The Pools

by Bethan Roberts

  On a wet Saturday morning in mid-July, Dad announces he’s going to Heaton’s Scrap. Mum says, ‘Are you taking Shane too?’

  ‘Why not?’ asks Dad.

  Shane sits himself in the car before me and Dad have even got our shoes on. ‘I’ll stay here,’ says Mum. ‘But you go.’ She’s probably itching to get to Old Buggery’s place. As if I don’t know that they have a thing. She’s always popping up his shop for a sliced white, full make-up and earrings. She’s gone hours. And Dad knows about it. ‘Your mother’s a trollop, Joanna,’ he said to me one day when we were sitting on the front step in the sun. He likes to have his tea on the front step if the sun’s out. He always takes his shirt off, too, and fingers his hairy nipples. ‘Your mother’s a trollop.’ Slurp of tea. Finger of nipple. ‘Don’t you be like that, will you?’

  Heaton’s Scrap is full of puddles with bits of car and gate and fireplace sticking out of them. The scrap’s everywhere. Skeletons of machines and odd wheels and bike handlebars and bits of engine lie about. And there are loads of men, calling to each other. ‘Nice bit of stuff here’; ‘How much for an exchange?’; ‘Look at the rust on that. Completely buggered.’ Stuff like that.

  ‘Don’t touch anything,’ says Dad. ‘Hold her hand, Shane. Make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.’

  ‘Dad!’ I protest. But Shane gets to my fingers before I can put them in my pocket. And Dad just laughs.

  Shane’s hand is big and heavy, and I keep running my finger over a wart on his thumb. I want to pick it but I don’t. I just rub the edge of my nail over it, scratching at the ridged skin.

  We walk through puddles and round bits of machinery. Shane’s silent. He holds my hand tight. He’s got holes in his grey plimsolls. His feet must be getting wet but he doesn’t say anything about it.

  ‘Look, Shane.’ Dad points to the remains of a motorbike on the other side of a puddle. ‘That’s a Norton frame.’ He jumps over the water. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  Shane nods.

  ‘Want to touch it?’ Dad runs his hand over the rusted metal.

  Shane looks at me, then he steps into the puddle and reaches out to pat the frame. He keeps one hand holding tightly on to mine, so I have to lean over the puddle with him. My feet teeter on the edge of the muddy water. My fingers are crushed in his grip.

  Dad smiles. ‘You’ll have to let go of her eventually,’ he says.

  August is so hot that the underneath bit of my hair keeps sticking to my neck. I lift it up and fan it around, trying to get air on my skin. Mum says I should put it up, but I’ve always hated ponytails – who wants to look like a horse? And besides, elastic bands give me a headache. I like to feel my hair there, around my face. Except today it’s like an itchy blanket, it’s so hot.

  We’ve brought Shane to Shotton Hill for a picnic. Mum has a big tin with a whole chicken inside. Grease seeps through its kitchen-towel wrapping. Chocolate slides off the Penguin biscuits.

  The heat seems to slow everything down. Usually it’s green everywhere you look up here. But today the grass is yellow and trodden-on. Even the leaves on the trees look tired. There’s just this hot wind, blowing dust up from the patches of dirt where the grass has given up.

  Shane walks behind Dad. He’s wearing cut-off denim shorts and new black slip-on plimsolls, like the ones I’ve got for PE.

  We sit beneath a tree and eat the chicken. The knobbly dirt sticks into our bums. Mum passes round warm orange squash in plastic cups. Shane watches me as I lick chicken grease off my fingers.

  ‘Look at that. It must be a bird of prey,’ Dad points into the sky.

  Every other bird is a bird of prey, according to Dad.

  ‘What do you think, Shane?’

  Shane doesn’t reply. His legs are long and tanned, covered in shiny black hairs right down to his ankles.

  ‘Let’s play a game,’ says Dad.

  ‘It’s too hot for games, Dan,’ says Mum, lying back so her head’s in the darkest bit of shade. ‘My head’s thumping.’

  Dad looks at us. ‘You’re not too hot for a game, are you?’

  ‘What are we playing?’ I ask.

  He thinks. ‘I’ll tell you what. We’ll play find the clue.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You go and find something unusual in the woods, an unusual object. And then you bring it out to me.’

