Feather Boy (10 page)

I don’t know how long I sit on the floor but I’m still there when Mum comes home.

“Robert? Robert?” Mum switches on the light. “Hey – what you doing in the dark?”

“Practising.”

“What?”

“Thinking. Just thinking.”

“You OK?”

“Yes.”

“Sure? Not sick any more?”

“Not sick any more.”

“Is it to do with your dad? Because he’s not coming when he promised?”

“No.”

“We’ll do something nice. We’ll do something nice anyway tomorrow night. What would you like to do, Robert? Just say.”

“Niker’s invited me over.”

“Oh.”

“Wants me to bring a sleeping bag. Sleepover. You know.”

“And do you want to go?”

“Yes. Course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“All right. Fine.” She kneels down, put her arms around me. “I’m really pleased.” She chucks me under the chin. “It’ll be great. Yes? Looking forward to it?”

“Can’t wait,” I say.

Niker rings to say: forget dusk. We’ll meet at Chance House at 8pm. Nice and dark, eh?

“Fine,” I say. But it’s not fine. Not just because of the dark – though that’s bad enough, but because if I don’t leave till just before eight, Mum will get suspicious. She’ll start saying stuff like: “What sort of parent invites a boy round for the night but isn’t prepared to give him supper?” And then I’ll have to think of an answer which isn’t quite the truth but isn’t exactly a lie either. And things will get difficult. So I pack my backpack at 6pm and announce: “Niker rang.”

“Yes?”

“His mum’s taking us to supper at Marrocco’s.”

“Oh – that’s nice.”

“So I’ll walk. Meet them there. Is that OK?”

“Of course.” Everyone knows Marrocco’s. It’s a seafront cafe owned by a gregarious, generous Italian couple. It’s renowned for its ice-cream. Its food. Its welcome. A family place. Safe and warm. A good place to while away time. And I will have supper there. Well, chips anyway. I’ve got a little money. So I’m not lying. Not really.

She kisses the top of my head. “God bless,” she says.

She doesn’t say that very often. In fact the last time she said “God bless” was before she went out to dinner with Dad to discuss their separation. When they returned that night, we were a one-parent family.

“Bye,” I say.

“Sure you don’t want me to walk with you?”

“Mum…”

“Just asking.” She smiles and waves me into the night.

It’s dark but of course there are street lights. Warm lozenges of orange, the colour of boiled sweets. I wish I could pluck them from their lamp-posts, pop them in my pocket for later, for just in case. Do street lamps go off – or are they ablaze all hours of the night? I
haven’t thought about that before. Haven’t had to. What about the stars? I stop walking, look up. It’s cold and clear. So there are stars. A whole heaven of them. That has to be a good omen.

It gets windier as you approach the front. I pull my collar up about my neck. I’m wearing my thick donkey jacket with the rain-coloured quilting inside. I don’t often wear it, because it’s rather old-fashioned. “Is it your granddad’s?” Weasel asked when I wore it to school once. But it’s the warmest jacket I have and if I’m going to be shivering, I don’t want it to be from the cold.

I could take St Aubyns and then St Aubyns South on to the Esplanade. But of course I don’t. I choose Medina Villas and then Medina Terrace. I tell myself it’s quicker, but it isn’t. It’s just less frightening. As soon as you turn the corner from Medina into the Esplanade you can see Marrocco’s. I turn the corner. There are no lights on at the cafe and no menu board outside.

Marrocco’s is shut.

But Marrocco’s being shut is not part of my plan, so I keep on walking. I stride purposefully along the seafront as if, if I just keep going, the Italians will suddenly appear, unlock the door and start frying
chips. They don’t. I arrive at the door and press my nose to the glass. My safe haven is bolted and dark. Like many seafront places they close at dusk in the winter. There just isn’t the business to justify staying open any longer. I’ve lived in this town long enough to know that. Need makes you forget things, I guess. Selective memory again.

I stand back from the cafe and look up at the second-floor windows. What am I expecting now? That if I chuck a few pebbles up at the windows the family will come down and rescue me?

I chuck a few pebbles. But not at the windows – at the beach. Fat, sea-smoothed, flint pebbles lifted on to the prom by the wind. I thunk them back where they belong. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. What am I going to do now? I lob a huge rock, one that looks too big to have been wind-lifted, on to the beach. It bounces. Fine. I’ll go somewhere else. Who cares about Marrocco’s anyhow? There are any number of places to get chips along the Kingsway. I’ll just stop at the first place I come to.

