by Phil Earle
As my fingers reached for tobacco, I hoped my silence would tell her everything she needed to know and she’d back off.
It did nothing of the sort.
‘It’s not unusual to feel guilt when someone close to you dies, you know? It makes you think about things you should have done differently, things that perhaps you shouldn’t have said. Do you know what I mean?’
I jerked my head slightly as I lit my fag, not wanting to encourage her.
‘What is really important is that you don’t allow these thoughts to settle. You must not give them the time of day, or allow them to replay over and over in your mind. It will do you no good to do this, Daisy, believe me.’
I exhaled hard, seeing if I could force the waves back with my smoke. Anything not to engage with Ade. She was getting too close.
‘All this will take time, but it will take a lot longer if you choose to ignore it. Every day I’m happy to walk with you. Every day I will ask you how you are feeling, if there is anything I can do to help you make sense of whatever is in your head. But I cannot make you talk. This has to be up to you.’
‘I don’t see the point in talking.’ I wasn’t angry, just bored and frustrated with the conversation. ‘What good will it do me? What’s done is done. I can’t take it back. Talking won’t uncrash the car, will it?’
‘Of course, no. As much as we all wish it would. But talking about it may allow you to understand it differently, realize that perhaps it wasn’t your fault.’
Emotions built up in my throat and I sucked hard on my rollie, trying to burn them away. I wished things were that simple, but I knew, really knew, that they couldn’t possibly be.
‘Can you tell me one thing, Daisy? For today, just one thing. In fact, it does not even have to be said. Just a nod or a shake is all I need. Just tell me this. Do you really think that you are responsible for your dad’s crash?’
‘I know I am.’
She looked impressed that she’d dragged more than a gesture out of me. So much so that she shuffled closer, draping her arm around my shoulders.
‘Then we have work to do, because I know that it is not true. I have seen that you are many things, Daisy Houghton, but a killer you are not. And I promise we will break this belief down. That one day you will wake up and this thought, this belief you have, will seem so ridiculous, so laughable, that it will just crumble away in your mind. Do you believe me?’
I wanted to believe her, more than anything. But I believed in my own powers more. After all, it wasn’t just Dad who’d succumbed to them, was it?
At the same time, I could hear Patrick’s and Naomi’s voices too, reminding me that only Bex really understood us. Ade was calm and reassuring, but she was so together and at ease with everything that I didn’t see how she could possibly help me.
And so I answered honestly.
‘I don’t believe you, no.’
Her arm didn’t move from around me. If anything the hug got tighter and warmer, increasing my guilt.
‘OK, fine. I’ll just have to work harder, then, won’t I?’ She smiled again. ‘We both will. Come on.’
And before I could flick my cigarette over the edge of the cliff, we were back on our feet, eating up the coastal path, Ade with a new sense of purpose and me with a new sense of dread.
Chapter 32
What followed was the longest and most one-sided game imaginable. Imagine Roger Federer playing tennis against a surly, uninterested teenager and you’ll get a sense of how pointless it was.
Ade would spend hours, days, lobbing me ways of dealing with my shit and I’d watch them bounce at my feet and ignore them as they fell off the cliff. I didn’t even have the decency to whack them straight back at her as hard as I possibly could.
I had to give it to Ade, she had patience and staying power, and a smile that refused to be wiped from her face. But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t let her, or anyone else, in. It was just too dangerous.
I think her tenacity exhausted me as well. I was so tired of her prompting and probing, no matter how subtly, that I forgot how much I’d warmed to her early on, how without her I would have been back in hospital, perhaps in the psychiatric ward. I had a massive downer on her that drove me even closer to cigarettes and secret vodka. That was the only game I was interested in playing and I was getting pretty good at it too.
Not as good as the others, granted – even Susie, all five foot of her, could handle more booze than me – but that didn’t matter. It gave me the respite that neither Ade nor any of the other carers could.
