‘Everybody has their dirty laundry,’ she’d once explained to me. ‘Some stains are harder to see than others. Especially the crazy ones.’
If Luca had known Jules’s philosophy on the subject he might have reacted differently, but he didn’t so he took the comment personally. He stood up tall; the birds hopped away.
‘I am not mental,’ he said.
He held himself tense, staring at Jules, hard and cold. I could see the dark canopy moving over his head. The rain was heavier now, big droplets splashing against the concrete path.
Jules laughed.
‘Yeah, and I’m Kate Middleton.’
Luca took a deep breath as his lip curled into a sneer.
‘I am not mental.’
I was hoping Jules would hear the kick in his voice but the two of them seemed immune to each other’s moods. Jules searched the ground for Boy, then tucked her under her arm and waved her cigarette daintily in the air as she put on her posh Kate Middleton voice.
‘I live in a big palace, don’t you know? Me and my darling Wills walk the corgis every morning and pick up their royal shit with golden baggies.’ She made kissing noises at Boy’s face. ‘Only the best for you, my sweet.’
I got the giggles. I couldn’t help it. Jules is hilarious when she does her Kate Middleton. It’s nothing like the actual Kate Middleton but it’s still dead funny. Jules began sniggering. Then she straightened out her face and gestured down to her camouflage outfit.
‘Do you like it, darling? Vivienne Westwood just insisted I should have it.’
Jules spun around as if on a modelling shoot, looking over her shoulder at me with a pout. Boy didn’t know where to look. I laughed so hard I rolled on to the grass. I was hoping Luca would see the funny side – she did the pose perfectly – but when he stepped towards Jules his body was shaking. He pointed at his chest.
‘I am NOT mental!’
The dog-walkers looked at us as Luca’s voice bounced off the grass verges and sent the last few birds flying. Boy jumped from Jules’s hands. I pushed myself to a standing position, hoping I’d think of a way out of this but Jules was already snarling.
‘WHo do you ThiNk you’re taLKinG to, POSH BOY?’
She was clenching and unclenching her fists, making the knuckles flash pink and white. Luca backed off. His body, so tall and firm, suddenly shrank. It was like watching plastic shrivel in a fire.
Jules kept her eyes on Luca as she bounced up and down.
‘WHO tHe FUcK dO you tHINk You ARE?’
Luca had never seen Jules on a berserker before. Considering the amount of time we’d spent together he’d had a good run. But now the veins were throbbing in her neck as rainwater rolled down her cheeks. Her eyes bulged from her face like a zombie ready to rip into his flesh.
Luca looked as though he was going to wet himself.
‘Sorry,’ he said quietly.
But it was too late for that; the volcano was erupting.
‘You MEN aRe All THe FUCKinG SAMe!’ Jules screamed. ‘AcTING aLL NicE To StaRT wiTH tHEn—’
She smacked her hands together.
‘—BOOM! You’rE yeLLing aT deFEnceLESs WoMEn, ThROwING YoUR FiSTs AbOUt. RAPING ANY FUCKER WHO GETS IN YOUR WAY!’
The dog-walkers were no longer walking but standing at the sides of the path with umbrellas over their heads. Luca’s cheeks burnt red.
‘Now, hang on a minute!’ he said.
Jules was hopping about so quickly now it was like she was in a boxing ring ready to swing. Ding! Ding!
‘No, YOU haNg on, MATE!‘ she cried.
She thrust her finger into Luca’s chest as one of the dog-walkers lifted a mobile phone from his pocket. The rain lashed in slanted lines. I picked up Boy as she whimpered.
‘YOU BLOODY HANG ON!’
I pushed the wet hair from my face, put my soothing voice on and imagined I was a masseuse in a luxury spa.
‘It’s OK, Jules,’ I said. ‘He meant no harm.’
Jules looked at me as though I’d just pissed on her leg. She took her shaking finger with the jagged nail and pointed it at me.
‘DON’t PReteND YOU’rE AnY BEtter! You’RE JuST LiKe thAT BitcH, DoNNa.’
