‘We made a deal with you, Chris,’ said my mother. ‘We dropped the charges against that girl on condition that you went to school.’
‘That wasn’t a deal, that was blackmail,’ I pointed out.
‘You lied to us,’ she seethed.
‘I’m sorry? You, a blackmailer, are trying to take the moral high ground here? I don’t think so.’
‘Chris …’
‘Do you realize that Billie’s been missing for over a week now? That’s how worried she is, and you were prepared to put her whole future at risk just because you want me to fall in with your plans for my future. What are you people on?’
‘Right, that’s it. I’m going to hit him now,’ said my dad. You see how these types turn to violence when they can’t get what they want through negotiation.
My mother restrained him, but rather half-heartedly, I thought. Dad launched off on this huge list of prohibitions and no-nos and various other denials of my basic human rights. Stopping my money for the rest of the year, for instance (!!!???!). Or until I caught up on my homework. Mum had no problem with that. She couldn’t agree more with that. But how about removing all my best clothes from the cupboard … ?
‘Why?’ she wanted to know.
‘So he’s encouraged not to go out any more,’ said my dad.
‘I can go out without trousers if necessary,’ I told them.
Dad looked at me and frowned. ‘Would he?’ he asked Mum.
‘He might,’ she replied.
She overruled him on that one. But then this: removing my drums and giving them to charity in order to make sure there were no more unauthorized guests coming round to play them.
She concurred with that without so much as a blink.
‘You’re going to take my property away from me?’ I asked them mildly. ‘That’s what’s usually known … now what’s the word, it’s on the tip of my tongue … ah yes! Theft, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not theft: you’re not sixteen – we’re your parents,’ snipped my mother.
‘Yeah, you’re not old enough to own anything, really,’ said my father.
I didn’t even bother replying. I simply made up my mind, very quietly and without informing them, that none of the above was going to happen.
So. Monday morning. I went about my business. School. Work. Wikes. After spending days away from it, it was even worse. The Chris Trent bored-ometer was tested to its limits.
I suffered it all without complaint.
‘What are you up to?’ said my mum at the end of the first day.
‘Nothing. I’ve decided to give up,’ I said.
‘It won’t work,’ said my dad.
Part one of the plan was under way – lulling them into a sense of security. False, of course. Tuesday, more of the same. By Wednesday, they were both sufficiently lulled to go out. They thought they were safe because school was over. They were wrong.
Mum was out with a friend, Dad was off doing a training course to try and improve his interview skills. Alex’s brother had a van. Perfect.
I had to explain the whole thing very carefully to Alex. For some reason, he seemed to think he had some sort of a responsibility to tell his brother what was actually going on.
‘John doesn’t want to know what’s going on,’ I pointed out. ‘If he knows what’s going on, he might have to say no and then he’d have to do without the money which he very sorely needs. Correct?’
‘But it’s theft!’
I might have been a little bitter at that point. You know how it is. You make friends in infant school when you don’t know what’s what, then by the time you grow up enough to make sense of things you realize you’ve befriended a pig’s pizzle in a monkey suit, and it’s too late to do anything about it.
‘We’ve already gone through this,’ I breathed to Alex. ‘You can’t steal your own things. Ergo, it’s not theft.’
‘But you’re still a minor. Everything you own belongs to your mum and dad. Technically, you don’t own anything. Ergo, it is theft.’
The politics of cowardice. I should have learned by now. Me and Alex – it’s just history repeating itself, really. In the end, we made a deal. I needed access to his brother John and for Alex to keep quiet about the lack of parental cooperation in the matter. He needed me not to tell his mum about how he used to borrow her underwear for embarrassing purposes.
‘You wouldn’t do that.’
‘Wouldn’t I?’
‘Anyway, I was only looking.’
‘She doesn’t know that.’
Yes, I know he was only eleven at the time, but, believe me, the embarrassment value had only grown over the years.
It all went smoothly – right up to the end when Mum came back early. Her timing was immaculate. We had the kit loaded on to the van and John had just started the engine when she turned up in her Mini. Two more minutes and we would have got clean away, but instead I had to sit there and watch her drive up and pull over next to us.
I wound down my window.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked curiously.
I could see John looking anxiously over at me. The situation could go critical at any moment. I decided to go for broke. I leaned down and talked quietly to her.
‘I wouldn’t tell Dad if I was you. You know how stressed he gets. If he thinks it’s me, he’ll go round the twist. He has enough on his plate already.’
‘Chris, what are you talking about?’
I left the awful scenario to her imagination and turned to John. ‘Let’s go,’ I said.
‘That’s your mum, isn’t it?’ said John. ‘Why’s she looking at you like that?’
‘Because she’s my mum,’ I answered, more or less truthfully.
John didn’t look happy, but he waved to her, put the van into gear and we drove off. She just sat there and watched. Her expression was unreadable. I think I saw her cast a suspicious glance at the garage as we headed off down the road, but by that time it was too late. Even so, I turned off my mobile. Just in case.
Later on, when Dad came home and discovered that some bastard had come in and nicked my drums, he was utterly and totally enraged out of all proportion. I pointed out to him that the unknown thief had only done what he had been planning to do himself, so what was his problem? And – can you believe this? – he actually found it in his black heart to blame me. I was furious. I mean, he didn’t know that, did he? It was sheer bias. He got so angry about it he punched the wall, really hard, and made a mess of his hand. Mum just looked at me, but she never said a word about it to him as far as I know.
But that was for later. As I sat in the van and sped off into town, I was feeling on top of the world. I had achieved the impossible. I had stolen my own possessions.