  ‘What kind of unusual object?’

  Mum smirks. ‘I’ve never heard of this game, Dan.’

  ‘That’s because it’s a new game. You bring me anything that you wouldn’t expect to find in the woods. I decide whose is the most unusual, and the winner gets… a Penguin biscuit.’

  ‘They’ll be melted by then,’ I say. But I get up anyway. The sun bears down on my shoulders. I’m wearing a strapless dress with an elasticated top, red with white stripes running from my armpits to my knees. The elastic sticks to my ribs. I like the tightness, the feeling of it holding me in.

  ‘Go on then,’ Dad lies back in the grass. ‘Shane’s already got a head start.’

  I look over towards the woods. Shane’s nowhere to be seen.

  It’s a bit cooler in the trees. The sunlight comes down in patches. The leaves make an occasional swish in the occasional breeze. I run until I find a piece of dead trunk, crouch behind it and look around on the ground.

  What can I find that’s unusual? Everything in the wood is exactly as usual. Trees. Dirt. Twigs. Nothing else. Except the heat.

  I sit and wait for Shane. I decide I’ll let him win the game.

  A line of ants marches across the wood in front of my nose. A spider runs over my sandal, but I don’t cry out. Everything smells fresh and warm. My thighs begin to ache from crouching, so I kneel down. Twigs dig into my knees, and I know they’ll leave a mark, like the sheet does when you’ve been so deep asleep that you’re all twisted round in the bed.

  Where is he?

  I clutch the trunk with one hand and peer round. Plenty of leaves and twigs and ants. But no Shane.

  Then there’s a shuffling sound. A twig snaps and the shuffling stops. Then it starts again. I see him in the distance, walking carefully through the trees. He looks like a ballet dancer. Picking his feet up and putting them down, holding his arms perfectly still, his head balanced on his shoulders like a rock.

  I duck down behind the trunk. I ball my fingers into fists. I tuck my chin into my chest and try to breathe very slowly through my nose, imagining the hairs in there moving with the air. I close my eyes. Everything has to be as small and tight as possible.

  It all goes quiet.

  I stay still for the longest time. Breathing in, breathing out.

  Eventually I open one eye and peep round the trunk.

  A hairy tanned knee is right there, almost touching my nose. I let out an awful squeal, like a little pig. I have to put a hand over my mouth to stop it.

  ‘I can see you,’ says Shane.

  I try to grip the trunk so I can pull myself up, but a piece of bark comes off in my hand and I fall backwards.

  Shane smiles.

  ‘Did you find anything?’ I ask from the ground.

  He nods.

  I stand up, brush myself off. ‘What is it?’ I step out from behind the trunk. My nose is parallel with his nipples. The sun lies in stripes across his bare chest. His hands are behind his back. He steps closer to me, and I sit back down on the trunk. He’s so close, I can smell him. He smells like new grass cuttings on our compost heap.

  ‘Close your eyes and put your hands out,’ he says.

  ‘What have you got?’ I reach behind his back but he twists away from me.

  ‘Close your eyes and hold out your hands.’

  His lower lip hangs down like a soft pink slug.

  ‘What have you got, Shane?’

  ‘Close your eyes.’

  So I close my eyes. Let my hands go limp in my lap. ‘Go on then,’ I say. ‘Show me your unusual thing.’

  I wait.

  ‘Show me,’ I say
again.

  And Shane puts his hand on my head. It’s heavy and warm. He just lets it rest there, not moving.

  Then he starts to move his fingers. Very slowly, and right across my scalp. And it’s like I can suddenly feel everything: the dampness in his fingertips, the roughness of the trunk against my legs. He keeps swirling my hair round, digging his nails into my scalp, pushing his fingers up my neck and round my ears. The hoop of my earring catches on his nail, giving the flesh of my earlobe a tug.

  I open my eyes but don’t move. I can see all the dark hairs on Shane’s thigh. The trees above us rustle. The earth smells ripe. My elasticated top feels tighter than ever.

