Graffiti My Soul (13 page)

‘What? Got all chicken to do the manly thing, now that it's time?' I go, knowing that this isn't the time to be all cocky, but not being able to help it. ‘Should've guessed you wouldn't have the bottle.'

‘I'll show you bottle, scum,' he goes, all tough guy, ready to drop a fast one.

This is when I find his body. Push my leg backwards and out so that it goes straight for his gut. It's easy 'cos the hurdles make me flexible. He doesn't quite fly across the room the way I expected, but staggers back a few paces nonetheless. I peel my face from the charity box.

‘Show me bottle then, scum. Show me. I'm ready for it.'

This is when the staff decide to get visible. We've been at the counter all this time and no one has come to take our order. Too busy shoving down Big Macs out back. The manager is some kid two years above us at school who was mad into Buffy like some freak. He gatecrashed Lizzie Jenning's park party last summer, pissed, with a couple of Goths, and tried to get everyone to jump naked into the Hogsmill, spotty little herbert. The other two counter monkeys are Sri Lankan/Tamil-looking, so I have to treat them like bredren. As if. I might show them a smidgin of respect if they didn't have those looks on their faces, like I'm letting them down. I'm all out for the brothers, but I can't be carrying the expectation of a nation on my shoulders. I'm way too young for that kind of pressure, and I resent even the notion of it being offered up, as their eyes hit mine from the deep fat fryer to where I am on the other side of the counter.

A millisecond thing, but I still manage to feel it.

The three of them start shouting the moment Pearson's got my head down. Half-hearted shouts coming at me from behind the fryers, weak
and ineffectual. Too busy on their nuggets and apple pies, I guess.

‘And stop trying to steal my mate from me!' I go, meaning Jason. Trying to find a shoulder that can lead me to an arm to twist.

‘That dopehead? You can have him if you can stop him following me around like some lapdog. He's pathetic.'

Suddenly it becomes about Jase's honour, as much as mine. It's all about upholding stuff in round here. Diss me and I'll smack ya. Diss my mate and you'll get a double kicking. Gets tiring after a while. This would be the perfect moment to stop the physical stuff; get my phone out and show Pearson how pathetic his dad can be, if he really wants to play the game of who can be the more pathetic. But I don't. I'm waiting for the right moment to play that card, and this isn't it.

So I leave the cerebral out of it, and keep things as physical as fuck.

One of the bredren, the youngest one, who looks all right, makes a move to come over as I struggle on the counter, but backs off when he sees I have it locked. They only start going ballistic when a handful of straws and their precious serviettes go flying. Bunch of arseholes. Want me to get all nationhood, but only get annoyed when I make a mess. What kind of nurturing relationship is that?

Girls, like cats, always seem to know when there's been trouble. Their backs are up from the moment they walk down the stairs, fingers out like claws, all kinds of words coming out of their mouths. In this situation, when me and Pearson only have eyes for each other's throats, their gabbling comes down the lugholes like white noise. Can't make head nor tail of it.

They, on the other hand, are working out plenty. Might have something to do with the state of us. Shirt not so pristine, and forehead as tender as fuck; must be a bruise coming. Pearson is still winded from the kick and leaning against one of bins, hand on his belly like the big baby he is. The milkshakes are everywhere. I'd taken a punter's supersize strawberry and lobbed it. Pink processed muck floods the floor and splashes across the front window, A second shake, medium chocolate, collects in pools under the counter. Turns out, I needed something more than the kick to get Pearson's manky hands off me.
He was bang in the shake's trajectory so copped plenty of the strawberry, some on his hair, the bulk on his precious Ralph hoodie. Ha!

But neither of us were going to admit anything. Athlete's pact. What happens in the locker room . . .

‘No trouble,' he says.

‘No trouble,' I go. ‘What gives you that idea?'

Now, the only aggro we can hear is coming from the outraged milkshake-robbed punter but we pretend not to notice.

37

You can afford to do Shabbat dinner if you're in a family where the father stays at home and doesn't run off with his optician. Those families have it locked. When you have a mother who works shifts with very little let-up, Shabbat becomes a less rigid state. We still have our Shabbat dinner but, depending on when Mum gets in, we could be eating at either six or ten. Don't pay as much notice as I should do to Mum's shifts, so getting back from school most Shabbat afternoons are like a lottery. Dunno if I'm going to be playing on the computer or drawing the curtains. Wouldn't be so uncertain if I wasn't such a cretin and actually read the post-its she sticks on the fridge. I'm a loser with no attention to detail. A big one.

It was only after Dad left that Mum showed any interest in Shabbat. He never liked routines. Now he's out of the picture, she seems to depend on hers.

