Big and Clever (19 page)

“How you doing boys?” Gary says.

“Not bad,” Raks says.

Jerome nods at us both and we nod back.

Rob stuffs a slice of pizza into his mouth.

“No sign of Dawkins?” he says.

I open my can and shake my head.

“Not seen him.”

We spend the next fifteen minutes or so eating and chatting away, checking out the girls. Susie Black and Carly Watts are sitting at a table over to the right, and I've caught them looking in our direction two or three times. The Medstone chip shop girls are sitting by the double doors, next to the Christmas tree. Raks reckons they've been giving us the once-over too.

As I'm finishing my doughnut, I look up at the noticeboards. It's all the usual stuff. Sports teams. Clubs and Societies. Flyers for events. Rules and regulations for this and that. Up in the top left hand corner there's a new note. Hand-written in chunky black pen on a red sheet of A4.
WARNING: All students are reminded that defacing toilet cubicles will not be tolerated. Anyone found to have been doing this, or to have been otherwise engaged in damaging school property will be subject to disciplinary measures
. I look at Raks and point to the note.

“Defacing toilet cubicles,” I say. “Now, what sort of bastard would do that?”

Raks shrugs.

“Fuck knows.”

We grin at each other.

Jerome starts looking over my shoulder. He smiles.

“What's up?” I ask.

“Look who's put in an appearance,” he says.

I take a swig of Pepsi and turn round. Ryan's here. He's got a tray full of food and he's heading our way.

“Alright lads?” he says, sitting down, pulling out his earphones and stuffing them into his pocket.

We all nod.

Ryan unzips his jacket and gets a card out, tossing it across at me.

“Happy birthday,” he says.

I'm quite shocked. I knew that Ryan knew it was my birthday. I just didn't have him down as the card-buying type.

I rip along the top of the envelope and get the card out. It's an old photograph. A cross-eyed woman with facial hair.
Carl resolved not to go on any more blind dates
, it says along the bottom. I laugh and show it around the table, then I open it to read the inside.
To Tom. Happy Birthday To Letchford Town's No. 2 Hooligan. From Letchford Town's No. 1 Hooligan
. I laugh again and put the card into my bag.

“Cheers mate,” I say.

Ryan eats a chip and grins at me.

Raks starts drumming his knuckles on the tabletop. He looks at Ryan.

“Didn't you fancy school this morning then?” he asks.

“Nah. Wanted a lie-in. Big night tonight.”

“Don't they ever chase you up about all your skiving?”

Ryan laughs.

“Not at Parkway,” he says. “The last place I was at, they had the EWO round every couple of weeks. Made me re-do Year Eight. They were always trying to get me and my mum to sign all these stupid fucking Home-School Agreements. Pointless. When my dad died, my mum went to pieces. Nowadays, she's always either pissed or stoned. Nobody can get any sense out of her. They certainly couldn't. They gave up in the end.”

I nod. It's the first time I've heard Ryan talking about his home background. It doesn't sound too different to mine.

“Your mum's like my dad,” I tell him. “Since my mum died, he's just been all over the shop. On benefits. Pissed every day.”

Ryan looks into the distance. He rubs his nose with the back of his hand.

“How old were you when your mum died?” he asks eventually.

“Nine,” I reply. “It was cancer. What about you?”

“Seven. My dad had cancer too.”

I'm actually surprised. For some reason I thought Ryan's dad would have died with a bit more drama. Killed by foreign riot police on an England awayday or something like that. Something spectacular.

Ryan shakes his head.

“It's a fucker of a disease,” he says. There's bitterness in his voice. “You've seen Trev's picture of my dad, haven't you?”

I nod.

Ryan carries on.

“Massive bastard, he was. Six-two. Fifteen stone. By the time he died, he was down to seven and a half stone. I was too young to really understand. All I could see was that my dad was shrinking away to nothing in front of me.” He shakes his head. There's a glazed look in his eyes.

I nod again. It's all I can do. An image of my mum, wasting away in a hospital bed, flashes through my mind. White sheets, vases full of flowers and the smell of disinfectant. I blow out a breath.

