When I Was Joe (6 page)

‘Oh, I have impeccable sources,' she says. ‘I have a sister in year eight, plus I run a group mentoring young sportswomen. Believe me, I know everything.'

‘You have a sister in year eight?' I'm wondering how I've missed an Ellie lookalike, particularly one who has her eye on me.

‘In your class. Claire. Of course,' she adds hastily, ‘she's just reporting to me on what the other girls think. She's not one to follow the crowd.'

Claire? The tiny little mouse who sits in front of me?
How can she be Ellie's sister? ‘Oh yes. She doesn't talk much.' I'm trying to think how to find out more without sounding big-headed.

‘They all think you're older than you are. That's why I was teasing you about only being twelve. Apparently you're very mysterious. And there are the cheekbones as well.'

Oh. I think she's probably still teasing, but it sounds like my disguise isn't holding up too well. I'm chewing my lip, which is what I do when I'm worried.

Ellie asks, 'You don't like that? It's good, isn't it?'

‘I don't know. It's all a bit complicated.'

‘I can see that.'

‘Ellie, please, you won't tell anyone what happened?'

‘Of course not. I wish you hadn't been on your own though. If you had passed out on the treadmill you could have injured yourself.'

‘Yeah, yeah. But I didn't. I mean, I didn't even pass out.'

‘How much are you eating Joe? That was all crap wasn't it, when we did the health survey?'

‘Err, well it wasn't really, because mostly I do eat healthy and sleep and everything. It's just that the last few weeks have been a bit . . . umm . . . difficult. I mean I was just answering on a general basis.'
I was answering from the time when Gran was around to keep an eye on me, to tell the truth.

‘So, right now, how's your eating? And sleeping, smoking and drinking?'

‘Well, we've just moved, so eating's a bit chaotic. I mean, we haven't got a routine or local shops or stuff. And I've been finding it difficult to sleep. And my mum says smoking is good for her nerves so I thought I'd just try and see if it helps.' I poke at the brown rice. It's weird, but nice, to have a proper meal that I haven't had to make.

‘For God's sake, Joe, are you mad? You get the chance to join one of the best school athletics squads in the country and you take up smoking?'

‘Er, well. . .'

‘Why did you move in the first place?'

Why? Hmm. . . ‘My mum broke up with her boyfriend and she wanted a new start.' I think that's a pretty good cover story to invent, off the cuff.

‘And what about your dad?'

‘I never see him.'

I suddenly remember something my gran once said about my dad. ‘That Danny Tyler,' she grumbled, ‘so bloody good-looking that he had his own fan club. Of course your mum had to outdo all the rest.' Gran didn't seem to like my dad much but Ellie's
comment about my fan club makes me feel quite close to him. I'm called Tyler after my dad, and changing my name meant losing that little link.

‘So you and your mum must be a bit lonely, in a new town, making a new start, then?'

‘We're OK.'

She says, ‘I used to get a bit shaky like that when I was in hospital, when I'd just had my accident.' I'm amazed by how easily she can talk about it even though her whole life must have been shattered. I know a bit how that feels. ‘I was in a terrible state. I blamed myself, everyone else. . . I couldn't see a future. All I wanted was to go back in time.

‘One day a physiotherapist came to see me. I refused to do any work with her. I just shouted and screamed. And she said, “Scream all you like, nothing's going to change unless you do.”'

‘What happened? Why did you change?'

She smiles. ‘She gave me something to think about and it really helped. I started working for myself, to take control. But the best thing was discovering that being in a wheelchair wasn't necessarily all bad.'

‘Why not?' I ask.

‘When you race a wheelchair it feels like you're flying. Honestly Joe, it's better than cycling or skiing.'

I wonder if one day in the future I'll be Ty again, and
able to say, ‘Once I had to go into hiding because I witnessed a crime. It wasn't all bad, when I was Joe.' It's unimaginable. This is never going to be something that I can own, that I can talk about.

‘Right Joe,' she says, ‘you've got to leave the past behind. Forget it. Be really positive and focus on what you can achieve now. Because you could do incredibly well. You could go right to the top.'