Once we do the business, it becomes a dinner like any other. Food that sticks to the diet sheet and the pair of us talking about our day. She's in an unbelievably good mood since Silverstone. I'm drinking juice from the carton
at the table
and she doesn't even notice. Too busy telling me about giving CPR to the relative of one of her old biddy house calls. This one lived, and she's quite pleased about it. I keep the
conversation away from the subject of being the worst runner in the world in case I have some episode and try to cut one of my legs or something. Tell her instead about finally cracking 1000 on my ab crunches. That's not for training, that's just for vanity. Getting a stomach like Beckham.

‘How's school?' Mum asks casually, when I run out of things to say. (My fast talking's worse than my fast running.)

‘Fine,' I go, almost choking on my Kiev.

‘So why did I receive a call at work today from your Year Head?'

Shit. Hiding letters only goes so far. Fucking dried-up bitch Year Head. Hate her. Late thirties and still hasn't got a man. Hasn't got anything better to do than stalk my mother over a stupid fight that we all forgot about weeks ago.

That's the thing with teachers, they never let anything go. It all comes back to haunt you eventually. We finish our dinner with a very long talk. Once Mum is certain I'm not being bullied – and I do consider that tack very briefly, but know it would be more time-consuming than the other option – I'm floored with a tongue-lashing that lasts most of the evening. Even the night birds are making zeds by the time she's finished. My phone and computer are seized. For a week, she says, and then she'll review it. Only, when we're up in my room disconnecting the thing, she comes across the second letter from the Year Head enquiring as to why she hadn't responded to the first. It came last week, when I was busy with Kel and didn't have time to hide it down the ropey. Mum almost believed me when I was spilling about the clerical laziness that goes on in that school. They lose exam papers, class reports, do you think that fat school secretary mails out all the letters she's supposed to? No way! Too busy sitting on her arse reading magazines and confidential files that are none of her business. They lost my SATs last year, so it's a viable story, but I fuck it up with my own sloth. Now she really explodes. Clip round the ear, and another, even harder, which I have to take without snivelling, even though she's a foot shorter than me – because she's my mum – and because she's really mad, she takes a leaf out of Moon's folks' books: grounded for a fortnight.

P
ART
3

 

 

38

Long before her death, there are vanishing acts. When Moon first disappears from my milk-crate during my supposed grounding, I do something similar – leave home and crash at Casey's. I've no idea where she is, only know about her state of mind. That she's really fucking pleased with herself hanging out with a bad boy before her sister. Hate that she's pipped me to the post.

We've always talked about running off; usually when we've not got our way about getting some old knick-knack that means fuck-all out of our parents, or when forced to obey the rules that are waved in your face every once in a while. Yeah, we'll run away, and that will show
them
. Spitting the words like they're the worst scum we've ever dealt with.

And now she's really done it. Being away from home, like she is, away from our street, is the one solution I can think of that will stop me from going mad with worry. Helps me to stay closer to her somehow. Can't explain why.

Mum knows all about Casey at this point, about all the alleged filth, and the untruth behind it. Thank Kelly Button, the girl with a bad case of sour grapes and a big rubbery mouth that can't stay shut. Or should I say, vindictive fingers. Sends Mum a txt, the nearest thing a market girl with too much jewellery can muster up as evidence.

Mum's excited for about a second, this being the first txt she's ever received from someone who isn't family. She shouts, slaps me a little, and then comes down the track and watches him put me through my paces, and something clicks. She doesn't quite welcome him into the family, but she gets it.

It helps that she doesn't particularly like Kelly Button, and didn't want to believe everything she came out with. If she was a patient
she'd change her dressing without prejudice, but this . . . She virtually broke into spontaneous applause when we broke up.

‘Let's face it . . .' I tell her, ‘… he's been my trainer for almost six months. If he'd have wanted to do something he would have done it by now.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘My blacked-out face would be all over the internet, right?'

Me talking about Casey being a PPP so casually isn't quite what a mother wants to hear from her fifteen-year-old son. Think she'd rather I got Kelly Button pregnant, far simpler to deal with. Casey comes with way too much baggage. None of it savoury.

But Trisha and Oprah advise compromise when dealing with stroppy teenagers so that's what she does, albeit unwillingly. She lets me stay at his, so long as it's only for a weekend (finals are coming up, so we are training morning and evening). She has all his numbers for emergencies, and psyches herself that it's all about reassurance, not drama. She doesn't realise that one night will eventually roll out into a full weekend, Casey neither for that matter.

His place is a tip, just like his car. Messy, dirty, stinky. It's only on the track that he pretends to be a clean freak. This is the first shock. Thought I'd love hanging with a laid-back guy, dropping my shit wherever I like with no one to nag, but it feels odd, not what I'm used to.

