Skippy Dies (33 page)

She gets up. ‘I’m going to make a smoothie, do you want one?’

‘That’d be great, thanks.’

A life and a place to live it versus a momentary flame of passion. For a grown man, that should hardly be a difficult choice.
Confident he’s on the right track now, he sets it out mathematically, constructing an elaborate equation in his head in order
to prove it to himself beyond any doubt. On one side he places his relationship with Halley, factoring in as much as he can
– the loneliness of his life before he met her, the sacrifices she has made for him, their relative happiness together, as
well as more abstract concepts like loyalty, honesty, trust, what it means to be a good person. On the other side –

On the other side Miss McIntyre’s mouth, her eyes, her nails in his back.

Halley is asking something from the kitchen. ‘What?’ he calls hoarsely.

‘Are you in a blueberry mood, or a pineapple mood?’

‘Oh – whatever you think.’ His voice, strained, high, adolescent, melds into the turbulent whine of the blender.

Leaned up louchely against the Geography Room door, telling him,
To be bored, that’s really a crime
.

Howard has been so bored.

He has been so bored with Howard, and all the accoutrements of being Howard. He does not hold Halley to blame for this; boredom
is congenital to cowards, like thin blood is to Russian royalty. But the fact remains that in the Geography Room he had not
felt bored. In the Geography Room, lying back in the darkness, he’d felt like he was waking from a long, long sleep.

‘Here you go.’ Halley hands him a tall cold glass, runs her fingers through his hair on the way back to her computer.

‘Oh – thanks…’ Well, maybe for now the best thing would be to wait. Until he returns to school and finds the lie of the land,
maybe he should take Farley’s advice. Keep his head below the parapet, and Halley – stealthily, unnoticeably, via a careful
weave of mishearings and mistimings – at arm’s length; make do for now with secret visits to his memory, replaying his store
of Aurelie-moments, imagining their future life together, a smiling haze of uncomplicated rightness. He sips down cold citrusy
pulp, picks up his book and sinks into a fantasy in which he walks with
her side by side over war-torn earth, through shards of former trees and khaki-shrouded limbs that reach plaintively up out
of the ground: he a Tommy covered head-to-toe in mud, she spotless in a cream angora sweater, giving him a pop quiz on his
own life he has not studied for, but to which she, fortunately, has all the answers.

Carl in the dark in the shadows.

It’s late. He doesn’t know how long he has been there.

Behind the gates at the end of the grey tongue of drive is a house, it is her house. There are no cars outside and no lights
on but this is a trick because Carl saw a shape moving in the dark inside the window.

Above the gate, a little red dot of light that belongs to the security camera. That’s why Carl is standing here crushed up
to the wall. The gates are locked and the walls are high with glass on top. The road is narrow and winding and quiet and dark,
nothing is moving. Except inside close up everything is jumping! Everything is speeding and screaming at a million miles a
second!

In his ear the phone buzzes and a voice tells him he has reached Lori’s number. It speaks the number all chopped up like a
broken robot, it tells him to leave a message after the tone. The first times that’s what he did, he left messages, like WHY
WEREN’T YOU AT THE HOP? WHERE ARE YOU NOW? WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER? But then he got bored and now instead he leaves silences.
Hello, you have reached numbernumbernumbernumber, please leave a message after the tone
–

Silence

until the network cuts him off. Then he hits the button and it all happens again. By now he has stopped expecting her to pick
up or not pick up, it’s almost like it’s going on without him,
buzz voice silence buzz voice silence
. But in his head he can see it, the phone ringing in her bedroom, playing the
BETHani
song, Lori cross-legged on her bed in her pyjama bottoms, in the house all alone, watching it on her desk flashing,

then it stops and the little envelope tumbles onto the screen,

and she gets up and goes to hear it, and into her ear pours the scary sound of the silent outside going
kchhhhhhhhhhhhhshhhhhhhhhhhh
, piling up with all the other silences he has sent her, silences floating through the house like cold chunks cut out of the
night, she is scared, she is crying, then suddenly she presses the button and this time it is him in her room, staticky, night-shaped,
like a bad spirit in a fairy-tale, and with him the night, the cold, the trees, the dark, they’re all transported inside,
packed into her bedroom, she is screaming
What is happening???!!!
then she is running –

Holding the phone between his chin and his shoulder he takes the tube of pills out of his pocket. He brought them for her
but now they are mostly gone. He pours a little pyramid on his fingertip and lifts it up to his nose. It is a message he is
sending to himself, he leans his head back and looks up at the cold stars and waits for it to arrive like a bolt of lightning
–

Then there is a noise. A message on his phone! It’s her, she’s been watching him on the CCTV! And now she’s going to open
the gates!

