Life, Interrupted

by Damian Kelleher

  ‘Okay,’ I nod in agreement. ‘On one condition. Stu.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he says. ‘Luke.’

  ‘You drop the “kiddo”.’

  He laughs and holds out his hand.

  ‘Deal.’

  To celebrate the passing of Uncle Stu and the arrival of Stu, he makes us his special spaghetti and meatballs which Jesse describes as one of his All-Time Top Five Suppers. While we’re eating, Stu tells us about his latest plan that actually sounds quite sensible. It seems the good news is, Mum had a life assurance policy that she paid regularly every month, so we don’t have a mortgage on our house any more. It also means that one day the house will belong to me and Jesse (I’m trying not to think about the inevitable rows that’ll cause).

  The bad news is, we still need money to pay the bills, buy food, go on holiday, etc. So Uncle Stu, sorry, Stu (this’ll take a bit of getting used to) says he’s got a master plan. He’ll do a bit of temporary translation work to earn some cash and enrol at teacher training college. He says he was thinking about teaching before all this happened in any case. He’s got a degree, so it’s only one year’s training, and then they’ll let him loose on unsuspecting mugs like me and Jesse. He reckons they’re crying out for good language teachers and all I know is he can’t be any worse than our Spanish teacher, Ms Formby, who seems fairly clueless about what day of the week it is, never mind Spanish. Stu says he’s also picked up a bit of Cantonese on his travels and, if he does evening classes to brush that up, it may come in very handy. He ends by reading us the riot act and telling us he’s off out to see some mates.

  ‘Where are you going?’ says Jesse as Stu comes downstairs. He’s put wax in his hair and he’s changed his shirt.

  ‘Who are you, my social secretary?’ says Stu. ‘Out.’

  ‘That’s what teenagers are meant to say, not responsible adults,’ I point out.

  He taps the side of his nose. ‘When you get older, I promise you I’ll respect your privacy too,’ he says. ‘In the meantime, no arguing, no fighting and no setting fire to your farts or the house. If you do need me in an emergency, you can call me on this.’

  He holds his mobile phone aloft as he opens the front door. ‘It’s called a mobile phone. Very useful things they are, too.’

  ‘Will you be back before we go to bed?’ asks Jesse.

  ‘I bloody hope not,’ he says. ‘It’s school tomorrow for you two. Jesse, bed at nine-thirty p.m. and Luke, you can stay up till half-ten. If either of you is still up by time I stagger in, I’ll show you what fighting really is.’

  As he closes the door Jesse says, ‘That’s if he’s back at all, of course.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, it’s obvious,’ says Jesse. ‘He stinks of aftershave. He’s gone on the pull.’

  I chuck a cushion at him.

  ‘Right, as if you’d know!’

  chapter twenty-seven

  I’ve never been a particularly light sleeper. Even as a small kid, Mum always used to say that the house could fall down around me and they’d find me in the rubble, still in my bed, snoozing away, little zeds floating above my head. Mum was just the same too. We both love our beds.

  Maybe it’s because of everything that has happened recently, but I’m not falling into my usual coma these days. Tonight, I was having some stupid dream and I just woke up. It wasn’t exactly a nightmare, but there was this big slavering dog that was coming towards me as I was making my way to school, and he was making this funny snivelling noise. It was punctuated by a bout of gaspy wheezing, then there’d be a big deep breath, and more snivelling and that’s when I woke up. Though I’m awake, and the dream has popped, just like a bubble, I suddenly realise the noise hasn’t stopped. It’s real, and in my dopey state I finally work out that it’s coming from Jesse’s room. I lie there listening to it for a bit – it kind of starts and stops, and there’s a sniffy bit in the middle – and it slowly dawns on me. It’s Jesse crying.

  Jesse and I had a fairly uneventful evening in the end. I had a bit of Spanish homework to finish, he was flicking through his football magazines in front of the telly. I think I was half expecting Dad to call like he said he would, but I should have known better I suppose, because he didn’t. He did call the week after the funeral, as predicted, and we had some really awkward conversation. He asked all the usual adult I’m-not-really-interested-but–I-have-to-ask-type questions about homework and – it makes me cringe just to think about it – money. I told him to talk to Stu about that. Anyway, I passed the phone to Jesse, and he twittered on about his fitness training with Freya and what she had done for him and how his stamina levels had gone through the roof and then he put the phone down.

