Things were being shouted from behind. ‘Fwancethca’s got a boyfriend,’ and ‘Look at sweaty Stinker run,’ and other things; they were making animal noises and singing insults she either did not or tried not to understand.
Her heart was thumping and her lungs were tearing inside her chest. Even though they weren’t running fast, her legs felt as though they were catching fire on the insides. There was a sharp ache in her side.
‘Here,’ said Nicholas, steady beside her, pointing down a road on their right.
They were opposite their school.
She walked this way every day during term time, but didn’t ever come up these side streets. They were dark with trees and long shadows, and the houses seemed closer together than where she lived. Everyone parked on the street.
‘Just up here,’ he said, pointing ahead and to the left.
‘What is it?’ she wheezed.
‘Home,’ he said.
Oh God, she thought. If anyone ever knew that she’d gone to Nicholas Underbridge’s house, no one would ever talk to her again. It was bad enough being ‘rescued’ by him, bad enough having ‘rescued’ him, but if he thought this meant they were friends or something, she’d never live it down.
There was a puddle in the playground called The Bridgey Puddle, named after him. Kids would try to push each other in. If you got the water from the puddle on you, if it splashed you or if you fell in it, if you stood in it by accident even, everyone would hold their nose and wave the smell away. It was toxic. It was like playing It or Tag, but with a worse mark, one it was much harder to get rid of.
The thing about that puddle was that even when it hadn’t rained, everyone knew where it was, knew that shallow dip in the tarmac, and even when it was bone dry you still kept clear of it. You just knew.
And now she was running straight to The Bridgey House.
They bundled into the front yard, a scrubby patch of mud and dandelions, just ahead of Noble and his cronies.
Nicholas lifted the knocker on the door and knocked. He rang the bell too.
‘I haven’t got a key,’ he said, looking at Frank apologetically.
Her legs wobbled under her and she touched the wall with a hand to hold herself steady.
The footsteps behind them stopped, were replaced with giggling.
‘What’s wrong?’ teased Noble in his baby voice. ‘Little Stinky not allowed a key, is he? Poor Fwancethca’s left all out in the cold with her great fat B.O.-ey boyfriend. Oh, boo hoo.’
She felt sick.
‘Go away,’ she said.
‘Go away,’ they repeated.
‘Leave me alone,’ she said.
‘Leave me alone,’ they repeated.
‘Stop it,’ she said.
‘Thtop it,’ they repeated.
They weren’t stepping on to the Underbridges’ land. They were staying on the pavement and she knew, again from experience, that they would stay there for as long as they liked. ‘It’s a free country,’ they’d say. ‘You can stand on pavements,’ they’d say. ‘They’re public footpaths,’ they’d say. And they’d say a whole lot of other stuff.
No one was opening the door.
‘I don’t think Dad’s home,’ Nicholas said.
And as he said it another voice broke in on the scene.
‘All right, Nick,’ a man called from across the street. ‘I’m back now.’
Frank looked. The man, crossing the road and waving a bottle of milk in his hand, looked like a perfectly normal grownup. He had a leather jacket and thinning hair and glasses.
‘You brought some friends home? Do they need feeding? I think there’s some of that spag bol left, isn’t there?’
In that infuriatingly dumb, stupid, blinkered, hopeless way adults have, he couldn’t see what was going on. Noble and his goons had shut up when they’d heard him and were just leaning on the wall, grinning like idiots.
‘’Scuse me, boys,’ Mr Underbridge said as he squeezed past them.
No matter what you say, Frank had found (not that she’d ever said much), adults always come back with ‘They’re just playing about,’ or ‘Ignore them and they’ll go away,’ or ‘Boys will be boys,’ or just ‘Don’t be so silly, Frank.’
‘Can Francesca come in, Dad?’ Nicholas asked.
‘Yeah, course she can,’ his dad said as he pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket. ‘What about your other pals?’ He gestured over his shoulder with the milk.
‘They’re not with us,’ Nicholas said slowly. ‘They’re just going.’
The inside of the house wasn’t what Frank had expected.
Nick’s school jumpers always had food on them and his shirts weren’t always washed as often as everyone else’s. He certainly never brushed his hair. And everyone knew he smelt, probably had fleas.
But the house didn’t seem to be like that.
For a start the hallway was clean and bright. The walls were white, and big colourful abstract pictures hung on them. More pictures were stacked against the wall as if they were waiting to find homes. There were no carpets, but the floorboards were painted white and made it feel like you were on holiday.
It was calm, quiet. Underneath the clumping of their shoes on the floorboards was a quiet quite unlike any she’d ever heard at home. Her brother would always cry in the middle of a silence, or her dad would turn the radio on in the kitchen and let old, boring pop music fill the house.
The only thing, the only odd thing, she thought, was the smell.
It was something like a forest. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it didn’t smell like indoors. It smelt cold, wet. Not damp, but ancient. It wasn’t air freshener and polish like her own home, and it wasn’t like Jess’s house, which always smelt of new paint and old dog. It was odd. That was all.
Nicholas’s dad made them both squash. He offered biscuits.
‘I don’t think we’ve met before,’ he said. ‘What did Nick say your name was?’
