Nicholas Dane

by Melvin Burgess

  The fact that the people who ran the Homes in those days were left pretty much to their own devices didn’t mean that they were all bad, but it was just Oliver’s luck to go into a small Home in Didsbury where the two wardens and a janitor were of the same tastes as Tony Creal. They took full advantage in enjoying the pretty little boy over the next few months. The fact that he seemed to know what was expected of him only helped them feel better about it.

  ‘He’s obviously going to turn into a homo,’ one of them joked. ‘So we might as well make the most of it before he gets there.’ His rapists were both staunch homophobes. Boys, in their eyes, were not the same thing as men.

  As for the truth of Oliver’s sexuality, who knows?

  Along with so much else, they’d taken that off him as well.

  There followed long years of going into care, back home, into care and back home. Some of the Homes were good, some bad; but the damage had been done. Every time Oliver came back he was harder to control and more hateful to his mother and to the little sister who soon followed. Eventually, despite his mother’s desperate efforts to make him love her again, he became dangerous.

  What she didn’t know was, he did still love her. Every night he wept for her all alone, every minute of every day he longed for her. But he could not show it anymore. If he could have told her what happened in the Homes, she might have understood at last, but his abusers had cast the spell of silence on him, by making him believe that he deserved it, that he wanted it, that it was all his fault. To tell her what had happened would be to tell her what a dirty little monster he was. When he tried to utter the words, his throat swelled, his tongue turned thick, he gagged on shame and humiliation.

  So, in the end, love was not enough. Her new family was suffering and his mother decided she could not deal with him anymore. The home visits stopped. Oliver was offered out to various foster families. He was a pretty boy, the sort of lad many mothers might want. But of course they fared no better. At the age of eleven, he was transferred to Meadow Hill, where the good Mr Creal welcomed him with open arms, and gave him the only protection and kindness he had ever known. By the time Nick came to make friends with him he had turned into the broken little blond rag we know, with nothing to get him through other than the ability to acquiesce to anything that was asked of him, and the remains of that wicked sense of humour that had met Nick Dane on his first day.

  It would be stupid to say that Nick was one of the lucky ones after what happened to him, but the fact was, however dangerous his present and however uncertain his future, he had a solid past behind him. Muriel hadn’t been a great mother, but she hadn’t been a bad one either. He’d had fourteen years of love and support from her, and that was fourteen years more than most of the other kids locked away at Meadow Hill. If her little trip to paradise hadn’t turned out to be permanent on that fateful morning, he stood every chance of turning out pretty right. As it was, Nick Dane was a tough lad. Damage had been done, and it had gone deep, but it had been done to a healthy heart.

  In the long lonely hours and days in the Secure Unit, there was a great deal of misery and despair. Never again was Nick to feel so alone, so hopeless or so helpless. But for the first time since his mother had died, there was remembering as well.

  ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down,’ Muriel used to say to him when he was having a bad time at school. And ‘Don’t be like them.’ That was another Murielism. Nick was used to not listening to his mum’s advice, but now, for the first time since he was small, it really seemed to have a message for him. In the long hours alone waiting for Mr Creal to come back and pay him another little visit with his jolly friends, it sang around the vault of Nick’s head over and over again.

  ‘Don’t be like them.’ Because the ogre has two ways of destroying you. He can eat you - or he can turn you into him. Either way, he’s won. When Nick attacked Oliver, he became one of them - like Creal and Toms and Andrews and all the rest of them. He had become a bully and an abuser.

  He was a rogue always, Nick Dane, but a big-hearted rogue and a loyal rogue. When he attacked his friend he had broken the golden rule of his own heart. We all have our gifts; friendship was his. Without his friends, without loyalty, Nick was nothing. In his darkest hours, he saw not Tony Creal leering over him, not the arms of his attackers holding him down, but Oliver’s face at the end of his boot.

