Almost True (6 page)

And then his mum says, ‘But what about
Danny
? Surely he ought to know what's going on. He'll go crazy when he finds out—' and the door is slammed shut again.

Archie rushes up the stairs to my room and I follow him slowly. I can't believe my privacy is going to be invaded. I'm never going to be able to sleep . . . what if he snores . . . or farts. . . And what about Alistair? I'll have to tell Helen that I can't do this.

I open the door to the attic and see Archie dragging the sheets off my bed and tossing the pillows up to the bunk bed. Under the pillows are the pyjamas that Patrick bought for me, and folded underneath them is my Manchester United scarf. I've kept it there for the last few nights because I kind of need it when I'm waiting to see if Alistair's there, or when he's staring at me, or after he disappears. It's just something to touch which calms me down. It's none of anyone else's business.

Archie spots the scarf and picks it up, hooting with laughter. ‘You wear this in bed? You must be really keen . . . have you got Wayne Rooney slippers?'

He stops laughing when I shove him down onto the bed – my bed – stick my knees on his chest, one arm on his windpipe, and wrap the other hand in his glossy hair, pulling it tight until one eye slants upwards. ‘Get your filthy hands off my stuff,' I growl, as he struggles and
chokes underneath me. He's strong, but I'm stronger.

‘Understand?' I say, and he tries to nod, so I climb off him. He coughs and gulps while I wrap the scarf up carefully and put it safe in my bag – then the little brat jumps onto my back and tries to throttle me.

For Christ's sake. I stand up, carrying him with me like we're running a piggyback race, and turn and slam him against the wall. His grip weakens and he slides off me – then grabs my ankle, bringing me crashing down next to him. And he's on top of me and we're rolling around, banging into the doll's house and the rocking horse, which are pretty painful things to bash into.

‘What's going on?' says Helen, and we jump away from each other and scramble to our feet. I'm all prepared to say it was nothing really, but Archie starts, ‘He attacked me Grandma, he tried to choke me and he pulled my hair and he really hurt me. . .'

I open my mouth to tell her what I think of her precious grandson.

And then her phone rings in my back pocket.

I try and ignore the noise – it could be coming from anywhere – while Helen says, puzzled, ‘What's my phone doing up here? I could have sworn it was in my bag . . . have you seen it, boys?' Luckily, the ring tone cuts out, but then after a minute there's a ping to tell her that someone's left a voicemail, and Archie opens his mouth wide and says, ‘That came from you . . . oooooh . . . you've hidden her phone.'

So there's nothing to do but pull it out of my pocket and say, ‘I don't know how it got there. . .' and then it rings again, so she can't say anything to me, because she's too busy answering it.

‘Oh. . .' she says, ‘I think . . . I think I'd better call you back later.'

I'm immediately convinced it must be my dad on the phone. It's the way she looks at me – like she's not sure what to do. It's a look I recognise because that's how I feel quite often. Helen's face is quite like mine . . . which is a really weird thought considering that she's about seventy and a woman.

I wonder why they're not telling my dad that I'm here. What are they scared of? Is it because he's violent? I wonder what would have happened if he'd called and no one was in the room and I'd seen his name flash up.

She turns the phone off. Archie is grinning his head off and mouthing, ‘You're in big trouble,' to me, and Helen's looking pained and upset. I think I'd prefer to deal with Patrick, rather than face her. ‘I'm going downstairs,' I say, and I turn my back on them and walk down the stairs.

Patrick's only going to shout at me. I don't think he'll actually hit me or set the dog on me if I own up right away and say I'm sorry, and there's not much he can do to punish me – I'm permanently grounded and I haven't even got a phone to take away. I've had worse things happen to me than being shouted at by an old man.

It's just that I'm not feeling at my best right now.

He's still talking to Archie's mum in the study. I knock
at the door and push it open, trying to look really hard and like nothing bothers me.

‘Yes?' he barks, ‘What is it?'

‘I . . . ummm . . . wanted to tell you something.'

‘Yes? Spit it out.'

‘Umm . . . in private. . .'