‘Francesca Patel, Dad. She’s in my class at school.’
‘Most people call me Frank,’ she added.
‘Frank? Mmm. Well, make yourself at home. Do you guys want to watch TV or something?’
‘No,’ she said, eating her biscuit. ‘Thanks, but I really ought to get back. I was just out putting some posters up. Mum and Dad’ll start to worry if I’m not home soon.’
Her heart sank as she thought about the posters that had been ripped up and sank further as she remembered Quintilius Minimus. In all the ‘excitement’ he’d quite slipped her mind. That was dreadful.
‘Our cat’s missing,’ she said. ‘That’s what the posters were for.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Nicholas’s dad said. ‘I can give you a lift home if you like? Make sure you get home safe. The car’s out the front. You live far?’
‘Just the other side of the park,’ she said, and told him the address.
He seemed friendly. Frank liked him.
He went off to find his car keys.
Nicholas was slowly nibbling the edges of his biscuit. He looked up at her. She’d never noticed how grey his eyes were before. They were like stones, like little sea-washed pebbles.
‘Is your mum around?’ she asked, for something to say. His dad seemed friendly and she imagined his mum might be too. It was a puzzle as to why their kid had turned out so weird, but sometimes that was the way, wasn’t it? Nice people probably had kids who were a bit backward and who got picked on and ignored at school all the time. It was called genetics.
‘No,’ Nick said. ‘She’s not here, she’s … She doesn’t live here.’
‘Well done,’ said her stomach. ‘Perfect question.’
Oh, thought Frank. That was embarrassing. She felt suddenly ashamed she’d not known that. (Something in the back of her mind, something like a whisper, made her think that maybe she had known that, had heard it somewhere, in the playground or in class.)
To cover her embarrassment, and because she wasn’t really thinking, she said so
mething stupid.
‘My mum’s not home much either. She works a lot.’
Nick looked at her and blinked slowly.
So did her stomach.
After a moment he said, ‘You sure you’ve got to go? Already?’ But he said it softly.
‘Yeah. I’d better,’ she said. ‘They’ll be worried.’
He wanted her to stay. It was so obvious. God, she thought, Nicholas Underbridge thinks I’m his friend. What am I going to do? No one must know. I’ll die of embarrassment.
Before they left she used their loo.
As Frank sat there, on the toilet under the stairs, she looked at her feet and pondered the situation. How could she dislodge Nicholas, get him to go away and leave her alone? Could she really do that after he’d helped her out, after he’d stood up for her in the way he did? Well, she had to, before anyone saw, before Jess came home from her holiday. It was as simple as that.
And then, as she sat and thought, she heard the strangest sound.
‘Shut up and listen,’ her stomach said. ‘Lend me your ears.’
It was faint, it was spooky, it was distant, far off, and it was quite beautiful.
It was music of a sort she’d never heard before.
She was suddenly filled with shoals of fish, darting and moving like one great whole, darting and flowing this way and that, darting and flashing, hundreds and hundreds of silver fish all moving as if they shared one brain. That was what she saw as she heard this faint, distant music.
It was like overhearing a conversation between your mum and dad about your birthday presents. One you’re not supposed to hear. One you’ve hidden at the top of the stairs to listen in on, purely by accident.
No piece of music she’d ever heard on the radio or in the background of a TV show had ever made her feel so special, had made her feel so cared for, so improved.
‘Shhh,’ hissed her stomach. ‘You’re thinking too loud.’
Where was it coming from? It seemed to be all around her, sort of, but in the distance. It was odd.
Maybe Mr Underbridge had turned the radio on; but they were about to go out, so why would he have done that? And besides, she could hear the pair of them moving about in the hall outside the loo.
And then the music stopped.
No, it didn’t stop; it faded and vanished without actually ending.
It had only been faint, almost too faint to hear, she thought now. It was the sort of thing that, had she read it in a book, the character in the book would have said, ‘Maybe I imagined it.’ But she wasn’t in a book. And she hadn’t imagined it. She was certain.
‘I’m certain too,’ her stomach said, on her side for once.
The kettle clicked off just as she opened the back door. There were rolls of steam churning under the cupboard where the plates lived. The radio was talking in between songs.
‘Where have you been?’ her mum said, gathering Frank up in a hug and letting her go almost at once. They both stepped backwards. ‘We’ve been worried sick. Your dad’s been out looking for you. He’s out there now. He found your bike at the rec, but you weren’t anywhere.’
Her bike! She’d completely forgotten about it.
‘One of the wheels was bent and we didn’t know what had happened to you.’
‘It’s OK, Mum,’ Frank said. ‘I just went round a friend’s house and I forgot about the time.’
‘Friend? What friend?’
‘Just a boy in my class.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Nicholas. Nick,’ Frank said.
Her mum frowned.
‘I don’t think I know him.’
‘He’s tall,’ Frank said.
Her mum thought a moment.
‘And wide?’ she asked. ‘Maybe I have seen him. I didn’t know you were friends.’
