Blood Rising - Part Thirty-Seven
Title: Blood Rising (Part Thirty-Seven)
Author: gregoria44
Rating: 15+ for language and concepts, this part
Word count: This part 5,908
Summary: Deeper Down.
A/N: Same as Part One. All comments and concrit always welcome and actively encouraged. Special thanks to haldoor, rivers_bend, extra special thanks to ladywillin and everyone who's reading and commenting. If you have any trouble accessing any of the previous chapters, please message me and I’ll sort something out for you.
This particular chapter dedicated to ladywillin, hope you're feeling better very soon.
Sorry for time lapse since last chapter - RL has been a bit of a pig, but we're getting there. Thank you for sticking with this.
Warnings: These are teenagers and this is gay fiction. Stuff happens.
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven / Part Twelve / Part Thirteen / Part Fourteen / Part Fifteen / Part Sixteen / Part Seventeen / Part Eighteen / Part Nineteen / Part Twenty / Part Twenty-One / Part Twenty-Two / Part Twenty-Three / Part Twenty-Four / Part Twenty-Five / Part Twenty-Six / Part Twenty-Seven / Part Twenty-Eight / Part Twenty-Nine / Part Thirty / Part Thirty-One / Part Thirty-Two / Part Thirty-Three / Part Thirty-Four / Part Thirty-Five / Part Thirty-Six
Though it felt like I’d dissolved to nothing somewhere between the park and home, I had more trouble waiting, and it obviously thought there was enough of me left to shout at.
“Where’ve you been? What’s wrong with your face? What’s that in your hand?” Duncan was an unusual shade of red as he launched himself down the hall at me, eyes on full alert. “You’re soaking. You didn’t leave a note. Where’ve you been?”
Swallowing hard and swiping at my face, it was easier to default to ‘shitty-little-brother’ than explain things from where I was standing. “Don’t remember a law being passed about note-leaving.” I had to look to see what was in my hand, surprised when I found the carrier bag there.
“Didn’t need to be a law,” he groused, annoyance beginning to lose its fire. “It’s what normal people do before they disappear for hours.”
“It’s not that late.” I couldn’t seem to let go of the bag, and was beyond working out how to get my dripping coat off without putting it down: having a normal argument about normal things was a welcome distraction.
“It’s gone nine.”
Had it?
“And it’s pissing it down out there. What’s going on?”
“I dunno, I didn’t take geography.” I finally released my grip. “You leave me on my own for hours while you’re at work. What’s with all the fuss this time?”
Eyeing me shrewdly (and no doubt spotting attention-diverting tactics), he waited until my arms were trapped in the twisted wet of my sleeves, and then pounced on the carrier.
“Duncan, don’t…”
He pulled out a fistful of shirt and frowned. The sight of it in his large, work-hardened hand made my stomach jump. He immediately reached the wrong conclusion when he saw the look on my face. “Tell me you’ve not been shoplifting?”
Despite never having stolen anything in my life, apparently we were still only one step from him thinking I might. I couldn’t even be bothered to reply. He dug underneath the shirt and looked puzzled. “And how come your school clothes are in here?”
Throughout my whole career as a teenager, I’d never wanted to stomp upstairs and slam my door as much as right then. In squashing down the childish urge, a colder, more grown-up realisation spread in its place. “It’s none of your business, man.” I tossed my coat on the banister and held out my hand.
Dumbstruck, he handed the bag over, and watched me walk upstairs.
*
Once I’d grabbed a towel and ground the rain out of my hair, I turned off the bedroom light and sank onto my bed, all out of emotion. Des and I were no longer together. What else was there? When I lay down, my eyes wouldn’t close, though there was nothing worth looking at.
After what might have been five minutes or five hours, there was a tap at the door and Duncan slowly pushed it open. When I didn’t complain, he came and sat on the bed, side-lit in profile by light from the landing.
“I spend a lot of time imagining the police at the door, telling me you’ve been found in a ditch with your neck broken,” he said, “I can’t help it. That, and Nan told me you’ve been seeing Mam: I keep thinking I’m going to come home and find all your stuff gone.”
A few days before, his explanations would have tipped me into blind panic. As it was, I didn’t have the energy. “’M not going anywhere, sorry to disappoint.”
“Shut up,” he said, brushing off my self pity. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“Not really.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“No.”
“Some girl phoned earlier. Suppose it’s nothing to do with that, either.”
I wasn’t sure how much further my heart could sink. “What girl?”
“Said her name was Tina.”
Sweet Jesus. Grabbing the pillow, I shoved it over my head.
Through the muffled, stifling thickness, Duncan could be heard laughing. “Had to happen sooner or later, little man.”
No, it didn’t. “What did she want?”
He tugged the pillow out of my grasp and grinned down at me. “You, I reckon.”
Since being foul wasn’t putting him off, I took a gamble on telling him just enough truth to make him go away. “I got off with her at the Christmas disco, and now I really bloody wish I hadn’t, all right?”
“Not a looker, then?” He was enjoying himself, probably having waited a long time to offer his manly advice. “Or has snogging her ruined your chances with someone else?”
“Summat like that,” I muttered, trying to keep it short.
“Well, thank God for that,” he joked, coming over all pretend gratitude, “I was starting to have my doubts about you, lad: all that time you used to spend squirreled away up here with Des…”
My chest hurt. My eyes hurt. It hurt to look at my idiot brother but I kept on looking until he saw. The grin fell first, then the warmth.
“No,” he stated, firmly. “Not that. Des doesn’t get to be pissed off about you kissing girls. No way.”
My head hurt. My jaw hurt. My teeth hurt.
“You and him… not you… you’re not…” he was struggling, and I watched him rewind back through conversations, the little moments, the big ones; waiting all the time for me to jump in and deny everything. I eyed him stonily from where I lay, and let him suffer. “You wouldn’t drop that on me,” he insisted at last. “That’s not what this is.” He stared at me with confusion and distress: the expression of a man surprised by an armed burglar rather than a man facing his own brother. He stood up. “I don’t know what this is, and I don’t want to know, but I can’t handle it right now.”
Pronouncement made, subject closed. I stared him out the room, wishing I hated him as much as I hated myself.
*
Christmas was crap. With Mam away, there was no-one I wanted to talk to, and once the shop had closed for the week, nowhere for me to go that wasn’t home or Nan’s. Apart from not being at work, Duncan behaved as he had for all of December: either asleep or slumped in front of the telly (sometimes both), with a can of beer or a cigarette in his hand. We hardly spoke, which wasn’t unusual, but the silences between were false and brittle.
Most of the time, I was angry with him for not wanting to hear, for not wanting to listen. On Christmas day itself, forced into politeness in front of Nan, I felt like my head would explode and imagined the relief of bellowing over the turkey and best china, “WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO HAVE DONE WRONG?” but I didn’t. And I kept on keeping it together, because often enough, I was grateful: he hadn’t thrown me onto the street, or attacked me, which was how some brothers (not a million miles away) might have reacted, given the same circumstance.
Even so, I felt less like everything was out in the open, and more like I’d ‘got away’ with something.
New Year was worse. Wayne rang to invite me round to his for the usual Hamilton party, but I wanted to see him less than anyone else who might be going. He didn’t sound surprised when I turned the offer down, but couldn’t completely disguise the note of triumph when he asked if I’d seen Tina. I told him to mind his own business.
