White Goods (4 page)

As instructed, Mum, Della, Auntie Stella,
Uncle
Gary and me headed straight back to the caravan, with Mum
fretting all the way there about where everyone was gonna
sleep
now-we-had-an-extra-one,
reassuring
Uncle
Gary at the
same time
that-it-really-was-no-bother.

‘
Then why do you keep going on about it
?’ said Auntie Stella, trotting up the steps to
our mobile home.

‘
I was just-.’

‘
We can always go to a
hotel,’ Stella had continued and Mum went quiet, thinking. Thinking
on it long and hard. It had seemed like a good option, but we all
knew we’d never hear the end of it.

Mum sighed and gave her final
offer.

‘
You
lovebirds
can have the bunks and the boys can
go in with Della.’

‘
Oh Mum, that’s not-.’
Della began, but she was cut short.

‘
Oven on Della, warm them
plates before your father gets back.’ For a second Mum paused in
the doorway of the caravan, caught up in her thoughts, like she had
forgotten something again, but the moment passed. I wondered if it
was the abandoned hat that was bothering her, but I said nothing.
‘Right, salt and ketchup!’ she uttered, moving forward and letting
the rest of us in.

As I stepped in, I smelt something. It was a smell I
recognised from earlier that day: the smell from
Uncle
Gary’s car. Just outside the entrance to the caravan. It
didn’t make any sense.

‘
Are you coming in or
what?’ Mum called back at me, annoyed that I’d come to a
standstill. ‘You’re letting out all the heat.’

‘
Coming,’ I told her,
puzzled by the strange waft of petrol. But I was quickly
distracted, as the caravan was soon humming with a very different
aroma: fried chicken and warm vinegary chips, accompanied by a full
orchestra of ecstatic groans and slapping, greasy lips, a quality
sound that gave Ian’s musical triumph a run for its
money.

We stayed up really late. Della had
brought along her tape machine, so we had Abba on for a bit, Boney
M too, but then Mum had a moan and we had to have Barbara and Neil
forced upon us and the party died a bit. But Gary brought out a
pack of cards and more drinks came out too – cokes for us kids,
spirits amongst the grown-ups – and it livened up a bit. It got
very warm with all the bodies and clouds of smoke emitting from Mum
and Auntie Stella’s lungs.

‘
Couple of old dragons,’ Dad whispered to me, giving me a
cheeky wink. ‘Both of them.’ A moment of father-son collusion
between us that stuck in my head.

After a while, Auntie Stella suggested
a card game that involved taking off your clothes – it must have
been the heat and the gin – Dad pulled his face of approval,
provoking Mum to pull hers of quite the opposite and we were back
to the party fizzling out again. This time for good.

‘
Come on, Gary,’ Auntie
Stella said, getting up, and a look of embarrassed panic hit the
room.

‘
Time you kids got to sleep,’ Mum uttered and started
‘shooing’ us with her hands. ‘Come on. Quick-quick.’

‘
We’ll just put our heads under our pillows,’ Ian grinned.
Della laughed too. No doubt I had a confused look on my face, as I
got more words from Ian. ‘One day,’ he offered, ruffling my hair.
One day: this was an explanation he offered for quite a lot.
One day
.

‘
One day you finish the
bloody sentence and I might have the foggiest.’

This was in my head; not out loud. Just
for me.

The misunderstanding between me and
Della happened at about 3am. It’s stuck in my head for two reasons.
One, it was so unfair: what she said, what they thought I was
doing. Two, because of what I saw – what woke me in the first place
and what I was really trying to do when Della woke up and caught
me.

The cold woke me first: a chill about
my shoulders, icy. I was sleeping on the floor, in a sleeping bag
with my arms on the outside. The chill was from a draft of some
sort and I lay there in cold ignorance for a long while before I
realised its origin – the caravan door was wide open. This was odd,
because I remembered Mum asking Dad to lock it up, as she had
panicked us all off to bed.

‘
Before
it
starts up!’ she’d said, looking in
the direction of the small bedroom, where Auntie Stella had
apparently put down her welcome mat for the night. For once I
hadn’t asked for an explanation and applied Ian’s
one-day
theory in silence. It could wait. But Dad had
definitely locked the door – he had made a big fuss, doing it all
in slow motion just to wind-up Mum a bit.

‘
Tony!’ she’d hissed in the
loudest whisper and he’d quickened up. So, it should have been
locked tight – not wide open.

But it wasn’t only the nighttime breeze
that woke me up. There were other noises – voices - coming through
the open door.

I stayed in my sleeping bag a bit
longer and tried to figure out who the voices belonged too, but I
couldn’t. So I got up: slowly, quietly, creeping in small steps,
not wanting to wake anyone or be caught. My instincts told me
something secret was going on.

When I got to the door, I poked my head
out, still moving at a measured pace, hoping no one would see me.
It was cold that night, despite the sunny day, and, as my breath
crystallized in the chilled air, I thought it might give me away.
Whatever was going on, if I’d got caught, there would have been
trouble.

You weren’t
supposed to get up once you’d gone to bed; one of Dad’s golden
rules. (‘Rotten rules,’ Della called them.) I didn’t want to take
any chances – Dad had a temper at times and a backhand with an
equally fierce reputation. So, as I poked my face past the caravan
entrance, I did it very slowly, getting my head out just enough to
see.

They were over by our cars. Three of
them. They had a dog, too. Talking, low voices. Smoking too. Two of
them smoking; the third not. There was a bit of jostling, the
non-smoker getting a gentle shove and there was quiet laughter,
too. But it wasn’t that simple, I could tell; there was something
else going on. Something about the non-smoker; something very
uncomfortable.

