by Kevin Brooks
‘Phoebe.’
‘Yeah, right, Phoebe. He creeps home and wakes her up in the middle of the night—’
‘She’s just a little kid.’
‘I know.’
‘She’s only about eight or something.’
‘Yeah, I know—’
‘I’m fifteen, Dominic.’
‘I know how old you are. I didn’t mean you were like what’s-her-name—’
‘Phoebe.’
‘Phoebe, right. I didn’t mean you were like her, I just meant …’
‘What?’
‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter. Forget it.’
‘I was only saying—’
‘Yeah, I know.’ His voice hardened. ‘You’re not a little kid and I’m nothing like Holden Caulfield and this isn’t New York, it’s Hale bloody Island.’ He drained his beer and fetched another. From the way he slammed the fridge door and moodily lit another cigarette, I thought he’d gone all sulky on me, but when he sat back down at the table he had a big fat grin on his face. ‘So,’ he said, drumming his fingers on the table. ‘This crocodile goes into a pub—’
‘Look, Dominic, I’m not really in the mood—’
‘No, listen. This crocodile goes into a pub. He goes up to the bar and orders a beer. The bartender pours his drink, then looks at him and says, “Hey, what’s with the long face?”’
I forced a smile. ‘Very good.’
He sipped from his can and looked at me. ‘So?’
‘What?’
‘What’s with the long face?’
I shrugged. ‘I’m just a bit tired.’
‘Come on, Cait, I’m only trying to help. What is it? Boyfriend trouble? Is Simon still playing hard to get?’
‘Give it a rest.’
He grinned. ‘I could have a quiet word with him, if you like. Next time he comes round—’
‘It’s all just a stupid game to you, isn’t it?’
‘What?’ he said innocently.
‘You know what. I mean it, Dom, I’m not in the mood. I’ve had it up to here with all this Simon crap. Just leave it, all right?’
He was quiet for a minute or two. Supping his beer, looking out of the window, tugging idly at his unshaven chin. There was something bothering him. I could tell by the way he was jiggling his foot up and down. It’s a family trait. We all jiggle our feet up and down when we’re bothered. I got the feeling there was something he wanted to talk about, but he didn’t know how to begin. That was his trouble. He couldn’t just come out and say what he wanted to say, he always had to poke and niggle at things until eventually the truth was forced out.
‘It’s Dad, isn’t it?’ he said after a while. ‘He’s giving you a hard time.’
I sighed. ‘No, of course he’s not—’
‘What’s the matter with him, anyway? He gave me a right bollocking about last night.’
‘There’s nothing the matter with him. He’s fine—’
‘It’s probably this new book he’s working on, got him all razzed up—’
‘He’s not razzed up about anything, Dominic. He was just annoyed with you for waking us up and acting like an idiot—’
‘Christ!’ he said. ‘You’re worse than him. I don’t believe this place. It’s like living with a couple of bloody nuns—’
‘Stop swearing all the time, will you? It sounds horrible.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he snapped, getting up and stomping over to the window, flicking ash all over the floor. As he stood there tipping beer down his throat and smoking angrily, I couldn’t help thinking how ridiculous he looked, like a spoilt little boy. Just like all the rest of them …
That was it, really. That was the heart of it. He’d become just like all the rest of them.
‘Look, Dom,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t just the noise that Dad was upset about—’
‘No?’ He turned from the window. ‘What was it then? Don’t tell me Daddy was annoyed because his precious son got a teeny bit drunk? Because I’m not having that, not from him. Shit! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black … he’s been half-drunk ever since Mum died.’
I looked at him. ‘I can’t believe you said that.’
‘Yeah, well,’ he said, lowering his eyes. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I sighed. ‘I’m going to bed.’
I was halfway to the door when Dominic stopped me, putting his hand on my shoulder. ‘Come on, Cait,’ he said. ‘All I did was go out for a few drinks with some friends. All right, so we were a bit rowdy when we got back—’
‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ I spat.
