CHAPTER 11
THEN
Tuesday, 12 May 1992
Elliot’s heart sank as soon as he saw Paul Samson, or Samo as he was widely known, heading towards him further down the corridor. Shit.
It was a warm, sunny day, so most of the boys were enjoying the weather outside on this lunch break. For some that meant taking part in official cricket and athletics sessions; others were kicking a football on the back field, with blazers as goalposts, or simply shooting the breeze with their mates.
Elliot was alone, as usual. He’d grown accustomed to this early on in the school year. It didn’t even bother him too much any more. The problem was that Neil Walsh, the boy who sat next to him in form room, and the closest thing he had to a best friend at school, was a keen sportsman. For the first two terms, Neil had been busy at rugby practice most lunchtimes. Now he could usually be found in the cricket nets, practising his batting and bowling with the rest of the team.
They didn’t have much in common at first glance, Elliot and Neil. If they’d not been placed alongside each other in class, simply because of the location of their names in the register, they probably wouldn’t have been friends. But they had been – and, despite their differences in terms of athleticism, academically they were well matched. A friendly rivalry had developed between them, with each trying to outsmart the other when it came to test scores and marks for homework. King George’s had a habit of ranking the boys at every available opportunity. The aim was clearly to foster a competitive streak in them and thus promote achievement. In Elliot and Neil’s case, it definitely worked. The pair tended to feature in the top ten in most subjects – and beating each other was always a priority. The fact that they shared a similar sense of humour and were both into computers didn’t do any harm either.
The problem was that Elliot hadn’t especially clicked with any of the other boys. Neil was pally with a lot of his rugby and cricket teammates, but most of them weren’t like him. They tended to be the more boisterous types – and Elliot struggled to find common ground with them, quickly learning that they were more likely to make fun of him than be genuinely friendly. There were obviously plenty of other boys like him, who weren’t sporty. But after contracting a nasty bout of the flu in mid-September, which had kept him off school ill for nearly three weeks, he’d returned to find various social groups had formed that didn’t include him. It didn’t help that he had no old friendships to fall back on either, being the only one to come here from his primary school. So when Neil wasn’t around, he’d got into the habit of spending his lunchtimes in the school library and the computer room, or sometimes traipsing around the grounds alone.
On this particular occasion, he’d planned to go to the computer room. But after heading up there once he’d eaten his lunch and Neil had gone to cricket, he’d found it to be closed due to a staff meeting. He was on his way outside when he saw Samo, who was looking straight at him and grinning as the pair made their way towards one another in the otherwise empty ground-floor corridor.
Samo was two years older than Elliot, meaning he was also significantly bigger and stronger. He took the same bus as Elliot to school and back every day, getting on two stops after Aldham in the mornings. Unfortunately, he was a bully and one of his favourite things to do was to pick on Elliot, who he’d taken to calling E.T., after Steven Spielberg’s famous alien. The main reason for this was because of his first name, which he shared with the boy in the film, despite spelling it differently. But Samo had also cottoned on to the fact that due to his surname, Turner, E and T were actually his initials.
It wasn’t the worst name in the world to be called. But when you had it thrust unwanted upon you several times a day, always used in a jeering manner, it soon became annoying. The irony was that when he was younger, Elliot’s mum had called him the same thing for a while, although in an affectionate way. It was after they’d watched it together for the first time and, for fun, she’d claimed to have named him after the boy in the film. It wasn’t true; E.T. hadn’t been released until 1982, well after his birth in June 1980. The real reason for him being called Elliot was the fact it was Wendy’s maiden name.
Samo, nasty piece of work that he was, liked to use the nickname in a way that suggested Elliot was some kind of freak who didn’t belong.
‘E.T. phone home,’ he called along the corridor in a stupid impression of the voice from the film. ‘E.T. phone home.’
Elliot wanted to turn around and run back the way he’d come, but he knew that would make things worse. If only there was a different way to walk that didn’t take him right past Samo. But there wasn’t. Nor was there anyone else around. It was just the two of them, a row of wooden lockers on one side and several locked classroom doors on the other.
