Almost True (3 page)

I take another big gulp of brandy, pull my knees to my chest and bury my head in my arms.

‘Lou, don't tell me off. I can't take any more today.'

She takes the brandy glass away from me and says, ‘I think you've had quite enough of that.'

Then she goes out of the room and I fall asleep. I only wake up when Louise taps me gently on the shoulder. She's got her coat on.

‘I'm going now, Ty, but I promise I'll be back in a few weeks. You must stay inside all the time, ideally away from the windows, and do what Helen and Patrick tell you. And behave yourself. No phone calls, no letters, no contact with anyone. And dye the hair black again. It'll be useful if I need to move you again, and we could dress you as a Goth. Understand?'

‘Don't go . . . Lou, please, don't leave me here. . .'

She leans down and kisses me. ‘It'll be fine. It'll be good. You take care.'

She's gone. I hear the front door slam. She's left me. And I have no idea who she's left me with.

Helen comes into the room and sits down and says, ‘Patrick isn't very tactful, I'm afraid. You'll get used to him.'

‘Yeah. Umm. Sorry.'

She's staring at me. I know I look dirty and sweaty; she doesn't have to rub it in. I shift my eyes away from her and start looking at the photos on the piano again. Maybe I can work out which one of Louise's friends they are related to. Maybe it's Sally, the Geography teacher at her school. She's a bit posh. . . Hang on. What's that?

There's a picture on the piano that I recognise. It's me aged eight in a shirt and tie, when my gran insisted I did First Communion at church. What the hell is it doing here?

She follows my gaze. ‘Louise gave it to us,' she says, ‘I've always loved it. Were you surprised to see it there?'

‘Um. Yes.'

She picks out another. It's a picture of a weird little kid. He's looking all sad, he's got enormous blue eyes and he's holding a fluffy white toy horse. He looks a bit like an alien. I think maybe it's the boy from the other photo – the one outnumbered by his sisters.

‘Do you remember the horse?' she says. ‘You loved it.'

What
is
she going on about? I never had a toy horse, I have green eyes, and I certainly never looked as strange as this kid. She must be getting mixed up. Old people get a bit confused, don't they?

‘Um. No,' I say as politely as possible.

‘So how is your mum?' asks Helen and it sounds like she's also on her best behaviour. ‘This must be a terribly difficult situation for her. Thank goodness Julie's able to be with her.'

Julie is my gran. I suppose Louise must have told Helen her name.

‘Err. I don't know how she is,' I say. ‘She was in hysterics in the police car. Gran had to slap her face.'

‘I'm not surprised. Poor Nicki.'

I'm scanning my memory trying to think if Gran or Nicki ever mentioned knowing rich people called
Helen and Patrick. But I'm certain they didn't.

‘Well, Julie's wonderful in a crisis,' says Helen. ‘At least you know your mum is being well looked after.'

To my horror my eyes fill up. My lamination must be peeling off. I don't want my gran to look after my mum. I want her to look after me. I quickly turn my head away from Helen, and catch sight of a photo which is definitely me. It's the school photo taken in the last year at St Luke's. It's in a little frame, lined up with a row of pictures of other kids in school uniform. I suppose they must be Helen and Patrick's grandchildren. So what's my picture doing there?

Jesus.

Oh my
God.

Jesus
Christ.

They can't be. Louise can't have. But what other explanation can there be?

‘Would you like a sandwich, darling?' asks Helen, as I'm wildly searching for alternative theories. That one word ‘darling' settles it. You don't use that for a random teenager who's just been dumped on your doorstep as a favour to a friend. Not unless you're bonkers or American, you don't.
Jesus.
How could my auntie do this to me?

I nod, struck completely dumb, and she goes into the kitchen. Left alone, I search frantically for something
that will tell me if I'm right. I spot some letters on the mantelpiece and I pick one up and turn it over, looking for the name that's going to tell me that I'm right. There's nothing on the envelope so I pull out the letter and scan it for names.

God.
Mr Patrick Tyler.
God.

They're not the parents of Sally the posh Geography teacher. They're the parents of Danny Tyler, my waste-ofspace, completely absent father, who's never bothered to contact us since he pissed off when I was two.