‘Get what?’
I glared at him, my lips quivering. ‘You … you and your so-called friends …’ My voice trailed off. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t find the words.
‘What about them?’ he said.
‘Nothing – it doesn’t matter. Just leave me alone.’
‘Cait—’
‘Get your hands off.’
He backed away, bemused. ‘All right, all right, keep your voice down. Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything … I know I shouldn’t have said that about Dad—’
‘No, you shouldn’t.’
‘But I didn’t mean—’
‘Forget it.’
‘All I meant was—’
‘Yeah, I know what you meant.’ I stopped in the doorway and looked him in the eye, searching for a trace of the old Dominic, my Dominic … but I couldn’t find it.
‘What?’ he said, unsettled by my gaze.
‘Nothing. Don’t worry about it.’ I turned to go. ‘Oh, and by the way, Angel sends her love.’
He licked his lips. ‘Who?’
‘Angel Dean,’ I repeated.
‘What? … when did—’
‘Goodnight, Dominic.’
He was nine when Mum died. I was five. Dad was thirty-four. I suppose it affected us all in different ways.
* * *
That night I dreamed about the Boy. It was raining. He was running on the beach and people were chasing him, throwing stones at him and calling him names. Gyppo! Thief! Dirty pervert! There were hundreds of them, brandishing sticks and bits of piping, shovels and rocks, whatever they could lay their hands on, their nightmare faces gripped with hate and streaked with tears of rain. Dirty gyppo! Dirty bastard! Jamie Tait was there, oiled, in his too-tight swimming trunks. Angel and Robbie were there. Lee Brendell, Bill, Dominic, Deefer, Simon, Dad, everyone from the island was there, all storming across the beach screaming out for blood … and I was there, too. I was with them. I was running with the mob. I could feel the wet sand beneath my feet, the rain in my hair, the weight of the rock in my hand. I could feel my heart pounding with fear and excitement as I raced along the shore, past the pillbox, heading for the Point. The Boy had stopped running and was standing at the edge of the mud flats. All around him the air shimmered with unseen colours. He glanced over his shoulder, looking at me with beseeching eyes, pleading for help. But what could I do? I couldn’t do anything. There were too many of them. It was too late. DON’T STOP! a voice cried out. It was mine. DON’T DO IT! DON’T STOP! KEEP RUNNING! DON’T GIVE UP! JUST RUN! RUN FOR EVER …
three
O
ver the next few days the weather never settled. In the space of a single day we’d have bright sunshine in the morning, followed by cloudy skies and a light summer shower in the afternoon, then another brief spell of baking heat, before the clouds built up again and the rain poured down in torrents. It was like watching one of those speeded up films of the passing seasons. In the evenings a cool wind breezed in from the sea scattering clouds of dust and sand to the air, and as the light on the horizon filtered through the haze, the skies took on the pastel colours of autumn. Then at night the air turned hot and sticky, and sometimes I could hear thunder rumbling faintly in the distance, like the mutterings of a disgruntled bully.
They were unsettled times.
I stayed at home
as much as possible. I’d had enough of other people for a while. I didn’t want to talk to anybody and I didn’t want to think about anything. I just wanted to sit around and do nothing.
But it wasn’t easy.
Do you know how it feels when you don’t know how to feel? When your mind keeps slipping from one thing to another, when you can’t relax, when you know you’ve got an itch but you don’t know where to scratch it? That’s how I felt after the events of the weekend. I just didn’t know how to feel about anything: me, Dad, Bill, Jamie, Dominic, Angel, the beach, the Boy … everything kept going round and round in circles in my head. It was as if someone had opened up a conjurer’s box and a dozen grinning jack-in-the-boxes were waving their heads and screaming questions at me – what do you think of Simon? you like him, don’t you? how do you like him? and what about the Boy? the dream? what does that mean? and what’s up with Dominic? why’s he hanging around with Jamie? is he seeing Bill? or Angel? do you care? do you want to care …?