He looked straight ahead and tried not to make eye contact. His plan was to keep walking and simply to ignore Samo, who was alone too, thankfully. He was usually worse around his mates, as he liked to show off.
‘E.T. phone home,’ Samo called out again, a few metres ahead of him now.
Elliot said nothing; kept on walking.
And then Samo was there, right in front of him, blocking the way with his bulk and holding both arms out like a scarecrow. His whole body reeked of cigarettes and his breath, as he bent forward, getting right in Elliot’s face, was a foul mix of tobacco and Juicy Fruit chewing gum.
‘Where do you think you’re going, E.T.?’
Elliot said nothing. His heart was pounding like a drum roll and he felt like he was about to open his bowels. Refusing to meet Samo’s glare, he stepped to the left and then to the right, but both times his assailant moved with him.
‘I asked you a question, bender,’ Samo continued. Speaking in an exaggerated, slowly enunciated manner, he added: ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
Elliot still said nothing. He concentrated on breathing and not soiling his pants.
‘Have you forgotten how to talk, lard boy? I swear, if you don’t answer me, you’re going to be sorry.’ As he said this, Samo glanced up and down the corridor, making sure they were still alone, and then he grabbed Elliot by the throat with his right hand, which smelled even more strongly of smoke. It felt like it was made of iron and Elliot started to panic as he struggled to breathe.
‘Outside,’ he strained.
‘Good,’ Samo replied, loosening his grip a little. ‘So you can talk after all. I don’t speak alien, though. What did you say?’
‘I said I was going outside.’
‘Really? Who said you could do that?’
‘I … don’t know what you mean.’ Elliot’s eyes, looking all around, desperate for someone – preferably a teacher – to turn up, fell on to a piece of graffiti carved into the front of one of the nearby lockers. ‘Carter is a tripod,’ it read, which meant nothing to him and provided little comfort.
‘Didn’t you get the memo?’ Samo said with a nasty grin. ‘You have to pay to go outside and I’m the one who collects the money. That’ll be fifty pence, please.’
‘What? I don’t have any money.’
‘Liar.’
‘Honestly.’
Samo released him from his grip. ‘Prove it.’
He shoved Elliot towards the lockers and told him to empty his pockets, which he promptly did. He was telling the truth about having no money, so all that came out was his bus pass and hymn book, two pencils, a biro and an unopened pack of Polo mints. As he was doing this, the door Samo had come through swung open and Elliot thought for a moment he was saved. In fact, the opposite was true. It was two of Samo’s pals: lads he went smoking with behind the games hall. Elliot didn’t know their names.
‘What are you up to, Samo?’ one of them called as they made their way towards them.
‘Chatting to my friend E.T. here,’ Samo replied. ‘He wanted to go outside and I was telling him about the new charge that’s been introduced. Problem is he doesn’t have any money.’
‘That’s a shame,’ the other new
arrival said. ‘He’ll have to pay in another way, then, won’t he?’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ Samo pocketed Elliot’s Polos, adding: ‘This will do for starters, but it’s not enough. Come on, lads. Let’s carry him to the bogs.’
‘No, get lost!’ Elliot shouted, twisting loose and trying to run away. But it was no use. The three lads were far too strong. One clamped a sweaty hand over his mouth and together they lifted him off the ground and ran with him on their shoulders in the direction of the toilets.
Moments later they bustled him into one of the cubicles, ordering a couple of other boys present to get lost and keep their mouths shut or else. Elliot fought frantically to resist, biting at the hand over his mouth and then, when it was pulled away, shouting as loudly as he could for them to leave him alone. It was futile. They forced his head into the grimy, smelly bowl regardless and flushed it.
The boys were laughing hard, apart from the one moaning about his hand being bitten. But unfortunately that wasn’t Samo, who found it hilarious to point out that Elliot’s curly hair, which was now soaking wet, made the perfect ‘bog brush’.
Then came the sound of a male teacher shouting at someone outside for kicking a football against a window. His proximity was enough to break the spell and the boys let go of Elliot, who slumped on to the tiled floor, gasping for breath and face soaked with a mixture of tears and disgusting loo water.