Duncan went out for the night; I didn’t know where to or who with, but he came back stumbling and slurring, finding me miserable and sober in front of some God-awful music show repeat. When he realised I was in the room, he fixed me with an unnerving, narrow-lidded look, swaying gently to and fro. “What you lookin’ at?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled, switching my gaze back to the telly, thinking it was a long time since I’d have said, ‘Dunno, but it’s looking back.’ He flopped onto the seat next to me, and stared at me from closer quarters.
I ignored him, and after a bit, felt his attention waver. “This your sort of shit?” he asked, pointing a drifting finger at the TV. On screen, skinny men in camo gear and what was either grease or make-up were slamming around a stage, hacking at guitars. The noise they were making was a bloody disaster.
“No.”
“There’s a fucking mercy.” He coughed heavily, a gust of second and third-hand cigarettes blasting across my face. I moved further away to avoid the hand reaching for my arm. He was a mess, and I didn’t particularly want to be in the same room, let alone get into a conversation. I got up, stabbed the telly off, and headed for the stairs. “I wan’ed you be safe, Steve,” he half-called after me, “thas all.”
Pausing in the hallway, I turned back, but his eyes were closing as he slid, degree by falling degree, until his head met the arm of the sofa. An enormous snore ripped out of his throat, and then another.
“Why can’t you be a knob head all the time, and have done?” I asked his comatose hulk. “Make it easier on both of us.”
*
First form of term, I’d barely had chance to note Des’ presence, let alone figure out how to handle it, when Wayne’s grin cracked open and the bullshit began. “So, you and the gorgeous Tina, eh?” He nudged Will hard enough for Will to give him a slow, considering look, before raising his hand and thwacking Wayne smartly across the back of the head.
“And I’ve told you before about winking,” Will reminded him, “so don’t go there, either.”
“Fuck off,” Wayne replied automatically, too cheerfully pleased with his universe to be properly bothered. “Tina I’ll-do-it-for-a-stick-of-chewing-gum-and-a-wet-wipe Stubley: Stevie W. you old dog.”
Will turned his pondering gaze on me. “Does she taste as rank as she looks?”
I’d expected less, and earned it, but their attention would have been hard enough to take without Des and Mark waiting on my response: one with potentially endless anger, the other with sick misery. I was feeling queasy myself.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right: you two have never done anything stupid when you’ve had a drink. Feel free to have a go at me, why don’t you?”
Blaming the pop and hiding in bluster, I didn’t see how Des reacted; couldn’t bear to turn his way. God, I was a coward.
Later in the dinner queue, my head floating, trailing above like an ugly fairground balloon, I had to ask Wayne to repeat what he’d just said.
“I said: I’m glad you took my advice.”
“What advice?” Thinking back over the morning, I couldn’t recall anything useful he’d added to my life. Turned out I wasn’t going back far enough.
“You know: getting out there, getting on it.” He waggled his tongue at me in a way he clearly thought was sexual, but made him look in need of mental assistance.
“You’re talking about the disco?” I’d forgotten how annoyed I’d been with him at the time, but it soon came back as I realised he was congratulating himself for ‘sorting me out’ with someone (anyone) girl-shaped. “When you came in that close I thought you were after a snog?”
I’d raised my voice loud enough to carry, and in the lull of knives and forks it left behind, there was a round of laughter and a couple of wolf-whistles. Wayne’s body went taut from his forehead down to his feet, and he had to wind his jaw open to come back at me. “If you weren’t my mate, I’d be putting you through that wall right now,” he spat, while everyone across the room leaned in to listen.
“What’s your problem, Wayne?” I shook my head patronisingly, confident I could take him in a fight if it came to that, knowing it wouldn’t.
He knew it too. “Oh, what’s yours?” He stropped off to a swell of applause, giving the world the finger as he went.
“What a wonder it is, how much you two can say with so few words,” Will remarked heavily, turning back to the queue.
Sod the lot of you, was all that crossed my mind.
*
And that’s how things went. The awkwardness wouldn’t go, though it was amazing how easy it was to spend hours at school with certain people and yet not really talk to them.
Des did his best to return to the background, but Mark was on it, giving him enough company to stop him completely vanishing. I forced myself to be glad someone was looking out for him, attempted to convince myself it was best for everyone, but the suspicion remained: he’d have been happier without any of us than I was ever going to be without him.
The play in particular stood for the way everything was supposed to have turned out; Des had been so positive about the time tech-crew would give us together, yet despite being listed in the programme with the rest of our names, he gave up coming to rehearsals two weeks into term. Mr. Danville (who in fairness had a hundred other things to think about with the approach of ‘opening night’) asked after him the once and then avoided doing so again. There were enough of us to cover for him, and no point asking why, on the second night when Mrs. Doran came to see the play, he hung out in a corner of the lighting room, saying nothing and staring into the gloom. At least Thomas stayed away.
Duncan had a ticket for the Saturday night, or ‘last night’ as we were supposed to call it, and came up to visit us during the interval. Lights on, the particularly poky doorway made him look even bigger than normal. “Bloody hell!” Will said, “it’s Steven on Hulk juice!”
“Says the Milky Bar Kid on acid,” Duncan returned.
Will stood and high-fived him, squeezing past on his way (in his words), to make use of the facilities.
“Nice and cosy in here,” Duncan ducked beneath the doorframe. “These electrics all right?”
“I… I think so,” Mark glanced at the mixer board, momentarily forgetting my brother was a plumber and not an electrician. “Why, what do you think’s wrong with them?”
“Nowt,” Duncan’s reply was drier than dust, “but I know moisture and electronics don’t mix, and a bunch of sweaty, smelly lads in a small space like this…” he mimed an explosion with his hands and mouth.
“Excuse me,” piped up Peter Stringfellow Jnr, the cupboard’s only other occupant at the time, “I am neither sweaty nor smelly. Girls like a practical man, but they don’t like men who stink, so unlike some people around here, I shower every day and use a decent deodorant.”
He was partially right. His definition of ‘decent’ however, had clashed with Wayne’s, and first night, he’d been barred from the lighting room until he’d washed the worst of it off. He’d gone a bit easier on the trigger since then.
Duncan laughed. “Can’t say knowing my way round a tool kit is that powerful a draw, mate, but best of luck.”
We moved into the space outside to get our drinks. Wayne had done the honours with a sticky tray from the dining room and a few cans of Coke. “They’d better have something stronger on offer,” Duncan muttered, and wandered off to find it.
Will nodded at a point past my ear. “Here we go, Stevo: your fan club’s arrived.”
Sure enough, a familiar clack-clacking noise drew close, along with the usual waft of over-chewed mint. “’Lo.”
Since the disco, no matter what I’d said to her (including, ‘I am not your boyfriend: you do know that, right?’), Tina couldn’t seem to grasp the idea of our not being together. She constantly popped up, possessing a supernatural ability to know where I was at all times. It didn’t matter that I sometimes ignored her completely, or the fact we never, ever touched.
There’d been one particular evening, after hours of her trailing behind me at school, I’d found her knocking on my front door. I actually said, “I’m not in,” and shut the door in her face. Apparently unconcerned, she’d simply left, and the next day carried on as before. I couldn’t work out if she was truly thick, or really a stalking genius, because protest as I might, her behaviour made most people believe we were an item.
“Hello, Doll-face,” Will offered, never tiring of ways to bewilder her. “Come here often?”
“Yeah. ’S every day, innit?”
“Except for the weekends when you pursue your new-found hobby of fruit and veg collecting?”
“Eh?”
“Or has Steven not yet managed to stretch your horizons beyond baked beans with everything?”
“What y’ on about, Greeny?”
