by Mark Tilbury
I met Liam at the bus stop. He didn’t look half as chirpy as he had this morning. I nodded at him, unsure.
He spat on the ground. ‘Fucking school.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘That wanker, Worthington, kept me behind at break time and lunchtime for detention.’
‘Why?’
‘Reckons I wasn’t paying attention.’ He shook a cigarette out of his pack, but didn’t offer me one. He cupped his hand around the lighter and lit up. ‘I mean, how the fuck are you supposed to pay attention when he’s rattling on about Queen Victoria?’
‘Good point.’
‘Who gives a tin-shit about royalty, anyway? Bunch of fucking scroungers.’ He offered me his cigarette.
I shook my head. My throat felt as if it had been fire-bombed and doused with pepper. ‘No. Thanks.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He took another deep drag and flicked ash. It caught in the wind and spilled down the front of his coat. ‘We ought to run away.’
I looked at him, checking for signs that he was joking. He didn’t appear to be. ‘But, where would we go?’
‘We could go to the coast.’
‘In winter?’
‘I’ve got an uncle in Bournemouth. He might put us up.’
And he might not. I imagined trying to sleep under the pier and shivered.
He stamped out his cigarette as the bus drew alongside the kerb. ‘I’ve got to get out of Woodside, Michael. I’ve fucking got to.’
We said little all the way back. I could tell he was mulling over escaping, thinking about how to make it possible, convince me it was a good idea. But, I’d already had a beating, and been forced to run naked around a field in the middle of winter. I didn’t want to risk having runaway tagged to my file, not to mention the punishment that would go along with it.
Malloy was waiting to greet the bus as it pulled into the gravel courtyard. I crossed my fingers and made a wish that the bus driver would lose control and run the bastard over, crush his bones, and turn him to mincemeat.
As usual, my wishes went unanswered. As I stepped off the bus, Malloy clamped a hand on my shoulder, and told me to stand to one side. He did the same with Liam. When all the other kids were inside, he ordered us both to the staff room.
‘Perhaps he’s going to give us tea and cakes,’ Liam joked, as we fell in behind Malloy.
He ushered us both into the staff room. There was a heavy stench of cigar smoke in the air. Rank and acrid. It burned the back of my throat. He sat on the edge of a white Formica table and looked at each of us in turn. ‘You two idiots think you’re smart, don’t you?’
Liam didn’t answer. He stared at the floor, seemingly mesmerised by the red and white speckled linoleum.
Malloy thumped the edge of the desk. ‘Well!’
‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ I managed.
‘You don’t? What about you, Truman?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t get insolent with me, you warped little twat. You know full well what.’
Liam didn’t. Neither did I. I wished to Christ I did. At least I could admit to it and get it over and done with.
‘All right. If you want to play dumb, play dumb. Let me help you. I’ve had it reported on good authority you two imbeciles were smoking at the bus stop.’
My heart stopped. I imagined smoke billowing out of my nostrils.
Malloy straightened a stack of papers on the table. ‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’ Liam said.
Malloy stood up. ‘Do you think you’re clever, Truman?’
Liam didn’t answer.
‘What about you, Tate? What have you got to say?’
‘Sorry.’ The word was barely a croak; my mouth didn’t have any spit left in it. I remembered, all too vividly, the half a dozen canes fixed to the wall in Kalvin Kraft’s office. My backside had just about settled to a dull throb.
‘You’re “sorry” are you, Tate?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He shook his head. ‘We have standards at Woodside. Standards we try to maintain at all times. Why is that, Tate?’
I had no answer to that.
‘You little bastards are the lowest of the low. The dregs of society. It is our job to turn you into useful members of society, and that starts by learning to behave properly when you are away from Woodside.’
What about you bastards acting properly when we’re inside Woodside? I thought. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘You’ve only been back one day, Tate, and you’ve already proved what an unruly, little shit you are.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Truman?’
‘Whatever.’
Malloy studied him with those dark, menacing eyes. ‘You may go, Tate. Your behaviour is duly noted.’
