Boy A (4 page)

‘Saved you there, mate,’ Chris says as he starts the van. ‘She’s a man-eater, that one. Did I tell you why I call her the White Whale?’

‘I thought it was because she’s kind of big and white.’ Big and fantastic and beautiful and pale like the snow that I
haven’t felt in fifteen years, Jack thinks. But he knows Chris would laugh at him if he let on that he liked her.

‘Nah, it suits her, but that’s not why. It was after the Christmas party, which by the way is held in January because it’s cheaper. A few of us went back to this lass Claire’s, one of the secretaries. Anyway we’re all pretty leathered, talking crap. It was during that Harold Shipman case. It was obvious he was going down, and somehow we got on to this thing, sort of a game, where everyone had to say what they’d miss most if they got banged up. Shame you weren’t there, hey, Dodger. We could have had the expert view. Anyway, so it comes round to Michelle, and she can’t think for ages. I thought it would be her car, she loves that car. But everyone’s ragging her and she says,’ Chris puts on a comical high voice, ‘“I don’t know … maybe dick.” And Claire, who’s a bit “nice but dim”, thought she said “
Moby
Dick”, and goes off on one about does she mean the film or the book, cos she’s sure you’re allowed books in prison. Hence the White Whale – maybe dick.’ Chris laughs. He’s got a gravelly laugh, like a dirty old man, though he’s only a couple of years older than Jack. Jack feigns a chuckle and stares out of the side window, so he doesn’t have to keep it up.

The array of colours still startles him, but the world out there is starting to resemble real life. Some regular routes even look familiar. The road-signs help. Jack used to make road-signs.

Chris is listening to the radio now. The
Mystery Years
has started, and he’s intent on guessing the date of the tunes. He’s not bad at it; most mornings he’ll get two out of three spot on. He says he just remembers the events happening in his life when the songs were playing, and works it out. It’s all about the feeling of era. Jack can’t do this: his recent years are blurred into one long painful stretch. The radio helped the days pass, but it couldn’t mark them.

His thoughts turn to Michelle, to what Chris said: that
she’s a man-eater. It must be true; Chris messes about, but he’s not malicious. There isn’t a dark bone in his body. It isn’t that Jack is expecting a vestal virgin, and the knowledge that she’s been around does not even make him like her any less; but it takes her further from him, makes his ignorance more consequential.

‘Hey, you know what I was saying about prison, before. See if you recognize this fellow. He might look familiar.’ Chris tosses over his paper from behind the dash. ‘It’s that child murderer they released, they’ve done a photofit.’

The words tear into Jack. The enormity hits his stomach like a black hole. Irresistible gravity sucking dry every part of him. His words are swallowed utterly; parched lips try to mouth something, some kind of apology to Chris for lying to him.

He reaches for the paper. Chris is whistling, probably going to drive him straight to the town centre, throw him out to be lynched. Jack’s ears start to buzz, some sort of panic shut-down system. His neck won’t move; it’s gone rigid. He can just turn his eyes to the page, but it’s mechanical, as if there’s a switch he’s moving. Like the eagle-eye action man, with a lever running through his drained, brain-dry head.

He reads the red top title, the
News of the World
. Then the headline ‘Kid Killer Photo Exclusive’. His vision’s gone so blurry now that the photo doesn’t look like him. He can’t seem to focus. It doesn’t look like him. He’s aware that he hasn’t taken a breath for some time. It doesn’t look like him. The first lung-f is deep, as if he breaches a surface. It really doesn’t look like him. He gulps another. It isn’t him. He feels a sudden joy. The picture’s of someone else, someone he doesn’t know, hasn’t met. He grins relief. There’s been a mix-up. But no. There is something just barely familiar.

The caption reads: ‘This is a computer-generated image of the man the government doesn’t want you to see. Using
the latest techniques our scientists have aged the face we dubbed the “Evilest Boy in Britain” to show what he looks like now. Geriatric judges and the limply liberal Home Secretary might think he’s no further danger. The
News of the World
says parents have a right to know who’s living down their street.’