Wayne always got bored quickest of the two. “Christ Almighty, why do we have to go through this song and dance every night? Bog off, Stubley: we’re busy.”
She’d opened her mouth to reply when Duncan returned, looking surprisingly cheerful at the plastic cup of juice in his hand. “You ask dinner ladies to ‘volunteer’ their time after hours, they’re bound to have a bottle of wine somewhere up their sleeves,” he explained, raising the cup. “Your health, lads.”
He was taking the first mouthful when he caught sight of Tina gorming up at him. Her gob hadn’t closed after Wayne’s comment, was getting wider as she stretched her jaw to tongue the gum, wedged in her back teeth and increasingly on display.
“Bloody hell,” Duncan was looking back at her as though she was an unexpected bath-time toad. “Who are you when you’re at home?”
Repeating her gape, she pushed the gum into her other cheek and snapped to. “Depends who’s asking.”
Duncan glanced around for help. Will stepped in. “Stubley: Tina. Massive and misguided crush on your bro, here. It’s not going well.”
“Same Tina who keeps phoning our house?”
Wayne sniggered and Duncan silenced him with a look before going back to Tina. “You one of Reevo’s lot?”
“Yeah, I am.” She shrugged, a touch of defiance. “What’s he done to you?”
“Nowt, love,” he replied, backing down, “I just know the name, that’s all.” He downed the rest of his wine and clapped me on the shoulder. “Going back to me seat. Catch you later.”
The rest of us waited uncomfortably while the mechanical chewing resumed, unsure which direction Tina would go off in next. “That your brother, then?” she asked, chin up, an unusually fiery expression on her face.
“Yes.”
“He’s well fit.”
*
With the play over, days and nights suddenly filled with the things which would make up our remaining months together: outstanding coursework, mock exams, revision, talk of an unimaginable future beyond Bryndleigh Comp… on and on and on.
I nearly had a fit when Miss Donaugh sent a letter home, asking Duncan to come in with me for a meeting. His first response was, “Now what?” but when we got there, it turned out to be something more positive than either of us had expected.
She handed Duncan a list of my mock results. “The issue we have here is that Steven is brighter than he thinks he is.”
He frowned at the paper as though the figures might rearrange themselves into something more believable. “Ohhhh-kay, so what does that mean?”
“It means, with just a tiny bit more effort, he could get enough points at GCSE for a late application to do his A-levels. Maths is still the main issue, as you can see, but Mr. Groves is putting on lessons for people who are this far…” she held up a thumb and forefinger, “…from achieving ‘C’ grade. Anything less, and you’re looking at retakes: everyone wants C minimum in English and maths for anything, whether it’s further education or the job market. It’s your call, Steven: we can’t make the extra effort for you.”
Duncan tossed the paper onto the desk, not disrespectfully, but like he was worried holding on would somehow alter its implications. “I gotta tell you, this is not genetic. Or if it is, I seriously lucked out.”
Miss Donaugh smiled at him. “Well, you’ve done a brilliant job, considering everything. Listen, I know things are a stretch for you at the moment but prospects aren’t great for school leavers, and long-term Steven could be looking at university. There’s financial help for people staying in full-time education. Beyond eighteen, the grants are already means tested; if you put it off for a year or two, they may be gone altogether.”
Duncan took a deep breath and turned to me, letting it out very slowly. “Well, what d’you reckon?”
My mind was blown, overwhelmed with images of throwing out my uniform, calling teachers by their first names, being a student rather than a pupil, using a whole new vocabulary of ‘free periods’, ‘tutors’, and ‘NUS discount’. More seriously, I could see the piles of text books, ring-binders, and those huge portfolio folders which every student I ever saw on the bus always carried. Could that really be me, come September?
As for university, all I had was a picture of the tie-dyed, nose-ringed, patchwork-trousered guys who littered the centre of Manchester, busking to top up their studenty weed fund.
“Bad excuse for a dreadlock.”
Miss Donaugh and Duncan glanced at each other.
Scraping my scattered brain cells together, I pretended I hadn’t just quoted Will and made a better effort. “But… I don’t know what I want to do.”
“There’s always teaching.” Duncan slid a smart-mouthed grin towards Miss Donaugh, who smiled wryly and rolled her eyes.
“Worry about that later: choose whichever you’ve the most interest in; it’s more important to get excellent grades in useful subjects than average grades in the ‘right’ ones.”
All surprisingly tasty food for thought. We left the room with an application form for Corleigh Community College, a leaflet about free transport, a noticeable spring in Duncan’s step, and a buzz between my ears for the infinite possibilities of life.
The excitement died with an audible ‘pfzzzzt’ at the sight of Mrs. Doran sitting po-faced outside in the corridor, Des slumped disinterestedly at her side. He’d been turning up to school with new bruises, and a miles-off, narcoleptic expression which told us Thomas hadn’t returned to Ireland after all.
Nobody had said anything: talk was pointless within our group (especially after the politics of Christmas), and teachers were spending their limited time and attention on those likely to repay the effort with exam results. The same was going on for kids who’d spent the past five years mucking about or in trouble: they were more or less allowed to doss merrily around, as long as they didn’t stop anyone else from getting on.
Des didn’t look up, and Mrs. Doran and Duncan solidly ignored each other. I would have at least said ‘Hi,’ but Duncan was already reaching for the outer doors, and I had to hurry to catch up.
A couple of days later, weather grim enough to throw us all together on inside break, Wayne was quizzing me about my newly formed college plans. His questions were mainly an excuse for him to gush about the BTEC he was going to begin when joining Mr. Hamilton’s family firm.
“Day release, man! Sounds like I’m in open prison or something, but it’s working for a living, and that’s what it’s all about these days. Sod school!”
“Aren’t BTECs for people too thick to do A-levels?” Will goaded, bored beyond niceties after hearing about it for weeks.
“No, they’re vocational, you knob. Look it up.”
Mark verbally stepped between them, quietly spoken but firm in his stance. “Mum and Dad want me to finish my education before I even think about going into food full time.”
“What, like sitting in a bath of beans all day?” Wayne scoffed. “Good luck with that.”
“You know what I mean. Dad says no-one gets a job for life these days. It’s better to play safe; not put all your eggs in one basket.”
“Beans, eggs, whatever. Come tell me that when I’ve got a Ferrari and you’re starving at uni. I might give you a lift to the dole office.”
Will propped his feet up on his bag and folded his arms. “Can’t we talk about sex and drugs and laugh at other people’s farts instead of this? I’m a teenager, not a middle-aged dullard worrying about my pension.”
“Soz, Grandad,” Wayne replied, missing the point, “What exciting career path have you been working on then?”
“Huh. I’m sticking to my original choice of fireman or astronaut. If they were good enough at five, they’ll do me at fifteen.”
“You’re too short for either, mate. Anyway, how many speccy astronauts do you see floating around out there?”
“And there was I being all serious. Boring old college for me as well then, my jet-setting pal. Don’t expect an invite to any N.U.S. parties, though: you’ll have to be in bed by nine for all those working-man, early morning starts.”
Somewhere beyond Mark, Des stood up, cramping the small cloakroom further with his floor to ceiling height. “I’m fucking off for a fag.” He slung his bag next to Will’s and stumped off. A moment or two later, we heard the outside door bang to.
Wayne peered out of the scratched, fogged up window as far as he was able. “In this weather? Suit the miserable bastard down to the ground, that will.”
“What was with that?” Will asked Mark, but Mark looked guiltier than normal, and wouldn’t answer.
