"Sorry about me Mum an' all." Jez mumbled. "She was goin’ mental all the way to school."
"You told 'er about them photos, didn't ye?" Louis accused him.
"Do us a favour."
"If ye did, yer dead."
Thinner foliage now; the peppering of sunlight on their heads as they finally reached a sharp, junk-filled curve in the brook, known as The Loop, where moorhens, mallards and swans would climb on to the bank to preen themselves before swimming towards the Canal. Louis remembered Saturday. After he and Jez had jerked off, they'd heard a commotion in the undergrowth, and seen a swan’s huge, white wings beating towards them. A scary bark coming from its orange beak...
They'd emerged panting from the wood near the Mall. Why he'd left his blazer for The Fawn to find. Big mistake. Next time, he'd be more careful...
So here they were again, and Jez fiddling deep in his trouser pocket. The foil, the three inch straw and then what looked like crushed-up Disprins. What The Maggot took when he'd had a bad day at work. Maybe when some student he fancied wasn't opening her legs. Louis' right nostril burned. He felt light-headed, like he was taking off somewhere. This was better stuff than Nick Weaver at school had palmed him off with. Pure and perfect.
"Here they come," Jez whispered, almost falling over as the moorhen convoy appeared. It was too early for the swans, but these would do. Six in all.
Ping… ping... ping…
Louis had found a new, better forked branch, and Jez now had his own, his freckled face set in concentration. Two stunned, black-feathered bodies struggled ashore. One each, so Louis demanded the bigger one.
Crack… crack...
Idiots.
Jez then produced a small, plywood box from his saddlebag and slid its lid back. Inside lay an identical, sheathed knife with WALTON-ON-SEA burnt along its handle.
"Cool," Louis stared at the blade which looked newer than his.
"For spare. OK?" Then Jez set to, starting on the moorhen's head skin first with less confidence than usual.
"Fancy the feet?" he asked tentatively.
"Nah. Nuffink's safe at 'ome no more." Louis said. With no key, his Secrets’ box couldn’t be added to. He then ordered his eager friend to get twigs. "Dry ones mind, an' 'urry up.”
In five minutes the fire was sending little licks of flame into the darkness. Louis turned the spit, careful to give each side of the bird equal time to roast. He thought of home. The Maggot and The Fawn both liked their steaks bien cuit, while he preferred blood under his chips. The sweetness of it.
"Yum." Jez pulled off the pink flesh with his teeth. "Jip'd like this." He turned his greasy mouth towards Louis. "Ye ain't seen 'im ‘ave ye?"
"Nope. Should I?"
Silence, save for sounds of chewing.
"Your Dad still away, then?" Louis asked, changing the subject, knowing that whoever it was, hadn't showed since the kid was at Briar Bank.
"Nah. Mum saw ‘im in Poundland the other day." The boy spat out a small bone. “Buyin’ jeans 'e was."
Louis felt more than a twinge of envy. "Mine lives in Levi’s.” Then burped for effect. No way would he let on the smallest thing about his so-called parents. How The Maggot actually wore corduroy and wasn't his real Dad. Or let his disappointment show.
"That Meadow Hill place of yours..." Jez mused. "Mum calls it Fort Knox."
"I fuckin' hate it. There’s Nazis too. Some good stuff in their garage, mind, and it ain't alarmed yet." He was well pleased with his new voice. It made him and Jez sound like brothers, which in a way they were. "And they dance in the garden."
"You're kiddin'?"
"It's like two turtles shagging..." He stamped on the fire's remains. "Any drink?"
"Forgot."
"Next time, eh?" Louis checked his watch. Five minutes to spare talking about the Zellers like that had got him excited. So had the moorhens. He unzipped his trousers and made Jez do the same. This time Saturday's result would be different. It had to be. A thin trail of smoke reached them as they worked, snatching their breath, their eyes glazing over. They stood close for the verdict, but when Louis looked down he was mortified to see nothing had changed.
