— You should tell Mum, I say. — Last time I was sick she brought me a glass of water to help take the taste away.
— Did she?
— Yes. But it didn’t really work.
— Perhaps a different drink might have.
— Or toothpaste.
It’s a very safe car park even without the storyteller. I know, because Dad slams the car door shut without doing the window up or taking the keys out of the hole. He just swings the rucksack up onto his shoulder, takes me by the hand, and leads me out of the car park to a lift. Interestingly it also smells of sick. Somebody with a rubbish pen once wrote something on the inside of the lift doors, but it’s mostly rubbed off now. We’re not allowed permanent markers in school . . . in case they leave marks that are permanent. Dad kneels down in front of me to do up my coat before we head off into the wind, but he leaves his own coat open. Perhaps it’s because he knows we’re not going far. Just round this corner and down this smaller street to a building with a high-up flapping sign.
It’s a pub.
But not just any old pub, because when Dad finally gets to talk to the woman with no neck behind the counter he doesn’t ask for a pint of this or that, but a room. That’s right, a room which doesn’t belong to Cicely or another friend or us, a room to stay in for a whole night! Excellent! Perhaps this will turn into a proper safari holiday after all. I once saw a fat yellow Labrador with a head which went straight into its body like this lady’s. It was wearing a red harness thing because a normal collar would have slipped straight off, but this lady is a human who stands up straight and that’s why she’s still allowed to wear lots of gold chains. They would only fall off if she did a headstand. She repeats everything Dad says to double-check he means it, then asks, — In what name?
— Attenborough, says Dad, squeezing my hand. — First initial “D.” Before I can ask him why he said that he carries on: — And this boy here would like a Coke. With ice. Am I right?
— Yes. Yes. Yes.
— Good. He turns back to No-neck. — I’ll keep him company with a pint of Guinness.
— A Coke and a pint of Guinness?
It’s not that hard, Labrador. Keep up! He might change his mind. But she’s already started pouring, and Dad is steering me past the end of the bar to a table in the corner behind the fruit machines. I know that’s what they’re called, and I also know there’s no real fruit in them, just money people have put in to make the lights light up.
I wait while Dad goes back to fetch the drinks. There are lots of little cardboard squares to stack up and spread out again on this table, but they don’t slide well because the wooden surface is wetly smeary. Occasionally at home I try to put my pajamas on before I’ve properly dried the backs of my legs and that doesn’t work either because of damp friction. If I lay the cards out like this they look like bricks. Friction. Legs. A wall. Bricks. A thought is nearly thinking itself, but it won’t quite say itself in words: it feels similar to when I feel like I need the loo, and try for ages, and nothing happens. That is called con-stupid. Being unable to think is just stupid. I’m not going to have a problem pulling my pajamas on today, though, because they’re already on, beneath my wellies and coat. In a pub. I feel suddenly strange and small, like an arctic fox cub might feel if it wandered onto the Serengeti. No use having two coats of dense fur here. But Dad is concentrating his way across the dark-planks floor now, and yes, yes, yes, he’s not just bringing our two black glasses, because he’s also carrying snacks. Lots of them. There are a couple of packets gripped to the glasses, one between his cast-elbow and side, and he even has a bag of something hanging from his shut teeth. He sets the drinks down and tumbles the snack packets down in front of me.
— Dinner, he says, ripping things open. — Dig in.
It’s fantastic: there are two kinds of peanuts and a big bag of pork scratchings and a packet each of beef and mustard crisps. We crunch without talking for quite a long salty time, after which Dad goes back to the bar. My drink isn’t finished yet but I don’t say anything. It works. He comes back with more Coke and Guinness, and a whole separate extra drink for himself. It’s trans-parrot, not water, but very thirst clinching anyway: he gulps it down fast and fetches another to go with the next Guinness.
After a while the packets are empty and the pub is full and Dad starts talking about when I was born. It’s confusing. First he says it was the happiest day of his life, but then he says it was also the day he first knew real fear. I am a miracle, he says. His love for me was instantly bottomless, yet it deepens with each passing day. The fear, too. I don’t know what he means but I make sure he is very reassuring by telling him it’s okay, I didn’t mean to do frightening. He wipes his eyes and drinks some more and says no, no, no: he’s not frightened of me, he’s frightened for me. I don’t understand that either. He tries to explain something about destroying the thing you value the most, which makes me think of Orangey, the goldfish I knelt on, so I remind him about that, but apparently it’s not quite the point.
What the point is, I never find out. He changes the subject and starts telling me a story about never having actually seen some white cliffs, but I can’t really concentrate because I suddenly desperately need a wee. When I say so his eyes take an unusually long time to understand. Eventually he says, — Oh yes, of course, help yourself, and nods in the direction of the back of the pub where there’s a door. Not all women wear skirts, but if you’re a woman and you happen to be wearing trousers I’m sorry, you’re still not allowed in here. It’s for men: look, urinals. I know: they should put a willy hanging down between the legs on the sign, then there’d be less room for confusion.
