by Heidi James
The boys were still practising their drills, running in rows and tossing a ball from one to the other as the coach yelled instructions from the side. Marcus walked over to the picnic benches set out for spectators and sat down. He was so nervous it felt as if his stomach was in his chest, swallowing his heart. He dropped his bag between his feet and jammed his hands in his pockets, then took them out and crossed his arms, and then put them back in his pockets, then he crossed them again. It was a mistake to come. Of course it was.
The team finished and he watched as they gathered around the coach and tipped water into their mouths and scratched their arses and shoved each other. Anthony was standing at the front, listening intently, his purple and grey jersey tight across his chest. They turned towards him and started back, a couple of stragglers left to pick up the cones and pellet shaped balls. The changing rooms were directly behind him: Anthony had to pass him, had to see him, had to speak to him.
Steaming like a herd of cattle, the heat and sweat rising from them, the team passed him. The coach eyed him up and down and, from his expression, didn’t like what he saw, but he didn’t recognise Marcus as he’d never been selected for any of the teams. Finally Anthony, beautiful Anthony walked past, catching his eye for a second then ducking his head and jogging off into the changing room.
He waited until the whole team had gone inside and then sat on the bench, his body suddenly all fluid and loose. His hands wobbled rather than shook and a ripple of sweat soaked his shirt and the seat of his jeans. But even though Anthony had just walked past, had seen him and said nothing, his look, that split second look said everything. He loved Marcus, he did, he was afraid, that was all. So he decided to wait. Excited now, he felt bigger and stronger, like a man.
So he waited, watching as the rest of the team left one by one, hair shower-damp, their bags slung over their shoulders, some unlocking their bikes and cycling off, others sliding into parents’ cars. But no Anthony, still no Anthony, then the coach came out, looked around and spotted Marcus, still sitting on the bench.
‘You Marcus?’ he called, walking over, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun, lower in the sky now.
‘Yeah.’ It was getting chilly and goose bumps rose on Marcus’s arms.
‘You have to leave.’
‘Why? I’m just waiting for my friend. I’m not doing anything.’
‘Your friend? Do you mean Anthony? Because he is pretty adamant that you are not friends, and this is private property, so you need to go.’
‘Can I just speak to him for a minute, just a minute, please?’
The older man looked at Marcus, assessing him, then half turned to look in the direction of the changing block. He turned back and slowly shook his head. ‘Listen, Marcus. I don’t want to embarrass you or hurt your feelings, but Anthony asked me to make you leave. His parents are on their way and they don’t want you here either. So, I suggest you go, OK? Don’t make this any harder on yourself. Anthony doesn’t want to talk to you. He really doesn’t.’
‘Please, I just want to… I waited all this time.’
The coach shook his head and bent down to pick up Marcus’ bag. ‘You need to head home now.’ He handed over the bag.
Marcus stood for a second, his head too heavy for his neck, his body too heavy to move. Then, blinking back tears, he nodded, shouldered his bag and started walking, knowing he was being watched until he turned out of the gates and had left the school grounds.
The walk back to town seemed quicker, over grey gobs of gum flattened on the pavement; dog shit dried white in the gutters while plastic carrier bags half swollen by the wind rolled and turned like tumbleweed. He watched his feet taking steps beneath him, moving him forwards; he side-stepped other bodies, other people and waited at the side of roads until he could cross, stepping out without really seeing where he was going. Like a puppet, pretending to be human. It would be good to feel real. To know what he was really feeling and act on it rather than pulling his face and body into the shapes he thought were expected. He didn’t trust his own reactions or feelings. Not really. He didn’t belong in the world, not like Melanie. She belonged. His mother would say it was teen angst and he would grow out of it, but he didn’t think so.
The traffic was building up now, people on their way home from work, driving back to family and dinner and the TV. He wasn’t far from home either. He glanced right and then left and then right again; he walked out in to the road, his feet repeating – heel toe heel toe. Knees and hips flexing. There was no squealing of brakes or the drag of tyres on tarmac, and he reached the kerb seconds before he could’ve been hit, but a passing car blew its horn at him anyway and pulled up sharp beside him.
‘Marcus!’ Melanie climbed out and slammed the door shut as it drove away, giving him only a second to see the driver.
‘What are you doing? You look like a zombie.’
‘I’m going home.’
‘You could’ve been killed!’
‘But I wasn’t. Whose car was that?’
‘No one special. Anyway, I’m worried about you. What’s happened?’
‘It doesn’t matter. What about you? Who was that? It looked like that guy from Leysdown.’ The bloke was dressed differently, smarter maybe, but he was pretty sure he recognised the man who’d scared Mel into silence, except she didn’t seem so scared now, only tired. Dark rings shadowed her eyes.
‘Did it? Well it wasn’t.’ She blinked. ‘Where have you been? You look sick.’ She reached for his hand and turned it over, tracing the lines like a palm reader. He felt her hot breath on the thin skin of his wrist, meeting his pulse.
‘I went to my old school to see Anthony.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I wanted to see him, I wanted to talk to him.’
