Simon scans the pages of the old newspaper lying on the kitchen table while he spreads golden syrup on his toast.
City in fear. Drunken youths rampage through town centre…
GCSE boy, 16, found hanging in bedroom…
Policeman arrested on Internet child pornography charges…
‘Bring back our boys!’ say service wives…
Nina is washing up the breakfast things, singing along to the radio, sounding horribly cheerful.
‘Si? I’m going out tonight. Can you make sure to be in, to look after Ellie?’
‘What! Mum! It’s Friday!’
‘Well, yes, I know. And for once, I’m going out. Or I’d like to. Seeing as it’s my first invitation out, almost, since we’ve been in this house.’
‘Where?’ Simon’s suspicious.
‘Matt asked me for supper.’
‘Matt?’ He can hardly believe his ears.
‘Matt Davies. Art teacher. Yes.’
‘What on earth for?’
Nina smiles. ‘I guess he took pity on me, poor single mother with a son like you, Simon, newly moved into the town. He seems a compassionate sort of bloke.’ She laughs, but Simon is not joining in. This is serious.
‘You can’t go out with a teacher, Mum. Not one from my school.’
‘It’s not going out with him, silly. It’s just supper, with other people. OK? Do I have your permission?’ She laughs again, flicks her hair back from her face.
Simon scowls back. ‘But it’s Friday. I always go out with Dan and Johnny and Pike. It’s not fair. Why should I have to look after Ellie?’
Nina sighs. ‘I’ll get a babysitter, then. OK?’
He doesn’t bother to answer. He picks up his bag for school, takes a banana from the bowl on the cupboard, slams the door. He thinks about Nina as he makes his way to the bus stop. Might’ve guessed she’d do something like this. Majorly embarrassing. Supposing someone at school finds out? I’ll have to keep well away from the art rooms.
That’s not difficult, as it turns out. It’s so near the end of term now they’re hardly doing any work. He volunteers to help the PE teacher clear out Lost Property instead of going to maths and then art. Maths will just be a video anyway. He’d have been finishing his painting in art, and he feels a stab of disappointment and then anger at Nina. The painting’s good. He knows that. Now he won’t have time to finish it. Her bloody fault. Simon broods over it as he sifts through mud-stained PE shirts and stinking trainers and gym shorts, sorting them into piles: named, unnamed, good condition, rubbish.
Afternoon registration. He waits until Mrs Fielding has finished calling the names and handing out notices, then leans across the scratched, graffitied tabletop to talk to Johnny, a row in front.
‘Shall we sort out our camping trip, then?’ he asks him.
Pike and Dan turn round to listen.
‘What’s this, then?’
Something in Pike’s tone makes Simon uncomfortable. ‘Camping. First week of the holidays. Like we said, remember?’
‘Well, it wasn’t definite or anything. It seemed a good idea at the time. But it’s different now,’ Johnny says.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, now my mum and dad have sorted the holidays and everything. We’re going the first week, soon as school breaks up. Northern Spain.’
‘Well, the week after, or the next one after that, it doesn’t really matter when,’ Simon says, even though it does.
Pike chips in. ‘We’re going to be sailing.’
‘We’re going straight off too,’ Dan says. ‘France. So I can’t go camping either.’
They don’t want to go with me. Why would they when they can do all these really exciting things abroad, with proper families? They’ve changed their minds and not told me, and now I look a complete idiot.
If he weren’t at school he’d feel like crying. He wouldn’t, of course. He hasn’t cried for a really long time. So long, he can’t even remember the last time. They don’t want to be mates any more. They’re moving on without me. Well, they can get lost. What kind of mates are they anyway?
The bell rings for the first lesson after lunch. Just as he’s packing his stuff back into his bag Mrs Fielding calls him up to her desk.
‘Why weren’t you in your art lesson this morning?’ she says.
He explains about helping the PE teacher.
