by Kim Slater
I’m not joining the Scrabble club, not after today’s performance with Oliver. But playing someone really good like Maryam might be fun, not that I’d have a chance of winning. It’d make a change from sitting on my own outside the PE store waiting for the afternoon bell to sound, anyway.
‘Interested?’ Mrs Adams asks.
I nod.
‘Excellent. See you here at twelve thirty tomorrow, then,’ Mrs Adams says, just as a text from Dad arrives to say he’s outside.
BLANK TILES HAVE ZERO VALUE.
When I jump into the van, Dad turns off his Best of the Eighties playlist, which usually means he wants to talk.
The rain has stopped so I open the window a bit and kick an empty fag packet away from my foot.
‘I’ve got to spend some time away from home, Finlay,’ Dad says. He stares straight ahead at the road and his face looks more serious than usual. ‘It’ll just be for two or three nights a week.’
I feel the letters and words begin to clog up in my mouth, even though I don’t know what it is I want to say yet.
‘I don’t like leaving you to your own devices, you know that, don’t you? But this job, it’s going to pay really well.’ He glances at me then. ‘You gonna be OK, pal?’
I nod.
‘It’ll mean you getting home from school a few days a week under your own steam, mind.’
‘Th-that’s f-fine,’ I say.
I’d rather face Oliver than have the whole school thinking I’m a big kid who has to wait for his daddy to pick him up every night after school.
‘You’re a big lad now, fourteen going on forty-four, at times. More sensible than I ever was at your age. You must take after . . .’
His words tail off.
I look at him.
‘Well, you’re more sensible than I was, is all I meant to say.’
We never talk about Mum but she’s there all the time, anyway. She exists in the silences between our words.
‘I-I’ll be al-al-all right,’ I manage.
Dad looks at me as though he’s trying to weigh up if I’m telling him the truth but he doesn’t say anything.
With the music off, I can hear the growl of the diesel engine and the squeaky brakes. I’d like to tell Dad about the school Scrabble club but the amount of effort it’s going to take to get the words out makes my insides feel all tight. I decide to try anyway.
‘I pl-played Sc-Sc-Scr—’ It just won’t come.
‘Scrabble?’ Dad offers.
I nod.
‘J-just n-now, in the sc-school l-library.’
‘That’s nice,’ he says, pulling on the handbrake when we stop at a red light. He taps his fingers on the steering wheel as if the eighties soundtrack is still playing in his head.
‘Don’t know what you see in board games myself, mind. At your age, I was out playing footy every night.’ His eyes roll up to inspect the sky for signs of rain. ‘Nice weather for it, this. Playing footy, I mean.’
I haven’t told him about playing Maryam tomorrow lunchtime yet. I can feel the sentences stacking up on top of my tongue like a Jenga-style word tower.
When I open my mouth to speak, it feels like all the letters will spill out like sharp little splinters until none of them make any sense at all.
It’s easier to just keep quiet.
When we get home, Dad tells me all about the new job while we eat tea. He’s got to travel down south to Brighton and stay overnight. He’s won the joinery contract on some new high-end houses in a gated complex close to the sea.
‘This could be the making of us, son,’ Dad says, shovelling in half a sausage doused in ketchup. ‘If I impress this building company, there’ll be no more egg and beans for tea, I promise you that. It’ll be champagne and caviar all the way.’
Sounds promising, but I know that chips, egg and beans happens to be Dad’s favourite meal of all time. He even asked for it at the posh afternoon tea he treated Mum to for their fifteenth wedding anniversary. I doubt he’d trade it in for all the champagne and caviar in the world.
Then I remember I haven’t told Dad about Alex yet.
‘I me-met a new b-boy –’
‘At school? That’s good, you need more friends, Finlay. When I was your age I had dozens of mates. We all hung around together down the park after school. My mate, Pete, says his lad is never in the house, and I got to thinking about you, spending half your life upstairs in your bedroom, peddling daft word games online.’
Dad swallows his food and actually puts down his fork.
