Inside My Head

by Jim Carrington

  ‘Stop, Gary!’ I shout. ‘Please stop it! Let’s go and put the keys back!’

  He doesn’t. He stares out of the front of the tractor, puts his foot down, and we go faster. He steers in and out of the rusty tractors and machines, and he drives faster and faster and faster, so fast that I think the tractor’s gonna tip over.

  ‘Gary! Please!’

  But he isn’t listening any more. And the smile’s gone from his face. Now he just looks manic. He keeps racing the tractor, in and out of the rusty machines. And the more I shout, the more manic and determined he becomes. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to stop him.

  Gary turns the tractor towards the gate. He looks at me and smiles.

  ‘Don’t!’ I say. ‘I mean it!’

  He heads straight for the gate.

  ‘You’re gonna hit the gate!’ I shout. ‘Stop!’

  Gary’s smile gets wider. He locks his arms tight on the wheel and we drive towards the gate. I lean over, try to grab the wheel off him, try to steer away from the gate. But Gary’s much too strong.

  We smash through the gate and on to the road.

  ‘You idiot!’ I shout at him.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. But he doesn’t look sorry. He’s smiling again. ‘I couldn’t resist the gate! I’ve always wanted to do that!’

  I shake my head. What can I say? I can’t think of a way to stop this from happening. I try closing my eyes really tightly, wishing that none of this was happening. But when I open them, we’re still in the tractor and we’re driving away from Wallingham, down a tiny little road.

  ‘You’re gonna get us in so much trouble, Gary,’ I say.

  He doesn’t look at me. He’s too busy looking at the road. He shrugs. ‘No one cares about Henry’s gate, Zoë,’ he says. ‘And no one’s gonna miss his tractor. Relax.’

  Relax? Ha! Yeah, right. I cover my face with my hands and scream into them.

  Gary slows the tractor at a crossroads. I think about opening the door, jumping out. But Gary quickly turns the tractor to the right, up another country lane. There’s nothing about – no houses, no cars, no people. Only fields all around, flat, stretching for miles.

  ‘Gary, please, someone’s gonna see. We can’t do this. Let’s take the tractor back, before anyone notices.’

  ‘No one’ll notice us,’ he says. ‘There are tractors on the road all the time round here. There ain’t nothing strange about that.’

  ‘There is something strange about two kids driving a tractor! You’re still in school uniform, for God’s sake!’ I say. ‘What if the police see us?’

  Gary laughs. ‘When was the last time you saw a policeman round here?’

  ‘How about yesterday?’ I say. ‘Or have you forgotten?’

  He stops smiling. ‘Yeah, I mean apart from that.’

  I don’t remember ever seeing the police round here before that. Although it has only been a week. I shrug.

  ‘Exactly,’ he says. ‘There ain’t no bloody police round here!’

  There’s no point in arguing with Gary. So I sit there instead and shake my head, just so he knows that I think we’re doing a stupid thing. But I don’t say anything and neither does Gary. He sits upright and turns the steering wheel and I watch him. It should look all wrong, a school kid driving a tractor. But for some reason, Gary just looks right sitting there, holding the wheel. He doesn’t look like a school kid. He looks like he was made to drive this bloody tractor. I guess he looks confident sitting there, high above the road, looking out at the fields. If you ignore the bum-fluff moustache on his top lip, you’d say he was just a farmer, driving to his field, or whatever it is that farmers do. And as I watch him drive, some of his confidence must start to rub off on me, cos I don’t feel as nervous any more.

  Gary takes the tractor down little road after little road. We go past massive fields full of stuff I don’t know the names of. Along dark little roads, surrounded by woods, where the trees bend low over the road, like spooks on a ghost train. We don’t pass a single house or person or car. And I start to relax a bit more. Not enough to actually want to be here, just enough to not be shouting at Gary.

  The way Gary’s taking us down all these tiny, windy roads makes me start to think that maybe he knows what he’s doing. He probably knows all these roads like the back of his hand. He’s probably planned this all out – the tractor, the route, everything. I look at him again. He looks like a king or something, sat there on the dirty brown seat, holding the wheel. He’s got a big smile on his face. He looks different when he smiles. Happier, of course. But more than just that.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask him.