He turned away to zip himself up while Jez finished off into the nettles.
"Wot about tomorrow? You game on?" Jez wiped his hands on his pockets while
Louis found the boy's new-found confidence irritating. With a proper Dad, too. No way would he take over. He prodded his arm. Hard.
"I'll decide. OK?"
"OK."
Louis kept him waiting.
"Wednesday three o'clock. I can skip off D&T. Probably some quiz or other now it's end of term."
"We got Readin’ Hour. Big joke."
"One thing, mate." Louis suddenly gripped the boy's ear. "Not a fuckin' peep to anyone 'bout what we do, eh?" He squeezed until Jez's face skewered in pain. "An' if you so much as mention where I bleedin' live, you'v 'ad yer last birthday."
Jez whitened.
"And I'll show yer noncy vicar and Molloy them photos you took."
"Wot d'ye think I am?" Jez trembled.
"I ain't sure." Louis let go, and the other boy sighed his relief.
Then Jez hesitated.
"How come ye don't speak like a poshy, livin' in Meadow Hill?"
Louis snapped back.
"'Cos I don't. I fibbed."
"Right."
"Best hide that fuckin' box and knife over there." Louis pointed to a clump of nettles by an alder tree. "Yer Mum mustn’t see our special gear, must she?"
The ginger let out a yell as the nettles burned his skin.
"Shurrup, ye twat!" Louis barked. "Someone could 'ear. C'm on. Let’s shift."
So they parted. Jez up Wort Passage then turning left towards the underpass, still sucking his fingers. Louis to the right, back to his green shirt and blazer then the footbridge with the bus blundering its way up the hill.
12
"Why did you get my dick cut?" Louis demanded during supper that evening. The Fawn had placed a slice of chicken pie and carrot salad on his plate. They lay untouched.
“You mean, penis?” his not-real Dad then loaded his mouth with pastry crust.
"Yeah. Was it because you’re a Yid?"
The Maggot stopped chewing, while she picked up the peppermill and rained black dust over her meal. "Yid's such a horrible word. We don’t want to hear it again in this house. Dave is Jewish by birth, but not by religion. OK? And it’s for hygiene reasons.” Now, eat up and stop worrying."
"How can I? Louis addressed The Maggot. "I'm the only one in my class with no foreskin..."
Both adults downed their knives and forks. The Maggot finally swallowed.
"Well that means a lot of kids must have trouble keeping clean down there. Think about it."
But it was Jez's dick which came to mind.
"Let's see yours then." He said instead. "Did your folks do it to you?"
The Maggot pushed back his chair. "I think, Jacquie, this is going beyond." He leant over the boy whom he'd impulsively taken on over thirteen years ago. "And you are off to your room. Schnell!"
Instead, Louis began dismembering his pie, separating the pale chicken cubes sealed in a sauce that looked like cum.
"Jetzt!"
A slap stung his ear.
"You shouldn't do that," Louis retorted. "It’s unlawful."
The Fawn held her head in her hands while Louis eyed The Maggot for the next hit.
"And you wonder why I’ve stopped doing Game
s. I had my pants pulled off in the showers so everyone could stare.” he pointed to his groin. “How would you have felt?"
He'd actually given up on pants. He liked touching It too much through his pockets... But they believed his story and that was all that mattered.
"I'll write a note this minute." The Fawn got up and made for the study. "We don't pay fifteen hundred pounds a term to have our child tortured."
"We?" The Maggot shot her a look.
"I mean you, of course." Her neck reddening.
"So what’s replaced Games?"
Louis was ready. "Library studies. And I learnt a new word on Friday."
"Which was?"
"Runt."
The Maggot watched a wasp settle on Louis' pie crust. "Off you go. We'll chat later."
