by Lisa Blower
He goes to cooking class. He always goes to cooking class.
As if, Mulally.
He made a cake. This big and meaty cake. I saw him do it.
Shurrup, Kobin, you square.
But Kobin was right. Johnny Dangerously only ever went to cooking class. Nobody knew why. Nobody dared ask. But Kobin asked—
Got change for a quid?
—and got ten points straight away. Except he didn’t because none of us were there.
I did! I said it! I said it right to his face!
But Johnny Dangerously didn’t have any money.
Johnny Dangerously never had any money. Boof Moffatt once went without pocket money for nearly two weeks so he could be just like Johnny Dangerously. But then his favourite footie fanzine came out and he couldn’t live without it so he had to ask his mam for the money in the end. Boof doesn’t get free school dinners either. Johnny Dangerously has one of those cork cards that bags free school dinners and bus fares. We’d watch him flash it at Bubbles the dinner-lady then leave it on his dinner tray as if he weren’t bothered about who saw he was a skank.
I dare you to rob his card.
That was Boof. Always daring us, never daring himself.
We’d know who he was then.
We went quiet. We hadn’t thought about that.
I like it the way it is.
Don’t you want to know who he really is? Boof asks.
I thought about it.
No. Not really.
But I still get ten points.
That was Kobin. Reminding us of his bravery.
I get ten points, right? That puts me in the lead.
No. That puts you in a headlock, spanner-face, with a judo chop to the shins.
I’ll tell me maaam, Boof Moffatt! That hurt!
Kobin always said that. No one took any notice of it. His mam was never at home for him to tell her anything. Kobin’s sister Natalie was always sitting on their backyard wall with her skirt up her arse and swanking about how many times she’d let her new boyfriend Chigsey put his pigeon in: 47, 48 … 73 … a hundred!
My mam says your mam’s a floozy!
Your mam’s the floozy and I’ll tell my mam about your mam!
Well, why’s your mam always in cars with other mums’ men?
I am. I’m telling me maaam!
And tell her your Natalie should start charging. My mam says she’s bloody daft giving it away for free.
Duff. Duff. Duff.
Kobin’s punches never connected.
Tell her yer effin self.
Kobin had been wearing the same school shirt for almost two weeks. It reeked like a dirty dishcloth. Only the gypsy-girl Annaleza wore the same school shirt for two weeks. Annaleza only had one shirt. Annaleza sneaked to school because her mam didn’t want her to be too clever for a husband.
You share your shirt with Annaleza!
Shurrup, Boof! I’ll tell me maaaaammm!
We could’ve carried on. Made Kobin cry and given him a dead leg. But Johnny Dangerously was coming. We forgot about Kobin’s shirt. Kobin forgot to tell his mam.
He’s got no fags.
It’s not the same.
He’s got no money. I told yer he’s got no money.
That was Kobin. Still going on about his bravery. Boof kicked him in the shins. Then he took five points off Kobin’s score for being boring. He’d never catch up with mine and Boof’s scores now.
He’s still brilliant. Whatever you say. He’s still my hero.
Our hero.
That’s what I said.
We’d got a game against Salley Grange so couldn’t follow him. I scored twice and did my celebratory tumble. Scoring twice meant I’d have to get up on stage and shake Goldstraw’s hand in Friday assembly. Everyone would clap and I’d get picked for five-a-side no sweat. Boof didn’t score any. He blamed Kobin and gave him a mud sandwich. Boof hated losing and he hated not scoring. Then he took another five points off Kobin for not toughening up.
I got a quid for my first goal and fifty pence for my second. Mam play-punched my shoulder blades and said, ‘Yer dad would’ve been ever so proud,’ and then she locked herself in the bathroom for a very long time.
Kobin came to school again with the same shirt on. There was a mud stain all up his back. Goldstraw said, ‘Kobin Mulally, my office now!’ and everyone in the corridor stared.
He were there!
Who was?
Johnny Dangerously. I stood with him. Right up close.
No waaaaayy!
Are you shitting me, Mulally? Are you shitting me again?
Honest, Boof. He were there.