  ‘I don’t like it, I don’t like it!’ the younger boy had cried. As if, in his heart, Nick didn’t already know that. All he wanted to do when he got out, was to make it up to him.

  14

  The Plan

  On the seventh day Nick was escorted back to his House, walked in and went to sit against the wall on the floor on his own. After a short pause, Davey came over and stood by him.

  ‘All right, mate?’ he said.

  ‘All right,’ said Nick.

  There was a pause. Davey sat down next to him.

  ‘See anyone in there?’ asked Davey.

  ‘Creal and a couple of his mates,’ said Nick. He looked away and Davey looked away. Nothing more was said; and so Nick joined the ranks of the silent. It wasn’t just the violence, or the humiliation. Creal had made him feel dirty deep down inside. All he wanted to do now was forget - never talk, never think, only forget.

  ‘Tell you what though, mate,’ he said. ‘If you’re still up for it. I’m ready to run.’

  ‘Too bloody right,’ said Davey. And that was it. They were going to take their futures into their own hands. It was just a question of deciding how, and when.

  ‘And Oliver,’ said Nick.

  Davey looked sideways at him. ‘Oliver what?’

  ‘Oliver’s coming with us.’

  Davey didn’t even have to think about it. ‘You’re off your twist,’ he said. ‘He was only being friends with you in the first place to help Creal get at you. You can’t trust the likes of him.’

  Nick shrugged. In his bones, he believed that if you trust people, they repay you with trust. That was how he operated and that was that.

  It wasn’t going to be easy. A long time ago, Oliver had learned not to trust people. What were friends? In his experience, they were people who wanted something. Once they got it or stopped wanting it, they stopped being friends - it was that simple. Nick had been his friend, and he had turned out like all the rest. Worse, if anything. Oliver had taken many beatings but none as severe as the one Nick had handed out. He was not likely to make such a mistake again.

  When Nick approached him for forgiveness, he turned his back. When he approached him again, he turned his back again. On the third attempt, he looked straight past Nick’s face and said, ‘If you come near me again I’ll make sure you get more of what they gave you before.’

  He saw Nick’s face sag, saw him glance anxiously from side to side as if they had been overheard, and everyone had heard about his shame. He nodded and walked away.

  It worked - for two days. Nick chewed his lip, swallowed his pride, recovered, and went back to try again. He caught up with Oliver in the school corridor one day.

  ‘I didn’t know what was going on,’ he said. ‘Creal promised me he’d get me out and then he said I had to stay here. I was in a state. He’s the one I was angry at. I’m really sorry. Come on, let me off. I’m your friend.’ ‘You’re not my friend,’ said Oliver.

  ‘Yes, I am. And there’s nothing you can do about it.’ Oliver shook his head and walked off. Nick left it. He’d said his piece and he was prepared to say it again if necessary, but for now, he was happy to have lodged his arrow.

  Getting out of Meadow Hill wasn’t going to be easy.

  There were two ways of doing it, according to Davey. One was Bunker’s Lane. This was a cobbled lane behind the main building, all rutted and ankle deep in mud, running with water half the year. It ran half a kilometre through an area of tangled, boggy woodland to the outside. It was a favourite escape route - hence the name. That whole part of the grounds was out of bounds, and the nearest
they ever got to it was when they made their way to school in a crocodile every morning, when they got within a couple of hundred metres of it.

  A lad named Terry had tried it, just a couple of days past. He’d taken off without a word just as they passed the entrance to the lane and managed to get a lead of ten or more metres before the prefects saw him. A great whoop went up - the call to hunt - and the runners set off on his heels. Terry was a good runner, but not good enough. He was hoping to lose them in the thickets, but they caught up with him there instead, which was bad luck because there were no staff there to call them off. He was a mess by the time they brought him back -bloodied nose, black eye, limping, his ribs a mass of bruises.

  They didn’t like runners at Meadow Hill. It looked bad on report.