Gary's seen the way the conversation's developing and he pipes up, looking to lift the tone a bit.

“So anyway, what about tonight then?” he says. “Are we going to win?”

Ryan coughs. His face lights up again.

“Well, they're only a couple of places above us, and they've lost three in a row, so we should be in with a shout. There again, we're not exactly bang in form are we?”

Gary laughs.

“You could say that,” he says. “Twentieth and sinking. At least we're still above Mackworth.”

“Only on goal difference,” I say. “And they've got a game in hand.”

Jerome nods. He squints at the screen of his mobile, then looks up again.

“We badly need a win,” he says. “I reckon if we don't pick up soon, John Whyman's going to be getting the bullet.”

I fiddle with my new T pendant.

“It's easy enough to get rid of him,” I say. “But who's going to take over? It's not what you'd call a glamour job. We'd get some right donkey coming in.”

Jerome puts one foot on the table. He's got Adidas Gazelles on. Green with white stripes. They're the cleanest trainers I've ever seen out of a shoe shop. Not a speck of dust on them.

“They couldn't be much worse than Whyman though, could they?” he says.

Gary smiles.

“I dunno. We might end up with Steve McClaren.”

“If that ever happens,” Ryan says, “I'm going to start supporting Mackworth.”

We all laugh.

“It'd be nice to get one over on Whitbourne tonight though, wouldn't it?” Raks says. “Give them a bit of payback for 1990.”

Ryan looks at Raks and blinks.

“Fucking hell Raks. You've been studying the history books, haven't you? I'm impressed.”

Raks shrugs.

Rob looks confused.

“What's he on about?” he asks, picking at a scab above his left eyebrow.

Ryan shakes his head.

“Tell him, Raks.”

Raks smiles. It's good to be in the know.

“Whitbourne beat us on aggregate over two legs in the 1990 Freight Rover Trophy Southern Area Final. We lost 1-0 at their place and then it was 1-1 at Southlands. If we'd have won, we'd have been going to Wembley.”

Rob nods. He's finished picking now, and he's checking his finger ends to see if he's got anything interesting stuck under his nails.

“Oh right,” he says.

Gary gives him a dig in the ribs.

“You fucking part-timer,” he says.

Jerome puts his other foot up on the table.

“Should be quite interesting off the pitch tonight,” he says.

Ryan puts his hands behind his head.

“Yeah,” he says. “There's some bad blood there. It was pretty lively last year.”

“Me and Raks were on the Internet the other night,” I tell them. “Looking at the hooligan sites. All the previews were saying that Letchford-Whitbourne was going to be a bit interesting.”

Raks joins in.

“And it's an important one for the Firms league table. We're 4th at the moment. Whitbourne are 5th. We can't let the bastards roll us over.”

Gary shakes his head.

“Whitbourne are nothing to worry about,” he says. “Bunch of old blokes. Fat bastards in their mid-thirties. Fucking Southern Softies.”

I laugh. Whitbourne are from down on the south coast, so they're Southern Softies. Castleton are from up north, so they're Dirty Northern Bastards. That's the beauty of being slap bang in the middle of the country I suppose. There's nothing much else to be said for living around here.

I check my watch. Getting on for quarter to one. The dining hall's filled right up now. Everywhere I look, kids are wandering around with trays full of food, scanning for somewhere to sit. Around our table, we've all finished eating, but we're not in any rush to go anywhere. We're nice and comfortable. Nice and relaxed. People might want our seats, but they're just going to have to wait.

I lean back in my chair and watch the world go by. Jimmy and Scotty are sitting on the other side of the hall, Nike rucksack at the ready, waiting for customers. They see me and raise their hands in acknowledgement. A couple of chav lads in tracky bottoms and white Reeboks are having a bit of aggro over near the serving hatches. For a second or two it looks like something interesting is going to kick off, but it never really gets going. A bit of name calling, a bit of half-hearted shoving and then they're being pulled apart.

