Infinite Sky (18 page)

‘I do,’ I said finally. ‘I just don’t think this
is
you.’

He held his arms out, arrogantly. ‘This is me, Eyeball, so you’d better get used to it.’

I shook my head. We stared at each other, and then his smile dropped.

‘Shit! What’m I gonna say? When he asks why I did it? What shall I say?’

I shrugged. ‘Tell him what happened.’

He breathed in, long and slow, through his nose. His eyes were flat and empty suddenly.

‘I’m pissed,’ he said, and he looked worried, then started laughing. ‘I’m chabongered!’

He stood, spun round in a circle. ‘Wheeeee!’

The kitchen door opened, and Dad shouted up the stairs. ‘On the table!’

Sam stopped spinning. ‘I’m dead. D-ea-d.’

‘You’re not. Just clean your teeth. And be quiet.’

Walking down the stairs, I looked over my shoulder to see how he was doing. He held on to the wooden banister with his left hand, and slid his right, palm open, across the walls. His mouth moved
up and down slightly at the corners, into a smile and out again. He looked demented.

‘
Teeth
,’ I hissed, pointing to the bathroom. ‘You stink.’

‘I’m dead,’ he giggled as he brushed his teeth. Minty foam dribbled from his mouth.

I made him splash cold water on his face, again and again until he was angry with me, and then I left him wiping his neck with a towel, and I went into the kitchen.

Dad wriggled a knife around the lasagne edges, scraping the welded bits of cheese and tomato from the dish so we got to eat the best bits.

‘How hungry are you?’ he asked.

‘Very,’ I said, though I felt too nervous to eat. He placed a thick stack of steaming pasta on my plate.

‘Sam okay?’ he asked.

‘Just coming,’ I said, using my fork to put the lasagne back into a neat tower. I didn’t look at him. ‘He’s in the bog.’

The radio was playing dance music to get people in the mood for Friday night, but the fast beat and horns were going right to my guts and making me feel scared. I got up and switched the station
to local.

Dad sang along.

‘
Oh how I want to break free .
. .’ he sang. He saw me looking and closed his eyes as if he was lost in the music, and I smiled because he was trying.

He put two more stacked-high plates on the table, and took the garlic bread out the oven.

‘H-h-h-hot,’ he said, dropping it on the table with his bare hands.

‘Why don’t you just use an oven glove?’ I said, because it was our routine since he had set ours on fire by mistake – and then the door opened, and Sam walked in.

His eyes were red, but he looked sober enough. He wasn’t giggling or smirking at least. The neck of his T-shirt was damp and his clothes were creased from where he’d been lying on
them all day. He
stank
of aftershave.

‘Eat it while it’s hot,’ Dad said, and his voice sounded weird and high-pitched. He sat down, and sliced at his food with his fork, eating it straight away even though it
burned him. He pulled air into his mouth as he chewed.

I stabbed my pile all over with my knife so it would cool down. The pineapple was always scalding. Next to me, Sam cut a cross in the middle of his. He lifted the pasta flaps and blew.

Dad didn’t read for once. He stared out the window at the blue tits and robins and the goldcrest that landed on the bird table. Occasionally, he looked at Sam.

My appetite was fine, though I could feel the nerves as I ate, and I wondered what it would take for me to actually go off my food. I put some garlic bread on Sam’s plate, hoping it would
soak up the vodka in his belly.

We ate without talking, and the radio chattered on, and it wasn’t long until everyone was finished.

‘So,’ Dad said.

He chucked the nubs of the garlic bread to Fiasco, one by one. Her jaws snapping shut around them was like a countdown.

‘We’re going to have to talk about this one, boy.’

Sam didn’t look up.

I piled our plates and climbed around my brother to get out from the table. I scraped the leftovers we’d saved for Fiasco into her bowl.

‘
Punky
,’ Dad said, as if he were talking about an only very recently identified species of tree. ‘Tell me about him.’

I ran the taps, and frothed the water. If I made myself useful Dad might let me stay.

‘Sam?’

It was getting dark outside, and it was just enough so that the window worked as a kind of spyglass. In it I saw my brother raise his eyebrows.

‘What?’

‘Well? Where does he live? Who’s his mum and dad?’

‘Doesn’t really have any.’

‘No?’ Dad’s tone was strange. I didn’t recognise it.

‘Lives with his brother.’

‘Where?’

‘West End.’

‘And how old’s this brother?’

‘How do I know?’ Sam’s face screwed up. ‘Older.’

‘I can leave you to the coppers if you want, boy.’

Sam started talking in a machine gun monotone. ‘His brother’s older than him, twenty maybe. His dad died. He don’t see his mum.’

‘So? What happened then? With the shed.’

Sam looked at Dad for the first time, and his expression was earnest. ‘It was Punky’s idea.’

‘Well,
obviously
.’

‘I told him about the gypsies, and he wanted to see for himself.’ Sam’s eyes flicked over to me, and I rinsed the suds from a plate quietly as I could.

Dad rubbed his brow.

‘We thought if—’

‘
We?
I thought it was Punky’s idea?’

‘It was! I thought we were just messing about, but then Punky smashed the window and jumped through it and then we were legging it through the fields . . .’

He stopped himself, but it was too late. He’d sounded excited.

‘Sounds like fun! And you just stood there, did you? Through all this? Just let him get on with it?’

Sam dropped his head back onto his shoulders.

‘
Get
that look off your face,’ Dad barked, and he swiped at Sam’s chin with his fingers.

Sam sat up straight.