  The other way was to break out of the dorms. The door to the stairs down was locked every night, and up on the first floor there was no question of jumping out of the dorm window. But there was another window at the head of the corridor that overlooked the roof to Toms’ flat. If you could get out of that, you could jump down onto the roof, from that onto the grass and then away.

  The good thing about it was, you had the dark to hide in. The bad thing about it was that the window, which was a big, tall one, had been screwed shut years ago. You had to smash the glass to get your way through it and then go pounding across Mr Toms’ roof. By the time you hit the ground, not only had you woken Mr and Mrs Toms from their much-needed beauty sleep, but half the Home was out of bed ready to run you down.

  And you had to do it all in your pyjamas. Toms made sure their clothes and shoes were locked up for the night.

  ‘So what?’ said Davey. ‘We’ll just ’ave to nick some on the outside, wern’t we?’

  The night run had a better chance of success, he reckoned, but fewer people tried it because the consequences were so severe. Breaking the window was vandalism. Mr James hated vandalism almost as much as he hated bullying. If you got picked up by the coppers, you could get done for criminal damage. That was one thing; but if Toms got his hands on you, Heaven help you. Literally, the blood ran for weeks on end at the smallest excuse.

  That’s why Bunker’s was more popular.

  ‘But I reckon that’s wrong,’ said Davey. ‘Bunker’s is too risky, the prefects can always run faster than you. Through the window is the only way, mate. Trust me.’

  They shook. The night run it was.

  15

  The Night Run

  The plan was to wait for lights out at half past nine, then lie awake until everyone went to sleep; then to lie awake even longer until the staff were all in bed - you could hear them moving around, and you could see the lights from Toms’ flat from the window of Davey and Nick’s dorm. Then they were going to wait for another hour or so, to make sure all was quiet. Only when there had been no noise for some time would they get up.

  ‘Once we get out of the building, we should be OK,’ said Nick. Their main enemy was the creaking floor and the squeaky doors. Rumour was, Mr Toms had told the janitor never to oil them so they called out a warning. The smashed glass would wake up everyone for miles, of course. They’d have to clear the frame and get out past the jagged teeth of glass before the prefects had time to get out of bed and run the few yards along the corridor to get them - no easy matter.

  They chose Friday night. With the weekend beginning, there would be fewer staff on duty the next day, the streets and roads would be busier - it gave them a better chance, they reckoned.

  At bedtime, the usual. A splash of tepid water for a wash, teeth, into the regulation pyjamas. Into bed, and the lights turned off. The boys in the dorms scratched and grumbled like dogs as they settled down. There were whimpers and tears as people remembered those they loved, and if they were lucky, who loved them back, on the outside.

  ‘Shut up crying,’ someone shouted. Sleep didn’t take long, the boys were exhausted. The breathing in the dorm became slow and heavy, but Nick lay with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Round about the building he could hear footsteps on the bare boards, doors closing and keys turning as the staff retreated back to their own houses and flats. Then, the long wait.

  Nick did everything he could to stay awake, but it was hard. He sang songs in his head, tried to remember his mum and friends on the outside. He was so tired. The two hours’ exercise every day, too little food, the constant stress of avoiding another beating left them all exhausted. And the bed was so warm ...

  He didn’t dare move around, or toss and turn. Andrews slept in the same room, and although the prefect was known to sleep like a rock, he didn’t want to risk making any noise.

  Slowly, slowly the hours passed. A couple of times, he did actually fall asleep, but some dream woke him up. He’d lost all track of time. How long had he been out? Outside, there was still a strip of light coming through the window at the end of the building. Toms’ light, still on. He must only have dozed off briefly.

  ‘Jesus!’ groaned Nick to himself. That meant it was only eleven or twelve at the latest. He felt like he’d been lying there for an age.