My hood is where the show palaces are. Where we show off our stuff. Streets like rows of blank canvases: our place, Jason's, Moon's. Aside from the heavy wooden stuff, nothing is more than five years old. It's the Surrey way. We are all constantly reinventing our homes. Always tip-top and ready to receive visitors, to spotlight the new Morrocan-style tiles in the bathroom, to have dinner in our brand-new conservatories whilst finding a way to casually drop into conversation that we are now on Sky digital. We parade our purchases 365. What would be the point of buying them otherwise?

Trainer's palace, with its eighties furniture, all black wood that looks real cheap, and its beige-gone-yellow walls, is something else.
The only clothes that aren't on the floor are the tracksuits, hanging on a rail in front of the wardrobe. They are ordered in tones, darkest colours to the left, and working along. The kind of thing you might see at P Diddy's house but on a micro scale 'cos Casey's only got ten tracksuits. A pad for the guy who never leaves the locker room, or who never grew out of it.

Can't work out whether or not Casey is pleased to have me. You'd think it would be his wet dream, young boy sleeping over and all. Virtually forcing his way in. But there's none of that. I get there around six, and he's pretty distracted. Points out where I'll be sleeping, mentions there's a bowl of pasta and chicken with my name on it on the kitchen top, and leaves me to do my thing. Something to do with the news being on and not wanting to be away from the set for even a minute. Casey is news obsessed. You don't have a summer like he had and not be, I guess. Trevor McDonald or whoever it is sounds more sinister than usual, as his voice rattles around the flat. Doom-laden. No wonder Casey has this mad look about him if this is how he spends his evenings. Even I can see that it's torture.

The flat has three bedrooms. Thankfully my room and Casey's are about as far apart as they can be. I don't even know why I keep thinking these things and still find myself sleeping over. I'm a joker. A big one. If I wasn't so mature I'd be throwing my head out the window and shouting for help. Except . . . the flat is at the very end of the Rose estate. Almost dropped the phone when he gave me the address. I always knew he had to live somewhere on here – where else would the council put him? – but I hadn't thought he'd be dumped on its outer reaches. I'm Earth. Casey's Pluto. The view from my window is of the closed-down health centre with its open car park where the boy racers will dump and sometimes burn their stolen Unos or 205s. Only the wetlands lie beyond it, no other houses in my eyeline. I suddenly understand how where you live can make you sadder than you already are, especially when you run out of choices.

Half-expecting Mum to be sitting in her car outside, just in case.
It's the kind of thing she does. The Florence Nightingale influence and all that corny stuff. This has been the insurance policy in my head the moment I set foot inside. I crane my head at every angle for the Astra. No sign of her. She must have really believed me when I told her that there was nothing to worry about. But then, she doesn't know how this part of the estate is the boy-racing centre of Surrey.

I'm in the box room. The kid's room. Everything in here, as with the rest of the flat, is curdled yellow and floral. Combined with the dirt, the custard flower prints, big and bold, on the bed and across the curtains make the room seem even more depressing than it would normally be. Have a feeling that maybe all rented accommodation is like this. Dad's emergency flat that he stayed in just after leaving us and before leaving the country gave me the same feeling. Flower-print normality papered over giant worry cracks; nothing fooling no one.

Mum tells me to make sure I unpack all my stuff once I get there, but all that goes out of the other ear once she's out of sight. Bag slung across the room, jumper on bed, coat on floor. Freedom! Can't help, though, coming back into the room five minutes later and hanging the coat up. Hate the idea of Hackett soaking up germs and who knows what else from that skuzzy old carpet.

I sit and scoff the pasta whilst Casey stays glued to the news, the local bulletin now taking over from where Trevor McDonald left off. News is the most boring shit I've ever seen. I try to avoid it. Here, it's local hospital scandal and various stupid triumph-over-adversity stories about plucky pensioners who should be put out of their misery. It's the kind of nonsense that makes you want to move to another country (only they probably have their own equivalent). Casey takes everything in without a word. He only starts to pay me some attention when the bloody programme is over. I'm sent to the fridge to get us some drinks. It's full of beer. No sign of any vegetables. Can feel it's going to be one of those nights so bring back a four-pack.

‘Everything good?' I go, meaning, being sued by the greedy parents.

‘My people are working on it. Can't say any more for legal reasons,' he goes, flippantly, meaning that it's looking deadly and he's shitting his pants.

Casey has an embarrassing tin-box stereo and about three CDs. He used to be a music man, kinda like myself, only all his stuff – a couple of hundred CDs, he reckons – got lost in the fire. The stereo, a plastic thing that looks as if it came free with a packet of cereal, and the CDs, The Corrs, Coldplay and Fatty Bedingfield, are recent acquisitions.

‘You're telling me you've spent six months without music?' I go. ‘How did you live?'