The latest ageing techniques have failed. Maybe the scientists are professors of paper sales. The face they have created is twisted, mocking, leering. Perhaps they were working from a photograph that had itself been doctored to suggest darkness. But maybe it’s down to Jack, to his nature or lack of nurture, his genes or his environment. As a boy his features were squashed, scrunched in a slightly dwarfish way. Age has been kind to Jack, though life hasn’t. His features remained the same, but the spaces between them grew until they fitted. His hair that was silage brown somehow spun itself to gold. His wide splayed long front teeth were lost, somewhere on the journey from then to now, and replaced with neat false perfection. His eyes remain as blue as dolphins, but the left that had a tendency to dive alone now swims steady with its brother. He is not perhaps truly handsome, but he is something approaching it. He is no longer ugly. He is certainly not the man in the photofit.

Jack hands the paper back.

‘Don’t know him. Sorry.’

‘So what did you miss most when you were inside, Jack?’

‘I don’t know. There’s too much. Not doner kebabs.’

Jack waves from the drop-off, as Chris roars off home, the first and final forecourt of both their days. He’s going to the pub with Terry tonight, he needs to, it’s been eventful at work. He’s not sure whether he can face going out with everyone tomorrow. He needs to talk to Terry. Terry will know what to do.

There’s a pawnbroker’s on his way back to number 10.

Normally he passes on the other side, but tonight something makes Jack cross over and look in its grilled display window. It’s like a poor man’s treasure chest in there, waiting for some poverty-stricken pirate to rake his fingers through it all. Looted gold and silver are bundled, seemingly haphazardly, together: necklaces and earrings, some set with vaguely precious stones; mountains of cutlery; assorted wedding and engagement rings, for those not bothered about omens; gold chains of varied girth; a row of 80s watches, bracelet straps stretched out like baby reptiles trying to warm in the sun; a thick braid of mixed medallions, Saint Christophers and crucifixes mingling with Lincoln imps and anchors; a tray of sovereign rings; and in the middle of everything sits a Toby Jug, grinning smugly among the debris of debt, fashion and failure.

Jack is about to turn away, when something catches his eye. Up in one corner of the purple plush, which is so scarred and faded as to make its name a joke, is a razor. It’s a cut-throat, the real deal. The blade lies open, at right angles to the grip, like the carpenters’ squares in the prison workshop. The handle is a light wood, with brass bands holding it in place. It must be old, Jack thinks. They don’t make them any more, do they? But it looks new. The blade reflects the fly-coated strip-light above it. It shimmers; more samurai than Sweeny Todd. A tiny tag on a string says £15. Jack is not accustomed to need possessions, but he knows that he needs this. If it is still there tomorrow, when his wages come through, he will buy it.

He showers before he meets Terry; dust and diesel swirl away, with hairs and dead skin. Some tiny particles of Jack will meet the English Channel in a few days. They were going to go to Blackpool that summer. The summer of the incident. It would have been his first real holiday. Jack has never even been swimming, but he knows he would love
the sea. He doesn’t spend long in the shower, though. Jack still feels vulnerable in showers.

‘Consistency is king,’ Terry says. ‘Look at Travelodge, or even better – McDonalds. What you get may be firmly mediocre, but you know what You’re getting. You’re allowed to anticipate, and anticipation is half the pleasure. Most people my age hate these Firkin pubs.’ He chuckles at his inadvertent wordplay, although the walls and staff T-shirts are filled with variations on the theme. ‘Me, I love them.’

The pub they are in is called the Figment and Firkin. The ‘figment’ in question is presumably one of the imagination, because supposedly a lot of writers used to drink there. Jack wonders if Stonelee has a Fight and Firkin, or maybe a Fuckall and Firkin.

Jack is rapidly acquiring a taste for lager. Once or twice a week Terry and he have been going out for a meal and a few drinks somewhere. Just a pizza, or a pub like this. Terry hasn’t got rich on government wages. Especially with the divorce, and several house moves, and putting his son through university. Jack smiles inwardly. Next week he’s going to pay for everything. Just the start of making up for the years that Terry’s given him.

‘What’re you having, then?’ says Terry.

They both decide on lasagne, and Terry goes to the bar to order. Jack sips his beer and watches the room. There are two blokes and a girl playing pool in the corner. She’s pretty, with an unselfconscious confidence: laughing loudly when she misses a shot, chattering happily to her two escorts. She divides her attention so evenly that Jack can’t decide which one she’s seeing, or whether it’s neither or both.

Terry is carrying another two pints when he returns.

