by Andy Jones
‘John the joiner?’
‘I know, right? Anyway, without the help of alcohol, John the joiner is as dull as a plank of wood. Do you know how long it takes the London Eye to turn through a single revolution?’
‘Ten minutes?’
‘God knows. But it felt like forever. Moral of the story – don’t drink too many mojitos on a first date. It mangles your judgement.’
‘Noted,’ I say, holding a finger to my temple. ‘So what are you doing with next week’s . . . frog?’
Verity laughs. ‘Not cocktail-making, that’s for sure. Anyway,’ she says, ruffling Albert’s hair, ‘we’re shooting this fella next Tuesday, aren’t we? So I guess I’ll leave off the frogs for a week.’
There is a temptation to croak like a frog, but I resist.
A temptation to do a silly little dance.
A temptation to ask Verity what she’s doing one week on Tuesday.
Verity and Albert are talking. ‘. . . if the rain holds off,’ says Verity. ‘What about you, Tom?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Plans for the weekend?’
Mum’s memorial service.
Verity begins packing away her sketches and notes. ‘I’m sure we could find a spare sausage for you,’ she says, ‘if you’re at a loose end on Saturday, that is.’
‘A sausage?’
‘My barbecue,’ says Verity, and I’ve never seen her look so bashful. She turns her back, organising items into a metal case.
Albert stares at me expectantly.
‘I’d love to,’ I say, ‘but it’s . . . I . . .’
Any other weekend, any other plans, I’d cancel. In a heartbeat. But that’s not how Sod’s Law works, is it?
‘Don’t worry about it,’ says Verity, pulling on her coat. ‘Really, it’s no big deal.’
‘I’m going away for the weekend,’ I tell her.
‘Sure,’ says Verity. ‘No worries. I only mentioned it because, you know . . . it’ll probably rain, anyway.’
‘Yeah. Probably.’
And Verity steps out into the rain.
Albert smiles apologetically, the way a doctor might when delivering a bad diagnosis.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Doug’s Triumph Herald is younger than its owner, but about twenty years older than me. The classic car groans plaintively as I rattle north, and I can feel the texture of the motorway through the seat of my Levi’s. There is no CD player and the radio isn’t receiving. When Doug offered me the use of his car for the weekend I accepted immediately, but with hindsight, perhaps I should have taken the train. With the accelerator pressed firmly to the floor mat, I have achieved a speed of almost seventy miles an hour, but it’s hard to be accurate with the old analogue needle vibrating like it’s about to come loose.
I glance in the rear-view mirror and wince at my own reflection.
I couldn’t face Alyson at The Edge, not today, but I needed a haircut for Mum’s anniversary so I went to a local barber’s. You wouldn’t think ‘just a trim’ could go particularly badly. But you’d be wrong. I’d been thinking about Mum. Replaying yesterday’s exchange with Verity. And before I realised what was going on, there was an ASBO thug staring back at me from the barber’s mirror. Everything below the level of my temples was clippered grade-one short; the rest was gelled forward into a drug dealer’s fringe. The hairdresser held up a mirror and asked what I thought. I told him to wash out the gel and clipper the lot. My head looks like an orange tennis ball.
On a good day in unjammed traffic, the drive to Dad’s takes between three and four hours. The traffic is fine, but the Herald sounds like it’s coming apart, so I ease off the gas and move into the inside lane. I guess I’ll get there when I get there. Tomorrow there’ll be a service for Mum at St Francis’s Church, and we’ll have all day to feel sorry for ourselves. Tonight, I’ll cook supper and we’ll have a quiet night, looking at old photographs and remembering the good times. Mum’s been dead for almost nine years now, and it feels like my memories of her become harder to access with every passing year. On Friday nights we’d all have fish and chips and play knockout whist around the kitchen table. I remember sitting on Mum’s knee in my Superman pyjamas. I remember the two of us making cakes with red icing. I remember the four us in homemade Sergeant Pepper costumes. There are photographs of all of these things in mismatched albums on the bookshelves, and maybe I don’t really remember them at all.
I pull into Dad’s driveway at ten past six, and he’s at the door before I’m out of the car. He kisses my cheek and rubs his hand over my shorn head.
