Sleepwalkers (4 page)

‘Yeah.’

He’s standing still now. Suddenly this feels like the start of a fight. Now, normally I’d back down because of the size of him. But then, thinking about it, he’s a lazy arse himself – he’s always slinking off to do this or that. So what’s the issue? So I don’t move. Just look at him. And although he’s bloody big and could beat me to a pulp (and the rest) he doesn’t move. Instead he gives me this wolfish grin.

‘Look, Ben, be fair. I want to get away early tonight. Got my stunner to see. You know, Jenny from the White Horse? Come on, buddy, give us a fair crack at the whip, eh? Not being funny, but the engine’s black and all kinds of shit.’

I’ve never hit a man in my life. Enjoyed my sports but I’m a softy. But right now, I know if I took a step forward, he’d back off. I am alpha male. I’m Jeff and Jeff is me. And that’s just too fucking weird. I look back at the paper, then back at him.

‘Jesus, take it,’ he says, his hands in the air. ‘I don’t care, but let’s do this job first, and then, tell you what – you can bugger off to the pub for lunch, take your precious rag and I’ll cover for you, but please let’s just, for crying out loud, let’s just get this one going, start the day without risking a bucket of shit on our heads.’

I wait. I like feeling like this. Jeff’s smile is frozen to his face. I go to the bin, dead slow, pick up the paper, fold it under my arm and walk past him towards the cars. Jeff pats me on the arse, all chummy again.

‘Well done, stroppy. Thought you were about to have your period or something,’ he says with a big laugh.

We fix the car. It’s a disaster, but we get it done. The radio’s on, pop music. Whenever the news comes on, Jeff changes it to another channel for more shitty music. The guy’s a muppet.

When we’re finished, I look for the newspaper. I’d placed it under my coat on the chair in the corner. But it’s gone. I look to Jeff, but he just raises his eyes and gestures towards the boss’s door. He’s inside, feet up, reading it. I can make out the scoreline on the back page. Just as Jeff said.

He appears at my side, pats me on the shoulder.

‘Same as it ever was, Benny boy. Boss in the warm, workers out in the cold. How about a couple of jars?’

*

Sitting in the pub, listening to Jeff natter on about nothing and everything, I sink three pints. Partly, I guess, because I feel so rough and I want to dull all of my aches, but also because it gives me an excuse to get up and go to the bar every now and then – so I can get away from him. After three, my head’s all messed up. I’m a lousy lunchtime drinker, but I slide off the bench to order another anyway. My back aches despite the booze, and while I wait for the barmaid I stare down at my scratched hands.

Rugby. I am too old.

I look back at Jeff. He’s watching me. He smiles a leery grin.

‘Come on, girly, hurry up with those beers!’ he laughs his big, stupid laugh.

How did I end up with a friend like this? I’m not like him, I don’t like him. But here I am. Did I choose him or did he choose me? I try to remember. Try to pull the data from my head. Try to imagine my brain as some sort of computer. But the beer’s in the way.

Jeff’s started singing along to the tune from some advert on the TV. He’s doing it really loud, on purpose, and some people are staring at him. I’m embarrassed, but I’m also starting to laugh.

The woman at the bar is struggling with the remote control. The batteries must be flat, so she bangs it against the counter. She pushes the buttons heavily and starts to flick through the channels. The TV gets stuck on the news and everyone in the pub groans.

Jeff starts singing the same stupid song again, louder this time.

I glance up at the telly. The image changes and now there’s a photo on the screen of a pretty young woman with dark hair. And something goes all jittery inside me. Next is a photo of a hotel somewhere. Looks posh. I don’t know the girl, don’t know the hotel, but I suddenly feel like I’m going to puke.

Jeff’s at my side all of a sudden. ‘Alright, matey?’

My breathing’s shallow, fast. The woman clumsily stamps on the buttons with her chubby fingers and finally finds the sports channel and everyone cheers. Jeff pats me on the back. I look up at the screen, as though that girl, that hotel might linger there. My heart is pounding. Who was that woman and
why, why did she matter to me? I see, somewhere in my head, a white dressing gown, but I don’t know what this means. There’s a stack of newspapers at the far end of the bar and I need to see them.

‘Come on, buddy boy, we need to get back to the garage.’

