Boy A (3 page)

‘How d’you get five hundred cows in a shed?’ said a boy that
A
vaguely recognized.

From his seat on the gravestone,
A
looked at him. He was from the year below, rough. His eyes were staring, burning.
A
, not sure if it was a trap, spun around, poised to flee. But curiosity kept his buttocks on the cold, grey slab.

‘How d’you get five hundred cows in a shed?’ the boy asked again. His voice was deep, though of course unbroken.
A
wondered if he was putting it on.

‘I don’t know. How?’
A
said slowly, earnestly, hopefully. He wanted this to be a real joke, not a trick or an excuse to punch him.

‘Put up a Bingo sign.’ The boy laughed, much more than the joke merited.
A
laughed as well, as hard as he could.

The boy kicked at a stone cross with the flat of his foot. It rocked slightly in its foundation hole. He kicked it again but it moved the same little way and no more. Looking around, as if for some new way to impress, the boy saw a brown glass bottle, left by the churchyard’s night-time clientele. He picked it up, and
A
knew that he would smash it; but the boy wished to demonstrate an abandon far beyond that. He
sailed the bottle grenade-like, through the trees and over the church wall, towards an unseen road. Before it had even landed
A
felt the attraction of this abandon, the exhilaration that it could offer him. He could just hear the pop of the bottle as it exploded, then the brakes of a car and a crunch, and more broken glass. Then came horns and slamming doors. But they were already running.

The boy ran like he walked: fists balled, arms nearly straight in his ripped green bomber. He led
A
onwards, inwards, through the church’s doorway, left open for the poor and the needy.

It was cool in the church, an escape from the closeness outside.
A
remembered the big brass sanctuary knocker on Durham Cathedral, with its devilish eyeless face. Churches had always been a place of safety for criminals. Not that he was a criminal, but he was beginning to feel the appeal of crime.

Like Stonelee, the church was old and ill kept. Hanging steel lamps showed paint flaking off the walls like dead skin. A mural of Mary prayed handless, where the cement had fallen. The two boys, breathless and silent, walked around, looking for somewhere to hide. Stepping over the names of benefactors and bishops, almost erased by the shoes of centuries. They took a seat in a small side chapel, joining a plaster saint. His eyes were half-closed, like he was sleepy or stoned, and he held a coil of rosaries long enough to tie someone up.

They grinned at each other with excitement when they heard the people come in. The footsteps sounded gruff and out of place in the emptiness. But the noises soon faded, leaving them undiscovered in their private chapel.
A
’s newest and only friend, a boy named
B
, stole a hymn book, while they sat waiting for the feeling that it was safe to leave.
A
gazed at the roof, painted a passionate blue with golden stars, looking somehow more real than the sky outside had
been. It was supported by pillars, thick as God’s thighs, and near their tops more anonymous saints stared down. Most bore the means of their martyrdom, some ghoulishly held their own heads.

They shared the remains of the day. Outlaws, confirmed in petty shoplifts and pointless vandalism. Acts that nonetheless bonded them, blended them. Separation from the world brought them to each other. People who saw them, while they walked homewards, would swear they were a pair. They fitted together those two boys, with letters where their names should be.
A
and
B
, united by their difference, intrinsically linked, like pen and paper, salt and pepper, accident and emergency.

But events flowed on, as steady and dirty as the Stonelee Byrne, and at the end of the road stood three figures.
A
recognized them as boys from his class, junior demons.

A
had become used to long cuts: double-backs and dirttracks. Somehow
B
’s abandon had lured him into unaccustomed bravery.

‘Let’s go this way,’ he said, trying to pull his friend down a side-street.

But
B
didn’t recognize the urgency in his voice. ‘Naw, it’s much longer.’ He offered
A
an Opal Fruit instead.

And then it was too late anyway. The three boys had spotted them, and were already sidling forwards.

‘Haven’t seen you in school recently,’ one of them said.

A
felt the hopelessness building inside him. These false pleasantries would slide into an attack. Sudden or slow, the pain was inevitable. All the worse because he had enjoyed the day. Now
B
would despise him, or even join in against him.

