by Dan Tunstall
The toast pops up. I butter it, spread on some honey and take it through to Dad. His tidying hasn’t got started yet. The TV’s on and he’s slumped into the sofa.
“Oh, thanks Tom,” he says. “Have you got time to sit down for a bit? Keep me company?” He’s smiling at me hopefully.
The clock on the mantelpiece says it’s ten past seven. I should be making a start on getting ready, but a couple of minutes won’t do me any harm.
I sit in an armchair. GMTV is on. It’s a report on celebrity cosmetic surgery gone wrong. The report ends and it’s on to an ad break. Two different products to end the misery of constipation, amazing new pictures of Jordan in Heat, and a CD of Power Ballads.
Dad’s gazing intently at the screen, but he’s not really taking anything in. He’s wrecked. I look at him and shake my head. It’s hard to believe he was quite a handsome bloke a few years back. Mum said he looked like Jeff Bridges. Same dark blond hair, same jawline, same mouth. Apparently, his mates at work used to call him Hollywood Tony. Film-star looks, they reckoned. I don’t think there’s much chance of that nickname seeing any use in the near future. The bone structure is still there, but you just don’t notice it any more. The skin hanging off it is grey and lifeless. All the spark has gone.
I stare at the mess on the coffee table. The blue material of the sofa is covered in toast crumbs. I’m getting the urge to start clearing up, but I don’t want to offend Dad. I don’t want him to think I’m implying that if I don’t do the tidying, it’ll never get done. That’s not too far from the truth though. Cooking, cleaning, generally sorting things out. I seem to do most of it.
It’s almost quarter past. Dad and I still haven’t said anything. It’s like we both want to have a conversation, but neither of us knows how to start. The adverts end and the GMTV logo comes back on screen. I stand up.
“I’d better be making a move.”
Dad nods. He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, then closes it again.
Fifteen minutes later, I’ve showered, got my school gear on and I’m standing in front of the bathroom mirror trying to sort my hair out. Since I’ve been at Parkway it’s becoming a bit of a preoccupation. Everyone seems to have hairstyling off to a fine art.
I’ve been having the same haircut every couple of months since the age of four or five. The women at Talking Heads do it on autopilot. Number four round the sides, a bit longer on top. In damp weather it goes fuzzy, like an old tennis ball. I’m coming to the conclusion that I need to be moving on now though. I need to develop a bit of a look. The thing is, I’m not quite sure what the look should be. A couple of minutes of poking and prodding with a comb, teasing up a few strands here and there with gel, and I’m still no better off.
I click off the bathroom light and cross the landing to my bedroom. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I look around. Blue and white quilt cover, matching striped wallpaper, a few posters dotted about. Oasis. Kasabian. An Airfix Lancaster on a piece of fishing line is slowly twirling by the window. My stereo’s on the bedside table and my knackered old TV and video are on top of the chest of drawers on the far side, jostling for space with my PS2 and stacks of books, videos, DVDs and CDs.
I look down at the shoes piled up at the bottom of my wardrobe. My new Nikes, the ones I saved my paper round money for, blue and white with a red swoosh, are sitting next to my school shoes – big, black and clumpy. I know which ones I’d rather be wearing today. The question is, would I get out of the house without Dad seeing?
I weigh up the options for a few seconds. Dad’s settled down in front of the TV. It’s not a Friday. He won’t be going up to Costcutter to get the week’s shopping in. He probably won’t be getting up off the sofa for hours. He’ll probably still be there when I get back this evening, fast asleep or watching some crap film on Channel Four. A true story starring Brian Dennehy, something like that. I should make it through to the front door this morning without getting collared.
I get my Nikes out, lace them up, grab some folders off my desk and cram them into my bag. Then I make my way out onto the landing and look out of the window. Through the gloom I can see Raks coming down the road.
Back downstairs, I poke my head into the living room. Dad’s hardly moved a muscle since I last left him. He’s eaten his toast and drunk his coffee, but that’s it. It’s another ad break on TV. A fat bloke in a shiny grey suit is explaining how easy it is to claim compensation for injuries when they’re not your fault. Trip over a loose kerbstone, and you’re sorted.
