Graffiti My Soul Page 5

  ‘Congratulations, lad. Those were excellent runs, really excellent,’ goes Brendan Dean, the slug who got me thrown out of Harriers in the first place. He always calls me lad because he can never pronounce my name. He runs the Harriers deal across Surrey and Kent, rarely seen but often heard. Very creepy guy, like the Childcatcher, only uglier. And he has the driest skin in the world. When I shake his hand I literally feel a layer of skin coming away. Makes Freddie Kruger look moisturised.

  ‘You are doing magnificently this season. Our guys will have to watch out for you in the finals!’

  ‘They’ll have to watch the smoke from my trainers as I leave them behind.’

  I was expecting him to say something else entirely, because I know he’s been keeping a close eye on my progress since I left, but the unexpected courtesy doesn’t throw me. I’m not bothered about being a gracious winner.

  ‘And you’re still training alone, I hear?’

  ‘Yep. Nothing anyone can teach me. I’m a natural.’

  ‘Well …’ he claps his hands together and you can see about a pound of skin flakes falling to the floor.

  I’m glugging my energy drink and almost throw it back up.

  ‘… I know we’ve had some differences, but if you’d like to return to the centre …’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘You’d be more than welcome. Although I can see your manners are as elusive as ever. Goodbye.’

  Two reasons for ending the conversation: Casey, whom no one over the age of fifteen knows about, and I see Mum coming over (ref: reason number one).

  ‘What did he want?’

  She thrusts a KitKat in my hand and throws daggers at Brendan’s under-moisturised back. She’s about as keen on him as I am.

  ‘Nothing. Just wanted to know my secrets.’

  ‘I hope you kept them to yourself! Bloody hypocrite. If he was that interested in the first place, he should have made an exception and kept you on. Those stupid rules about age restriction. You’re only fifteen, for Christ’s sake.’

  Her eyes start popping out, the way they do when she’s on a roll. She only shuts up when I give her three bars of the KitKat.

  Moon says hi and then disappears. She’s being elusive. I haven’t seen her since she showed me the picture yesterday. She’s with her bitch sister, who hates me; I could hear her booing as I passed her in the 400. They’re off to see Incubus at Wembley and now things are wrapped up, are making their haste to leave known.

  ‘Congratulations, great run,’ spits the bitch sister.

  She’s standing at least five feet away, as if coming anywhere near me is cutting into her time with precious Incubus. Mum is right next to me, so I’m forced to acknowledge the bitch sister as Gwyn Jones. If she wasn’t, I probably would have ripped into her saggy Welsh arse. Great tits, though. Make Moon’s look like lemon slices.

  The Jones girls are local landmarks. Everyone knows them, even if you don’t go to our school. Moon has the looks, Gwyn has the tits. Both have the milk white skin, which, in Gwyn’s case, does her plenty of favours. Without that complexion she’d look like Quasimodo. Although Jason is interested in Moon, like we all are, he’s always saying how he’d take Gwyn’s tits anytime. Says they’re wank tits.

  Moon waves from Gwyn’s car and says she’ll call me. She throws daggers at Kelly Button, who’s been shivering in her tiny skirt, and making eyes at me for the past hour. Like I don’t know what she wants.

  The KFC in the car tastes like heaven. It’s a rarity. Mum usually insists on the house being a fast-food-free zone, claiming that there are more chemicals in those things than there are in an E.

  ‘When you’re out with your friends, there’s nothing I can do about it. But when you’re at home, I’m not giving you any of that junk.’

  On the days before a race I stick to the pasta, chicken, fruit. I’m not Lynford yet, but I am taking it as seriously as I can.

  Mum hadn’t been to one of my races for a while. Too busy working. Has to take my word about how good I am. Gets verification whenever she catches my mug in the papers. Normally after a race we’d have a laugh about things, take the piss out of the other runners, especially the ones who dribble, or start praying before the whistle. Today she’s seriously evangelical, going on about how this could really open doors for me if I stick at it, and how we really need to find a trainer to give me the one-on-one attention I’m entitled to.

  My mobile goes. It’s Casey. I flick it off straightaway.

  ‘Who was that?’ she asks.