I wished I knew.
I wished … yeah, I wished.
At least the weekend was over. It had been a long one – long, chaotic, and disturbing. Awful. Probably the worst few days of my life. But it was over now, I kept telling myself. It was over. Things would soon get back to normal. The skies would clear and I could settle down to a quiet summer of long hot days with nothing to do and nothing to think about. Just blue skies, good books, cold drinks, and cool nights. No more surprises, no more horror, no more crap.
That was it.
That’s what I wanted.
Nothing to do.
Nothing to think about.
No more crap.
Fat chance.
On Tuesday afternoon I bumped into Bill in the village. I was with Dad. I hadn’t really wanted to go with him, because whenever we go into the village together it always feels like one of those scenes from an old cowboy movie, when the homesteaders who won’t sell out to the cattle baron ride into town in their cronky old wagon and all the gunslingers and tough guys are lounging around giving them dirty looks …
That’s how it feels to me, anyway.
It’s not that the locals dislike Dad. They might be a bit suspicious of him, I suppose. A bit wary, a bit stand-offish … but I’m sure they don’t dislike him. Well, maybe some of them do. They probably think he’s a bit weird. A bit scruffy. A bit distasteful. He drinks, you know. Smokes pot. Writes books. And, worst of all, he’s not an islander. He might have lived on Hale for over fifteen years, but he wasn’t born here. He’s still an outsider. He’s still Irish.
So, anyway, I wasn’t that keen when he asked me to go with him, but he’d run out of whiskey, and he wanted to go to the library, and if I didn’t go with him he’d have to walk … and he was feeling a bit down … and I didn’t really have anything else to do anyway … so what else could I do? I fixed a smile to my face, fixed up my hair, and off we went.
When we got to the village, we parked in the square and headed down the High Street towards the library. There weren’t that many people about – one or two old folks lazing about on benches, young mothers with Jeeps full of kids, a couple of fishermen clomping about in waders with roll-ups dangling from their lips. There were a few bikers moping around by the bus stop giving us dirty looks, and a bunch of kids from school were hanging around outside the newsagent, but none of them saw me, and I was happy to leave it at that.
The library is a nice old place at the end of the High Street, with crumbly stone pillars guarding the entrance and high windows that glaze the interior with a cooling light. Although it’s small, with only a limited selection of books, it’s got a reasonably good reference section and it’s always nice and quiet, the way libraries should be.
Dad needed to photocopy something from a reference book, but the copier was playing up, so while he waited patiently as the ancient librarian fiddled around hopelessly inside the machine, I passed the time messing about on the library computer.
I’d logged on and was checking out the RSPCA website when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
‘Looking for porn, girl?’
I turned around to see Bill, chewing on a wad of gum, looking down at me.
‘Oh, hello,’ I said.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing. Just browsing, you know.’ I looked around. ‘Are you on your own?’
She looked a little embarrassed. ‘Angel’s outside.’
I looked out through the door. Angel Dean was leaning in a doorway across the street talking to one of the bikers. She was wearing a skinny little vest and ripped denim shorts that were more rip than short. Her face was done up in goth lipstick and a ton of black eye-liner, and she was standing with her back arched and her hands hooked behind her head to show off her belly.
‘Nice,’ I said.
Bill shrugged.
‘So what are you doing in here?’ I asked.
‘I saw you come in. I thought I’d say hello.’
I nodded, staring at the computer screen. I didn’t know what to say.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘About the other day—’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘We’re still friends, aren’t we?’
I shrugged. ‘I suppose.’
‘It was only a bit of fun.’
‘Right.’
‘Come on, Cait …’
She’d dyed her hair black and was wearing a short leather jacket and tight black leggings. With her mascara’d eyes and a cupid’s bow of dark red lipstick, she looked like a 1950s motorcycle-slut. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, in fact I thought she looked pretty cool. It just wasn’t the Bill I knew.
She flicked at her hair and said, ‘Hey, did you hear about the gyppo?’
