It was shit; but there’s more than one sort of heartache, and out of all his troubles the thing that was causing him the most pain wasn’t Jackie. It was what was happening with his parents. Their relationship was like some vast giant asleep under the land. What he had thought of as hills and valleys, slopes and plains turned out to be the muscle and bones of the sleeping giant. Now it was stirring and all the little buildings and roads he’d built over the years were crumbling like ash. He’d had no idea how much he relied on them. Like his skeleton, he’d taken them for granted.
Despite what his mum had said about trust, it was obvious that neither of them believed his story about being set up. He gave it up after a few days and started to pretend that he had done it. It was so much easier. Anyway, if it was a choice between being a shoplifter or a mug, he’d rather be a shoplifter. He had hoped that after his arrest, his parents would postpone or even call off his dad moving out, but he came home from school just a few days later to find his mum poring over the local paper for flats. She even had the gall to ask Dino to help her. He stormed out of the room in a rage. After that, he was barely able to even stay in the same room as either of them. He was enraged with his mum for pulling his world to pieces, with his dad for letting her and with himself for being affected by it.
Things couldn’t go on as they were. Dino was going out of the room almost as soon as they came into it. His mum tried to have a word with him, but he just sat there in stony silence. Eventually she lost her temper with him spectacularly, screaming and throwing mugs at the wall and pounding the table with her fists. Dino was amazed – he’d had virtually no insights into his mother’s state of mind apart from that sordid glimpse through the window all those weeks ago. Afterwards, she was desperate with apologies – she had no idea she had that in her herself, let alone that she could show it to Dino. He coolly listened to her apology and left her to it. The incident convinced him that she was rotten to the core.
The following Wednesday afternoon, when Dino had a couple of free periods at the end of the day, he came back to find his dad had come home early. He made his son a cup of tea and a sandwich, put them on the table in front of him and said, ‘Let’s talk.’
His dad used to make him sandwiches quite often a few years before, when his mum was re-training. He loaded the ham in and covered it with mustard, mayo and lettuce – Dino had forgotten how much he liked them.
‘Yum,’ he said.
‘If I’d made more sandwiches and done less work, maybe it wouldn’t be me who’s moving out,’ said his dad. He smiled wryly and folded his arms on the table.
‘So what are we talking about?’ asked Dino through a full mouth.
‘Things. Me and you. Me and your mum. You and your mum. All that.’
‘She’s put you up to this,’ accused Dino.
‘We still decide things together. I took the afternoon off.’
Even though this was exactly what he wanted, Dino was embarrassed. ‘Is it going to take long, I’ve got homework?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Go on then.’ Dino busied himself with his sandwich.
‘OK. Well, for starts, I don’t want us to split up, as you know …’
‘Then why are you going along with it?’ demanded Dino, quick as a spike.
‘Listen …’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘Listen! She’s stopped loving me …’
‘Do you love her?’
‘You’re not listening.’
‘But do you love her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s not fair, is it?’
‘Dino, will you listen?’
Dino took a breath and picked up his sandwich. ‘All right, then.’
‘Right. Where was I? The marriage is over, it’s as simple as that. She doesn’t love me, I can’t make her love me. She has the right to put an end to it. But I do think, I do think …’ He raised his voice over Dino who was about to interrupt. ‘… I do think it’s the wrong time – wrong for all of us …’
‘But me in particular.’
‘You included,’ said Mike carefully. ‘I think she should wait, give it another chance. But, she …’ He was about to say, won’t wait, but that was too easy. ‘… she, she feels she can’t do it. The thing is, Dino, when I said that stuff about making sandwiches, it was a sort of joke, but not entirely. Your mum has done most of the childcare, the mothering. I did my bit, loads of it, actually. But she’s been Mum, and she still is Mum and if things fall to bits, Mum stays and Dad goes. If I’d done the childcare it would be the other way round, but I didn’t …’
‘I’ll bet,’ sneered Dino.