  Gary looks away from the road for a second and smiles at me. ‘Dunno,’ he says. ‘Not much further, though, that’s for sure.’ And he taps a dial behind the steering wheel that shows a fuel pump. The dial’s in the red. And a little red light’s on next to it.

  ‘Are we running out of petrol?’ I say.

  He nods. ‘Diesel. Yeah.’

  ‘How far will we get?’

  He shrugs. ‘Dunno,’ he says. Then he slams his foot on the brake and steers in, towards the verge. ‘Duck down,’ he says.

  I do what he says. Lie down on the floor of the tractor cab. It’s dirty and smelly. There are huge clods of dried mud and old fag ends.

  ‘What is it?’ I say.

  ‘Car,’ Gary says. ‘Stay still and shut up.’

  Crap! This is it. This is the moment when my life changes for ever. They’re gonna see Gary and see he’s just a kid and they’re gonna call the police. And I’m gonna have a criminal record for the rest of my life. But I do what Gary says. I lie there on the dirty floor, and wait. My heart’s beating like mad; I can hear it in my ears, even above the sound of the engine. I’m breathing really quick, shallow breaths. But Gary sits there and waves at the car as it squeezes past us. He doesn’t even flinch – he sits there and looks like a farmer, even in his school shirt.

  ‘You can get up now,’ he says. ‘Car’s gone.’

  I get up off the floor and sit back down. And I look at Gary as he steers the tractor back out on to the road. ‘How’d you do that?’

  He looks at me, confused. ‘What?’

  ‘Just then. They didn’t even notice you. How’d you get away with it?’

  Gary shrugs. ‘Dunno.’

  We drive for about five minutes more before Gary says, ‘We’re running out of diesel. I’m gonna pull over.’

  The engine sounds different, kind of chuggy. It doesn’t sound good. Gary drives along slowly, until we get to a break in the hedge and a little track. It leads off the road to a gate with a field the other side. Gary pulls in and puts the handbrake on. He jumps down from the tractor, opens the gate and then gets back in again. We drive through the gate and into the field. We both climb out and I feel relieved.

  ‘What shall we do with it?’ I say.

  Gary shrugs. ‘Nothing much we can do with it. Just leave it there.’

  ‘But it’s Henry’s tractor, you said. You can’t just leave it there.’

  Gary walks away from the tractor. ‘Henry’s dead, Zoë,’ he says. ‘His stupid divvy family won’t even notice it’s gone.’

  How can I argue with that? What am I gonna do, push it all the way back to Henry’s farm? So I shrug as well. We walk back along the path to the road. Gary shuts the gate behind us.

  ‘Where are we, Gary?’

  Gary looks up and down the road. ‘Not sure,’ he says. ‘We should be somewhere near the coast, I think. Let’s go this way.’

  He starts walking up the road. I follow. I don’t really have any other choice.

  The sun’s getting lower in the sky across the field where we left the tractor. It’s quite warm, quite nice. It would feel quite relaxing, if I were here on ho
liday with my family. But I’m not. We’ve just stolen a tractor and dumped it in a field. And I have no idea where we are or how we’ll get home. I feel nervous, guilty.

  After a few minutes we come to a crossroads. There’s an old-fashioned signpost dug into the grass verge: Ickley, Hinglesthorpe, Saltgate, Roughley, East Strand. The names mean nothing to me. I’ve never heard of any of these places before in my life. Gary looks at the sign and then looks up the road, straight ahead.

  ‘We should go this way,’ he says.

  ‘Why? Is it the way home?’

  Gary shakes his head. ‘No, it’s the way to East Strand. Look – “One and a quarter miles”. My nan used to take me there when I was little. It’s a seaside town.’

  I nod my head. We cross the road and set off towards East Strand.

  ‘Is she nice, then, your nan?’

  Gary looks at me. ‘Yeah,’ he says quietly.

  ‘She alive?’

  Gary shakes his head and looks away.