  ‘Wrong number,’ I say.

  She’s not listening, though, still too het-up about my chances.

  ‘These bloody Harriers are taking the piss if they can’t see what’s in front of their noses. You were the best thing to ever happen to that centre, and they just let you walk away. I’m going to have it out with Brendan if he doesn’t set you up with a trainer. I’ll take it all the way to the top, if I have to.’

  I drop the drumstick, and start telling her how I’m happier training on my own. Inwardly I’m shitting it, because I know that this is the moment when I should tell her about Casey, but luckily it starts raining as we turn into Broadhurst. Chucking it down. Rain hitting the windscreen so fast and so thick you can’t see shit.

  Mum drives around Surrey most of the day because of work, but isn’t the most confident at the wheel. Her trick is to over-compensate a lack of bottle with speed. Many a time we’ve come within inches of a parked car, a wall, or various cyclists. The only time she takes it to snail trail is when the elements hit, like they are now. She’s stopped going on about my running, and jumps off the gas, so we’re rolling at about 10 mph. The wipers are flapping across the screen at max but doing fuck all.

  ‘Shit,’ she goes.

  She literally only ever swears in the car.

  ‘Relax, we’re on Broadhurst. We’ll be home in a couple of minutes.’

  In her mind it’s half a mile of potential hazards.

  Jason is on the street getting soaked. Must have finished a shift at Tesco. Looks like he’s spent his wages there too. Carrying more bags than Pauline Fowler.

  Mum’s going so slowly she doesn’t even have to stop for Jase. I flip open the door and he throws the bags in, followed by himself.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Prendrapen.’

  ‘Don’t be so formal, Jason. Vivienne, remember?’

  ‘OK. Hello, Vivienne, lovely to see you.’

  He drops it so smoothly, it’s enough to make Mum blush. He’s a right charmer, is Jase.

  ‘Have some chicken,’ I tell him. ‘It’s the shizzle.’

  ‘Fo’ shizzle, m’nizzle,’ he goes, which makes me break out into giggles like some girl.

  ‘Can you speak proper English whilst you’re in the car?’ says Mum, smiling, but with eyebrows raised. ‘I might not be able to make out every word, but I know swearing when I hear it.’

  There’s enough time to exchange pleasantries in the minute it takes to reach his house. I have a quick glance at the bags as he’s shaking the rain out of his brittle skinhead turning to fuzz and onto Mum’s back seat. Three of them are filled with ready-meal crap; the others are crammed with boxes of Matchmakers. His mum, as well as being an agoraphobic, is a bulimic, also brought on by the hit and run. This would be funny if you didn’t know her, and hadn’t heard about how she feeds almost solely on Matchmakers (and when they’re in season, Easter eggs). But we know Jason, so it isn’t a laughing matter. His dad ended up leaving because of it – but he still sees him, so at least he doesn’t hate his as much as I do mine. Mum knows the situation inside out, and has tried to help her several times, but Billie – Jase’s mum – won’t listen to anyone. Each visit is a failure.

  Mum stops the car outside Jason’s. The car stinks of damp and stale chicken. The rain was a five-minute wonder. Now it’s non-existent. She laughs girlishly at her panic, because we have company, like it’s me making all the fuss
.

  You know when Jason’s mum is having a bad day, as the curtains will be drawn. One of those days when the pain of her daughter’s death becomes too great. Opens a wound so wide, she needs to fill it with all the refined sugar she can fit inside her gullet. A day when the son that didn’t die can do nothing for her, aside from bring the chocolate. And plenty of it. We all look up as Jason gets out of the car. The curtains are pulled tightly shut.

  16

  We get into another fight. This one’s after school so there’s no worry about letters turning up unexpectedly in the fallout. At least that’s what we think. Me, Jason and Moon are minding our own business when we walk into the new cunt who started all the Paki trouble up the week before. He wants a settler, didn’t like being made a fool of. Brings the same two jokers who tried to see us off in the corridor. That means Pearson, who’s looking even more vicious than before. Me and Jase are well up for it. We’re anyone’s, if it means proving a point.

  We are all fight. It’s what we want plastered above our graves.

