The weather was too hot for Danny and me to face the uphill journey to Devil’s Claw. Instead we rode his bike down to the river, where we lolled on the grass by the water, watching the little kids throw breadcrumbs to the ducks as their mams gazed on from the sidelines, looking bored. In the bandstand a knot of frail-looking oldies sat quietly, their faces creased to a point of blankness, their thin knees covered with blankets despite the heat, and further up a group of kids our age mucked around close to where the water met the weir.
Are they yer mates? I asked Danny, nodding in the direction of three of the boys, ankle-deep in the river. He looked up briefly.
Nah, he said, lying back again and closing his eyes against the glare of the sun. They go to me school, most of em. I know em. But not me mates.
I looked back across at the group, who were by now splashing two girls perched on the bank, squeals of high-pitched laughter pealing across the water to where we sat.
They’re all divvies round here, I heard Danny say sleepily, eyes still closed and hands behind his head. They all end up goin the same way. Can’t be arsed with all that, me.
Barry had told me that Danny was a loner on the very first day I’d met him. It didn’t surprise me. He was an easy target, all that time he spent talking to plants. But it occurred to me then that maybe it was by choice, that it might have been him shunning everyone else rather than the other way around. I’d never given a second thought to where the kids I’d known at the flats would end up. They were just there, same as me. A crew to knock about with. It made me embarrassed, like I hadn’t realized I could choose who I wanted to be mates with. It made me realize how deeply I cared what Danny thought of me.
The grass where we lay was strewn with dandelions and I plucked one from the ground, piercing its stem with my thumbnail and threading it through another, my back to Danny as though I was afraid he might open his eyes and see me for who I really was. A duck waddled toward me, curious, and I held out my hand in offering. It quacked loudly, lifting up its wings and bringing them back down again. Another one joined in, the pair of them flapping and shrieking as if they were trying to shoo me away. We know you’re not from here. Get off our turf. Danny leaned up on one elbow, imitating them, and they jumped back in surprise, let out a noise that sounded almost like a telling off, before turning crossly, shuffling away like two little old women muttering to each other. The fattest one dropped a turd as if to have the last word and that set us both off laughing, finding it funnier than we should have really, in that way we always had.
All right, Flower Boy.
One of the lads from the river was standing over us, his calves still wet from where he’d been wading in the water. Danny stayed silent, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. The lad turned to me, lifting his cap so that I could get a better view of his face. Pockmarked and rangy, a tuft of ginger hair escaping from underneath. This yer mate, is it?
Still Danny didn’t say anything, glanced at me, then looked away.
The lad’s eyes narrowed. You’re the lass who’s moved into t’Lamb, aren’t yer? He smirked. Yer mum’s old Barry’s new bird.
My neck prickled with shame at the way he said it, the sneer on his face. I couldn’t think of anything clever to say, so I just nodded, tried to look bored. He glanced at Danny and then back at me again, something like amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth. Yous two comin up here? he said in the end, nodding his head back toward the group, who were by now all watching us from the low wall leading up the path toward the center of town. A girl in a neon skirt was laughing in a way that made me sure we were the brunt of her joke. I wouldn’t have minded going, meeting them. But Danny made the decision for us.
Nah, he said, getting to his feet and pulling his bike upright. You’re all right, ta.
Danny got onto the seat and I climbed on for a croggy, my hands gripped tight around the crossbar as he pedaled fast in the opposite direction from the way we’d come. Someone shouted something after us, their hoots and brays carrying across the water as we rode. For a second I wondered if they would give chase, but then we were gone, up the hill and around the corner, out of their sight.
Danny and Mary lived on the council estate up by the high school, a corner plot that faced out onto the main road. I hadn’t been up there before; Mary didn’t like Danny having mates over to his house. She don’t trust me, he’d said with a shrug, when I’d asked him why.
It didn’t look like any council house I’d ever seen, all neat and tidy with a brand-new PVC door and gaggle of gnomes smiling cheerily from the welcome-mat out front. Surprised they’ve not been nicked, I said, and Danny looked at me strangely before turning his key in the lock.
