Noah Could Never

by Simon James Green

  “That was a mean thing to call me,” Harry said.

  “Heat of the moment, Haz,” Noah said. “But take comfort that I didn’t call you a fap rat or a no-cock peacock, because they’re worse, really.”

  Harry chuckled, took hold of the lapels of Noah’s blazer and pecked him on the lips.

  Noah flinched. “Haz. Not in the corridor!”

  Harry nodded. “Not in school, sure. But we’re OK?”

  “We’re OK,” Noah said. “Look, it’s Friday, so why don’t you come round tonight? We’ll…”

  “Do something,” Harry smiled.

  Noah tried to read Harry’s face, but there was no cheeky raised eyebrow or dirty smirk, it was just open and innocent.

  “Huh. Do something, yeah,” Noah said.

  “THE GODDAM THIEVING BASTARD FROM HELL!”

  Noah watched in alarm as Gran pulled the final drawer of her bedside table out and emptied the contents all over her bedroom floor.

  “SEE!” she said. “GONE! STOLEN!”

  “What is, Gran?” Noah said, looking around at the utter chaos of the room. Everything had been turned upside down. Gran’s clothes from her wardrobe were all over the floor. The chest of drawers – ransacked. Even the flowers that Eric had brought her the other day were out of the vase and strewn over the carpet.

  “Thieving bastard, no-good crook!” Gran was muttering.

  “Gran, what’s wrong?”

  “Always trying to screw me over!”

  “Gran?”

  “Never done an honest thing his entire sorry life!”

  Noah edged into the room, feeling the crunch of something under his foot as he did so. He gingerly lifted his foot to find the fragments of a porcelain mouse, dressed up in an apron.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Gran said. “Piece of shit anyway. Who wants a mouse dressed up like a cook? Fucking nonsense.”

  “Is everything OK, Gran?” Noah asked, shifting a scented lavender pincushion out of the way and perching on the edge of the bed.

  “No, Noah, everything is not OK. My tiara. It’s gone.”

  “You mean…”

  “Yes, Noah. The tiara with the precious diamonds set in it! The one you used to play with. The one meant for your inheritance. That one!”

  “But … really? How can you be sure?”

  “Because I was looking for the tiara and now it’s gone! How do you think I know?!”

  Noah sighed. “OK, look, could you have put it somewhere different?”

  “No.”

  “Where did you last have it?”

  “No idea.”

  “Did you have it out recently?”

  Gran shrugged. “I don’t know, Noah. All I do know is it’s no longer in the place I always keep it.”

  Noah nodded. He understood Gran was upset and he would have to play along because she wouldn’t be told otherwise, but the fact remained: the tiara and the “diamonds” were cheap metal and glass tat that nobody would want to steal, and the story about the Danish princess: bullshit. In all honesty, this was a distraction Noah didn’t need right now. “OK, well, I’ll try to find it for you, Gran.”

  “Well, I’ll give you your first clue!” she said.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Try your no-good thieving excuse for a father!”

  “OK, right, I will.”

  “He’s behind all this! He’s the reason I’m in this GODDAM HOME to begin with! Wanting to get rid of me! Wanting to live in my house with his new fancy woman!”

  “Do you mean my mother?”

  “I love you, Peanut, but that woman is a catastrophe!”

  Noah shrugged. Even with her dementia, Gran was sometimes incredibly lucid.

  “I’ll do my best, Gran.”

  Gran slumped down in her chair and released a gigantic and incredibly loud fart. Noah screwed his face up in disgust.

  “Oh, I’m so upset, I can’t even laugh at this,” Gran said, pulling a whoopee cushion out from underneath her. “It was a practical joke I’d set up for Dickie.” She slung the whoopee cushion on the floor with the rest of the mess. “I’m reduced to things like this to provide some form of amusement in this HELLHOLE.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments.

  “SERVICE!” Gran shouted. “What do you have to do to get a Scotch on the rocks around here?!”

  Noah leaned forward. “See, the thing is, Gran—” He stopped because she was crying. “Oh … Gran. Gran, it’ll be OK, I promise.”

