Not that Owen was particularly bothered by any of these annoyances. He had resigned himself to his father being constantly preoccupied with his job at an energy firm, a company that appeared on the local news on a weekly basis due to the controversy over the power plant that had been built nearby. There were frequent protests, rallies and vigils at the gates of the power station, largely on account of it being built so close to Owen’s home town of Northampton, and so far away from any source of fuel as there were no coal mines or gas fields for miles.
The stresses at work were compounded by the need to bring up two teenage sons on his own, ever since his wife and their mother, Jane, had died thirteen years ago.
And yet Christopher Johnson was still a good father, despite forgetting the occasional important date on the calendar. He never failed to provide for his sons, and they were rarely left wanting for the clothes and gadgets that were popular amongst their peers, and his attendance record at their respective school sporting events (swimming for Owen, every other sport imaginable for Jack) was quite reasonable when compared to other parents.
Whilst Owen’s final year was ending early on account of his exams, Jack had four weeks left at school. Ordinarily this would have been a source of frustration for the youngest member of the household, but thanks to his father’s generosity he would in a matter of hours be on a ferry bound for Denmark as part of an exchange visit with fellow students across the North Sea. Back in January the Johnsons had been host to a very peculiar Danish student called Michael, who spent the majority of his visit sitting in the spare bedroom, reading his way through the Johnson’s book collection (despite claiming he couldn’t read English, only speak it and then only when it suited him, preferring to lapse into Danish whenever anyone asked him a question).
Owen would never admit it, but he was going to miss his brother over the next two weeks. Sure, they fought a lot, but few brothers didn’t. And yes, Owen had to concede that he was slightly jealous of Jack always returning home with a trophy or medal from whatever sport’s final he had just triumphed in (Owen always bested him in the pool though). But at least he was another presence in the house, someone with whom Owen could communicate with, even if it was typically through a series of arguments. His father’s distractions at work meant that entire days could go by without him uttering more than a sentence to his sons. The inevitable days of silence made their house feel empty and Owen very alone.
Owen’s thoughts were dragged back to the present thanks to a hefty thump on his right arm courtesy of Jack.
“Not that I care, but isn’t your exam at nine?” Jack enquired. The clock on the oven showed that Owen had twenty minutes to get to school, giving him just enough time if he left immediately.
Christopher looked up from the newspaper he was staring through, ignoring the headlines predicting impending doom from both a forthcoming total eclipse and (somewhat conversely) a train drivers’ strike. “Exam?” he enquired absent-mindedly.
“Last exam today, Dad”, Owen explained.
His father shook his head apologetically. “I’m sorry, son. Which one is it today?”
“English”, Owen called from half way down the hall, lugging his schoolbag over his shoulder. “Have fun at Legoland, Jack!” he added.
“We are not going to Legoland!” Jack shouted back irritatedly, characteristically sensitive at having his age poked fun at by his older brother. “Have fun being a sad loner!” Jack added after a brief pause, seemingly unable to conjure a wittier riposte.
“Good luck Owen! Let me know how you get on!” he heard his father shout as Owen closed the front door.
Jack’s jibe hurt more than his father’s lack of attention. Owen had a few friends but was nowhere near as popular as his brother, who was endlessly fielding telephone calls from friends, both male and more frequently (and annoyingly) female.
Owen glanced back at his house from the end of the drive, hopeful that his father would be giving him a reassuring wave goodbye. But the front of the house was lacking any human presence. Sighing inwardly, Owen increased his walking speed so that he did not suffer the shame of turning up late for an exam. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted their next door neighbour, Mrs Argyle, fussing about her living room, wearing her trademark grey mac and purple hat despite being indoors. She looked up and gave Owen a wave which he returned along with a smile. She then returned to busying herself around her room, acting even more franticly than she normally did.
Celia Argyle had been their neighbour for as long as Owen could recall. She was from Scotland originally, but said that she hadn’t lived there since her late teens. Owen and Jack knew her well as she was Christopher Johnson’s babysitter of choice for his sons after his wife had died, with the boys spending at least a couple of hours on most days in her company. Despite appearing to be in her late seventies, she had more stamina than either of the boys, nearly always being the person least willing to return home after one of their outdoor adventures (Owen struggled to remember spending much time actually inside Mrs Argyle’s house).
However, now that the boys had grown up, and Owen was deemed old and responsible enough to look after his brother himself, they didn’t spend much time with their neighbour. She still came around to visit at least one evening every week, and she and their father would sit for hours in the living room talking, but on what subject Owen didn’t know as he and Jack would always be sent upstairs to their rooms.
Mrs Argyle was with Owen and Jack the night that their father brought home the news that their mother had been killed in a car accident, and from the snippets of conversation Owen had heard since, that seemed to be a subject they discussed at length. Owen had a fuzzy memory about Mrs Argyle meeting him and his mother in the park earlier in the day that she died, and then taking him home for her, but he couldn’t remember the exact details. He did remember how angry Mrs Argyle was at the news of his mother’s death, and that she had stormed out of the house that night to try and track down the person that had caused the accident (who to this day had not been caught).