Mary loved those gnomes. Every couple of months she’d turn up with a new one, setting it down in the midst of the beautiful jungle Danny had made at the back of the house. Thought this were bonny, she’d smile obliviously, while Danny scowled behind her back and I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. A few days later he would find it a new home on the front doorstep, Mary seemingly none the wiser. The gnomes’ eerie little grins greeted us as we arrived, their eyes following us as we walked through the door. Later, though, in the earliest days of lying on our bellies out the back, hazy and giggly, our thoughts cloaked with smoke, it became more fun to leave the dumpy little clay men where Mary had placed them.
Look at him there, with his little fishin rod.
And that one! Oh my god, look at that one! Leanin over on his side, with them come-to-bed eyes.
How come he’s only got one eye? Or is that an eye there, just dead wonky?
And on and on and on, until our cheeks were wet with laughter, neither of us sure what was funny anymore.
That day Danny led me through the house and out the other side, onto the little plot at the back. I walked behind him slowly, taking it all in as we headed down the jigsaw path, framed on each side by a carpet of thick greenery and ornamental grasses dotted with old wooden crates, beer barrels and dented oil tins overflowing with flowers. Across the back fence the creepers hung heavy; cloud-like blooms knotting with trailing ivy and climbing rose bushes that teemed with bees and butterflies. I’d never had the slightest interest in anything to do with plants or flowers before me and Chrissy moved to that town. Then again, I’d never seen anything like the places Danny showed me.
Best one fer miles, this, Danny said over his shoulder, gesturing to the dazzling chaos around us. Even nicer’n all them big ones they’ve got at t’posh houses up the top of town.
It must have taken you ferever, I said in wonderment. I thought only people who owned their places bothered doin owt with their yards.
What d’you mean?
Nowt, just…seems like a lot of effort. When they might want it back.
Danny paused then, looked at me over his shoulder. Who?
The council. If they wanted to, like, move yer on. Re-house yer.
Naaaah. They can’t do that. Me nan’s been here fer years, he said. But I saw the look that passed over his face.
At the very bottom corner of the yard sat a tiny greenhouse. Danny showed me inside, pointing out tomato plants, runner beans, the herbs right at the back. It’s mad, innit? he said, rubbing one of the leaves between his thumb and forefinger. How them little roots appear, how they just know to grow downwards. And then that speck of life pushes itself out toward the light. You could be anywhere, out in the desert or in some mucky city…and you’ll still see flowers, fightin through the cracks in the pavement. It’s like they know that this is it, this is the only chance they’ve got. And once it’s gone, it’s gone.
I ribbed him with my elbow. You’re soft, you, I laughed, and he shrugged, turned away to hide the hurt that flashed in his eyes.
We sat with our backs against the greenhouse after that, our legs stretched out in front of us, knees just touching as he listed each plant, explaining to me what it was, the soil it needed, when it would flower.
How d’you know all this stuff? I asked him eventually.
Danny pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on them. Me nana got me into it, I s’pose. First memory I’ve got is of plantin tulips in t’dirt with her. It near blew me head off when the flowers sprung out the earth. But mostly…I dunno—I…feel it. He paused. I did most of this, mind. Me nan can’t do that much now. She gets poorly, see. Sometimes. She’s all right now but…sometimes she’s not.
He rubbed his hands over his face, and for a moment we were quiet.
What about you then? With yer writing?
I’d barely written a word since we’d left the flats, bar the story about Danny that I’d shredded on that first day.
I ain’t been doin it much. I shrugged.
Why not?
I didn’t know how to answer and Danny must have sensed it because he let it go, plucking a buttercup out of the ground and tugging absentmindedly at its petals. I don’t want to end up like everyone else, me, he said.
What you on about?
Like everyone else, everyone from this town. That lad from earlier, Ste, and all the rest of his divvy mates. I don’t want to just finish school and get some shitty job at the call center, or paintin and decoratin or cleanin someone’s mucky house.
Me neither, I said uncertainly.
Before the summer, Danny carried on, we had this lesson at school. Career Guidance, they called it. And they were askin some of the other kids, the ones that sit up the front, what they wanted to be when they left school. But they never asked me.
What would you’ve said?
It don’t matter. What matters is they think I wouldn’t answer, that I wouldn’t know what to say. They think I’m thick, proper thick. But it’s them that are stupid. They don’t know that I’ll make more of meself than the rest of that lot put together.
I reached out shyly, nudged his leg with my toe. It matters to me.
Danny considered me for a moment. D’you know what a horticulturalist is?
It’s a gardener, innit?