  He didn’t know what to say. Or do. He’d never seen Gran cry before. He had cried about a billion times in front of her, when he was little. And she would always be there with a plaster, a comforting hug and usually some sort of confectionary to help cheer him up. He got up and crouched down by the side of her chair, holding her frail hand in his. “I’ll get it back, Gran. Honest, I will.”

  Gran shook her head. “Everything’s going, Peanut. I’m losing it all, aren’t I?”

  “No, Gran, you’re not. You’re…” He didn’t want to say “you’re fine” because she wasn’t “fine” and he wasn’t going to lie to her. She deserved more than that. “You’re doing great, Gran. Me and you – we’re a team.”

  She laced her fingers between his and held them tightly. “You’ll help me, Peanut, won’t you? When I forget things… When… Always come and see me, won’t you? Even if I… Because one day, maybe I won’t remember… And I don’t want to lose you. Not ever, Peanut. Noah.”

  “You won’t lose me, Gran,” he said, swallowing hard, blinking the tears back. This was all the more reason why Gran needed to be in Kingfisher Meadows. They could help her. Help her remember, hold on longer. He had to make it happen. In the meantime, he would just have to do what he could to keep her happy. “And I’ll get your tiara back.”

  “What tiara?”

  “The one that…” Noah sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Gran shrugged, looking around the room. “They don’t clean these rooms properly. Bloody disgrace. The staff are so lazy, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Sure.” Noah nodded.

  Gran was the only person who had believed in him all these years. It was Gran who cheered loudest whenever Noah had won a prize at school. It was Gran who had paid for him to go on the residential trip to France, or to attend Scouts. And when he was being bullied, and thought he was worthless and useless, it was Gran who talked him round and gave him the confidence to believe in himself. And now it was his turn to believe in her and do something for her.

  He glanced up at her. She looked sad. Eyes far away, someplace else. He needed to change the subject, cheer her up. “So, Gran, let me ask you. If I said to you ‘secret meeting at night, Russian money transfers, mysterious holdalls and crates’ what would you say?”

  Gran’s eyes lit up. “That’s something juicy!”

  “Something bad?” Noah said.

  “Well, almost definitely. Almost definitely!” Gran said. “Either that or you’ve been reading a Hardy Boys adventure. Which is it?”

  “I think something bad’s afoot – I just don’t know what yet. Can’t piece it together.”

  “The clues are always there – you just have to look.”

  “I know, Gran. I just don’t know what I’m looking for.”

  Gran shrugged, a small smile playing on her lips. “I don’t know. Everyone’s hiding something, I suppose.” She leaned forward. “What about you, Peanut? What are you hiding?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I let Pierre kiss me.”

  The words hung in the air as Gran took a deep breath and sat back in the chair. “Well, well,” she said.

  “I didn’t ask him to, but I may have inadvertently encouraged him.”

  “Because you thought you had something to be jealous of.”

  “Well … it’s true, I was worried that Pierre and Harry might be getting it on.”

  “And yet … they weren’t.”


  “I don’t know. I guess not.”

  Gran nodded, deep in thought. “Like in Othello,” Gran said after a bit. “Jealousy destroys all in the end.”

  Noah’s mouth went dry. “That can’t happen. I need to tell Harry and sort it out.” He looked at Gran for some indication that she thought that might work. Her face was neutral. “I mean, would that be a good idea?”

  “Who knows?” Gran said.

  “You think he might take it badly?”

  “Generally speaking, people you are seeing romantically don’t take it well when you tell them you’ve kissed someone else. How would you take it if Harry told you he’d kissed Pierre?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t like it, but the point is, I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me!”

  “It’s a subtle difference.”

  “But—”

  “Would you call it an assault?”

  “No.”

  “Then a kiss is a kiss.”

  “But—”

  “The point is, the conditions of a kiss happening were in place. That’s true, isn’t it, Noah?”

  Noah thought about it. The picnic, the lantern … the damn melted cheese. Yes, the conditions for a kiss were in place.