I’d rather you just died…
*
When he’d gone, neither spoke. Sounds of the Zellers mowing came through the back door. Then another delivery van scorching through the development. Probably Ocado, thought Jacquie, sealing the envelope on her letter, or maybe Speedi-Press ironing for the Linbergs in number 9. He was a pilot with Virgin, she a solicitor commuting to Birmingham every day. Super smart. Super rich. She felt sick. Not because of them, Mr and Mrs Bloody Perfect, but because Louis seemed to be drifting further and further away.
His violin case lay in the hall exactly where he'd dropped it on Saturday evening. Normally he'd have practised at least four hours of scales by now, with or without Dave tinkering alongside. Normally he'd have helped empty the dishwasher. Normally...
As for that odour which had hung around him and the clothes he'd strewn on the washing machine, it was semen and something else... Just like in his bedroom.
"I think you should have a man-to-man chat with him." Jacquie re-corked the Paul Masson and took her empty glass to the dish-washer. "I think he's fiddling with himself a lot. I can smell it."
"For God’s sake, woman, just let him be.”
Jacquie watched the unblemished sun slide behind Dingle Wood. She wanted to go down with it, to wherever. The middle of the world if need be.
"Did you send our soirée invites out after all?" Dave quizzed en route to the lounge.
"Don't I do everything I'm told?"
"I was only asking."
"It'll be a crush. Especially in this heat."
The closer the better, he thought, opening the piano lid.
"Who's actually performing here on Saturday? Apart from you, of course?"
"Why?"
"Just interested."
“You won’t know them.”
“I might.”
Dick Myers, ‘cello, with the boy and me, if he'll play ball."
"What boy?"
"Yours, of course."
You mean Louis?" She emphasised his name. "We know him."
"Indeed we do."
"Meaning?"
Silence.
"Who else is involved?"
"Yvonne Dunkley's singing lieder after the interval, oh, and there's a flautist. Someone called Carla…"
13
Wednesday 7th July 3p.m. and thirty nine degrees Fahrenheit. Louis' watch said so. The one he'd pestered for every Saturday morning whenever The Fawn dragged him off to the Mall. It made the school Grubs treat him with even more respect.
He'd slid out of double Design Technology on the urgent pretext of stomach trouble. The one thing North Barton Boys’ School were slack on. You could sit on the bog there for two hours with no hassle after some parent complained about lack of privacy and threatened to involve the European Court of Human Rights.
*
Too hot to breathe, to think straight, but once in the matted shade of Greythorn Wood, he ditched his D&T folder amongst a scrum of foliage, tucked his old PE shirt in his belt in place of the green one, and slung his blazer from an overhead branch. He then extracted a can of 1664 and pinged off the lid. Within three gulps it was empty. He burped.
There was no sign of either the swans or the moorhens. The brook as calm as a tray of molasses. Suddenly came the crack of breaking twigs - a heavier tread than Jez. Louis spun round to see some old geezer coming closer, veering from side to side. Pissed out of his skull, no doubt. His clothes reeking.
Louis began to sweat fear. Where was his mate? He'd let him have it alright for being late again. Candy or no fucking candy...
"Can ye nae spare us a wee bit o' that drink?" The stranger wheedled in a faint Scottish accent, his tongue swiping back and fore along his bottom lip. His breath strong enough to light a fire.
"It's all gone. Anyhow, who the hell are you?"
"Ne'er ye mind, laddie." The man's jaundiced eyes followed Louis' every move. "Have ye nae heard o’ the Good Samaritan? Come on now. Be a sport..."
A hand more veiny than any alder trunk, reached out for the can. Louis recoiled, then flung it with all his might at the drunkard's head.
"Ye bastard! Jus' ye wait!" The man cried, while a dark blood sprang from above his left eyebrow and trickled down to his cheek.
Louis felt his knife in his trouser pocket. He unsheathed it and gripped the handle tight, waiting for the grungy stranger to get up close and personal. He did, and the knife invaded the striped shirt showing beneath the coat.