  ‘What did he say?’ I said.

  ‘He said he’d phone again next week.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next week. He didn’t say when.’

  Well, this is next week and he hasn’t phoned yet and maybe he won’t so normal service has been resumed, I’d say.

  I think Jesse also thought Dad might ring that evening, but he seemed his normal chirpy self when I reminded him at a quarter to ten that he was late for bed already according to Stu’s instructions, and he shrugged his shoulders and took himself off.

  So, when the crying doesn’t stop, I figure I’d better go and investigate. I push back the duvet, take a quick peak at my alarm (2.05 a.m., thanks, Jesse) and creep along the landing past Uncle Stu’s room (door half open, so he’s not back yet) and towards his bedroom without turning on any lights. I creak open Jesse’s door. It’s totally dark in there, but I can hear he’s definitely crying.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he says through tears. I hear him sitting up in bed, but I still can’t make him out clearly.

  ‘Who do you think it is?’ I say. ‘The Easter bunny?’ Sometimes he can be so thick, Jesse.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. Get lost,’ he says.

  I can hear him lying down again and I know he’s pulling the duvet up to his chin like he always does. We used to share a room when we were little until the fighting got really bad and we had to be separated. I move across to his bed and perch myself on the end.

  ‘Stu’s not here, he’s not back yet. What’s up with you?’ I whisper. ‘What are you crying about?’

  ‘What do you think I’m crying about?’ he splutters. ‘I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking about the finals.’

  Football. I might have guessed.

  ‘And then I got to thinking that Mum won’t be there to see me play. That’s if I get selected.’

  He starts crying again. Only it’s a bit more like sobbing this time.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I tell him. ‘Of course you’ll get selected.’

  ‘How do you know?’ says Jesse.

  ‘Look,’ I tell him, sitting forward, ‘trust me. You’ve been playing really well this season. You set up that first goal in the quarters. You played a blinder. They’re hardly going to drop you for the finals, are they?’

  ‘Duane Mulholland is older than me, though. And after the semis, I reckon they’ll go for him.’

  ‘No chance,’ I tell him. ‘You may be the youngest but you’re dead fast. And all that training you’ve been doing. Freya says she reckons you’ve got the edge.’

  ‘Does she?’ he sniffs. I can make him out in the dark now, and he’s sitting up again.

  ‘Course,’ I say. ‘Besides, they’re not going to want to change a winning formula now, are they? Not when it’s the finals.’ I’m tempted to point out that they’re hardly going to drop him when his mum’s just died, but that seems unnecessarily callous.

  ‘What about Duane Mulholland?’

  ‘Duane Mulholland?’ I practically spit the name. ‘What about him? He’s rubbish. He can’t head a ball to save his life, and he runs like something out of Charlie’s Angels. They’re not going to pick him. Not over you.’

  I haven’t a clue how Duane Mulholland runs, but we watched Charlie�
��s Angels on DVD recently and it was pants. When the Angels run, you could almost hear the criminals start laughing. I’ve also heard Jesse whine on about Duane Mulholland enough to make this sound convincing. And at two o’clock in the morning, it seems to be doing the trick. He lies back down.

  ‘Hmm, maybe,’ he says, yawning. ‘I thought he was quite useful in midfield.’

  ‘Nah,’ I tell him like I’m some kind of seasoned footie pundit. ‘He’s rubbish. He couldn’t mark his man if you gave him a great big fluorescent felt-tip pen.’

  Jesse gives a little snort of laughter. Good sign, I’m thinking. Tears have stopped.

  ‘Look,’ I tell him. ‘Mum may not be there, but I will be. And Uncle Stu, and Polly said she wants to come too. Freya and Jack keep asking me about it. Mind you, I can’t guarantee Jack won’t bring his grandad’s rattle. He’s convinced it brings good luck.’

  ‘Yeah, and I’ll have my lucky troll and Mum’ll be watching anyway, won’t she?’ says Jesse as he snuggles up into the foetal position, which is how he sleeps and a sure sign he’s nodding off again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Can they get Sky Sports in heaven?’

