by Luke Palmer
FORTY FIVE
The next time Mum talks to me, it’s Thursday.
She asks me to pass the salt.
We’re sitting around the kitchen table. Me. Mum.
And Mr Walters.
They’d bumped into each other in the supermarket again, and this time she’d asked him if he wanted to stay for tea.
I can barely breathe.
After Mum, Mr Walters and I had put the shopping away in silence, Mum pulled a lasagne out of the fridge. Not a shop one, but one she’d made that day. ‘Oh, this? No, nothing special at all. Just knocked it up this morning!’ she’d said, like it was normal. It’s not as if Mum doesn’t cook anymore, but the last time she did lasagne was a long time ago. Over two years ago.
There’s a strange, unfamiliar smell mixed in with the cheese sauce and minced beef. I think Mum’s wearing perfume.
Conversation is hardly free flowing. Mr Walters keeps trying to include me, asking me about my other subjects, how I’m feeling about the new year and my exams. He keeps asking me things when I’ve just put a fork-load of food in my mouth. I almost choke a few times.
And Mum keeps apologising for how quiet I’m being, thrusting glances my way that demand I do better. And Mr Walters replies that it’s all OK, that most kids nowadays are the same, and that Josh is probably a bit put out, having his teacher in his house.
After dinner, Mr Walters makes his excuses and leaves. This time, Mum puts her hand on his arm after he’s put his coat on. She leaves it there for a full three seconds.
I go upstairs to my room.
*
The next time she speaks to me is on Sunday night. She’s later home than usual. Again, she brings a waft of perfume into the house as she enters. And I think she’s wearing make-up.
‘Are you going to ask me where I’ve been?’
‘Er… Nanna and Grandad’s?’ I don’t mean to sound so sarcastic.
‘Josh, I’m going to start seeing someone.’ She is trying to sound more confident than she really is.
‘OK. Is it Mr Walters?’
She’s surprised that I’ve guessed. ‘Yes, Love. It is. But I need you to understand something.’
‘That you’re not trying to replace Dad?’
‘Well, that wasn’t how I was going to put it, but yes. Look, I don’t know how long this will last, or how far it will go—’
‘Mum!’
‘We’re not … doing anything yet.’
‘Mum!’
‘I want you to know that.’
‘Did you consider whether or not I wanted to know?’
‘Don’t be immature, Josh. He’s good to talk to, that’s all. At the moment. But before we meet again I wanted you to be sure of what was going on.’
‘OK. Fine.’ I make to leave. The sanctuary of my bedroom has never called so loudly. I know Mum needs some other company than her parents, but with so much rolling around my head, this new information will have to wait its turn.
And if it’s making Mum happy, or happier, it can’t be a bad thing I suppose.
*
Even though I know I have to stop Carl, doing it seems, at first glance, to be almost impossible.
At least time is on my side. Carl’s plan won’t start rolling towards its inevitable conclusion until the new year. The timings have all been worked out intricately. So I know I’ve got at least a month before anything will happen.
A month to worry and sweat. A month before standing idly by will start to have consequences. A month of Thursday night dinners with my Biology teacher. Mum keeps me in the loop; they meet in the café at the supermarket a few nights a week, and apparently the coffee isn’t as bad as you’d think. On Thursdays, Mr Walters comes and helps with the shopping and stays for tea.
I stick to the plan and keep my distance from Alan and Vince at school – Carl said that this is so that the links between us all will go as undetected as possible. They’ve even been told to stage some kind of high-visibility falling out, which they do one Tuesday lunchtime in mid-December in a routine that reminds me of my own public punishment. Both of them leave the canteen bleeding, and through opposite doors.
I know I shouldn’t miss them, but I do. Not Vince, of course. But Alan was at least trying to comfort me. And there was something in his eyes every time he talked about his brother. He clearly worships him, even though he knows, somewhere, that he’s broken. I can’t help but feel a little pity for him.
So I go back to being pretty much on my own. Jamie, though not as cold as he could be, is understandably distant, and the majority of people are rightly on his side. There are no ends to the offers to carry his bag, or to leave class early with him to navigate through doorways as he gets used to his lumbering crutches. Most of these offers are from girls, which makes me smile. And Jamie’s never more wobbly on his feet than when Louisa’s helping him.
As I start to plot what needs to be done, and how to do it, I start to feel a little bit like one of the heroes in the books I used to read. I’m the lone fighter in some kind of dystopian universe, all the other kids unable to see what I can see. Alone, I must battle the secret drone army which is holding the world to ransom. On my modified BMX with a sharpened stick, I must save the world.
Fiction is much less scary than real life.
I’m not really allowed any contact with Dana, either. Not that I was ever really allowed to see her anyway. Despite this, I do go a few times to the garden, climbing up onto the top of the wall to look down. She’s never there. The ground toughens towards Christmas, the turned earth sinking back to itself and hardening to cold knuckles. I want to drop down, lay a hand on the cold soil, but I wouldn’t be able to get out again. Maybe that would be a good thing.
I do see her around school sometimes. Usually outside Miss Amber’s office or, some afternoons, I glimpse her from a second-floor classroom, drifting around the edge of the field, out of lessons.