Right on cue, Patrick enters the room. Mr Patrick Tyler, who must be my grandad. Patrick, who I very nearly punched in the teeth. What a brilliant start to our relationship.

‘Tyler, I'd prefer it if you didn't touch our personal papers,' he says, and the devil dog snarls at me. I drop the letter right away, but I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to speak again.

Helen's made me a cheese sandwich, but I'm too choked to eat it. She looks worried, and says, ‘You must be exhausted. Shall I show you your room, and you can have a shower and a rest?'

‘Yeah, thanks,' I mumble. I need to escape. She leads me up two flights of stairs and says, ‘I'm going to put you in the attic because you'll have more space and privacy up there.'

I imagine a dusty, dark, bare, spidery room. ‘Yeah, fine, whatever.'

But when we get up there, it's not like that at all. It's big, with a wooden floor and pale blue slanty walls and a window looking out over a huge garden. There's a whole bathroom just for me. If you look up, you can see the beams criss-crossing up into the roof.

There's a set of bunk-beds at one end, and where the wall gets slopey there's a big iron double bed with a patchwork quilt. There's a toy box, and a table with pens and paper and paints. There's a bookshelf with children's books. I can see a toy garage with loads of cars. A massive doll's house. A painted rocking horse sits in the middle of the room, and there's a row of old-fashioned dolls with china faces. I'd have loved this stuff when I was about six.

Right now, though, I could do with a TV and a laptop.

She puts my bag on the big bed and says, ‘Will this be all right for you? I'm afraid it's kitted out for younger children than you, but if you tell me what you'd like, I can get things in for you. And we have lots of books downstairs; you'll have to have a look tomorrow. Do you like reading?'

‘Um, no. . .' I say, mainly to kill the conversation stone dead. She's still smiling, but there's a little crease
between her eyes. I feel like I've let her down, but I don't care. Anyway I generally prefer to see the film if there is one.

‘Have a look anyway, you might find something you like,' she says. ‘The others are all younger than you, that's why it's like this.'

I wonder vaguely about her other grandchildren. They probably read Dickens and Shakespeare all day long. And then it strikes me. These are my cousins. I might even have brothers and sisters. I can't believe this is happening to me. My head is aching just trying to take in all the possibilities.

‘Have you got everything you need?' she asks, opening a cupboard and bringing out some big fluffy white towels.

‘Yup.' Actually I have absolutely zero idea what Doug's packed in my bag. For all I know, it contains three socks and my mum's nightie.

‘Sleep well,' she says, and I can see her thinking about kissing me and deciding not to. Then she leaves me alone. Thank God for that.

I'm desperate to go and have a shower, but I don't seem to be able to move. I think I'll just lie down on the bed to get my strength together. The patchwork quilt is kind of scratchy to lie on, so I push it off and find fantastic smooth white sheets and a soft blanket underneath.
I lie there and take deep breaths and think about what I've worked out.

I have grandparents on my dad's side. I'd never thought about them before, and if I had, I'd have assumed they were dead because they never bothered to see me.

They're really rich, but we never had any money to spare. So they never helped us, and nor did my dad.

My auntie Louise has been secretly in touch with them for years. Why? They know Mum and Gran but I don't think they're in contact. Why? Patrick seems to have a really low opinion of my mum. Presumably he thinks she's a slapper for getting pregnant when she was sixteen and my dad was seventeen.

This adds to the scraps I know about my dad: he's a good-looking, arrogant bastard who never did anything for us, and I'm better off without him. Lots of girls liked him. He studied law at Manchester University. He went to St Saviour's, a Catholic boys' school which is why my mum sent me there. Oh, and the only thing he ever gave me was a Manchester United scarf. He and Mum had a go at living together but it didn't work out. And I once thought my mum was hinting that he might have hit her.

They must know everything about him, including where he is. I could ask them anything about him. He might even be about to turn up here . . . why wouldn't
he? But why would he, if he never bothered to see me before?