  ‘Very funny,’ says Jesse. ‘He does run a bit like Drew Barrymore, doesn’t he?’

  As I head back to my room, I clock Stu’s open door again, and I think, why I am creeping about like this at two in the morning when he’s not even here? Before I’ve had time to start fretting about where he might be and thinking I never had to worry about Mum off gallivanting in the middle of the night, I hear the door to the living room opening downstairs. Peeking through the gap in between the banisters, I see Stu standing in the doorway to the living room and he’s talking to someone in the room, with his back to me. There’s some music on low in the background – I can’t quite make out what it is, just the gentle pulse of a beat – and I can’t see much anyway because the light in the hall’s turned off. So Jesse was right, I’m thinking. He’s gone out and he’s pulled. And he’s brought her home.

  I’m curious now, and, even though I know I’m spying, I’m rooted to the spot. He’s putting his arm across the doorway in that way that blokes do when they’re chatting girls up, and he’s leaning in slightly and whispering something to her, and then I see a hand come round Stu’s head pulling him in for a kiss. And as they kiss, they take a step out from the living room and spill over into the hall. In the murky half-light, I can see who it is he’s kissing, and I put my hand over my mouth to stop a little gasp escaping because I know who the other person is. It’s Luiz.

  They break away from each other and take a step towards the front door. Stu opens the door and I hear him whisper, ‘I’ll phone you tomorrow’, and then he closes the door and starts to turn, and quickly I duck my head down. He heads back into the living room to turn off the music and the lights, and I nip back into my bedroom sharpish and swiftly get into bed and pull the duvet up to my chin. My heart’s beating really fast like I’ve been on some secret teen spy mission, and I’m trying to work out what I’ve just seen, and I’m wondering why is everything so complicated these days.

  chapter twenty-eight

  ‘You’re just being naïve,’ says Freya. ‘Honestly, Luke, did it never cross your mind that your uncle might be gay?’

  Jack, Freya and I are lolling about on the field and it’s the last period before lunch on a Friday so it’s mixed cricket. This is our head of sport, Mr Berry’s, brilliant plan to inspire us all to play more team sports this summer – by getting boys and girls to play cricket together. As if. The good thing about this is that, if your side is in to bat and you put your names at the bottom of the list like ours, it’s highly unlikely you’re going to get a turn. Which suits us fine. It means I can bring my best mates up to date with what’s happening on Planet Luke while the rest of the class gets on with knocking the hell out of a piece of red leather with a big block of wood.

  ‘No, it never crossed my mind,’ I say. ‘Why should it? What’s so naïve about that?’

  I’m looking at Jack now, and he shrugs his shoulders.

  ‘It never occurred to me,’ he says, innocently.

  Freya laughs.

  ‘Never occurred to you? You haven’t turned up to a PSHE lesson for the past six months! Why would it?’

  ‘Meaning?’ says Jack, snappily. Although her last sentence was whispered, he’s glaring at her angrily.

  ‘Meaning,’ says Freya, on the counter-attack now, ‘that when it comes to sexual matters, you’re not the most enlightened of pupils at Joan of Arc, are you?’

  This is the first time that any of us has made a direct reference to Jack’s boycotting of sex education classes. I’m thinking, whoops, that’s the cat well and truly out of the bag now, and it’s off scarpering down the street.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Jack. ‘Just because I’ve skived off a few PSHE classes this year doesn’t make me some kind of nookie no-brainer . . .’

  ‘Erm, excuse me,’ I interject, ‘I was looking for some moral support and advice from my bessie mates here about the latest bombshell in my life. I don’t need another world war.’

  Freya and Jack look at me and sigh. There’s a brief ripple of applause. Heidi Lundquist, who would win the strongest girl in the school competition hands down, has just smacked the cricket ball across the boundary and towards the school kitchen for six. With a little more effort, it might have ended up in the custard. Ted Maher shouts, ‘You go, Heidi!’ He’s always had a thing about her, though she towers over him and so obviously isn’t interested.