‘Look, I know it must be hard making friends. Not being able to talk properly and all that, it’s a terrible shame when you think about it.’ Dad smiles encouragingly at me. ‘Tell you what, if this job comes good, I can send you to a specialist medical place to help sort you out. What do you say to that?’
My face burns.
Dad hardly ever mentions my stutter; I know he feels ashamed of it as much as I do. He’s always sworn that, left alone, the problem will sort itself out. So I know it’s a big thing for him to offer to send me somewhere.
Trouble is, I don’t want to go to a specialist medical place and get forced to speak by ‘some jumped-up know-it-all therapist’, which is what Dad usually says about those sorts of people.
I’d rather keep quiet, and that way, it might not get noticed as much.
‘Th-thanks Dad, b-but –’
‘Good, that’s settled then.’ Dad beams, picking up his fork again. ‘Now then, how does tinned fruit and ice cream sound for pudding?’
THE FIRST STAGE OF PLAY IS FOR EACH PLAYER TO BLINDLY SELECT ONE TILE FROM THE BAG.
While Dad’s getting ready to go back out on a job, I stack our dirty plates and dishes in the sink.
‘I shouldn’t be too long,’ Dad says, walking into the room and shrugging on his heavy wool jacket. ‘I’ve got floorboards to replace in a council house in St Ann’s and then it’s Mrs Taylor’s back gate again. God knows when she’ll see fit to replace the bloody thing.’
Mrs Taylor’s husband died ten years ago and left her very comfortably off.
‘That woman’s allergic to replacing anything,’ Dad bellows from the bottom of the stairs as he laces his boots. ‘I keep telling her, she could have bought a fancy new wrought iron gate with the money it’s taking to keep paying me to repair the old one.’
I wouldn’t say Dad is a good businessman. He’s always advising his customers how to save money and stop calling him out as much. Mum was much sharper. She started her own IT consultancy a year before she left and it was doing really well, too. She’d won a contract with a big IT company in the area.
She worked really hard, and for what?
After she left, Dad found out she’d wound up her business. It was just another thing that didn’t make any sense.
Back in my bedroom when Dad’s gone, my skin feels itchy and my legs are restless.
Once I start thinking about Mum, it’s hard to stop.
Neville isn’t out yet so I can’t talk to him.
I upend the tile bag on to the big square board of wood that Dad gave me for my anagram practice.
I like the tinkling sound as the tiles tumble out. The hard black letters on the soft cream-coloured plastic feel solid when I run my fingers over them. I turn over each of the ninety-eight tiles so the letters are face up and set the two blank tiles aside. I select six letters and set out the word in front of me:
VETOED
I slide the letters around and make a note of all the words I can find in it, on my anagram pad:
DEVOTE, VOTE, TEED, DOVE, DOTE, VETO
I won’t go to a clinic, as Dad has suggested. I’d much rather just speak less until the stutter goes away. I’ve got some other tricks I can use, too. Sometimes, I can avoid the words I stutter on the most and choose easier words to say.
The letter tiles stay exactly where I put them on the wooden slate. They don’t morph into different words that other people can’t understand.
&
nbsp; My heart stops thumping so hard and the itchy feeling eases off.
I push VETOED away and turn to a fresh page in my notebook. I set out a new word.
DISEASE
SEASIDE, EASES, IDEAS, SEISE, ASIDES, SAID
I don’t want to be known as the boy who stutters. I wish I could reinvent myself as a normal lad who doesn’t get noticed in class. The sort of lad a mum would never want to leave.
I select seven new letters and try to concentrate. I can make the stutter go away, it just takes time. Talking about it with some know-all therapist is the last thing I need.
I glance at the clock; 6.30. My Scrabble group should all be online now.
I flick a switch and the computer blinks into life. I grab handfuls of tiles and put them back in the bag and when I look up, I have a message box flashing.
Hi Finlay, fancy a game? A
It’s almost as though Alex has been waiting for me to log on. This is what it must feel like to have a good friend.