“I’ll be off in a minute,” I tell him.
Dad looks across and then down. I pull my foot back further into the hallway, but it’s too late. He’s seen my trainers.
“Tom,” he says. “School shoes.”
My heart sinks.
“Do I have to? Nobody else wears school shoes.” People do wear school shoes, but in general they’re not the A-List of the student population.
“Well, Rakesh wears proper shoes,” Dad says. “And you know, I’m not bothered what other people wear. The Parkway brochure said black shoes and that’s what you’ve got. They cost forty quid. That’s a lot of money. If you don’t wear those shoes at school, when will you wear them? I’m not shelling out forty quid for something that’s going to gather dust on your bedroom floor.”
I’m not going to win this one. The doorbell rings and I let Raks in. I’m secretly pleased to see that he’s got his big school shoes on. If anything, his are worse than mine. The soles look like waffles someone’s left in the toaster too long.
Raks heads into the living room while I go off to change.
Back downstairs I poke my head into the living room again.
“Let’s get moving,” I say.
Raks stands up and I notice my dad flicking his eyes down at my shoes. I give him a little twirl and he smiles. I should put that on the calendar. He hardly ever smiles these days.
“See you, Mr Mitchell,” Raks says.
Dad looks like he’s going to heave himself up off the sofa but he thinks better of it.
“See you, Raks,” he says. “Have a good day, the pair of you.”
Outside it’s cold and dark. The clocks go back this Saturday night, which means it should be a bit brighter in the mornings next week, but today it’s pretty depressing.
“Your dad looks a bit frayed around the edges,” Raks says, as we walk to the bottom of Dale Road and turn left towards the centre of Thurston.
“Yeah.” I sniff. “He’s pretty low at the moment. Boozing a lot. You know how he gets.”
Raks nods, then drops the subject. He knows it’s difficult for me. Nobody wants to think of their dad just rotting away.
At the corner of Wolverton Road we head right, then cut through the alley to Carlisle Street. Halfway down someone’s dumped an old sofa. It’s maroon crushed velvet with yellow foam rubber spilling out of rips in the cushions. As we turn into Carlisle Street I notice the police Scientific Support van parked on the pavement and two coppers dusting the window frames of one of the pebble-dashed granny bungalows for fingerprints.
“What were we saying about Blue Gate Fields the other day?” I say.
Raks laughs.
“Yeah, it’s not exactly posh here is it?”
Up at the junction with Blakely Road, old Mr Curran is looking out of his front room window. It’s Thursday, so he’s probably lying in wait for his Letchford Argus. By my reckoning he’s got about ten hours to go.
The sky is getting lighter. We carry on along past Costcutter, the Chinese, the bookies and Talking Heads until we arrive at the corner of Lindisfarne Street by the Bulls Head. Swinging my bag off my shoulder, making sure I don’t put it down in the pool of sick someone’s left behind last night, I push myself up onto the low brick wall that surrounds the beer garden.
Four buses pass through Thurston every morning, one for each of the schools in Letchford. It’s like we stand in ascending order of respectability. Down at our end, there’s the rag-ta
g mob who go to Parkway, then there’s the Townlands kids, a little bit higher up the sliding scale. Further along, near the entrance to the pub car park, there’s the Letchford Grammar school students in their blue and purple, and then last but certainly not least, the Alderman Richard Martin lot, all black blazers and smart trousers and skirts. The kids from the nice part of Thurston. There’s not much mixing between the groups but luckily Zoe doesn’t let things like that bother her. So far, there’s no sign of her this morning.
“Where’s the wife?” Raks asks.
“Dunno.” I check my watch. It’s nearly quarter to eight.
From where I’m sitting I can see Thurston Community College up at the top of the hill. Looking at the low red brick buildings, windows glinting as the sun slowly rises, it’s hard not to get a bit nostalgic. I spent three years there. Happy times. I wasn’t always the first one picked for games, or anything like that, but I wasn’t the last either. I was someone at TCC. At Parkway, I’m nothing.
