Going Out

  Leanne has started coming over to The Edge whenever the new manager at Blockbuster lets her have a break. Her first break of the day is usually around 11.00 a.m. Today she turns up at five past. Julie’s setting the tables for the lunch-time rush, although at the rate the till guy’s going, they’ll be shut at lunchtime.

  ‘All right?’ Leanne says to Julie.

  Julie yawns. ‘Mmm,’ she mumbles.

  ‘Keeping you up, are we?’ asks Leanne, chirpily.

  Julie once made the mistake of admitting to Leanne that she doesn’t like to get up early, ever. Leanne gave her a slightly patronising lecture about late nights being bad for your skin and nails, and pointed out that Julie doesn’t have to stay up late just because Luke does. Julie can’t remember exactly but she thinks Leanne said something like, If Luke threw himself off a cliff, would you do it too, Julie? Leanne’s nowhere near the nightmare she was at school any more, though. In fact, Leanne’s forgotten she ever bullied Julie at school, and gives the impression she thinks they’ve always been friends. Now she’s standing here in her Blockbuster uniform unclipping her blonde hair and then twisting it back up in exactly the same semi-French pleat it was in before.

  ‘So why are you still doing days, anyway?’ she asks Julie.

  Julie’s the best waitress at The Edge, and her natural domain is the weekend: sweaty Fridays and perfumy Saturdays, couples who drink lots of Chianti, share a dessert, play footsie and tip quite well. But since another waitress went off sick a couple of weeks ago, she’s been filling in. Almost everyone else who works here is a student or has another job during the day, so there wasn’t anyone else to do it. The day shifts have turned out to be oddly relaxing. David, the chef, and Heather, the supervisor, are low-maintenance colleagues, and the haze of tiredness is actually OK, once you get used to it.

  ‘Kerry’s not back yet,’ Julie answers.

  ‘I heard she got pregnant by some biker from The Rising Sun.’

  ‘I’ve heard loads of things. She probably just doesn’t want to come back.’

  Julie moves her box of cutlery and cleaning things to the next table. The plastic tablecloth looks clean, but still, Julie takes the little vase of flowers from it and places it on one of the chairs. Then she sprays cleaning fluid on the table, and wipes it with the cloth. Then she lays out two Edge napkins, two knives, two forks, and replaces the vase.

  ‘Guess what?’ says Leanne, following Julie to the next table.

  Julie moves the flowers and wipes the table. ‘What?’

  ‘My cousin won the Lottery.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Julie’s still in the school-days habit of not believing anything extraordinary that people tell her, in case it turns out to be a joke. When Leanne told her about Jill Dando being murdered last year Julie didn’t believe that either. She puts out the cutlery and moves to the next table.

  ‘Seriously,’ says Leanne. ‘Honestly.’ She opens her blue eyes wide in the way she’s always done when she’s telling the truth and offended that someone thinks she’s winding them up.

  Julie looks up from the table and pushes some hair out of her face. ‘How much?’

  ‘Two million. She shared the jackpot with, like, three other people or something.’

  ‘Two million’s still a lot,’ says Julie.

  ‘I know. Guess what else?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘She’s buying number 14.’

  ‘What, number 14 on our road?’

  Leanne smiles deliciously. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Why? I mean, why would anyone want to live on our street?’

  ‘Because Chantel always promised her mum that if she won the Lottery she’d get her a nice house, and our road is nice. Basically, right, Chantel – that’s my cousin – her and her mum were living with this no-hoper guy in this, like, shack, near Basildon; you know, that Plotlands place that’s always being condemned and stuff?’ Leanne makes a face, then unclips her hair and starts twisting it again, talking with the clip in her mouth. ‘Anyway, her mum and my mum had a big falling out over this guy, basically. But now Chantel’s mum, my aunty Nicky, right, she’s ditched him and Chantel’s won the Lottery and they’re coming to live at number 14, like, next Tuesday. Chantel’s like, “Oh my God, we’re going to have drains!” They had a cesspit before.’

  Julie tries to take in all this information. ‘Do they know about number 14?’ she asks.

