Born Evil (30 page)

Gracie and Rosie exchanged glances as their brother plonked himself next to them. They hadn’t known Charlie was coming tonight. He’d kept well out of their way since Gracie had threatened to tell on him, and his absence from their lives had brought them both happiness and relief.

‘How’s your girlfriend? Did you have a nice evening?’ Debbie asked loudly, hoping everybody could hear.

‘She’s fine thanks, Mum,’ Charlie lied, scanning the hall for a glimpse of Lois.

‘Mummy, I need to go to the toilet, will you come with me?’ whined a tired Rosie.

Not wanting to sit there alone with her brother, Gracie followed her mum and sister.

Karen smiled at Charlie. ‘Your mum tells me you’ve got a girlfriend now?’

‘Yeah, Samantha.’

‘Lois has got a boyfriend, too. You’ll meet him later. She’s gone to a birthday party with him first and they’re coming here after.’

‘That’s nice,’ Charlie managed to mutter before excusing himself from the table. Needing some fresh air, he left the hall and wandered into the nearby playing fields. After checking no one was watching, he sparked up a ready-rolled joint. His dad had made him a couple of extra-strong ones, to get him through the evening.

‘Fucking slag. Slut. Whore,’ Charlie spat. The thought of seeing Lois parade her new bloke was enough to do his head in.

Wandering into the hall, he plonked himself back at the table, his face like thunder.

‘You all right, love?’ Debbie asked, noting his dark expression.

‘I’m fine,’ he replied abruptly, wishing he could think of some feasible excuse to leave and go home.

‘Get Charlie a lager,’ Debbie urged Steve as he headed for the bar once more. She was desperate to cheer her son up. Maybe treating him like an adult would help.

Charlie noticed Lois with her long flowing hair, as soon as she entered the hall. She was wearing a figure-hugging green satin dress, silver sandals, and had a squashy silver handbag slung over her shoulder. Noticing she was alone, he breathed a sigh of relief, stood up in a gentlemanly way and offered her his seat.

‘No, thank you. I’d rather stand,’ she replied, barely glancing at him.

‘Where’s my future son-in-law?’ Mickey asked, tormenting her.

‘Talking to someone. Oh, here he is,’ Lois gushed proudly.

Charlie hadn’t heard Mickey and Lois’s conversation due to the loudness of the disco. The first realisation of what was happening hit him like a ton of bricks. Standing next to Lois, with his arm slung casually around her shoulders, was none other than Dean Summers.

Determined not to mug himself off, Charlie plastered a false smile on his face. He had to pretend to enjoy the rest of the evening, there was no other way.

‘All right, Weirdo?’ Summers asked him at one point, when everyone else was out of earshot.

Charlie bit his lip and kept up the façade. Inwardly, he was seething. He’d never felt so angry or been so humiliated in the whole of his life. He excused himself politely and headed outside for another joint. As he lay flat on the damp grass, his thoughts were all over the place. How dare that slag Lois bring the fucking school bully with her to ruin his nan’s party for him? Flicking the last of his joint into a nearby bush, Charlie summed up his options. He could either disappear early, and let them win, or stay the distance and front it out. Deciding on the latter, he headed back into the hall with only one thought on his mind: revenge, no matter what it fucking took.

AS THE NEXT
few months flew by, Charlie was either on a real high or a complete bloody low. The highs came in the company of his father with whom he now spent more and more time.

Charlie now knew what it felt like to care about somebody other than himself. His mum, nan, even Kevin, he’d sort of liked, but hand on heart, he probably wouldn’t have shed so much as a tear if any of them had been wiped out overnight. With his dad, things were different.

He adored Billy, respected him and would be devastated if anything bad were to happen to him. He could sense that the feeling was mutual and, for the first time in his life, Charlie had met someone he truly loved and couldn’t live without.

His low moods were a different kettle of fish. He seemed to suffer from them as soon as he walked through the school gates. Listening to Dean Summers going on about Lois was bad enough, but he also had to listen to him brag about the other girls he was getting it on with behind her back.

Charlie was furious that Dean was cheating on Lois. If she’d been his girl, he’d never have done that. He’d have been faithful to her. If it was his cock she was sucking, he certainly wouldn’t have felt the need to look elsewhere.