Boof had got Kobin in a python-lock with his thighs. I was emptying things out of his schoolbag; one for every wrong answer.
I swear on Blue Nan’s grave, Boof!
Boof nodded at me. I crashed Kobin’s pencil case on the ground. Everyone knew that Kobin’s Blue Nan was an old tinker who was always after your gold. She used to read your tea leaves and knew all about marriages and all about death but never knew if you were going to be born a boy or a girl or if Stoke City would win the FA Cup. She didn’t even know that she was going be run down by a bus or that we called her Blue Nan because of the big veins running up and down her legs.
Liars always get found out.
Boof nodded and I snapped Kobin’s compass in half. It nicked my thumb and made me bleed.
He weren’t in class and he’s been ragging some kids for money, Goldstraw said.
Another nod and I chucked Kobin’s dictionary down a manhole.
Honest, Boof. It’s not a lie! Owwww!
Chinese burns and dead legs at the same time were Boof Moffatt’s speciality.
Kobin had to see Goldstraw about the state of his shirt. Johnny Dangerously had been found smoking in the staff bogs again. They’d stood in Goldstraw’s office together. Friday detention.
Where’s your mother, Kobin? The work number I have for her is out of service.
Kobin had shrugged. He was too small to look Goldstraw in the eye.
Has she changed jobs, Kobin? What does she do?
She’s a nurse.
Kobin always lied about his mam. She worked behind the bar down the Bingo where Mr Wheeler called out the numbers. Two fat ladies, eighty-eight. Maggie’s den, number ten. Mr Wheeler gave her a lift home every night in his red Beetle and sometimes came in for his tea. Kobin’s dad worked the oil rigs. He sent him letters with photos of the rig. He had a black face in the photographs. His arm around another man with a black face. They were smiling. Big white teeth and oily knuckles. We called Kobin’s dad Captain Rig but no one had ever met him.
Will your mother be home this afternoon, Kobin? Can I call her then?
Another shrug.
She’s saving people’s lives.
Kobin hardly ever saw his mam. She came home in the red Beetle really late when Kobin was asleep. One night she didn’t come home at all and Mrs Manfred from next door had to go into him because of all the crying he was doing. He said there was terrible moaning coming from the pantry. Mrs Manfred made him a hot milky drink and tucked him up tight. Mrs Manfred wore a wig.
And you’re behind with your schoolwork again, Mulally. Does your mother not help with your homework?
Course she does.
Shrug. Pout.
That’s what mams do.
Mrs Manfred stayed up with Kobin until his mam came home in the Beetle with Mr Wheeler. She did his homework then knitted him half a jumper while she sat and waited for the Beetle and his mam to come back. Kobin’s mam never knew Kobin had a babysitter. Kobin’s dad was on the oil rigs. He didn’t know anything. Kobin’s sister Natalie was out painting the town red with no knickers. My mam says that Mrs Manfred might not see Christmas.
Kobin had started blubbering. He blubbered a lot when ragged about his mam. Goldstraw didn’t like blubbering kids in filthy school shirts. He liked smart kids and crisp shirts that smelt of starch.
Ko
bin Mulally, you’ll pack in those tears before I pack them in for you.
And I’ll pack you a few punches if you do because I’m a bit sick of men like you telling us how it is.
Because Johnny Dangerously.
It was Johnny Dangerously.
He’d stuck up for Kobin and was going to belt Goldstraw. Kobin’s score doubled.
He did say it. I swear on Blue Nan’s grave he said it.
My mam says all you Mulallys are bog breaths. She says you talk shit.
He did, Boof. Honest he did. I anna lied to yer once.
But Kobin got a dead leg. Then a cauliflower ear. Then Boof took all his score away for lying.
Not everyone’s got a mam, you know.
That was Johnny Dangerously. He was telling Goldstraw how it is.
Some of us don’t even get a dad who wants to know either.
You’re a born liar, Mulally!
He did say it, Boof. That’s exactly what Johnny Dangerously said.
What about your parents, Goldstraw? Did they stick around or did they leave you with the nuns cos they couldn’t be arsed?