But it’s not from her, it’s from Barry.

Carl does not want to go to Ed’s. He writes back,

The reply comes almost as soon as he’s sent it:

Carl is pissed off, as soon as he goes he knows the gates will open, he sees her creeping on tiptoes over the gravel going,
Carl, Carl. Fuck it! Fuck Barry!

But he gets on his bike and flies back towards Seabrook. The lights of the road swirl and beam extra-bright, he gets there
in record time! When he goes behind the doughnut shop though, none of the faces that turn to look at him are Barry. First
he thinks it’s a mistake, like he got the wrong message. Then he realizes he knows these faces. He turns to run but someone’s
behind him and next thing he knows he’s on the ground.

It’s the knackers from the park, all four of them. One of them is pinning him down, another is crouched a little way away
doing the same thing to Barry. From the ground between the arms and legs he stares across at Carl with eyes full of fear.
What is going on?

‘Two posh cunts from Seabrook College,’ the knacker with the shaved head says in a loud voice, like he’s making a speech.
‘Two little faggots.’ He walks around in a small circle with a can in his hand. The knacker with greasy hair is kneeling on
Carl’s chest. ‘Did you think you could just go on like this for ever? Did you fuckin think we’d just let you go on doin this
and we wouldn’t mind? You fuckin queers?’

Is he asking Carl? Carl does not understand, he is still trying to understand when Shaved-Head’s face suddenly changes from
a question to a snarling, like he’s taken off a mask and beneath it there’s a fire. Carl only catches a glimpse of this, then
everything is spinning and stars. His head rings, he feels something wet running down his face.

‘What is it?’ Shaved-Head shouts. ‘Where’d you get it?’ His foot lands with a splat in Carl’s eye. Carl rolls his head, panting.
From the dark the smashed lights of a burned car stare back at him like someone burned and lying on the ground in the weeds
and garbage.

Greasy-Hair is searching through Carl’s clothes, into the pockets of his trousers and jacket. ‘We are going to kill you,’
he tells
Carl, softly, like the doctor telling you the needle might sting a little bit. He finds Carl’s wallet and throws it to Shaved-Head.

‘That’s a fuckin start at least,’ Shaved-Head says.

‘Here we go.’ Greasy-Hair has found the tube.

Shaved-Head takes it and opens it. ‘This is what you’ve been selling? What is it? Speed?’

Barry tries to say something but his teeth are chattering too much. Shaved-Head opens the tube and pours a mound onto the
back of his hand. He lowers his nose into it and then a moment later he folds his arms into himself in little jerks. ‘Whoa,
I like
that
! Ah!’ He throws his shoulders back, twists his head. ‘Fuck, yeah! Where did youse shitheads get hold of this?’

In a little squeaky stammery voice Barry tells him about the pills. He tells him everything, about Morgan, about the girls
on diets, about the little kids in junior school and the fireworks.

‘Sellin to all the rich bitches,’ Shaved-Head says. ‘Not a bad little plan. Unfortunately you fucked with the wrong people.’
His voice is bright with the drug, it makes you think you are on TV. ‘Get the rope,’ he says.

Now a knacker with bad teeth comes out of the trees at the edge of the waste ground. In his hand is a blue rope. When he sees
it Barry starts shouting. The spotty guy on top of him slaps him, then when Barry doesn’t stop he grabs an old newspaper lying
on the ground and stuffs Barry’s mouth full of it. ‘Better do this one first,’ he says, and pulls Barry to his feet. Through
the newspaper, Barry’s still making a noise, a high-pitched gurgling squeal like a drowning pig. Tears are running down his
face, and Carl can feel them too, burning in a lump in his throat.

Greasy-Hair hauls him to his feet as Spots drags Barry over to the burned-out car and pulls him up onto the bonnet. ‘Don’t
worry, you’ll get your turn,’ he says in his doctor voice. ‘But first you have to watch your boyfriend die.’