The first place I come to is Vinney’s. It’s not a pleasant little cafe with red and white chequered tablecloths and a smiling proprietor. It’s a seedy fish-and-chip shop with a cracked lino floor and chipped
formica on the one table inside. It’s difficult to know which is greasier, the deep-fat fryer or the man standing behind it.

“Yeah?” the deep-fat man says to me. There are little bubbles of sweat on his forehead.

“Chips, please,” I say.

“Small? Large?”

“Do you have medium?”

“If we’d have had medium, I’d of said, wouldn’t I?”

“Large, then. Thank you.” I don’t want to appear mean, or like I can’t afford it.

He shovels chips into a bag. “Eat now?”

“Yes.”

“Salt? Vinegar?”

“Please.” He shakes and splashes. Then he slaps another couple of sheets of paper around the bag. “£1.30.”

On the board behind him it says large chips are £1.20. But Deep-Fat doesn’t look like the type of man you argue with so I pay up.

Gingerly, I loosen the chip paper. The chips are pale and fat. Squarish slugs of potato lolling on each other. I turn one over between finger and thumb. It’s limp, lukewarm and has a slightly grey tinge.

“Do you have tomato ketchup?” I ask.

“Ketchup’s extra,” says Deep-Fat.

“I’ll give it a miss then,” I say. Even I have my limits.

“Suit yerself.”

I sit. I stir the chips. I push them under the flaps of paper. I observe how the grease turns the paper transparent. I lick a couple of grains of salt from my fingertips, but I don’t eat the chips. I know I should eat the chips. Partly because I’ve paid for them, partly because I know there isn’t going to be a McDonalds on the top floor of Chance House and partly because I’m ravenously hungry. But I can’t eat. Just looking at these chips closes up my gullet. Just smelling them. So I sit and I sit and I stir. Deep-Fat watches me.

“What’s up wiv yer?” he asks finally.

“Nothing.”

“You got a problem with them chips?”

“No.”

“Looks like yer have.”

“Last supper syndrome,” I say.

“You what?”

“When you go to the electric chair,” I say, “you get a last request. A last meal. You can have anything you
want. In America they always order chips. Hamburger and chips. But what happens when the food comes? Do you think they can eat it? I mean, just half an hour before they make that final trip. The one to the buzz buzz chair. Goodnight world. I mean, would you have any appetite, if it was you?” I’m saying this, but this is what I’m thinking: suppose it was your last meal and they sent you rubbish chips. I mean, would you think, oh well it doesn’t really matter because I’ll be cinders in half an hour anyway, or would it make you mad? Your very last wish on earth thwarted by some lousy cook? Would you jump and scream and demand a stay of execution until you got decent chips?

“You cheeking me?”

“No,” I say.

“You are. You cheeky little blighter.”

He comes out from behind the counter bearing a dripping red, squeezy bottle of ketchup.

“You give me sauce,” he says, “and I’ll give you sauce!” He lunges at me, squooshing ketchup over my chips. Great, sloppy puddles of red sauce, which look like regurgitated sausage casserole, or strawberry jam, or plain, old-fashioned blood.

“Oh no,” I cry. “Please…”

“Oh yes,” he replies, emphatically. “Oh Yes! Here yer go! On the house!” He doesn’t stop squeezing until my plate is a lake of red. Then he wipes his brow with his sleeve, take a fat satisfied breath and points the bottle at me. “Now, get out of here, you little creep.”

I don’t need telling twice. I grab for my jacket, fumble and drop it. As I bend over to get it, I hear the burp of the sauce bottle. There’s a wet flimp on my neck, my hair. The back of my sweatshirt. “You understand English?” he yells. “I said, scram! Beat it!”

Don’t worry. I scram. I beat it. But I do have the foresight to grab a couple of serviettes in transit.

“You filthy little thief,” he screams. “I’ll get the police on you.”