I look up again just in time to catch sight of a familiar figure coming down past the war memorial, shoulder length blonde hair blowing in the breeze. My stomach gives a little flutter. Zoe.
My dad might not have his Hollywood looks any more, but Zoe has. Think Keira Knighley’s nose and mouth on Sienna Miller’s face shape, and you’re starting to get somewhere close. She’s five five, fit body, smooth clear skin, blonde hair and pale green eyes. Even the way she moves is nice. She does a lot of swimming, dancing and gymnastics. There’s a sort of natural grace about her. People stare at her. Lads and girls. I’ve got used to it now, just about.
She cuts across the road and comes straight over, smiling. She gives me a kiss. Zoe’s not ashamed to be seen with the Parkway misfits. Things have brightened up no end.
“Hello, you,” she says. “Sorry I didn’t call yesterday. I was really busy. You didn’t worry did you?”
I shake my head, doing my best not to look at Raks who’s raising his eyebrows and dropping his jaw.
“No,” I tell her. “No worries. Are you still coming round tonight? I’ll have finished my papers by about six-thirtyish.”
She scrunches her face up, looking awkward.
“I can’t. Not today. I’m really sorry. I’ve joined the drama group and we’re putting on Oliver at Christmas. The auditions are tonight, so I’m not going to be back in Thurston until half past eight, nine o’clock. I’ll have to give it a miss.”
“Oh, right,” I say. I feel slightly crushed, but I know I shouldn’t blow things out of proportion. I smile but I’m sure it looks pretty unconvincing. “Which part are you going for?”
“I’m going to try out for one or two,” she tells me. “Nancy, Mrs Bumble. See how it goes. I know lots of people are going to audition. I’ll just see what happens.”
I nod. I can’t really think of anything else to say. For the first time I notice that she’s wearing makeup. Just a bit of foundation and some eyeliner. I’m still surprised though. Zoe never wore make-up at TCC. She puts her head into my chest and I stroke her hair. We don’t say much for the next few minutes, but it’s still the most enjoyable part of my day.
It’s nearly five to eight. The Townlands and Letchford Grammar buses have come and gone, but the other two are late. I’m just starting to toy with a fantasy where the Parkway and Richard Martin buses don’t turn up at all, and I get to spend the whole day with Zoe, but then the Preston’s coach rolls up at the crossroads, green and white with added rustpaint. Our bus. It grinds to a halt at the kerb and the doors hiss open.
I kiss Zoe, grab my bag and make my way over to the bus, following Raks up the steps. The driver has got Letchford Sound on. There’s no getting away from The Tobemeister this morning. The bus is already half-full with the kids from Rushby and Collinsby. We find a couple of spare seats and Raks lets me take the one by the window so that I can wave. Zoe has wandered down towards the other Alderman Richard Martin kids, but she still blows me a kiss as the bus pulls away. I’m just feeling good about that when Raks jabs me in the ribs.
“You didn’t wish her good luck with her audition, you bastard,” he says.
A wave of guilt sweeps over me.
“Fuck,” I say, quickly sending a text.
The journey is the usual route through the villages, picking up the odd passenger here and there, then out into the countryside, brown fields stretching away as far as you can see. A couple of the big kids on the back seat have been passing a half bottle of whisky around, and the driver’s started casting a few glances in their direction, but that’s about all. Some days it’s a madhouse, upholstery being torn, the fire door getting opened every thirty seconds, graffiti scrawled on the seats, people chucking cans at passers-by. Not today though.
We come through the outskirts of town. Boarded-up tattoo parlours and kebab shops, plastered with faded posters for bands and nightclubs and films from years ago. Derelict pubs and half-demolished houses.
It’s started raining now. Raks is staring out of the window, shaking his head.
“What a shithole.”
I can’t disagree.