  ‘That’s the thing,’ says Leanne, putting the clip back in her hair. ‘No one’s allowed to tell them.’

  ‘Won’t they find out?’

  ‘Not if no one tells them.’

  Heather comes over and looks at the table Julie’s just done. She touches her hair lightly as if she might break it.

  ‘I suppose you want to go on a break,’ she says. ‘Hello, Leanne.’

  ‘All right, Heather,’ says Leanne. ‘Hope you don’t mind me popping in.’

  Heather looks at Julie and smiles. ‘As long as we get some work done today.’ She doesn’t really mean it – Heather’s really chuffed to have Julie on her shifts. She’s only twenty-two and this is the first supervisor position she’s ever had. She wants to go into management eventually. She lives with her boyfriend in one of the villages near here. They’ve got a huge mortgage and Heather’s got a pony she’s had since she left school. Even though Heather’s totally into The Edge and works really hard, Julie always gets the impression that she would rather be with her pony than here.

  Leaving her cleaning box on a chair, Julie follows Leanne out the back. The back room at The Edge smells of cigarette smoke. There’s also a smell of cold grease, like in the back rooms of every fast-food restaurant. No one would exactly call The Edge fast, but it’s the same smell.

  Leanne takes out a packet of Lambert & Butler. ‘Want one?’ she asks Julie.

  ‘Yeah, cheers.’ Julie takes one and sits down on a broken chair. ‘So they’re moving in next Tuesday?’

  Leanne leans against the staff lockers. ‘Yeah, that’s right. And remember not to say anything to Chantel.’

  ‘I won’t. Anyway, I probably won’t even speak to her.’

  ‘You will. She’s having a house-warming. She’s inviting the whole street.’

  ‘Oh. Well someone’ll tell her, then, won’t they?’

  ‘Nah. I’m telling them all not to.’

  ‘She’ll find out eventually, though, won’t she?’

  ‘Yeah, but then they’ll be settled in and stuff.’

  Julie’s not sure about this logic but says nothing.

  ‘I saw Charlotte Moss the other day,’ says Leanne, flicking fag ash into a McDonald’s ashtray. She leaves a pause, perhaps for drama. ‘I saw her in The Rising Sun.’

  ‘What were you doing in The Rising Sun?’

  ‘Looking for Charlotte Moss. It stunk in there. Fucking disgusting.’

  Julie frowns. ‘Why were you looking for Charlotte Moss?’

  ‘To tell her to keep the hell away from number 14.’

  David comes in. He’s tall and a bit too thin for his height and moves around like he’s a stray cat looking for food. He’s from Romford and he’s doing a law degree at one of the new universities around here. Everyone agrees he’s the nicest chef, not that there’s much competition. Once, a customer at The Edge groped one of the waitresses and the manager didn’t know what to do. David just went up to the guy, picked him up by his shirt and threw him out into the carpark. Most of the waitresses like David.

  He lights a fag with one hand. He’s waving the other hand like he’s burnt it.

  ‘What’s wrong with your hand?’ Leanne asks.

  ‘Burnt it,’ he says. ‘What’s this about number 14?’ he asks.

  Leanne sighs. ‘See? It’s going to be well hard keeping this quiet.’

  ‘Oh, you mean on your road,’ he says. ‘Everyone knows about that.’

  It strikes Julie that yes, everyone does know about everything around here. It’s not that it was in the papers, and it’s not even t
hat this is a particularly small town. Around here everyone works in shops and there’s nothing to do except serve customers and talk about disaster, tragedy, and loss.

  Mark Davies was the first person Julie had known who had died. He died last autumn, suddenly, in Lakeside, from a brain haemorrhage. He’d lived at 14 Windy Close all his life, except for his gap year and his time at university. When he came back from university a year early, having dropped out, he’d had this girl with him: Charlotte Moss. She lived there with him until he died and then she stayed on afterwards, looking after Mark’s mother and father and doing the housework. She’s actually the only remaining survivor of number 14 Windy Close. Mark’s mother went mad, and his father killed himself, right there in number 14, the house opposite Luke’s.