But I’m already across the Kingsway and into Vallance Gardens. I don’t stop for at least 200 yards, not until I’m out of breath and convinced he’s not following me. Then I wipe my hair and neck with the serviettes but I can’t reach the muck on my back. So I position myself in the dark space between two garages and take off my top. It’s a light blue sweatshirt and the ketchup makes it look like I’ve been shot in the back. I do my best with the remaining serviettes, only they’re
the thin, cheap sort that don’t really absorb anything, so I just end up smearing the sauce. But it’s too cold to be fussy, so I put the top back on. If anyone was to look now they’d have to assume I recently stepped on a landmine. Thank goodness for my Donkey jacket. I put that on too and jump up and down. As some sensation returns to my freezing body I wonder this: are there murderees in the same way as there are murderers? I mean, for every person who wants to kill someone is there also someone just asking to be killed? Is there a victim type? Someone who has a large sign on their head saying: hey, why don’t you just kick me? Because sometimes, I think that’s what must be written on my forehead. In really big letters. A neon sign that everyone can see but me: hey, take a look at Robert Nobel, he’s fair game, take a pot-shot at him. Maybe being a victim is genetic. Maybe Mum has the sign too and that’s why Dad hit her. I stop jumping. There’s no way Deep-Fat would have squirted Niker with tomato sauce.

It’s then that I look at my watch. It’s five to eight. I don’t believe it! After all this time-wasting, I’m going to be late. I start running, but I’m not sure why. Is it normal for condemned men to run to their
executions? I mean, what’s the hurry? The fact that Niker said he’d kill me if I wasn’t there? What difference is that going to make?

I’m running so hard my glasses are steaming up. I arrive, panting, at 8.04. At first I think I can’t see Niker because I can’t see anything. Then I wipe my glasses and he still isn’t there. Not at the front of the house anyway. Not on the steps. Not on the wall. I scan the street and notice, for the first time, how the lamp-posts here are the same as in The Dog Leg. Only bigger. Fluted, old-fashioned, green metal lamp-posts with the extended arm where you might hang a coat. Or sit. I half expect Niker to be sitting on the one closest to the house. But he isn’t.

Can he have gone round the back already? I edge my way around the side of the house. It is much darker here, the pools of light from the street hardly penetrating at all. Beneath my feet the ground seems lumpy, humps of mud, tussocky grass. I don’t remember the earth being so uneven before. But that was when I could see it. Something grabs at my leg and for some reason I think it’s wire, even though I know it has to be the low branches of one of the overgrown bushes. I want to reach for the torch that’s
in my backpack but I don’t. Because, although I want to see, I don’t want to be seen. So I stumble on to the corner and turn into the wet, still garden. It’s even darker here, no light at all from the street and only the smallest spill of yellow from a couple of lit windows in adjacent buildings. Where are the stars? I look up. The night has clouded over and the sky is now a haunting milky blue.

I listen for a sound which might be Niker. Though I’m not entirely sure what sort of sound Niker might be making in a dark garden all by himself. I hear the hum of a generator, a drip which could be guttering, the honk and swerve of cars and, rather nearer, the sound of my own breathing. I walk towards the kitchen, stepping suddenly from grass to concrete. My feet making a different noise here, hard and echoless.

What if Niker’s already gone in? What if he’s waiting in the house for me? Slowly, I tilt my head upwards. He’d go to the room, of course. Stand at the broken window. Look out. Down.

Next thing I hear is a violent crash, the sound of falling and a scream. I wheel around.

“For Chrissake – who left that there?”

Niker has fallen over the microwave.

His body is spreadeagled in the dirt. As I look at him, I can’t help thinking that, if he’d fallen slightly to the left, he would have landed on the concrete.

“Are you just going to stand there gawping, or are you going to give me a hand?”

I give him a hand.

He pulls himself upright and claps off the worst of the dirt.

“Where’s your backpack?” I ask.

“Backpack? What backpack?”

“Your one for… things.”

“This isn’t a hike in the Himalayas, Norbie. Just a little climb up some stairs in a house.” He pauses. “Oh right – don’t tell me – you’ve brought cramping irons, an ice-pick, a camping stove, some baked beans and a bar of soap.”

“Crisps,” I say. “And an apple.”

“You are one serious boy scout, Norbert. Me – I just have the sleeping bag.” He pauses. “Correction. Used to have the sleeping bag.” He drops to his knees and begins scrabbling about in the grass. “Gotcha,” he says after a minute or two. As he stands up he swings a small drawstring bag over his shoulder. “Now, let’s get on with the job, shall we?”

He leads the way to the kitchen and ducks under the swinging mesh. The wind is strong enough to be grating the holly branch against the window over the non-existent sink.

Scrape. Pause. Scrape.

“Ssh,” I say to Niker.