I was in awe of the pub when we first moved there. The sports lounge at the front where all the old fellas would sit, the big dining room that doubled up as a disco on a night, and the back bar with its pool table and view of the beer garden and the little snicket that led straight through to the wonderland of Mary’s kitchen.
The kitchen was my favorite, with its wide-mouthed freezers and the huge, blistering fryer. And all those pots and pans, I couldn’t get my head round them. At the flat we had one knackered old frying pan and a tiny little saucepan that Chrissy occasionally used to make dippy eggs in, or minute noodles if the leccy was off and we couldn’t use the microwave. But at the pub there were all sorts. Minuscule, mammoth, some with lids and others without, nearly every one of them filled to the brim with something different. Potatoes, carrots, soup, gravy, some sort of white sauce that Mary told us was called béchamel, and me and Danny pissed ourselves laughing at her for trying to sound posh.
Mary never seemed to be out of that kitchen. Stacking triangular sarnies on trays; peeling petals of potato skin into the sink; bent down low with her head in the oven, one hand on the base of her back and the other prodding at a joint of meat.
I’d never known so much food before we moved into the pub. Full Englishes and butties and lamb roasts. Chips on the side of every meal. How we both stayed so skinny I’ll never know, Danny especially, shoveling his in and then starting on mine. Mary would go mad when she’d catch him, standing over us with her hands on her hips telling Danny to have some manners, and did he think he’d been dragged up, and the-way-yer-actin-people’ll-think-I-aren’t-feedin-yer. But he’d carry on anyway, face like a hamster, ketchup stains on his lips.
After Mary had done breakfast for the lorry drivers passing through on their way up to Edinburgh or down to London, she’d call us through to the back bar. The telly in there was meant for sports, but Mary would put on the kids’ shows for us while we ate breakfast and we’d sit there, the pair of us, swallowing plate-loads of toast and eggs and beans and bacon, watching episodes of that game show where kids got gunged and raced round in go-karts looking for prizes to the sound of a cockerel crowing. There were these twins, I remember, assistants to the mullet-haired presenter, all springy and clean-looking. Danny told me once that he thought they were fit. I hated that game show after that.
I would have liked to spend more time with Mary at the pub, but Danny’s mood always turned sour around his nana. He’d moan about her nagging; it did his head in, he said. The way she was always going on about when to be home for dinner, or what time to be up in the morning, or asking where he’d been all day, and with who and doing what. I nodded along with him, agreeing, rolling my eyes behind her back whenever she started chirping on. But in truth, I was jealous. I would’ve killed for Chrissy to ask me just once how I spent my days.
I got wind fairly early on that Barry didn’t think much to Danny. People were always making comments about the flower boxes out the front, the kegs in the garden, how unique they were. Barry took the praise, although I never heard him mention Danny’s name. Instead, he made it known that he didn’t like Danny hanging around in the car park once the pub opened. Makes the place look untidy, him sittin about out there. Punters don’t like to see that sort of thing, he’d say.
It set me on edge when Barry came out with those barbed remarks. I’d come to see that the town wasn’t like the flats, where languages intermingled on the stairwells, Bengali with Portuguese, French with Urdu. Where skin tones spanned from bone to ebony. But I didn’t understand what the sameness of everyone in that town might have meant for a brown-skinned boy like Danny. He never gave Barry the satisfaction of showing that he cared, though. He’d just finish up what he was doing, make himself scarce, and I’d trot after him like a little lost dog.
Danny was almost a year older than me, although the way our birthdays fell meant we would have been in the same school year. But the childhood I’d had, the things I’d seen, often made me feel like the older one.
We hadn’t known each other long when I lifted a few bits from the Co-op in front of him. We’d gone in to get a drink and his eyes got all big and round when he saw me slide the bottle of pop up the sleeve of my jumper. I never thought twice about stuff like that, it was easy at the shops round the flats, no one batted an eyelid. It didn’t occur to me that it might be different in that fancy little town. I started showing off then, shoving bags of crisps and packets of sweets in my pockets, getting a kick out of the look on Danny’s face. I didn’t notice the posh-looking fella wearing nice shoes and a button-down shirt. It was only when I started making for the door that we heard him yelling. Hey! You two! I suppose you’ll be paying for those items?
We bolted then, quick as we could. I could keep up with Danny just about, but I didn’t know the town, nearly lost sight of him when he took a sharp right toward the old church. I followed his lead, passing through the wrought-iron gates that led onto its driveway, snaking through grass up to our knees, jumping over mossy gravestones until we reached the far side and he stopped, slumping down against a crumbling mausoleum, both of us out of breath.