Letchford’s a nothing place, stuck out in the middle of Lincolnshire, miles away from anywhere. When I was little I used to come into town with my mum and dad, Christmas shopping or going to the cinema. It used to seem big and glamorous. These days though, it’s a town in serious decline. The only thing the place ever had going for it was lino. Nearly half of the town worked in the lino factories. But a few years back it all went badly wrong. Nobody wanted lino any more. Not the sort of lino they were making in Letchford anyway. Thousands were laid off, and the town never really recovered. My dad definitely didn’t. He’s been out of work for eight years now, on Incapacity Benefit for the last five. Chronic depression. But that’s got more to do with my mum dying.
Raks sighs and turns his attention away from the window.
“We going fishing this weekend?”
“Mmm,” I say. “I’ve got a match for Thurston Dynamo on Sunday, but Saturday will be OK.”
“Up the canal again?”
“Yeah. Got some decent-sized perch and roach up there last time, didn’t we?”
Raks nods.
“Yeah. Some beauties. And what about that zander I had? It must have been three pounds. Maybe a bit more.”
I stifle a laugh. His zander was nowhere near three pounds. It looked like a stickleback on steroids. I’m going to give him some gyp about it but I stop myself. I don’t want to wind him up. And it’s just nice to have something to look forward to.
The bus is coming past The Tony Mantle Health And Fitness Factory now. We keep going, heading along the side of the school perimeter fence, turning left, then left again through the main gates.
From the front, Parkway College doesn’t look like much. It’s just a big, single storey, grey block. On the inside though, it’s a different story. The whole place has been built as one continuous spiral, gradually winding inwards until it comes to a circular central courtyard. Apparently it won some sort of architectural award when it was built back in the early seventies. There was an aerial photograph of the school in the Letchford Argus last week. Unless you looked closely, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were looking at an old, dried, coiled-up dog turd.
We stop and the big kids from the back seat bustle down to the front, barging people out of their way.
I yawn, pick my bag up, and then shuffle towards the exit doors. The rain’s getting worse. I pull my hood up. I’ve got Maths, English Lit and French this morning. Then it’s Geography and Biology this afternoon.
I puff out my cheeks. It’s going to be a long day.
three
“Anyone? Anyone?” Mrs Wetherall looks from one side of the room to the other.
Nobody says anything. Ten minutes into the lesson and English Lit isn’t going well.
She has another go.
“Can anyone offer me suggestions for symbols we might find in Lord Of The Flies?” Her eyes sc
an the room one more time. “Symbols.” She’s emphasising the word, hoping it’s going to trigger someone. You can hear the pleading in her voice. “Come on Year Tens. I know it’s our first look at Lord Of The Flies as a class, but you were all asked to read the text. There must be somebody?”
We’ve reached a stand-off. Just about everybody in the room could come up with an answer if they really had to. I mean, the whole island’s covered with symbols, isn’t it? The conch, the pig’s head, the glasses, you name it. The thing is though, nobody wants to be the first to break cover. Nobody wants to look too keen. And there’s something off-putting about Mrs Wetherall too, with her VW Beetle, Stop The War badge, tie-dyed clothes, nose ring and red Doc Martens. The image is all about peace and love but there’s a nasty side to her. She’s like a hippy with the good bits taken out.
There’s still no response. Everyone’s got their heads down, trying to avoid catching Mrs Wetherall’s eye. Me and Raks are OK. We’re sat right at the back, just us two on the table near the brown concertina partition that separates Room 37a from Room 37b.
Mrs Wetherall tries a new tack.
“Emma,” she says, focusing her attention on Emma Atkins up at the front. “Perhaps you could start the ball rolling?”
Emma blushes. She’d been happily doodling away on her note pad, not expecting to participate.
“Er, is the conch a symbol, miss?” she says eventually.
Mrs Wetherall looks relieved.
“That’s right, Emma,” she shouts. “Exactly right.” She bounds across to the whiteboard and scrawls up a cloud with the word SYMBOLS on it in blue marker pen, and CONCH on a line sticking out of the side.
A few hands go up and in no time the SYMBOLS cloud has got lines for BEAST, MASKS/CLOTHES, FIRE and GLASSES. I’m toying with the idea of tossing in PIG’S HEAD, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate because of all the noise coming from the other side of the partition. Mr Gillespie’s teaching a Year Eleven Business Studies class next door, and he’s getting the runaround.