  ‘What happened?’

  Gary sighs. ‘Cancer,’ he says. ‘She used to smoke like a chimney. When I was about twelve she started getting ill. Died in hospital couple of months later.’

  I feel bad now. I don’t look at Gary. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He looks at me and gives me a little smile. ‘Don’t have to say you’re sorry,’ he says. ‘Weren’t your fault.’ And he turns away again.

  We walk. Silence. Gary’s thinking about his nan, I can tell. And I’m starting to worry about the time. I take my phone out of my pocket and check the clock. Nearly five. Mum’ll start to worry soon.

  After a bit the road gets a little wider. There are a few houses by the side of the road now, thinly spaced out to start with, but the further we walk, the closer together they are.

  ‘Is this it? East Strand?’

  Gary stops walking and stares ahead. ‘Think so,’ he says. ‘I’ve never been to this bit before, though.’

  A minute or so later and there are no fields, just houses and a wider road and a pavement. There are even street lights, but they’re not on yet. I’m starting to feel excited instead of nervous. I love the seaside. But then I feel something in my pocket. My phone. It’s vibrating and ringing. I take it out.

  ‘Oh no!’

  Gary looks at me. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s my mum. She’s phoning me. What shall I do?’

  Gary looks panicked all of a sudden. ‘I dunno. Answer it?’

  ‘But she’ll want to know where I am.’

  ‘Just lie,’ Gary says.

  I look at the phone, watch it vibrate, listen to the crap bring-bring ringtone I have. I can’t make up my mind what to do. Answer it and I’m in trouble. Don’t answer it and she’ll probably send out a search party.

  But the decision’s made for me. My phone stops ringing. My heart sinks. I should have answered it. Shit! Mum’ll be even more worried now. Maybe I should call her straight back. But there’s no need cos my phone starts to vibrate again and then my crap ringtone starts up again too. I answer it.

  ‘Hello, Mum. Sorry – I couldn’t get my phone out of my pocket quick enough.’

  ‘That’s all right, love. Where are you? Are you OK?’

  My heart starts thumping like a drum against my ribs. Normally I’m quite good at lying. Well, little white lies I’m good at. But this feels like way more than that. What shall I say? I need to think of something, quick. ‘I’m at Gary’s still,’ I say. ‘He’s got some homework that he needs help with.’

  ‘Oh. That’s nice,’ Mum says. ‘Tea’s going to be ready in about half an hour, Zoë. Will you be back?’

  I panic. There’s no way I could be back in half an hour. I don’t even know if I want to be back home in half an hour. ‘I’m gonna eat here,’ I say. ‘Gary’s mum cooked us some pasta.’

  Gary looks at me like I’ve gone mad. But then he smiles.

  ‘OK, love,’ Mum says. ‘But don’t be too late. Just give us a buzz if you want a lift.’

  ‘All right, Mum. Bye. Love you.’ I hang up and breathe a sigh of relief. And I switch my phone off.

  ‘Did she believe you?’ Gary asks.

  ‘Not sure,’ I say. ‘Think so.’

  We carry on walking, towards the town. The air smells salty. It reminds me of Granny’s house – she lived near the sea. I love the smell of the seaside. There are seagulls wheeling around the sky but I feel weird. What am I doing?

  .

  I sit down on the beach and look out to sea, breathe in the salty air. Gary walks straight down to the shore. He picks up stones and tries to skim them across the water. He’s not very good at it, though. Mostly the stones sink straight away. Just occasionally he gets one to skip across before it sinks. But I’d say the sea looks too choppy to skim stones properly. When I was about eight, Dad tried to teach me how to skim stones. We were on holiday in Kent, near Granny’s house. I tried it, but I couldn’t throw them flat enough or fast enough. Dad got really peed off in the end, trying to teach me. He’d have liked a son to do that sort of stuff with, I think. I s’pose he might get a chance to one day, if the baby’s a boy, if I have a brother. But by the time the kid’s old enough to skim stones, Dad’ll virtually be a pensioner. He’ll be over fifty. My God! I hadn’t thought of that before. That’s awful!

