The Bombs That Brought Us Together (17 page)

‘But school’ll be different, Pav. We won’t have any of that there.’

‘I rather pick hair from bum than go school,’ Pav said.

I didn’t know how to react. I wanted to laugh out loud. Thankfully Pav did. I followed. We laughed together. I gave him another shoulder nudge. He did one to me. It felt good to laugh together. When the bus came into view and the laughter slowed down to a stop, my cartwheeling heart took over everything.

Pav stayed close when we got on the bus. So close he was touching me like I was his eyes again. I could tell that he wanted to hide his face, his Old Country features. My insides were going like the clappers. The twenty or so people on the
bus stopped what they were doing (looking out of the window, playing with their fingers, scratching their belongings, rummaging through bags, whatever) and stared directly at us. The only two seats together were up the back.

Max Fargo fired the first shot.

‘Who’s your new bitch, Law?’ Max Fargo would be lucky if he got a job collecting supermarket trolleys when he left school. He liked doing two things: training with weights and being a dick pain. I spent all of primary and most of secondary school avoiding him, which was easy to do because I enjoyed going to the library while he enjoyed walking around the yard with sticks in his hand.

‘Yeah, who’s your new bitch, bitch?’ Davis Brown was Max’s partner in knob studies; on his own insistence everyone called him Bones because he hated, by all accounts, the name Davis. The mind boggles. This guy made The Big Man’s coal mine seem bright.

‘Which one of you bitches is on top, Law?’ Max said.

I understood this to be a rhetorical question. Pav understood nothing.

‘Yeah, what one of you bitches is on top, Law?’ Bones said; his brain just wouldn’t allow for original thoughts/ideas/abuse. And on the eighth day God gave Max Fargo … Bones.

Pav tightened his grip.

‘Nice to see you too, Bones,’ I said.

‘Will you be sucking teacher cock this year, Law?’ Max said.

Mmm, let me think about that for a second, Maxy boy … I really, really – and it was on the tip of my tongue, bursting to get out – wanted to lean down to him and say,
No, I won’t be doing that because your mother just won’t get out of the way.
But common sense took over and I thought: who wants two jaw punches on their first day back at school, eh? Not me, that’s who. I smiled and kept walking to our seats.

‘Yeah, teacher sucks your cock,’ Bones said, and put an imaginary one in his mouth. This poor sod just deserved pity. What life awaited him, God only knew.

Max clocked straight away that Pav wasn’t from Little Town. Bones, on the other hand, believed that the population of the entire world lived in Little Town. No joke. For all he knew Pav could have been born and raised in Little Town; all Bones could see was an unfamiliar face he didn’t recognise, so naturally it meant that face was fodder for his bile.

We trudged onwards to the back of the bus. Mercy Lewis threw her eyes up to the ceiling when I sat across from her. She didn’t have to say it but I knew inside she was saying something like,
What a couple of twats they are, Charlie. I’m so embarrassed to be sitting on the same bus as them, and even more mortified to be attending the same school.
She smiled at me. I liked Mercy. Not in that way. It was just good to see a
friendly face, someone who’d survived the bombing night. You never knew who hadn’t.

‘Hi, Charlie.’

‘Hi, Mercy.’

Like me, Mercy enjoyed a good old-fashioned readathon. Sometimes we’d exchange book ideas or recommend titles. I read some of her suggestions, but not the chick-lit girl-out-shopping-and-being-boyfriend-dumped ones. She wore specs, which made her look clever. She was even cleverer than she looked though.

‘How was your summer?’ she said.

‘Pure mental. Yours?’ I said.

‘Same.’

‘Mad, innit?’ I said.

‘Same for everyone, I think,’ she said. ‘At least we don’t have to put up with crap TV now.’

‘Yeah, that is one consolation.’

Mercy then directed her gaze towards Pav.

Pav flashed Mercy his baby blue blinders.

I’m happy that she was sitting down because those knees of hers would have buckled under the pressure of Pav’s eyes. No doubt about that.

I felt part of something special.

She wanted an introduction.

‘Oh, sorry, Mercy. This is Pav; he moved into my block at the start of the summer. Before the bombs. We’ve been
hanging around a bit since then.’ I felt a little bad in myself for saying
a bit.
There was no
a bit
about it, as we’d barely left each other’s sight since his arrival.