With conversation dead, the gap filled first distantly, then suddenly overhead with the unmistakable sweep-past of a hail storm.
“Sweet baby Jesus!” Will stared upwards as though he could see through the roof, or more likely as if the roof might cave in. Mark groaned, and something in the sound made me get up, hoick my coat over my head, and go outside to find Des.
He hadn’t gone far, was sheltering against the wall of the dining room as ball bearing-sized hailstones bounced around his head and feet. “Nice weather for masochists,” I remarked, trying to be funny. He wasn’t biting.
“No-one asked you to follow me out here.”
Ignoring the sourness, I tried again. “Mark seemed worried about you, so…”
“So what? Are you the supply nanny now? It never does this for long, and I was sick to death of you lot going on about next year.”
True enough, the hail was already turning back to drizzle; far easier to stand than the ricocheting bullets of ice. I shrugged my coat into place. “What’s wrong with talking about next year?”
“’Cos in case you haven’t noticed, as of June, I’m officially fucked.”
“Come off it.” I tried to jolly things up. “You’ve got the same chance of getting in as the rest of us; Donaugh must have said the same to you as she did to me.”
“Yeah.” He laughed but didn’t mean it. “Then what? I can’t spend another two years at home; I’d sooner kill myself.”
Coldness soaked through. “Don’t say that.”
“Oh, sorry to offend, but remind me what else is on offer, again?”
“Like Donaugh said: there’s money to help out with…”
“Child benefit paid to me mam? A bus pass? Whoop-de-doo.” He was getting worked up enough, I expected the wet to start steaming off him. “I need out. I need somewhere to live, and rent, and food, and clothes, and money for bills and all that shit. It don’t matter if I get straight As in everything, and I won’t, no-one’s gonna employ a sixteen year old to do anything like what I need to live off.”
“Ages ago, you said when school broke up we could do what we want; you were looking forward to…”
“I was being a twat, apparently. Don’t worry: it’s since been pointed out to me that what I want doesn’t add up.”
After weeks of grudging silence, the sarcasm and bitter resentment carried a sharper sting than any amount of hail, and I didn’t like seeing him give up. “There must be someone who can help. What about talking to Miss Donaugh without your mam there?”
“Oh, SHUT UP, Steve! Stop trying to mend everything. If I don’t want to hear about how marvellous September’s going to be for everyone, I don’t have to, so leave me alone.”
“But there must be something…”
“IF THERE WAS, I WOULD DO IT!” he screamed, lunging first towards me and then swinging abruptly to slam his fist into the wall. The impact forced a grunt from his body, but he drew back to go again. As if throwing myself through syrup, I pushed out both hands and grasped for his shoulder and wrist. As my fingers clutched flesh, he crumpled, howling as we both went down.
I let go, watching in shock as he pulled his arms into himself, rocking into a crouch.
“Des…”
“No.”
“Des, please…” I reached out again, carefully took his wrist and pulled back the blazer. I expected bruising. Under his jumper, under the off-white of his shirt sleeve, some sort of darker line. I pushed the material up as far as it would go: a long, scabbed gouge revealed itself, disappearing towards his elbow. “What the hell is that?”
He shook his head, yanked the arm away from me. “An accident.”
It was a while since he’d bothered with that excuse.
“Whose?”
“I told you to shut up.” His voice was cracked with shouting, shaking with all the things he wasn’t going tell anyone. Face contorting on a hiss of breath, he twisted his hand to check the state of his fist: blood glistened in the wide cracks of smashed-open skin. “Oh, fucking hell.”
“You need to…”
“You wanna know something?” he spat out, firing back into bitterness. “I used to imagine we’d both leave school and get work, move in together. What a dick.”
“We couldn’t have afforded that: not even two of us.” I tore my eyes from the mess of his knuckles to find him giving me a look which suggested I might be telling him grass was green, or water wet.
“You didn’t want it anyway, man. You’re gonna have a safe little life like the rest of them: Wayne and his precious BTEC; Will and his loaded dad and the mam he’s never gonna leave; Mark with his nicey-nice parents and the bloody restaurant, and you with
Duncan. And if that goes shit-shaped, you’ve got your mam begging to see you all the time an’ all.”
“Why are you being like this?” I’d never seen him look so mean and ugly; never seen him look so much like Thomas before. “And what have you said to Mark?”
Trying to flex his hand, he let rip with another stream of swear words. “Ever notice,” he forced out, “how every time you come near me something else shit happens?”
Maybe he was only trying to shove me away, but he must know how scared I was it might be true. “That… that’s not fair.”
“Fair?” He let the word go with a sound of disgust and a nod to his damaged arm. “When Mark asked, I didn’t tell him it was an accident. Or this,” he pulled back the other sleeve, leaving a smear of blood in its wake. There were the bruises I’d expected before, and within their circle, a series of red and black crusted holes looking too much like cigarette burns. “He thinks I’m self-harming and isn’t impressed, all right?”
I didn’t know how I kept speaking. “And are you?”
He leant forward until his face was all I could see, and actually grinned. “What do I have to say to make you leave me alone as well, Steven? Because I’ve tried asking, and I can’t deal with you, or Mark, or your stupid-ass suggestions about what I ought to be doing with my life. And having to remind you this is no longer your problem is getting really bloody BORING.”
Looking away from his awful eyes for a second of respite and a breath, I caught Mark leaning against the corner of the wall, watching us. White-faced, gnawing on a thumb nail, desperately unhappy, the almost spectral image stalled my gut reaction; stopped me from saying exactly what I was thinking.
“Fine,” I told Des instead. “If that’s what you want. But right now, we go to the office, get your hand sorted out.”
A filthy glare was the reward for my self-control, but he did begin to get up. My own legs had turned to rubber, wobbly with the scene that had just played out. The rest of me mainly felt worn out. Worn out, and increasingly weary of all the drama.
*
Mark looked ready to lose it altogether, collapsed on a low wall outside main entrance. “He’s like this all the time, now, and I don’t know how to help any more.”
We’d left Des in the questionably capable hands of the school secretary (sidelining in her own brand of first aid, often sweet-tea-and-biscuit related), and had accidentally picked up Ruth on the way out. She was standing over us, forehead wrinkled in concern.
“Maybe you can’t,” she gently offered.
I’d only been half listening to their conversation, wondering how close Des’ fist had come to rearranging my nose back into place, but her careful suggestion made me glance up. If I’d made it, Mark would have been obliged to argue, but coming from Ruth, maybe he’d accept there was nothing else to be done.
Her explanation went on, calmly, coaxingly. “No-one could accuse you of not trying, but you’ve done your best, and you’ve got to think of yourself sometime. You’ve got exams to get ready for, things to sort out. Maybe it’s good he’s pushing you away; it wouldn’t be fair if he expected you there all the time. What if things were the other way round? Would you want him throwing everything away to help you?”
She’d taken a slight misstep on the last question, and I watched the jut of his jaw shape his reply. “He’d do the same for anyone. Wouldn’t he, Steve?”
He and Ruth both looked at me with big eyes, each appealing for a different voice of reason. Jiggling my heels, I clutched the wall a little tighter. “He would have done once, man,” I started, “but…”
A sudden flashback blinded me momentarily: the way Des used to look at Mark when he first brought him into our group: like an orphaned puppy, ready to grow into a pedigree hound the instant he was given the right love and attention. Mark’s feelings on the matter were simply none of my business: I may have known Des longest, but I would always be a latecomer as far as anything else was concerned.
“…that’s all gone now.”
Ruth sat next to Mark, put her arm round his sagging shoulders. I left them to it.