Owen’s thoughts were drifting so waywardly that he failed to notice the car that was turning into his road, across which he had just began to walk. The car skidded to a halt, the driver shouting a stream of inaudible obscenities at him from behind the glass. Owen glanced at the black car and its two passengers sat in the rear, both of whom were wearing black tops and looked like they were on day-release from a maximum security prison.
Owen held a hand up in apology and ran across the road, his heart thumping and his hands tingling, the latter sensation happening on an increasingly frequent basis of late, usually occurring whenever Owen was stressed or exerting himself. The last time this had happened was at the weekend when a rampaging dog had chased him across the park. Owen had taken refuge in a tree’s branches, the first time in at least a decade that Owen had climbed a tree (a particularly high one, as Owen realised when he sprained his ankle jumping down, once the negligent owner had retrieved his unruly and angry canine). The sensation of fleeing from the dog by climbing a tree had at the time given Owen a strange combination of fear and déjà vu, a sensation that still nagged at him to this day.
Owen took a few deep breaths and allowed his nerves to settle, the tingling sensation subsiding.
For the second time this morning Owen’s daydreams were brought to an abrupt halt by the taunts of a fourteen year old. Rather than a thump from his brother, this time it was Rick Farmer shouting obscenities at him, with backing cries from a selection of his usual band of cronies, of which today’s tally was a healthy six. Owen swore under his breath and increased his walking speed.
Rick was in the same year as Jack but thankfully not part of his circle of friends. He had taken an instant dislike to Owen for no discernible reason other than his lifelong friendship with Katie Morgan. Rick had been trying to convince her to go out with him for the last year, but Katie always declined his advances, leading Rick to be convinced this was due to Owen telling
her not to (rather than the fact he was three years her junior and an utter prat).
In fact Owen had never once discussed romantic issues with Katie, for fear that his true feelings for her may be blurted out and their friendship ruined. They had known one another for as long as Owen could remember, through the friendship of their parents. Owen’s mother and father had met at work, where both of Katie’s parents also had jobs. The Johnsons and Morgans spent nearly every weekend at each other’s houses, and most holidays were taken as a group, and continued for a few years after the death of Owen’s mother.
The last holiday was supposed to have been during the spring about five years ago, but Katie’s parents were also killed in an accident, victims of a plane crash whilst abroad on business. Since then Katie had been brought up by her sister Fiona, who was about ten years older than her.
The death of Katie’s parents and Owen’s mother brought them closer together; a shared bond formed from grief, helping them both to recover as well as they were able to do so. This closeness intensified Owen’s feelings for his best friend, although he had known since first seeing her smile that she would always be the girl for him, and every hint of her existence made him feel rather peculiar (the smell of her hairspray seemed to have a very odd paralysing effect on him, which was quite inconvenient when his form teacher decided to adopt that particular brand).
A second volley of verbal abuse from the gang of boys behind him hastened Owen’s pace further.
Ever since Rick had decided that Owen was the reason behind Katie’s recurrent rejections and made him a marked man, Owen had begun to dread the inevitable moments at school that they encountered one another. What had begun as fairly harmless mocking and jeering had soon escalated, culminating in a physical attack on Owen as he walked home alone one winter’s evening after swimming club. This incident had left Owen with a black eye and cut lip, and Rick with an even more inflated ego that exhibited no signs of deflating.
Owen denied to anyone that asked that it was Rick who had caused these injuries, instead blaming them on a bicycle accident that he invented. Katie saw through this ruse though (no doubt because she was aware that Owen didn’t own a bicycle, a slight flaw in his story), and became very annoyed with Owen for protecting the person who was clearly her prime suspect. Owen’s decision to invent his fall off an imaginary bicycle was not to prevent Rick from getting into any trouble, but rather to deter Katie from taking matters into her own hands, and to avoid at least a month’s worth of teasing from Jack for allowing a girl to fight his battles.
Mind you, if you were going to have someone fight your battles for you it would be Katie Morgan. She wasn’t a person for whom violent activities were a regular pastime, but Owen had seen how powerful a punch she packed after she took issue with a group of sixth formers who were bullying one of the boys in Jack’s year.
They were playing piggy-in-the-middle with the boy’s schoolbag. Besides the telling of lies, if there was one thing that Katie despised it was bullies, so she swept in and retrieved the picked-upon boy’s bag and handed it back to him. When the tallest and burliest of the group ordered Katie to give it back to them she refused, so he behaved in the civilised and chivalrous manner that one associates with a bully and spat in her face. Before Owen could pluck up the courage to wade in and defend her honour, Katie had leapt forwards and landed a right hook on his face. Despite her petite size he was thrown off his feet and landed on the ground a short distance behind, knocked out cold.
Her punching ability was not just restricted to luggage stealing troglodytes, as it also extended to the sports hall, where she was a feared opponent on the volleyball team on account of the extensive bruising that a ball struck by her could cause. Her team mates called her ‘Lightning Kate’, as they were convinced her hands flashed like lightning when she played (and perhaps on account of the frequent burst volleyballs that succumbed to her power).