‘What’s this?’ he says, and already his breath has a faint tang of whisky. ‘New look?’
‘Something like that,’ I say.
‘Is this yours?’ Dad says, fingering the chrome letters on the bonnet of the Triumph. ‘I had one, once.’
‘Borrowing it,’ I say. ‘Sadie’s got the Mini.’
Dad pats me on the shoulder. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea and you can fill me in.’
‘Bianca home?’
‘In her room,’ he says, his expression adding: Let’s leave it at that for now.
It’s still bright and warm so we drink our tea in the garden. We talk about work and the weather, London and here, and a summer holiday in Devon when Mum – exasperated with the miserable and relentless weather – put on her swimming costume and lay out in the rain just to make us all laugh. Bianca – four at the time – was the first to join her, then Dad and finally me. It was my last summer at home. In a way, it was our last summer as a family.
We’re sitting quietly, when out of nowhere I find myself crying. And it takes me entirely by surprise. It’s not as if I’m thinking maudlin thoughts; I’m not thinking anything at all. Just listening to the birds, staring abstractedly at the rose bushes and sipping my tea. And just like that, there are tears rolling down my cheeks. Dad pulls his chair next to mine and puts his arm around my shoulders. ‘I’m just tired,’ I tell him, and I go inside to take a shower.
Heading down the stairs twenty minutes later, I can hear Bianca and Dad arguing in the kitchen.
‘But I’m seventeen!’
I anticipate Dad’s reply and subvocalise it as I walk into the kitchen.
‘And when you’re eighteen, you can decide for yourself.’
‘Hey,’ I say, putting my arm around Bianca and kissing her on the cheek.
‘Will you tell Dad?’ she says, twisting out from under my arm.
‘Hello?’ I try.
‘Hi!’ says Bianca. ‘How was the drive?’ Pulling a face in case I missed the sarcasm.
‘Well, it was a long way, that’s for sure.’
‘Not my fault you live in London, is it?’
Dad shakes his head in the dismissive way parents do but really shouldn’t.
‘I don’t know what’s going on here,’ I say, ‘but there’s no need to have a go at me.’
Bea glares at me. Dad crosses his arms across his chest.
‘If no one’s going to talk to me, I’m going to the pub,’ I say.
‘All right for you, isn’t it?’
I remember Bea and Dad texting me in the evening after the make-up tests. Bea to tell me Dad was being a ‘dick’, and Dad telling me we needed to talk about Bianca. Whatever this is, it’s been brewing for a fortnight, so I try again, taking extra care to sound as reasonable and patient as possible.
‘So,’ I say, ‘what’s going on?’
‘Bianca is refusing to do the work experience her teachers organised for her.’
Bianca turns to Dad. ‘I don’t even want to be a lawyer.’
‘That’s not the point, Bianca.’
‘Oh, really? So what is?’
‘It’s good for your university applications.’
‘Well, maybe I won’t go to university.’
‘You bloody will,’ Dad and I say in unison.
Bea snaps her head around to direct her ire at me. ‘Don’t you start. Anyway, I can’t do my work e
xperience, because he’ – returning her focus to Dad – ‘has grounded me.’
Dad leans back in his chair, his body language making it clear that this is a decision he neither regrets nor intends to reverse. ‘You know very well it doesn’t apply to you doing your work experience.’
‘Unground me and I’ll go. Don’t and I won’t.’ And Bea’s body language is a perfect mirror of my father’s.
‘Why’ – I take care to keep my voice calm – ‘are you grounded?’
‘Because Dad thinks I’m on drugs.’
‘I don’t think, I know!’
‘Drugs?’ This from me.
Bianca shakes her head with petulant contempt. ‘It was a bit of hash. Two spliffs’ worth at best.’
‘Drugs are drugs,’ Dad says, banging his palm on the table.
Cold relief washes over me, but I’m not about to show it and undermine Dad. He’s overreacting, for sure, but it would be unkind and probably irresponsible for me to say as much.
The sound of Dad’s hand striking the table is still reverberating in the air.
