The Lost Child (20 page)

One day, when I was picking up the bag of papers from beside the church, Father Hanson asked me if I wanted to be an altar boy on a Sunday, which not only meant dressing up in a white surplice and following him around with a goblet of wine and some wafers, but it also meant handling the collection plate. A lot of people gave money in envelopes, and after the service was over, it was my job to take the collection plate into the vestry. I thought, well, God helps those who help themselves. Mam was pleased that I was going to church because it got me out of the flat on a Sunday morning, and it gave her some time for herself. Occasionally her friend Derek Evans would come to visit, and the two of them would be off out to the moors for lunch. He’d often knock on the door and then use his own key to let himself in and wait in the kitchen until Mam was ready. He usually dressed well, in a jacket and shirt and tie, but for some reason he shoved too many things in his pockets so he always looked as if he’d slept in his clothes. He didn’t have much to say to me because he could see the way I looked at him, but he liked football, and he always had a word for our Tommy about United’s latest game or some such thing. Even though he was only eleven, Tommy had been recruited by Farsley Celtic, and he was doing really well and playing with kids two years older than him. I was proud of him, and on Sunday mornings I liked to stand on the balcony and watch when the minibus came by to pick him up, and then I’d be off out to my collection plate caper. Whenever I left the flat for church, Mam had real peace and quiet and the place all to herself unless, of course, her podgy-faced friend had come around.

I remember it was a Monday night when the two scouts from Pudsey Juniors turned up and knocked at the door. Mam was in her bedroom, and Tommy and me were watching telly, although I was also trying to do my homework at the same time. Tommy had a feeling some scouts might be around as he told me that two men had spoken to him after Sunday’s game and asked him where he lived. He’d scored twice and made the third goal, and according to him, he’d played a blinder. I called Mam and went back into the living room while she stood at the door and spoke to them both. Me and Tommy sat on the settee and looked at each other, and then we heard the door slam shut. Mam had a tube of lipstick in her hand as she came through into the living room. I told them no, you’re concentrating on your schoolwork, alright? Our Tommy nodded his head. And besides, we’ve already spoken about you playing for Uncle Derek’s team, haven’t we? She puckered up without waiting for an answer, and then lobbed the lipstick onto the sideboard. For heaven’s sake, be good. And don’t be up when I get back. She snatched up her coat and closed in the door behind her, and it was then that our Tommy began to cry. A single tear ran down the full length of his cheek, and eventually he pulled himself together enough to speak to me. She says Uncle Derek’s involved with Scott Hall Juniors, and he wants me to play for them. But they’re crap, I said. There was no need for me to say that, but I couldn’t help myself, and it just slipped out. What I really wanted to say was I could tell the beady-eyed bastard wasn’t treating Mam right, for she always made an effort to look nice for him, but he still had a wife. He was just using her to get at Tommy, for he liked nothing more than to impress kids, and football was his way of doing so. Without football he was nothing but a sad, desperate balding fucker who liked rambling on the moors with an anorak and compass, and he knew it. Our Tommy said nothing, and he just got up and went out. I heard the front door click shut, and I knew that he’d be off down the garages with his football until it got too dark to see.

I began to think about what exactly Steve Pamphlet might have meant when, earlier in that week, he’d asked me, How many uncles have you got? I was going to smack him, but I didn’t want him to think that I was bothered because I knew he thought he was better than me. If United were at home on a Saturday, he usually went to watch the match, and he always bragged about this. So, on the following Saturday, I decided to spend some of my church money and take myself off to watch United for the first time. At halftime they played “Band of Gold” really loudly out of the speakers. I’d never heard music played that loud, and I loved it. Not just the loudness, but the fact that the song was telling a story. But now I had a dilemma. I had enough money so that I could actually buy the record if I wanted to, instead of nicking it from the open market. I was a bit torn as to what to do.