*
Part Thirty-Eight
Author: gregoria44
Rating: 15+ for language and concepts, this part
Word count: This part 5,908
Summary: Deeper Down.
A/N: Same as Part One. All comments and concrit always welcome and actively encouraged. Special thanks to haldoor, rivers_bend, extra special thanks to ladywillin and everyone who's reading and commenting. If you have any trouble accessing any of the previous chapters, please message me and I’ll sort something out for you.
This particular chapter dedicated to ladywillin, hope you're feeling better very soon.
Sorry for time lapse since last chapter - RL has been a bit of a pig, but we're getting there. Thank you for sticking with this.
Warnings: These are teenagers and this is gay fiction. Stuff happens.
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven / Part Twelve / Part Thirteen / Part Fourteen / Part Fifteen / Part Sixteen / Part Seventeen / Part Eighteen / Part Nineteen / Part Twenty / Part Twenty-One / Part Twenty-Two / Part Twenty-Three / Part Twenty-Four / Part Twenty-Five / Part Twenty-Six / Part Twenty-Seven / Part Twenty-Eight / Part Twenty-Nine / Part Thirty / Part Thirty-One / Part Thirty-Two / Part Thirty-Three / Part Thirty-Four / Part Thirty-Five / Part Thirty-Six
Though it felt like I’d dissolved to nothing somewhere between the park and home, I had more trouble waiting, and it obviously thought there was enough of me left to shout at.
“Where’ve you been? What’s wrong with your face? What’s that in your hand?” Duncan was an unusual shade of red as he launched himself down the hall at me, eyes on full alert. “You’re soaking. You didn’t leave a note. Where’ve you been?”
Swallowing hard and swiping at my face, it was easier to default to ‘shitty-little-brother’ than explain things from where I was standing. “Don’t remember a law being passed about note-leaving.” I had to look to see what was in my hand, surprised when I found the carrier bag there.
“Didn’t need to be a law,” he groused, annoyance beginning to lose its fire. “It’s what normal people do before they disappear for hours.”
“It’s not that late.” I couldn’t seem to let go of the bag, and was beyond working out how to get my dripping coat off without putting it down: having a normal argument about normal things was a welcome distraction.
“It’s gone nine.”
Had it?
“And it’s pissing it down out there. What’s going on?”
“I dunno, I didn’t take geography.” I finally released my grip. “You leave me on my own for hours while you’re at work. What’s with all the fuss this time?”
Eyeing me shrewdly (and no doubt spotting attention-diverting tactics), he waited until my arms were trapped in the twisted wet of my sleeves, and then pounced on the carrier.
“Duncan, don’t…”
He pulled out a fistful of shirt and frowned. The sight of it in his large, work-hardened hand made my stomach jump. He immediately reached the wrong conclusion when he saw the look on my face. “Tell me you’ve not been shoplifting?”
Despite never having stolen anything in my life, apparently we were still only one step from him thinking I might. I couldn’t even be bothered to reply. He dug underneath the shirt and looked puzzled. “And how come your school clothes are in here?”
Throughout my whole career as a teenager, I’d never wanted to stomp upstairs and slam my door as much as right then. In squashing down the childish urge, a colder, more grown-up realisation spread in its place. “It’s none of your business, man.” I tossed my coat on the banister and held out my hand.
Dumbstruck, he handed the bag over, and watched me walk upstairs.
*
Once I’d grabbed a towel and ground the rain out of my hair, I turned off the bedroom light and sank onto my bed, all out of emotion. Des and I were no longer together. What else was there? When I lay down, my eyes wouldn’t close, though there was nothing worth looking at.
After what might have been five minutes or five hours, there was a tap at the door and Duncan slowly pushed it open. When I didn’t complain, he came and sat on the bed, side-lit in profile by light from the landing.
“I spend a lot of time imagining the police at the door, telling me you’ve been found in a ditch with your neck broken,” he said, “I can’t help it. That, and Nan told me you’ve been seeing Mam: I keep thinking I’m going to come home and find all your stuff gone.”
A few days before, his explanations would have tipped me into blind panic. As it was, I didn’t have the energy. “’M not going anywhere, sorry to disappoint.”
“Shut up,” he said, brushing off my self pity. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“Not really.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“No.”
“Some girl phoned earlier. Suppose it’s nothing to do with that, either.”
I wasn’t sure how much further my heart could sink. “What girl?”
“Said her name was Tina.”
Sweet Jesus. Grabbing the pillow, I shoved it over my head.
Through the muffled, stifling thickness, Duncan could be heard laughing. “Had to happen sooner or later, little man.”
No, it didn’t. “What did she want?”
He tugged the pillow out of my grasp and grinned down at me. “You, I reckon.”
Since being foul wasn’t putting him off, I took a gamble on telling him just enough truth to make him go away. “I got off with her at the Christmas disco, and now I really bloody wish I hadn’t, all right?”
“Not a looker, then?” He was enjoying himself, probably having waited a long time to offer his manly advice. “Or has snogging her ruined your chances with someone else?”
“Summat like that,” I muttered, trying to keep it short.
“Well, thank God for that,” he joked, coming over all pretend gratitude, “I was starting to have my doubts about you, lad: all that time you used to spend squirreled away up here with Des…”
My chest hurt. My eyes hurt. It hurt to look at my idiot brother but I kept on looking until he saw. The grin fell first, then the warmth.
“No,” he stated, firmly. “Not that. Des doesn’t get to be pissed off about you kissing girls. No way.”
My head hurt. My jaw hurt. My teeth hurt.
“You and him… not you… you’re not…” he was struggling, and I watched him rewind back through conversations, the little moments, the big ones; waiting all the time for me to jump in and deny everything. I eyed him stonily from where I lay, and let him suffer. “You wouldn’t drop that on me,” he insisted at last. “That’s not what this is.” He stared at me with confusion and distress: the expression of a man surprised by an armed burglar rather than a man facing his own brother. He stood up. “I don’t know what this is, and I don’t want to know, but I can’t handle it right now.”
Pronouncement made, subject closed. I stared him out the room, wishing I hated him as much as I hated myself.
*
Christmas was crap. With Mam away, there was no-one I wanted to talk to, and once the shop had closed for the week, nowhere for me to go that wasn’t home or Nan’s. Apart from not being at work, Duncan behaved as he had for all of December: either asleep or slumped in front of the telly (sometimes both), with a can of beer or a cigarette in his hand. We hardly spoke, which wasn’t unusual, but the silences between were false and brittle.
Most of the time, I was angry with him for not wanting to hear, for not wanting to listen. On Christmas day itself, forced into politeness in front of Nan, I felt like my head would explode and imagined the relief of bellowing over the turkey and best china, “WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO HAVE DONE WRONG?” but I didn’t. And I kept on keeping it together, because often enough, I was grateful: he hadn’t thrown me onto the street, or attacked me, which was how some brothers (not a million miles away) might have reacted, given the same circumstance.
Even so, I felt less like everything was out in the open, and more like I’d ‘got away’ with something.
New Year was worse. Wayne rang to invite me round to his for the usual Hamilton party, but I wanted to see him less than anyone else who might be going. He didn’t sound surprised when I turned the offer down, but couldn’t completely disguise the note of triumph when he asked if I’d seen Tina. I told him to mind his own business.