‘How often?’ I say, hoping the tone of my voice will work for both my sister and my father – a combination of calm pragmatism and mild disapproval.
Bea shrugs. ‘Now and then.’
‘Now an—’
‘Anything else?’ I cut Dad off before he works himself back into attack mode.
Bea softens minutely. Her frown relaxing by perhaps one and a half furrows. ‘No. Honest. I’m not an idiot.’
Dad takes a breath, and I send him a psychic message, urging him not to respond the way I’m sure he wants to.
‘You’re lucky I’m still letting you go to Kavos,’ he says.
‘Yeah, well, only cos it’s paid for.’
‘No, because a deal’s a deal. Something you should think about.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I bought you a suit,’ he says.
‘I don’t want to be a lawyer.’
‘How long before the applications go in?’ I ask.
‘January,’ they both tell me.
‘So we’ve got six months?’ I say.
Both my sister and my father dial their tension down by another couple of wrinkles.
‘If I’m going,’ Bianca says.
‘You’re going,’ I say, saving Dad the trouble.
‘So can I go out?’ Bianca asks.
Dad holds Bianca’s gaze for a second, before turning to me. ‘You seem to have all the answers,’ he says.
We walk the half-mile to the Old Bull, a small village pub with all the traditional trappings – dreary locals, pork scratchings, underage drinkers.
‘Recognise the barmaid?’ asks Bianca once we’re settled at a table with our drinks.
‘Should I?’
‘Susan Chambers, isn’t it?’ she says.
‘Who?’
‘Used to be Susan Cooper, she married Declan Chambers.’
‘Wasn’t he a friend of yours?’ Dad asks.
I remember Deck Chambers sticking chewing gum in my hair, putting me in a headlock until I saw stars, asking if my mum was ‘a screamer’ as he re-enacted his version of Bianca’s conception.
‘Not exactly,’ I say. ‘How do you know her?’ I ask Bianca.
‘I don’t. But we have this mentor thing – they give the sixth formers a nem to look after.’
‘A nem?’
‘Nematode, worm, first-former.’
‘Wait a minute. Are you . . . are you saying Deck Chambers has reproduced?’
‘Nice kid, actually,’ says Bianca.
I huff incredulously. ‘Must get it from the barmaid, then.’
Dad laughs fondly. ‘We used to call them blats,’ he says. ‘First-formers. Something to do with cockroaches – Blattodea, maybe . . . It was a long time ago.’
‘Wicked,’ says Bianca. ‘Might reintroduce that.’ She takes a sip of her Guinness and blackcurrant. ‘Cheers.’
We clink glasses.
‘Sorry about the suit,’ Bianca says to Dad.
‘I kept the receipt,’ he says. ‘But I stand by what I said – it would be good for you to do some work experience.’
Bianca sighs, but it’s a small gesture that might include a degree of agreement. ‘Can we talk about it later, Dad?’
Dad nods and lays his hand on top of Bea’s. ‘So,’ he says, turning to me. ‘You’re on a shoot?’
‘Skittles,’ I say. ‘They’re quite good fun actually; we did one with a vampire this week, and next week it’s zombies, a werewolf and Frankenstein’s monster.’
With Verity.
‘Wicked,’ says Bianca.
‘Literally,’ I say, but it’s a bad joke and nobody laughs.
My phone pings with an incoming text.
Eileen: Have you spoken to Douglas yet?
I send a message back: Sorry, haven’t had a chance.
Eileen: I can’t hang around forever, Thomas.
‘Fancy woman?’ asks Dad.
‘Old dear from across the road,’ I say, turning my phone to silent.
‘Whatever turns you on,’ says Bianca.
‘I’m doing her a favour.’
‘That’s what you call it, is it?’
‘Oi, Daffy, keep your beak out.’
‘Daffy?’ asks Dad.
Bianca blushes.
‘Old joke,’ I say.
‘I’m in no hurry,’ Dad says, gesturing at his full pint.
So I tell him about my old nickname for Bianca, and the transition from The Mistake to The Gaff to Gaffy to Daffy. Dad laughs so hard he turns red. He tries to take a sip of his drink but starts laughing again, drawing a good deal of attention in the small pub. ‘Daffy?’ he says, after he’s regained around eighty per cent of his composure. ‘Oh, that’s funny. Like the duck,’ he says, then he quacks, then he loses it all over again.