The personal abuse he suffered from Summers had become far worse since his nan’s party. Lois had clearly told Dean about Charlie’s crush on her and the texts he’d sent her. His love rival had now informed the whole school that he was a sex-case who had hit on his own cousin. He was now commonly referred to as ‘the nonce’ or ‘the pervert’.

Charlie was used to being called a weirdo, he’d had it his whole life, but he hated his new names, and things had got so bad that he dreaded going to school. Now that the Easter holidays were coming, he couldn’t wait to take a rain check from the building and the pupils he’d grown to despise.

His dad had promised to take him up to Scotland for the first time and Charlie was well excited at the thought of going away. The only problem was his mother who seemed determined to stick a spanner in the works. He’d told his mum that he was going to a caravan site in Clacton with Kevin and his nan.

‘I’m happy for you to go away, love, but I want to meet your friend and his nan before you go.’

‘Don’t embarrass me, Mum,’ an agitated Charlie pleaded with her.

‘I’m not trying to embarrass you, Charlie, but I’m not letting you toddle off with people I’ve never even seen. That’s not what good mothers do, love.’

Charlie reluctantly agreed to introduce her to them and clued Kevin and his nutty old bat of a nan up on what to say.

Now deep in thought about his impending holiday, Charlie failed to hear his English teacher shouting his name.

‘Are you with us, Dawson, or on a different planet?’ the teacher asked sarcastically.

‘Sorry, Sir. I was miles away.’

‘Probably dreaming about shagging his own cousin,’ Dean Summers muttered, making sure he’d said it loud enough for the rest of his classmates to hear.

A few of the lads sniggered.

Putting his head down, Charlie pretended not to notice. He took a deep breath to quell his temper and carried on writing his essay about serial killers.

The rest of the week was purgatory for him. As the bell went on Friday afternoon to signal the start of the Easter holidays, he breathed a sigh of relief that he had a couple of weeks away from the hellhole formally known as school.

Lagging behind the other lads, so that he couldn’t get picked on further, he dawdled his way to meet Kevin at their usual rendezvous.

‘Is your mum here yet?’ his friend asked, excited to be meeting Debbie for the very first time.

‘Dunno, I suppose so. Now you know what you’ve gotta say, don’t ya?’

‘’Course,’ Kevin replied confidently.

Spotting his mum’s motor, Charlie led Kevin towards the vehicle. He didn’t need all this shit, but his mum had been adamant about picking them up so that she could meet Kevin and have a quick word with his nan when she dropped him off.

‘Mum, this is Kevin,’ Charlie mumbled, shoving his fat friend into the back of his Mum’s X5.

Debbie smelt the BO long before she saw the lad it belonged to. ‘Hello, Kevin,’ she said politely, opening her window to get some fresh air.

‘Nice car, ma’am,’ Kevin replied, desperate to make a good impression.

Kicking his friend in the leg, Charlie took over the conversation. ‘Tell Mum about the caravan holiday, Kevin.’

Debbie listened intently as the boy rambled on about Clacton and his nan.

‘So when you meet her she might not come across as normal. Some people can’t understand her properly because she’s a bit senile,’ he explained, in a clumsy attempt to reassure Charlie’s mum.

Pulling up outside a rundown house that had a jungle instead of a garden, Debbie switched her car’s engine off and followed the boys up the path. As she glanced at the filthy-looking bit of net that was hanging at the window, Debbie noticed a little doll-like figure of what seemed to be a plastic witch hanging behind it.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Kevin asked, his fat body glistening with sweat at the excitement of having being driven home in a brand new BMW.

‘No thank you, love. Just get your nan so I can have a quick word and I’ll be on me way.’

Glancing around, Debbie noticed a gang of street urchins looking at her from the other side of the street. Good job she’d refused the cup of tea, she thought. She’d have come out to no wheels on her car, by the look of it.

‘Hello, my name’s Doreen,’ said the wizened-looking old woman who appeared at the front door then.

‘I’m Charlie’s mum – Debbie.’

Doreen rebuffed the hand that was offered to her. ‘I don’t shake hands, it’s unlucky,’ she cackled. ‘Now, what do you want?’

‘Oh. I’m just checking that it’s okay for Charlie to go away with you and Kevin for the weekend? He keeps talking about this Clacton trip and I know boys can be a handful.’

Doreen smiled a gappy smile at her visitor, while trying to remember what her grandson had told her to say. She couldn’t remember jack shit so kept her reply short. ‘That’s fine. Now is there anything else you want?’