She frowns. ‘Not a very good reason, Simon. You shouldn’t be missing lessons. Anyway, Mr Davies wants to see your homework. You’d better take it to the art room at the end of the day.’
He doesn’t tell her he hasn’t done it.
Johnny, Dan and Pike have already gone ahead in the general scrum out of the classroom. Simon lets himself be washed along with a tide of school kids down the corridor. It’s scary, the way you get swept along by the mob whether you want to or not. Imagine being in a fire with this lot. You’d probably be trampled to death. Just as an experiment, not really thinking, he pushes against the fire exit door as he’s swept by. To his surprise the door swings open on to the car park at the side of the school, and he finds himself stumbling through. He stands there, dazed, and then starts walking across the tarmac. He keeps going, straight up the drive and out along the road. It’s not premeditated. It simply seems the obvious thing to do. In the circumstances.
He glances back. No one has seen, no one’s coming after him. He lopes off down to the second bus stop, not the one nearest the school gates, and his luck’s in: a bus pulls up after only about five minutes.
‘Early closing, is it?’ The driver raises an eyebrow at Simon.
‘Dentist appointment.’
‘Ah. Sit down, then.’
So what if the driver doesn’t believe him? It’s none of his business.
Simon hunches down in the back seat. The bus is almost empty. It rattles along, takes the corners too fast, judders as it climbs the hill and then squeals, braking, on the last long hill down into the town.
All the way he can’t stop thinking.
Why didn’t Pike and Dan and Johnny say anything about the holidays before? What’s going on?
They must have all been talking about me when I wasn’t there. I’m still the incomer; they’ve all known each other for years. They’ve closed ranks.
But why? What’ve I done?
He tries a different tack. Perhaps it isn’t like that. Perhaps it’s simply that they’ve got other plans, family things. It doesn’t mean anything. They can’t really help it. It happens all the time in the holidays: proper families doing things together.
Sometimes, he feels as if he’s completely alone. That Nina and Ellie don’t count. That they’re not a proper family at all.
He gets off the bus at the church in the middle of town and slouches along the narrow street past the newsagent and the post office, cutting through the alley to the main street. It looks different this time of day: mostly old people shopping with those baskets on wheels that stab you in the back of the legs if you happen to get in the way. He’s too conspicuous here; he takes off his school sweatshirt and stuffs it into his backpack, then takes the series of passages which cut through to the lower street and the path down to the beach. He skulks along, kicking Coke cans and pebbles, hands in pockets, shirt hanging loose. He can feel the smooth slim shape of his knife in the bag against his back. Feels good. A reminder of something about himself, something that gets lost when he’s at school.
Seems like he’s not the only one bunking off this afternoon. As he comes round the harbour wall he sees a knot of boys his sort of age crouched round something. Go back? Round? Too late. A familiar shape wheels round.
‘Look who it isn’t. Simple Simon.’
Simon swears under his breath.
‘You what? Come again?’ Rick Singleton threatens.
He’s wearing baggy shorts, T-shirt. Hasn’t been to school, then. Or maybe the posh school’s already broken up for the summer?
They’re all crouched round a seagull, Simon can see now. A young one, still with its mottled brown plumage, its huge ugly beak squawking for food, too stupid to realize that these boys aren’t going to help it. One of its wings trails broken and useless. Simon starts walking again. But he’s yanked back suddenly as Rick catches the strap on his backpack.
‘Where you going?’
‘Bit early, aren’t you? Not bunking off, are we? What you got in that bag?’
‘Nothing.’
Rick yanks it again, as if to pull it off, but Simon anticipates it and holds on tight. Rick catches hold of one trailing sleeve of the school sweatshirt instead and pulls it out, runs off with it, laughing, rolls it into a tight ball and flings it out over the water. The green jumper unravels in its flight through the air, makes a flat splash in the shallow water, joins the other flotsam and jetsam bobbing between the mooring ropes at the edge of the harbour.