Honest, Boof! He told him how it is and it were brilliant! And then he put his arm round me and said he’d look after me.
Kobin looked at the ground.
He’s still my hero. I don’t care what you say.
Because Johnny Dangerously had walked Kobin home that night. Kobin’s score shot through the roof. Johnny Dangerously had wanted to know what Kobin had that he hadn’t and he took his computer, the microwave, and the fifty quid that was kept under the kitchen sink for emergencies.
What about my score, Boof? How many points do I get for Johnny Dangerously being in my house?
Boof Moffatt said scoring was for babies.
He was only lending it, Kobin moaned. He’ll give it back. He promised me.
And that Johnny Dangerously didn’t exist.
Later, Kobin said that Johnny Dangerously’s knife was massive and gleaming and blood dripped off the end. Only Mrs Manfred said she believed him.
I never told Boof, but after Johnny Dangerously got expelled, I found his cork card that bagged him free school dinners and bus fares. It was just under the bench where he used to hang his denim jacket on the cloakroom peg. Back then, if we pushed our thumbs right through the tear on the shoulder we scored an eight. Nobody ever got ten. To get a ten you had to do something no one wouldn’t ever dare do. Like when Boof Moffatt phoned the cops and grassed him up. Or when I flipped over that cork card and saw his name was Kane Wheeler. I chucked it in the canal on the way home and never told a soul.
Featherbed Lane
1.
THAT BREDA IS so mad alarms Frances. ‘Why?’ she keeps on shouting. ‘Why won’t you remember?’
‘Because I don’t,’ Frances tells her again, and she covers her face with her hands and stops herself from remembering anything. She knows that underneath her hands is a small forgettable face that will give nothing away. That she has, over the years, practised this face like Breda used to practise piano (manically), went on to practise medicine (diligently), and she is good at it now, giving nothing away. She is the story that will not be told.
As for Breda, her face is big, round and frustrated. As she shouts you can count her fillings (six), catch sight of one enlarged tonsil (on the left), smell the rage on her breath. She hasn’t changed much. Still tall. Almost pretty. Bit more weight. And glasses now. There’d not been glasses at school. Though the laugh is the same, throaty and forced, the sort of laugh that makes you glare. And the voice: coarse and scratchy as if she means to clear her throat. ‘Come on, Frances,’ she says again. ‘You’re not remembering on purpose.’
Frances thinks this is a childish thing to say. ‘If I knew anything I’d have gone to the police.’
But Breda cannot hold back. ‘You were found on the heath, Frances. It was happening right in front of you.’
‘I still don’t know what it is you think I won’t remember.’
‘But you do remember.’ Breda smiles. ‘You’re remembering it all the time, Fran.’
Frances scoops up her daughter Clover from the floorboards where she’s been poking between the grooves with a wooden school ruler. She takes a moment to breathe in her daughter’s hair, to dust off the malted milk biscuit crumbs from her mouth, to remind herself just how lucky she is. She is calm now, clear, able to ask Breda once again for their coats. She would like to take her daughter home.
Frances will tell no one of what happened that afternoon. It is not kept like a secret. Rather, she cannot find the words to describe how it all came about. One minute they were sitting in Breda’s kitchen drinking coffee, the next and Breda’s mobile had begun to ring. She’d jumped up from the table, listened to the call for what, nine, ten seconds at most, then asked Frances if she would mind keeping an eye on Reuben because she had to go.
‘You don’t need to go upstairs to see him,’ Breda had said, zipping up a leather jacket that looked and felt its price. ‘He’ll only panic if he knows I’ve gone out and I’ll be half an hour at most.’
Breda did not tell Frances where she was going, but threw keys and a purse—was it a purse?—into a bag, a black leather clutch bag, saying, ‘I mean it. Don’t tell him I’ve gone. Stay downstairs. Help yourself to another coffee. There’s plenty of stuff in the fridge for your daughter.’ And then she’d added with a faint air of threat: ‘I hope you understand.’
2.
They had not been friends at school. They knew each other, knew of each other, had socialised a handful of times on unremarkable occasions. Neither Breda nor Frances much remember those times. Breda has tried to but Frances has not.