Duncan went out for the night; I didn’t know where to or who with, but he came back stumbling and slurring, finding me miserable and sober in front of some God-awful music show repeat. When he realised I was in the room, he fixed me with an unnerving, narrow-lidded look, swaying gently to and fro. “What you lookin’ at?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled, switching my gaze back to the telly, thinking it was a long time since I’d have said, ‘Dunno, but it’s looking back.’ He flopped onto the seat next to me, and stared at me from closer quarters.
I ignored him, and after a bit, felt his attention waver. “This your sort of shit?” he asked, pointing a drifting finger at the TV. On screen, skinny men in camo gear and what was either grease or make-up were slamming around a stage, hacking at guitars. The noise they were making was a bloody disaster.
“No.”
“There’s a fucking mercy.” He coughed heavily, a gust of second and third-hand cigarettes blasting across my face. I moved further away to avoid the hand reaching for my arm. He was a mess, and I didn’t particularly want to be in the same room, let alone get into a conversation. I got up, stabbed the telly off, and headed for the stairs. “I wan’ed you be safe, Steve,” he half-called after me, “thas all.”
Pausing in the hallway, I turned back, but his eyes were closing as he slid, degree by falling degree, until his head met the arm of the sofa. An enormous snore ripped out of his throat, and then another.
“Why can’t you be a knob head all the time, and have done?” I asked his comatose hulk. “Make it easier on both of us.”
*
First form of term, I’d barely had chance to note Des’ presence, let alone figure out how to handle it, when Wayne’s grin cracked open and the bullshit began. “So, you and the gorgeous Tina, eh?” He nudged Will hard enough for Will to give him a slow, considering look, before raising his hand and thwacking Wayne smartly across the back of the head.
“And I’ve told you before about winking,” Will reminded him, “so don’t go there, either.”
“Fuck off,” Wayne replied automatically, too cheerfully pleased with his universe to be properly bothered. “Tina I’ll-do-it-for-a-stick-of-chewing-gum-and-a-wet-wipe Stubley: Stevie W. you old dog.”
Will turned his pondering gaze on me. “Does she taste as rank as she looks?”
I’d expected less, and earned it, but their attention would have been hard enough to take without Des and Mark waiting on my response: one with potentially endless anger, the other with sick misery. I was feeling queasy myself.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right: you two have never done anything stupid when you’ve had a drink. Feel free to have a go at me, why don’t you?”
Blaming the pop and hiding in bluster, I didn’t see how Des reacted; couldn’t bear to turn his way. God, I was a coward.
Later in the dinner queue, my head floating, trailing above like an ugly fairground balloon, I had to ask Wayne to repeat what he’d just said.
“I said: I’m glad you took my advice.”
“What advice?” Thinking back over the morning, I couldn’t recall anything useful he’d added to my life. Turned out I wasn’t going back far enough.
“You know: getting out there, getting on it.” He waggled his tongue at me in a way he clearly thought was sexual, but made him look in need of mental assistance.
“You’re talking about the disco?” I’d forgotten how annoyed I’d been with him at the time, but it soon came back as I realised he was congratulating himself for ‘sorting me out’ with someone (anyone) girl-shaped. “When you came in that close I thought you were after a snog?”
I’d raised my voice loud enough to carry, and in the lull of knives and forks it left behind, there was a round of laughter and a couple of wolf-whistles. Wayne’s body went taut from his forehead down to his feet, and he had to wind his jaw open to come back at me. “If you weren’t my mate, I’d be putting you through that wall right now,” he spat, while everyone across the room leaned in to listen.
“What’s your problem, Wayne?” I shook my head patronisingly, confident I could take him in a fight if it came to that, knowing it wouldn’t.
He knew it too. “Oh, what’s yours?” He stropped off to a swell of applause, giving the world the finger as he went.
“What a wonder it is, how much you two can say with so few words,” Will remarked heavily, turning back to the queue.
Sod the lot of you, was all that crossed my mind.
*
And that’s how things went. The awkwardness wouldn’t go, though it was amazing how easy it was to spend hours at school with certain people and yet not really talk to them.
Des did his best to return to the background, but Mark was on it, giving him enough company to stop him completely vanishing. I forced myself to be glad someone was looking out for him, attempted to convince myself it was best for everyone, but the suspicion remained: he’d have been happier without any of us than I was ever going to be without him.
The play in particular stood for the way everything was supposed to have turned out; Des had been so positive about the time tech-crew would give us together, yet despite being listed in the programme with the rest of our names, he gave up coming to rehearsals two weeks into term. Mr. Danville (who in fairness had a hundred other things to think about with the approach of ‘opening night’) asked after him the once and then avoided doing so again. There were enough of us to cover for him, and no point asking why, on the second night when Mrs. Doran came to see the play, he hung out in a corner of the lighting room, saying nothing and staring into the gloom. At least Thomas stayed away.
Duncan had a ticket for the Saturday night, or ‘last night’ as we were supposed to call it, and came up to visit us during the interval. Lights on, the particularly poky doorway made him look even bigger than normal. “Bloody hell!” Will said, “it’s Steven on Hulk juice!”
“Says the Milky Bar Kid on acid,” Duncan returned.
Will stood and high-fived him, squeezing past on his way (in his words), to make use of the facilities.
“Nice and cosy in here,” Duncan ducked beneath the doorframe. “These electrics all right?”
“I… I think so,” Mark glanced at the mixer board, momentarily forgetting my brother was a plumber and not an electrician. “Why, what do you think’s wrong with them?”
“Nowt,” Duncan’s reply was drier than dust, “but I know moisture and electronics don’t mix, and a bunch of sweaty, smelly lads in a small space like this…” he mimed an explosion with his hands and mouth.
“Excuse me,” piped up Peter Stringfellow Jnr, the cupboard’s only other occupant at the time, “I am neither sweaty nor smelly. Girls like a practical man, but they don’t like men who stink, so unlike some people around here, I shower every day and use a decent deodorant.”
He was partially right. His definition of ‘decent’ however, had clashed with Wayne’s, and first night, he’d been barred from the lighting room until he’d washed the worst of it off. He’d gone a bit easier on the trigger since then.
Duncan laughed. “Can’t say knowing my way round a tool kit is that powerful a draw, mate, but best of luck.”
We moved into the space outside to get our drinks. Wayne had done the honours with a sticky tray from the dining room and a few cans of Coke. “They’d better have something stronger on offer,” Duncan muttered, and wandered off to find it.
Will nodded at a point past my ear. “Here we go, Stevo: your fan club’s arrived.”
Sure enough, a familiar clack-clacking noise drew close, along with the usual waft of over-chewed mint. “’Lo.”
Since the disco, no matter what I’d said to her (including, ‘I am not your boyfriend: you do know that, right?’), Tina couldn’t seem to grasp the idea of our not being together. She constantly popped up, possessing a supernatural ability to know where I was at all times. It didn’t matter that I sometimes ignored her completely, or the fact we never, ever touched.
There’d been one particular evening, after hours of her trailing behind me at school, I’d found her knocking on my front door. I actually said, “I’m not in,” and shut the door in her face. Apparently unconcerned, she’d simply left, and the next day carried on as before. I couldn’t work out if she was truly thick, or really a stalking genius, because protest as I might, her behaviour made most people believe we were an item.
“Hello, Doll-face,” Will offered, never tiring of ways to bewilder her. “Come here often?”
“Yeah. ’S every day, innit?”
“Except for the weekends when you pursue your new-found hobby of fruit and veg collecting?”
“Eh?”
“Or has Steven not yet managed to stretch your horizons beyond baked beans with everything?”
“What y’ on about, Greeny?”
Wayne always got bored quickest of the two. “Christ Almighty, why do we have to go through this song and dance every night? Bog off, Stubley: we’re busy.”