The man roared, toppled backwards crashing his head against a tree. Louis bent over him, pulled the weapon clear and plunged it in six more times. His dick enjoying each thrust. Having wiped the blade clean on a mossy stone, he tore up all the soiled vegetation and flung the mess into the brook.
No…
Jez.
Cycling through the wood. His spine of red hair caught in a beam of sunlight. He dismounted, letting his bike fall - its wheels spinning black dust. His hand clamped over his mouth. His already pale face turned the colour of a broad bean. He puked up where he stood, forgetting to wipe his mouth. Then turned to his friend.
"Wot ye bleedin' done, Pete?"
Louis grabbed him by his blazer. That vomit smell turning his own stomach. But the boy wriggled free to crouch over the corpse.
"'E’d ‘ave topped me. I 'ad to sort 'im out."
That raspberry-coloured tongue spasmed from between the man's parted lips, and a trickle of stuff like toffee yoghurt eked out on to his coat collar. Was Jez groaning or sobbing? Whatever, it was way over the bloody top. He suddenly felt as if a glass screen had dropped between them. Him and the ginger who at least had a Dad and a Mum not pushing him into doing stuff. He didn't know how fucking lucky he was. With the bigger dick and all...
"Ye know who 'e is, don't ye?" The Lucky One stood up. Bits of black leaves sticking to the smudges on his face. "That perv Wheeler. It'll be in all the papers, just like this..."
He produced a scrap of newsprint from his shirt pocket. Louis stared at the bottom of the page.
DEAD DOG FOUND IN WILLOW BROOK
A Mr and Mrs Gunther Zeller of 16, Meadow Hill, discovered the remains of a black lurcher cross-breed at the bottom of their garden yesterday morning.
There was no collar. Anyone missing such a dog should contact the Briar Bank branch of the RSPCA.
Never once had Louis considered the Brook's current. Never thought there was one. He wondered with a brief shudder what else might find its way into that development, but on second thoughts, was that such a bad idea after all?
"We’ve just been over to Meadow Hill." Jez went on. "Why I was late. Number 16 reckoned we was pikeys didn't they? Bloody cheek. Pr’aps Jip’d bin chasin’ summat…” He wiped his wet eyes with the back of his hand, went over to the ne
ttles where his knife box was hidden. Having slotted the remaining sheathed knife into his jeans’ pocket, he left the empty box with its lid open amongst the weeds. "'S weird though, 'cos he hated water. And how come ‘is collar was missin’?"
"Sorry, mate. Really am." Was all Louis could say, patting the other's shoulder.
"'S OK." Jez returned the cutting to his shirt pocket, gathered up his bike and cocked his leg over the saddle. "But yer on yer own now. Don't come near me. I've 'ad enough of this place and yer fuckin' nutty ways." With that, he pulled his spare knife from the back pocket of his jeans and threw it into the nearby sludge.
Louis charged after him and toppled the boy onto the bank. Once the traitor was pinned down, he used his teeth to unsheathe the other knife he’d kept hold of. Suddenly the sour-sweet smell of shit hit his nose. All it took before he got to work.
*
Louis lugged the dead weight along the brook to where he knew the soft, silty ground would soon fold over his footprints and the grooves made by those dragging heels.
He'd never been so far up Black Dog Brook before. Here, at the back end of the estate, the junk was worse, and from the Scrub Lane underpass above him, came the rumble of wheels. Several smaller trees had been hacked down but those remaining bore noose ropes dangling from their lower branches, while high overhead, someone had assembled a tree house. Like a giant crow's nest, it blocked out the fierce sun but not the deep, black silence.
*
4p.m. The Fawn would be nagging him again if he was late. As for The Maggot, he was losing interest. Shagging someone else. Louis could tell.
The other boy's eyes stared up with a surprised expression as if he'd just been asked to pose for a snap. The tips of his top front teeth bared like a hamster. Brown stuff oozing from both jeans' legs. Louis tried not to look, then thought about the boy's dick. Better not take it to add to his collection. Anyone could turn up.
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