  Gary walks back up the beach. He looks at the ground, searching for stones, I guess. He picks up a massive one. He doesn’t bother trying to skim this one, just lobs it up into the air as high as he can and then watches it plummet and disappear into the sea with a sploosh. He turns round and walks up the beach, towards me.

  ‘You all right, Gary?’

  He nods, sits down and looks out to sea.

  ‘It’s nice here, isn’t it?’

  Gary nods again.

  ‘Do you come here a lot?’

  ‘Not much any more. But Nan used to love it. She used to bring me here all the time.’

  I smile at Gary, but he’s too busy looking at the sea to notice.

  We sit there for a while, not really doing anything. We both look out to sea. I watch a ship. It must be miles away; it looks tiny. It slowly passes along the horizon. It looks like it’s carrying containers. I start to wonder where it came from, try to picture a map of Britain in my head. I think it must have come from the east – maybe from Holland or Germany or somewhere like that. Although I guess it could have come from further away – China maybe, or Korea. I watch until it’s behind the pier.

  I look across at Gary. He isn’t looking out to sea any more. He’s curled up, almost in a ball, his head in his hands. I think he might be crying. He’s not making any noise, though.

  ‘Are you OK, Gary?’

  He doesn’t look up. He just kind of nods his head, rocks backwards and forwards a bit. I put my hand on his back. He tenses up at my touch.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Gary takes his head out of his hands and sits up. He looks at the waves and takes a deep breath. ‘Nothing. Just thinking about stuff,’ he says.

  I’m not sure what to say. I can’t tell if he wants me to ask him about it or not. But sitting here in silence doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. So I say, ‘About what happened at school today?’

  Gary shrugs.

  I don’t know what to do, what to say. I rub his back a little. But it feels wrong, so I take my hand away again.

  Slowly, Gary turns to me. ‘Everyone thinks I’m mental or something,’ he says. He looks straight at me for a few seconds, like he’s begging me to do something, to say something, to help him. Then he turns away again.

  And I know that I should say something. ‘They don’t!’ I say. ‘Who does?’

  ‘Everyone,’ he says. He picks up a stone and throws it out to sea.

  ‘Don’t be st
upid. You’re being paranoid,’ I say. But I know that’s not true. People do think he’s weird, a loner, mental. They think I’m weird just cos I talk to him.

  Gary picks up another stone and hurls it out to sea. ‘They do,’ he says. ‘Everyone at school does – Knaggs and all his mates. All the teachers do. My mum. My dad. They all think I’m wrong in the head.’

  ‘You’re not!’

  ‘You weren’t there today. Everyone thinks I murdered the medal man!’ he says.

  ‘Of course they don’t,’ I say. ‘They’re just having a laugh. You have to ignore them, Gary. Anyway, I bet that was just Knaggs, wasn’t it?’

  Gary nods. He sighs. He looks down at his feet. He starts to move them back and forth in the pebbles, so that they sink down, get covered in stones. ‘If no one thinks I’m mad, then how come they want me to go to some sodding shrink?’ he says. His voice is angry, cracked. He looks at me. His eyes are red and wet.

  I still don’t know what to say. I sit and look at him, helpless. I feel like I should put my arms round him or something, give him a hug. He looks like he needs it. But something stops me. ‘Just cos you’ve got to go and see someone, doesn’t make you mad, Gary,’ I say. ‘Loads of people have to see someone – a therapist or whatever.’

  He looks away, shakes his head. He wipes his eyes with his hand, looks out again across the sea. He looks really tense.

  ‘My best friend – back in London – she has to go and see someone. A psychiatrist,’ I say. ‘And she isn’t mad.’

  ‘Good for her,’ Gary says. ‘But I ain’t gonna go and see no one.’

  We sit there for a bit, both looking out to sea and thinking. I should be saying something right now. I should be saying something that helps Gary. But I really don’t know what that thing is, otherwise I’d say it in a second. So I sigh instead and look at the waves breaking, watch a couple of kids trying to race the waves back up the beach.

  ‘Why does she have to go?’ Gary says. He says it really nervously.