The Dark Inside (2 page)

But the man could be anyone
.

He got out of bed.

Dressed quietly.

After finding the torch in the bottom of his wardrobe, he lit a spot on the wall and ran the light around the room. They had chosen the striped blue wallpaper together. And the porthole mirror.
Even the chest of drawers opposite the bed.

The light caught the glass and then the photograph of her in the little brown frame. She was smiling right at him.

James clicked off the torch. For a moment, it felt just like the car accident all over again, until his eyes adjusted to the dark.

The church clock struck half past eleven.

James clicked the front door shut as gently as he could, knowing his stepfather would be sitting on the back step by now, smoking like he did every night, after the pub had finished serving.

But, walking the long way through the village to get to the bottom of the hill, he was surprised to see the windows in the bar of the pub still glowing. So he crossed to the other side of the
street, staying in the shadows, wary of the laughter inside. When the door opened, he saw his stepfather, lit like an angel, before the man dipped his head and cupped his hands to suck alight a
cigarette. The match hit the pavement with a tiny clink and died. And something inside James did too as he tried to understand why his stepfather was not at home.

A woman with long blonde hair tottered into the doorway and when she placed a hand on the man’s shoulder to steady herself the two of them laughed. Then they left the pub and began
crossing the road. James pulled back into the alleyway behind him and crouched down in the gloom, holding his breath, hoping for the world to keep on turning.

Their voices were loose and loud. Stilettos rang. His stepfather raised his arms like the wings of a bird. When they reached the pavement, the woman stumbled on the kerb and his stepfather
caught her, and they kissed and became one shape in the dark, the cigarette glowing like a red moon in orbit around them.

James heard his heart and worried it would give him away. He shuffled further back into the dark of the alley, the soles of his trainers rolling the grit beneath him.

The kissing stopped.

‘Who’s that?’ asked his stepfather, his voice rosy and golden with beer. ‘Come on out!’

The woman giggled.

‘My hero,’ she said. ‘My brave boy.’ But, when she touched him on the shoulder, he shrugged her hand away and his body stiffened like a sail. He took a big drag on his
cigarette and threw it down and ground it out.

‘Come on out here. Now!’

The woman looked away when she saw James. And then she turned back and whispered something and his stepfather nodded. Sighed. And folded his arms.

She walked back across the road towards the pub, her heels clicking out of time, until she opened the door. Glasses were being stacked. Somebody laughed. And then she pulled the door shut behind
her.

James heard his breath rising and falling in his chest.

‘What were you doing spying on me?’ his stepfather asked.

‘I wasn’t spying.’

‘You were crouched down in the dark. Watching.’

‘I was going to the house on the hill.’

His stepfather grunted. Cleared the crackle in his throat. Hawked a foamy, doughy ball that slapped the pavement.

‘What for?’

‘There’s a man there. He’s all beaten up.’

‘So?’

‘So I wanted to check if he was all right.’

‘Why?’

James thought about that. And then he said it anyway.

‘Because that’s what Mum would have done.’

His stepfather looked up into the night sky and growled at the stars. The alcohol made him sway. He rubbed his face with one big hand. Taking out his pack of cigarettes, he lit another and the
smoke seemed to calm him.

‘So that’s where you go off to on your own?’

The cigarette glowed. Smoke blew grey in the dark. His stepfather looked up into the sky again. Jabbed at the heavens with a finger.

‘Think she’s up there, watching us?’

James shrugged.

‘No? You sure?’

James shook his head. No, he wasn’t sure at all.

His stepfather smiled, just enough to show the glint of his teeth. ‘Means there’s bugger all hope for the world if she isn’t.’ He took a drag on his cigarette then walked
a few paces forward and screwed a finger into James’s forehead. ‘Life goes on for us the way I say it does, because that’s how it is now. You and me.’ He pushed James
backwards, the whole of his weight in the tip of his finger. ‘All I’m doing is toughening you up for the world, boy.’ He took a final drag and flicked away his cigarette, and it
arced like a meteor, and crash-landed and glowed and died.

He looked back at the pub.

And then he looked at James.

His chest crackled gently as he breathed.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Show me this man of yours.’

The village was silent below them. The odd orange light shimmered. In the distance was Falconbury. Bright. Like a spaceship had set down in the dark of the countryside. James
looked out at it from the window, listening to his stepfather walking round the small bedroom in the moonlight, the floorboards creaking with his weight.

And then the man stopped. ‘Well?’

James just kept staring out of the window. In the cold night light he could see an angry patch of ground below him, beaten raw. The stick was lying where he had left it. Like a bone picked
clean. Suddenly, he wished he had it in his hand.

‘You made him up.’

‘No,’ said James, turning round, ‘he was, he—’ But James’s stepfather raised his hand to shush the boy.

‘You made him up because you were spying on me. Spying for her.’

‘N—’

And then his stepfather was a ghost scudding through the dim, forcing James back until he was trapped in the jaws of a corner.

‘Now apologize.’

James drew a breath. His body shuddered as his stepfather placed a large hand on the wall beside his head and leant in closer. His breath was beery, coarse with tobacco.

‘You’re a lucky boy. Lucky to be alive. Lucky to have a roof over your head. In fact . . .’ He shook as he took a deep breath that broadened his shoulders and neck. ‘You
got all the luck.’

James could feel his legs wobbling, but he stayed upright, looking straight back. ‘You were the one driving,’ he replied in a quiet voice.

His stepfather’s eyes narrowed. His face flickered. And James knew his stepfather hated him as much as he hated him back, as though a fuse had been lit inside each of them that would never
go out. But he knew of nothing in the world that would ever change it.