  In the car on the way back we have all the windows open. Mum keeps saying she’ll die of heat exhaustion, she’ll surely die. Dad says nothing. Hot wind blasts round the car, battering our heads. It’s like a hairdryer has been let loose on the back seat. Shane lets his knee rest against mine. Every time we go round a corner I feel its pressure. A drip of sweat crawls past his dark eyebrow and into the hollow of his cheek. My hair blows everywhere, strands of it brushing against Shane’s shoulder. I keep laughing and hooking it back with my hand, but he doesn’t look at me, he just keeps his knee there, sweating against mine.

  two

  Spring, 1985

  Shane’s doorbell plays ‘God Save the Queen’ all the way through before his mum answers it.

  ‘Just a minute, love.’ She calls back over her shoulder, ‘Three eggs, Shane! Only three!’

  She turns back to me. ‘We’re making a cake! A Victoria sponge!’

  It’s the first time I’ve been to Shane’s house. It’s the Easter holidays. Things are bad at our place. And it’s not Mum’s thing with Buggery this time. It’s more than that. She hasn’t moved from her place on the sofa for two days. There’s wet tissues all over the cushions, like strands of melting snow. Dad’s face has fallen into a grey heap. He tells me to get out of the house while he sorts her out.

  A huge jet-black bun sits on top of Shane’s mum’s head like a dollop of chocolate. She’s wearing green plastic earrings. Her matching metallic eyeshadow has fallen into the creases around her eyes. Shane’s mum also has creases around her wide mouth, and all up her neck.

  ‘You’re Dan’s girl.’

  ‘I’m Joanna.’

  ‘Joanna!’ She opens the door wider, reaches out, touches my cheek with papery fingers. Then she stands and stares at me so hard that there’s nowhere to look but the ground.

  ‘Sorry, love! It’s just – it’s so good to see you! Come in, Joanna, come in!’

  She pulls me inside and begins taking my coat off. ‘Let’s chuck that over there,’ she says, ‘you’ll be far too warm in that.’ Yanking my arm out of my sleeve, she drags me down the hall, talking all the time.

  ‘Shane will be so pleased to see you!’ She stops. Takes a handful of my cheek. Squeezes and releases several times. Then adds, ‘As am I, Joanna!’

  While walking and talking, neither her chocolate-hair nor her earrings move an inch. ‘Dan has always been a good man. Your Dad, that is.’ She grips my arm. ‘Did he tell you he came to see us in the hospital, after the accident?’

  He didn’t tell me that.

  Shane’s house smells of pee. But there’s another, musty smell, which must be the oven, because when we get to the kitchen it’s much stronger. Steam runs down the windows, making the net curtains stick to the glass in patches. The kitchen cupboards are green, like Shane’s Mum’s earrings. Packets of cereal stand on the draining board. They’ve got everything. Sugar Puffs. Shreddies. Frosties. Ricicles. There’s a heap of dirty laundry between the bin and the back door. A washed-out flesh-coloured bra straddles the top of the pile.

  Radio One plays softly. Shane’s sitting at the kitchen table. He sees me come in and he cracks an egg on the side of a glass bowl.

  ‘Shane! You’ve got a visitor, love!’

  She gives me a little shove forward. ‘Don’t be shy! You can help us bake. We need all the help we can get, don’t we Shane?’

  There’s a smudge of flour on Shane’s forehead. He’s holding his hands above the glass bowl, half an eggshell in each fist. A patch of red spreads up his throat.

  ‘It’s Joanna, Shane.’

  A glaze comes over his eyes. He looks down into the bowl.

  ‘Dan Denton’s girl.’

  Shane crunches the eggshells in his hands. Flakes fall and scatter over the table. Smiling up at me, his mum prizes the remaining shell from his fingers. ‘Sit down, love. You can grease the tins.’

  Simon Bates announces ‘Our Tune’.

  I sit opposite Shane and brush a few bits of eggshell from the plastic-coated tablecloth.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  He puts his hands beneath the table.

  ‘Get it in all the corners,’ says Shane’s mum, plonking two cake tins and a piece of butter paper in front of me. ‘Don’t stint on the grease.’

  I smear the butter on. Black flecks of toast stick all round the tins.

  Shane’s mum stands behind him and strokes his hair. ‘Ooh!’ she says. “Hey Jude”.’ She reaches over, turns the radio up. Then she sings over Shane’s head.