I ignore him, grab the papers, flick through them, looking for her. My scratched hands are clumsy and I can’t find what I’m looking for.

‘Ben, he’ll sack us both. Come on …’

I can’t find anything, I look again, but then I see that there are pages missing. I chuck the paper down, look to the next one. And again, there are pages missing. Who did this? I look around the pub at the boozers, at the woman, but they seem so dull, there’s no way they’d …

I look up at Jeff. He’s watching me. He comes over and puts a hand on my shoulder. I want to pin him to the bar.

‘Ben, what’s up?’

I smile. I don’t know where I find it from.

‘It’s nothing, I just … déjà vu, I guess.’

‘Is that French?’

‘You are such an ignoramus.’

‘German?’

I sigh, playing it all normal and such. ‘What time are you seeing your bird?’

‘Her shift starts at seven, so we’re hoping to have a tenminute hump in my car.’

‘You old romantic, you.’

Jeff laughs. I see his face relax, but his eyes are trained on me. He’s been watching me all day. He’s always been doing this. I feel a little sick but I’m still holding it back. I need to
be careful now. It’s like I’ve been asleep for ages. Why haven’t I noticed this before?

I pat him on the shoulder and we head out of the pub.

‘After you, matey,’ he says as we get to the door, jolly as ever. The liar.

‘No, mate. After you.’

Anna Price’s car suffered from an annoying squeal thanks to an anonymous driver who had pranged it in the night while it was harmlessly parked outside her house. People would often glance at her as it passed, and Anna would wince and swear under her breath, desperately hoping no one could lip-read. As she screeched towards Saint Thomas’ comprehensive school on an ordinary Tuesday morning, a prickly red rash crept up her throat and she tried to conquer her nerves. She’d worked there for two years, but it wasn’t getting any easier. She could cope with the younger children, but the boys and girls at the top of the school saw her as easy meat.

Anna liked to get to school early. Normally it would just be her and the caretaker. This way she could prepare, avoid the arriving children and their big-mouthed parents, and keep things under control. But on this day she was late and the books on the back seat slid and fell as she made a sharp turn. Serious voices on the radio debated the news, but Anna’s mind was busy plotting suitably sneering comebacks to Ralph Lorrison and his cohorts. Such phrases didn’t come easily.

By the time she reached the school her spot in the car park had – inevitably – been taken. She found another, squeezed her car into a small space next to the scary Mr Downside (PE) and then fretted that it was too close to the kids. Indeed, just as she pulled the key from the ignition, the car was bumped by three sixth-form girls who sashayed carelessly past. Anna watched them, invisible inside the car: three long-haired sixteen-yearolds, more women than girls, wearing short skirts. They joked and laughed theatrically for the boys to see, cocooned within their ignorant, blissful adolescence. Anna envied them their confidence as they waltzed on, vacuous and happy.

She entered the school a few minutes later, with books piled high and a take-away styrofoam coffee perched on top. Burly boys with acne and aggressive haircuts marched past her. As she got to the bottom of the stairs (the staffroom was on the first floor) she was knocked by two shouty kids and some of the coffee spilled onto her cream blouse. She turned to reprimand them, but they were already gone, their voices echoing down the corridor.
Wanker, twat, mofo, gay boy
 …

She retreated to the staff toilets. The door scraped as it opened and closed. Anna unbuttoned her blouse and tried to soak the stain in the sink. It didn’t seem to help. In fact she was just making a larger, lighter-brown stain, but she knew that her cardigan would at least hide the worst. She caught herself briefly in the mirror, saw her utilitarian bra, her slender frame, her freckled shoulders. She wore little make-up and simple, plain jewellery. Anna would often try more fancy things in the shops, but they never felt like her. She’d return them, self-conscious, to the shop assistant and wonder why she’d been drawn to them in the first place. She was in her early thirties
now and felt she should know better. As she looked down and dabbed away at the blouse, she heard the scuffle of feet in one of the cubicles.

She turned, mortified, grabbing the blouse to protect her modesty. But then saw the scuffed black shoes beneath the door and realised that it wasn’t a teacher hidden inside but a pupil. Emboldened, she called out.

‘Who’s that in there?’

The feet shuffled but no one replied.

‘Come on, these toilets are for teachers only. Come out, please.’

She both liked and hated the teacher’s voice she used. She liked it because it didn’t sound like her with its confident tone that she wished was permanent; hated it because she hated any kind of performance.