She’d opened her mouth to reply when Duncan returned, looking surprisingly cheerful at the plastic cup of juice in his hand. “You ask dinner ladies to ‘volunteer’ their time after hours, they’re bound to have a bottle of wine somewhere up their sleeves,” he explained, raising the cup. “Your health, lads.”
He was taking the first mouthful when he caught sight of Tina gorming up at him. Her gob hadn’t closed after Wayne’s comment, was getting wider as she stretched her jaw to tongue the gum, wedged in her back teeth and increasingly on display.
“Bloody hell,” Duncan was looking back at her as though she was an unexpected bath-time toad. “Who are you when you’re at home?”
Repeating her gape, she pushed the gum into her other cheek and snapped to. “Depends who’s asking.”
Duncan glanced around for help. Will stepped in. “Stubley: Tina. Massive and misguided crush on your bro, here. It’s not going well.”
“Same Tina who keeps phoning our house?”
Wayne sniggered and Duncan silenced him with a look before going back to Tina. “You one of Reevo’s lot?”
“Yeah, I am.” She shrugged, a touch of defiance. “What’s he done to you?”
“Nowt, love,” he replied, backing down, “I just know the name, that’s all.” He downed the rest of his wine and clapped me on the shoulder. “Going back to me seat. Catch you later.”
The rest of us waited uncomfortably while the mechanical chewing resumed, unsure which direction Tina would go off in next. “That your brother, then?” she asked, chin up, an unusually fiery expression on her face.
“Yes.”
“He’s well fit.”
*
With the play over, days and nights suddenly filled with the things which would make up our remaining months together: outstanding coursework, mock exams, revision, talk of an unimaginable future beyond Bryndleigh Comp… on and on and on.
I nearly had a fit when Miss Donaugh sent a letter home, asking Duncan to come in with me for a meeting. His first response was, “Now what?” but when we got there, it turned out to be something more positive than either of us had expected.
She handed Duncan a list of my mock results. “The issue we have here is that Steven is brighter than he thinks he is.”
He frowned at the paper as though the figures might rearrange themselves into something more believable. “Ohhhh-kay, so what does that mean?”
“It means, with just a tiny bit more effort, he could get enough points at GCSE for a late application to do his A-levels. Maths is still the main issue, as you can see, but Mr. Groves is putting on lessons for people who are this far…” she held up a thumb and forefinger, “…from achieving ‘C’ grade. Anything less, and you’re looking at retakes: everyone wants C minimum in English and maths for anything, whether it’s further education or the job market. It’s your call, Steven: we can’t make the extra effort for you.”
Duncan tossed the paper onto the desk, not disrespectfully, but like he was worried holding on would somehow alter its implications. “I gotta tell you, this is not genetic. Or if it is, I seriously lucked out.”
Miss Donaugh smiled at him. “Well, you’ve done a brilliant job, considering everything. Listen, I know things are a stretch for you at the moment but prospects aren’t great for school leavers, and long-term Steven could be looking at university. There’s financial help for people staying in full-time education. Beyond eighteen, the grants are already means tested; if you put it off for a year or two, they may be gone altogether.”
Duncan took a deep breath and turned to me, letting it out very slowly. “Well, what d’you reckon?”
My mind was blown, overwhelmed with images of throwing out my uniform, calling teachers by their first names, being a student rather than a pupil, using a whole new vocabulary of ‘free periods’, ‘tutors’, and ‘NUS discount’. More seriously, I could see the piles of text books, ring-binders, and those huge portfolio folders which every student I ever saw on the bus always carried. Could that really be me, come September?
As for university, all I had was a picture of the tie-dyed, nose-ringed, patchwork-trousered guys who littered the centre of Manchester, busking to top up their studenty weed fund.
“Bad excuse for a dreadlock.”
Miss Donaugh and Duncan glanced at each other.
Scraping my scattered brain cells together, I pretended I hadn’t just quoted Will and made a better effort. “But… I don’t know what I want to do.”
“There’s always teaching.” Duncan slid a smart-mouthed grin towards Miss Donaugh, who smiled wryly and rolled her eyes.
“Worry about that later: choose whichever you’ve the most interest in; it’s more important to get excellent grades in useful subjects than average grades in the ‘right’ ones.”
All surprisingly tasty food for thought. We left the room with an application form for Corleigh Community College, a leaflet about free transport, a noticeable spring in Duncan’s step, and a buzz between my ears for the infinite possibilities of life.
The excitement died with an audible ‘pfzzzzt’ at the sight of Mrs. Doran sitting po-faced outside in the corridor, Des slumped disinterestedly at her side. He’d been turning up to school with new bruises, and a miles-off, narcoleptic expression which told us Thomas hadn’t returned to Ireland after all.
Nobody had said anything: talk was pointless within our group (especially after the politics of Christmas), and teachers were spending their limited time and attention on those likely to repay the effort with exam results. The same was going on for kids who’d spent the past five years mucking about or in trouble: they were more or less allowed to doss merrily around, as long as they didn’t stop anyone else from getting on.
Des didn’t look up, and Mrs. Doran and Duncan solidly ignored each other. I would have at least said ‘Hi,’ but Duncan was already reaching for the outer doors, and I had to hurry to catch up.
A couple of days later, weather grim enough to throw us all together on inside break, Wayne was quizzing me about my newly formed college plans. His questions were mainly an excuse for him to gush about the BTEC he was going to begin when joining Mr. Hamilton’s family firm.
“Day release, man! Sounds like I’m in open prison or something, but it’s working for a living, and that’s what it’s all about these days. Sod school!”
“Aren’t BTECs for people too thick to do A-levels?” Will goaded, bored beyond niceties after hearing about it for weeks.
“No, they’re vocational, you knob. Look it up.”
Mark verbally stepped between them, quietly spoken but firm in his stance. “Mum and Dad want me to finish my education before I even think about going into food full time.”
“What, like sitting in a bath of beans all day?” Wayne scoffed. “Good luck with that.”
“You know what I mean. Dad says no-one gets a job for life these days. It’s better to play safe; not put all your eggs in one basket.”
“Beans, eggs, whatever. Come tell me that when I’ve got a Ferrari and you’re starving at uni. I might give you a lift to the dole office.”
Will propped his feet up on his bag and folded his arms. “Can’t we talk about sex and drugs and laugh at other people’s farts instead of this? I’m a teenager, not a middle-aged dullard worrying about my pension.”
“Soz, Grandad,” Wayne replied, missing the point, “What exciting career path have you been working on then?”
“Huh. I’m sticking to my original choice of fireman or astronaut. If they were good enough at five, they’ll do me at fifteen.”
“You’re too short for either, mate. Anyway, how many speccy astronauts do you see floating around out there?”
“And there was I being all serious. Boring old college for me as well then, my jet-setting pal. Don’t expect an invite to any N.U.S. parties, though: you’ll have to be in bed by nine for all those working-man, early morning starts.”
Somewhere beyond Mark, Des stood up, cramping the small cloakroom further with his floor to ceiling height. “I’m fucking off for a fag.” He slung his bag next to Will’s and stumped off. A moment or two later, we heard the outside door bang to.
Wayne peered out of the scratched, fogged up window as far as he was able. “In this weather? Suit the miserable bastard down to the ground, that will.”
“What was with that?” Will asked Mark, but Mark looked guiltier than normal, and wouldn’t answer.
With conversation dead, the gap filled first distantly, then suddenly overhead with the unmistakable sweep-past of a hail storm.