After school came college. Frances had put both Breda and school from her mind. Breda had thought of Frances occasionally. Then she’d found herself thinking about her all the time. And yet Breda had not seemed to recognise Frances at first. Frances had not seen Breda at all. It was Breda who tapped Frances on the shoulder.
‘Hello, you.’ And then, ‘It is you, isn’t it?’
Breda had started talking immediately. She was married. Surrey boy. Rob? Rod? Met at a wedding somewhere down south. She was drunk. So was he. But she knew. She said he knew too. She wore an engagement ring the size of a grape.
She was a doctor. Dementia. Alzheimer’s. Therapeutic work, she did explain, something about reconditioning damaged memories and how madness was but momentary: ‘Because if the brain can forget how to breathe, it cannot be culpable for all it might’ve done.’ But Frances had lost interest after hearing the word doctor. Breda was always going to be a doctor. Saving lives. Inventing cures. No. Her husband wasn’t medical. He worked in construction. Sympathetic renovation. Had spent two years doing up their place on Featherbed Lane and was now working fourteen, fifteen-hour days to compensate, on a building site for Taylor Wimpey. ‘He’s got a lot to make up to his highness,’ Breda said as Frances muttered under her breath, ‘You live on Featherbed Lane?’
His highness was their son, Reuben. Five years old and home-schooled. They’d been trying for another ever since, got a specialist on the case now, exploring IVF. She was forty-two next year. He’d be forty-eight. There’s plenty of time, Breda had said. No age is old any more, and his highness is just dying for a little brother, though she would like a girl. ‘You want things to be perfect, don’t you?’ telling all this to Frances in Sainsbury’s car park where they’d met after twenty-six years. Then Breda had clicked her fingers in Frances’s face. ‘Remind me. God. It’s so embarrassing not to remember your name.’
‘Frances. My name is Frances.’
Before they’d left each other, Breda had asked for Frances’s number. They must meet up, she’d insisted. ‘Now that you’re back home.’
Frances had been startled by this. ‘I’m not back home.’ She’d needed this to be clear. ‘I’m just here, that’s all, and not for long.’
‘It’s been longer than that, Fran,’ and Breda had smiled. ‘D
on’t you think that it’s time you brought her round for a play date?’ She’d peered into the buggy. ‘Drop-dead. Got your eyes. What’s of his?’
Frances had made something up. ‘Hair. Flyaway. Quite thin.’ Then, ‘She’s not yet two, Breda. She doesn’t really play yet.’
Breda had waved this away. ‘Twenty-six years!’ She’d said it again.
‘Yes,’ Frances had agreed. ‘I suppose it is.’
‘So, who do you see then? You know, from school?’
Frances had thought this unkind. She’d dropped her head. ‘I’ve lived away a long time, Breda.’
‘Well, you know who’s kicking around? Sarah Lalley. Gave up New York to come back here. Three kids now. Husband’s from Detroit. We’ve had them to dinner twice. And Hannah Middleton. You remember Hannah Middleton? You sat next to her in History for two years. She’s a chemist. Still hilarious. And Madeline Bishop? Come on, Fran! Madeline Bishop! Though I doubt she’d remember you.’
Frances had fixed her expression. ‘School was different for me, Breda. The girls were unkind.’
‘Only because of how you were.’
But Frances had been distracted by the contents of Breda’s trolley. Ten, eleven—no, twelve boxes of Fruit Shoots, she’d counted. Six packs of Kinder Eggs, a surprise every time. Breda had followed her eyes.
‘He doesn’t really drink all those Fruit Shoots,’ Breda had explained. ‘I decant them. Replace them with tap water. I have to pretend a lot these days, don’t you?’ And then she’d gripped onto Frances’s arm as if they really did know each other well. ‘Twenty-six years,’ she’d said again. ‘Can you really believe it’s been twenty-six years?’
Frances had looked down at Breda’s hand on her arm. Long fingers. Splayed fingers. Piano-playing fingers. Another thing she was good at. Except she bit her nails now. But not all of them.