  ‘Moral support?’ says Freya, ignoring Heidi’s prowess. ‘What moral support do you need? Just because you’ve got a gay uncle – it’s his life, for God’s sake. What’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘He’s my guardian now,’ I remind her, ‘in case you hadn’t noticed. He’s the one who’s looking after me.’

  ‘Well, so what?’ says Freya. ‘Does it really make any difference to you if he dates men or women? He’s an adult. Just because he’s taken over the role of dad in your life doesn’t mean he can’t have a life of his own.’

  ‘A private life, even,’ says Jack.

  ‘Private life?’ What are you getting at now?’

  ‘Well, if he hasn’t told you he’s gay,’ he continues, ‘I’d say that’s because he doesn’t want you to know.’

  Heidi clouts another ball over towards the science block this time, and the rest of the class bursts into spontaneous cheering. We clap madly too, Freya shouts, ‘Bravo, Heidi!’ at the top of her voice, knowing the longer her innings continues, the less likely it becomes we’ll be called upon to show off our batting skills. Or lack of them.

  ‘Probably because it’s none of your business,’ says Freya, examining her split ends up close and trying to tear them apart with her fingernails.

  ‘He’s not taking over the role of “dad” in my life anyway,’ I point out. ‘I have a dad. You saw him, remember?’

  Freya raises her eyebrows in mock surprise as if to say, ‘You’ve changed your tune.’

  ‘Oh, and how many times has your darling dad called since the funeral?’ says Freya. She starts counting up on her fingers, gets to ten and then counts back down again. ‘I’d make that once. Not exactly ringing the phone off the hook, is he? Look, Luke, your uncle’s a lovely bloke who’s given everything up to look after you and your brother. Just because he prefers men to women doesn’t mean he’ll be any better or worse at it. Give him a break.’

  ‘He might be better,’ Jack says. ‘There’s loads of same sex couples adopting kids these days. The papers are full of them. Look at that kid in 8T. He’s got two mums. Lesbians. He seems all right.’

  ‘I never said he wasn’t great,’ I object, ignoring Jack and his lesbians. ‘I just wish he’d told me. I felt so . . . so . . .’

  ‘Left out?’ says Freya. ‘You felt stupid because he kept something from you. Look, welcome to the real world, Luke. You’ve only ever had your mum – and she treated you more l
ike a partner than a kid. She told you everything. But parents aren’t always like that. My mum and dad are fairly open, admittedly, but I know kids whose parents hardly speak to them, let alone discuss their private life.’

  ‘I only found out last week that my parents are going to the Maldives this summer,’ says Jack, looking affronted. ‘Without me. They never even asked me.’

  ‘What I think,’ says Freya, ‘is, if you’re worried, you ought to talk to him about it. Tell him what you saw. It’s no good pussyfooting around.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. They’re right, I know they are. Annoyingly, Freya’s always right. Except when it comes to science. Never copy her science homework. She’s crap at science.

  ‘The Maldives?’ says Freya impressed. ‘Did they win the lottery? It’s not cheap. I’ve seen the pictures, though. It looks like some tropical paradise.’

  ‘Wouldn’t know,’ says Jack. ‘I’ll show you the postcard – if they bother to send me one.’

  ‘So, what are you meant to do while your parents are swanking off to the Maldives?’ I ask. I’m thinking, there’s me being a selfish git, worrying about my problems, when all the time my mates have got problems of their own.

  ‘Oh, they’ve very thoughtfully organised for me to go and stay at my gran’s.’

  ‘I thought she was dead,’ says Freya, screwing her eyes up against the sun.

  ‘Not her. That was my nan. No, my other gran,’ says Jack.

  ‘Not the one who lives . . .’ I begin.

  Jack sighs loudly.

  ‘Yes, the one who lives in Inverness.’

  Freya and I look at each other and try not to laugh.

  ‘It’s the wrong time of the year to go to the Maldives,’ she points out. ‘You’ll be much better off in Scotland.’

  ‘With a retired PE teacher?’ asks Jack. ‘Her idea of a fun time is a five-mile jog followed by a cold shower and porridge. With lumps.’

  ‘Och, grim,’ says Freya in a surprisingly good Scottish accent.