Big and Clever (2 page)

“They call him ASBO Boy.”

I laugh and stuff the last bit of doughnut into my mouth.

“Who's they?”

“Just people. I was talking to that Bradley Ellis at registration last week. He went to the same school as Ryan Dawkins last year. The teachers didn't know what to do with him.”

“Do you reckon he has got an ASBO then?”

“God knows, mate, ” Raks says. “There's loads of rumours about him though. He had to retake a year, and they reckon it was because he'd been in a Young Offenders place.”

It's nearly ten to one. I reach into my bag and find my timetable. Monday afternoon. Biology and ICT. My heart sinks. I look up and see five lads making their way across the hall. They're older than us. Year Elevens. Three white kids and two Asians. The haircuts and low-slung trousers mark them out as part of the hip-hop fraternity. Budget variety, judging by the cheap-looking trainers.

Raks has seen them coming. He grins.

“Check it out,” he says, flicking his eyes in the direction of the hip-hop crew. “Hanging With The Homeboys.”

“Straight Outta Letchford, muthafucka.”

We clench our fists and knock them together, Fifty Cent-style. We laugh, but it doesn't last long. The gang are heading for our table.

“You two are done here, right?” one of the Asian lads asks, pushing his tray against Raks's elbow. He's got facial hair that looks like it's been drawn on with a felt tip.

It's a rhetorical question. Raks and me both know it's time to go. It's one thing making smart-arse comments about people, but they aren't much use in situations like this.

“Yeah, we're just on our way,” I say, taking a last swig of Coke and piling things back on my tray. I stand up, trying my best to act casual.

The biggest white lad pushes past me, hooking my chair round with his foot and sitting down. Making himself at home. Raks is getting the same treatment from one of the Asian lads. Ten seconds ago we were just letting our dinner go down nicely, and now here we are standing around like a pair of fools. I can feel my face going red. I look at the kid who shoved me out of the way. He's got a pudgy, freckly face and lines cut into his hair. Around his wrist there's a bracelet. A pair of jewel-encrusted handcuffs. It looks like the sort of thing you get for 20p in a plastic egg from a lucky dip machine in Wilko's. He's the most unconvincing gangsta I've ever seen. He's about as likely to bust a cap in a brother's ass as my gran. The thing is though, he's just made us look like idiots. And there's nothing we can do about it.

Raks leads the way back towards the canteen to dump our trays, then we head for the exit doors, past the table we'd been sitting on. The lads who chucked us off certainly don't look like they're suffering any attacks of conscience. They're stuffing their faces, paying no attention to us at all. A couple of them are squinting at the screen of a phone, watching a video clip of a bloke getting his head cut off.

“Wankers,” Raks says, keeping his voice low.

We're just about to push through the doors to the foyer when it occurs to me that the lads didn't need to kick me and Raks out. There were five places going spare on Ryan Dawkins' table. There still are. It's like he's got some sort of invisible exclusion zone around him. Just as I'm looking across, Ryan glances up. He raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement, and nods in the direction of the lads at our old table, circling his thumb and forefinger and cranking his hand backwards and forwards in the air.

My stomach flips over. ASBO Boy's on our side. I'm shocked, but I'm slightly chuffed too. It's like the feeling you get when a big dog runs up to you and licks your hand instead of chewing your arm off. I laugh and nudge Raks.

“He agrees with you,” I say, jerking my thumb in the direction of Ryan Dawkins.

By the time we look back across though, he's stopped the hand gestures and he's reading his magazine again.

Dad's had a rough night again by the looks of it. It's only five past seven in the morning and he's up and dressed, which isn't usually the case. Thing is, he's in the same clothes he was wearing yesterday, food stains, creases and all. Added to that, the coffee table in the living room is covered with empty beer cans and a half-full bottle of Costcutter's own brand vodka. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that he passed out on the sofa last night and never made it to bed. It wouldn't be the first time.

“Morning Tom,” he says, coming into the kitchen, trying to sound bright and cheerful. His chin is covered in stubble and his eyes are pink. “Can I get you anything?”

