White Goods (28 page)

I was certain I’d been
found out by then; that they’d realised they had beaten the wrong
boy. Roy had asked about it at school and seemed suspicious about
my apparent good health.

‘
Heard you got
a beating, nancy boy,’ he’d said, catching me as I left the canteen
one lunch time. ‘Where you hiding your bruises?’

‘
He didn’t get
any,’ Justin had piped up, abruptly appearing behind Roy, and I
wondered what he was going to say next. Was he going to land me in
it? He still had a fat lip himself at that point. ‘They didn’t hit
him hard enough,’ he finished off and I wasn’t sure how to take his
words. I couldn’t ask him, either, as he had quickly disappeared,
not interested in hanging around me for too long.

Roy hadn’t said anything
else, but I could tell he was thinking about Justin’s response. He
knew something was up and it wouldn’t take him long to work it out.
Any idiot could have done that, so Roy was more than
qualified.

‘
It’s the
Easter holidays, the kids there will have spare cash to splash,’
Ian said, still insisting we hit the rough end of
Uncle
Gary’s estate,
pushing the wheelbarrow, contemplating our dire sales record. So
far, we had sold five boxes of eggs and only two Basil Brushes –
both to our immediate neighbour, Mad Barbara, who had bought them
as a surprise for her other half, Silent Dan. ‘It’s worth a try, in
any case.’

‘
I don’t want
to go there, Ian,’ I told him, not sounding like myself. Noting the
serious edge in my voice, Ian stopped pushing and looked at
me.

‘
Why?’ he
asked, concern in his face, his brow creasing. But I couldn’t
answer. The time for telling him and for posing my own questions to
him had passed and I didn’t feel ready. I wasn’t sure how he’d
react when I told him he had a part in it.
‘Tell Ian we still want that money.’
So, I simply walked off. Left Ian standing, shaking his head
no doubt. I didn’t look back, so I can’t tell you if he was, but I
could feel him doing it.

‘
Scot!’ he
cried out once, trying to get me to turn back.

But I was resolved to get
myself back to safety as soon as I could. I’d come out without the
coat, too. It wasn’t like the first parka I’d had – it didn’t have
the same pull, it didn’t fulfil the same urgent need. But I still
turned to it when I needed a safe place to hide. It took me just
ten minutes to get home and back in the house. When Ian eventually
caught up me, I was on my bed, my parka on and the hood
up.

‘
What’s going
on?’ he asked, but I had decided to keep my silence. I was inside
the coat. I was safe. I wanted to stay that way. Keep everything
settled and safe. So, I kept it all to myself.

Ian tried a different
tack.

‘
Been speaking
to Mad Barbara, next door,’ he ventured, sitting down next to me.
‘She’s cleaning at the
Barley Mow
three times a week. She’s gonna ask the landlord
if we can set up a stall out the back. Tempt the lunchtime punters.
Better than walking the streets, eh?’

It was and I
nodded a
yes
in
acceptance.

‘
Okay,’ he
added, and gave me a light pat on the shoulder, before leaving
me.

Mad Barbara
came up trumps – Bernie, the landlord at the
Barley Mow,
had agreed that we could
set up our stall during the lunch period the very next
day.

‘
As a favour
to your dad,’ he told us when we arrived, late on the Wednesday
morning. He pointed us to a small patch of grass towards the rear
of the pub. ‘There’s a decorating table in the shed, if you want
something to put them on.’

‘
We’re
outside,’ I said to Ian, a little nervous of the exposure and the
isolation of being pushed to the rear of the building. I thought we
would have been inside; I hadn’t minded the thought of that as
much. Whilst I’d be out in public and in full view of any would-be
attackers, the
Barley Mow
was a busy place and full of Dad’s mates. Full of
allies. The boys who had beaten both Ian and Justin up wouldn’t
have dared come near me, assuming they would have been allowed on
the premises; they were older than me, but not enough to get
served.

But out the
back, hidden in the beer garden, that was different. That didn’t
feel public
enough
.