I got more careless about it as well, less secretive about what I was doing, and was rumbled with booze in my room a couple of times, earning myself a dressing-down at community meeting in front of everyone. Not that the others cared. It was a run-of-the-mill occurrence and if anything it let me earn my stripes, prove that I was one of them, someone they didn’t have to share their secrets with, just whatever drink they’d got their hands on that day.
Naomi could still be icy, especially when she had to share Ade with me, and I never understood why, if she thought Ade was so useless, she got lairy in the first place. What I didn’t ever do was ask her. I’d learned from day one that it was unwise to question her on anything, not if you liked the way your faced looked.
I’d been at Bellfield for nearly two months before she trusted me enough to include me in one of her little plans, the plan that meant getting drunk somewhere other than on site.
She and Paddy did it every now and then, disappearing for long enough to put the frighteners on the staff, who’d be dispersed in force, sometimes alongside the police, to bring them home.
Why she’d suddenly decided it was my turn eluded me, but I didn’t argue. I had the devil in me and was up for whatever she had in mind.
‘Eric’s taking us all to the pleasure mile tonight,’ she’d whispered, ‘but he’s taking us with one of the students, which should give us chance to slip away for a bit. You up for it?’
The mile was always so packed with tourists in summer that I knew it was worth a go, and although Eric was on the ball, the students they sent in to observe us were pretty gormless. It certainly shouldn’t be difficult to do a bunk from under their gaze.
‘Why not? I’ve got a few quid left.’ I flashed her a pocketful of shrapnel.
‘That’ll keep us in ciggies for the night.’ There was a serious look on her face and I felt my chances of joining her dip. ‘But to be honest, Daisy, we aren’t going to need much dosh tonight. Not if you listen to what I tell you.’
‘Even better,’ I replied.
It felt good to be asked. All we had to do now was while away the hours until the minibus left and find a way of avoiding Ade in the process.
There was a buzz in the minibus as we rolled through the gates. Paddy had taken control of the music and had Jay-Z pounding through the speakers. I had no idea what he was rapping about, but the bass was low and heavy and shook through my bones, adding to my sense of excitement about the night ahead. Naomi had spent the afternoon reminding me of the need to be cool and to tell no one of what we had planned. If any member of staff got wind of it, they’d cancel the trip and we’d end up grounded for the foreseeable future. That was all I needed to know, and I spent a large chunk of the afternoon in my room, thinking it the safest option.
It was heaving as we approached the mile, which was little wonder given the warmth of the evening, and although the queues slowed the minibus to a crawl, it couldn’t dilute our excitement. In fact, it added to the euphoric expression on Naomi’s face. She looked so joyous that I was tempted to tell her to wind it in a bit. She was never usually so happy and was in danger of giving the game away.
‘This is perfect,’ she whispered. ‘With it being so busy it’ll be easier for us to slip away. Plus it’ll buy us some time as well, make it more difficult for them to find us quickly.’
I nodded keenly,
liking the sound of it more by the minute.
After another half-hour we managed to get parked, then, after a brief lecture from Eric, we piled out of the van.
‘Listen, people,’ he’d trilled. ‘It’s not often we give this much leeway, so do yourselves proud, stick together and keep safe, you hear me?’
There’d been nods and varying levels of agreement, Naomi kicking up slightly at the prospect of having to trawl around with the likes of Susie (you had to give it to her, the girl could act when she needed to).
‘But most importantly, have a wicked time,’ shouted Eric, and he led us on to the seafront and the gaudy lights of the pleasure mile.
It’d been ages since Dad had brought me here, and longer still since I’d been at night. It could have been the mood I was in, but everywhere I looked I saw the potential to go mad, to lose myself in the mayhem. It wouldn’t be dark for another hour, but already the flashing neon and strobes from the fairground rides were taking over, invading and seducing me. I was never usually one for the roller coasters, but tonight I wanted to sample them all, suck every bit of adrenalin from every ride possible, to show Naomi I could match her each step of the way. Because if I could, then I knew there would be no room for all the other shit clogging up my brain.