Have you ever noticed that when you desperately need a wee and stand near a toilet you need it even more desperately? It’s true, and standing by a urinal is actually worse. Sadly I’m wearing my coat with the long zip which is a tricky customer. My fingers take ages dragging it down and off the end, and by the time I’m ready to go it’s terrible because I’ve already started going. There’s wet in the crutch of my pajama bottom: for some reason it makes my sore leg throb. And just then two more men bang through the door behind me laughing and I don’t know what to do. My coat is on the floor. I can actually feel some warm wet in my welly boot.
One of the men says, — King hell. This isn’t right.
The other says, — They’ll be serving Oompa Lloompahs next.
I’m quite frightened. The urinal smells of flowers turned into permanent pens. If they had an Airblade I might be able to dry my pajama bottoms, but I look around quickly and they don’t. The next-best thing is to hide what I did in my coat. I pull it on and start trying to do the zip up but my hands are relatively useless. Dung beetles are strong: they could do up zips bigger than a house. One of the men is making a very loud wee. The metal urinal sounds like the news music. Drumerty-drumerty-drumerty: there’s been an earthquake. But the other man is still just standing there with his hands on his hips.
— Who are you with?
I nearly tell him, but even though not all strangers are bad, Son, right now seems like a good time not to speak.
— Well?
My fingers are scrabbling at the zip but it won’t zag up. That’s nearly part of the thought, too: a zip, a brick, a wall, a leg, friction. And stairs. They’re useful, too. But this man here is cross. He’s squatting down in front of me with his belly, trying to look cheerful, but his shaven head, which is belly-round, too, is shaking as if somebody has told him a horse normally has three legs.
— It’s not right at all, he says again. Then, — How old are you?
It just comes out: — Six.
— King hell.
Now I’ve started it’s hard to stop: — I’m in Miss Hart’s class.
— Who’s brought you here tonight?
— My dad.
— Right.
— We’re on safari.
He looks up at his friend. — I’ve never heard it called that before.
I’m just about to tell the jeans man I’ll take him to Dad, because that seems sensible, when the door bangs open, and here he is lurching in anyway, saying, — Billy, Billy? even though I’m standing on the tiles right in front of him.
— Christ! he says. — Come here.
He quickly bundles me up, coat and dribbled pajama bottoms together, and looks hard from one man to the other, and interestingly even though they’ve just been saying they should have a word, now Dad’s here Smeary Jeans suddenly decides to wash his hands after all, and the Belly tries to make the wall tiles explode with his laser stare while his thumbs work at the buttons of his fly.
Fly.
Flies.
— Is it fly or flies, and why is it called that anyway? I ask Dad as he spins us back out into the pub.
He doesn’t answer. It’s as if he hasn’t heard, but something many-beer about the not hearing stops me from repeating the question. We’re on the move, anyway, heading back to our table, though when we arrive we don’t sit down. Dad just glugs back the last of the trans-parrot drink, then snatches at his rucksack strap. Sadly, he knocks the glasses off the table. One smashes. I nearly say, — At least it wasn’t full, but don’t. Everyone is looking at us. Sunflowers all face the same way in the day but what about at night? Dad doesn’t pick up the pieces or ask for a dustpan and brush or say sorry, he just stares back at everybody for a moment, then drags me to the end of the bar where Labrador has her fat arms crossed. If you barbecue sausages without pricking them first they split.
— Room key, says Dad.
— I already gave it you.
He sways. — You gave it to me.
— Yes.
— Yes. What?
— I. Gave. It. To. You.
— You did? You did. So, where do we go?
— Up the stairs, second door on the left. Bathroom’s opposite.
— Bathroom’s opposite.
— Like I said.
— Like you said.
— Yes. Sleep well.
This woman is annoying me now: she started the repeating-everything game, and now Dad is joining in she’s being so cat sick. It means saying hello, hello, how nice to see you, when what you really mean is no, no, not you, just go away.
We push through the people to the door. There’s a hand hanging down with a word on its knuckles, a glass held so that the yellow liquid is about to slop out, a huge belt buckle, and a — Mind yourself! as we shove past. Out in the hall there are swirly carpet stairs. If you dropped a plate of spaghetti here it would be nicely camouflaged. For a second it seems Dad has forgotten the instructions again, but just as I’m about to remind him I see that in fact he’s stopped to look at a phone tied to a big silver box on the wall. His good hand jabs in his front jeans pocket as the red one steers me to sit on the bottom step. He’s about to put money in there instead of lighting up the fruit machines, which is a shame, and yet the hand with the coin pauses near the slot. Don’t do it! But he does: he thumb-slides the coins into the machine in a rush, and punches the numbers, and suddenly I feel like my toothbrush: it’s an electric astronaut one, but sadly its batteries ran down ages ago, so now when I put it in my mouth and turn it on the astronaut just judders the brush very weakly as if he’s exhausted. I drop my head onto my arm and lean low to the spaghetti carpet which smells of Dhiren’s wet dog up close, and Dad does some talking and listening and gets cross.
— Safe? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Easy, Dad. It means not endangered. Like tigers. Or like a tiger in a strong box with a lock you can’t crack. A safe. Actually, it’s hard to crack metal. Much easier to wear it out by bending spoons. That’s called fatigued, which means so tired you fall in half.
