‘They’re trying to kill me,’ whispered Lola Nan. ‘They’ve paid a hitman and I never know which moment could be my last.’
Mum was fighting a jar of organic fairtrade marmalade, trying to get the lid off. Dad sat at the table watching her, jaw in his fists, faded tattoos wrinkled and crumpled, wispy hair coming out of its elastic band. He gave Lola Nan a filthy look.
‘Why would we go to the expense when we could shove you under a bus?’
‘Terence!’ said Mum.
I’d sooner push you under one, I thought, than ever do it to Lola Nan. But Dad caught my eye and tried to give me a knowing smile, like it was a shared joke. Pathetic.
Poor Dad. We’d lost contact in his smitten love affair with Allie. Now he knew she was going to grow up too, whether he liked it or not, and maybe he’d like to be in touch with me again, but he didn’t know where to start. Neither did I, so we were on a bit of a hiding to nothing.
Sometimes I got the notion he was thinking about not having the first drink of the evening, so that he wouldn’t be dazed, and he’d remember to sit down with me and talk, clear-headed meaningful bonding stuff. Then he’d think about not having the second drink instead, but he’d have it anyway, and a third. After that he’d be dazed and the bonding thing wouldn’t seem so important any more.
‘Nick,’ said Mum.
I dreaded that bright and brittle tone. Hesitant, afraid to begin. ‘What?’ I said.
‘Did you hear Kevin Naughton’s mother died?’
I had to take a quick breath. ‘No,’ I said calmly. ‘When?’
‘Last week? Sometime last week.’ She banged the marmalade jar hard a few times on the table. I don’t know what that was supposed to achieve. ‘It was in the weekend paper.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You didn’t show me.’
‘I wasn’t sure … I didn’t know if you’d …’
Didn’t think I’d care, eh? ‘Was it the cancer?’ I asked.
Mum nodded, straining at the jar lid. I wished Dad would get his finger out and give her a hand. I wished Mum would snap at him, tell him to stop being such an idle troll. ‘She had a recurrence,’ she said. ‘It came back with a vengeance. Jenna Mathieson from the oncology ward told me. So sad.’
Came back with a vengeance.
Shame, it really was. Poor woman. Her parenting skills might have been dodgy, or they might not, but she never killed anyone. A shiver rippled down my spine. ‘Maybe it was Kev’s trial,’ I said. ‘Stress.’
‘Don’t talk crap,’ snapped Dad. ‘The woman had cancer. That can be fatal, you know.’
Sarcastic arse.
Mum gave him that look she always did: surprised, and slightly sympathetic. I don’t know why she should be surprised. It wasn’t exactly out-of-character behaviour. Must have been a rough night. Again.
Sure enough, ‘I need a drink,’ he muttered under his breath.
I knew he wouldn’t have one. Drinking after breakfast would make him an alcoholic. He said it for my benefit, just to let me know how much I upset him. So damn disappointed in me, he was driven to drink. Poor little arse.
Lola Nan threw me one of her rare incisive glances, though it landed just over my left shoulder. ‘Me too.’ She flashed a wicked grin. ‘Any whisky?’
Most of the time I knew Lola Nan was gone. But there were times I suspected a lucid old gremlin hid behind her papery eyelids.
‘Later, Lola Nan.’ I patted the fragile hand that in turn was patting its little cushion of air. ‘I have to go to school now.’
Focusing, she snatched her hand away. ‘Wasn’t talking to you!’ she screamed.
Great. My last contact with the human race didn’t remember who I was. I didn’t know my father, my mother was too embarrassing to know, my sister was psychologically unhinged and on top of everything else I was Billy Nae-Pals and had been for more than a year now.
This might have been partly my own fault, since very few people extended the hand of friendship in case it got bitten off. I’d put a lot of energy into my public image. Boy, was it paying off.
From my old gang, Kev’s friends, I was ostracised, excommunicated. I was as dazed as Dad on a Friday night, but with an unfocused anger and a sense of violent injustice. Funny how I was the great untouchable, when it was Kev who’d …
Well, there was no way back with Kev, which was lucky because I didn’t want one. Shuggie was not much of a replacement gang, but for once I felt extremely benevolent towards him. The lights had come on in my head, so dazzling I couldn’t sleep for the glare. To hell with Dad; to hell with ex-friends and imaginary ones. I had a date with Orla Mahon. Tonight.
A worm of unease had been nibbling at my guts, but I put that down to excitement – anticipation, nerves, lust, whatever. I wasn’t letting myself associate it with the sniggers of Orla’s posse yesterday afternoon. Anyway, she’d shut them up fast enough. All but Gina, who was a hard girl to shut up, but she’d choked and spluttered so long into her Tango, Orla had finally sworn at her and kicked her ankle.
I’d had to turn away to hide my stupid smile. Orla Mahon, no less, was sticking up for me. No need for the squirming ball of nerves in my gut then. No reason to let it distract me.
It did though. Between nerves and ecstasy, I wasn’t capable of thinking about anything else. That must be why, when I pulled the front door shut behind me and jogged down the concrete path that morning, I had my hand on the rusty iron gate before I recognised the car parked across the road.
Dark blue Mondeo. Fancy rims. A suit jacket hung carefully in the back. Tinted windows, but the driver’s side was down and a lean, muscled arm rested on the sill, crisp shirt sleeve rolled neatly to the elbow. Lola Nan’s hitman, eh? Easy mistake to make, even with a functioning brain. After all, the nearest sexually challenged cow was some way from our street, so what was he doing here?
I stopped, not breathing, my hand tightening on the gate till flakes of rusty metal dug into my palm. He didn’t worry me. He didn’t scare me, I told myself. When a few repetitions of that didn’t convince me, I tried to picture him at his day job. Mickey Naughton, up to his armpit in a startled Friesian. Dreamy look in his eyes.
Still didn’t work.
I tried to focus on his shadowy face. He was looking right at me, an unpleasant sneer on the side of his mouth. Mickey had a thin face, a handsome face, and Kev’s girlfriend had once assured me those shadowy eyes were sexy. Dangerously so.
Kevin Naughton’s mother died. Did you hear?
She had cancer. That can be fatal, you know.
That can be fatal.
Stupidhead.
Mickey lifted his fist like a wee boy pretending to have a gun, his first and second fingers jutting out to make the barrel. He pointed it not at me, but at the upstairs window of our house. He was aiming at the parents’ room, had he but known it, but I wasn’t tempted to laugh at his mistake.
Came back with a vengeance.
His finger gun jerked up with the imagined recoil, then he brought it to his lips and blew away imaginary smoke. Mickey smiled at me.
He didn’t do anything as cheaply dramatic as screeching away. He turned the key lazily in the ignition, nosed the car into the road and drove out of sight.