We bounced along the seafront, pausing to grab money from Eric that we fed to the hungry machines. We rode motorbikes and cars, gunning them through exotic locations. We fired rounds of ammo in the most dangerous hotspots on earth, not caring about the hostages we took or the damage that rained down around us. The pound coins seemed to be endless and, apart from the odd one we pocketed to bolster our tobacco fund, we spent them greedily, as quickly as Eric could find them.
Everyone seemed to be high on the atmosphere. I’d never seen Paddy so entranced. He found one shoot-’em-up in the busiest arcade and didn’t move for the next half-hour. In fact, he didn’t even blink in that time, and I stood for a while just watching the drama unfold through the reflections in his eyes.
There were no arguments or snide comments between any of us, no simmering battles with the staff, just a collective high at being lost on the seafront.
It was almost a disappointment when Naomi pulled me to one side and said it was time to slide away.
‘Can’t we wait a bit longer?’ I’d pleaded, like a kid being told it was time to go home.
‘Nope, has to be now. It’ll be dark in twenty minutes and Eric’ll keep sharper tabs on us then. So here’s the drill. In a sec I’ll spin away. Two minutes after that and NO longer –’ she fixed me with a death stare – ‘you do the same. Just duck away and meet me by the old lighthouse, got it?’
I lifted my gaze above her head, fixing my eyes on our rendezvous point.
‘That one?’ I asked.
‘Of course that one,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t give the bleeding game away now, you idiot. Just chill out and soon as you see me go start counting, yeah?’
I nodded and watched her amble to the edge of the group, her eyes falling on a slot machine that took her fancy.
Suddenly I felt nervous, anticipation nibbling at my guts. I felt more alive than I had in months, almost drunk without a drop touching my lips. My eyes flicked around the others, to see if anyone had wind of what we were up to, but there wasn’t a sniff from any of them. Eric was in the middle of a two-player game with the student, while Susie, Jim and Paddy were sat side by side on motorbikes, eating up the roads of Monte Carlo.
I turned back to Naomi, feeling the need to tell her how much fun I was having, but she was gone, apart from the tight curls of her ponytail surfing through the crowd. I checked my watch, realizing there wasn’t a second hand for me to follow, and immediately felt self-conscious, like I had the word ‘guilt’ tattooed across my forehead.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Eric, despite knowing he’d see through me as soon as he glanced my way, and instinctively I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. It had probably only been ten seconds instead of two minutes, but it didn’t matter, it was now or never, and without hesitation I tucked my hands into my pockets, lowered my gaze and sidestepped into the crowds around me, allowing them to swallow me up. In seconds the top of Eric’s head disappeared, and as soon as it did I felt a smile engulf my face. I’d done it, exactly as Naomi had told me to, and now the fun could begin.
Chapter 33
The pair of us were beaming as we trotted away, and although I chanced the odd paranoid look over my shoulder, there were too many people camouflaging our tracks for me to have anything to worry about. We were off the lead and were sniffing out the booze as quickly as we could. Or at least Naomi was. She knew exactly where we were heading and wasted no time in getting us there.
I stood and stared at the sign that hung above a set of elaborate metal gates. It read ‘IRNWRX’, forcing me to close one eye and squint at it hard, hoping blurred vision might help me make sense of what it meant.
‘Ah, the Ironworks.’ Naomi sighed with a hint of nostalgia. ‘The finest and cheapest boozer on the north-east coast.’
I looked at the building again. Everything about it said cheap, but not only because the booze was on special offer; it looked downright nasty. The sort of place you didn’t want to be seen in after dark. Yet here we were, ducking through the gates and heading towards the beer garden.
