Kook

by Chris Vick

  “Have you checked your phone?” I said.

  “No signal. Out of juice, anyway.”

  “Do you want to go home, now?” I said. She stood, opened the sleeping bag like a cape and put it round my shoulders, then put her arms under and around me, pushing her body up against me, using me and the bag for warmth.

  “Nah. Not yet,” she said. I stared out at the flat, burning blue ocean, thinking about where we could go. Somewhere warm and safe.

  *

  It was early. We were the only people in the Old Chapel cafe. We went straight to the table by the wood burner. Our table.

  There was one old armchair, next to the burner, and Jade sat in it, curled up in the sleeping bag.

  I ordered coffee and a full English with extra toast and marmalade.

  My left eye was throbbing. My muscles and bones were stiff from the fight, and sleeping on the mine floor. But I felt good. Sitting by the burner, lapping up the heat. Knackered, but on top of the world at the same time.

  Jade didn’t eat much when the food came, but I wolfed it. Sausage and egg and tomato. Rounds of toast, melted butter and marmalade. I’d never known food could taste so good.

  My phone bleeped. A message from Mum.

  Hope you saw lots of stars.

  Have you heard from Jade? Her dad’s worried sick.

  “You’d better read this,” I said, handing Jade the phone.

  “Shit.”

  “Do you want to call him?”

  “No. Can you get a message to him?”

  I didn’t fancy talking to Bob, so I took the phone back and texted Mum.

  Jade went for surf. Met me and Mike for brek in cafe. His mum treating us.

  Jade’s phone dead. Cn U let Bob know shes OK? Home soon.

  I showed Jade.

  “Nice work, Kook.”

  I ordered more coffee. A few minutes later, as the woman was about to serve it, I heard a car. There was no mistaking the rasping, sick-man cough of the old Volvo. Not any car. Bob’s car.

  “Shit,” said Jade.

  We watched the door. Waiting.

  Bob rushed in and walked up to us, his eyes frantic-wide.

  “You’re all right?” he said to Jade. I was relieved. He wasn’t angry. Just worried.

  “Fine. I got up early,” said Jade, “that’s all.” She was so cool about it. Lying was like a language she could speak better than anyone.

  “But… you always leave a note,” said Bob, standing over her.

  “I didn’t bother.”

  Bob looked at the sleeping bag, piled up in the armchair, and at the two plates, cups and sets of knives and forks.

  “I thought you was meant to be with some kid and his mum?” he said.

  “Um, they left about ten minutes ago,” I said. Bob glanced at the plates again.

  “Your bed weren’t slept in,” he said to Jade, his voice getting harder.

  “I made it.”

  “You? Never. And how come you never took Tess?”

  His voice was hardening with every question. He was getting louder too. Now he knew Jade was safe, he wanted answers.

  “You trying to make a fool of me, missy?”

  Jade smirked. A look that said: No, you’re doing that yourself.

  “Get in the car,” he shouted, pointing at the door. “We’re going home.”

  “Me and Sam’ll come later.”

  “Now,” he said, quietly. Too quietly.

  “No,” said Jade. Just as quiet.

  “Where were you last night?” he said. He reached out to grab her arm, but she twisted out of his grip and sat on her hands.

  “Maybe you’d better go, Jade,” I said. She looked at me like I was a traitor. And maybe I was, but I didn’t want things getting worse for her right then.

  “Look, I’ll come too,” I said. “I’ll just pay.”

  I stood, and went and threw money at the woman, quick as I could, while Jade sat there, with her dad standing over her. I thought maybe if I came too, it’d help; that things between them might calm down.

  “Come on,” I said, picking up the sleeping bag and forcing it into its sack. Jade made a humph sound, then stood. I picked up our bags and we walked out, in silence.

  “So, where were you?” said Bob, soon as we were out.

  “Out.”

  “Where?”

  “None of your bizzy,” she said, and stopped still. Jade wasn’t going anywhere with Bob. She just didn’t want a scene in the cafe.