A minute passed while Dad tried to find out why Punky got chucked out of school, and if he had a criminal record, and what his brother did for a living, and Sam told him that he didn’t
know and he wasn’t sure and he had no idea, and all the time I kept my hands busy in the sink, expecting every second to be told to clear off.

Dad rubbed his throat, mulling it over.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘I still don’t get it. Where’s Benjy in all this?’

Sam’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He pressed his lips together, and I wanted him to say what he’d said to me, that Punky had been there for him, that he went too far but he
was a friend, that Benjy was a baby: anything true. I willed him to at least try to make Dad understand.

‘And where were you when Punky just
jumped through the window
? Why in flaming hell didn’t you stop him?’

Sam sat forward, mouth open like he was going to explain, then slumped against the wall instead.

‘Sam!’ Dad shouted, half getting up from his chair, but his shouting didn’t have the same effect as before. The vodka had taken hold. ‘I’m not messing about!
You’ve got to help me out here!’

‘What?’ Sam shouted back, and he used the dead, sullen voice he saved for Dad. ‘What d’you want me to say? I fell out with Benjy! So what? Punky’s a mate. I
don’t know why we broke into your stupid shed. We were just having a laugh.’

‘A
laugh
?’

‘Yeah,
a laugh
.’

Sam stared at some point beyond Dad’s head.

‘Is that it then?’ Sam said. ‘Can I
go
now?’

‘No, you can’t bleeding
go
, you haven’t told me owt yet.’

Sam sank his head back into his shoulders.

‘Tough these days, aren’t you? Real little hard man. This Punky’s got you whipped, hasn’t he?’

Sam’s lip curled, but he wouldn’t make eye contact.

‘
Throw this boot on the roof, Sam. Break into your dad’s shed
. Never mind that I’m the bugger who has to pay for it.’

‘The boot was nothing to do with Punky.’

‘
Whatever you say, Punky
.’

‘You sound stupid.’

‘
I
sound stupid?’ Dad was almost laughing now, and it was a nasty laugh.

I moved my hands through the hot water in the sink, looking at the way the bubbles caught on the wooden bracelet Mum had sent me, breathing in the smell of washing-up liquid.

‘You’ve not got a flaming clue, have you?’ Dad said. ‘Not a clue. What you sound like. What you
look
like. When I see you at the shops, sitting on that bench like
you do,
smoking
and
spitting
. . .’

Sam raised his eyebrows. ‘What?’ He shrugged. He did an open-mouthed grin. ‘What do you think, Dad? Are you ashamed of me? Are you, Dad? Are you ashamed of me?’

Dad didn’t answer, but his head nodded ever so slightly as he stared back at Sam. He was struggling to keep himself together.

‘Ah, fuck you,’ Sam muttered, and he started to leave the table.

Dad leaned into him, half getting up himself. ‘
What
did you say?’ he said, very quietly.

‘I said . . . Fuck. You!’ Sam shouted, and his face was quite grey as he jumped up. The table legs screeched on the kitchen floor as he pushed it away from him.

Dad was out of his seat too, and I couldn’t see properly because he was in the way, but he’d gotten hold of Sam, and Sam had shrunk down on the bench. Dad’s fists were twisting
at the neck of Sam’s white T-shirt.

‘You’re a loser. No wonder she left you! You’re a prick!’ Sam said, trying to yank Dad’s hands off. He swung at him wildly, but Dad had too firm a hold.

After a few seconds Sam stopped struggling. Dad let him go.

I wiped my eyes, but my hands were wet too. I’d dripped water all down the front of my T-shirt.

‘Pack it in!’ I said. I wanted them to remember I was here now. ‘Please don’t.’

‘Not such a hard man yet,’ Dad said calmly, stepping away. He wiped his hands on the back of his jeans.

Sam held his head at the kitchen table.

‘Now get out of it. I don’t want to look at you.’

Sam stood slowly. His neck was blotchy and his cheeks were red as he walked to the middle of the kitchen, right next to where Dad stood.

‘Always me, isn’t it? Always bloody me. Why don’t you ask
her
what she’s been up to? Why don’t you have one of your
little chats
with her?’

I stared at Sam. I couldn’t believe it.

Dad turned to me, out of breath slightly. He wiped his hands over his face.

‘Iris?’ he said.

‘Go on.
Ask her
.’

My mind went blank.

‘She’s been hanging around with that gypo again. At night.’

Dad dragged his hands down, pulling at his skin so his face looked like a drooping waxy mask.

‘Right romantic it looked. Real Romeo and Juliet stuff.’

‘But it
wasn’t
him that broke into the shed, I
told
you . . .’ I started, but Dad held his hand out for me to stop. He looked so tired that my mouth snapped shut
by itself.

‘Get to your room,’ he said quietly.

I opened the door to go, but Sam hadn’t finished.

‘Oh yeah,
go to your room. Real
punishment. Why don’t you grab
her
round the neck, see how she likes that?’

‘What did I just say to you?’ Dad shouted at me because I was standing in the doorway like an idiot. ‘Out! I’ve had it. That’s
it
! That’s your
flaming
lot.’

Sam was demanding to know where his trainers were. I couldn’t hear what Dad was saying because he’d slammed the door in front of me, and adrenalin was rushing past my ears.

I sat on my bed for what seemed like hours, listening to them. I watched the moon rising out my bedroom window. It was full finally. I wished Mum was here.

I heard someone scuffling around in the cupboard under the stairs. There was some stomping and then Sam’s bedroom door slammed. The outside kitchen door slammed too, and I was relieved.
Dad had finally given up, and gone to the Stag.