  “I don’t deserve someone as nice as Harry,” Noah said, surprised to hear himself saying his thoughts out loud.

  Gran heaved herself up and came to sit next to him on the bed, putting an arm across his shoulder and pulling him into her. “Now, less of that sort of talk. You deserve to be as happy as anyone else, Noah. Which isn’t necessarily that happy, truth be told, but you deserve a shot at it, like anyone. Listen, it’s not easy. Nothing in life is. Do your best and try not to screw up too much, that’s what I always say. Sometimes we all make mistakes. But the biggest one you appear to be making right now is believing you’re not worthy. He likes you, Noah. He’s told you that. Why would he lie?”

  “Will he always like me, though? Or will it just be until someone better comes along?”

  “There is no one better, Noah. No one will ever be like you. There is only different. And in the future, everything is different. So you can choose to live in the anxious misery of what might be, or you can choose the glorious comfort of the here and now. I would pick the now. Tomorrow could be anything.”

  Noah nodded. “OK, Gran.”

  “Now find my tiara.”

  Noah ambled towards the exit, mulling over Gran’s words. She was, as ever, right. Tomorrow could indeed bring anything. But right now, Harry loved him. And he loved Harry. What was the point in worrying about what might be?

  Noah walked up to the small desk where the visitors’ signing-in book was and jotted down his leaving time. His eyes roamed across the list of visitors over the last few days.

  And then he froze, a tingle running up his spine.

  A name that should not have been there. That had no business being there.

  Pierre Victoire.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  For once, the house was empty. No Eric, no Dad, no Mother … just Mick, sitting on the sofa like it was his sofa, painting his nails, feet in a portable electric foot spa and a mobile phone crooked between his shoulder and neck. “Babes, that is such amazeballs news!” Mick was saying, confusingly using Bambi’s voice.

  Noah coughed and crossed his arms, waiting for Mick to finish.

  “Bambi’s back and she’s gonna be bigger than ever before!”

  Noah rolled his eyes and snorted. Mick looked up at him.

  “I’ve gotta go, babe,” Mick said, narrowing his eyes at Noah.

  “Yes, you have,” Noah said, under his breath.

  “Love you lots, and Bambi’s gonna see you tomoz!”

  Mick released the phone and it dropped on to the sofa. He hadn’t even pressed the “end call” button – relying on the other person to make sure they had ended the call. Selfish, Noah considered. Making others do everything. Relying on their charity and hard work.

  “Good news, babe!” Mick said. “Bambi’s show in the big smoke is already nearly half sold out!”

  Noah raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “And now my flyers have arrived, that number’s only gonna go up.” He extended his arms, like some sort of showgirl. “London, babe! Bambi’s doin’ what she does best – headin’ south!”

  Noah wrinkled his nose. Was that some sort of attempt at innuendo? “Well. Congratulations.”

  “You’ll miss Bambi when she’s gone!”

  “Yeah,” Noah said, severely doubting it. “Look, when exactly are you going?”

  “Soon.”

  “Yes, but is it quite soon? Like, in the next hour? Or now?”

  Mick shook his head. “You and I have never seen eye to eye.”

  “Well, maybe that’s because when I first met you, as a tender and innocent thirteen-year-old, we were eye to gigantic breasts. It scarred me, and the legacy lives on.”

  “Just a bit of fun, babes.”

  “Not fun!” Noah said. “And I also don’t appreciate how everything you say and do is laced with sexual references and innuendo. It’s tiresome.”

  Mick stepped out of the foot spa, wet feet directly on to the carpet, not a towel in sight. “Well, I’ll be out of your hair soon. If Bambi can make the show tomorrow a hit, then there might be more, thanks to my old pals Milly Feuille and Cherry Macaroon! They’ve got an in with one of the top promoters, see? I’m gonna be the talk of Soho!” He draped a pashmina around his shoulders, whisking out of the room.

  “OK. Bye then.”

  Mick turned back at the door, eyes full of tragedy. “You know, I tried with you, Noah.” And he swept out of the room.

  Good, Noah thought. Now he had the house to himself.