What did you do that fer? Danny asked.
I curled my lip. Fer t’laugh.
Me nan would’ve made you summat to eat. If you said you were hungry.
I’m not, really.
Danny fell silent then, not looking at me, and I scowled, feeling embarrassed without knowing why.
Bit creepy down here, innit?
I like it. All the flowers and that.
I wrinkled my nose, unconvinced as I pulled out my haul, laid it in front of us like a banquet while Danny watched on, his face blank.
She is yer mum, int she? Barry’s new bird? he asked after a while as I ripped open a packet of Haribo.
You know she is.
Why don’t you call her it then?
Dunno really, I said, pulling at a jelly snake with my teeth. Just always called her Chrissy. It’s not like she walks about callin me Daughter, is it?
He looked away, scratched his neck. I don’t have a mum. It’s only me and me nana. And me dad, sometimes.
I nodded, not saying anything.
You don’t believe me, do yer? About me dad?
What about him?
You think I’ve made him up.
I don’t.
Ask anyone round here. They all know. Ask em, you’ll see.
I don’t give a shit about yer dad.
I didn’t mean it to sound harsh; it was true. I hadn’t given a second thought to Danny’s dad, or lack of one for that matter. Plenty of the kids I’d known before didn’t have dads, me included. There’s no great love-story, Chrissy had said to me flatly, the one time I’d asked. It was just a fling, happened not long after she left care, although when I did the maths I could never make it come out without a crossover. She was six months gone before she even realized she was pregnant, it’s not like she had a choice in any of it. Even as a kid, I could read the subtext behind those words.
Beside me Danny tensed, scooping up a handful of pebbles, aiming one at a row of rickety headstones. Must be strange, he said, the tone of his voice changed. Livin upstairs at t’pub.
I didn’t reply, prodded my tongue into a lump of gelatine that had caught in my back teeth.
Can’t remember Barry havin a bird before Chrissy. Bet he thinks he’s scored with your mum, mind. Lads in t’pub’ll think she’s well fit.
He was goading me now but still I stayed quiet. The chewed-up sweet came loose in my mouth and I spat a wet rainbow onto the grass.
He must be nearly as old as me nan, y’know. Bit weird, innit? He int even that rich. If she were after someone with money, she could’ve done better’n that.
There was an itch in my knuckles, the skin on my face growing hot, but still he went on.
But the lads in t’pub…He let out a low whistle. They’ll love it, seein her every day. Watch, it’ll get loads busier now, people just comin in to ogle her and that. They’ll all be after a go on her—
The crack of my fist against Danny’s jaw made him fall back and I jumped to my feet. I wanted to yell at him, tell him it wasn’t my choice to move there, to that bloody pub and that stupid bloody apartment, with its stench of paint and bleach and too much air freshener fighting to cover up the stink from downstairs. That this wasn’t what I meant, all those times when I wished that we could leave, all those stories I wrote imagining another life, another way. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be; this was all Chrissy’s idea, and so let them, let them ogle her all they wanted, see if I cared.
But I didn’t. Instead I spun away from him, heading anywhere but the pub, the apartment. Apartment. Such a stupid bloody word. Whose idea was it to call it that, like we were living in some big swanky city or something? It was just a flat, as far as I could see. Bigger and posher than ours, but still a flat, not deserving of some elaborate name that made it sound better than it was. I should have kicked off, thrown a proper fit, dug my fingernails into the doorframes and told Chrissy there was no way I was moving anywhere with some fat old numpty she’d known less than a month.
I heard footsteps behind me but I kept on going, faster now. Danny caught up, doing a double-sidestep so that he was a couple of strides ahead, then turning to walk backward, facing me. I hoped he’d trip over.
Yer jab’s not bad, fer t’size of yer. He grinned, and I could see the bruise already blooming under his skin. I tried to pass him but he blocked my way, dancing to the left and then to the right, mirroring my moves.
Get out my way, I said, pushing at him with my arm, but he blocked me again. I stopped, looked him in the eye. Get. Out. Of my way.
He laughed, but with a note of uncertainty, then stepped aside, making a big show of it, bowing down and waving me past with his arms. I carried on, not wanting to admit I had no idea where I was. Danny didn’t follow.
The street came to an abrupt end, but rather than go back the way I’d come, I scrambled up a shallow hill that overlooked the dual carriageway, the cars thundering below me. I stared down at them, my head pounding. Chrissy said it would be different here, and I’d wanted it to be true. Wanted people not to look at her like they did back there, hoped that maybe they’d see us as more than that, better. Except now I understood. All that talk was nothing more than childish fantasies. Nothing was going to change.