I remember him cutting wood when I came in. Turning off his saw, pulling up his mask. I remember his dusty eyebrows, the cut-fingernail curve of a scar on his hairline. He gave me this old, red, deep-backed armchair to sleep in. Said my eyes were more open than he’d ever seen, but that they weren’t really working. ‘I slapped you and everything,’ he told me later, half proudly, half wanting to admit it.
When I woke up, the kem had broken everything into pieces. I wanted the pieces to be gone too. I went to his fridge. The fridge didn’t work – it wasn’t even plugged into the wall – but it was where he kept his drinks anyway.
‘Hold it, tiger,’ he said. ‘You just belted yourself. Are you sure you want that?’
‘Yeah. Don’t look at me like that.’
And so Davey took a beer too. So I wouldn’t be alone, he said. There was dirt, something brown, on the seat I’d slept in. I hoped I hadn’t done that. I sat back down to cover it just in case.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Davey said.
I shook my head.
‘Is it your mum, though? Trev’s bad at the moment.’
‘It’s not her.’
‘Kole, then?’
‘Not him, either.’ I brought the beer up to my lips. Every part of my body ached, like I’d been lifting weights in my sleep. ‘Just what’s happening.’
‘And what’s that, exactly? ’Cos all of it seems like a shambles to me.’
‘I said I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘You can’t just drink all my beer in silence. Not the whole lot of it. Not if we’re not talking.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Tell me a story.’
‘Okay.’
‘And I’ll tell you why it’s shit.’
‘First time you smiled,’ he laughed. ‘And it’s ’cos you’re being a bitch.’
Davey had finished his beer already. He didn’t always want to start, but once he did, he went fast. He wasn’t wearing a top, and he had a new tattoo down his spine. A zip. There was cling film stuck over it.
We sat in silence and sips. Davey showed me things he had around the house. Boys like to do that. Whenever your face found its way back into my mind, I found myself shaking my head. Actually shaking it. As if that would get it away. We’d moved from bottles to cans, and Davey scrunched his in his hands when he was done.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about the last time, at the pub. They can fuck the rest of shit up, fine, but not us. Not you and me. Not us being friends.’
‘Always friends,’ I said. I kissed my tattoo.
‘Looks drawn in pencil now,’ he said. He took in a deeper breath than normal, like he’d missed one out. ‘Let’s go out,’ he said. ‘When was the last time we went out?’
‘We have been going out. Haven’t we been going out?’
‘When was the last time you got some?’ he asked.
I shook my head again. Downed my beer, rapped my nail on the neck of the empty can.
‘No time,’ I said. ‘Never done it.’
‘Let’s go out, you doughnut.’
I was aware again of the dirt on the seat. I asked him if he had clothes I could borrow. I didn’t know whether he’d already noticed. When I got off the chair, I put an old bit of newspaper on it.
Davey had a few pieces of girl clothes from people who’d stayed over. ‘But you won’t want any of this pink stuff, will you?’ He came back with baggy shorts and an even bigger T-shirt instead. The shorts were stiff and smelled like soap, the T-shirt smelled like Davey – Rizlas, petrol, sawdust and, somewhere in there, apple juice.
Davey had tried to come in when I was getting changed. ‘Just a quick look,’ he laughed, ‘old times’ sake! Cha, don’t be—’
I slammed the door onto his arm and he was still pretending to nurse it when I came out. We went to the pub at the very top of the high street. Davey’s clothes changed how I walked. His shorts were low on my hips. I borrowed a cap too, also pulled that low. I felt it solid in my chest – I didn’t want to be myself any more.
The pub was so full, there were gangs of people outside it too. I remember some men by the door making an arch for us to enter under. ‘Proper lifers’, as Davey called them – faces folded, teeth broken. There were younger teenagers in there too, eyebrows on their upper lips. But it was full and people seemed happy. Somewhere along the line, someone had told someone had told someone that relocations meant new houses. Brand-new houses. Four beds, garages. ‘Not that they even have fucking cars, but,’ Davey said, shaking his head, ‘each to their mother-fucking own.’
When the pubs had first reopened it was just in the daytime and early evening. Now they were open into the night. I fell over a lot. A few times that didn’t hurt. One that did. I remember hands surrounding me to pick or push me up, like one of those child’s toys that you can’t fully knock over.
By the next afternoon, my legs had bruises in places that wouldn’t break a fall. Bruises from thumbs, fingers.
There’s not much from that night I remember. Davey told me the next day that the pints were half the normal price, and even then, they were mostly giving them away for free.
‘Why?’ I’d asked Davey the first time, when he pushed away my money.
‘Wasn’t a time to ask why.’
‘Did the guy know you?’
‘Knew him a bit. Knew him to see. Don’t we know everyone? Not his name. Cheers, by the way…’
The beer was a bit flat, maybe that was it. A little bit metal-y too, like it was from the end of the barrel. ‘Still does the trick,’ Davey said. His finger found its way onto a bruise above my knee, just lightly. His nails had all these white flecks in them. ‘Come on then, let’s get these down.’
I woke up naked with a jumper over me like a blanket. I don’t think anything had happened.
Davey was on the floor in the next room, as if he’d leaped and missed the bed. He was wearing boxers, but they looked too big for him and were scrunched up. So many tattoos, he looked almost dressed.
Our days went on like that. ‘Are you sure you want this?’ Davey asked me that morning. ‘Don’t you want to check up on home?’ he said the day after that. ‘What about your girl? I forgot about her.’
‘She’s not my girl.’
We settled into what we were doing, and he didn’t ask any more. He put the word out that we wanted stuff, and a couple of boys we knew came round. ‘It’s getting better,’ Davey said. He’d take such deep drags the muscles in his neck would twitch. ‘Gets better all the time.’ He let out the breath. The smoke was thick as a blanket. He told me again and again how much he’d missed this. Us spending time together.
Each night, the pubs were busier and busier. The special offers got better and better. Some nights I couldn’t remember paying for a single thing.
‘You were being so funny last night, man,’ Davey said one morning. ‘Talking about everything being fucked up, getting all proper dark. Tried to take me to the Sands at one point.’ He laughed. ‘Looked like you wanted to start a war.’
My stomach twisted.
‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘I was just drunk. Forget that.’
‘Mate, I was fine with it – glad you’re seeing the light.’
But I wanted the dark. I wanted blankness. I wanted to forget. We drank more and more, and there was always more after that. Plastic glasses made ice mountains at the edges of the streets. I remember sitting, swaying, bliss-eyed in the toilet, holding the handle of the door for balance. And whenever I caught a thought of you, or Blue, all of the things I hadn’t done or couldn’t do, I tried to push it as far away as possible.