— Did you say police?
I didn’t say anything. If you crack a safe, though, you’ll be a thief, so yes, they’ll call the police. Cops and robbers. Copper is a metal: it can also suffer from fatigue, particularly if your tiger escapes.
Slam goes the phone. I jerk up startled-meerkat fast.
— You’re okay, Billy, he says quickly. His face folds itself back together, very concentrating all of a sudden, as he takes me by the hand and leads me upstairs, and even though it’s incredibly late he runs me a shallow bath in the little bathroom with black stuff around the taps, and says nothing about my pajama bottoms, just gives me a clean pair of pants when he’s finished carefully drying the backs of my legs, sore one especially gently, and up they go smoothly, no problem at all, and my teeth squeak with his excellently sharp grown-up minty toothpaste, and the fingers of his good hand even have a go at doing some combing through my damp hair.
He peels up the bedding.
He lies me between the sheets.
The bedsprings chirrup as he rolls in, too.
And he pulls my back into the warmth of his chest.
I’m so, so tired. My body feels like it’s falling as soon as I shut my eyes. Sheep, sheep, exploding sheep . . . and I still can’t sleep. His breathing makes me think of waves falling onto a pebbly beach, and the high-tide line is full of nutritious scraps for a whole ray of likely scavengers. Dad isn’t asleep either, but he doesn’t sound properly awake. He’s muttering. Words fall from him like conkers off a tree.
— Tried.
— All.
— Cards.
— Hard.
— Stacked.
Then a little flock of them tumble down in a flurry: something to do with it being no use changing the rules of a game, and having to play with one hand tied behind anyway. Next:
— Give.
— Bent.
— His.
And then he talks for a bit about not being pushed around, and seeing them all coming because there’s one on every bloody ridge.
— Up.
— Dead.
— Job.
— Joke.
— End.
— Hang.
— Left.
There’s a pause, before he says, — Communications projects fucking farce, then something about a slow-motion train crash. His grip around me tightens and he says we’re connected whatever they do. Conkers again:
— Blood.
— All.
— Out.
— Hands.
— Back.
— Think.
He repeats this word a few times with can’t, impossible, and pointless thrown in. Then a snort of laughter brings some fresh conkers rattling down.
— Veins.
— Bitch.
— Plug.
— Know.
— Fall.
— Else.
— Pull.
— Matter.
— Fault.
— Point.
— Walk.
— Failed.
— Up.
— End.
— Give.
He goes on about the car window for a while next. I knew we should have wound it up, but he starts talking about the exhaust pipe, which reminds me that I’m exhausted. Ex horse dead. His grip on me slackens off again as the last three conkers thud into the pillow.
— White.
— Love.
— Cliffs.
Have you ever eaten a full English breakfast? Neither have I, not all of one. But after only eating snacks the night before, I’m impressively hungry as soon as I wake up and roll over to see Dad already dressed and sitting there. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me funnily with the apple thing in his throat bobbling.
— I’m extremely hungry, I explain.
He rocks back in his chair an inch and says, — Of course. Let’s have a proper breakfast.
He dresses me. It’s lovely but odd: lovely because it’s a friendly treat, and odd because even though I’m not good at clothes I’m supposed to do them so that I improve
because I’m six. After I’m done, he folds up my pajamas and packs them into his rucksack, doing everything very calmly and gently, like a Slow Loris. Once the bag is zipped up he makes the bed and pulls back the curtain. There are some dark bricks and a slice of purplish sky. Still very early. He doesn’t mention it, though, just waits patiently while I pull my boots onto the wrong feet, take them off again, and put them back on properly. We tiptoe down the stairs. We’re still on safari, then, but never mind magic animals, there’s nobody at all in the bar or hall. Dad has to undo the catch on the pub door before it will let us out. He pauses in the doorway to pull up my hood and take my hand. Then he leads me slowly down the street in the opposite direction from our car in its many-storied parking space.
We find a café. It’s not like the one near our house with its gold chocolate coins and marvelous-smelling warm-air door thing. It’s better. There’s ketchup in tomato-shaped bottles on every table, and there’s no lady to queue up for; you just sit down and a man comes to write what you want on a tiny piece of paper. What we want turns out to be excellent: tea, hot chocolate, two orange juices, and two full English breakfasts. One of the man’s thornbush eyebrows spikes upward when Dad says this. — Really? he says, nodding at me. — They’re big.
Dad doesn’t look up, just repeats, — Two full English.
— It’s your money. The man shrugs and walks away.
While we wait Dad looks at me so carefully I actually feel shy. He can tell, because he reaches out for my hands which I didn’t realize were electrically fiddling with the little salt and pepper things and holds them loosely on the little tabletop. When Dhiren’s dog had puppies I had to hold them softly, too.
— Shh, says Dad, even though I wasn’t saying anything. —Everything is going to be all right. He nods to himself and pumps my hands three times. Everything is all right, so that doesn’t make sense either, but I don’t say anything. After a patch of silence Dad goes on.
— How about a story while we wait?
— Yes!
— Okay then. Who should be in it?
— A leopard.
The apple bobs in his neck again. — What does this leopard want?
What I Did Page 24