  After it happened, Julie couldn’t stop thinking about Mark. He must have died, just like that, while he was in the middle of thinking about what shop he was going into next, or what he might like for lunch. He would have had no warning and no control. There would have been nothing he could have done to save himself. It was the most unfair thing Julie’d ever heard of. But also: if Mark could die like that, Julie could die like that too. She couldn’t stop thinking about how terrifying his last few seconds must have been. Mark didn’t deserve that. But these things are random, aren’t they? And her sadness and fear about Mark eventually turned into one single thought: what if she’s next? For several years Julie had been approaching life with a mixture of distrust and caution. Mark’s death proved she was right.

  Leanne stubs out her cigarette. ‘She looked a right mess,’ she says.

  ‘What, Charlotte?’ asks Julie.

  ‘Yeah. And she smelt of that hippy stuff. Patchy-thingy.’

  ‘Patchouli?’ says Julie.

  ‘She’s well sexy,’ says David. He stubs out his fag. ‘Laters,’ he says, and goes.

  ‘What’s she doing now?’ Julie asks. She hasn’t seen Charlotte for ages.

  Leanne makes a face. ‘Like I was going to hang around in there and ask her,’ she snorts. ‘Please.’

  ‘Does David know Charlotte?’ Julie asks.

  Leanne shrugs. ‘Puff-head, isn’t he? Knows everyone.’

  Heather comes in. ‘I think we might have to shut,’ she says to Julie. ‘We still can’t get the tills to work.’

  ‘Can’t you just write everything down?’ suggests Leanne.

  ‘What do you mean?’ says Heather.

  Leanne used to be a supervisor at The Edge before she defected to Homebase and then Blockbuster. ‘Just make handwritten bills,’ she says. ‘The waitresses carry their floats anyway, right, so it’s not like they have to put cash through the tills. You’ll just have to trust them to write down what the customers order, give the orders straight to David on a napkin or whatever, and then put the written-down orders through the till whenever that man gets them working.’

  ‘That could work,’ says Heather uncertainly.

  ‘Make sure David makes a note of what he cooks,’ Leanne goes on. ‘Then you can compare that with the bills the waitresses make and there’s no room for them to fiddle the system.’

  ‘I’m the only waitress here,’ Julie points out.

  ‘Yes, well,’ says Leanne. ‘You can’t be too careful.’

  ‘I think we might just close,’ says Heather.

  ‘Use my system,’ says Leanne. ‘I promise it’ll work.’

  ‘We’d better get back out the front anyway,’ Heather says.

  ‘I’m going back to Blockbuster,’ says Leanne.

  ‘See you later,’ says Julie.

  ‘Will you tell Luke I’ll pop round later?’ Leanne says.

  ‘Yeah, but I think he might be busy.’

  ‘Busy doing what?’

  ‘I don’t know. He said he was doing something tonight.’

  ‘What, in his bedroom?’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’ Julie gets up and walks to the door. ‘Why don’t you ring him?’

  ‘I always get his answerphone,’ moans Leanne, following Julie through the door.

  Chapter 5

  The first time Luke tried to walk outside on his own he was about seven. It had been his favourite threat for a couple of years; the most effective way of blackmailing his mother and making her buy him more books and magazines. Buy Whizzer and Chips for me, Mum. ‘No, Luke, you had two books yesterday.’ I’ll walk outside. ‘Don’t do this to me, Luke.’ I’ll walk outside and I’ll die and you’ll wish you’d bought it for me. ‘Please, Luke, don’t.’ His mother always had a squeaky voice, pleading and whiny. And her hands always shook, even when there was nothing to be nervous about.

  Eventually, of course, she knew she would have to call his bluff. She phoned a radio phone-in show for advice. ‘Your son is spoilt,’ the agony aunt told her firmly. ‘Stand up to him. Show him who’s in control.’ So she did. On a sunny day in spring 1982, after one tantrum too many, she said, ‘OK, then, walk outside if you want to.’

  The argument took place in the kitchen on a weekday when Luke’s father was in Yorkshire. Luke’s mother called his bluff in the dark, orange kitchen, the morning sun turning everything orange through the heavy curtains, the dust hanging in the air, orange, like everything else.