‘Anyone would think you’ve been avoiding us. Aren’t we your friends any more?’

‘No look, he’s got a new friend, haven’t you, you little shit.’

‘What’s your friend called, spastic, or can’t he afford a name?’ The inquisitors laughed with childish brutality.

A
would have run for it, but already his classmates had penned them in. Trapping them against the wall of a house.

B
looked at these older boys. His neck stretched out like a weasel’s as he stared slowly into each of their faces. Maybe then they suspected they had picked the wrong kid.

‘All right, you, just piss off,’ said one. ‘It’s him we want.’

There were none of the preliminaries that usually marked fights in the under-tens freestyle event. No pushing or grabbing or wrestling.
B
punched the speaker hard in the face. A proper punch with his weight behind it. Like his brother taught and used. The boy crumpled, and as he did
B
hit him again on the back of the head. The second boy started to raise his arm to thump, but before his blow was prepared,
B
had smacked him too. In the eye and then the throat and then the eye again. The boy shrieked like a baby and stumbled away backwards. The third one had already run off.
B
kicked the boy who was on the floor. Lashing at him, showering him with blows.
A
joined him, savouring his abandon, feeling its shelter. The boy on the floor sobbed and begged them to stop.

Eventually they did.

None of the passing cars did.

A
was happier that night. His mum commented on it. For once he slept well. And when he woke it was with nervous excitement, at the prospect of meeting up with
B
again.

When
B
went to bed, he retrieved the stolen hymn book. He tried to read it, but most of the words frustrated him. He was barely beyond his abc. Could just write his own name, and recognize a few common expressions. ‘Dog’ was one of the first words he had learned, and in that book he found its opposite. Not cat but God.

That night
B
went through the hymn book, scribbling out God and painstakingly writing his own name above each reference.
B
did not believe in God. His brother had told him that God did not exist, one night while
B
had
pleaded for His help. And that He did not help seemed to prove his brother’s case. Perhaps, though, there remained a trace belief, or else who was he offending with his tightly gripped black Berrol? Maybe
B
too felt the heart-pounding exuberance. The power of his own abandon. Some fraction of the thrill of that fiery first rebel. Or maybe he was just trying to dare God into showing Himself.

Time passes for Jack with shrinking soap and growing confidence. A month has gone by since his freedom arrived. In the seamless sameness of prison schedules, days lagged and loitered. But now every hour is different; disorder is all about him. Though he seeks comfort in some small routines, these just form a raft in the sea that surrounds. He loves this sea, embraces its impossibility, opens his lungs to swallow it as it swallows him.

There’s a quality, a sort of paleness, in these mornings, that Jack has quickly come to adore. Like today, he often gets up at six to have the short walk to the paper shop to himself. The thin damp air seems to welcome him to the day. He fondles the chunky pound coins in his pocket, as comforting as his testicles. This is the last he need spend of his ‘pies’, his prison wages. Tomorrow he will get his first fortnight’s pay: a wage in pounds, instead of pence.

The paper-shop man is sorting stacks of dailies while he daydreams. He smiles a grizzled grin at Jack, his new regular, and passes him the
Star
. Not the
Sun
, never the
Sun
. Despite its promise to be implant free, Jack cannot forgive the
Sun
, whose coupon campaign to extend his sentence was such an
unqualified success. He swaps one of the nuggets from his pocket for the paper and his change, and leaves the man to his thoughts.

Jack waves his thanks to the lone car that lets him pass on the zebra crossing. Amazed at how much a part of society that small action makes him feel. He notices a curious clean patch on the car’s boot, where something in the shape of a fish obviously used to stick. He wonders what it was, and whether the owner knows he’s lost it.

Over breakfast of toast and tea Jack reads his
Star
. There is no mention of him in it today. During the last few weeks the debate has still continued sporadically. He hopes that maybe it’s finished now, and turns to page three. Her blond framed face is slightly pointed, foxly. Slim thighs, ribcage delicately lined where she breathed in to conceal her tiny female belly, just at the instant of shutter closure. Her breasts are art: formed by a man’s hands for the viewing pleasure of other men. Soft planets, golden and impossibly high, and no less perfect for all this. Jack feels his virginity acutely.

