16 AUGUST

Nine days before abandonment

19

Most days, Dad and Trevor were busy. Christie liked to tag along to lend a hand, even when he hadn’t the energy to get out of bed. He’d been helping since before the families moved in, going from house to house with his dad or with Trevor, carrying tools, handing out pliers or spanners or hammers. Trevor let him wear the tool belt sometimes, weighted down with wrenches and batteries. Sometimes, like today, a power cut fritzed a few electrics and that’s when Trevor asked if he could borrow Christie while Dad was tied up talking to pen-pushers about insurance.

‘He’s handy to have around,’ Trevor said.

He never treated Christie like a little kid, more like one of his mates down the pub, ‘Hold this will you, mate?’ handing him a box cutter with a blade so sharp you could slice yourself just looking at it. He expected Christie to use his common sense, ‘Fuse switch’s tripped. Reset it, yeah?’ No crap about taking care up ladders or not touching stuff. Trevor trusted him to get it right.

Once, he gave Christie a claw hammer with a solid steel shaft and told him to hit the shit out of a wall they were having to rebuild because the cement was dodgy. He didn’t even make Christie wear safety goggles. Trevor had his own hammer and they went at the wall like a couple of crazies, smashing it until Christie’s arm was shouting with pain, his nose stuffed with dust. When he finally stopped, his arm floated up from his side like it weighed nothing without the hammer to hold it down. That was a good day, a great day.

‘Nice one, mate.’ Trevor had grinned. ‘Your dad’d have a fit if he’d seen that. And don’t tell your mum. She’ll have my balls for a bracelet.’

Christie swore not to tell. He liked keeping secrets with Trevor, who was the smartest person he knew. Not tied down, living as he liked, going on holiday or out drinking, living off takeaways or those microwave burgers Christie was always begging Mum to buy. Lucky in love, too. That’s what he told Christie, tonguing his cheek as he said it so Christie knew he was talking about sex. He even won the lottery once, not millions but at least ten thousand. Okay, so he didn’t live in Blackthorn Ashes but that was good luck too with all the crap about the lawns and wasps and water pressure.

‘Wouldn’t live here if you paid me,’ Trevor said. He grinned at the look on Christie’s face. ‘Not having a go, mate, just stating a fact.’

When he was around Trevor, Christie felt the luck rubbing off. That’s when he found all the best stuff, for starters. People didn’t care what they left lying around. It was the only odd thing about Blackthorn Ashes, back before all the other stuff started – the lack of security. The houses had big windows so you couldn’t help seeing all the expensive shit. After dark, you didn’t need to be standing right outside to see what was on offer. You could be across the street in your room with a pair of binoculars or that toy telescope you got when you were ten.

Any night after dark you’d lose count of the screens and consoles and iPads, each one lit up like a bat signal. He didn’t understand why people didn’t put it all away at the end of the day. He locked his stuff in the cupboard Dad built for him, not just his iPad and laptop but the things left lying around in the other houses. Nothing too big or obvious; he didn’t steal consoles or phones. Little things like boxes of matches and packets of razor blades, to start with. Later, he took better stuff. Pieces of jewellery, or clothes. To see if he could as much as anything. To see when people would start to notice someone was pinching their stuff, and to see what they’d do about it. No one noticed, not for weeks.

A couple of times, Christie thought Trevor noticed. Like that time he was stuffing a green scarf into his pocket and when he turned round, Trevor was right there in the room with him. Not looking at Christie, busy sizing up the job to be done. If he’d noticed, he didn’t say anything.

When they went into the houses, they always ended up in the bedroom. ‘Upstairs lights’re tripping,’ and they’d head up, Trevor leading the way, Christie following.

Trevor’d flick the light switch a couple of times before testing the lamps. He’d sit on the bed and bounce, ‘This’s seen some action,’ or, ‘Reckon he does her up against this headboard?’ grinning at Christie who always grinned back. Sometimes he beat Trevor to the punchline: ‘Reckon she’s got carpet burn on her knees from this rug?’ and Trevor’d put his head back and laugh until he cried.

After that, Christie went looking for Trevor when he needed a laugh. Everyone else was so serious it gave him toothache. He was used to it from Agnes but now Mum and Dad had gone over to her side. When they weren’t whispering in the garage, they were on their phones or laptops looking like the world was about to end. It was doing his head in. Mr and Mrs Dearman throwing a fit about the state of their garden, Felix’s dad wanting to know how rain was getting through their walls and windows, not much rain but some and it was a first-class fucking catastrophe, apparently. It started as low-level bitching but levelled up into full-blown outrage.

‘These houses are a disgrace!’ Mr Dearman stomping round on his crutches to give Dad an earful before breakfast. ‘Did they even meet building regulations?’

Dad said he’d call in the builders to come and fix any defects.

‘Our warranty covers you for that, but weather damage is different. We’ve not seen a lot of rain but this heat’s taking a toll.’

‘You lot’ll worm out of anything, if you can.’ Dearman was red in the face with rage. ‘There’s condensation all over my floors from your bloody shonky windows!’

‘We’ll come round and see what’s what. I can promise you that.’

‘You wouldn’t know a promise if it punched you.’ Lifting one of his crutches to jab at Dad.

Christie hoped he’d fall over and break his other leg.

‘Fall asleep to the sound of the sea?’ He laughed, more like a growl. ‘I’m lucky if I sleep for five flaming minutes! We’ve mould growing up all the curtains.’

Christie wanted Dad to stand up for himself. He’d have liked to see Dad punch Dearman: ‘How’s that for a promise?’ or at least tell him to piss off and let him finish his breakfast in peace. But Dad kept nodding and turning his hands up, saying sorry over and over like Dearman wasn’t some nutter spoiling for a fight. It made Christie want to puke.