“Ride a White Swan”—T. Rex

We stood together outside of the Civic Hall with the other kids and their parents and waited for the coach to come and pick us up. Mam never asked Tommy and me if we wanted to go to the seaside; it was just announced. We were going, and that was that, and we’d be spending two weeks at Silverdale Holiday Camp near Morecambe. I could tell by the type of kids who were waiting for the bus that this was a trip for poor people. They were the type of lads and lasses who were plagued with boils and spots, and who queued for free dinners at school, and who knew all about dodging the rent man or going down to the post office to pick up the family allowance money. And we were no better. I was nearly fourteen, and the emotion I was most familiar with—besides anger, that is—was shame. Mam tried to act all upbeat while we waited for the coach, but there was no getting around the fact that she was letting us go again. However, at least this time it wasn’t to a foster home. It was obvious that her nerves were not getting any better, and we could tell that she needed a rest. These days, she seemed really thin, and she’d begun to act even more weird than normal. We knew that we weren’t allowed in her bedroom, but now she was always asking us straight out, Have you been going in that bedroom when I’m not here? Of course we hadn’t. Why would we? But it felt wrong that she should be shouting at us and accusing us of something we hadn’t done. And then there were the nights that we had to spend by ourselves in the flat. In the morning we’d be having our Weetabix in the kitchen, and in she’d come, wearing the same clothes that we’d last seen her in, and she’d rush by us, stinking of cigarette smoke, and we’d carry on spooning the Weetabix into our mouths as we listened to her clumping about in her bedroom. We both assumed she’d been out with Derek Evans, but it wasn’t for us to ask.

Every morning I’d make sure that Tommy’s school uniform had been ironed, and that he’d had some breakfast, and then I’d check that he’d got his school bag and make sure that he set off on time. Clearly he was old enough that he should have been able to look out for himself, but I’d noticed that after Mam told the football scouts where to go, something in him changed, and it was like he’d kind of given up. He was still wetting the bed, but he’d learned to take the sheet off by himself and rinse it through in the bathtub. Then he’d hang it on the wooden clotheshorse so that it would be dry by the time he got back from school, which was always later than me because he had football practise every night of the week: twice for school and three times for Scott Hall Juniors, as Derek Evans had got him to agree to play for them. Mam told Tommy that it was nearer and more convenient, but we both knew that our Tommy was the best player on their team, and they were lucky to get him, and if it wasn’t for Mam, he’d be playing for Pudsey Juniors. But Tommy didn’t really want to talk about this, any more than he wanted to talk about Derek Evans, who, when he wasn’t hanging around in the kitchen waiting for Mam, had taken to chauffeuring our Tommy around like he was some kind of footballing god. Apparently so-called Uncle Derek was a bird-watcher, and he kept a huge pair of binoculars in his car, and if he spotted a bird that he liked, he’d pull over and spend ages just looking up in the trees. I could tell that the dickhead was trying to impress our Tommy, for my brother nearly always came back home with a small bottle of Lucozade, which Derek Evans claimed would give Tommy energy, but the biggest upshot of all this attention was our Tommy got a brand-new pair of Adidas boots with screw-in studs and a black Adidas holdall for his kit.

As we waited for the coach, Mam lit a cigarette, then put on her helpless face. I know they’re no good for me, and I’m going to give them up, but I just need a bit of help right now. Neither me nor Tommy said anything. Anyhow, this will give you both a chance to see the sea for the first time, and it’ll give me a chance to get my strength back. As she spoke to us, her eyes jumped this way and that, as though she was afraid that somebody was looking at her. And then I realized what it was. She felt abashed standing up in the street with the pair of us. I could tell that she couldn’t wait for the coach to arrive, but I didn’t say anything. I just hoped that Tommy could keep it together until she’d gone. Don’t cry, our Tommy. I was the one who’d have to look after him for the next two weeks, and looking at these lads, I could tell that there might be some rowdy stuff. Some of them looked like they were fourth formers, fifteen-year-olds, so I’d be giving up over a year if it came to a fight. I tried not to think too much about this, as it was too worrying, and then I saw the coach coming around the corner, and Mam threw her fag down on the ground and started to mash the stub into the pavement. Come on, smarten yourselves up a bit. You two be good, she said as she hugged us both together. You’ll be fine as these are fully qualified people, but just make sure you write and let me know how it is, and don’t you be getting into any trouble. I’d arranged for somebody to take over the paper round, and Father Hanson had got his alternative altar boy lined up, so nobody would miss me. That’s what I was thinking as the coach pulled away and I looked out of the window and waved at Mam. Nobody will miss me.