Hi Alex, ready to go when you are.
I need to tell him about the no-chatting rule but I can do that later.
My turn first. The virtual tiles have given me T-V-E-P-S-A-L.
I click my first word into play in the middle of the board.
P-A-V-E-S [10]
You had a good day? he asks.
Somehow, I don’t feel as irritated by his chat as I did before. I’m almost looking forward to telling Alex about my day – the bits I want him to know, that is. I can reinvent myself and he’ll never know.
Not bad. You? I type.
Crap day at school, double maths.
Tough, I send back. Went to Scrabble after-sch club first time, today.
Cool. You win??
Yeah, playing ex-champ tomoro lunchtime.
You’ll smash it!
The dark cloud that has hovered above my head since the therapist conversation with Dad has finally drifted away.
It feels great to have someone around that’s interested in what you’re up to.
Alex plays V-A-P-I-D off my V and collects eleven points.
Good one, I say.
Uh-oh, problem here, back in 2 mins.
I study my online letter rack, wondering what’s happening Alex’s end. Finally, I decide on P-R-I-N-T, leading off Alex’s P and picking up a double-word square.
It’s been six minutes now and there’s still no response from Alex.
Hope everything is OK, I tap into the message box.
Nothing for another fifty-one seconds and then he’s back.
Sorry about that. Parent trouble.
You OK? I don’t know what else to say.
Yeah, you know how it is. They’re arguing. AGAIN.
I remember that melting feeling inside when Mum and Dad fought. It got worse just before she left, they argued louder and more often.
I decide not to comment and just wait for Alex to play his turn.
Don’t know why Dad puts up with Stepmum, she can be such a bitch.
Strong words. I send a sad face emoticon because I can’t think of anything else to say.
What he says next sets my heart hammering, my mouth dries out in an instant.
Get this. She walked out on her own family a couple of years back without even saying goodbye . . . I mean, how can you justify THAT?
THE TILE NEAREST TO ‘A’ WINS AND THAT PLAYER EARNS THE FIRST TURN.
Thursday
It’s two in the morning and for some reason I’ve just snapped awake.
I can’t get back to sleep, despite the fact I’ve got a big Scrabble game with Maryam scheduled for later.
There’s this rotten trick that life likes playing on you, when you’ve something important to do the next day. The more you tell yourself you’ve got to get some sleep, the more awake your brain gets. Scientists say it’s all to do with low melatonin levels, whatever they are, but I reckon it’s to do with worries, plain and simple.
I’m churning inside, asking questions and demanding answers where there aren’t any. When Alex said his stepmum had left her family, I didn’t say a single thing. I just turned off the computer and sat staring at my bedroom wall for ages.
Because that’s exactly what Mum did to me and Dad, two years ago.
Later, I logged back on, thinking maybe I could find out more. But Alex wasn’t there.
‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ Mum always used to say.
But here is a big fat coincidence, involving someone just like Mum or . . . my breath catches in my throat . . . someone who could even be Mum.
What if Alex’s stepmum and my mum are one and the same person?
I know it’s mad. And yet I can’t seem to get it out of my head.
I throw off the quilt, sit up in bed and look through the gap in my curtains. The sodium-orange glow of the next street’s lamp-posts lights up my room.
After pushing Mum to the back of my mind for all this time, the thought that she might be closer than I think turns my insides into a mixed up mojito – those bitter-sweet cocktails she used to drink.
I cover my face with my hands as if that can stop the thoughts. Two days ago I didn’t even know Alex, and now I’ve virtually convinced myself he lives with my mum. They’ll be carting me off to the doctor if I let on what I’m thinking.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. It’s been such a long time since I’ve had a good friend. Back in my old school, me and my mates were round at each other’s houses all the time.
When me and Dad moved, we all said that somehow we’d find a way to still meet up regularly, that we wouldn’t lose touch. But twelve miles is a long way to go when you’re just twelve years old.
Looking back, it was never going to work out.
