Connor stalks away from the graveyard, hands thrust into pockets.
‘Wait!’ a voice calls from behind him.
He spins around to face the woman who is jogging towards him, holding out his scarf.
‘Thanks.’ He takes it from her and winds it back around his neck. She looks vaguely familiar. He’s probably seen her here. You get to know the regulars: the middle-aged lady in the straw hat, with the fat Jack Russell. The pensioner who, rain or shine, is always smart in a suit. The man only a few years older than Connor who wears an orange high-vis and carries a flask in one hand and a bunch of pink roses in the other.
‘Cold this morning.’ She yanks on her zip although it’s already done up as far as it will go, the neck of her red jumper barely visible. ‘I need a scarf like yours. Is it warm?’
‘Yeah. Suppose.’ Connor is uncomfortable with small talk. ‘Anyway, gotta go.’ He heads off but she falls into step beside him.
‘I’ll walk with you. I’m going to the cashpoint,’ she says.
He tries to ignore her. He relishes these precious few moments when it’s just him and his thoughts.
‘I’ve seen you before? At the cemetery?’ she asks.
He shrugs, hoping she’ll go away.
She doesn’t.
He makes a show out of pulling his ear buds from his pocket, lowering his head and engrossing himself in working the knots free that have formed in the cable, hoping she’ll take the hint.
‘You’re tangling the wire even more. Want me to try?’ She holds out her hand.
Connor hesitates. They’re only cheap but he doesn’t want to pass them over to a complete stranger.
‘You into that grime or whatever the in thing is right now?’ she asks.
‘Nah.’ He glances at his hands. She’s right – he’s been twisting the knots tighter. He hands them over. ‘I like Oasis. The Arctic Monkeys.’ Old-school vinyls that Fergus used to play whenever he was at Ryan’s. He’d taught him a lot about music.
‘Ooh, indie boy. I was a goth when I was young.’
‘The Cure and all that Sisters of Mercy shit?’
‘Nah, I was all The Smiths – depressed as fuck. I stomped around hating my mum for my crap body and my crap life and my crap everything. Until she wasn’t there anymore and I couldn’t blame her. That’s who I was visiting today. In the cemetery.’
Connor doesn’t answer. Partly because he is uncomfortable with a stranger divulging such personal information and partly because he is wondering how he’d feel if his mum wasn’t around anymore. Knowing he’d miss her. Would she miss him if it were the other way around or was she so fixated on Kieron she’d be glad she had one less responsibility?
They turn onto Deene Street.
Connor raises a hand at Ryan and Tyler.
‘These your mates?’
‘Yeah. This is Ryan. Tyler.’
‘The three wise monkeys, eh?’
‘What?’ Connor wasn’t sure if she’d just insulted them.
‘You know, hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. Between you, you’ve got it all covered.’
‘Right,’ Ryan monotones. ‘And you are?’
‘A friend of Connor’s here.’
Connor kicks at the kerb, embarrassed. He’s known her all of ten minutes and she’s old.
‘Here you go. All sorted.’ She drops his ear buds back into his hand.
‘Ta.’ He stuffs them back into his pocket.
‘You lot off to school?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Last year?’
‘Of sixth form.’ Connor pointedly checks his watch, hoping she’ll take the hint. ‘We’ve gotta—’
‘And you still have to wear a uniform – unlucky!’
Ryan raises his eyebrows at Connor in a let’s-get-out-of-here-way but she’s still talking.
‘I customized mine. Was really into sewing. I stitched those fabric badges you get with different band names on into the inside of my blazer, covered the lining. I was a rebel on the inside even if the teachers couldn’t see it on the outside. I knew they were there. Don’t suppose you boys sew. Learn loads of useless crap at school but not the basics.’
‘Actually we do.’ Connor begins to walk away but she falls into step beside him and so he stands still again, not wanting to turn up at the gates with her in tow.
‘Like what?’ she asks.
‘Mr Marshall – our head teacher – is ex-military and told us he had to learn to sew buttons on his uniform and stuff when he was stationed somewhere remote and one time he made us all learn. Told us real men were good with a needle and cotton.’
‘Ah. So you could totally rock that uniform. Make those blazers your own!’