“Sweet baby Jesus!” Will stared upwards as though he could see through the roof, or more likely as if the roof might cave in. Mark groaned, and something in the sound made me get up, hoick my coat over my head, and go outside to find Des.
He hadn’t gone far, was sheltering against the wall of the dining room as ball bearing-sized hailstones bounced around his head and feet. “Nice weather for masochists,” I remarked, trying to be funny. He wasn’t biting.
“No-one asked you to follow me out here.”
Ignoring the sourness, I tried again. “Mark seemed worried about you, so…”
“So what? Are you the supply nanny now? It never does this for long, and I was sick to death of you lot going on about next year.”
True enough, the hail was already turning back to drizzle; far easier to stand than the ricocheting bullets of ice. I shrugged my coat into place. “What’s wrong with talking about next year?”
“’Cos in case you haven’t noticed, as of June, I’m officially fucked.”
“Come off it.” I tried to jolly things up. “You’ve got the same chance of getting in as the rest of us; Donaugh must have said the same to you as she did to me.”
“Yeah.” He laughed but didn’t mean it. “Then what? I can’t spend another two years at home; I’d sooner kill myself.”
Coldness soaked through. “Don’t say that.”
“Oh, sorry to offend, but remind me what else is on offer, again?”
“Like Donaugh said: there’s money to help out with…”
“Child benefit paid to me mam? A bus pass? Whoop-de-doo.” He was getting worked up enough, I expected the wet to start steaming off him. “I need out. I need somewhere to live, and rent, and food, and clothes, and money for bills and all that shit. It don’t matter if I get straight As in everything, and I won’t, no-one’s gonna employ a sixteen year old to do anything like what I need to live off.”
“Ages ago, you said when school broke up we could do what we want; you were looking forward to…”
“I was being a twat, apparently. Don’t worry: it’s since been pointed out to me that what I want doesn’t add up.”
After weeks of grudging silence, the sarcasm and bitter resentment carried a sharper sting than any amount of hail, and I didn’t like seeing him give up. “There must be someone who can help. What about talking to Miss Donaugh without your mam there?”
“Oh, SHUT UP, Steve! Stop trying to mend everything. If I don’t want to hear about how marvellous September’s going to be for everyone, I don’t have to, so leave me alone.”
“But there must be something…”
“IF THERE WAS, I WOULD DO IT!” he screamed, lunging first towards me and then swinging abruptly to slam his fist into the wall. The impact forced a grunt from his body, but he drew back to go again. As if throwing myself through syrup, I pushed out both hands and grasped for his shoulder and wrist. As my fingers clutched flesh, he crumpled, howling as we both went down.
I let go, watching in shock as he pulled his arms into himself, rocking into a crouch.
“Des…”
“No.”
“Des, please…” I reached out again, carefully took his wrist and pulled back the blazer. I expected bruising. Under his jumper, under the off-white of his shirt sleeve, some sort of darker line. I pushed the material up as far as it would go: a long, scabbed gouge revealed itself, disappearing towards his elbow. “What the hell is that?”
He shook his head, yanked the arm away from me. “An accident.”
It was a while since he’d bothered with that excuse.
“Whose?”
“I told you to shut up.” His voice was cracked with shouting, shaking with all the things he wasn’t going tell anyone. Face contorting on a hiss of breath, he twisted his hand to check the state of his fist: blood glistened in the wide cracks of smashed-open skin. “Oh, fucking hell.”
“You need to…”
“You wanna know something?” he spat out, firing back into bitterness. “I used to imagine we’d both leave school and get work, move in together. What a dick.”
“We couldn’t have afforded that: not even two of us.” I tore my eyes from the mess of his knuckles to find him giving me a look which suggested I might be telling him grass was green, or water wet.
“You didn’t want it anyway, man. You’re gonna have a safe little life like the rest of them: Wayne and his precious BTEC; Will and his loaded dad and the mam he’s never gonna leave; Mark with his nicey-nice parents and the bloody restaurant, and you with
Duncan. And if that goes shit-shaped, you’ve got your mam begging to see you all the time an’ all.”
“Why are you being like this?” I’d never seen him look so mean and ugly; never seen him look so much like Thomas before. “And what have you said to Mark?”
Trying to flex his hand, he let rip with another stream of swear words. “Ever notice,” he forced out, “how every time you come near me something else shit happens?”
Maybe he was only trying to shove me away, but he must know how scared I was it might be true. “That… that’s not fair.”
“Fair?” He let the word go with a sound of disgust and a nod to his damaged arm. “When Mark asked, I didn’t tell him it was an accident. Or this,” he pulled back the other sleeve, leaving a smear of blood in its wake. There were the bruises I’d expected before, and within their circle, a series of red and black crusted holes looking too much like cigarette burns. “He thinks I’m self-harming and isn’t impressed, all right?”
I didn’t know how I kept speaking. “And are you?”
He leant forward until his face was all I could see, and actually grinned. “What do I have to say to make you leave me alone as well, Steven? Because I’ve tried asking, and I can’t deal with you, or Mark, or your stupid-ass suggestions about what I ought to be doing with my life. And having to remind you this is no longer your problem is getting really bloody BORING.”
Looking away from his awful eyes for a second of respite and a breath, I caught Mark leaning against the corner of the wall, watching us. White-faced, gnawing on a thumb nail, desperately unhappy, the almost spectral image stalled my gut reaction; stopped me from saying exactly what I was thinking.
“Fine,” I told Des instead. “If that’s what you want. But right now, we go to the office, get your hand sorted out.”
A filthy glare was the reward for my self-control, but he did begin to get up. My own legs had turned to rubber, wobbly with the scene that had just played out. The rest of me mainly felt worn out. Worn out, and increasingly weary of all the drama.
*
Mark looked ready to lose it altogether, collapsed on a low wall outside main entrance. “He’s like this all the time, now, and I don’t know how to help any more.”
We’d left Des in the questionably capable hands of the school secretary (sidelining in her own brand of first aid, often sweet-tea-and-biscuit related), and had accidentally picked up Ruth on the way out. She was standing over us, forehead wrinkled in concern.
“Maybe you can’t,” she gently offered.
I’d only been half listening to their conversation, wondering how close Des’ fist had come to rearranging my nose back into place, but her careful suggestion made me glance up. If I’d made it, Mark would have been obliged to argue, but coming from Ruth, maybe he’d accept there was nothing else to be done.
Her explanation went on, calmly, coaxingly. “No-one could accuse you of not trying, but you’ve done your best, and you’ve got to think of yourself sometime. You’ve got exams to get ready for, things to sort out. Maybe it’s good he’s pushing you away; it wouldn’t be fair if he expected you there all the time. What if things were the other way round? Would you want him throwing everything away to help you?”
She’d taken a slight misstep on the last question, and I watched the jut of his jaw shape his reply. “He’d do the same for anyone. Wouldn’t he, Steve?”
He and Ruth both looked at me with big eyes, each appealing for a different voice of reason. Jiggling my heels, I clutched the wall a little tighter. “He would have done once, man,” I started, “but…”
A sudden flashback blinded me momentarily: the way Des used to look at Mark when he first brought him into our group: like an orphaned puppy, ready to grow into a pedigree hound the instant he was given the right love and attention. Mark’s feelings on the matter were simply none of my business: I may have known Des longest, but I would always be a latecomer as far as anything else was concerned.
“…that’s all gone now.”
Ruth sat next to Mark, put her arm round his sagging shoulders. I left them to it.
*
Part Thirty-Eight