‘A suicide pact,’ Shaved-Head announces, ‘for two little Seabrook queers who can’t take it any more. I don’t think the cops
will be too surprised. They’ll just be glad it’s two less faggots.’

Spots has made the blue rope into a noose. Now he puts it over Barry’s head. Barry is just staring into space, it’s like he
is watching something horrible happening somewhere far away that none of the others can see yet – but then, as Shaved-Head
calls, ‘Do it!’ and Spots steps behind him he wakes up again – making the noise, his body shaking so hard it looks like he
might shake to pieces, his eyes full of panic and tears flinging themselves at Carl and clutching at him, begging him to do
something – but what is Carl supposed to do? When all of this was Barry’s great idea? Barry who knows all the answers, who
thinks he is so smart? Who tricked Carl into coming down here so he could die here too? Suddenly Carl’s body floods with anger,
and inside although a part of him is going
Oh fuck
another part is thinking
Die
–

‘Wait!’ Bad-Teeth calls sharply. Spots stops with his hands right at Barry’s shoulders. Bad-Teeth runs over and pulls down
Barry’s pants. Everyone laughs at Barry’s wang, shrivelled white and pea-like and squirting floods of yellow piss. They laugh
and laugh, the knackers, the trees, the garbage, the black and steel skips behind the Doughnut House, the people inside eating
their doughnuts, the boarders in the Tower, the sky overhead, and Carl laughs too, or maybe he cries, it could be he is crying,
it’s impossible to tell, and now Spots runs forward with his hands stretched out –

And Barry goes tumbling to the ground.

Carl doesn’t know what’s going on. Then he understands. The rope wasn’t tied to anything. The knackers are laughing their
heads off. Ha ha, the face on him, a-ha-ha-haaaa…

Barry is on his hands and knees. ‘Take that thing off him before he fuckin strangles himself,’ Shaved-Head says. Bad-Teeth
goes over to him and lifts the rope over Barry’s head. Barry tries to get up, but gets caught in his trousers and falls flat
on his face again. The knackers are rolling around the ground with tears on their cheeks. At last, Shaved-Head stops laughing
enough to say, ‘Ah here, Deano, give ’em a fuckin can.’

Bad-Teeth takes a couple of cans out his bag and throws one to Carl and one into the bushes where Barry sits pulling his trousers
up and crying. ‘You thought you were goin to die!’ Spots hoots. After a second Carl starts to see the funny side too. When
he hears Carl, Barry comes out of the bushes, now he is laughing as well, a little bit, everyone is laughing, except for Greasy-Hair
who is more sort of staring at Carl and Barry and smiling in this wolfy way.

‘No hard feelings,’ Shaved-Head says. He sticks out his hand to Barry. Barry shakes it and then Carl does. ‘We wouldn’t kill
two good customers like youse,’ Shaved Head says. ‘Bit fuckin cheeky, though, dealin on someone else’s patch.’

‘Sorry,’ Barry said.

‘You were fuckin clever bastards, though, comin up with a nice little earner like that. Shame to let the whole fuckin thing
go tits-up.’

Everyone is sitting down now on the circle of black burned ground. Bad-Teeth has skinned up a joint, it’s superskunk or something,
just the smell is enough to get you destroyed. ‘You never sold us this stuff,’ Barry says.

‘Always keep the best shit for yourself,’ Bad-Teeth grins. His mouth is like a car crash.

Then it could be a minute later or it could be an hour. Carl and Barry are both wrecked. The sky is spinning all around them,
the ground is sucking them down like it’s full of magnets. Bad-Teeth leans on his elbow, chuckling, playing with the dirt.
Shaved-Head and Spots lie on their backs like someone tipped them over. Now Barry starts to move. Spinning in front of him
he tells Carl he has to go home. ‘Hang on’ – Carl crawls about to find a direction that leads upwards. The ground is throwing
itself around, it’s like being on a ship.

‘See you lads,’ Barry says to the knackers.

‘Cheers, amigos,’ Spots says. ‘Talk to you.’

Carl and Barry lurch over the bumpy ground, tripping over cans and springs and glass, they giggle because it is taking them
so long to get anywhere. Then something hard hits them from behind and they fall to the ground.