‘Nah. Mr Marshall would have a fit,’ Connor says. ‘He’s pretty strict. Look, we really have to—’
‘One of those Ofsted league table obsessed ones, is he?’
‘Yeah. He’s always stressing about what people say about the school,’ Ryan says. Behind him Tyler is jerking his head towards the direction of the school, mouthing, ‘Let’s go.’ They try to sidle away but she jumps in with another question.
‘I guess it’s a reflection on him?’
‘Suppose.’ Connor knows what people are saying about the school since the trip. What they think of Mr Marshall’s supervisory skills. ‘He’s not that bad,’ Connor says, not sure where his sense of loyalty springs from. ‘He just…’ What. Have. You. Done. Boy? Eyes flashing hard and cruel. ‘Cares.’
‘You’d never get away with “the dog ate my homework” then?’ She laughs.
‘Has anybody got away with that, ever?’ Connor asks rhetorically.
‘I did! No really,’ she carries on as Connor looks at her in surprise. Now this he does want to hear. ‘I remember it so clearly. It was French and I hadn’t bothered to do the essay I was supposed to, so I told my teacher – Mrs Mira – that the dog ate my homework. At home time she marched up to the gates to where my mum was waiting with our pet poodle. ‘Is this the dog that ate an entire homework book?’ she demanded.
‘Busted!’ Tyler says.
‘You’d think, right? But no, Mum didn’t break eye contact as she said, “Yes, Tootsie did and I must say the notepaper you send the kids home with isn’t very good quality. It’s clogged up her bowels something awful.”’
The boys laughed. Their eagerness to ditch her momentarily forgotten.
‘I can’t imagine my mum lying for me, although she does for that waster she lives with,’ Tyler says.
‘At least he sticks around,’ Ryan mutters.
‘Your parents separated?’ She puts a hand on Ryan’s arm. He moves away from her, obviously uncomfortable, and doesn’t answer but still she says, ‘I’m sorry, that’s rough. What about you, Connor? Are your parents together?’
Connor wants to tell her to stop being so nosy but he can’t bring himself to be so rude when she’s being so friendly. ‘Yeah.’
‘Are they happy?’
He shifts from foot to foot. He’d hardly tell a complete stranger if they weren’t. ‘We really gotta go.’ He takes a step, hoping that this time she won’t follow them. She doesn’t.
‘Of course. You don’t want to get detention and be late home. Kieron will be waiting. Nice to meet you guys.’ She flashes a bright smile as she walks away.
Connor is confused and unnerved as he watches her leave. Has he mentioned Kieron? He can’t remember. He can’t recall giving her his name either but then again, at the graveyard, his emotions were high, they always were. He could have told her. He sees her reach the corner. Instead of turning right towards the cashpoint she heads left, circling back the way they had come. Before she vanishes, she pulls something out of her pocket. A bunch of keys?
‘Shit. I’ve forgotten to do that thing for Maths,’ Ryan says. ‘All this stuff with Mum and Dad has really…’ He falters, he’d told Tyler the basics now but hadn’t really said much else in front of him. ‘Well, it’s really fucking shit. Do you think I’ll get an extension?’
‘Nope. Marshall would love an excuse to kick any of us out.’
‘I could get it done over lunch.’
‘Nah.’ Tyler shakes his head. ‘I’m buying us all chips again.’
‘Get you, money bags.’
‘Yeah, king of the fucking world, that’s me. Told you there’s plenty more where it came from.’
‘Where did it come from?’
‘Couldn’t possibly tell you. I’d have to kill you. I’ve done my maths, Ryan, I’ll help you do yours now, it didn’t take long.’
Ryan crouches and pulls out his book and pen. Tyler squats beside him, telling him what to write. Making sure he understands how to arrive at the answers. Tyler is often judged on his appearance, his behaviour, but he’s the brainiest out of the three of them. He’ll make a great teacher one day.
When Ryan’s finished, he stuffs everything back in his rucksack.
As they turn to head towards the school, a white car crawls past the bottom of the street, slowing to watch them.
Connor doesn’t feel the eyes in his back, as sharp as a knife. He doesn’t hear the click of a camera.
He doesn’t feel the hate.