‘You think it’s my fault? That I should be apologizing to you?’ James’s stepfather unbuckled his belt and slid it out from the loops on his jeans. ‘I wasn’t
driving the car that hit us, was I? Don’t you go blaming me for what happened, you little shit.’ He folded the leather belt in half and then pulled it hard from both ends, making a loud
crack. Goosebumps misted over the back of James’s neck. ‘Now apologize for ruining my evening.’

James shut his eyes. In the black he imagined the man in the greatcoat sitting on the floor, looking up at him. But, when the belt snapped again, James could only picture bright red sparks
dancing hot over his skin. He opened his eyes and saw his stepfather wrapping the belt tight round his fist, swaying a little from the beer in his legs. And then he noticed someone else standing in
the doorway. It was the man in the greatcoat, holding a green beanie hat, watching everything that was going on.

James gasped.

‘There
was
someone here. He’s behind you.’

His stepfather grinned. Shook his head.

‘Nice try,’ he said, flexing his leather-bound fist, then raising it as he began to shout.

But another voice was shouting too.

The man in the greatcoat thundered over the floor towards them.

A stray boot caught James in the knee and he cried out and collapsed into the corner. The floorboards beneath him were as hard as bone.

When he looked up, he saw his stepfather flat against the wall, the sharp edge of an old kitchen knife lying against the soft white pipe of his throat. The man in the greatcoat was holding it,
his free arm pinned across the other man’s chest. On the floor was the green woollen beanie with raspberries and tiny wild strawberries spilt around it. A handful of hard red cherries rolled
like marbles in the moonlight then struck the wall and stopped.

James’s stepfather struggled to breathe. Spit whistled in his teeth and white streamers unfurled and stuck to his chin. A leg began to jerk. And the jerkiness spread until his whole body
shook.

When the man in the greatcoat let go, James’s stepfather tumbled to all fours and stayed there, panting like a dog, looking down at the floor.

‘You try to hit that boy again and it’ll be the last time. We go hurting children and the world’s gone mad. MAD!’

He looked at James. The gash on his cheek had almost healed and he was far stronger than he had been before. But James dared not speak or ask a single question.

‘I’ll be watching you both. All the way home.’ Then he turned to look out of the window and dropped the kitchen knife into the pocket of his greatcoat and waited for them to
leave. When they reached the door, he turned back around. ‘Bad things happen to good people,’ he said to James who paused, hoping for more. But the man in the greatcoat clicked his
tongue. Shook his head. ‘I’m damned if I can tell you why.’

The two of them walked back down the hill towards the village in silence. The one time James looked back he saw a figure, silhouetted in one of the upstairs windows, watching
them as he said he would.

James did not sleep at all. Every creak in the house was his stepfather pacing up and down the landing, back and forth past his bedroom door.

Eventually, he pulled back the curtains so he could see the house on the hill. So the man there might be able to see him too.

The man who had been fine, just like he said he would be.

Who was stumped by the same sort of questions as him.

The school was in Falconbury. It sucked in kids from the villages scattered outside the town. You could learn what was happening miles away by wandering round the playground at
break. It was like turning the dial on a radio.

James was kicking a stone across a hopscotch court, his hands turning sweaty in his pockets, when he heard about the fair on the outskirts of town. Three boys from his year were sitting against
the black wire fence, talking, as he walked past.

Everyone knew about the travellers. They came to Falconbury each summer and set up camp. A fairground would blossom on the rough ground just outside the town for a few days and then disappear,
leaving snowdrifts of food wrappers and fish-and-chips papers. James used to go with his mum every year. The last time had been the best. He had won a goldfish in a bag by throwing a hoop around
it. And an old woman had read his fortune, telling him he would travel the world. He hoped she was right.

James edged a little closer to hear the three boys properly, keeping close to the fence, kicking at a tuft of grass that had grown through the black wire eyes. His stepfather would not allow him
to go to the fair. So this was as close as he could get.

‘. . . and there I am, in the dark, peeing up the side of this caravan with bright green writing on it, when the door opens. And I’m thinking,
You div.’
One of the
boys was telling a story and the other two laughed. ‘Because, suddenly, there’s two blokes standing on the steps, looking down at me, and one of them’s holding a
shotgun.’

‘And your pecker’s out?’

‘Yeah. I’m like full stream.’

All three of them laughed.

‘Then what?’

‘The one with the gun asks if I’d like him peeing up the side of
my
house.’ One of the other boys laughed again. ‘So I start saying
sorry
and zipping up
and walking away all at the same time, trying not to piss myself, when one of them shouts out and asks if I’ve seen anyone else around the caravans. Because they’re looking for
somebody.’

‘Who?’

‘A man. Black hair. Wearing a blue greatcoat, they said.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘
No
. Because all I’m thinking is, I need to disappear before they shoot me. Or worse. But before I can run I hear the gun clicking and a voice telling me to stand still. And
then there’s footsteps. And I’m thinking, this is it. I’m dead. Till one of them spins me round and asks if I’m sure I haven’t seen the man they’re looking for.
And I tell him
no
again. But this time he opens up a little bag and drops something into his hand for me to see.’

‘What?’

‘Gold, mate. A piece of fricking gold. And he tells me if I hear anything about who they’re looking for then I could end up getting rich.’

There was a hushed silence in the group until one of them burst out laughing and shook his head.

‘It’s true, mate. If anyone here knows anything, I’ll split it with you.’

‘Gold? Really? You’re joking.’