‘
So what?’ Ian
had responded.

‘
It might
rain.’

‘
It won’t.
It’ll be fine.’

Ian retrieved the foldaway
table from Bernie’s shed and we set out our goods. We’d only
brought what Ian could fit in the wheelbarrow and what I could
carry, so he suggested going back for more.

‘
You stay
here,’ he instructed, taking the wheelbarrow, pushing it away
without looking back. I simply let him go and hid my fear. The
chance to tell Ian the truth, to share my fears, had come and gone
again. ‘And if it rains whilst I’m gone, you can put the hood up on
your parka.’

I heard a laugh in his
voice. Then he turned the corner and was gone.

It felt like a year or so
before he came back round it, pushing the wheelbarrow, which looked
full to the brim. Della was in tow.

‘
You sold any
yet?’ she asked, standing with her arms crossed, whilst Ian and me
unloaded the extra stock.

I shrugged.

‘
Well, I can’t
stand around waiting for you to be millionaires,’ she huffed,
turning to leave us almost as soon as she arrived. ‘I’ve got a
bridesmaid dress to choose.’ As she walked off, Ian stacked the
last of the boxes onto the table, completing our
display.

‘
Thought she
was meeting Auntie Stella on Thursday,’ I said, mulling over
Della’s parting words.

‘
What?’ asked
Ian, distracted, patting himself down, checking his
pockets.

‘
She and
Auntie Stella had arranged to meet tomorrow, not today,’ I
explained, but Ian wasn’t paying any attention.

‘
I forgot to
pick up my wallet,’ he said, explaining his preoccupation. ‘I took
it out to check how much change we had and forgot to put it back.
I’m gonna have to go back home again. You be alright
here?’

I nodded. Nothing had
happened the last time he went and I could hear people in the pub –
it was busy enough that I’d get some support if anything kicked off
and not too busy that no one would hear me.

‘
Okay. I’ll be
five minutes.’

But five minutes was all
it took for some visitors to show up.

First up was a trio of
Tankards. Sharon and Stevie-the-little-shit, with a subdued Justin
at their tail. Justin’s siblings strode right up to our
stall.

‘
What you
selling?’ Stevie asked, immediately picking up a Basil Brush and
pulling its string.
Dirty-Gertie-from-number-30
filled
an otherwise frosty silence.

‘
Looks like a
load of shit,’ Sharon snarled, looking at me cold, and my worst
fears were realised: the whole Tankard crew knew about the beating
Justin took in my place.

Justin said nothing; just
lurked at the back of them.

‘
Don’t think
we’ll waste any of our money on this crap,’ Sharon continued and I
wondered if she or Stevie might do something, either to me or the
stock. However, before anything else could occur, they were
summoned away.

‘
Come on you
three,’ the voice of their mother, Chrissie, called out.

She was standing by the
back entrance to the pub.

‘
Your dad’s
got drinks and crisps in,’ she told them, before disappearing
inside again.

So, the three
of them left me, slinking away into the smoky hole of the
Barley Mow,
where no
doubt they’d spend the afternoon on the fruit machines or playing
pool. Justin turned back to look at me, just at the last minute,
and I wondered if I might get a nod or some recognition that his
frosty temperament might be thawing. But he simply gave me the
blank, icy stare I was getting used to.

I didn’t see my next
visitors arrive. I’d been nosing in the shed when they turned up.
It was a big, brick out-house, really, not a shed, with a
stable-style door and a ceiling with old, black beams across it. It
was crammed full of interesting things. As well as a chest freezer,
where Bernie kept all the frozen pub grub, there were rows upon
rows of deck chairs, with faded, stripy fabric, stacked at the far
end, and there were two big yellow umbrella sunshades that he used
in the summer. Most of his stuff was thick with grey, dust-catcher
cobwebs. There were tools in there too – hammers, saws, spanners,
screwdrivers – all were hanging from nails banged into the wall.
There was an axe, too, sticking out of the very bottom of a tree
trunk, slammed in there with one big chop. From the ceiling’s
central beam, there hung three big, thick, iron hooks, like
something from an abattoir. I wondered what they were for and what
Bernie would hang from there.