  Bob grabbed her, by the wrist. And this time she wasn’t quick enough. He started dragging her. She pulled back, digging her heels in the dirt like a stubborn horse. He just pulled harder. Using his strength and weight.

  “I said, where?” he said.

  “You’re embarrassing,” said Jade. He pulled her harder then. Too hard. His nails digging into her.

  “Hey! Let her go,” I said. He stopped yanking, but still held Jade’s wrist. A snake, wriggling to get free.

  “What?” he snorted.

  “You heard me. Let her go.” I pushed his shoulder. He looked at me, curious, seeming to notice the bruise on my eye for the first time.

  Jade stopped squirming, staring at me too. Unbelieving.

  “Or what?” said Bob, mock-laughing.

  “She was with me,” I blurted. “We went to a party, a big one. We missed the last bus. It was my fault. We haven’t slept. We’ve been walking all night.” It was a sort-of lie, but a good one. Like I was speaking Jade’s language now too. “I looked after her,” I said. I stared right at him, my face inches from his, my nostrils flaring.

  He let go of her. The three of us stood there. Bob and Jade, staring at each other, at me. Both of them confused.

  Bob folded his arms, smiling. “You looked after her?” he said, sarcastic.

  “I don’t need looking after…” Jade started. I glared at her to shut her up.

  “Is that how you got that?” he said, pointing at my eye. “Looking after my daughter?”

  I nodded.

  “Well,” said Bob, smiling, “your mum’s gonna be well interested to hear this, isn’t she? How you gonna explain that?”

  “I dunno…” I said. Then added, “But if you don’t back the fuck off, right now, I’ll tell her you did it.”

  Jade sidled up to me, behind my shoulder. I felt her hand slip into mine, squeezing tight.

  “What?” said Bob.

  “She’ll believe me too,” I said. “I’ll say you were going to hit Jade and I stopped you.” He knew I meant it. And he knew I was right. “Don’t ever touch her again,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “What?” he said, again. I think the only reason he didn’t belt me was because I was his neighbour.

  “You heard me.”

  Jade stood just behind my shoulder, leaning into me, like we were one body.

  Bob took a step back. Then another. He walked to his car, backwards, watching us the whole time. Then got in, and drove off.

  “He’ll be worse later,” said Jade. “I’m in the shit now.”

  I turned and put my arms round her.

  “No. I don’t think he will be worse. I think you’ll be all right.” I don’t know how I felt confident about that, but I did. I’d seen the look in Bob’s eyes when I threatened him. He wasn’t scared of me. But he was scared of Mum knowing what he did. Of her believing my story.

  “Oh, Sam,” said Jade. Her words were heavy and sad. “You don’t know much about things, do you?” She kissed me.

  “What now?” I said. “What do you reckon?”

  “I think we’d better not go back for a while: that’s what I reckon.”

  We picked up our gear, held hands and headed for the clifftop, not knowing where we were going, or for how long.

  I GOT HOME LATE. I was determined to hide my bruises from Mum. At least as long as I could. I planned to head straight to my room, and stay there, till Mum had gone off to do her barmaid
shift at the Admiral.

  Avoiding Mum for a while wasn’t going to be hard. Even though I’d promised to be back early, the truth was me and Mum not seeing each other much suited us both. Home life had been tense since the bust, especially with me bombing off and surfing every chance I got. And lying about it.

  You’d think she’d have been on my case, but we had this unspoken deal. When she worked barmaid shifts, I was home looking after Teg. You can’t surf when it’s dark, so that was fine by me. As long as I was there for that, and Old Faithful stayed in the shed, she assumed I wasn’t surfing, or hanging with that crowd, so didn’t fuss about where I was the rest of the time. She didn’t know about the new board. There was a lot she didn’t know.

  Like I said, I’d got good at hiding stuff. Lying was getting easy.

  But bruises can’t lie.

  I came in and shut the door, quietly.

  “That you, Sam?” said Mum, from the kitchen.

  “Yeah, gonna have a bath, then I’ve got studying,” I said. Long seconds dragged before she answered.

  “Okay,” she said, from the kitchen. Phew. I raced upstairs and straight into Teg coming out of the bathroom. She opened her mouth to shout, but I put a finger to my lips, glaring at her.