‘That sounds like a bad idea.’
‘You haven’t been around so I couldn’t talk to you. You were gone, I was lonely.’ A shiver interrupted the expression on her face, but only for a second and he didn’t take much notice, too caught up in Anthony.
‘So what happened?’ She moved her hand from his and tucked it into the crook of his arm, guiding him along the path away from the road, glancing once over her shoulder.
‘The coach told me to leave, he said Anthony doesn’t want to talk to me but I don’t believe that. I think his parents and the headmaster made him say that.’
‘How do you know? Has Anthony phoned you or written to you.’
‘No, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to.’
‘You can’t change reality by wishing, and you can’t make someone love you when they don’t.’
‘I’m not trying to do that. I saw the way he looked at me, you weren’t there and you don’t know him, but I do. I know him.’
‘That’s true’, she said, ‘I don’t. But I know you. Come on, I’ll walk you home.’
It was only after she’d gone that he realised she was wearing her school uniform, even though she hadn’t been in for days.
Once Sown
‘Do you remember how you used to help Daddy in the garden?’ Mum stood in the study looking out onto the lawn creeping out from the terrace towards the stand of silver birch trees. I had taken refuge there, at home. No one followed me.
‘Did I?’ I replied.
‘Yes, you used to potter around with him, helping him weed and dead head. You even helped him set those birches. You had your own little plastic watering can. Do you remember that?’
‘I do, it was red with a yellow spout.’ I leaned back against the large armchair, trying to focus on her and what she was saying. Trying to maintain the illusion of being myself.
‘“The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies” Your father used to say that all the time. I miss him. You know, I don’t like to mope, but I do miss him.’
‘Yes, you must.’
‘He’s been gone thirty-five years.’
‘I know, mum.’
‘I wonder what he’d make of us now?’ She turned to face me, resting her hand on the window latch, greying and stout, suddenly smaller, it seemed.
‘Oh God. I dread to think.’ I grimaced, and crossed my arms in front of my chest, my fist pressed into my shoulder.
‘He’d be very proud of you. An eminent journalist, whose work has brought him awards, that’s what he’d see in you. And this other stuff, he’d stand by you as I do, as I always will. Anyone who knows you knows you’re incapable of anything less than courage and integrity. Even Joyce says so.’
‘Well, if Joyce says so...’
She turned back to the garden, full and ripe with flowers just turning to seed. The grass needed cutting, waiting for the young kid she paid to run the mower around. Puffy balls of hydrangeas bounced in the warm air: it was hot, one of those rare English summers of dry relentless heat where the grass curls in dry, yellow wisps. It occurred to me that I’d never spent a summer with Mel; she’d already gone by then.
‘Why don’t we go into town and get some flowers for Daddy’s plot? Shall we? That would be good for us both, I think. Don’t you? Let’s spend some time together and get out of here.’
‘I don’t know, I’ve got things I need to do, calls to make.’
‘Come on, darling. You can’t mope around in here all day. Please.’
‘Alright,’ I nodded. ‘You win, let’s go.’
I opened the car door and helped her in before climbing in to the driver’s seat and turning the engine over. ‘Right then,’ I said, for no reason except to break the silence.
Mother patted my hand where it rested on the gear stick, then grasped the handbag in her lap. ‘Right then,’ she echoed.
I shifted into first and pulled out of the drive. The black Audi was down the street, parked under a rowan tree. A bird had shat on the bonnet, a thick white splash studded with cherry pits. I said nothing and drove on, watching the car in the rear view mirror. It didn’t move.
1989
‘Bloody hell, it’s freezing in here.’
‘No shit, Sherlock,’ said Melanie’s mother. ‘We don’t want the flowers to wilt do we?’
‘They’re pretty.’ Mel said, watching her twist pink roses and a white frothy flower together, the tips of her fingers blue with cold.
‘You think so?’ Her mother turned, reached behind her for a large pair of scissors and snipped at a length of ribbon, still holding the flowers. She flipped and twisted and tied and cut in a dextrous blur and placed the finished flowers with their huge ribbon bow on the glass counter.
‘This is Marcus, my friend from school.’
The woman turned and ran her eyes over his face and down to his shoes before she nodded. ‘Hello Marcus.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ he burbled, half-shivering, half-burning up from the look she gave him. He never could hide his shame, though what he was ashamed of then is hard to understand.
Melanie’s mother was thin and hollow-cheeked, with blonde hair tucked up in a dark wool hat, her skin still freckled and sun-blotched, apart from her nose which was as blue as her fingers. She looked much younger than his own mother, but unsmiling, hard at the edges.
‘Can I have some lunch money?’ Mel jiggled on the spot, her hands in her blazer pockets.
‘For God’s sake, it’s always something with you! Want want want.’ Her mother opened the till and took a pound coin. ‘Don’t go to the chippy with it. Get a proper sandwich from the baker. And hurry up out of it, if Kathleen sees you I’ll get gyp.’ She handed Mel the money.