I take a bite of my toast and shake my head.

“No, it's alright Dad.” I point towards his mug. White and blue with a union jack on one side and
I LOVE GREAT YARMOUTH
on the other. Me and my mum bought it for him one summer holiday. “I've made you a coffee. Do you want some toast?”

Dad runs his hands through his hair. He's forty-three next year and he's going grey fast. Forty-three going on sixty-three. In the past, people have said I look like him. I hope that's not what I've got in front of me.

“Would you mind?” he says. “I've got a bit of tidying up to do.”

Dad takes his coffee and goes back into the living room and I stick a slice of bread in the toaster. I flick the radio on. Letchford Sound.
Letchford's Best Mix of Music and More
. That's what it says on the bumper stickers. I've never really been too sure what there's
More
of. Phone-ins probably. People moaning about binge drinking, dogshit and the lack of disabled parking spaces round the precinct. It's
The Toby Collins Breakfast Bonanza
. The Tobemeister, he calls himself. I saw him once, doing a roadshow in the Ainsdale Centre in Letchford. He's about fifty.

The toast pops up. I butter it, spread on some honey and take it through to Dad. His tidying hasn't got started yet. The TV's on and he's slumped into the sofa.

“Oh, thanks Tom,” he says. “Have you got time to sit down for a bit? Keep me company?” He's smiling at me hopefully.

The clock on the mantelpiece says it's ten past seven. I should be making a start on getting ready, but a couple of minutes won't do me any harm.

I sit in an armchair.
GMTV
is on. It's a report on celebrity cosmetic surgery gone wrong. The report ends and it's on to an ad break. Two different products to end the misery of constipation, amazing new pictures of Jordan in
Heat
, and a CD of Power Ballads.

Dad's gazing intently at the screen, but he's not really taking anything in. He's wrecked. I look at him and shake my head. It's hard to believe he was quite a handsome bloke a few years back. Mum said he looked like Jeff Bridges. Same dark blond hair, same jawline, same mouth. Apparently, his mates at work used to call him
Hollywood Tony
. Film-star looks, they reckoned. I don't think there's much chance of that nickname seeing any use in the near future. The bone structure is still there, but you just don't notice it any more. The skin hanging off it is grey and lifeless. All the spark has gone.

I stare at the mess on the coffee table. The blue material of the sofa is covered in toast crumbs. I'm getting the urge to start clearing up, but I don't want to offend Dad. I don't want him to think I'm implying that if I don't do the tidying, it'll never get done. That's not too far from the truth though. Cooking, cleaning, generally sorting things out. I seem to do most of it.

It's almost quarter past. Dad and I still haven't said anything. It's like we both want to have a conversation, but neither of us knows how to start. The adverts end and the
GMTV
logo comes back on screen. I stand up.

“I'd better be making a move.”

Fifteen minutes later, I've showered, got my school gear on and I'm standing in front of the bathroom mirror trying to sort my hair out. Since I've been at Parkway it's becoming a bit of a preoccupation. Everyone seems to have hairstyling off to a fine art.

I've been having the same haircut every couple of months since the age of four or five. The women at Talking Heads do it on autopilot. Number four round the sides, a bit longer on top. In damp weather it goes fuzzy, like an old tennis ball. I'm coming to the conclusion that I need to be moving on now though. I need to develop a bit of a
look
. The thing is, I'm not quite sure what the
look
should be. A couple of minutes of poking and prodding with a comb, teasing up a few strands here and there with gel, and I'm still no better off.

I look down at the shoes piled up at the bottom of my wardrobe. My new Nikes, the ones I saved my paper round money for, blue and white with a red swoosh, are sitting next to my school shoes – big, black and clumpy. I know which ones I'd rather be wearing today. The question is, would I get out of the house without Dad seeing?

I weigh up the options for a few seconds. Dad's settled down in front of the TV. It's not a Friday. He won't be going up to Costcutter to get the week's shopping in. He probably won't be getting up off the sofa for hours. He'll probably still be there when I get back this evening, fast asleep or watching some crap film on Channel Four. A true story starring Brian Dennehy, something like that. I should make it through to the front door this morning without getting collared.