Breakfast is the only part of the routine where disorder can intrude: the times when Kelly is there. Though he likes her, Jack prefers it when he eats alone, and he can prepare himself for his day. Afterwards he washes and shaves. The razor issued with his new identity is becoming blunt, and with a seminal consumer urge he resolves not to get a replacement blade, but an entirely new razor.

Brands bubble in his head as he walks to the meet: Wilkinson Sword, a bit too military; Gillette – the best a man can get; Sensor; Mach 3; I liked it so much I bought the company; Bremington; Reminton. He was allowed TV in the early years. In the home, which wasn’t a home, but began to seem so compared to the prisons.

He waits by the forecourt of the garage. He’s tense in the open, where so many eyes are upon him, where someone might recognize him. But it’s getting easier. Jack sees a lot of
garages. The job that Terry got him is with a distribution firm, delivering supplies. Servicing service stations.

Chris pulls in to pick Jack up, and coasts to a stop. As always, he’s in the white Mercedes van that work lets him take home. Jack is a driver’s mate. In theory he map-reads, but since Chris knows his job inside out, mostly Jack just listens to Chris and the radio until they unload.

‘Morning, Dodger.’ Chris calls everyone by pet names; he thinks it’s endearing. To many people, Jack among them, it is. Some hate it. Everything depends on the name.

‘How’s it going?’ Jack replies. ‘What’ve we got today?’

‘Cages.’

‘Cages?’

‘Yeah, cages for outside the shops. For drink multi-packs and charcoal and stuff, so they can lock them up at night. Not everyone’s as honest as you, Dodger.’ Chris laughs, gives a slap to the air above the back of Jack’s head. Jack told him about the car-stealing antics of Burridge. Chris decided that he moved up here to escape bad influences down South, and Jack didn’t dispel the story. Chris had probably never seen anyone so nervous on their first day at work. He seems to be strongly considering taking Jack under his wing. Making him a proper mate, not just for drivers.

The cages are at the depot, caged themselves behind mesh-fence and thick brick walls. They load them together.

‘Got to sign them out with the White Whale before we go, Dodger.’

Jack nods, examines his hands. Imprints of the thin steel still sit in the plastic memory of his fingers. He gets blisters some days. Not painful, just a bulbous sliver of unnecessary skin. Better a fistful of blisters than enforced idleness.

‘Hi, Michelle.’ Chris doesn’t usually call the White Whale by her name, though she knows she’s called it, and that there’s no spite. She’s certainly not a whale anyway, someone generous about proportions would call her generously
proportioned. She
is
very fair, hair almost white-blond, skin pale too, but exquisitely smooth. Probably her best feature, that skin, taut for someone of her bulk. Chris said her last boyfriend was a doorman, with gang connections. He hit her once and she left him, never went back despite threats and promises. He’d been inside too, Strangeways. She has strange ways herself, seems to have a thing for crims. She likes Jack anyway; even he sees through her charade of flirting for fun.

‘Oh, Jack,’ she says, as he signs the form. ‘I could dive into those eyes.’

‘Not with an arse like that you couldn’t,’ says Chris. He laughs, Jack does too, a little awkwardly. Michelle gives Chris a Paddington Bear hard stare, but her eyes still sparkle.

She smiles broadly when she looks at Jack’s again. But he flicks his gaze away to his feet. She dizzies him. Jack’s not exactly well versed in flirting. There were long years when the only women he saw were a few prison teachers. Some didn’t bother to contain their loathing.

‘So when are you going to take me out for a drink, Jack?’ She’s joking but she means it too.

Jack is stumped, stunned; he feels his worldly ignorance around his neck like the corpse of an albatross. Its huge wingspan is knocking over the furniture. He’s not ready for this yet.

‘Tell you what, why don’t we all go out?’ Chris says. ‘Tomorrow night, pay-day. Get the whole crew. You can ask everyone today, Michelle. Give you something to do, cos you do bugger-all else.’

She throws a rubber at him, which somehow stamps the deal.