‘Ta, mum.’ Mel turned on her heel, her skirt fanning out around her like a dancer’s. ‘It’s as cold as a butcher’s heart in here,’ she said as she dodged the buckets of lilies and tulips on her way out to the street.
Cold Hands, Warm Heart
‘What was that, Marcus?’
‘Huh?’ I looked up from flipping through the stack of small cards the florist used for messages – condolence cards, new baby, birthday, anniversary, good luck – platitudes crammed onto a printed slip the size of a business card. The nauseating smell of the lilies with their indelible orange pollen hung in the chill. Mother tucked her purse into her handbag and picked up a bouquet of chrysanthemums.
‘Thank you,’ she smiled to the woman behind the counter, who’d turned her back and was already working on another arrangement, singing along to the radio playing in the back room.
‘I said it’s as cold as a butcher’s heart in here. It’s what Melanie said about this place. Her mum worked in here, you know.’
‘Did she? I didn’t know that. Mind you, I don’t know that I ever even met her mother or father, did I?’
‘No, I doubt it. They weren’t the sociable type.’ She folded her arm in mine and pulled me close, the familiar smell of her perfume clouding my head.
‘Would you mind driving up to the cemetery?’ She sniffed at the broad mouth of the bouquet, inhaling the scent. ‘They don’t really smell nice, but that doesn’t matter. Does it?’
‘No, it doesn’t.’ We walked back to the car, avoiding mothers pushing buggies, old ladies tugging shopping trolleys and lunching office workers blinkered by their phones. We passed a newsstand with the local paper’s headline, UNDERCOVER COP MURDERED, splashed over a photo of Steve Burrell, where even in black and white his gold tooth flashed dark and memorable.
1989
So together they took the pound and went to the kiosk at the end of the High Street, near the tattoo parlour and the dodgy pub that the skinheads and the National Front drank in. The kiosk was a trailer, like a horsebox only smaller and with a front hatch that opened onto the street. Racks of chocolate and sweets were in the front and magazines dangled from taut lines of string like laundry. A shelf stacked with cigarette packets was placed on the left wall, just beyond grabbing reach from the street.
‘Can I get a couple of Silk Cut singles, please, Mahmoud?’ Mel leaned on the newspapers laid out on the front ledge of the kiosk, peering at the boxes of crisp packets stacked up in the back. ‘And a box of matches and a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch.’
Mahmoud bent under the counter and pulled two cigarettes from a packet, grabbed a box of matches and then the crisps. ‘You’re sixteen?’
‘Yes, I am.’ Mel pushed the pound coin towards him.
‘OK.’ He gave her fifty pence change as she pocketed the fags and matches and chucked the crisp packet to Marcus.
They shared the crisps as the two of them walked over to the river, with Marcus glancing around every now and then to check they hadn’t been seen.
‘This’ll do,’ Mel said and they sat on the low wall that lined the mud banks. The bile-coloured river pulled and coiled in twisting currents heading for the estuary and then on out to sea. Mel lit both fags, shielding the match by pulling on her blazer lapel and tucking her head and the fags down towards her chest and passed one to him. He sat for a bit, smoking, not coughing and feeling sick any more.
‘You don’t look like your mum.’
‘Everyone says I’m like my dad.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Like me, I suppose! Ha!’ She laughed, which sounded more like a cynical cough really, then said, ‘I don’t know, I never met him.’
‘Why?’
‘Not sure. Mum says Granddad made him leave us, Nan says he did a bunk. Either way it amounts to the same thing. What does it matter now?’
‘That’s terrible.’
‘Why is it? You can’t miss what you don’t know, and I wouldn’t want a dad who stuck around because of duty, hating us.’
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ He thought about his own father, and the shirts and jackets still hanging in the wardrobe in his mother’s room. At least his dad was dead; it would be stupid to take that
personally.
‘We’re doing alright as we are. Mum’s pretty solid most of the time.’ She held her cigarette up and examined the tip for a moment.
‘I didn’t know she was a florist. I thought she worked in a pub.’ He was embarrassed by how curious he was about Mel and her family, knowing it revealed something about himself. Why was he so curious? Perhaps it was partly because of her mystique, her hold over him, and partly because her world was not his. Were they really so different? Maybe they were and maybe he believed that if he could only figure her out, emulate her – her gestures, her attitude – then maybe he could be invincible, extraordinary, like her.
‘She does.’
‘What?’
‘She works in the florist and she does a couple of shifts in the pub.’
‘That sounds exhausting.’
‘That’s work, I suppose. Got to pay the bills. What you gonna do when you leave here?’ She jutted her jaw and jerked it forward as she exhaled, blowing a perfect smoke ring.
‘Uni, then journalism, I think. I hope. What about you?’
‘Anything, as long as I’m not here. Maybe I’ll go to America and marry Kurt Cobain, and write songs with Kim Gordon, or maybe I’ll just travel the world and dip my toes in every ocean.’ She tapped her ash over the wall into the mud. A bird’s footprints zigzagged across the oily surface like crude stick figures drawn by a child.
‘You could come to Uni with me,’ he said, taking a last puff before guiltily stubbing it out and flicking the butt out into the river.