He couldn’t stop himself. He saw Francis register the movement and step back. Michael turned to look out of the window. He didn’t want to meet Francis’s eyes.
There was a split-second pause, then Francis looked round, following his gaze. He leant forward, peering, and immediately drew back, gesturing at Michael to get away from the window. ‘Careful. Father Bennett.’ He craned his neck cautiously to look. ‘Bollocks. I think he’s seen us.’ He added, with a sort of strained casualness, ‘What is he doing? Arsing around in the flower beds like a complete tit . . .’
Michael tried to echo his tone. ‘Does it matter? That he’s seen us?’
‘Not really . . . except he’ll be up here in a minute, trying to catch us flagrantly eating our lunch.’ Francis grimaced, almost normally. ‘We’d better scarper.’
‘Yeah.’ Why did he feel so – ashamed? He picked up his limp cling-filmed sandwiches. He could feel Francis watching him. ‘Francis . . .’
‘What?’
The door opened. Michael turned to look at the same time as Francis; he thought, Wow, that was quick . . . until he saw it wasn’t Father Bennett. He heard Francis swear softly under his breath; he couldn’t tell whether he’d said shit or Shitley.
Shitley glanced from Michael to Francis and back again, smiling, like he was about to bite someone. He had two black eyes; it made him look even more venomous than normal. Then he slid into the room like he didn’t have enough bones.
‘Not interrupting, am I, gents?’ His gaze settled on Francis’s flies. Then he looked theatrically round at the bookshelves. ‘Not as private as a toilet cubicle, right, Harris?’
‘Oh, for . . .’ Francis bit his lip and shook his head. ‘Get some new fucking material, Shitley.’
‘Why? Are you getting bored with being a sad, disgusting little poofter? Or are you saying there’s something else we should know?’
‘Why don’t you just piss off?’
‘So you can carry on your little tryst with darling Michael here?’ It was weird that Shitley even knew what tryst meant, let alone that he could say it with such skilful, lewd nastiness. Michael stared at the ground and thought, If Francis can handle it, then so can I.
Francis shifted his weight slightly. ‘How’s your face, Shitley?’
A beat, then Shitley smiled. ‘We’re going to batter you again, Harris. One of these days . . . And there’s nothing you can do about it.’ A pause, like he was waiting for Francis to disagree. ‘Of course, you could always tell a teacher, like a good little boy.’ He put on a strangled falsetto. ‘Please, sir, they’re going to kill me because I’m a homo!’
‘I think Please, sir, they’re going to kill me would be enough, don’t you?’ But there was something in Francis’s voice: the crack in a glass, the first thread snapping . . .
‘I wonder what your parents would say. When you explained.’ It was pure bluff; for all Shitley knew Francis had told his parents already. But Francis’s look said it all. Michael stared at him and thought, Oh God, I did that, that’s my fault . . . He felt cold. He looked back at Shitley’s evil purple-eyed face, and knew with a weird sick certainty that nothing co
uld ever be OK after this. It was his fault. Nothing would ever be all right.
He said, ‘You bastard, Shitley.’
Shitley turned to look at him. ‘Wow. It can talk.’
Only just, Michael thought, and took another breath. ‘You bastard. You evil fucking shitty bastard.’ Francis looked at him with a faint inscrutable frown.
Shitley curled his lips upwards. ‘Hey, Thompson – what’s the matter? I thought you were with me on this one. Or have you come out of the closet?’
Suddenly, from nowhere, Michael was too angry to be anything else: not scared, not guilty, not sorry. He was searingly, blindingly angry, like a strip of magnesium in a flame, too bright to look at. He said, ‘Why do you bully kids like Benedick Townsend?’
Shitley blinked. ‘What?’
He almost said, You remember, the kid you stubbed a fag out on . . . but instead he looked Shitley straight in the eye. ‘Because you can’t think of anything better to do? Or just because you’re a pathetic, sadistic, perverted shit?’ In his peripheral vision he saw Francis still looking at him, but he didn’t take his eyes off Shitley.
‘Benedick Townsend? Oh, please . . .’
‘So what makes you do it? Does it turn you on?’
Another laugh, but not as long, not as easy. ‘Whatever.’
‘No, really, Shitley, I’d like to know.’
Shitley looked him up and down, with his smile fading off his face. He said again, ‘What?’
Michael breathed out gently, steadily, like he was blowing on a flame. The anger blazed, eating him from inside, eating the fear. ‘Tell me. Why do you do it? Does it help you sleep at night?’
‘Getting all protective suddenly, Thompson?’ Shitley slid a look at Francis. ‘Funny . . . ’cause when Harris was getting thrashed you just stood and watched, didn’t you?’
Michael didn’t let himself feel the shock – the humiliation – that Shitley even knew he’d been there. ‘You’re such a loser, Shitley. Tormenting little kids because it makes you feel good. Following us around at lunchtime so you can call us gay. I mean, Christ, how do you get off on that?’ He took a breath in. ‘Why is it, that you call everyone bent? Kids like Townsend . . . it’s because deep down you’re as much of a pervert – you’re as much of a faggot – not to mention a sadistic, pathetic –’
The Traitor Game Page 23