‘It’s the kids come first. She’s been the main carer.’ He shrugged.
‘So you get the shitty end of the stick.’
‘I get the shitty end of the stick,’ agreed his dad. ‘She gets the house and kids and a great lump of my income, and I move away into some little flat, yes.’
‘It’s not fair. It’s … pathetic. It’s weak, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe. Or maybe it’s being strong. It’s certainly unfair, but I do know that kids come first.’ His dad shrugged and smiled sourly. ‘I don’t say I like it. I don’t say I agree with the way your mum’s doing it. But since she is, this is what I’m stuck with.’
Dino couldn’t believe it. ‘But that’s just crap! She has no right.’
Mike shrugged. ‘You’ll have to ask her about that.’
Dino waited. His dad sighed.
‘She thinks it’ll be better all round to get it out of the way and sorted, since this is what’s going to happen anyway,’ he said.
‘So you’re just going along with it.’
‘There’s not much choice.’
‘You could refuse to go.’
‘Dino, this has been going on a long time now. Years.’ Mike paused again, not sure what to say. Secretly, he didn’t just think his wife was wrong; he thought she was being a cow. She could have waited one more year. Mat was only nine, he had years to go at home, but he was a robust kid and Mike thought he’d be OK. But he knew his oldest boy; Dino was a lot more vulnerable than he realised. Kath said she’d been dying for years in this marriage, but another one wouldn’t do that much damage.
‘Men!’ she’d exclaimed. ‘You always want more!’
‘We’ll have to see what happens,’ he told Dino. ‘Maybe when she’s on her own in here with you guys she’ll realise it’s not what she wants, I don’t know. But the way things are at the moment, someone has to go and it ain’t going to be her.’ Mike glanced at his son. ‘You can come with me if you like.’
‘Can I?’
‘You’re seventeen. You can make up your own mind. I’d love to have you. I don’t know if it’s the best thing for you, though.’
‘Why not?’
‘Staying here would mean the least change. It’s your choice. I’d like you to come – I’d feel better. But for your own sake I’d stay here if I were you.’
Dino swore he’d think about it, but he knew the answer already. This was a nice big house, it was comfy. He wasn’t going anywhere.
At the end of it, Dino still wasn’t sure whether his dad was being strong, weak or merely simple, but at least he seemed to know what he was doing. Like his dad, he’d have to put up with it, but he didn’t have to like it. He was going to stay, but he’d do his best to make his mum’s life a misery for forcing this on him in the meantime. He felt clearer about things, anyway.
About a week later, something else happened that cheered him up. There she was smiling her head off at the bottom of the stairs as he came down in the morning. She waved a letter at him.
‘Come in and read this,’ she said excitedly.
It seemed they’d been on to Miss Selfridge. His mum had gone down there armed with school reports and an account of what had happened at home in the months leading up to his arrest. The manager had been sympathetic, but cool. It was out of his hands, he
’d said – leniency was up to the police. Kath ploughed on. What was the point of prosecuting her son for a stupid prank, which he maybe didn’t even commit, when there were so many other people who almost made a living shoplifting? Didn’t the circumstances seem rather odd to him – just walking out like that? She could promise him it would never happen again, Dino had had the scare of his life, he was a changed boy.
The manager had listened politely and distantly, and said he’d think about it. She’d held out no hope – but here it was. He was prepared to drop charges, so long as Dino would do some charity work. It was a deal.
Dino leaped out of his chair and threw his arms around his mother. Sorted! It was going to be all right. No court, no prosecution, no having to watch those awful knickers brought out in public and waved before the courthouse. Bliss!
‘I thought they had a policy of prosecution,’ he said breathlessly when he’d calmed down.
‘They do. But you see, you’re a good boy, it does pay off. One slip like that – he must have seen the sense in what I said.’