Up until now he had avoided any further physical confrontation with Rick, but one lunchtime the previous week he had announced across a crowded school corridor that by the end of term Owen would get another ‘pummelling’. As today was Owen’s last day, he could only presume that Rick had chosen this morning as his preferred time for carrying out said punishment, no doubt to ensure as many people as possible saw his handiwork before the student population dwindled.
Owen felt his heart start to pound in his chest, and experienced the strange tingling in his hands once more. Rather than carrying on down the street towards the school, he darted through some trees into the park that stretched behind it, hoping that it would be empty of rampaging hounds on this occasion. Crossing the park would make his journey longer and risked him being late for his exam, but Owen hoped that this would deter Rick and his cronies from following as they would also be in trouble for tardiness.
After a few moments he glanced over his shoulder to judge the success of his manoeuvre. Aside from himself and a man wearing a narrow-brimmed hat and long coat standing beside a tree, the park appeared deserted. Owen relaxed slightly, but maintained his steady pace.
He tried to concentrate on the exam that awaited him at school, quietly confident that he had done enough revision to get the grades he needed to continue his studies at the next level. English was by no means his strongest subject, so his father and teachers were somewhat puzzled as to why he was planning to study it further. The true reason for his choice was that English was the only class he would be able to share with Katie (he didn’t have a hope at doing well at history or geography which she was also taking) so he didn’t want to risk not being able to study this subject.
In his bag was a change of clothes so that he could tag along with Katie and some of her friends to try and get served in the pub behind the leisure centre. He was desperate to spend as much time with her before she headed down to Cornwall tomorrow with her sister to visit their grandfather.
As he repositioned the ruck sack over both shoulders (dispensing with the unwritten social etiquette of ‘one strap good, two straps bad’) he felt a sudden pain in his left leg, followed by a thud on the ground beside him.
Looking down he saw a smooth rock tumbling away, accompanied by a roar of laughter behind him. Turning he realised that Rick and some of his entourage had decided to follow him after all, with Rick’s arm already swinging halfway through the air, about to release another missile.
Owen broke into a sprint, and a flurry of expletives behind him suggested that his aggressors had done the same. He was not sure if he could outrun them so looked ahead to see if there was anywhere he could escape from his pursuers. He could probably make it to school, but short of bursting into the staff room (an act which would only delay and probably exacerbate Rick’s assault) there were few opportunities within its walls that could provide him with shelter from the violence that had been promised to him.
The leisure centre in the corner of the park was nearer, but that didn’t guarantee a safe haven either. He was certain that the swimming pool would be open, but that would mean getting past the receptionists, one of whom still harboured a grudge for Owen after he trampled mud on ‘her’ pristine carpet a couple of years before (an act that she remained so incensed by that Owen feared that she would likely turn a blind eye to Rick’s attack if he chose to follow him inside, and maybe even join in).
Adjacent to the leisure centre was its car park, the corner of which was being excavated to provide a new sports hall and changing rooms for the footballers that played in the park every weekend (and to keep mud off the leisure centre’s carpet, no doubt). The new sports hall’s exterior was nearly finished, with its walls covered in sheets of smooth steel that reflected the blue sky and trees of the park. Owen decided that this was as good a place as any to shelter behind, and remained hopeful that Rick would decide that not being late for school was a preferable option to a game of hide and seek.
Glancing over his shoulder Owen saw that they were gaining on him. He increased his speed, thankful that all
those hours in the pool had at the very least given him some stamina. Just metres from the sports hall he felt a rush of air past his right ear and saw another rock collide with the metal in front him, making a surprisingly loud clang.
Turning to the right he saw that the route behind the building where he had planned to hide was obstructed by a large metal shipping container. Quickly he shimmied to the left to go around the other side, but that way was blocked by a splinter group of Rick’s gang. Without thinking Owen decided that going up was the safest option, his brief treetop asylum the previous week still fresh in his mind.
Why Owen chose to climb at this point would be a question that he would ask himself many times throughout his lifetime. Ordinarily he would have stood his ground and fought back, however unlikely it may have been that he would triumph. Yet something deep inside of him, something almost primal, was urging him to climb, to reach out and haul himself up the structure before him.
Despite the walls of the building having no obvious handholds further up, he leapt forward and grabbed onto a small gap between the cladding, which felt more like rock than metal as he expected. His hands tingled as if electric currents were passing through them, and seemed to have a feint white glow to themy, presumably caused by the vast amount of adrenaline that was pumping through Owen’s body.
Looking up, he continued to climb up the side, reaching out and grabbing at the spaces between the sheets of metal, again finding that they felt more like gaps in a rock face. His feet easily found purchase on the smooth sides, as did his hands which by now were throbbing in an intense but not unpleasant manner as he climbed up the building’s wall. With one powerful lunge he hauled himself onto the roof and peered down.
The Remarkables (The Remarkable Owen Johnson, part 1) Page 2