I clamped my lips. You’re as good as finished when Jules starts talking about Donna.
‘FuCKed me RIghT Over, DiDn’T ShE? ThE LiVerPooL SLaG! AnD you’ll dO THe SAmE, MoLLs. MARk mY woRDs, yOu’LL DO IT!’
I looked at Luca with wild desperation. Back in Nottingham, I could turn on my heels and leave the scene knowing that, after an hour or two, I’d come back to Jules having an intense discussion with some poor sod about her love of pygmy goats. Of course, I’d later hear how she’d kicked the shit out of a bin or punched a wall and fractured her hand but when I got back she’d be all tranquil, the venom bled clean from her veins. But there was no leaving Jules alone in this town; she’d rip the whole place to pieces.
Luca was scratching his chin again. I shook my head. Deep thoughts were not what we needed. He straightened his back, placing one hand behind him, elevating his already BBC-newsreader voice to new heights.
‘Now, Ms Middleton,’ he said. ‘That is no way for a lady to talk.’
Jules looked over at him as she hopped from side to side.
‘WHAt the FuCk YoU TaLking aBouT?’
Luca held his butler pose.
‘I’m merely pointing out, milady, that these are your royal subjects.’
He swept out his hand as if presenting the pedestrians to her. Jules looked at the spectators standing on the verges in their raincoats and wellingtons. Suddenly they moved on, looking at anything – the trees, the sky, the dog turds on the side of the path – as long as they weren’t looking at us. Jules stopped hopping. She glanced at the pedestrians, then at Luca, then back at the pedestrians. Then she stared at me. Her gaze hovered over my face as her brows twitched.
Luca jabbed me in the side with his elbow. I put Boy down on the ground and stood up tall, pulling out the sides of an imaginary skirt before crossing my ankles as I curtseyed.
‘Your Highness,’ I said.
The whole of Jules’s body flopped. She looked back at the pedestrians and released a devil-like grin. She stood up tall, holding her cigarette in the air.
‘Please forgive me, darlings,’ she said, all Kate Middleton again.
Nobody looked at her. It was like ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ except, instead of people staring so as not to upset the King, they were looking away so as not to upset Jules. This only made her louder.
‘No need to stop, of course! I’m the people’s princess, haren’t I? Just like one of you.’
She stood there, sucking at her cigarette and tossing her head around. The rain got lighter, until eventually it stopped. Me and Luca looked at each other and smiled. I felt a rush race up my body. It was like we’d climbed bloody Everest.
Luca picked up his rucksack and swung it on to his back. Then he picked up my camping rucksack as well as his trumpet case and even picked up Boy, which was the first time I’d seen him touch her. I think he was still in character because he did all of this with a masterfulness I don’t think he’d have pulled off as himself. He turned to Jules, voice back to normal.
‘Come on, Princess,’ he said. ‘We’re nearly there.’
A charity worker once put barriers around Private Pete as he slept in the doorway of an unused office. It was a yellow, foldable barrier with warning triangles plastered across it and exclamation marks inside the middle of each shape. On the front, a sign was tacked on:
THIS MAN HAS REFUSED TO TAKE AN OFFER OF THREE NIGHTS IN A HOSTEL.
When Jules saw it she leant over the barrier and gave Pete a prod.
‘What’s this notice about?’ she said.
Pete stuck his face up, hoodie draped over his head.
‘I don’t know, but that lady keeps going on about it,’ he said.
That’s when we saw the television crew coming towards us. There was a man with a came
ra, another one with a big mic, and a woman wearing ten layers of foundation. She seemed excited to see us, asking if we knew the ‘gentleman’ and if we wanted to make a comment about the barriers and sign. I shrank back, looking away from the lens. The last thing I needed was my face broadcast across the nation.
‘Yes!’ Jules said. ‘Yes, I do bloody well want to make a comment!’
She pointed at Pete.
‘Lord knows how this man hasn’t had the shit kicked out of him. The general public love kicking the shit out of the homeless and that’s without a bloody sign. And what’s with the warning symbols? What you warning people of? “Smelly homeless bastard lives here”?’