  Luke’s small body felt even smaller.

  His mother said, ‘Go on, then, kill yourself. See if I care.’

  He started to cry. He felt alone and cold; still in his Batman pyjamas, because he’d refused to get dressed. His mother pointed to the back door. Her hand shook. She repeated her words but they didn’t come out properly and she started to cry too. Luke didn’t want to upset her, and really wanted a cuddle, not a fight. But he couldn’t change his mind now. He would rather have died than let his mother win and have this control over him forever. He felt sick and small, as if he was shrinking. He had to do something before he disappeared altogether. He knew this was his moment of eternity. Nothing mattered beyond this moment; not today or yesterday or his life or anyone else’s. He dimly remembered what today had been like before this moment and he wished he was back there but he wasn’t. He felt even smaller. Everything around him seemed bigger. He ran the few steps to the back door.

  At first it wouldn’t open. He pulled at the handle and kicked at the door.

  It must have been at the moment his mother realised that he was actually going to do it that she screamed No! and started moving towards him. The door opened before she reached him and Luke stumbled out into the spring morning, the air intriguingly cold and fresh, the gravel drive stinging his bare feet. As his mother reached to grab him they both fell. The last thing Luke saw was the amazing blue of the sky, purer than any colour he’d ever seen.

  He was unconscious for half an hour. When he woke up in his bedroom, the doctor was there.

  It was really crap being seven, wanting to go out and explore and make friends but actually being stuck in a dark, hot house instead. The only friend Luke had – and he was only a half-friend, really, because Luke didn’t really like him, and he didn’t really like Luke – was Mark Davies from across the road. Mark would come over sometimes with his dad. While Mark’s dad and Luke’s mum talked downstairs, Mark and Luke would play with the toys Mark brought with him – trucks and cars, mainly – and Mark would fantasise about owning a Scalextric and Luke would find him slightly boring, but less so than his normal life. So Luke played along with Mark’s fantasies, and was Robin while Mark was Batman, and explained time and time again why he couldn’t go outside.

  Luke spent a lot of time naked, especially during the long, hot, early-eighties summers when it was mainly just him and his mother in the house during the week and some weekends when Bill was at work. It bothered his mother, which was one of the reasons he did it, but she didn’t challenge him very much after the kitchen-door incident. Luke hated his nylon and polyester clothes, even if he could make fireworks from them in the dark. It hurt, anyway, when he did that.

  All Luke wanted were books and magazines. He needed lots of reading
material, typically getting through six or so books a day, but of course he couldn’t go to the library to choose his own books, so he had to try to explain to his mother what to get – and then threw tantrums when she failed. He became pretty resourceful. At six, he’d worked out how to phone children’s publishers to get their catalogues, so at least he knew which books were coming out. He sometimes told the people who answered the phone (nice ladies, mainly) about not being able to go out, and sometimes they sent him free books, which was brilliant. His mother didn’t believe he could read at such a great speed but he didn’t care what she thought.

  When Luke’s dad came home on weekends, Luke would sit on his knee and tell him about the worlds he’d travelled to that week – the Faraway Tree, Narnia, Kirrin Island and all the others. At that age it was easy to travel to the completely imaginary worlds in children’s books – it simply became harder as the books became more realistic. By the time they invented issues-based ‘teen’ fiction, Luke was watching TV more than he was reading anyway. He tried a couple of titles that one of the publishers sent him, but could find no way of understanding the broken families, bully-infested schools and general misery in the books. But when he was seven, books like that didn’t exist and Luke had no TV. His world was full of magic.

  On Friday nights, Luke’s dad would drink a glass of Scotch or two, and the more of the dark-orange liquid he drank, the more interested he’d become in Luke’s other worlds.

  ‘You went through a wardrobe?’ he’d say. ‘Heh heh. Hear that, Jean?’

  Luke’s mother would sigh and ask when Luke’s dad would be ready for his dinner.

  The rest of the weekend, Luke would barely see his father, as he’d be busy working on the car, fixing things on the outside of the house or shopping in town with Luke’s mother.