The lock clicked, the door opened and a schoolboy stepped out. He was holding a pair of wet trousers even though he was fully clothed. Fifteen years old, he was a gaunt, wiry boy with an eager, open face that made adults like him and children bully him. His name was Toby Mayhew.

‘Toby …?’

‘I’m sorry, Miss. I just … I had an accident.’

Their eyes went straight to the trousers.

‘Oh!’ he squeaked. ‘No, no, not like that! I just … it was a game. You know, they get you and push you against the sinks and then turn on the taps and splash you so it makes it look like you’ve, you know, wee’d yourself.’

He described it like a game until the denouement. And then his voice was quieter, betraying the hurt. Both of them knew that this happened a lot.

‘Who did it, Toby?’

‘Come on, Miss. It was just messing about! Kids, eh?’

He gave her a big smile. Please – the smile said – please don’t make a big thing of this.

‘Your shirt’s wet as well.’

‘Yeah, I’ve got a spare. Always bring a spare. I was just about to … when you came in, so I …’

His eyes glanced down at her exposed shoulders and she clutched the blouse to her. Two stained tops. The connection was obvious to them both.

‘The bell’s going to go in a minute, Toby. If you change now you’ll just about make it.’

‘Yes, Miss, thanks, Miss. And I won’t use these loos again, it’s just that, sometimes, they come looking for me to make sure I don’t … you know. This way, I’ve fooled them. Ace, eh?’

‘Ace. Toby, do you need help here? Want me to talk to someone?’

‘No, no, I … thanks, but I don’t think that’d help.’

‘Really? I’m a black belt in origami.’

It took him a moment before the weak joke registered. ‘Oh. Ha. Funny.’

They held their wet clothes to themselves, no longer sure what to do. Toby was the first to burst the silence.

‘Right, well, I’d better get changed. That trigonometry won’t solve itself!’

Maybe he also has a voice for school and a voice for himself, Anna thought. She nodded and he turned his back on her and pulled off his shirt. She hastily threw her blouse back on and was about to pull the cardigan tight to cover the stain when
she saw his back in the mirror. And she had to turn to make sure she was seeing him right.

Toby was in too much of a rush to notice that he was being watched. But when he pulled off his wet shirt he revealed a torso that was covered in scratches, bruises and scars. Anna couldn’t help but gawp. She saw dark, jagged lines scrape down from his shoulder blades to the base of his spine. A series of now-healed puncture wounds blistered at a diagonal angle and might have continued across his front, for all she could tell. She saw bruises now fading to green and yellow. They were the remnants of intense pain. It was shocking to see such brutality inflicted on such a frail boy’s body. He looked like some kind of Frankenstein’s monster. Then he whipped on a fresh white shirt and the spectacle was ended.

He turned round and grinned at her as he looped a tie around his neck.

‘Alright, Miss, thanks, I’ll see you in English. Third period, isn’t it?’

‘Toby … ’

‘And don’t worry, I didn’t see anything really. Much.’

His eyes slipped mechanically to her breasts and she didn’t know what to say.

‘Right. Ciao Miss, and thanks again.’

‘Toby! Hang on—’

But he was gone. Anna leaned back against the basin, shocked by the violence and cruelty she’d just witnessed, so disconnected from the cheery face that bore it.

*

Anna did indeed teach Toby during third period, but there was no mention of their encounter. He sat at the back and
when she glanced at him, he would often be staring out of the window. She didn’t pull him up on this, but when she was able to set the class a written exercise, she noticed that he was the last one to find a partner. The girl he joined tried to complain, but Anna ignored her moans and watched as he let her copy from her neighbours and totally disregard him. He was happier when no one at all was looking at him.

Later, she watched him in the lunch break. She was on duty, shouting at the boys to stop jostling. Everyone was playing, everyone was happy. But Toby stood outside the play area, kicking a crumpled can on his own. He didn’t even look lonely. Anna watched him and wondered why she had never noticed this awful exclusion before. Someone kicked a ball over the wire fence and it landed near Toby. Happily he went and got it then jogged over to give it back, hoping for a game. The ball was snatched off him and the kids carried on. Anna watched his face fall, then, geed up by an imaginary comment, she saw how he smiled to himself and carried on kicking his can.