Yeah, well, it can be…but I don’t just mean mowin lawns and shit, it’s more’n that. In the olden days they used to put em on the ships, the botanists, the horticulturalists. They’d go off explorin all round the world, huntin plants to bring back and make their own. You never hear about em, they’re not in any of them history books you get at school. But they were heroes. They’d put their lives at risk, some of em, to bring back a good plant. And that’s what I want, see? I want to know all the plants there are to know. Not only trees and grass and that, but everythin, anythin that grows, here on our doorstep as much as the stuff in t’jungles, the Congo Basin, the Amazon. Places people have never stepped foot in before. There’s loads out there, man. We hardly know any of the plants on the whole of this planet and I reckon I’d be good at findin em, givin em names. He leaned into me gently. Mebbe I’d call one after you.
Would yer?
Mebbe. He grinned, flicking a tiny yellow petal so that it landed on my shoulder. If you play yer cards right.
His gaze stayed on me and I felt awkward suddenly.
So you gonna be a writer then? he asked.
Yeah, I said, clearing my throat and twisting a strand of hair between my finger and thumb. I am.
Danny smiled with a gleam of satisfaction. What will you write about?
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, then flung my arms open wide. The famous horticulturalist, I announced grandly. Sir Daniel Campbell!
He laughed, a big, wide laugh that let me see down the tunnel of his throat. Then he did something unexpected; he flung an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in close, half hug, half headlock. I stayed very still, not wanting to break the spell.
Jennifer, he said. It don’t suit you, that name.
Well, it’s me name.
Nah. Nah, it won’t do, that. You’re no Jennifer.
I pulled a face. What am I then?
His hold on me loosened and he leaned back, scrutinizing me, his forehead wrinkled as he tried things out. Jen. Jenny. J? Nah. None of them.
Above us, clouds were gathering, painting the edges of the sky a soot-gray. Shall we go inside? I mumbled. It’s gonna piss it down.
Neef! he said suddenly, sitting up straight like a switch had gone on behind his eyes.
I looked at him blankly.
Neef, that’s what you are. Like nymph, sort of, one of them little fairy things, y’know. Jen-Neef-Fer.
Neef? What sort of a name is that? It don’t even mean owt.
Yeah, but that’s why it’s good. Danny was pleased with himself, I could tell, settling back, elbowing me gently in the side. It’s different. Like you.
I looked away then, burrowing my chin in the neck of my T-shirt so he wouldn’t see my smile, so he couldn’t tell how much I liked it, how it made me feel like I was his, somehow, even if I didn’t know yet that I wanted to be.
Hardly anyone ever called me anything but Neef after that. Neef and Danny. Danny and Neef.
Inside, Mary’s house smelt like cigarette smoke and potpourri, and even though it was clean there were things everywhere. Knickknacks and doilies and china plates. Floral cushions, porcelain dolls with painted-on faces, an oval frame on the mantelpiece with Love Makes a House a Home embroidered across the center. And all those photos, all over the walls and crammed together on every surface, the same face staring out of almost every one. Danny as a chubby baby, his legs splayed out in front of him on the grass; Danny in a blue-and-yellow football strip, riding a little trike down a road that looked exactly like the one we’d walked along. Danny in a gray jumper, grinning at the photographer. Next to that one, another, faded and blurred with age: a girl in a school shirt, a gap between her teeth like his. When I looked closer I could just about make out the name along the bottom. Kim Morris. Third Form.
The more I looked, the more I could see her now, mostly in the background of the photos when Danny was very little. In all of them she was young; a kid, then a teenager, sometimes smiling, other times looking like she was in the middle of saying something, thinking something, her face a mixture of Danny’s and Mary’s all at once.
I picked up a frame from the row at the back, Danny in just a nappy, wrapping paper scrunched around his feet. His hair was Afroed up around his head like a halo and he was grinning, holding something toward the camera in his hand—a car or a train, maybe—two tiny white teeth poking out of his bottom gums. She was on the sofa behind him, but there was something about the way she was sitting, curled over, her hair hanging lankly over her face, that unsettled me.
Danny came up behind me, took the frame out of my hands and put it back, at a different angle now, so that it was facing away from us slightly.
Don’t be lookin at all them baby photos of me, he said, trying to sound light, jokey. Something hung between us and he walked away, flopped down on the sofa, pulling out a Game Boy from behind the cushions.
I can hardly remember her, he said, turning the console on so that it sang its funny little tune. Wanna game?