The woman asked if Jules could say the comment again without swearing. Then again without the ‘smelly, homeless’ bit. Then again without the swearing. They kept on doing takes like this, trying to get a clean version. I sat down next to Pete.
He pulled himself up when he saw it was me, scratching the back of his neck where his psoriasis was; stress made the itching worse. He said it was true, he had refused a place at a hostel but the hostel was in Derby and he was on bail in Derby for begging so he couldn’t go back there. Besides, he’d had hassle in the hostels there from young lads taking the piss out of him.
‘You know, because of my scabies,’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t touch me but threw things at me and called me names. It got too much in the end.’
He tried to tell the charity worker all of this real nice and polite, and she’d nodded as though she understood, so he curled up in his sleeping bag and went back to sleep. The next thing he knew there were barriers around him and a woman with a mic, shouting at him about a sign and did he think it was dehumanizing? He didn’t really know what she meant by dehumanizing until she read the sign out to him and he figured it out.
‘And it was dehumanizing, Molly,’ he said. ‘It made me feel like scum.’
The reporter got a call on her phone and told Jules she had to get to another story. Jules protested, saying she had a great headline for her report, but the crew packed up and left before she could tell them what it was.
We both shuffled up so Jules could sit down and roll a cigarette. She was still livid about the whole sign business.
‘The bloody cheek of it,’ she muttered. ‘If only I’d caught her doing it, Pete, the mouthful I’d have given that lady! But they don’t want to listen. No one wants to listen to the likes of us.’
When she said this, I thought about the reporter, how she’d asked Pete about the sign and had told him it was dehumanizing. I thought about how Pete would never have realized it was dehumanizing unless she’d said that and would have considered it as just another day on the streets. And I realized then that perhaps people did want to listen. Perhaps they wanted to know our stories. Perhaps they wanted to understand. Although this charity worker had been brutal, the majority of people were good sorts – even the God-botherers – and knew that they could easily be in our position. It was bad luck that we’d ended up where we were. Or a few bits of bad luck. Or bad luck after bad luck after bad luck, until you’re spinning around with all the bad luck and don’t know where to look. Some people say you make your own good luck in this life. Those people have never been homeless.
I looked over at Jules as she finished rolling her cigarette, little strings of tobacco scattered over her lap, and thought about all the trouble she’d been through.
‘What was the headline?’ I asked her. ‘You know, for Pete’s story.’
She took in a deep drag. Then she blew a fat cloud of smoke out before fanning her hand in the air as though the words were being spelt out in front of us.
‘“Beggars CAN be choosers”,’ she said.
It was funny because it was the opposite of what I’d been thinking, but of course it was true. You can’t choose your circumstances, but you can choose how you react to them. And right then, we reacted by bursting into laughter.
As we walked the streets of Bingham, Jules performed royal waves for everyone we passed. Every so often she’d stop, and I’d pull out my imaginary skirt and curtsey. The more she stopped, the lower the curtseys became until my knees were nearly scraping the pavement. This amused Jules no end. She kept making snorting noises and slapping Luca on the back with a newfound sense of camaraderie. You’d never have guessed that a few minutes ago she’d been screaming within an inch of his face. That’s the thing with Jules: when she’s done with her rage, she’s done. She doesn’t go on about it, dragging her ill feeling into every petty argument. My mother was the queen of that, and we didn’t even have to be arguing for her to start banging on about my past mistakes.
‘This is like the time you wet yourself in that brand-new satin dress,’ she’d say. ‘You can’t help but ruin things.’
It didn’t matter that I’d been three at the time or that I didn’t even remember doing it.
There are people who’ve robbed Jules of all her money, kicked the shit out of her and reported her to the police for things she didn’t do, and she’s still on chatting terms with them.
Except for Donna. I don’t think she’ll ever be on chatting terms with Donna.
Our clothes were still damp from the rain, but I was too busy watching Luca to care. He walked ahead with his wiry limbs and trumpet case. You’d never have guessed he had it in him but the way he’d handled Jules was magic. His hair glowed in the morning light like a big curly crown and I imagined two giant grey wings sprouting from his shoulder blades, stretching out to reveal an array of iridescent feathers. He was King of the Byway. King of the Pigeons. King of the whole of Bingham.