Once, we passed each other in the corridor. It was halfway through a double Biology lesson and I needed to use the toilet. Mr Walters winked at me when I asked if I could go. ‘As it’s you, Josh,’ he’d said. I went bright red. Might as well have worn a sign saying ‘Mr Walters <3 my mum’ around my neck.
Dana was leaning against the wall outside the Deputy Head’s office. I smiled, about to say ‘hello’, but was met by a look of panic, a small but certain shake of the head.
That look kept coming back to me for days after that. Something desperate in it, something trapped. Caged. But it was quickly replaced with Carl’s narrowed eyes and the calm violence of the other tattooed men. Their cold faces are never far from my thoughts.
And all the while the days go past. I try to work out what to do. I fail.
With no laptop to spend my time on, I go back to evenings with Mum in front of our usual TV – redecoration shows, house-building shows, which-house-should-we-buy shows. We start getting on better again, but there’s something about her which is even further away than it was before. Mr Walters starts staying after tea for some TV, or maybe a film. From my room, I hear them laughing. Or Mr Walters is laughing; Mum is definitely giggling.
We’re watching something on catch up one evening, just Mum and me, when a home-building project goes hopelessly wrong as the presenter always knew it would. The one-man building team looks at the semi-devastation around his intended five-bedroomed glass box and says, ‘Well, it is what it is.’
I look across, but Mum doesn’t seem to register it.
Every morning comes with the smell of burnt toast. Mum takes the batteries out of the smoke alarm.
FORTY SIX
One weekend, almost at the end of term, I decide to wander to the recreation ground to watch the team play again – the last match before the Christmas break. Jamie’s there, leaning on his crutches, wrapped up against the frost which, on the top pitch right under the trees, has lasted until the middle of the afternoon. Ahmed’s with him. They’re both sipping from cans of energy drink.
I�
��m reluctant to join them at first, for lots of reasons, but Jamie sees me and raises a crutch aloft.
‘Alright mascot?’ he quips, jocular. ‘Still don’t fancy a game then?’
‘You play?’ Ahmed asks.
‘Played. I used to. Can’t seem to get excited by it anymore.’
‘It’s not easy in this weather to get excited by anything.’ Ahmed stamps his feet which are encased in polar-explorer levels of socks and fur. I look at the snow boots, jealous.
‘Nice boots.’
‘Necessary. I don’t know why all the people here don’t have a pair. You can pick them up cheap on Ebay.’
‘Might have a look.’
‘Do you think they’ll sell me one for half price?’ Jamie looks down at his single shod foot, the other in a blue cast with mismatched football socks pulled over the end. ‘I’ve got two pairs of socks on and my foot’s still freezing. It’s making my other foot cold just standing next to it.’
We laugh.
For a while, our breath smokes together as we watch the twenty-two figures on the pitch jostle for possession and hunch, almost as one, against the occasional blasts of wind that cut across the recreation ground. Ahmed offers me some of his can, but I shake my head.
‘It’s worst for the ’keepers,’ I say.
‘That’s where I play. Played, I mean. Back home.’ says Ahmed.
‘Didn’t you play at your last school?’ I ask.
‘No. They had a full squad. Besides, there were a few … elements … in the team that weren’t too friendly. But FIFA’s better, and it’s never this bloody cold in your bedroom, right?’
We laugh.
‘Word of warning,’ says Jamie to me. ‘Never accept a FIFA challenge from this guy. I thought I’d got good since this,’ he pats his cast. ‘But Ahmed rinses me, every time.’
Ahmed takes another sip from his can. ‘You’re such a noob.’ When Ahmed laughs, half of his sip comes back out of his nose. Then we’re all bent double, laughing.
Jamie regains himself first. ‘I’ve told Ben that Ahmed wants his job. I’ll bet he’s touching benches quicker than ever now.’ Jamie and I explain Ben’s changing room idiosyncrasies to Ahmed.
‘The centre forward on my team at home used to run and touch every corner flag before kick-off,’ Ahmed says.
‘Did it help?’ I ask.
‘Not a bit. He was useless. But his father was the coach. And his older sister was gorgeous and came to every match, so we didn’t mind too much.’
We spend a few minutes talking about the relative merits of the female supporters. Mark has two older sisters, neither of whom come to watch. A good share of the others don’t have siblings, like me. Apart from that, there’s just mums, of which we decide Ben’s mum is the best, and that she drives the nicest car.
‘Your mum’s BMW’s not bad though,’ says Jamie to Ahmed. ‘I got very well acquainted with its back seat!’
‘Yes, she said you handled yourself very well, considering. You didn’t scream so loudly that you put her off driving. I’m sorry I didn’t give up the front seat. Thought you were better off stretching out in the back.’
‘Ahmed’s mum took me to the hospital when I—’
‘You mean when I?’ I break in.
‘Whatever. When my leg got broken.’
‘That’s really kind,’ I say. Ahmed flashes me a smile.
As we talk, two figures emerge from the tree line on the other side of the field. They stand for a moment, looking down the slope towards us, then start to move off to the right.
‘We should go,’ says Jamie, seeing what I haven’t, yet.