‘It’s not that funny,’ says Bianca.
Dad takes a deep breath and a drink. ‘Beg to differ,’ he says, and he pulls Bianca to him, kissing the top of her head. ‘You weren’t a mistake, sweetheart. You were entirely deliberate. Tom was all surly and covered in spots and we thought it would be nice to have a baby in the house again.’
Bea blushes all over again, and you get the sense that despite being touched, she is a little disappointed at losing this small edge from her backstory.
‘This one, though,’ says Dad, clapping a hand on my shoulder. ‘Complete accident.’
I pause with my drink halfway to my mouth. ‘What?’
Bea’s eyes go wide, and she points a finger at me. ‘Daffy!’
‘An accident?’
Dad shrugs. ‘We were planning to wait a few years, but . . . here you are. Daffy.’
And now the pair of them are laughing like fools. And then I join in, too.
I’d never considered what it must be like to be an unplanned baby – an unplanned person, for that matter. Our parents never treated Bianca or me any differently from each other, and there was never a shortage of love, attention or affection in our house. But now that I’ve been outed as a gatecrasher at the big party of humankind, if I feel any different at all, I feel inordinately lucky.
After the teasing eases off – and it takes a while – the conversation winds its way back to Mum, which in turn leads to school, leads to Bianca.
‘Have you thought about teaching?’ Dad says. ‘Your mother loved it.’
Bianca shakes her head. ‘Don’t know what I’d teach,’ she says. ‘I don’t mind school, as such, but . . . I dunno if I want to spend my life in one.’
Dad picks up his glass, realises it’s empty and goes to stand up, but I beat him to it.
Susan the barmaid is talking to some guy perched at the end of the bar; he nods in my direction and she comes over to take my order. And it’s not until she starts pouring the Guinness that I recognise him. Heavier, older and thinner-haired than in my memory, Deck Chambers tilts his pint in my direction and smiles.
&nbs
p; In the toilets of the Old Bull, looking in the stained mirror above the sink, if I twist my shorn head and bend my ear forwards, I can see the smooth white scar where the hair doesn’t grow. About as long as the top joint of my finger and as thin as a match.
I was thirteen.
Declan Chambers thought it would be just hysterical to have me stand in the middle of the playing field with my arms held out from my sides as if I were hanging from an invisible cross – three or four books balanced in each hand. His goons stood around me in a semicircle, each holding a stone or a rock to throw at me if I let my arms drop. Deck called this game ‘Stoning or Crucifixion’. Just another benefit of a Catholic education.
I played along, certain that at any moment a teacher – even Mum would have been welcome – would come and rescue me. After maybe two or three minutes, my arms burning and trembling, I pleaded with Declan Chambers for mercy – and, almost twenty years on, I’m angry and embarrassed at how pathetic I was. ‘My arms are killing,’ I whinged. ‘Let us off.’ Laughing, Deck held up a stone and tossed it from one hand to the other. A couple of the other kids laughed with him – at me – and I realised no one was going to save me but myself.
I relaxed my shoulders, dropped my books and shook out my arms.
‘Get back on your fucking cross, Ferguson.’
I wanted to tell Deck Chambers to fuck off but my bravery had its limits. I was prepared to take what was coming, but I didn’t want to make it any worse than it was already going to be. I might even have said I was sorry.
I bent down to pick up my bag. But before my fingers closed around the strap, a rock smacked into the back of my head, sending me sprawling onto my hands and knees. The pain was bright and immediate, seeming to fill the entire right side of my head. I held my hand to the spot behind my ear, and when I took it away the palm was slick with blood. Deck and his crew crowded around me. ‘You know we was only messin?’ It was Chambers that helped me to my feet. He told someone to collect my things and put his arm around my shoulders as we all walked off the field. ‘Fuckin’ell, Tom, it was like you’d been got by a fuckin sniper.’ Deck laughed and slapped me on the back. I laughed back. My hair was long enough to hide the cut, but I had a headache for the rest of the afternoon.