I shrug. ‘I'll try.' I wish I could, but the past won't leave me alone. Some other people have come into the cafe, and I can feel myself getting jumpy again as I check them out.

Ellie thumps the table. ‘That is not good enough. Don't sit there shrugging and acting cool. Am I just wasting my time? I want you to show a bit of commitment. God, it's frustrating to see someone with such potential giving less than 100 per cent.'

I don't know what to say. People are looking. ‘I'll do my best.'

‘You'd better.' She's a bit scary when she's like this. I don't mind being nagged by her though, because she's so incredibly pretty.

She writes out a suggested training diet for me and asks if I can try and keep to it for a week and see how I feel. She asks if I can play music on my iPod to keep my mind busy when I train – yes, very good idea.
She says I must never just run on the treadmill, I must do interval training so I have to keep concentrating and changing the settings. She says, ‘You've got to promise me to keep off those cigarettes or I'm going to come and talk to your mum.'

‘Oh, bloody hell, Ellie.'

‘I would, you know.'

She would too. I'd better keep them apart.

We leave the cafe, and arrange a time for training the next day. Coming out of the cafe she has to manoeuvre carefully around a pothole, and I wonder whether I should have offered to push her home or whether she'd think I was being crass. I have no idea how to act around the wheelchair. Mostly I just pretend it's not there.

It must be such a pain for her, never just being normal. And if you're stuck in a wheelchair it must be more than irritating to see people with no disabilities failing to make the most of life. People like me. I'm going to try my best for Ellie.

Then I run all the way home because I want to get back before it gets dark.

Opening the front door I know immediately that something is wrong. The smell is not the usual mixture of dust and cigarettes. It's stronger . . . smokier – Jesus, there's something on fire.

I yank the kitchen door open – nothing – then the living room. The television is on, sound turned off. And there's Mum, sprawled on the sofa, head down, not moving, with thick black smoke all around.

I run to her, grip her under the armpits and drag her to the front door. She's alive. She starts waking up and coughing, choking and retching in the fresh air. I leave her to it, grab a towel from a pile of dirty washing that's been sitting in the kitchen for about a week and run back into the room.

Petrol bomb . . . arson . . . I'm panicking, but I realise this is completely different. There's no actual fire anywhere, no flames. It's the sofa that's smouldering – the smoke is pouring from a black-edged hole in the beige fabric. I smother it with the towel, then look around. I can still hear Nicki coughing away on the front step.

Has someone attacked her? Beaten her up, left her unconscious, then set the place on fire? I look around but there's no sign of fighting, nothing broken or anything like that.

There are bottles scattered on the brown carpet. She's been shopping at last, down to the off licence to get a six-pack of alcopops. By the look of it, she's drunk them all. There's a cigarette stub lying on the sofa. If I hadn't got back when I did then, she'd have been dead.

I open all the windows, throw away the bottles, make sure the fire is completely out. Then I go and find her, right when she spews up all the Breezers and Coolers and whatever on to the front path. A neighbour walking by looks revolted and rushes away. I wish I could. Instead, I get a glass of water for her, then find the mop and bleach and slosh some water around on the path.

She's crying. ‘I'm sorry, so sorry, Ty.'

‘Bloody hell,
Mum
, shut it, will you? Wait until we're inside the house.'

She sobs and I mop in the dark, and after a bit we go inside and shut the front door. Everything still stinks of smoke. We sit in the kitchen and I make her a cup of tea. When I look for milk in the fridge, I realise that she'd actually bought some chicken and vegetables for supper. If only I'd come straight home.

Of course I've seen my mum drunk before. If she goes out with her mates they all have a few drinks, possibly quite a lot of drinks. I've seen her giggly and I've seen her merry and sometimes she gets a bit loud.
But she's happy and singing and fun. When she's planning a really big night out I get packed off to my gran's and all I see is the headache and pale face the next day. But she's never done this before. Drinking all alone? Passing out?

She can't stop crying. I can't find any tissues, so I get a loo roll and put it on the kitchen table in front of her. Then we just sit there, her weeping, me with arms crossed, silent. It's like I'm the stern father and she's the naughty teenager.