  We throw down on a patch of grass opposite the school. The council gateway we call it, as behind us lies the Rose estate. Once the jackets are on the ground, ties stuffed into bags, we are officially not in uniform, so let rip. I’m worried about Moon being there. Chivalry isn’t dead in my house, and she gets that this might be time to keep her distance. She takes the gear and stands on the corner.

  A crowd quickly gathers. It’s two hours ’til there’s decent TV, and too early to get goggle-eyed in front of MSN. The people need entertaining. We also know that some do-gooder teacher will catch sight of our goings-on from the car park within the first five minutes. It’ll probably be a more litigation-weary member of the species who’ll need to go and confer with some other teacher friends before stepping in. There’s little time for ceremony or name-calling, just boots and fists.

  Jason has an aunt staying with them at the moment; come down to look after his mum. She’s in the room next door to his – not his dead sister’s room – which has put a hold on him wanking himself raw of an evening. It comes across in his fighting. He takes the two jokers and kicks them to shit. I’m still giving the eye to Moon and already he’s at it. Once he’s got them on the ground he has no use for his hands, the boots do the talking one kick at a time. He’s going at it so quick, it’s almost a garage rhythm he’s knocking against their ribs. The sound of bones being broken.

  One week has passed since the last fight. Scars have barely healed. From outside the circle we probably look like a bunch of old-timers. Scabbed fists punching scabbed-over faces. Sore, weeping eyes washing over freshly blackened skin.

  The kids around us are all shouting like they’re at Old Trafford. Jason’s trying to tell me something but I can’t hear a word. I still find time, however, a nanosecond, to spot Kelly Button standing with a group of girls to my left. Eyes going flutter flutter flutter.

  This leaves me with the new boy. Not quite alone. Moon appears from her corner and throws a book at his head. Combined science, a heavy hardback with lethal corners that could rip skin to shreds. He turns at her, pissed at the intervention of a girl, giving me a window to jump on his back. He’s heavier, but I’m taller. The surprise is enough to floor the bastard. Then I do a bit of Jason with the kicking.

  New cunt doesn’t stay on the floor for long. He’s up and ready. Uses all his trademark moves, mainly the groin and the shoulder kick. He really knows how to use the shoulder kick. Gets me right where the last one left its mark, top left shoulder between blade and back. I never worry about being vocal at these things. When he gets me on the shoulder for the second time, I let out something gutteral that sounds like a roar because it really fucking hurt.

  He sees the weak spot and goes for a replay, but doesn’t quite manage it. Jason, who’s now on the floor with the other two idiots, wriggles our way at speed and grabs his skanky ankle. New cunt is taken by surprise, jigging about one-legged, like some German beer-drinking circus freak. Furious because everyone’s laughing like fuck. Laughing even more as he tries to shake Jason off.

  Then a bottle catches the back of Jason’s neck the moment he’s on his feet. One of new cunt’s friends trying to be clever, the one who isn’t Pearson. It’s a small bottle and doesn’t quite hit the mark, most of the impact missing the neck entirely and swallowed up by air. Spastics. Aside from Pearson, none of them do any sports, so it’s no wonder.

  Everyone gasps, loud, like how you get in a pantomime, as the arrival of a bottle always marks something new – the disappearance of good clean fun. They have left some kind of result, however, a small nick at the right side of Jason’s neck. He’s been wearing a Man-U scarf all winter, so his neck is very smooth and white. Blood trickles slowly downward in a thin stream, a drop at a time; making his neck and the nick look like a freshly squeezed McFlurry.

  They think that means the fight’s over. It ain’t.

  Moon drops bags and coats, and joins us for the final stretch. They’re in a gaggle, still laughing about the cut. Think we’re coming over to shake hands. As if.

  There’s the three of us, and the three of them. They’re on the floor; we’re making sure they stay there. Six-boot chorus. The kids are going wild. Which is when the committee of teachers, a thin procession of one timid four-eyes after another, finally turns up.

  In the Year Head’s office we’re made to stand through the suspension dance. Moon is told to wait outside, so it’s just us boys. Year Head seems oblivious to the fact that Jason is dripping blood all over her kingfisher-blue carpet tiles. From a slow trickle it has now increased to a steady drip drip drip. Blood trail criss-crossing his neck like graffiti.