My head is full and the brandy is churning around inside me, mixing with the Mars Bar and the M&S biscuits but not in a good way, and I'm incredibly dizzy. And this bed is really comfortable. It's a blessed relief to fall asleep.

When I wake up, everything is dark and Alistair is sitting on the end of the bed.

Alistair is dressed in black denims and a white T-shirt and his hair is gelled into its usual ridiculous style and he looks nothing like someone who was shot in the head less than twenty-four hours ago. I'm definitely awake, so he must be a ghost. But I don't believe in ghosts. What's going on?

All I can hear is my breath, which is getting faster and sounds a lot like someone who's about to start whimpering or something. My heart is bashing against the sides of my chest, like it's a cat trying to escape from the cage that's taking it to the vet.

‘What . . . what do you want?' I whisper.

He leans towards me. I edge backwards until I'm crushed up against the iron bed. There's cold metal on my back. I can hear him when he speaks. I'm awake, I swear.

‘You killed me, didn't you, mate?'

‘No . . . no I didn't, I didn't – it wasn't me. . . ' I bleat. I must be awake. I'm digging my nails into my arm and it hurts. But how can I be awake? He's dead. Could I be dead?

He's staring at me. ‘Don't deny it. I died because of you. So you have to do what I say.'

Alistair always looked like a nice guy before, but now his smile is really twisted.

‘You . . . you what?'

‘What's so special about you, eh? Why do people have to die for you? These old people, they're risking their necks to look after you. You've been useless so far. Ungrateful little whinger,' he says.

‘I don't . . . I didn't. . .' What does he want from me?

‘I want to see you work hard for them,' he says.

‘What . . . what do you mean?'

‘You show them why they should keep you alive. Because, right now, I'm wondering,' he says.

Then his head explodes and I'm covered with blood and brains and splinters of skull – soft, wet, hot crap all over my face and hands and body.

‘Aaaaaaarghh. . . ' It would be a scream, but luckily I have no sound in me. He's gone, but the mess is still there, I'm choking and coughing and I don't know where the light is and I'm too scared to move because of what I might see.

And then I sniff an unmistakable smell and I realise that I'm covered in my own vomit.

A light goes on downstairs and I hear Helen's voice call, ‘Ty . . . Ty . . . was that you?' I don't answer, I can't speak, and after a bit the light goes off. I can see a bit more now and I move to the door and feel around for a light switch. I can hear snatches of the conversation downstairs.

‘. . . just a thug,' Patrick is saying. ‘Well, what did we expect? Louise has obviously been dressing up the truth about him for a long time.'

‘Oh, come on, we can't judge that yet,' says Helen. ‘Give him a chance, the poor boy.'

Then the voices turn into a mumble and I switch on the light. There's no one here. There can't have been anyone here. It must have been a dream – but I'm certain I was awake.

I creep into the bathroom and finally have the shower I've been longing for all day. Wrapped in a huge towel – actually the nicest towel I've ever felt – I investigate my bag. Doug has made a crappy job of packing. He's managed to ignore my pyjamas and – typical – has packed nothing from my underwear drawer at all. So, nothing to sleep in or put on tomorrow. I have four pairs of jeans, some T-shirts, three hoodies, some running gear and no socks. No toothbrush even, although the hair dye from
when I was Joe is still there, because I never unpacked it in the first place. I hunt around the bathroom and find a child-size toothbrush and some disgusting bubblegum flavoured toothpaste. As I scrub with pink foam, I wonder which child left them there.

Luckily I had my iPod in my pocket, and Doug did pack the Manchester United scarf that my dad gave me when I was a baby. I pull it out and twiddle the fringe a little bit, which is how I used to go to sleep when I was little. Even though I don't have a very high opinion of my dad, I'm still glad to have that scarf.

I pull on some shorts and decide to do without a top to conserve my clean clothes. Then I strip the bed, piling the vomit-covered sheets and blanket together with my dirty clothes from today. I don't really recommend Mars Bar puke, it's pretty disgusting.

I'd rather not bother Helen, and I could easily just sleep in the bunk bed, but it occurs to me that if I could find a washing machine and put this on to wash now, then I'd save her any trouble and also I'd have clean underwear for tomorrow.