I didn’t want to go. I wanted to wait for Liam, but I knew better than to defy a member of staff twice in one day. As I closed the door behind me, Malloy ordered Liam to go to Kalvin Kraft’s office, and wait outside for him.
By the time I got to the senior block, my stomach was churning, the same way it used to when I was waiting for my old man to come home from the pub. I tried to stop imagining what Malloy was doing to Liam, but it was like trying to stop the wind blowing.
My bed and locker were situated in the middle of the right-hand row of beds. The sprung base sagged in the middle, and the sheets and blankets reeked of damp. I sat on the bed, thoughts of Liam dominating my mind.
All the other kids would be doing chores allocated at morning assembly, which I’d missed, because of the incident in the shower room. The grey walls reminded me of a battleship, the polished wooden floor, the upper deck. Captain Tate at the helm. Ten degrees starboard. Aye, aye. Steady as she goes. Shark-infested waters.
‘Welcome back, Michael.’
Craig McCree’s voice jolted me out of my fantasy. He stood a few feet away, brushing a strand of blond hair out of his eyes. I tried not to look concerned.
‘Missed the place too much, eh?’
‘Something like that.’
He smiled. You could fry chips in that smile. His eyes reminded me of a bird of prey. An eagle, perhaps, only eagles were noble creatures, McCree wasn’t.
‘We missed you, Michael.’ He took a pack of cigarettes out of his jeans. Shook one out and clamped it between his teeth. ‘How was the foster home?’
What did he care? ‘All right,’ I lied.
He lit up. ‘A little bird tells me you like giving blow jobs.’
‘That’s crap.’
He blew a plume of smoke in the air. ‘Not what I heard.’
‘I don’t care what you heard.’
‘Heard you got so excited, you nearly bit Selwyn Davies’ dick off.’
I clammed up. I didn’t want to argue with him because there would only be one winner if I tried. McCree was seventeen. Head boy. The Golden Boy of Woodside. He even had a room upstairs tagged onto the staff quarters. Had his own shower for fuck’s sake.
‘Still, Selwyn Davies’ loss is our gain, I say. What do you reckon, Michael?’
I didn’t reckon anything. I tried not to let him drag me into a conversation.
‘Credit where credit’s due. Attacking Reader in the shower room. Malloy having to drag you off.’
I nodded. Safer ground than the Davieses.
‘You did good, Michael. What with Reader calling your mother a whore like that.’
How the hell did he even know that?
‘Is that what Davies did?’
‘What?’
‘Call your mum a whore?’
‘No.’ The truth.
‘Must have been something bad to try to bite his knob off.’
‘If you say so.’
‘There’s been a few changes, since you were last here. Have you met Uncle Bernie yet?’
‘No.’
McCree sucked on his cigarette. He let the smoke out between clenched teeth. ‘You’ve got to meet him, Michael.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Close your eyes.’
‘Why?’
‘Just do it.’
I didn’t want to give McCree any excuse to go running to the staff telling tales. I closed my eyes.
‘Are you ready?’
I took a deep breath and nodded.
I felt a sudden burning pain on the back of my hand, then the smell of scorched skin, followed by McCree’s hideous braying laughter. I opened my eyes as he withdrew the cigarette from the back of my hand. I spat on the burn and rubbed furiously. At least my backside no longer hurt.
‘Uncle Bernie, get it?’
Oh, I got it, all right. I would have given anything to take that cigarette out of his hand and thrust it into one of his reptilian eyes.
‘Welcome back to Woodside.’ He threw the butt on the floor and stamped it out. ‘I’m going to go and tell Malloy someone’s been smoking in the senior block, Tate. But, first, I’m going for a wank. You’ve got ten minutes. I suggest you get a window open, and clean that floor, before he gets up here.’
Bastard, bastard, bastard, my mind screamed. Welcome back to fucking Woodside.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Liam didn’t go to supper. He staggered into the senior block at just after nine that evening. The room hushed, as if someone had twisted a volume knob. A few of the others tried to talk to him, but Liam headed straight for his bed, and sat down clutching his ribs. I didn’t know whether to approach him, but as far as I was concerned, he was a mate, and mates looked out for one another.