A conversation had started and I tried
to listen. I heard bits, but it was whispered and broken up by
passing night noises. There was a flick-flick-flick sound
throughout that cut into the words, keeping the sentences
apart.

‘
Come on.’
Flick-flick.

‘
I should be-.’

‘
Just come with us, that’s all.’
Flick-flick

‘
If they realise I’m
not-.’

‘
We’ll do it. Like we
said.’

‘
You wanna listen to him, you do.’
Flick.
‘He’s out
of control.’
Flick.
‘So let’s go.’
Flick.
‘Unless you want us to wake everyone up. Just like we said
we would.’

‘
No. No I
don’t.’

‘
Good. This
way.’

‘
Come on. Like he
says.’

Flick-flick-flick.

When they moved on, I followed them
without thinking. Despite the cool night. Despite knowing I could
get into big shit with Dad for getting up when I should have stayed
in bed. But I couldn’t leave the non-smoker. So, I followed. Not
thinking. Not thinking at all and forgetting something. Forgetting
something I couldn’t be without. Forgetting something that I didn’t
remember until it was way too late and the panic had set
in.

They went in the direction of the
castle-come-nightclub. They walked on the road that went down the
middle of the site and I followed on the grass, flitting between
caravans for cover. At the end of the road, they headed down
towards the outdoor swimming pool. I kept following, further and
further, all the way. Once at the pool, they headed on to the old
castle.

There were a few lights left on at the
castle – shining through windows at the top. But it was blacked-out
in the reception area and the restaurant. All closed for the night.
This didn’t thwart their mission, though; didn’t even make them
pause to think. The three of them just kept on going, one of them
dragging the dog along harshly, and it was clear that they knew how
to get in.

‘Where d’you get them?’ one asked, as
a jangle of keys interrupted the quiet.

‘Doesn’t matter. Just keep it shut,
ok?’

And in they went, all three of them,
not bothering to lock up, not suspecting that anyone was following.
But I did follow, quietly and not too closely, wondering what was
coming next.

And then it
became clear, I could see where they were going, but I didn’t
understand why. I didn’t understand the point to it all.

I waited and
watched. I saw it all. And suddenly, I really missed it: the coat,
my comfort blanket. How could I have come out without it? It was
cold, even inside the building and, as I looked on, I felt scared
and knew I had to get out of there before they decided to leave and
lock up again. So, as silently as possible, I backed away, out
towards the reception, back towards the pool area and then I
ran.

I ran like
I’d never run in my life – not before or since. Feet hitting the
ground with a heavy thud, but picking up like lightning, speeding
me back. I didn’t look back, to see if I’d been seen; I didn’t have
time. I just needed to get back and put myself inside my
parka-shaped cocoon of safety.

When
I got in, I shut
the door, grabbed my coat, which was hung up behind the caravan
door, pulled it on and sat on top of my sleeping bag. I was
surprised that neither the beating of my heart or the squeezing of
my lungs woke anyone up. Both were rattling enough to wake the
dead. But no one stirred. Most were deep asleep with the drink, I
guess.

I looked at
Della. Still sound asleep too. But suddenly I felt I needed her.
Needed to wake her, tell what had gone on, but just her – not
anyone else. No, it just had to be Della. So, that’s when it
happened: I unzipped the side of her sleeping bag and wafted it up
and down, letting the cold air onto her legs, slowly waking her up,
quietly like. I was looking down at her legs, where the chilly
atmosphere was leaving goose pimples, when she actually opened her
eyes. So I didn’t notice that she was looking directly at
me.

‘
What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ said a voice and
I lost my own, suddenly unable to give an explanation, like my
voice was blocked. When the moment had come, I hadn’t known what to
say. ‘I said, what the fuck are you doing? What are you looking at
down there?’

Before I knew it, lights were on and
everyone was back in the room. Everyone – even those I’d followed
only minutes ago.

‘
What the bloody hell’s
going on?’ asked Dad, coming forward in just orange and brown nylon
y-fronts, a hairy bollock looking out on the left. ‘What’s all the
noise Del?’

‘
Well?’ Mum’s voice. She
looked directly at me and the lights seemed very, very bright. It
happened so quickly that I was still holding onto the corner of
sleeping bag that I had been waving about.

Ian scratched his hair, acting as if he
had just woken up.

Uncle
Gary and Auntie
Stella appeared, wrapped in just a sheet, which was odd, as they
were supposed to have a bunk each.

‘
What’s going on?’ the latter demanded, shuffling forward a
little,
Uncle
Gary tugging her back, as he nearly
lost his bit of the covers.

Mum threw them a sudden, short glare,
and then her eyes were back on me, demanding.

But I couldn’t say a thing. It was just supposed to be
Della. Anything I said now would just have seemed lame, ridiculous.
So, I said nothing. I couldn’t. I
daren’t
. I looked at
Ian again.

When everyone had calmed down and our sleeping arrangements
were rearranged – Della and
Uncle
Gary swapped
their places, despite much protesting – the caravan settled into
silence once more. I had my eyes closed, but I couldn’t sleep. My
mind was wired with images. Images I wanted to forget. And now I
was guilty of a crime too – a crime they all thought I had
committed against Della. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t at all.

As I lay
there, I could hear the unzipping of a sleeping bag and the
rustling sound of someone moving about, but I kept my eyes shut. I
only opened them when a hand was placed across my mouth, forcing my
breath inside. It smelt: the hand. I recognised the smell and it
took me back to what I saw. A pair of eyes glared at me through the
dark.

‘You don’t say a word,’ Ian warned.
‘OK?’

I couldn’t speak, so I nodded a
yes
, hoping he’d
take his dirty hand away, unable to bear the stench for much
longer.

‘Good,’ he said, returning to his
place, where he lay, wide-awake, just like me.