‘Hi, Pav,’ Mercy said, giving him a friendly hand wave across the aisle.

‘Pav, this is Mercy. She’ll be in our class.’

‘Hello, it is pleasing to meet you,’ Pav said in his best voice. The poshest one I’d heard. His eyes never left hers. Mercy looked away, more out of awkwardness than rudeness.

MENTAL MEMO:
HAVE A WORD WITH PAV ABOUT STARING AT PEOPLE. I KNOW HE DOESN’T MEAN TO BUT IT CAN TURN FOLK TO JELLY AT TIMES. MAYBE EVEN PRACTISE SOME SOFT-STARING TECHNIQUES WHEN YOU HAVE SHED TIME.

‘Pav’s still learning the lingo, Mercy,’ I said.

Pav smiled a bashful one. He even tucked his shirt into his trousers and straightened his tie. My tie.

‘Well, I think you’re doing quite well, Pav,’ Mercy said.

‘Thank you. I trying,’ he said. ‘I studying hard.’

I turned to look at Pav, but didn’t blow his cover.

‘And where did you used to live, Pav?’ Mercy asked.

‘I from Old Country,’ Pav said.

It wasn’t as if the colour drained from her or anything like
that; it was the shuffling in her seat, the flicking of her hair, the fiddling with her glasses and the look towards me that gave the game away. She tried to hide her disappointment, but it was there for all to see. At that moment I felt sorry for Pav. Or maybe I was just imagining it all.

‘Well, it’s nice to have met you, Pav,’ Mercy said, and started rifling through her bag, searching for nothing in particular.

Pav gave me his little-boy-lost look. I’m sure his eyes were bluer than they had been two minutes ago. He was urging me to help him. Was this Pav’s sledgehammer moment? Had Cupid taken him by the tie and swung him from a great height?

‘He came to Little Town before those Old Country bastards arrived here, Mercy.’ She looked up from her bag-burrowing. ‘They drove him and his family out of Old Country, you see. They’re proper refugees.’

‘Really?’ she said.

‘Is true. They violent. We refugee,’ Pav said.

‘But why?’ Mercy asked.

‘Because we no believe in bastard country they create,’ Pav said.

Mercy nodded.

‘They have a different political outlook, Mercy,’ I said.

‘That must have been terrible, Pav?’ she said.

‘Yes. It terrible.’ His eyes twinkled at her.

‘And now you have to put up with those people here as well; that must be hard going? You must feel like they’re chasing you?’

‘It hard. It very hard.’

Mercy nodded her head in agreement.

‘Well, I hope you have a great first day, Pav,’ she said.

‘Thanking you,’ he said, almost bowing his head towards Mercy.

Pav had his first fan. Oh, he was good.

The bus turned a corner and the school came into view. Everyone on it hushed. Stun-gun silence as everyone looked out of the window with mouths gaping. Well, everyone apart from Pav. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw what was left of our school. Only the vile ‘main building’ was still standing, erect and strong. This grey square monstrosity, which looked more like a borstal than a place of learning, had somehow escaped the bombs, like one giant brick with a few windows dotted about for good effect. It appeared to be flipping us the middle finger and sniggering as our bus approached. I couldn’t believe that not one bomb had hit it. Not even a stray.

Debris from the demolished sports hall, new science block, the art and drama studios and the humanities area had mostly been removed. Only small hills of rubble remained. Cordoned off. Out of bounds. No-go areas. I’d bet my granny that Bones and Max had their murky hearts set on exploring those areas. That bloody main building! Religion, maths. Classics and
lingo studies. It would be a tight squeeze in there now. To make it worse the sun never shone in the main building; in winter it was too cold – jackets on in lessons, hard to concentrate – and in spring and early summer it was like a Turkish bathhouse. If ever a bomb should’ve fallen, why couldn’t one have fallen here?

I looked for Erin F among the hordes. No sign.

‘Oh, my,’ Mercy said.

‘Oh shit, more like,’ I said.

The bus stopped; its doors snapped open.

‘See you two bitches later,’ Max shouted up to me and Pav as he jumped off, ready to rock this place up.

‘Yeah, bitches, laters,’ Bones said, ready to follow Max.

Pav nodded to them in defiance.

I made sure he stayed close.

Mercy, Pav and me entered the huge grey disaster together.