‘No, that’s all,’ Debbie replied, rather taken aback by the obvious madness of the old woman. A heavy rain had started to fall, so Debbie said goodbye and nudged Charlie towards the car.

‘“I’m singing in the rain, ha ha ha, singing in the rain, he he he,”’ Doreen sang after them as they walked down the path.

Putting her foot on the accelerator, Debbie waited till she’d pulled out of the turning before glancing at her son. ‘I’m not happy about you going away with them, Charlie. They’re notrights, the pair of ’em.’

‘Oh, please, Mum.’

‘Haven’t you got any normal friends, with normal parents, who you can go away with?’

Charlie could feel his trip to Scotland slipping out of his grasp and decided to play his trump card. He rarely ever cried and knew how much his mum hated to see him upset. ‘Please let me go, Mum. I know Kevin’s a bit odd, but he’s the only friend I’ve got at school.’

Noticing his mum’s pained expression, he forced the tears to roll freely as he carried on. ‘Honestly, Mum, you don’t know what it’s like for me. All the boys there hate me. Lois’s boyfriend told them that I used to text her. Now they call me a nonce and a pervert. No one will talk to me apart from Kevin. Please, Mum, I really need a holiday. Please say I can go.’

Kerbing the car, Debbie pulled a tissue from her handbag and handed it to Charlie. ‘Look, son, it’s not Kevin I’m worried about, it’s the old girl. She’s not the full shilling, love. How are you and Kevin gonna take care of her?’

‘Oh, she’s no trouble. Just a bit barmy, that’s all. Please, Mum, say you’ll let me go. I’ll be on my best behaviour and I promise I’ll ring you every day.’

Looking at her first-born and seeing him so upset, Debbie didn’t have the heart to say no. ‘All right, you can go. On one condition, though. I want you to leave your mobile switched on all the time and ring me morning, noon and night.’

‘Okay, Mum,’ Charlie said, relieved that his crocodile tears had worked.

As he looked out of the window, he covered his face with the tissue and smiled.

Scotland here I come, he thought happily.

The trip to Scotland turned out to be everything Charlie had wished for and more. He loved it up there, and felt more at home in Glasgow than he ever had in London. His dad’s Auntie Mary, with whom they stayed, was a lovely woman. Within the first couple of days of meeting her, Charlie felt as if he’d known her all his life. She was a very funny lady, and her stories about his dad when he was a young boy entertained Charlie no end.

‘What about my nan and granddad?’ Charlie asked her one night. He’d asked his father the same question once. Billy had told him they were dead, and never to mention them again.

‘Your granddad was unknown. Your nan was a nasty woman, pure evil. Do yourself a favour and forget they ever existed, Charlie,’ his aunt insisted.

The rest of the holiday was one almighty piss-up and Charlie loved going from pub to pub, meeting friends and acquaintances from his dad’s past. Being introduced to all and sundry as Billy’s son made him feel extremely proud. He even enjoyed going to footie, watching Glasgow Rangers play, much to Billy’s delight.

‘My door is open to yous boys anytime you want,’ Auntie Mary said as she waved goodbye to father and son.

The train journey home was a long one and Billy and Charlie amused themselves by drinking cider and tucking into Auntie Mary’s packed lunch. As more and more alcohol went down, their conversation turned into a heart-to-heart.

‘What really happened between you and Mum? Why did you actually split up, Dad?’ Charlie was desperate to know the truth.

‘It’s a long story, son. Let’s not go into it, eh?’

‘Please, Dad, tell me. I know there was a fight and you hit Mum and got put in prison, because I overheard someone talking about it in one of the pubs we went in.’

Unable to look at his son, Billy kept his head bowed as he told him the whole sorry story of the time he’d spent with his mother. The only part he left out was the fact that he’d dangled Charlie out of the window to save his own skin. He couldn’t tell his boy that, it was too despicable. ‘I was out of order, Charlie. I was taking so many drugs at the time, I was out of my head, wee man. I didnae know what I was doing.’

‘I understand, Dad. I don’t think badly of you.’

‘I’m so pleased to hear that, Charlie. I love you, son, and I never, ever want you to think badly of me.’

With his guts already spilt, Billy decided it was the right time to tell his boy about the ordeal he’d suffered at the hands of Mickey and Steve.