That was one ordeal less, at least. On his way to school, Dino felt good for the first time in weeks. Life was picking up. No court case, the talk with his dad that night. He was feeling a bit more like himself.
32
beauty and the beast
The place to tell her was definitely at school. It was cowardly, but common sense. Ben was confident that she could eat him for breakfast any time, any place, but the opportunity to cram him down her gullet surrounded by one and a half thousand kids would be severely curtailed.
It wasn’t going to be easy. Goodbyes hurt, and Ben was a soft heart. All he needed was ten minutes on his own with her – surely that would be long enough to get the word ‘no’ out of his mouth? For months now they had managed – she had managed – to get them on their own for at least that most days in the week, but Ali had such an instinct for getting things on her own terms, it was like a form of telepathy. Somehow, on this particular Monday morning, she was permanently busy.
‘Sorry, Ben. I have a crisis in Year Eight.’
‘When, then?’
‘Don’t be greedy. I don’t know. Not now.’
Monday swept by. Next day, Tuesday, he had a date at her place in the evening. Ben quailed: it’d be like asking a hyena for a bone in its own den. He had to get her in school.
Tuesday morning he never saw her. Tuesday afternoon came and went. It was getting scarier and scarier. Words like hyena, dragon, hydra, beast, monster kept coming up into his mind as the evening drew near. It was unfair, he knew that. She had loads of nice qualities. There’d been months of loveliness, but now it was over. He made one last-ditch attempt to see her – a suggested meeting in a deserted classroom after school, something she always jumped at. It would be dangerous – after school, no one about; and, of course, her plans would be different from his. But it was better than doing it in her flat.
He collared her in between maths and a free lesson. Somehow he wasn’t surprised when, with an unfailing instinct she managed to be busy then too.
‘Crisis in Year Nine.’
‘You’re working up, it was Year Eight yesterday.’
‘I have a parent to see. See you at my place. Here’s the key, I may be a bit late.’
She thrust a key into his hand and rushed off. Ben stared at the little piece of metal in his palm.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’ The word seemed to have emptied itself of all meaning.
After school, he went for a walk in the pastures near her place to try and clear his head. Was it better to be there before her, or after her? Should he cut and run and tell her later by telephone? Leave a letter? Tempting! But impossible. It was just too cowardly. So what was wrong with cowardice? He who fights and runs away …
‘No,’ said Ben, and tried to imagine the word conjuring elementals, demons and dragons out of the fields, from behind the houses, like the hero in a computer game. The no-dragon against the yes-beast. Maybe it would even work.
‘Give me strength,’ muttered Ben to himself as a tessellated, green and red-winged serpent loosened its coils over the housing. The dragon benevolently spread its great wings. Ben set off for the flat.
She was already in.
‘Where have you been?’ she demanded as she opened the door to the sound of his key rattling in the lock.
‘… went for a walk …’
‘Christ. What a day! I thought you might have had the kettle on or something. Kids with their teeth falling out. Kids suddenly going to see their families in Pakistan for three months halfway through rehearsals. Great! Kids torturing one another with sparklers. I hate kids!’
Ben stared at her sadly.
‘Go on then, put the kettle on, I need a cup of tea. Do you want a drink? There’s beer in the fridge. Christ! What an awful day. I hope you’re all right, the last thing I need is more bloody trouble.’ She eyed him sideways and went to fling herself on the sofa like a huge, carnivorous beetle. Ben staggered into the kitchen to make tea.
‘Placatory offerings,’ he muttered to himself. Tea seemed hardly enough. Fresh meat would be better. Or a virgin. Give her something to gnaw on while he ran for it.
‘What about you, how are you, you seem a bit off colour this week?’ she taunted him from her lair on the sofa.
‘OK,’ lied Ben, and winced at how quickly he was being carried away from his purpose.
The kettle boiled. He dropped tea bags into mugs.
‘No,’ he whimpered. ‘I have a choice. No.’