  I have it all my own way. Say it’s racially motivated, which it is. Enough witnesses come forward to confirm that several ‘Pakis’ were uttered. They don’t mention that most of these came from my mouth when I was slamming the cunt. It’s not enough, though. New cunt is refused the luxury of mellowing into an old cunt, and is excluded, permanently. I’m excluded for the rest of the week. Jason too. Today is Thursday. Means I can write it off with Mum as an INSET day. The exclusion means fuck all. The school secretary has gone home, so the corresponding letter won’t even arrive home ’til Tuesday. Discipline in this place is a joke.

  Disappointingly, none of the boys have broken anything. Pisses us both off. We thought that was one of our better performances. Still, it did get me top prize, Kelly Button’s hand down my trousers at the ropey the following afternoon. She thought I’d been fantastic.

  Moon’s meeting with Year Head is way shorter and limited to shouting or finger-wagging. Something to do with Gwyn being head girl and putting in a good word. Her parents do the grounded thing, but unlike most, because they’re older and don’t have a life, make sure she adheres to it.

  Moon lives across the road. It’s impossible to avoid each other, but somehow, with her pushy parents’ help, she finds a way. I don’t hear from her for over a week.

  17

  Moon’s death has pushed everyone who’s left living into an alternative universe. We don’t talk to each other; we all float around like helpless fatties bobbing randomly in this sea of significant glances. Mum’s been doing it so much lately she’s starting to look mental. If you stuck your head through our window of an evening, you’d think we were a family of autistics – me with my arms folded across my chest, sat watching the TV and letting the dinner on my tray grow cold; her sitting on the sofa opposite, watching me watch the TV. Sound up so loud you can hear it from Broadhurst. Our house has become Loony Tunes, but you can’t diss – it’s Mum we’re talking about. She’s so worried, she’s this close to giving me my computer back.

  Gwyn isn’t so kind. She is hurting more than I can imagine, but that shouldn’t mean that what I had with Moon should be brushed off as insignificant. She talked to me more than she did her family. Man, we were tight. Her parents realise it, so why doesn’t she? How is it that Gwyn can walk past me in town one day without a
word?

  It’s mid-morning, and there’s next to no one in the mall. I’m in town purely for something to do. Mum’s given me a shopping list and thirty quid. Figures it’s as good a first step as any.

  Pushing the trolley is satisfying, and I tell Mum this later. Mentally ticking each item off the list, bagging them up at the till, picking a ripe avocado for Mum as a surprise treat, makes me feel like I’m doing something. First time since …

  I’m struggling with the shopping as I walk out of Tesco and spot the bitch sister. Gwyn knows how to play it. She isn’t worried about hiding or sparing anyone’s feelings. There is no diving behind the flower stand, or disappearing into Oasis as soon as she clocks me. Instead, eyes fixed firmly in the distance, probably as far as Starbucks, at the mall’s furthermost entrance, she flicks the volume on her iPod and walks past me.

  Only the fact that we’re within touching distance gives it away. Closer than touching distance. The fibres from our coats are virtually frotting. Her tidy pace means nothing. You don’t walk that close to anyone by accident.

  It makes me even more confused. Two nights before the funeral we’re crying down the phone at each other. Expressing all kinds of regret that we’ve been unable to spill before our parents. Then, at the wake, when I thought things were getting friendly, we nearly get into a fight. I was going upstairs for a slash, and tried to peek into Moon’s room. She jumped on me like some shemale from WWF. Dropped the lady-like act. Approaching sounds on the stairs cut her short. And now I’m being treated like a ghost. This grief is a funny thing. I don’t know what to think.

  I watch her as she bobs past the flower stand and the Body Shop, following as she curves down the final stretch, and losing her at Starbucks where she drowns in a splurge of freshly latte’d pensioners. She looks as immaculate as ever. One of those girls who’ve come straight out of the catalogue. She may be into all things rock, but Gwyn never looked like a teenager in her life. She never saw the point. When Moon dyed her hair red, she was a bitch for days about it. Not even the parents were as bothered.