‘Well, we’re not really,’ Frank said. ‘I just met him over at the rec and –’
‘I thought you were putting up posters for Quin? Your dad said he found –’
‘There was an accident,’ Frank interrupted, knowing what her dad had found at the rec, confettied all over the tarmac. ‘There was this dog and it ran over and tore the posters up. It ripped them out my hand and shook them like mad. Nicholas and me had to run away. That’s why we went back to his house. He lives over by the school.’
She felt satisfied by this story. It made perfect sense, fitted together neatly. It was usually easier to give her parents a sort of version of the truth. It stopped all their stupid nosey questions. A mad dog was better, was less humiliating, than Neil Noble and his thugs.
‘A dog? Was there anyone around? The owner, I mean? Did you get bit? Let me see. Are you OK?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, and it wasn’t really mad or anything, just didn’t like the posters. Probably cos they had a photo of Quintilius Minimus on. You know dogs don’t like cats. That’s just the way it goes.’
‘We should get the police to look into it if you’ve been attacked. And at a playground too.’
Her mum was taking this too seriously now, thinking too hard and talking more to herself than to Frank, but at least she was distracted from the telling off she’d been giving.
‘Yeah, there was someone,’ Frank said, thinking on her feet. ‘But they were a bit back. They were running over to the dog, but we ran off before they got there.’
‘What did the dog look like?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘You must remember. Surely, darling?’
‘No, I don’t remember,’ Frank snapped. ‘OK?’
‘OK,’ her mum said gently, lifting her hands. ‘How about a cup of tea? Kettle’s just boiled.’
‘No, thanks. I don’t like tea.’
Frank went through to the lounge.
She stared at the television. It wasn’t switched on. She watched herself pulling faces on the screen.
She heard the fridge door shut, and her mum appeared in the doorway, clutching her mug in both hands. ‘You should have phoned though,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’
‘What about Dad?’ Frank asked.
‘Oh God!’ her mum said. ‘I forgot! Can you ring him, dear? Tell him you’re home. My phone’s on the table there.’
Before Frank could pick it up, it rang.
She didn’t recognise the name, but read it out to her mum.
‘It’s work, darling,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to take it.’
She put her tea down and, putting the phone to her ear, began one of the long and baffling conversations that were forever interrupting things.
Frank phoned her dad on the old landline instead.
That night Frank lay in her bed staring at the ceiling. There was a full moon and every time a breeze crept through her open window the curtain would flutter and there’d be a ripple of light above her. It was the reflection from the fishpond in the back garden. It was only on a very rare night that the moon and the pond and a gap in the clouds lined up just right.
She waited in between ripples, trying to predict when the next silvery glimpse would come. She never guessed right. It was always much longer between ripples than she hoped.
Nothing made much sense.
She hated those boys so much, but there was nothing, not one thing, she could do about them. It was a year now, more than that, that they’d been picking on her, and she couldn’t remember, had no idea, what had started it. She didn’t understand it, didn’t understand them. They’d poke and poke and poke with their words, just following her around, and if she ever talked back to them (she tried to ignore them, like people said you should) they’d just do that thing they had done outside Nicholas’s house, repeat it all back, in baby talk.
There was no way to beat them, no way to escape them.
And they never did it when there were people around. If she was with Jess they would ignore her, but the moment Jess was gone they’d be there, poking and prodding with their questions. Frank had tried to explain it to her, but Jess just didn’t get it,
didn’t understand how horrible it was. ‘They’re just boys,’ she’d said, ‘of course they’re idiots.’
Their game, she knew, was to wind her up until she snapped, until she shouted at them or hit out at them or burst into a blather of tears, and it had happened more than once. They had just laughed and laughed.
She hated being laughed at.
It made her feel powerless – which, of course, she was. She could change nothing.
Ah! There was a flash of moonlight on the ceiling. It rippled, cool and white.
She felt sick. Even the moonlight wasn’t enough to take that away. Thinking about Noble made her sick. Not actually sick, just that pre-sick feeling, as if she might throw up. It sat there somewhere between her stomach and her throat, clogging her up.
She was almost crying. It was pathetic.
And then from nowhere she remembered the music. That strange music she’d heard hidden away in the house of Nicholas Underbridge.
And then she thought of Nicholas Underbridge. Of how kind he’d been and how she didn’t dare return that kindness. It was OK here, here in the dark, where no one could see inside her head or heart, to admit that she’d almost, sort of liked him, but she couldn’t ever let anyone know that. He was not someone she could be friends with.
No one was friends with him.
But that music. There was something in it, even in the memory of it, that lifted her spirits, that made her feel light and hollow and almost happy.
It made her feel clean.
It was weird, because she didn’t even like music much. She’d given up the recorder because of the noise it made.
But she had to hear more of this, had to find out what it was. All she needed to know was the name, then she could get her mum or dad to buy the CD. Tomorrow she’d go and ask. One quick visit. No one would notice. Most of her class were away on holiday. Jess was off in some posh farmhouse in the south of France. They’d never know she’d been round Nick’s house. Twice.
Did she just call him Nick? She’d have to watch out for that.
But, in truth, it was only a little worry, and it didn’t stop her falling asleep to sweet, calm dreams for the first time in months and months.
The Song From Somewhere Else Page 2