  Noah lit a few tea lights and decanted a grab bag of Skittles into a soup bowl. He wanted things to be nice for Harry. They would talk, and Noah would explain, with full and total honesty, what had been happening in his head over the last week, and how this had accidentally culminated in Pierre kissing him, a trip to the shed to spy, and running into some mysterious agents/police/gangsters because something BAD and WEIRD was happening in Little Fobbing that probably involved MURDER and STABBING and GOVERNMENT COVER-UPS AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL.

  And then, maybe, they could do some kissing.

  “I just want to put something out there,” Harry said, leaning back against one of the sofa cushions and throwing a handful of Skittles in his mouth. He chewed for a bit. “If you’re thinking we might play 3D Cluedo, I’m not sure I’ve got the stamina for it.”

  “We’ll just have a relaxed evening,” Noah said. If you can call revealing to your boyfriend you’ve accidentally kissed another boy “relaxing”.

  “Just chill?”

  “Chill, chill, chill. So…” Noah said, immediately trailing off, because despite having planned this next bit, he was now beset with doubts about it. This was actually very tricky when the person concerned was sitting right next to you. There didn’t seem to be any good-sounding method of delivery. Example:

  1)“Harry, Pierre kissed me.” (Sounded like it was a surprise, but not unwelcome.)

  2)“Harry, there was a kiss with Pierre that I was not expecting, and I didn’t participate as such, my lips were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” (And yet, I didn’t stop him! Why not?)

  3)“Harry, I had consumed a glass of red wine and some cheese and was so ‘wasted’ that before I knew what was happening, Pierre had kissed me.” (Sounds too romantic in the lead-up to the kiss and that I would kiss anyone if plied with any sort of food and drink.)

  So, there were a few options Noah could go for, but—

  “I want to tell you something,” Harry said.

  Arse. He really needed to think more quickly, so he could get in there first with stuff. “OK, fine,” Noah said.

  “Pierre made a pass at me.”

  Noah’s eyes nearly popped out. “No way! Me too!”

  “What? No way!”

  “Yeah! But,
I mean – he tried to kiss you? When?” Noah swallowed back the sour taste in his mouth. Harry and Pierre. Were his fears justified after all? He crossed his arms over his stomach and looked down at the floor – if Harry was about to tell him something bad, he hoped he would just say it quickly.

  “At the cinema,” Harry said. “He started leaning into me and getting, you know, a bit too close? And I could just tell, you know, like you can, that he was going to try and kiss me. Could just … feel it in the air, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, totally honest, before he did, I just turned to him and said, ‘You know I’m with Noah, right?’”

  Noah looked up at him. “You did?”

  “Yes, of course I did!” Harry said. “What did you think I was going to do? Let him kiss me? That’s not really how this whole boyfriend thing works, Noah. Anyway, he made out like he was all surprised, but I knew he wasn’t. You gotta watch him, that’s for sure. I wasn’t sure whether to tell you, ’cause nothing actually happened and I knew you’d freak out a bit, but then when you started acting weird I wondered if someone had told you something … like, maybe someone saw us at the cinema?”

  “Huh. Sure.”

  “Like, Jess Jackson?”

  Noah nodded. “Yeah, she did mention it, Haz.”

  “Sure,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “’Course she did. And bigged it up no end to you, I’ll bet.”

  “I guess.”

  “So, anyway, that’s the truth and you’ve got nothing to be jealous of because I would never do that to you.” Harry kissed Noah on the cheek. “So he tried it on with you too, huh?”

  Noah swallowed. “Um, a bit, yeah.”

  “When?”

  “Um, you know, when he came round last night, you know, to apologize to me, with the picnic.”

  Harry narrowed his eyes. “Picnic?”

  “He brought a … a picnic. Little … picnic?”

  Harry looked blank.

  “He said you knew about the picnic.”

  “I did not know about the picnic,” Harry said. “What sort of picnic?”

  Noah swallowed again. “Oh, just the usual … some food in a basket.”

  “Crisps? Egg sandwiches, that sort of thing?”