‘The what?’
‘The kid we saw at the Stand.’
‘He’s not a gypsy, for God’s sake. And you didn’t see him anyway, you were puking your guts up at the side of the road—’
‘Sshhh!’ the librarian hissed, giving me a filthy look.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered.
Bill grinned. ‘Old fart.’
I lowered my voice. ‘What about him?’
‘Who?’
‘The boy … the boy at the Stand.’
Bill smiled. ‘Have you seen him? Sheesh! I wouldn’t say no, even if he is—’
‘What about him?’ I interrupted. ‘When did you see him?’
She leaned closer. ‘Lee’s got a friend with a powerboat. We were out on it last night, round the other side of the Point.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Lee, Angel, Robbie, a couple others—’
‘What were you doing out at the Point?’
‘Well, you know …’ She winked and touched the side of her nose. ‘Anyway, we were drifting along with the engine off when Lee spots this naked guy in a pool at the edge of the woods across from the mud flats.’ She laughed. ‘It was him, the gyppo. Having a bath.’
‘How do you know it was him?’
‘Lee had a pair of binoculars. Angel recognised him from the Stand.’
‘You watched him through binoculars?’
‘You bet.’
I shook my head. It couldn’t have been the Boy. The only way out to the woods is across the mud flats, and the only people who know the flats well enough to even think of crossing them are local. If you don’t know what you’re doing out there, you’re dead in seconds.
‘It must have been someone from the island,’ I said.
‘No way,’ said Bill. ‘If there was anyone round here who looked like that, I’d know about it.’ She smirked. ‘And if I didn’t, Angel certainly would.’
I sighed. ‘What happened? Did he see you?’
‘Don’t you want to know what I saw?’
‘Just tell me what happened,’ I said coldly. ‘Did he see you?’
A look of annoyance crossed her face, and for a moment I thought she was going to tell me to stuff it. I wouldn’t have blamed her. I
was speaking to her as if she was dirt. But she’s never been the sort of person to let annoyance get the better of her. And, anyway, the temptation to tell me about it was too great.
She squatted down beside me. ‘It was really weird, Cait. I was watching him through these binoculars – I couldn’t see much because the pool was sort of half-hidden behind some bushes.’ She gave me a leery look. ‘I could see enough, though, if you know what I mean.’
I ignored her nudging arm.
She went on. ‘He was just standing there – totally naked – staring at something in the water. It was like he was in a trance or something. And then, as I was watching him, he suddenly turned his head and looked at me.’ Her eyes narrowed at the memory. ‘It was really weird. I mean, he couldn’t have known we were there. We weren’t making any noise or anything and we were a fair distance away … I don’t know how he knew. I just remember these calm blue eyes staring at me through the binoculars …’ Her voice trailed off and she stared at the floor.
‘What happened then?’ I asked quietly.
She looked up. ‘He just disappeared. It was so weird. I must have looked away for a second … I’m sure I didn’t … but I suppose I must have. One second he was there – and the next he was gone.’
I was staring at the blank computer screen imagining the Boy’s face – the eyes, the smile – and I remembered that ghostly silence when I saw him for the first time on the Stand, my skin tingling …
‘They reckon he’s living rough,’ Bill said, standing up.
‘Who?’
‘The gyppo.’
‘Who’s saying that?’
‘I don’t know, it’s just what I heard. He’s been seen around the village a couple of times. Bought a few things at the Paki shop – tobacco, matches, soap. Apparently he’s done a bit of casual work for old Joe Rampton. Cleared out his chicken sheds, bit of painting …’ She laughed. ‘Joe gave him a fiver for the day’s work. Mind you, I’ve heard he’s been nicking stuff, too …’
Joe Rampton’s farm is just across the fields from us. You can’t see it from our house, it’s hidden behind a low hill, but if you’re standing on the bridge over the creek you can just about see his farmhouse through the gaps in a spindly wood that cuts across from our lane to his …