The pain in my hand had now dulled to a stinging throb. I stopped a foot away from him, unsure of what to say, and then I asked him the dumbest question ever. ‘Are you all right?’
He looked at me, eyes glazed. Blood bubbled in one of his nostrils. He opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. His wobbly tooth no longer clung to his mouth.
‘Liam?’
‘Go away.’ The words came out mashed together: Gway.
I took a gamble and sat on the bed next to him. I waited a few moments and then asked him what had happened.
‘What’s it to you?’
I looked at the wound on my hand. ‘It might help to talk about it.’
He didn’t answer. He straightened his back and winced. He struggled for breath. There was a nasty whining noise in the back of his nose.
‘Malloy’s a cunt,’ I said, sticking to something we could both relate to.
He glanced sideways at me. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
Remembering my earlier thrashing, I asked if he’d been given the cane.
Liam hacked a small laugh. ‘I fucking wish.’
Now what did I say? It was obvious Malloy had done something terrible to him. But, what?
‘You know the funny thing?’
I didn’t. I couldn’t see anything funny about Woodside and its psychopathic staff.
‘All that bullshit about smoking, and he never took my fags off me. I’ve got one left. You want to go to the bogs and share it?’
I nearly spilled tears at that. In spite of his suffering, he was still willing to share his last cigarette with me. ‘I’d like that.’ And then, on consideration, ‘What if someone comes?’
He grinned; a gummy affair mixed with blood. ‘Fuck ‘em.’
Fuck ‘em, indeed. We hobbled out of the senior block and along the corridor to the shower block, like two wartime veterans returning from the battlefield.
He walked into a cubicle. ‘Come on, squeeze in.’
I followed him in and locked the door behind me. I stood on the rim of the toilet and opened a small window to vent the smoke. We had about half an hour left before lights out. Before Malloy or Reader came around to send us to sleep on a bed of threats.
Liam sat on the toilet and lit his cigarette. He took a drag and blew a stream of smoke towards the window. He spotted the burn mark on my hand, red and inflamed. ‘What happened to your hand?’
I didn’t know whether to tell him. It seemed such small change compared to what had happened to him. I shrugged. ‘No big deal.’
‘McCree, right?’
‘How do you know?’
He spat on the floor and wiped it into the tile with the tip of his shoe. ‘I’m surprised he never caught you with that Uncle Bernie shit the first time you were here.’
I shook my head. I hadn’t had much contact with McCree then.
‘McCree will get what’s coming to him,’ Liam promised. ‘Cocksucking little twat.’
I almost told Liam what McCree had said about me nearly biting Davies’ dick off, but decided not to. Too close to the truth for comfort. It would open up a whole load of stuff best left unsaid.
‘If it’s any consolation. McCree gets passed around.’
‘Passed around?’
‘Do you have any idea what really goes on here?’
Apparently, I didn’t. ‘Like what?’
He passed me the half-finished smoke. ‘Sex.’
‘Sex?’
He laughed. ‘Fuck me, Michael, do you always repeat things like a parrot?’
I took a drag and blew it out without taking it back. ‘Sorry.’
He looked at the locked door, as if someone might be standing outside listening to our conversation, and then whispered, almost too low to hear, ‘Sex for queers. Arse shaggers. Bum bandits. Shit prodders.’
I remembered Davies and almost threw up. ‘McCree has sex with men?’
Liam clapped. ‘Give the boy a medal, he catches on quick. The dirty pigs pay for it. McCree takes it up the arse in return for money and privileges. Why else do you suppose he lives upstairs? Lords it over the rest of us? He’s like one of them, only he’s not. Not really. He’s nothing but a stupid, slimy kid, who’s got no choice, just like the rest of us.’
‘That’s disgusting,’ I said, thinking more of Davies than Craig McCree.
‘It ain’t the half of it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They’re all fucking bent.’
‘Who?’