‘
Look, it’s a
little boy.’

The voice came from
nowhere. I hadn’t heard any footsteps on the gravel at the back of
the pub; hadn’t heard any movement at all. I had my back to whoever
owned the voice and I didn’t want to turn around. I wanted to stay
where I was, wanted to hide: pull up the hood and zip on my parka
and hide. Become safe, invisible.

‘
What we gonna
do with him?’ posed a second voice.

Just two voices: a pair. A
pair I recognised.

Rory and Jim: the older
boys who attacked Justin in the public toilets, in Jubilee
Park.

‘
This
definitely him?’ Rory asked. ‘I don’t want to make another
mistake.’

‘
Yes.’ This
answer came from a third voice.

‘
Yeah, it’s
definitely him.’ A fourth.

The third belonged to Roy
Fallick; the fourth his almost-step-brother, Clint.

Keeping my back to them
all, I wondered what I could do. There didn’t seem to be any real
escape; hiding in my parka was just a fantasy. In front of me was a
load of grubby garden furniture, Bernie’s rusty tools and the chest
freezer. I thought about the axe, but, even if it hadn’t been
wedged into the tree stump, it would have been too heavy to lift.
And would that really scare them off? I was the boy who hid in the
toilet cubicle and watched whilst his friend was beaten up and
pissed on. They knew I was easily scared; that I was a
coward.

So I did the one thing
they wouldn’t be expecting: I turned to face them.

‘
Can’t promise
we won’t hurt you, little boy,’ the one called Rory told
me.

I got a better look at him
this time. Rory had a crew cut, but what you could see of his hair
was mousy, a grey-brown colour. His blue eyes instantly cut you
with their razor-cold glare. In his left ear was a gold
stud.

‘
Rory’s got a
knife,’ Roy perked up, grinning evilly. Roy was full of confidence,
I could tell. He was surrounded by his own bullying kind. ‘A flick
knife.’

‘
But I’m not
going to use it. Not on you,’ Rory confirmed, but I didn’t feel any
better for it.

Jim, the other boy who had
attacked Justin, had a carrier bag, which he passed to Rory. They
had come prepared. I didn’t really think about it at the time, but
they must have been watching me all along, waiting for the
opportunity to finally get me.

‘
Thought we’d
try something different,’ Rory continued, taking something out of
the bag. Something that was coiled up into a tight
circle.

‘
Fucking hell,
Rory,’ Clint cried out, alarmed by the sight of the item. ‘Shit,
that’s a bit far.’

‘
Fuck off
then, if you can’t handle it. Fuck off out of here.’

‘
I’m going,
I’m fucking going,’ Clint mumbled, tugging at Roy’s coat, coaxing
him to go with him. But Roy stood firm. My mind flicked back to
pushing Roy over that day in the playground; the day I’d made him
cry. Roy was there to pay me back.

‘
Good lad,’
Jim said, patting Roy’s shoulder. He gave Clint a stern glare.
‘Fuck off then, you queer cunt. Go on, fuck off.’ And Clint was
gone.

All the while, I stood,
petrified to the spot, looking at what was in Rory’s hands.
Wondering what he was going to do with it. The sick snarl on his
face gave me an indication.

‘
You got
nothing to say, little boy? Nothing you wanna say to
me?’

What was keeping Ian? Five
minutes, he said. He should’ve been back by then. Maybe he was just
out of sight, watching, waiting for the right opportunity to
intervene? Or maybe he’d seen and gone back into the pub for help?
If he had, I’d be safe in seconds. But seconds kept passing and I
felt no safer. No help was coming.

‘
That Ian of
yours, he busy, is he? Not here to help you? Not much of a brother,
is he? Leaving you defenceless. Leaving you to us.’

As he spoke, Rory was
uncurling the item in his hands, letting most of it fall to the
ground, whilst he found the end.