Archie's mum says, ‘I'll leave you to it. I'd better make some phone calls, anyway. Tyler, it is wonderful to meet you at last. We'll have a chance to talk later, I hope.' She hovers around like she's deciding whether to kiss me, but luckily I repel her by wiping my nose on my sleeve.

Once we're alone, Patrick sits down and points at a chair for me. It's a big room – like every room in this enormous house – and we're sitting by a fireplace which has a real fire burning in it. I've never seen a fire inside before, and it's kind of hypnotic watching it. I want to stick my hand into the flames to see if they're real. Meg sits on my feet, which is uncomfortably hot and heavy, but I'm so nervy that actually it's quite nice to feel her soft, warm fur.

‘So, what did you want to tell me?' asks Patrick. His voice is less growly now and I wish I had something else to say to him. Patrick kind of reminds me of Sir Alex Ferguson, except Patrick's posh and English instead of rough and Scottish. Sir Alex shouts at the Manchester United players all the time – they call it getting the
hairdryer – but it really seems to work.

It's just that when Wayne Rooney gets the hairdryer he's obviously had days when Sir Alex said loads of good things to him like, ‘Well done, Wayne, you played a blinder in the Champions League final,' but Patrick's never said anything like that to me.

‘I . . . ummm . . . want to . . . errrr . . . confess.'

His eyebrows leap around a bit.

‘Should I call Father Delaney?' he asks.

‘No. . .' I'm feeling really stupid. Of course I don't mean that kind of confession. I forgot they must be Catholics as well. ‘I wanted to tell you. I borrowed Helen's mobile, and I used it without asking. And I pulled Archie's hair.'

He pulls out his handkerchief and coughs a bit. Maybe he's got a cold.

‘When did you take the mobile, and why?' he asks.

‘Just now . . . I was going to put it back right away, I promise, but it rang in my pocket and she realised.'

‘So, immediately after we had our conversation about asking permission before you use the computer, you went and helped yourself to the phone?'

‘Umm . . . you see I needed to make a phone call very urgently. . .'

He points his finger at me, ‘What about asking? What about your safety?'

‘I thought you'd say no . . . actually I didn't really think, but if I had, that's what I would've thought.'

‘Next time, think. And ask. Who were you phoning?'

‘Just a friend,' I say. He lifts one eyebrow but I keep my mouth shut, and he doesn't ask any more.

‘Don't do it again,' he says, ‘Think of the safety of the rest of us, even if you're careless of your own.'

I sigh. I'm nearly fifteen. I've had my own mobile for four years. I'm actually wondering if I'm going backwards in life instead of forwards.

‘We'll come back to that,' he says. ‘Now, I want to know why my grandsons are pulling each other's hair. In my day, that would be a girl's way of fighting.'

No one calls me a girl
.
‘I could've hit him, but the last time I hit someone I broke his nose,' I say, raising the volume just a bit. ‘I'm very happy to hit him next time though.' Meg nudges my hand with her nose, so I have to scratch between her ears.

‘No need to shout. I'm not deaf,' says Patrick. ‘Sadly, I'm sure there will be a next time. Try and minimise the violence, though. It'll upset Helen and I'm sure you wouldn't want that. Whose nose did you break and what were the consequences?'

‘Umm . . . Carl . . . he was a boy at my last school. I got suspended and then we had to sort out the lost property cupboard together. Restorative justice.'

Patrick is enormously interested in restorative justice and asks me loads of questions about it. Then he asks, ‘And why did you hit him?'

‘He tried to drown me in the swimming pool. . .' and I have to explain all about the contact lenses I wore as part of my disguise when I was Joe, and why it was so dangerous when Carl ducked me in the water, and about how he'd broken my ribs as well by kicking me.

‘And Archie? What heinous crime did he commit that you needed to punish him by pulling his hair?' he asks, once I've ground to a halt.

Meg's lying on the ground now, and she rolls over so I can tickle her tummy. Her fur is really silky and soft and I'm not thinking about germs at all.

‘He was moving my stuff from my bed to the bunk bed. He was touching my stuff, stuff that's not his to touch.'