He shot me a look as if to say I had the intelligence of a daffodil bulb. ‘Malloy, Kraft, Reader. The fucking lot of them.’
I didn’t know what to say. I finished the cigarette and dropped the butt into the toilet. It hit the water with a little Ksss sound.
Liam took a deep breath and winced. ‘I reckon Malloy’s cracked one of my ribs. I can’t breathe properly. I’ll break every bone in his fucking body one day, Michael. I swear to God.’
‘No more than the cunt deserves.’
‘If you want to know what he did to me, I’ll tell you. But, you gotta promise you never say a word to anyone else about it.’
‘I swear.’
‘On your life?’
‘On my life.’
When he spoke, his eyes looked dead. ‘He took me into Kraft’s office, study, shit-tip, whatever you want to call it. I thought he was going to cane me. Give me a few whacks and leave it at that. But, he didn’t….’
I waited a few seconds, and then said, ‘Don’t bother if it’s too painful to talk about.’
‘It’s all right. It’s just the pain. Anyway, Malloy went over to a sideboard and took out a bottle of brandy and two glasses. He poured me a drink. A fucking good slug, too. Posh glass. Crystal.’
‘He let you have a drink?’
Liam nodded. ‘Then, he pulled out a huge cigar and sparked that up. Babbled on about how cold the weather was, and how much nicer it would be when the spring came. Asked me if I liked the spring or the summer best.’
‘He’s fucking mad.’
‘Mad doesn’t even come close to what he is. Trust me. He offered me a go on the cigar. I told him I didn’t like cigars. Guess what he said?’
‘What?’
‘Said it was an acquired taste. But, he wouldn’t force me, if I didn’t want to.’
‘So, he gives us a bollocking for smoking and then offers you a bloody cigar?’
Liam nodded. ‘Anyway, I drank half of the brand
y. My head felt all fuzzy. I wasn’t drunk or nothing, but I wasn’t bothered about what might happen, either. After he finished his cigar and drink, he looked at me funny. It’s hard to explain. I asked him if he was all right. He said, “You tell me, Liam.” I mean, what sort of fucking answer is that. He’s never ever called me Liam before. That’s when I realised he had me there for something else.’
‘Something else?’
‘Sex.’
‘Malloy?’ I squawked, unable to hide my astonishment. A vision of Mr. Davies popped into my mind.
‘Well, I say sex. It wasn’t sex. Not even the perverted sort of sex McCree has when he sells his arse for posh nosh and a trip out in a Bentley. It was Malloy’s filthy version of sex.’
Once, when I was about seven or eight, I’d been in town with my mum. An old lady had been hit by a bus. Knocked over in the road. Dead as roadkill. My mum had warned me to look away. Drawn me in close to her. But, me being me, took a peek, anyway. Saw that old woman missing half her face, her eyes wide open, and staring in two different directions at once. This felt something like that, only I was looking at Liam’s horrific injuries instead of the old woman’s.
‘He told me I had two choices,’ Liam continued. ‘The easy way or the hard way. He leered at me when he said “hard,” as if it was our little joke, the fucking creep.’
‘Maybe you didn’t ought to tell me,’ I said, as a tear trickled down his cheek. ‘If it’s too painful.’
He wiped the tear away with a swipe of his hand. ‘It’s all right. I want to tell you. I want you to understand what those bastards are capable of.’
‘Okay. But we’d better get back soon. It’s getting close to lights out.’
Liam nodded and winced. ‘He made me strip. Like the fucking pervert always does when he’s about to give you the cane. The dirty bastard gets off on it. Then, he left the office.’
‘Just fucked off?’
Liam nodded. ‘I thought at first he was just playing mind games with me. Going to leave me standing naked in the study for ages. Maybe all night.’
‘Sick bastard.’
Liam wiped a fresh tear from his cheek. ‘He came back about ten minutes later with Reader. I’ll never forget the way those two took the piss out of my body. Then, they forced me to bend over the desk. Reader held my head down, pressed it right into the wood. I could smell Malloy’s cigar mixed with the brandy. Then, he raped me.’