‘We're not all millionaires like you and your mates,' he laughs. ‘Some of us have to work for our stuff.'

He's kinda self-conscious 'cos I'm scanning round the living room as we speak, seeing that, beside the hired eighties furniture, the sofa bollocks etc, and the TV and the stereo, Casey doesn't really have much of anything.

‘It's not as bad as it sounds, young Turk,' he goes. ‘You get used to it. Fewer possessions focuses the mind. It's an important lesson for a young person to learn.'

‘Ha! I'll, uh, take your word for it.'

‘You're never without music anyway, if you have the radio, and the internet.'

Ah, yes, the internet . . . but the less said about that the better.

Until this moment I'd never given much thought to what Casey did for money. The council pay him for training me – I'd worked the ‘promising young kosher Tamil boy in athletics' angle. Somehow thought that what they were giving him probably covered it. Didn't think that the dodgy stereo and the empty fridge would prove a different point, that he's skint. Sounds like he needs a couple more promising runners to mentor. Maybe I could set him up with . . . no. He's a grown boy who needs to sort his own finances out. Not my problem.

I stick Coldplay on the stereo. They're too grim for my taste, but anything is better than the Irish harpies or Fatty.

He doesn't mention the tense ten minutes when I have an episode and have to lock myself in my room. Out of my depth and too frightened to move.

Ten minutes later, we're all good. I wouldn't have minded chilling in front of
EastEnders
, it's what we all do, but somehow in front of Casey it doesn't feel so manly. He gets the cards out and we play a series of poker hands. I forget about having any objections to group participation; as a houseguest, this kind of mid-evening shit is mandatory. Partly the reason why I've never taken up Dad's invitations for holidays in the Black Forest or wherever the hell he is: because I don't want to miss my favourite shows (they don't let you down the way your parents do), and I hate anything to do with sitting round a metaphorical campfire. Moody teenagers are best left to their own devices. That should be the rule.

But I backtrack, like I always do. I seriously get into the poker and start whopping his ass. Ha! Casey wants to play with 2ps, but I insist on matches. He was going to use the coins from his copper jar, but I still wasn't feeling it. You have to be strict this way with PPPs. If you start gambling with money, however innocent . . . This is far safer . . . says the boy in a flat on the Rose estate, on his own with a PPP. I'm a joker, ask anyone. I'm a headcase.

‘My father taught me how to play poker,' says Casey. ‘When he left the army he was out of work for about a year, so we'd spend afternoons after school, kind of like you and me tonight, playing poker on the kitchen table. He'd tell me to close my eyes and imagine we were in one of those big casinos in Monaco.'

‘And?'

‘We became frequent visitors to Monaco. He'd do some voices. Make it believable.'

‘He can't have taught you very well, if you've got a fifteen-year-old beating your fruity behind.'

‘What have I told you about calling me that?' he says, laughing
so I know he's not really annoyed. ‘Anyhow, I'm letting you beat me, that's the point.'

‘Yeah, yeah, Case. Whatever you say.'

I'm way happier talking about poker than I am hearing about grown-up sob stories. He should have dealt with that stuff ages ago, not left it smouldering to foist upon unsuspecting teenagers at a later date.

‘Why did you start running?' I ask him on our fifth hand, when he's as good as his word and thrashes me good and proper.

I forget for a moment that I'm trying to act cool and uninterested.

I'm expecting some poetic sub-Irish nonsense about the non-existent green hills of Wandsworth, of training in grotty back yards and pounding inner-city pavements. A glorious display of pure talent over poverty and all that bollocks. There's none of that. I thought Casey's buzzes might be the same as mine: enjoying the sudden drop you feel in your stomach as you arrive at the racetrack for a meet; breathing in that mixture of petrol, sweat and freshly cut grass at trackside (this being in Surrey means you're never more than fifty yards away from the nearest car park); hearing the slightest of scuffles coming from behind when you first make it into the lead, as botched runners start to feel the power of the lion and strain to catch up; of positioning yourself in the starting blocks and waiting for that moment to descend when you cut out all the shit around you, disengage yourself from the people and the noise, and make yourself believe that you are the only winner on the track. That you're not a loser who won't amount to anything.

All he says is, ‘Because I was good at it.'

‘That it? Because you were good at it?'

‘OK, Mr V-pen. And when I was on a run, and my legs were working, really working, so that I was ahead of everyone else, I felt fucking invincible. There's no feeling that can beat that. Not that I know of, anyway. And believe me, I've been looking.'

‘And now?'

‘Now nuthin,' he goes, draining the last of the four-pack, the half Carling that I've left on the table for the past few minutes because it tastes like piss, and heading towards the kitchen. ‘I don't run no more, so I'm never going to get those feelings back. What I can do, though, is help you sustain them. That's what I'm here for.'