  “What happened to you?” she said.

  “Nothing. Keep it down,” I whispered.

  “Have you been in a fight?” she squealed with excitement.

  “No.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “Don’t say anything to Mum. You can have… crisps… and stay up late.”

  “And then you’ll tell me about the fight!” She bounced down the stairs, certain she had me wrapped up for as long as she wanted.

  I went into the bathroom, started the taps and stripped. While the water ran, I looked at myself in the cracked, mould-stained mirror.

  I had two corker bruises on my body, as well as a few smaller ones. One in my ribs, one on my thigh. Purpley-blue as the deep sea. I poked the purple flower on my ribs and sucked sharp air with the pain. It made me feel good. Kind of proud.

  Not just from the bruises though. My body, like Jade had said, had changed. I had muscles. My face was weather-browned. Salt-water beaten. My eyes glowed out of a dark face. Like Jade’s.

  I poked the bruise again. A reminder of the rave. That, and the memory of Jade. Us lying together, in the old mine, by the fire.

  What a night. Happy birthday, Sam.

  But as well as body blows, a fist or boot had got me in the corner of the eye. A small, hard egg of a bump stuck out of the side of my head. Telltale purple and black surrounded my eye like thick make-up.

  I took my time in the bath, letting the hot water get to work. Because it wasn’t just the bruises that hurt. My whole body felt stiff and slow, like I’d been run over by a steamroller.

  As usual, when I’d finished getting clean, I put my head under, held my nose, and counted.

  I could make sixty easy by then. And if I kept calm, even eighty, or ninety.

  I did one hundred before my vision shuddered, and my chest spasmed.

  A record.

  I hoped Mum would be gone by the time I got out. I was drying off when I heard her shout, “Sam, tea’s ready.” It was a no-messing kind of a shout. It meant: come and get it. Now. We had to do things like clockwork since she’d started working at the pub. She couldn’t be late.

  I opened the door and shouted down, “Can you put it on a tray? I’ve got homework to do.”

  But she shouted back.

  “Come and eat with Teg. You can’t just disappear to your room. Work downstairs till you’ve put Teg to bed, please.”

  I went and put on a long sleeved T and tracky bottoms, and walked down the stairs. Slowly.

  Mum was in the hall, coat on, smelling of flowery perfume, doing her make-up in the mirror.

  I sneaked past. She didn’t look up. In the kitchen there were two trays, with plates of fish fingers, beans and toast.

  The kitchen had a hatch, straight into the lounge. I passed Teg the trays, then went into the hall and past Mum. Again, she didn’t see.

  Teg was sunk in the sofa, already getting into her tea. I grabbed the remote. Not much point. We were going to watch exactly what Teg wanted.

  Mum’s head popped in. I didn’t look up.

  “Normal bedtime for Tegan, Sam. Lock the front door. I’ve got a key and… Sam, fascinated as you are by the TV, could you look at me while I’m talking?… Sam!”

  I turned my head, slightly.

  “Hope work’s good. I’ll lay out the breakfast things,” I said.

  “Thank you.” She rattled her car keys in her hand. “Got to go… Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  “Sam.”

  “What?”

  “Look at me when you speak to me, please… Sam!” She marched in and stood in front of the telly. I looked up. Her jaw fell open. Well and truly gobsmacked. “What the bloody hell happened to you?” She put her keys in her pocket. Hands to hips. Double teapot arms.

  Excuses raced through my mind. Fell over. Banged into a door. Did it surfing … No, can’t say that.

  “I… er.”

  “Teg?” said Mum.

  “Sam was in a fight,” Teg blurted.

  “What about the crisps?” I whispered. She shrugged, staring at Mum goggle-eyed. Afraid.

  “What happened, Sam?” Mum fumed.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? That’s your answer to everything I ask. You go nowhere. You do nothing. With no one. That’s all you ever say. Did this happen last night? Where were you? Clearly not stargazing… What happened?!”

  “You’re going to be late for your new bloke.”