Before they finally left him alone, Samo growled: ‘Don’t you dare say a word about this to anyone, freak, or it’ll be a whole lot worse next time.’
Then he was alone.
He stayed on the cubicle floor, hugging his knees and desperately trying to calm himself down, for several minutes. Eventually, he heard the teacher from outside come in and ask if everything was all right in here, but he held the door shut with his hands and stayed silent until he’d gone. When it sounded like the coast was clear, he stood up and let himself out. He spent several minutes scrubbing his face and hair with soap and water at one of the sinks, ignoring a couple of other boys who came in to use the urinals and wishing himself invisible. He took a clump of paper towels from the dispenser and made a feeble attempt at drying his hair before heading outside. He walked around alone for the remaining time until the bell sounded, not wanting to meet anyone’s eye; trying to blank out what had happened.
It wasn’t until he went to catch the bus home that afternoon that Elliot realised he hadn’t recovered the stuff from his pockets, including his bus pass.
As he tried to explain the situation to the driver, who was new, Samo shoved his way past, making a sniffing sound and commenting that something ‘smelled like crap’. To make matters worse, before disappearing upstairs, he told the driver: ‘Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t usually get this bus. He’s a chubby little liar.’
Fortunately Lisa, who was sitting in her usual spot on the bottom deck, came to her friend’s aid. ‘Is there a problem?’ she asked, smiling sweetly at the driver.
‘This lad doesn’t have a bus pass. He says he’s lost it, but the other boy tells me he’s lying and doesn’t normally take this service.’
‘Well, I can vouch for the fact that Elliot gets this bus every day,’ she said, tucking her hair behind her right ear and flashing him a doe-eyed look. ‘He gets on and off at the same stop as me, I promise. Please could you let him on? Otherwise he’ll be stranded and his mum will be beside herself.’
‘Fine,’ he nodded. ‘Go on then.’
‘Thanks,’ Elliot said, sitting down next to his friend and greeting Charlotte and Joanne, who were on the row in front.
‘What happened?’ Charlotte asked, slipping off the headphones she’d been using to listen to her personal stereo.
‘I lost my bus pass,’ Elliot said.
‘You’re joking. Nightmare.’
‘Any idea where it might be?’ Lisa asked.
‘I have a good idea where I lost it, but I doubt it’s still there. Hopefully someone will have handed it in.’
‘I see Samo was being his usual helpful self,’ Joanne said.
Elliot nodded and yet couldn’t bring himself to say any more. The girls knew Samo was a nasty piece of work. They’d seen him in action plenty of times before on the bus, but what had happened earlier that day was on another level. There was no way he was telling them about that. He hadn’t even told Neil. It was too damn humiliating and, truth be told, he couldn’t trust himself not to burst into tears in the process. All he wanted was to blank the incident out of his mind and do his utmost to ensure it never happened again. That was easier said than done, though, when Samo decided to come downstairs halfway through the journey, as he often did, to show off to the older girls sitting on the seats at the back.
Elliot, who’d been keeping one eye on the stairs for this very reason, felt his heart rate quicken when the bully appeared. Discretely, hoping to avoid getting shoved, he shuffled as far along the seat as he could without squashing Lisa, who was sitting next to the window. He still ended up with a flick to the earlobe that made him yelp.
Lisa, who was locked in a debate with Joanne about who was better looking out of Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, turned to look at him. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied, silently fuming while imagining ways he could one day exact his revenge on his persecutor.
As the bus journey continued, Elliot hated having to listen to Samo’s bragging voice booming out from behind him, telling various feeble attempts at jokes to the girls too stupid to see through him. They laughed, although none of it was remotely funny, as far as Elliot was concerned. He feared that Samo would also tell them what he’d done to him at lunch break. Thankfully he didn’t, although Elliot suspected the only reason for this was because he didn’t want to run the risk of getting into trouble. He did, however, make another comment about there being an awful smell as he made his way off the bus. ‘I think alien boy filled his pants,’ he said, flicking Elliot’s earlobe again as he walked past. ‘Or maybe he’s been bumming one of his gay pals. E.T. phone home.’