He went looking for Trevor on the building site.

‘Well, Dad’s pussy-whipped.’

‘I’m not arguing but how’s that?’ Trevor was rolling a cigarette, packing it tight.

‘Luke Dearman.’ Christie kicked his foot at a pile of bricks. ‘He came round on his crutches to give him shit about his curtains. He reckons the windows are shonky. I bet his wife’s the one doing most of the moaning. Who complains about curtains?’

‘Your dad didn’t tell him to do one?’ Trevor licked the Rizla, sealing the cigarette. ‘I guess you can’t fight a man in a plaster cast.’

‘He could’ve stuck up for himself.’ He kicked the bricks harder. ‘For this place!’

Trevor watched him. Christie thought he’d warn him to stop but he didn’t. He put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it with the battered silver lighter he kept in his jeans pocket. Christie liked the noise the lighter made, the thick clunk of the flint.

‘So Dearman’s blaming the building, not the weather. That’s what he said?’

‘He’s blaming Dad for making promises he couldn’t keep, said Dad wouldn’t know a promise if it punched him in the face. I’d like to punch him in the fucking face.’

A year ago, Trevor would’ve told him not to curse. Now he just watched Christie taking it out on the bricks while he smoked his cigarette.

‘Can I have one of those?’ Christie asked.

He wanted to be on Trevor’s side. Not just for Trevor to be on his. He wanted to be standing here not giving a shit about Luke Dearman or anyone else, smoking and not giving a single shit.

‘If you can roll it, sure.’ Trevor shrugged. In other words, no.

Christie’s foot was starting to hurt.

‘So how’s everyone else? Your mum. Agnes. They survive this heatwave okay?’

‘Agnes loves extreme weather, only thing that’s more of a diva than she is.’

‘Your sister’s a diva?’

Trevor streamed smoke from his nose like this was news to him.

‘Have you met her? ’Course she’s a fucking diva.’ He gave up on the bricks and started pacing round the concrete floor. ‘She’s having the last laugh now, with the shonky windows and power cuts. She’s been bitching about this place since she saw it.’

His sister was a witch, that’s what he wanted to say. Like the ones in Macbeth they’d made him study at school. She put cracks in the garden and wasps in the walls. Probably killed Binka, too. And brought on the heatwave that was wrecking the windows. Sitting on the floor in her room making some stupid spell, putting her dead hair and Binka’s bones in a bowl, setting fire to the lot. She was such a freak.

‘She was gone a long time.’ Trevor spat a shred of tobacco from his teeth. ‘Eleven years. I guess she’s different now.’

‘No, she’s not, she’s exactly the same. You know she’s mental, right? On pills for it.’

‘For what?’

‘She sees stuff. Has these attacks.’

‘You mean fits?’

‘Panic attacks. Probably had them in London, that’s why her girlfriend kicked her out.’

Trevor smoked, watching him pace. ‘She has a girlfriend?’

‘Had. In London. Not any more.’

‘Right.’ Trevor looked pissed off, or bored.

Christie wished he’d never mentioned his mad sister. She was such a buzzkill. Trevor would’ve preferred to swap insults about Luke Dearman, or to be left to smoke in peace. Only a scrap of his cigarette left. He pinched it between the tip of his thumb and finger, sucking the last of the smoke before snapping his fingers to get rid of the ash.

‘Any sign of Dearman’s wife? Last I heard, she was bitching just as much as him.’

Christie shook his head. ‘Just him this morning. D’you think we should check on the other houses? Some of the electrics could be fritzed.’

Trevor gave a short laugh, as if he knew exactly why Christie wanted to get in the houses. Like he’d seen inside the locked cupboard in Christie’s bedroom, all the dumb things he’d stolen like women’s clothes (not even sexy stuff) and magnets and cheap ashtrays. His neck burnt.

‘Your Mum know what you get up to while she’s off at work?’ Trevor asked.

‘She works from home.’ He had a sour taste in his mouth, to go with his sore foot.

Trevor was laughing at him but he wouldn’t laugh if he knew the whole story, about what’d happened before they moved here, why they moved, what his mum called ‘the trouble at your school’. Christie should tell Trevor about that, just to see the smile slide off his face, or grow into a grin. Trevor might reach a hand, not to ruffle his hair like he would’ve a year ago but to grip his shoulder, ‘Nice one, mate. No one messes with you.’ The temptation to test this theory nearly made him puke. He had to clench his teeth to stop the words coming out. He concentrated on the look on his mum’s face if she found out he’d spilt his secrets, never mind to someone outside the family because Dad didn’t know, at least Christie didn’t think he did, and Agnes definitely didn’t.

‘Tell your mum I was asking after her,’ Trevor said. ‘I’ll call round later, see if I can help your dad retrieve his balls from whichever pouffe they’ve rolled under.’

It was a joke they’d made in Silverthorn, the day Dearman went into hospital for his broken foot. His wife had this crushed velvet stool the colour of mouldy raspberries. Trevor said it was called a pouffe, ‘Better not sit there, you might never shit straight again.’ The thought of his dad’s balls being under a raspberry pouffe made Christie cringe but at least Trevor thought he had balls, at least he wasn’t pussy-whipped or a diva like Agnes. Probably he could tell Trevor the secret he’d promised Mum he’d never tell and Trevor would say, ‘Cool,’ and teach him how to roll cigarettes which they’d smoke in here, sitting on the pile of bricks Christie had been kicking, away from all the bitching and panicking because Blackthorn Ashes had turned out not to be paradise after all, like paradise existed anyway let alone in the middle of nowhere in Cornwall.

‘Shall we check out the other houses?’

Trevor wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘You got your dad’s keys?’

Christie dug them from his pocket, seeing Trevor’s face split into a grin. ‘I’ve got them.’