‘I'll talk to him,' says Patrick.

‘Does he have to stay?'

‘Apparently so,' he says. ‘I think it might be quite interesting for you and Archie to get to know each other. You've both grown up without brothers or sisters.'

‘I don't want to get to know him.'

‘You seem to have no choice,' he says. ‘But you may have more in common than you realise.'

I don't think I've got anything in common with
that spoilt baby.

‘Ty,' he says. ‘I know you think I'm being dictatorial about the computer and the phone, and I'm sorry if you don't feel fully at home. But Louise did say no contact with anyone, and that means no email and no phone calls, and from what I know about teenagers and the internet, I'd prefer you to avoid dubious chatrooms and illegal downloads.'

‘Yeah . . . but. . .'

‘I suspect that so many huge changes have happened in your life recently that it would be understandable if you started to act . . . how should I put it . . . without discipline. If you start punching people, taking things that don't belong to you, and so on . . . because, compared to the things you've seen and the things you've experienced, nothing seems to matter very much. Understand?'

I'm not sure. I concentrate on stroking Meg's soft ears. He's right that things did get a bit out of control when I was Joe, but I don't know where he's going with this.

‘I think you need me to set clear boundaries,' he says. ‘From what Louise has told me, neither Nicki nor Julie have ever been really tough with you. Has anyone ever given you any discipline at all?'

I'm not really sure what he means. Is he going to hit me? Gran never ever told me off, but there was nothing
to tell me off about. I used to go round to her flat and have my supper and do my homework and watch TV, and what's the problem with that? Nicki would explode at me pretty randomly, not all that often, and I learned to keep my head down and say what she wanted to hear. That policy worked well at school too. Arron used to laugh at me because I was such a good boy.

There was one boyfriend of my mum's, Chris the plumber, who said I needed a firm hand and more discipline. He used to boss me around and shout at me, and I was a bit scared of him. Once, I remember, we went out for the day with him and in the car going home he got angry – ‘Crumbs all over the bleeding upholstery' – and he went on and on and in the end I felt something warm on my leg and I'd wet myself. I was only about five.

Nicki looked over her shoulder and saw my face and said, ‘Tell you what, Chris, let's drop him off with my mum and then we can have some fun by ourselves.' When we got to Gran's, she shoved Chris's A-Z over the wet patch on the seat, and ran with me to the door and said, ‘Mum, can you have him for the weekend? Thanks,' and ran back to the car. Gran had to take me to her salsa class because she hadn't got a babysitter. And I never saw Chris again.

After that, my mum didn't introduce me much to her
boyfriends. When she was seeing someone I mostly got packed off to Gran's. Sometimes they didn't even know about me and sometimes she would tell them I was her little brother. They didn't last long, anyway.

Patrick unfolds himself from the chair and towers above me. It's like looking up at a giant. ‘I'm going to have a word with Helen and Archie, and then I'd like you to apologise to them,' he says. ‘Think you can do that?'

Apologise to Archie? To
Archie?
He must be joking. But he leaves me alone before I can say anything.

I'm just looking at the computer and wondering if Claire's written back – probably not so clever to check – when Archie's mum comes in. She's got a big smile on her face and I can see there's no escaping her.

‘So . . . Tyler. . .' she says. ‘We've all missed you so much all these years.'

Oh yeah? No one came to look for me.

‘Your dad in particular – he'll be so happy to see you again. Poor Danny, it's been very hard for him.'

Hard for him? What about me? I have to bite my tongue not to say anything.

‘My parents aren't really in touch with him, but wouldn't you like to meet him again?' she asks. ‘You must have thought about him a lot over the years.'

For Christ's sake. I'm not going to discuss with her what I might feel about someone who never even
bothered to send me a birthday card. Her smile is wobbling a bit. She's probably wondering if I know how to talk.

‘Perhaps you'd like me to call him?' she asks.

‘No,' I say. ‘I'm not interested. I'm just staying here while I have to and then I'll go back to my gran and my mum, and you can all forget about me again.'