First, I feel the breathing on my face, then I hear the whisper.
‘Les, you awake?’ says Jonesy.
I am warm under my sheets. I don’t want to come out, but unfortunately this was my idea. ‘What time is it?’ I ask.
‘Dunno. Too dark to see. It’s late or early.’
I slip out from under the bedcovers. I have my pyjamas on and I went to sleep with my socks on so I wouldn’t have to put them on in the dark.
‘C’mon, let’s do it,’ Jonesy says.
We walk softly across the bedroom and she opens the door. It creaks, so she nudges it just a little bit more. The landing is dark and the house is in complete silence. We go down the stairs, sticking to the side so the steps don’t creak. We cross the hallway and I feel the cold of the tiles through my socks, then we open the door to the kitchen. Again there is a small creak from the hinge when the door is pushed. We slip inside.
We can see a little clearer in the kitchen as the light from the streetlamp outside bathes the room in a slight yellow glow. The drawers in the kitchen dresser are big, so if you are going to ease one out quietly you need two people to do it. I point to Jonesy to go to one handle and I take the other.
I am just about to tell her to pull when we hear someone exhale, a sudden, ‘Urrrrrrrggghhhhh,’ from behind us. Jonesy and I freeze. Mr Paterson is sat with his head resting on the table, with an empty bottle of whisky in front of him. He is fast asleep.
Jonesy looks at me and I look back at her. She must be thinking the same as me, which is, if he wakes up and catches us we are beyond dead, but also, we’ve come this far, do we go through with it and try to get the knives?
Mr Paterson breathes out again. He is silent for maybe fifteen seconds then lets out a huge breath. I am not sure how he is breathing in, as he only seems to be breathing out.
Jonesy nods at the drawer; she thinks we should go for it. I shake my head and point towards the door. She shakes her head and nods at the drawer again. I try to do my angriest face; there’s no way I am going to get the belt again.
She shrugs and agrees. We look at Mr Paterson. Jonesy holds her hands up as if to say, ‘Why?’
We reverse out of the room and go up the side of the stairs again and I slip back into bed. Jonesy slides in next to me. ‘Whit was he doing?’ I whisper.
‘He’s a drunk,’ she replies.
‘But the grown-ups aren’t allowed alcohol in the houses.’
‘He hides it. I’ve seen it in cupboards before. Some of the boxes under the sink have bottles in them. He must wait until everyone has gone to bed before he drinks it.’
‘D’you think he heard us? D’you think he opened an eye?’
‘Naw, he looked blootered. It’s what grown-ups do.’
‘Whit about Mrs Paterson?’
‘Whit about her? She must know.’
I don’t know how long we kept talking but Jonesy stayed in my bed for the rest of the night.
*
When it’s time to get up and go down to breakfast on Sunday morning, Mr Paterson is there eating his toast as if nothing has happened.
We both watch him, because he doesn’t know what we know. Jonesy smiles and shakes her head and we both turn to Mrs Paterson to see if we can tell if she knows what her husband has been up to. But we can’t tell.