‘It’ll save getting up again in a minute,’ he says. Terry seems to like going out with Jack: treating him to meals, buying the drinks, just sitting and talking. All the things that
he says he was never able to do with his own son. He bought Jack his first ever pint, only a few weeks ago. Terry was living in a different city when his own son started going to pubs. Down in London, near to Feltham.

‘So what d’you think, Terry? Should I go or not? Tomorrow night, I mean.’

‘Of course you should. It’s going to be daunting but you need friends. You can’t just keep hanging about with your uncle all the time. Much as he enjoys it.’ Terry pats Jack’s arm. ‘Just try not to get too drunk. Remember most of these guys from work will have been on the booze every weekend since they were sixteen. Don’t try and keep up with them. In fact get a few non-alcoholic drinks in if you can. You want to still have your wits about you.’

‘Now you do sound like an uncle.’

‘I worry like one, Jack. But you need to start living. You know what they say about all work and no play. The past doesn’t equal the future, Jack. You’re entitled to some happiness.’

‘I am happy, Terry. I’m as happy as I can ever remember being.’

‘And just think. You’ve still got sex to come yet,’ Terry laughs, and then blushes slightly at his own teasing.

‘I’m just going to concentrate on lasagne for the moment,’ Jack says.

They part company at the end of Jack’s road, where Terry grabs a black cab and Jack continues alone. A lowered, red Golf shoots along from behind him. It’s going far too fast for the narrow gap between two sides of parked cars. Recklessly fast, in fact. Jack’s seen the Golf a few times. Usually it’s outside a house at the bottom of the street. He tuts to himself. Chris would be going mad if he was there. He hates bad drivers.

Just before his front door, Jack turns around to look back
up the road. Something makes him on edge, as if he’s being watched. It feels like there’s a figure staring at him from the gloom of an alleyway. He has more of a sense of it than a sighting, but the sense chills him. And maybe something skulks away into the thick darkness. Jack is unnerved for a moment; but Kelly is watching
The Blues Brothers
when he gets in, and their shared laughter makes him forget about it.

He goes to bed before her, and when he cleans his teeth he takes a few wraps of toilet roll back to his room with him. With the lights off he imagines Michelle. He thinks of all the things that he would like to do to her, with her, for her. Things that he doesn’t really know how to do, but which are none the less engrossing and enticing. Jack’s fantasies are unsullied by details and experiences. With quick twitches of his arm he claims her. And for an instant she’s his, they’re together on this desert island of belief.

Her face is fixed in his mind, even as his breathing steadies again. He wipes away the dewy cobwebs that span his fingers, and turns to sleep.

No one is asleep at Terry’s house. Terry is alone in his kitchen, but he is conscious of a presence that the creaking bedroom floor gives away. The strip-light is off, but the streetlight outside the window casts just sufficient glow to see the table. One plate of steak and chips sits untouched. Blisters of cold white fat lie across the meat’s clammy surface, a cairn of grey peas piled beside it. The other meal looks like it’s been more toyed with than eaten. Terry can imagine his son sitting there, waiting for his return, pushing lukewarm lumps of food around. Maybe humming happy birthday to himself. No, that’s just Terry’s grim romanticism; Zeb’s not a hummer, he’s a curser.

Zeb is awake, and so must be aware that his father is home, but they remain in different rooms, neither of them willing to initiate the inevitable. It will be worse for Terry;
all the blame lies with him. How can he have allowed himself to forget the birth of his one son? The boy’s only been staying with him for three days.

‘Hello, Zeb,’ he says, as the presence finally enters the room, ‘I’m sorry. Happy birthday.’ He is braced for rage, for a foot-stomping tirade, but sees in his son’s eyes only weariness.

‘What is it, Dad? What’s the great crusade this time?’

‘I’m sorry, Zeb, I just forgot. There’s no crusade, it’s just one of my charges. I always go out with him on a Tuesday.’

‘
Charges
– causes, more like. Another little criminal fuck who’s more important than your own flesh and blood.’

‘Zeb, It’s not like that…’

But his son has already left the room, leaving Terry looking at the spoiled meal; lingering with his guilt.

A
started to come around with an uneasy feeling: a creeping anxiety that somehow everything wasn’t going to be quite right when he was fully awake. He couldn’t put his finger on who he had offended, or what he had broken; but there was a muggy certitude that he was in trouble.