‘Hey! Leave him alone,’ Lisa snapped, clocking what he did this time. It only served to amuse Samo, who turned and blew a kiss in her direction as he waited for the doors to swing open.
‘Is that why you cried out before?’ Lisa asked Elliot. ‘Did he also do that last time he walked past?’
Elliot nodded. ‘It doesn’t matter. Leave it.’
But before he could stop her, Lisa stood up and opened the window. As the bus pulled away and Samo walked along the pavement, she banged on the glass and shouted: ‘The only thing that smells bad round here is your dog breath.’
The funny thing was that he hadn’t been looking in their direction at the time and the noise made him jump. Charlotte and Joanne both laughed; even Elliot had to smile, although he hoped it wouldn’t be something he ended up paying for later.
‘You shouldn’t let him talk to you like that, El,’ Lisa said when it was just the two of them walking home.
‘What am I supposed to do? He’s massive. You’re safe enough because you’re a girl: he’s never going to do anything to you. But he’d pummel me without a second thought.’
‘Does he bother you much at school?’
Elliot looked the other way and shrugged.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Dunno.’
Lisa stopped walking and grabbed his hand. She pulled him towards her so he couldn’t avoid her gaze. ‘Dunno? Don’t give me that, El. Not me. What’s going on? I thought you were quiet on the journey home today. Plus there was that business with your bus pass. Something happened, didn’t it? What did he do?’
‘It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.’ But even as he said the words, his tears betrayed him.
He told his friend everything and, by the time he’d finished, Lisa was spitting feathers.
‘That bastard!’ she said. ‘No way he’s getting away with this. We’re going to make him pay.’
The look in her eye
s was ferocious, like a wolf baring its teeth. Elliot had only seen her that way once before – when he’d eventually told her about how that turncoat Peter had broken his glasses on the day they met.
And, boy, had Peter paid the price for that betrayal.
CHAPTER 12
NOW
Sunday, 22 July 2018
‘Breakfast’s ready!’ Lisa shouted up the stairs again. ‘If you two don’t come in a minute, your eggs will be cold.’
‘I’ll be down in a second,’ Ben called in reply, presumably still in his bedroom. Meanwhile Chloe appeared at the top of the stairs, looking bedraggled in her pyjamas and tatty lemon dressing gown, hair all over the place.
‘There you are,’ Lisa said. ‘Why are you wearing that old thing?’
Chloe frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘That dressing gown. It’s far too short and looks ready for the bin. That’s why we got you the new turquoise one. Any particular reason you don’t seem to like wearing it?’
‘Muuum! Not now. I’m still half-asleep.’ She walked past Lisa and took a seat at the kitchen table next to her dad.
Still watching the staircase for Ben, Lisa went on: ‘It’s nearly ten thirty, young lady. A couple of years ago you’d have been up for three hours by now. What time did you go to sleep?’
‘Not that late.’
‘And the night before, at Holly’s house?’
Chloe mumbled something inaudible.
‘Ben?’ Lisa called up the stairs again.
‘One second, Mum. Seriously.’
‘You already said that, and it was a lot more than one second ago, love. Come on now. It’s bacon and eggs – and yours will be cold.’
Ben eventually joined them a couple of minutes later. He was at least dressed, in jeans and a T-shirt, but he didn’t appear to have showered or shaved. Although not quite sixteen, he already had a thick beard growth. This was something Lisa wished he hadn’t inherited from his father. Since he’d been out of work, Mike’s face had been more or less permanently covered in that thick stubble of his – and Lisa hated it. For one thing it looked slovenly, especially in the half-beard, in-between stage that Mike favoured. It certainly wouldn’t help him find the kind of professional work he needed. Plus it was so coarse and prickly that it hurt when they kissed or were in bed together. Not that this was too much of an issue at the moment. Mike’s ongoing problems weren’t exactly doing wonders for their love life.
Stand by Me Page 9