Simon could retrieve it easily, a sodden stinking bundle of cloth. But he doesn’t. He runs. He keeps on running till he’s quite sure there are no footsteps pounding after him. No sign of Rick. He must have rejoined the group clustered round the damaged seagull. Simon hates himself for running like that. But what else could he do?
That’s twice he’s seen him in less than a week. The thought that Rick Singleton and his new mates might be hanging round town all summer weighs in his guts like stone along with everything else. His heart’s still hammering. He runs on until he’s slipped past the end of the harbour wall and round on to the next bit of beach. The wind hits him. Salt, stinging.
A small crab scuttles sideways along the ridges of sand left by the retreating tide. Simon watches it for a minute. It hasn’t anywhere to go. He picks it up, his fingers positioned expertly round its shell so the pincers can’t reach him, and carries it to the edge of the water. It flounders for a moment, then starts to bury itself in the wet sand.
He turns back, climbs up the sloping sea wall on to the road, cuts back home the long way up the hill.
‘Si? Phone,’ Nina yells up the stairs.
‘Who is it?’
‘Johnny, I think. Hurry up. You been sleeping up there or what?’ She passes him the phone. It’s dusted white where her flour-covered hands have been holding it.
‘Hello?’
‘Simon? It’s Johnny. Coming out later?’
‘OK.’
‘Meet you usual place, yes? Bring your catapult.’
‘OK.’
‘What happened this afternoon? Where did you go?’
‘Tell you later. What time?’
‘Seven thirty?’
‘OK. See you.’
Simon goes into the kitchen. Nina’s spreading tomato purée on rolled-out pizza dough. She looks up. ‘So you are going out, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘What time? So I can tell Leah when to come round.’
‘Leah? What!’
‘She’s babysitting tonight.’
‘Mum! Why did you have to ask her?’
‘Well, who else am I supposed to ask? Anyway, Ellie’s thrilled. And Leah’s happy to earn a bit of extra money. Don’t look like that. You did have the option, remember?’
‘You don’t have to have anything to do with her. You can be out before she arrives. And as soon as you get back, she can go. I’ll pay her till ten. You’re not to stay out any later than that. OK?’
‘So I do have to see her, then, don’t I?’
‘For heaven’s sake, Simon! Give us a break. Now I’m going to put these pizzas in the oven and then I’ll get changed ready to go out. And don’t you dare go all moody on me now. It’ll spoil my whole evening.’
Simon slumps in front of the telly. He flicks channels: adverts, a nanosecond of some soap, Robot Wars.
‘Get the pizza out, Si,’ Nina calls down the stairs, ‘and serve it out?’
He burns his hand on the oven tray, swears. Ellie watches him with round eyes. They both eat in silence at the kitchen table.
Ellie pushes her plate to one side. ‘Finished.’
Simon reaches out and picks up her remaining slices, puts them on his own plate. Ellie watches.
‘What are you staring at?’ Simon asks her.
‘You’re not babysitting me. Leah is.’
‘Lucky Leah. I don’t think. Anyway, you’ll be in bed.’
Ellie sticks her tongue out.
‘Stop it, you two.’ Framed in the kitchen doorway, Nina looks like someone else. Her hair’s different; she’s got make-up on. She smiles.
‘Mummy!’ Ellie gets down from her chair and goes to hug her.
‘Careful, Ellie. Your ringers are all tomatoey.’
‘You look lovely.’ Ellie strokes Nina’s arm, twists the silver bangle round her wrist. ‘And you smell nice.’
Simon turns away in disgust. He shoves his chair back so that it scrapes across the tiled floor, and pushes past them into the scullery.
He picks up his bag from the floor, pulls out the school books and leaves them in a messy heap, collects his catapult from the high shelf.
‘Have a good time, then, Si. And take care. Where will you be? The field? Johnny’s house?’
‘Field.’
‘Back by ten at the absolute latest, Simon. Yes? Before it gets dark.’
‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’
It’s way too early. Johnny won’t be there for another half-hour at least, so Simon walks slowly along the lane and across the path to the field. He can get some practice shots in before the others turn up. If they do.
The catapult makes a thwacking sound. He fires small pebbles at the drystone wall at the end of the field. Some get embedded in the soft soil caught between the herringbone layers of stones. He picks them out. Each of these stones has been chosen and laid by hand, the real hand of someone who lived and worked here. Dead now. This land is full of signs of the dead. There are ancient crosses and the burial mounds of Neolithic people. Standing stones. Ancient paths.
Footsteps. Simon swings round. Johnny’s crossing the field, an air-rifle bag slung over one shoulder.
‘OK. Your dad let you borrow it?’ He points at the air rifle.
‘Yeah.’
‘Where are the others?’
‘Busy. So, what happened? Did you bunk off school?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Dunno. Just did. Just walked out.’
‘No one noticed.’
‘Great, thanks. So no one gives a shit.’
‘Stress-y! I meant teachers. We covered for you. We’re mates, remember?’
‘Oh.’
‘You’re still mad with us about the holidays.’
Simon shrugs. ‘It doesn’t matter —’ He stops mid-sentence; ahead of them, two rabbits have hopped out of the hedgerow and are grazing the short grass at the edge of the field. Simon takes aim.
Johnny unzips the air-rifle slip at just the wrong moment and the rabbits scarper. The stone goes wide.
‘Sorry,’ Johnny says. ‘My fault.’
‘Loser!’ Simon shoves him against the hedge and Johnny swears.
‘Bloody nettles.’
Simon feels better. At least Johnny came out. He’s OK, Johnny is.
‘The other day,’ Simon says, ‘there was this bloke. Not here, another field, further along. With a gun. A really strange bloke, a sort of tramp, but not old.’
‘Mad Ed,’ Johnny says, nodding. ‘Everyone knows him. He’s weird as hell. You want to stay away from him. He’s been in trouble with the police. He’s a sad loner. Head case.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Something happened. Iraq or somewhere. The first Gulf War, in the nineties. His brother got killed. There’s stories. His dad was a nutter too, but that was to do with the Second World War. Shell shock or nerve gas or something. He’s dead now too.’
‘He shouldn’t be allowed a gun licence,’ Simon says.
‘He works on a farm, doesn’t he?’ Johnny replies, as if that explains everything.
They start collecting dead branches and armfuls of bracken to make a sort of camouflaged hide. They lean the branches against the trunk of an oak tree, and weave the bracken in and out and then pile it on all over. It looks good. Crouched inside, they take potshots at a wizened hawthorn tree. There’s a knot in the bark halfway up, perfect for target practice. Simon gets it six times out of seven with the catapult. Johnny’s not so good with the air rifle. But he gets better with practice. He lets Simon have a go.
It’s beginning to get dark. The birds start flying home to roost. The sky over to the edge of the land pales to lilac. There’s a distant chug chug of a fishing trawler coming round the bay into the harbour.
A magpie alights on a branch of their hawthorn tree.
‘Mine,’ Johnny whispers.
The rifle shot echoes out over the darkening field and seems to hang in the cool air. A few feathers float down from the branch.
Simon blinks. It’s that easy, killing something.
Johnny runs forward to find the still-warm body. Simon watches him searching through the patch of thistles and nettles at the foot of the tree. ‘Where did it fall?’ he yells back to Simon. ‘Did you see? I definitely hit it.’
From his distant position, Simon scans the tree. The dead bird is somehow plastered to the branch, a mass of black and white feathers stuck there.
‘Weird, that,’ Johnny says when Simon points it out. ‘How come it just stays there?’
The killing seems less fun without the body.
Johnny pulls out a bottle of cider from his backpack. They drink it sitting in the lee of the drystone wall and it’s well after dark before they stagger back home across the fields bathed in silver moonlight.