  “What did you say?” She said it quiet, but I could almost see smoke blowing out of her nostrils.

  “The bloke you’re seeing at the pub. Brian, right? Dolling yourself up, coming home late…”

  “I… I’m at work,” she flustered.

  “Not till three in the morning.”

  Mum looked at the carpet, at Teg. She was a bit floored by how I was suddenly the one being like a parent, and she didn’t know how to act. She took her keys back out of her pocket.

  “Let’s not have this conversation now, Sam. I’m your mother. Just tell me what happened to you!”

  I folded my arms, focused on the telly. Then I thought, Sod it, why not?

  “I went to a rave. I got in a fight. I got hurt, but not bad.”

  “When? Last night, on your birthday? You lied to me, didn’t you? Who did it?”

  “An idiot.”

  “Was it your fault?”

  “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just happened.”

  She sighed, put her keys back in her pocket. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Cuz you’d freak.”

  “Sam … I’m your mum. You need to tell me stuff.”

  “Why? There’s a load of stuff you don’t tell me. Like about your new bloke.”

  She gave me a not-in-front-of-Tegan look, then sighed, again. About to speak. Stopping. About to speak. Stopping. Like she couldn’t decide. To shout. To talk. To stay. To go.

  “Look. We’ll talk. We will. But I have to go now,” she said, quietly.

  “See ya then.” I said it mean. More than I meant to. I started flicking through channels.

  “You know you can be a little sh… git sometimes,” she said, her voice wobbling. Teg slipped off the sofa and out the door.

  I looked up, at Mum. A jolt of shock. For both of us. I saw it in her eyes and I felt it in my bones. Because neither of us knew who we were looking at. We didn’t know each other any more.

  It was awkward. Embarrassing. I started flicking channels again.

  “Let’s talk tomorrow,” she said. I tuned in to the TV.

  Your Christmas saving scheme. Click.

  Burger menu special this month. Click.

  “Sam?”

  I love you, Rachel. Click.

  “Sam. I’m trying h
ere.”

  Local farmers up in arms. Click.

  Mum stood aside, went and sat on the arm of the sofa.

  “Turn off the TV. I’ll go in late. I’ll call them. It’s fine. We need to talk. Now. I won’t be angry, I promise. Okay?”

  I looked at her. “Okay.” I nodded.

  Giant waves…

  I sat up, zoned in on the TV. Turned up the volume.

  “Sam, okay? Can we talk now? Perhaps we… Are you listening? Sam… Sam…” She said something else. I don’t know what. Her voice melted.

  Ken was on the TV. The local celebrity weatherman, with his flapping hands and excited voice. “Right at the beginning of December we’re expecting a series of storms, deeper and stronger than anything we’ve seen for a decade or more, sitting much further south than normal, in the mid-Atlantic. These storms will generate enormous waves…”

  “Sam!”

  “Just a sec, Mum.”

  “Fine. You know what? I’m going to work.”

  I didn’t look up.

  They showed pics of the last time storms had lashed the coast.

  A shot of Whitesands harbour. An explosion of white water against the cliff.

  The seafront. White vans, and trucks. Dozens of them. Men in Day-Glo yellow jackets, piling up sandbags outside ice-cream shops. Towns preparing to be invaded.

  I turned off the TV. I had to phone Jade.

  “Sam?” said a voice.

  It was Tegan standing next to me. Mum had gone.

  JADE DIDN’T ANSWER when I called. She didn’t answer texts either. I went to bed wired.

  My head was dizzy-full. With the rave, with Jade, with sex. Especially with sex. And those TV pics of waves, battering cliffs.

  “A series of storms.” That’s what Ken the weatherman had said. But when would it be right for us? How would we know? How would we not kill ourselves just getting there?

  I fell into a half-sleep, turning and sweating the whole time. Like the storm had begun, and it was in my head.

  *

  Jade still hadn’t answered any of my texts by morning. I didn’t much fancy going over to her house, not if Bob was there. Then I decided, Fuck it, I wasn’t going to be afraid of him. So, I went over. Turned out his car wasn’t there anyway.