I tried really hard to hold it in, but some people couldn’t help themselves. The lump in my throat was like having swollen glands. If at that moment I’d needed to speak, for sure the tears would have poured out of me. Thankfully the news acted like a silencer. The teacher could hardly read out all the names in the register without taking deep breaths between each one. His eyes were like glass. We sat in our registration class looking at some of the empty chairs. Six of them in my class alone, missing, presumed dead. How many
in Erin F’s class? Mercy’s class? God, thinking that Erin F could be an empty chair sent shudders right through me. Of course it was terrible that I wouldn’t get to play Capital Cities Quiz again with Taylor Crainey, dodge the fiery tongue of Annette Burns or chat books with Mungo McGhee, but my mind was on Erin F. I could feel my eyes glazing over.

After registration she was all I could think about. From nine until twelve thirty I hadn’t clapped eyes on Erin F. My mind was filled with all these images of her lying at the bottom of a pile somewhere, helpless and lifeless. Thinking what her last words and thoughts were. Of all the things I should have told her. I also felt bad for not having more sadness for those who we knew hadn’t made it. Some teachers hadn’t made it either, as there were lots of new faces to be seen. This wasn’t my school. The first day back after summer holidays is always raucous; this time was different: you could hear people’s footsteps as they walked through the corridors between lessons.

That first morning I had three classes:

Classics (New Teacher blathered on about how we needed to
put the traumatic events of the summer behind us and focus on what we need to do to pass the big end-of-year exam
… basically start working our socks off NOW. Erin F didn’t do Classics this year).

Biology (New Teacher blathered on about how we needed to
put the traumatic events of the summer behind us and focus
on how important it is to start working from the outset if we want to pass the big end-of-year exam
. Erin F took chemistry as her science subject).

English (New Teacher blathered on about how we needed to
put the traumatic events of the summer behind us and focus on how imperative it is to hit the ground running
and that we must
hit the books from day one if we want to hit the high grades and pass the big end-of-year exam
. Lots of hitting involved there. Not sure many people understood the word imperative. Erin F’s name was called out and she didn’t appear. My heart sank).

That first morning was blurry brain melt.

Things change quickly in schools though. Brain melt turned to heart melt.

When I eventually saw her she was like an oasis in the desert, all by herself at the end of a corridor. Books in hand. Hair tied back. Oh, to be a hair bobble. I sped up my walk. All the time I was thinking:

Please don’t turn around, Erin F.

Please don’t turn around.

Then the little monster appeared with his stupid irritating voice. There he was, perched on my shoulder like butter wouldn’t melt. If the nerves weren’t bad enough! This pesky percher was the last thing I needed.

Don’t say anything too dickish, Charlie.

How could I disagree with him on this?

Please don’t say anything too dickish.

I was close. I followed the pendulum of her hair flow. I’d say Erin F’s hair could’ve hypnotised me into submission if I’d followed it for a mile or more. She could’ve made me do anything she wanted to: eat an onion thinking it was a juicy apple, sing huge serenades to strangers in the street, speak in goblin or elf lingo, or reveal my innermost thoughts to her and hand over my Moleskine when it was complete. Man alive! Imagine.

I was trying to walk in her air, getting the waft of her special smell up my nostrils, that unique blend of sweeties and flowers. An exclusive brand of girly shampoo just for her dome. Top of the range. Collector’s item.

I marched in her footsteps.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Right.

So close. There couldn’t have been more than a metre between us. My little monster noticed this.

Don’t get caught or she’ll think you’re a mad stalker.

Don’t make her think you’re a mad stalker, not on the first day back. No turning back. Only one thing to do. My legs were shaking with fear. My back dripping. Only one thing I could do. I knew it. My little monster guy knew it.

So do it then.

A tender tap on the shoulder.

Go on, do it.

DO IT!

I tapped her once on the shoulder.

‘I thought I could hear someone breathing down my neck,’ Erin F said. It was good to hear her voice again. ‘What are you? Some kind of mad stalker?’

‘Hi, Erin F,’ I said.

‘Hi, Charlie Law,’ she said. ‘Should you not be in the library at this time?’

‘I was taking my mate Pav to see his guidance teacher.’

‘Who?’

‘The guy I told you about when we met at The Bookshop. He’s new.’ Erin F obviously hadn’t remembered our chat about Pav.