From next door came a terrible strangulated, groaning roar. It seemed to express agony, rage and lust all at the same time. He’d never heard anything like it. There was something chitinous about it, as if a giant insect had suddenly discovered its mouth had air, and was giving voice to the accumulated desires and appetites of its kind for the past three hundred million years. With a cry he dropped the tea bags and ran next door. Alison was stretching out her legs.
‘What?’ she said, looking surprised at his terror-struck face peering out at her.
‘That noise …’
‘What noise?’
‘That … noise. Didn’t you hear it?’
‘It was just me stretching.’ She leered at him. ‘You’re jumpy today.’
Ben stared in amazement at her and went back into the kitchen. What was going on? Jumpy? What had jumpy to do with such terrifying, primal agony? As he picked up the mugs, he noticed how the tea was shaking in the cups as if a dinosaur was approaching. The dinosaur was his own heart. He put the mugs down and walked three times round the room. Then he picked them up again and walked into the den. He put the mugs down. Put his hands in his pockets and said,
‘Listen …’
‘Go and get me a piece of cake, will you?’
‘A piece of cake?’
‘Yes, there’s some almond slices in the tin. God! I feel like I’ve spent the day in hell. The day in hell. The day in hell,’ she repeated, watching dispassionately as he struggled to speak over her and failed. Ben went back to the kitchen. He was feeling weaker by the second. He took out two almond slices, one for her and one for him, and took them back to the prostrate monster next door.
‘Mmm. Hungry. God. Sit down, you’re making me nervous.’
Ben was standing above her looking down at her, munching on his almond slice. With his mouth full he couldn’t speak, what choice did he have? Eating: another mistake. He sat down and waited while he finished his piece of cake.
‘Don’t gobble your food.’ She burst out laughing – it was a permanent joke to her to treat him like a little kid. Ben swallowed and stood up.
‘Listen. I’ve been thinking about, you know, you and me, and …’
She began speaking a second after he did and just carried on. ‘Christ, what a day, those kids need a tamer, not a teacher, what am I doing here, I should have gone professional, a dog deserves better than this, I feel AWFUL!’
She had to almost bellow the last w
ord because Ben was not giving up this time, he just carried on speaking, his voice rising to compete with hers.
‘I want to stop. This. Us. I don’t think we should see each other ANY MORE.’
She carried on as if she hadn’t heard, made no reference to the fact that he had spoken at all. ‘Nice cake, I like almond slices. Boy, what I’m going to do to you when I’ve fed, this is just for starters, the main course is gonna come all over …’
He waited until she stopped. Had her eyes twisted like little stones in her head as he spoke? Had she gone deaf? Was she ignoring him? She drew a breath, and in the uninterrupted silence, Ben spoke again.
‘I said, I don’t want to see you any more.’
There was a terrible pause. No mistake this time. She sat there and stared at him, looking shocked and scared. Ben took a step back.
‘You what?’ she asked.
‘I said …’
‘I heard you!’ she breathed. She took a long breath and began, fairly quietly at first. ‘You choose now to tell me, now, now to tell me, now, after the day I’ve had? You fucking want to tell me about it now? Is that it?’ Suddenly, she flung the remaining piece of cake on her plate at his head. It was soft, but Ben headed for the door anyway. There was no doubt; he’d done it at last.
‘Don’t run out on me, don’t run out on me, Ben!’ she begged, but he was off. She rose to her feet, scattering the plate and its crumbs around her feet, and ran after him. She grabbed his clothes as he fumbled with the door and he slapped her hand away with all his strength.
‘Ow! Don’t hit me …’
He was scared she was going to hurt him. He wrenched himself away and burst out of the flat and onto the landing. He just had time to see the shocked face of an old woman struggling outside her door with four bulging plastic bags full of shopping. The bags fell over. Leeks and a carton of milk spilled out onto the floor. Ben leaped into space over the stairs and bounded down them three at a time. On the landing above him, Alison screamed.