I don’t want anything to spoil my chance of making friends with Alex, especially something that’s just in my imagination. You know if you’re going get along with people when you first meet them. It’s just a feeling, but I know that me and Alex have what it takes to be good mates.
The rattling starts and minuscule shavings of wood begin flying around the carpet. Neville is going loopy, whizzing round on his wheel like a mad thing. I can smell the fresh sawdust I put in there yesterday. I creep over to him and sit next to his cage. His black, beady eyes glint in the gloom, like tiny buttons of polished jet.
Neville was a birthday present from Mum, she got him for me just a couple of months before she left home. I remember her coming into the living room to tell me and Dad she had read some research that said people’s stammers sometimes disappeared when they talked to animals.
Dad said it was a load of old tosh and we both laughed. But when Neville came to live with us, I realized that everything Mum had said was true.
‘Could it be her, Neville?’ I whisper. ‘Could it actually b-be my mum who is living with Alex?’
Neville is too busy in his endless marathon-running task to even notice I’m there. He’s wearing himself out, and for what? There’s nothing at the end of it.
I creep downstairs for a glass of water and find Dad fast asleep in his chair.
I heard him come up to check on me last night when he got back home. Sometimes, I think he just likes to check I’ve not gone back to logging trains all night long.
I really wanted to talk to him about Mum and Alex but the words got wedged in my throat, so I pretended to be asleep. It was just easier that way.
I stand in front of his chair for a moment or two and watch as his broad chest rises and falls with each long breath. His thick, black hair flops over one eye and I spot tiny flecks of grey that I haven’t noticed before.
Dad’s face has softened in sleep. The two pinched creases in the middle of his eyebrows are relaxed now but his hands still grip the arms of his chair as if he’s scared he might slip and fall.
When I was little, I used to climb on to his back.
He’d stalk around the house like a giant, searching for me, pretending he didn’t know I was clinging on there. I rem
ember the soft flannel of his checked shirt – it always smelt of wood, creosote and the sharp tang of varnish. It was a smell that made me feel safe.
If I bend closer to him now, he’ll just stink of cigarette smoke. He lights up the second he has a moment of spare time, as if he’s trying to fill up an empty space in his chest.
Dad’s work boots have faded to a sort of dark, sandy colour and the metal toecaps poke through the ragged leather like discoloured teeth. Clumps of site muck and hard earth are scattered on the carpet around his feet.
We moved house about a month after Mum left. Dad mumbled something about a smaller mortgage and bad memories and that was it, all decided. I left my mates and school. I was worried Mum would come back and wonder where we had gone.
‘That’s not going to happen,’ Dad said angrily, when I told him.
After that, I stopped asking. I didn’t even tell him about the bad dreams that started. I tried not to speak at all.
There were rules at our old house that used to get on my nerves.
No shoes on in the house.
Fresh vegetables or salad with every meal.
No fizzy pop because you’ve seen what it does to a coin dropped in a glass of it, so think what does it does to your stomach.
I wish I had those rules back now.
It all seems a long time ago now and I can’t remember that much about meeting up with my mates on the field after school or pooling all our loose change to buy a big bag of chips to share.
Most of the time I don’t want to remember.
I turn all the lights off, apart from the lamp in the hallway. But I don’t wake Dad.
Thursday, 14 May
Dear Mum,
I know this is a bit heavy for 2.30 in the morning but I wanted to ask, do you think something still belongs to a person if they’ve left it behind?
I’m not the only kid around here who hasn’t got a mum. There are kids at school whose mums have died and everyone feels really sorry about it. Although they aren’t around any more, their mums still count.
In Computer Studies, some kids made Mother’s Day cards using online TEMPLATES [13]. Even Evie Sanders made one, and her mum died last year in a car accident. Evie said she wanted to put the card on the grave with some pink roses, like her mum was still here to see it. Mr Cawthorne said it was a lovely sentiment and all her friends fussed round her and did that weird group-hug thing that girls do.