Alan and Vince are soon recognisable, trying to knock each other’s beanie hats off as they approach the corner flag on the far side of the pitch.
‘Yeah, let’s go,’ says Ahmed. The two of them spin around and head for the footpath almost directly behind us.
‘Coming, Josh?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
Alan and Vince pick up their pace as they walk past the back of the home-team’s goalposts. Jamie is moving fast on his crutches, with Ahmed keeping pace. I have to jog to catch up with them, down the narrow alleyway between the houses at the edge of the recreation ground.
We’re about halfway along it when a car screeches to a halt at the far end, riding up onto the kerb and blocking us in. It’s Carl’s. The tinted windows remain up, the engine gunning.
We turn, the way we came blocked by Vince and Alan, who start to walk purposefully down the alleyway.
I swallow, my heart in my throat.
I see Jamie plant himself on his good leg and one crutch, raising his other arm ready to swing.
But Alan raises his hands. ‘Easy. We come in peace. Just want a word with one of you.’
Vince’s eyes narrow on Ahmed. Mine dart between them. Ahmed is visibly sweating in his many layers.
But, at the last moment, Vince switches his stare to me, and with one of their hands on each shoulder, I’m manhandled quickly to the end of the alleyway, and almost thrown through the open back door of the car, followed by Vince. Alan turns to Jamie and Ahmed, raising his right arm in a salute, and gets in the front.
The car accelerates so quickly I’m pinned into the footwell, unable to get up. When I try, there’s the heavy weight of a boot on my shoulder.
‘Stay down, Poster-boy,’ Vince growls.
FORTY SEVEN
Apparently, there have been emails.
I explain about the incident with the police, and my need to get rid of my laptop. To stop them finding out about the plan, I say.
Carl is not convinced, and as we speed through the suburban streets on the way out of town, each of his gear changes seem like an alternative to twisting my skull from my body.
Carl is beginning to doubt me. No, he says, he has gone past beginning, and since I am not responding to any of the usual channels, it has come to this. After everything they are doing for me, Carl says. After everything they’re doing to help me, Carl needs proof of my loyalty. So does Martin. Proof that I am a soldier and that I am willing to do the necessary. Willing to join the fight.
‘Words,’ he says, ‘are not enough. Not anymore.’
After twenty minutes or so we are entering another town. The only way I can tell this is that the streetlights overhead get closer together, the stops and starts of traffic and traffic lights more frequent. Although, still in the footwell, I can’t tell where we are at all.
Soon, we come to a stop, and Carl turns off the engine. He spins around in the driver’s seat, his face suddenly just inches above my own. He spits through his teeth as he talks.
‘If there’s anyone in my army that I don’t trust, it makes me very nervous. You see, it’s all about trust. I need to trust that you love your country. That you love it enough to do something about it. My brother here thinks you’re fine – that you’re one of us because of what happened to your dad. I want to believe that. But I’m not sure. See, I’ve been thinking. If that’d been my dad, I’d have been on a plane or boat straight away, getting a gun and taking the fight to the bastards that killed him. But not you. You wait a few years, getting on with your schoolwork like a coward. Which makes me doubt whether you really care at all. Whether your love is strong enough to do something about it.’
With this last, shouted line, Carl grabs my collar, lifting my head to his flashing teeth and showering me with saliva. I try not to flinch, but I can’t help it.
‘Alan. Hammer.’
Carl holds out his hand as Alan opens the glove box. A second later, a claw hammer is thrust under my nose, the smell of the metal sharp in my nostrils.
‘Just ahead of us there is a shop – a charity shop. It sells the donated goods of cowardly, British people to fund the lifestyles of the people who killed your dad. You will take this hammer, you will smash the front windows to shit, and then you will run to your left, straight down the road. There is a bus leaving the bus station in five minutes. Be on it. Alan, bus
fare.’
A crumpled five-pound note joins the hammer.
‘Do this, and I believe in you. Don’t do this, and you’ll find yourself on the receiving end of this hammer. Vince, let him up.’
The back door opens and I tumble out onto the pavement, straight into a puddle of icy water. The hammer and the money are in my hand. I stand up, try to gather myself. I pocket the money. The hammer feels like dead weight.
The shop, as described, is opposite. Refugee Support is painted in bright yellow letters above a large window. Three mannequins – an adult and two children – fill the display which is trying to be festive, the mannequins dressed in Christmas jumpers and bobble hats.
I start walking. I turn to see Carl watching me through the front window. Alan, next to him, holds a mobile phone up and is watching me through its screen. Remembering the other videos, I’m thankful that my coat has a hood. I raise it.
I cross the road, heading straight for the shop. My mouth is dry and I’m struggling to breathe properly, gasping against the chill in the air. My head feels light, as if I might faint. In my hand, the hammer is unrelenting. I feel the sharp points of its clawed side as it bounces against my jeans.
Let it be quick, I say to myself. Just let it be quick.
I see my reflection in the window and, beyond that, the shop itself. Empty, apart from one member of staff who stands with her back to the window, her cloud of white hair bobbing on top of her bright jumper, her stooped, elderly shoulders. I stand there for a second, the hammer half raised.