It was rammed in there, the men in identikit checked shirts and jeans, the women in their flimsy, web-thin dresses. There was more substance to their make-up than their clothes, and it made me grin to think of them rushing to the bogs every ten minutes, trowels in hand, ready to smear another layer on.
Spotting a particularly busy spot in the far corner, Naomi grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me behind her.
‘Perfect,’ she said, grinning. ‘Free bar over there by the looks of things.’
She was right too, but not in the way I’d imagined. There was no buff barman clutching outrageous cocktails, or even a beer fridge left lazily unlocked for us to raid. Instead there was a table by the fire exit covered in drinks, with no one claiming them.
Naomi was on them in a flash, grabbing a pint glass that was about half full, decanting the dregs of another on top. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but it was free, and I didn’t want to piss Naomi off yet. The last thing I needed was to be left on my own in a place like this. Following her lead, I mixed a few lagers together, avoiding any that looked like they’d been there too long.
She was sharp and certainly no novice when it came to this sort of thing. Although she looked a good couple of years older than me, with her tight curls falling past her shoulders, it would’ve been a stretch to convince the bouncers we belonged here. So after grabbing her drink, she led us into the midst of a crowd, nestling behind a couple of particularly big bruisers. You could’ve hidden a sumo wrestler behind them, so we reckoned we were safe.
It didn’t take me long to put the second-hand-ness of the drinks out of my head. Despite the few quid we’d pilfered from Eric, the change in my pocket wouldn’t have gone far, and even if we had sweet-talked someone into getting us something from the bar, that just increased the risk of being rumbled.
And when you thought about it in those terms, we were happy with what we’d found.
Naomi certainly was, caning the first pint in super-quick time, then ducking back to the table and returning with a bottle of Sol that still had the slice of lime in the top.
‘What a find,’ she crowed. ‘Nectar of the friggin’ gods, this.’ And with a salute to the heavens she tipped half of it down her neck in one gulp, before burping loudly.
That simple action summed up the next hour. It was loud, lewd and increasingly out of control, and I loved every second of it. For the first time in weeks I let myself go (with some help from the dregs thrust into my hand), and with the drink taking her over too, Naomi finally let her guard fall. It was the first time since I met her that I didn’t feel in danger of a slap.
/> She was savage in the way she pulled the other drinkers apart, the women in particular. She gave some of the hardest-faced ones a backstory – the number of babies they’d spawned, by as many different dads; she knew how many of them were in care and how many of them had pushed kids out by our age. There were moments when she said it all too loudly, like she wanted one of them to hear, but in our excitable state it just added to the adrenalin rush.
On it went, until the sun had long gone, although I could feel its warmth in my cheeks. We’d lost count of the number of glasses we’d lifted – ‘minesweeping’ she called it – and Naomi had got braver as time went on, daring to distract lads from their pints before waving me behind them. While she chatted, I dived in, liberating a glass or two before retreating to the far end of the garden. After a couple more minutes of chitchat she would excuse herself and wobble back towards me, her grin as lopsided as her steps. It was seamless, like we’d been doing it years, not hours. Unfortunately, it was such a stellar performance that eventually we ended up with a small audience.
I noticed them first. Naomi was glazing over, little wonder given the amount she’d packed away, but there were four of them huddled together, all shaved heads and bumfluff. They were older than us, but I doubted they were eighteen. Maybe they had fake IDs on them. Whoever they were, they were paying us plenty of attention, going as far as a little round of applause after our final sweep.
Naomi spun to look at them, her beer goggles turning them into something they weren’t, and before I could stop her she lifted her glass and beckoned to them.
They were over in a flash, clinking glasses and offering us fags, which Naomi accepted greedily. I waved the offer away and rolled my own, taking time to try and clear my head, assess what they were after.
Naomi was in her element, lapping up their compliments and offers of more drinks, pressing herself close to each of them in turn, so close you couldn’t have squeezed a credit card between them. She may not have known any of their names yet, but they were quickly becoming friends.