I get my Nikes out, lace them up, grab some folders off my desk and cram them into my bag. Then I make my way out onto the landing and look out of the window. Through the gloom I can see Raks coming down the road.

Back downstairs, I poke my head into the living room. Dad's hardly moved a muscle since I last left him. He's eaten his toast and drunk his coffee, but that's it. It's another ad break on TV. A fat bloke in a shiny grey suit is explaining how easy it is to claim compensation for injuries when they're not your fault. Trip over a loose kerbstone, and you're sorted.

“I'll be off in a minute,” I tell him.

Dad looks across and then down. I pull my foot back further into the hallway, but it's too late. He's seen my trainers.

“Tom,” he says. “School shoes.”

My heart sinks.

“Do I have to? Nobody else wears school shoes.” People
do
wear school shoes, but in general they're not the A-List of the student population.

“Well, Rakesh wears proper shoes,” Dad says. “And you know, I'm not bothered what other people wear. The Parkway brochure said black shoes and that's what you've got. They cost forty quid. That's a lot of money. If you don't wear those shoes at school, when will you wear them? I'm not shelling out forty quid for something that's going to gather dust on your bedroom floor.”

I'm not going to win this one. The doorbell rings and I let Raks in. I'm secretly pleased to see that he's got his big school shoes on. If anything, his are worse than mine. The soles look like waffles someone's left in the toaster too long.

Raks heads into the living room while I go off to change.

Back downstairs I poke my head into the living room again.

“Let's get moving,” I say.

Raks stands up and I notice my dad flicking his eyes down at my shoes. I give him a little twirl and he smiles. I should put that on the calendar. He hardly ever smiles these days.

“See you, Mr Mitchell,” Raks says.

Dad looks like he's going to heave himself up off the sofa but he thinks better of it.

“See you, Raks,” he says. “Have a good day, the pair of you.”

Outside it's cold and dark. The clocks go back this Saturday night, which means it should be a bit brighter in the mornings next week, but today it's pretty depressing.

“Your dad looks a bit frayed around the edges,” Raks says, as we walk to the bottom of Dale Road and turn left towards the centre of Thurston.

“Yeah.” I sniff. “He's pretty low at the moment. Boozing a lot. You know how he gets.”

Raks nods, then drops the subject. He knows it's difficult for me. Nobody wants to think of their dad just rotting away.

At the corner of Wolverton Road we head right, then cut through the alley to Carlisle Street. Halfway down someone's dumped an old sofa. It's maroon crushed velvet with yellow foam rubber spilling out of rips in the cushions. As we turn into Carlisle Street I notice the police Scientific Support van parked on the pavement and two coppers dusting the window frames of one of the pebble-dashed granny bungalows for fingerprints.

“What were we saying about Blue Gate Fields the other day?” I say.

Raks laughs.

“Yeah, it's not exactly posh here is it?”

Up at the junction with Blakely Road, old Mr Curran is looking out of his front room window. It's Thursday, so he's probably lying in wait for his
Letchford Argus
. By my reckoning he's got about ten hours to go.

The sky is getting lighter. We carry on along past Costcutter, the Chinese, the bookies and Talking Heads until we arrive at the corner of Lindisfarne Street by the Bulls Head. Swinging my bag off my shoulder, making sure I don't put it down in the pool of sick someone's left behind last night, I push myself up onto the low brick wall that surrounds the beer garden.

Four buses pass through Thurston every morning, one for each of the schools in Letchford. It's like we stand in ascending order of respectability. Down at our end, there's the rag-tag mob who go to Parkway, then there's the Townlands kids, a little bit higher up the sliding scale. Further along, near the entrance to the pub car park, there's the Letchford Grammar school students in their blue and purple, and then last but certainly not least, the Alderman Richard Martin lot, all black blazers and smart trousers and skirts. The kids from the nice part of Thurston. There's not much mixing between the groups but luckily Zoe doesn't let things like that bother her. So far, there's no sign of her this morning.