  ‘The lah-lah you need is on your – lah-lah. Nah nah nah nah nah – I love “Our Tune”, don’t you, Joanna? So moving. I love anything like that. Real life stories.’ She sighs. ‘Me and Shane have got a few of our own, haven’t we, love?’ She kisses Shane’s curly hair.

  ‘You done with those? Right. What’s next. Oh yes. The eggs. Do you want to whip the eggs up, Shane, love? Or shall I do it?’

  She leans over him and whips the eggs with a fork.

  ‘Baby Jane’ comes on.

  ‘Poor Rod. Not as good as he used to be.’ She swishes the volume down and continues to whip. Her mound of hair is completely still. But her tits shake inside her green blouse.

  ‘Tell Shane about school, Joanna.’

  ‘Not much to tell.’

  ‘There must be something.’ A drip of egg splashes over the side of the bowl. ‘Shane never tells me anything. Sometimes I wonder if he ever goes to that school. He’s in the same year as you, isn’t that right?’

  ‘He’s a year above,’ I say. ‘I’m a fourth year.’

  ‘You look older than that.’ She stops whipping and looks up. ‘But then, you’re like your mother, I expect.’

  She begins to add the eggs to her bowl.

  ‘The secret is to do it slowly, then they don’t curdle. Hold out this sieve for me. Now give it a good bang as I put the flour in.’

  Shane’s eyes follow my fingers. My rings clank against the side of the metal sieve.

  ‘I’ve heard Shane’s pretty popular in his class, Joanna. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’

  She winks. ‘He should be, don’t you think? Handsome fella like him. Takes after his father. I bet a lot of the girls have a crush on him.’

  I think about laughing, but then I glance at Shane. The glaze has cleared from his eyes. His mum’s tits bounce against his shoulders as she reaches over him to fold the flour into the eggs. ‘Oh yes,’ she sighs. ‘I bet a lot of the girls have a little crush on Shane.’

  Mrs Pearce insists I stay until the cake’s done, ‘then we can all have a big piece together. Shane loves cake, don’t you, Shane?’

  But Shane has disappeared through the back door.

  When I try to say that I have to get going, Mrs Pearce just waves her green-finger-nailed hand in front of my face. ‘Silly! I’ll let Dan know you’re here. Why don’t you go out in the garden with Shane?’ She points a fingernail towards the door.

  I look around the garden. The lilac bush at the end of the path belches out blossom. There’s a sweet smell a million miles from Mum’s lilac bath cubes. I love those bath cubes. You open the gold paper wrapper and hold the cube of salt in your fist over the steamy water. Apply pressure and – bam! – it explodes into the bath and fizzes away like sherbet’s supposed to but never does.
I always expect a milky-silky bath after that, like the woman in Carry on Cleo (Dad loves that one). But you get in the bath and all you feel are grains of salt scratching away at your arse. And the water’s fizz just turns to a layer of scum.

  I stand there smelling sweet bits of breeze. Then I hear music: Madonna singing about being touched for the first time.

  Nobody’s about. The windows of the house are all closed. The only place it could be coming from is the shed. It’s a tiny wooden shed, half hidden by the lilac bush. The window in front is framed by a pair of ruched net curtains. A frill like a fancy pair of knickers runs all along the bottom.

  I walk towards the music, keeping time with my footsteps.

  I stand outside the door and listen. My fingers are so deep in my jeans pockets, I can feel the top crease of my thighs.

  I call his name and wait for him to come.

  three

  Spring, 1985

  The shed door opens easy.

  I step over the wooden threshold and into the darkness. Blink. Shapes become clear. A tape player. A small table with a can of shandy on it. A dartboard. And underneath the target, Shane, sitting in a high-backed armchair.

  He can’t have heard me call his name, because he doesn’t move from his position in the armchair. He just sits there, toes splayed, head back, eyes closed.

  By now, Prince’s ‘Little Red Corvette’ is blasting out.

  His body fills the chair, his hands dangling over the stuffed arms, his shoulders squeezed between the velveteen wings of the headrest, his thighs spilling over the seat. His jeans are too short. The knobbles of his ankles stick out.

  I can still escape. I can turn around and walk up the path away from the lilac bush and the music and back into the house.

  Light struggles through the frilly nets. I stand for a while, chew on a strand of hair, tasting the Elnett. I wait for Shane to see me.