  More long seconds, more long minutes, more long hours. Trying not to roll over too often and attract attention, waiting for the moon to creep up the window and over behind the house. It darkened further. Then, a wind blew up - he could hear it in the trees - and the night darkened again as the moon went in. It began to rain, patterings on the window to start with, then harder. The wind increased some more and before long, it was heaving at the trees and shoving at the windowpanes and roof above him. Nick huddled down in his blankets. What a night! And how long before he was out in it, with nothing to wear but his pyjamas?

  It’d put the prefects off, though. They weren’t going to be keen to be out tracking him and Davey down in weather like this.

  The strip of light shining through from Toms’ window went out at last. Another few weeks seemed to pass by. Someone got up to close the window - the rain was getting in - and he had to wait still longer again.

  More long minutes. Another hour, maybe longer. It had been quiet for ages.

  It was time to go.

  Nick sat up and looked around. No one stirred. He put his foot on the cool boards. How different it all was at night - so quiet and still. But not safe. Nowhere in this place was ever safe. He could be beaten till he bled just for getting out of bed.

  He stood up. Silently as a cat he padded across the floor and stood by Davey’s bed. He looked down. Davey was flat on his back, snoring lightly. As he watched, though, his eyes opened, and he winked.

  Nick jerked his head sideways. They tiptoed out of the dorm and into the corridor.

  It was game on.

  It was so dark in the corridor they could barely see, and they didn’t dare turn the light on. They groped their way towards the pale rectangle that marked the window at the head of the stairs and looked out. It was almost as dark outside. All they could see was the wind wiping the rain on the other side of the dirty glass.

  Nick took a deep breath. It had all been done in silence. Now they had to break the glass. He turned his attention to the fire extinguisher a couple of metres along the corridor.

  The fire extinguisher had been there for years. Every now and then some new kid would let if off. It was never an old hand. They knew life just wasn’t worth those kinds of games, because the thrashing that followed was always beyond belief. The staff would have loved to get rid of it, but the local fire officer was a stickler for the rules and the extinguisher remained. Over the years, it had been through the window maybe half a dozen times, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Do it!’

  With a grunt Nick shifted the extinguisher out of its cradle and walked with it to the window. He hefted it up above his head - it weighed a ton - paused, and then hurled it though the window.

  The noise shattered the sleeping night, like Satan himself was breaking out of hell. The heavy metal cylinder crashed down in a hail of shat
tered glass and pounded down onto the flat roof below. In his bedroom, directly beneath, Toms jerked up out of sleep with a shout and snarled at the ceiling. Davey let out a whoop of pure joy. Behind them, the shouts and yells of stirring boys began.

  The face of the window was full of jagged teeth of glass. Davey was already on it. He’d wrapped his arm in his dressing gown and began shoving at the glass to clear the way.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ he yelled. Seconds had passed, but behind them there were footsteps on the boards. Nick jumped up onto the sill and stepped over the daggers of glass still attached to the frame. Something caught at his thigh as he lowered himself but there was no time to worry about that. Davey stepped out after him and they paused a moment on the sill. Under them, it was pitch dark - they couldn’t even see the roof down there.

  ‘There they go!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Go,’ gasped Nick. The two boys turned around and slid down, hung by their hands from the sill a second before letting go, one after the other like ripe fruits, and dropped down onto the broken glass on the roof beneath. The glass caught at their feet and cut them both, but not badly. They scurried to the edge of the roof and paused again. Another drop. They had no idea if they were going to drop onto soft earth, rose bushes, plants, stone or canes down there. The light came on over their heads. Nick looked round to see people gathering at the window just yards away; there was no time to worry. Again, they reached down, hung, and fell - thankfully onto wet grass.

  They were up as soon as they landed and running like dogs. The rain had slowed to a drizzle for them. There was a shout. They looked back and saw someone had already got a leg over the sill; but then their pursuer paused. It was a wet night, the frame was still full of razor jags of glass. It was Julian, one of the other prefects. He didn’t want to get wet, he didn’t want to get cut, and he could see what Nick hadn’t yet realised - the streak of bright red blood down the back of his pyjama trousers.