The road was quiet with detached houses set back from the pavement. We were in proper countryside territory now: big old drives with four-by-fours, huge lime trees and privet hedges lining the fences. The houses were like manors, with dozens of windows gleaming like teeth and little plaques with names like ‘Willow Cottage’ by the main entrances. On one of the houses all the wood – the garage panels, the doors, the window sashes – had been painted a soft sage and twisting ivy was winding up to the roof. A big long conservatory ran the length of the house. It had oversized potted plants inside, leaves squashed up against the glass.
Luca stopped in front of the house. He put Boy down and then placed his hand on the latch of the gate. He clicked it open and walked up the path.
‘What you doing?’ I said.
He stopped to look at me.
‘Plan C,’ he said.
Me and Jules looked at each other. Sometimes we don’t even need to say anything; we know we’re thinking the same thing. This time we were both thinking: He tries to steal one car and now he thinks he’s a grand thief.
‘Are you coming?’ Luca called.
He didn’t turn around, just carried on walking as we hovered at the gate. You could hear the crunch of his trainers against the gravel; he wasn’t even trying to be quiet. Boy followed him without glancing back. Her hind stump was wagging along with her tail.
Jules’s brows were knitted into a frown. Her hair was still wet, her camo jacket damp and sagging on her small body. She watched Luca for a second and then shrugged, clicked the gate open and followed him up the path.
The slithering was happening in my gut again. I looked up and down the street, knowing if I stood there for too long it would look suspicious. So I followed them both, closing the gate behind me. I had to squeeze my arms around my stomach just to keep steady on the gravel. Even the stones were classy: white and caramel pebbles, all neatly organized in a curving stream up to the door. There was a BMW in the drive but Luca didn’t seem to care if the owners were in. The slithering turned to thrashing. I knew I wanted no part of whatever foolish plan he’d conjured up, but at the same time I couldn’t make myself leave. When I got to the front door I saw a plaque beside it that read ‘Cherry Blossom Lodge’. You couldn’t rob a place called Cherry Blossom Lodge. It’d be like mugging a children’s book character.
Luca raised his hand to the knocke
r. It was the shape of a lion’s head, a brass hoop through its mouth. I saw its teeth flash as though it was going to bite Luca’s hand off.
I picked up Boy from the path. She released a little yap.
‘Luca,’ I said.
He must have heard the panic in my voice because he turned to me with a teacher-like reassurance.
‘Don’t worry, Molly,’ he said. ‘I know what I’m doing.’
He took hold of the knocker and banged three times. He was going to do it; he was going to knock on these people’s door, push his way through and rob them of everything they owned. Probably elderly folk, I thought. Probably elderly folk with heart conditions. I knew I should be running, getting myself away from this dead-cert disaster, but my feet were fixed as if they were sunk in mud. I felt the frozen panic I’d get as a kid, knowing that something awful was about to happen but not knowing how to stop it.
Footsteps came along the hallway, slow and heavy. I sucked in a deep breath, ready to scream. That’s when Luca turned again and pointed at us.
‘Let’s make this clear,’ he said. ‘No matter what he says, he’s not my real dad.’
The Guardians of the Gate
My grandma thought she could see ghosts. Whenever we visited she would tell us to be careful of Michael in the kitchen who’d been thrown off a horse and not to mind Mabel who lived in the attic and had been murdered by her husband fifty years ago. She said these things casually, as if giving us the history of an antique and not apparitions who were haunting her house. One time, when my mother was out of the room, Grandma leant in so close that I could smell the washing powder in her clothes.
‘You see them too, don’t you, sweetheart?’
She was looking at me with bright emerald eyes surrounded by peachy folds of skin. I nodded even though it wasn’t true; I saw lots of things, but never ghosts. But I didn’t want her to think she was the only one. I didn’t want her to feel alone. So I nodded and, when I did, she clutched my arm.
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