‘Ty, I was just feeling so lonely. I thought a drink might cheer me up.'

‘A drink or six.'

‘I didn't know where you were. I was worrying about you. I thought, I'll just have another one. And then I lost track of time.'

This is not my fault. ‘You mean you passed out smoking and started a fire.'

‘I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm such a bad mother.'

I know she wants me to wrap my arms around her and tell her how much I love her and what a great mum she is. Ty would have done that, but Joe is hard and cold and unforgiving. I despise the old Ty almost as much as I hate her. ‘Pretty boy,' Arron used to call me sometimes, and I burned with shame. Now Joe's going to be tough and mean.

I say the words that will hurt her most. ‘I wish Gran had come here with me and not you.' Then I go and turn off the television. There's still a foul smell in there, but I have to lock the windows so we can go to sleep and know that no one can break in. It's only when I move the towel from the sofa that I see it. Mum's mobile. What was she doing with that while she was drunk?

I pick it up and hit the call history button. My gran's number flashes up. I knew it. I knew she'd done something incredibly stupid. I remember Doug telling us that mobile networks are incredibly insecure. What if someone's spying on Gran's calls? What do I do now? Do I have to tell Doug? Does this mean I can't be Joe any more?

I go back into the kitchen. I give her the mobile, and she looks at me. She's wondering if I know what she's done. I'm not telling. ‘It's really late and we should go to bed,' I say, but as I lie awake in my empty room I hear her crying downstairs for a long, long time. I can't sleep. I've opened all the windows in our bedrooms so we won't die of smoke inhalation, and it's freezing.

I'm remembering a time when I was about six, and staying at Gran's. I was under the table, parking my cars, and Auntie Louise was talking to Gran. Lou said, ‘Nicki needs to get her act together a bit better, otherwise this'll keep on happening and you'll get lumbered.'
And Gran said, ‘Louise, you know I'll always be there for my darling.' And I drove my cars –
brrrrrm
– out from their garage, and they stopped talking. I'd not understood what they meant but I'd always remembered it. And even though I'm Joe, the hard man, the cool dude, I wish I could go and stay with Gran and be her darling again.

In the morning Mum is still asleep when I need to leave the house to go to school. I sit at the table in my uniform wondering what to do. In the end I pick up the phone and call the school office. ‘I'm Joe Andrews in 8R and I'm not coming to school today,' I say. I can't do any more lies. ‘My mum is ill and I have to look after her.'

The secretary at the other end is surprised. ‘Are you her sole carer?' she asks.

‘She doesn't usually need a carer. But today she does, and it's me.'

‘I'm not sure. I may have to enter this as an unauthorised absence.'

‘Whatever.' I put the phone down. Next, I have a look in Mum's purse and lift fifty pounds. I take the bus to the supermarket and buy eggs and wholemeal bread, brown rice and pasta, milk, vegetables and fruit. All the things from Ellie's list. I get a few odd looks on the bus – I should have changed out of uniform – but no one challenges me. I carry the shopping up the hill to the
house, and let myself in quietly. It's 10 am and Mum is still asleep.

I send a text to Ellie: ‘Sorry can't train today. Mum sick.' And then I open all the windows again and spray everything with a strong air freshener. I clean the kitchen – that hasn't been done for a while – and then the bathroom. I check the front path, and mop it again because my night-time efforts didn't really do the job.

I make a cup of tea and some toast and take it upstairs. Mum's just beginning to wake up, so I dump it at her side and stomp back downstairs. Then I turn over the sofa cushion to hide the burned hole, lie down and watch a programme about house prices. And then another one, about cookery. And then I lose the plot completely and turn over to CBeebies.

When Mum finally makes it down the stairs I'm gazing at
Balamory
. I wish I had their problems, all the funny people living on an island in brightly coloured houses. She sits down next to me, and gently, nervously touches my shoulder. I pull away like she's hit me. ‘Ty, darling,' she whispers. ‘I'm watching,' I snarl, and turn my back.