It's a week and a half until the end of term and the school dress policy looks like it's broken right down. Virtually no-one bothers with greys and blacks any more. The chavs are in their sports gear. The indie lot are in spray-on jeans and stripy cardigans like the one Zoe tried to get me to buy. The popular girls all look like they're just stopping off on their way to a nightclub. The hip-hop crew are wearing baseball caps around the place now. A couple of weeks ago, Mr Barnard imposed a ban on the wearing of headgear inside the school building. It's not worked.

Two tables over to the left, there's a gathering of emo kids. They've all broken out in huge jeans, to go with the big black jackets. The eye make-up application seems to have gone into overdrive. A couple of the Nocturnal Emission boys are having another squabble. Artistic differences again, by the sounds of it. I think about listening in, but decide not to bother.

I find myself thinking about the conversation I was having with Raks a couple of months ago. He was saying how the school was like a safari park, full of different species, and I was saying that I didn't know what species we were. We didn't fit in. Well, that's all changed now. I look around, at Raks, at Ryan, at Jerome, at Rob, at Gary. The short haircuts. The T-shirts and zip-up tops. The jeans. The Adidas trainers. There's no denying it. We look like a group. A gang. A species all of our own.

A couple more minutes pass. Gary gets his phone out and checks the time. He yawns and leans forward, pushing himself up against the table edge.

“I'm going to nip over to the newsagents,” he says. “Get myself a packet of fags.”

Jerome and Rob stand up. Me, Raks and Ryan stay sitting down.

Gary looks at us.

“You lot coming?” he asks.

“No. I think we'll give it a miss,” Ryan says.

Gary shrugs.

“Okay,” he says. “If we don't see you later on, we'll see you at Southlands tonight.”

I nod.

“We'll be there.”

Gary hooks his chair back under the table and heads off towards the foyer with Rob and Jerome in tow.

I run my hands over my hair. It's down to a number one again. Another £6.50 at Talking Heads last night. I didn't bother with a tip this time. It only took the woman about two minutes to do. Zoe didn't say anything about it this morning. Either she's getting used to me with short hair, or she's just given up on trying to talk me out of it.

Raks slowly sits up in his chair.

“What have we got this afternoon?” he asks.

I fish in my pocket and get my timetable out.

“Art and Design with Mrs Flanagan, then History.”

Raks nods.

“Have you finished that Industrial Revolution assignment?”

I put my head in my hands.

“Shit.” I knew there was something I was supposed to remember. I was a week late with the last assignment.

Raks rolls his eyes.

“Fucking hell. You're getting worse. Mr Richards is going to go apeshit.”

I shake my head.

“Bollocks,” I say. “How am I going to dig myself out of this one?” I squeeze my eyes tight shut and try to think of plausible reasons why I've got nothing to hand in.

Ryan starts laughing.

“There's an obvious way to get out of it,” he says. “It's not rocket science. Let's just piss off into town.”

Raks rubs his forehead.

“You've only just got here, you idle bastard.”

Ryan waves his hand in the air. The fly-swatting gesture.

“It's been a good half hour,” he says. “That's long enough for me.”

I look at Raks.

“What do you reckon?”

Raks shrugs.

“I'm in if you're in,” he says. “I mean, our attendance records over the past few weeks haven't been too impressive, have they? Another afternoon isn't going to make much difference.”

Ryan beams.

“That's my boy.” He puts his arm round Raks's shoulders and gives him a squeeze.

I stand up. Ryan and Raks do the same.

“Right then lads,” I say. “That's sorted then. Let's hit the road.”

I squash my empty Red Bull can and shove it across the table.

“What time is it?” Ryan asks.

I push up my sleeve. It's quite gloomy in the Café Rialt, and I have to squint to see my watch properly.

“Half past five. Just over two hours until kick-off.” I feel the familiar fluttering in my stomach.

We've been in the Ainsdale Centre for about four hours now. The whole afternoon. The time just seems to have flown by. We had a look round the shops, sat on the benches for a bit, spent a couple of hours in Harris's Amusements, wasting my birthday money, and for the last three quarters of an hour we've been sitting here in the Café Rialt. It was quite quiet when we came in, but now it's starting to fill up with people on their way home from work or getting geared up for some late-night Christmas shopping.