It took forever to get to Silverdale; that’s about all I remember of the journey. I kept nodding off, but every time I opened my eyes we were still driving and my bladder was full to bursting as I was dying to go to the toilet. I was sitting on both of my hands, but eventually we stopped at a big garage that had a café attached to it, and we were told to form a single line and wait our turn to use their facilities. Our Tommy said he didn’t want to go, but it was obvious that they wanted everyone off the coach, and so he just got to his feet and didn’t say anything else. As we were climbing back on board, Derek Evans was at the front, handing everyone a crab apple and a cheese sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper. Alright, Ben. Alright, Tommy. Your mam says I’m to keep an eye on you two, so don’t you be worrying yourselves; there’ll be no problems. You’ll have a nice time. As the coach pulled out and into the traffic, I asked our Tommy if he knew that Derek Evans would be coming along too in his own car. He shrugged his shoulders. What’s that supposed to mean? It means that Uncle Derek said he goes every year, and he says that you can bank on everybody having an ace time. An ace time? I think he might be having you on. Well, do you believe him? Our Tommy never answered me.

They bullied Tommy at the camp, and I didn’t do anything about it. Neither, as far as I could see, did Derek Evans, who always managed to make himself scarce every time he saw me coming. Good job too because I was already dreaming about chinning him and knocking that cocky little smile off his face, even though I knew Mam would go spare if I started anything. But if Mr. Bleeding Bird-watcher cared so much, why didn’t he do something for our kid when he got called names? It didn’t matter how good Tommy was at football: they laid into him and gave him the treatment, which usually meant rubbing chewing gum into his hair, or spitting in his glass of water and making him drink it, or just smacking him around. On the other hand, I suddenly found myself being quite popular. I had a bit of money in my pocket, I knew about music, I wasn’t that bad at football, and I had a pair of Levi’s that I took off only at night, when I went to sleep on the top deck of a bunk bed from where I could look down and see everything that was going on. They put Tommy in a different dormitory, so it was hard for me to keep an eye on him, so I suppose I shouldn’t blame myself too much. However, even though I could sense that he was having a difficult time, Tommy chose to say nothing to me about the bullying, and it was only later that he let on to me what had been going on, but by then it was too late to do anything about it. Whenever I ran into him at the camp, he looked like some little lost boy you wanted to hug. There was nothing in his eyes. No light, no nothing, but what was I meant to do, give him a pat on the head and a cuddly toy? He should have said something. One day he did tell me that he’d like it if I could buy a postcard so we could send it to Mam, and I said I’d get one, but I never did. I just hoped that he wouldn’t mention it again, and sure enough, he didn’t.

In the mornings they left us alone to run around in the boggy fields that were surrounded by crumbling stone walls. In the afternoons we were taken down to the beach, where some of the younger kids started digging to Australia, which was a really popular game, but I used to wander off and stare at the worn-out donkeys giving rides on the beach, or gawp at the big dipper at the funfair or the tubby ladies sitting in deck chairs in their baggy bathing costumes. My favourite thing of all was to listen to the military band that would strike up in the bandstand at exactly three-thirty every afternoon, although I could never work out why they always finished off with a sing-along of “O Come All Ye Faithful” given that there was still five months to go until Christmas. After that I’d go back to the beach and take off my plimsolls and socks and stand right where the water stopped rushing, so that the sea licked my toes and I could pretend that it was a dog that I owned who would never leave my side. And then it would be time to go back to Silverdale.

There was an older boy and a girl in charge of our dormitory. Peter and Rachel. They said they were eighteen, and it was clear they fancied each other as they were always smiling when they were around one another. Peter liked T. Rex, and he used to whistle their songs. I could tell that he thought he looked like Marc Bolan, but his hair was too short, and he wore glasses. However, he did put glitter on his face, and I liked that. I can’t speak for the others, but I had a soft spot for Rachel, who had beautiful hair and a pink woollen bobble hat that set it off nicely. I used to like to be around her whenever she was in the dormitory talking to us, but if I looked too long at her, I could feel myself colouring up. She’d tell us to make our beds, but mine was always made. When it rained and we had to sit inside and play board games, I’d always try and sit near her, but it was no use. It was obvious that if it wasn’t Peter, it would be some other older lad that was going to come along and snatch her up before I had a chance, but I tried not to feel too cheesed off. Rachel looked at me a lot. Well, at everybody really, but she was the first person that I can remember who smiled at me and maybe meant it.