Black Rabbit Summer

  I put some music on – Nevermind, Nirvana.

  I showered again.

  Deodorized.

  Picked out some clothes – combat shorts, baggy T-shirt, trainers, no socks.

  Got dressed to more music – Elephant, The White Stripes.

  Studied myself in the mirror. Changed my shirt, changed it back again… changed my shorts, changed them back again…

  And then I just hung around some more – lying on the bed, trying not to get too sweaty… trying not to ask myself why I was making so much effort, why I cared what I looked like, why I was feeling so tingly and weird…

  Why anything?

  Why not?

  Be careful…

  Shut up.

  At five to nine, I went downstairs and popped my head round the living-room door to say goodbye to Mum. She was sitting on the settee, watching TV.

  ‘I’m going now,’ I told her.

  ‘OK,’ she smiled. ‘Have you got a jacket, in case it rains?’

  I showed her the rucksack in my hand, taking care not to knock it against anything. I could feel the weight of the bottle of wine inside.

  Mum nodded. ‘Got your phone?’

  ‘All charged up.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Well, have a good time then.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She smiled. ‘And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

  She always says that whenever I go out – don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. I’ve never understood what it means.

  Raymond was waiting for me at the bottom of his garden when I arrived. Black Rabbit was in his hutch, and Raymond was just standing there, gazing out over the garden. He was wearing cheap denim jeans and a zip-up black hoody.

  ‘Aren’t you too hot in that?’ I said to him.

  He looked at me. ‘It’s going to rain later on.’

  I held up the rucksack in my hand. ‘Can I leave this in your shed?’

  He nodded.

  I went over to the shed, took out the bottle of wine, wrapped it in a carrier bag, and threw the rucksack inside.

  Raymond patted his pocket and smiled at me. ‘I’ve got some too.’

  ‘What?’

  He glanced furtively at his house, then turned his back on it and leaned towards me. ‘Rum,’ he whispered.

  ‘Rum?’

  He grinned. ‘One of those little bottles, you know… pocket-size. Mum drinks it with milk.’

  I stared at him. ‘Rum and milk?’

  He nodded. ‘She likes it with a box of chocolates.’

  It sounded pretty weird to me, but then Raymond’s mum had always been pretty weird. Once, when Raymond had opened his packed lunch at school, the entire Tupperware box was filled with sultanas. Nothing else, just a box full of sultanas.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Raymond. ‘Let’s go.’

  We left by the alleyway and headed up the street.

  It was really nice being out and about – the sun was still burning down, music was drifting out from open windows… there was a real kind of Saturday-night feel to the air. Things were happening. People were going out, or getting ready to go out. The night was coming alive.

  ‘All right?’ I asked Raymond.

  He smiled at me. ‘Yeah.’

  At the top of our street there’s a gated lane that leads down to the river, and as we approached it, a scruffy-looking guy with dirty blond dreadlocks came up the lane and climbed over the gate into the street. He was tall, in his twenties. He had pierced eyebrows, a ring in his lip, and he was wearing a worn-out white boiler suit with the trouser legs rolled up. I’d never seen him before, but as we turned left towards St Leonard’s Road, and the dreadlocked guy went past us, heading down Hythe Street, he nodded his head at Raymond. Raymond smiled and nodded back at him.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I asked Raymond when the guy was out of earshot.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen him down by the river a couple of times. He’s got a caravan down there.’

  ‘A caravan?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘A few weeks.’

  ‘What is he – a traveller or something?’

  Raymond shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  We crossed St Leonard’s Road and headed straight on along the little pathway that runs between the old factory car park and a row of car repair places. At least, they used to be car repair places. They’re all closed down now – either boarded up or just abandoned. Beyond them, over to our right, I could see the tops of the old factory buildings looming up darkly against the bright evening sky.

  The factory’s been empty and derelict for as long as I can remember. It’s a huge place, a sprawling expanse of dull grey buildings, workshops, offices, tanks and vats, chimneys and towers. It’s even got its own little reservoir – a small concrete lake surrounded by big black pipes and filled to the brim with stagnant green water. God knows what it was used for. I think the factory used to make engines for trains or aeroplanes or something… but I could be wrong.

  Anyway, as we headed along the pathway towards Back Lane, I realized that we were both gazing around at the old factory with the same distant look on our faces.

  ‘You know it’s been sold, don’t you?’ I said to Raymond.

  ‘Yeah… they’re knocking it down to build houses. It’s all fenced off everywhere now.’

  I nodded. I could see the brand-new high metal fencing they’d put in to replace the crappy old wire-mesh stuff that used to be there. The wire-mesh fencing had been easy to get through. Even if you didn’t know where all the gaps were – which we did – all you had to do was find a loose bit, lift it up, and crawl underneath. We used to spend hours messing around in the old factory.

  ‘Do you remember that time your dad caught you in there with Nic?’ Raymond said.

  ‘He didn’t catch us in there,’ I corrected him. ‘We were just coming out.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Raymond grinned, ‘but your dad still went mad, didn’t he?’

  He’d actually gone madder than mad, he’d gone totally ballistic. I’d never seen him so angry. Me and Nic were only about thirteen at the time, and the first thing Dad had yelled at me was – ‘WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU TWO DOING IN THERE?’ Which was kind of embarrassing. And even when I’d finally convinced him that we hadn’t been doing anything illegal, he still didn’t let up. He just went on and on for hours about how dangerous it was, how stupid, how thoughtless, how irresponsible…

  I found out later that a twelve-year-old boy had been found dead in an abandoned warehouse a few days before. The poor kid had just wandered into the warehouse on his own and fallen through some loose floorboards or something. When his parents reported him missing, Dad had been part of the investigation team, and when the kid’s body was eventually found, it was Dad who’d had to inform the parents.

  ‘You all right?’ Raymond asked me.

  ‘Yeah, I was just thinking…’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Nothing… it doesn’t matter.’

  We’d reached the end of the pathway now, and ahead of us lay the narrow dirt track that we called Back Lane. It isn’t really called Back Lane – I don’t think it’s called anything officially. It’s just a dirt track – the kind of nameless path that doesn’t appear on maps – and most people don’t even know it’s there. The local kids all know about it because it’s a short cut up to the recreation ground, but the only adults you’ll ever see in Back Lane are dog-walkers and dossers and the occasional weirdo or two.

  The air suddenly cooled as we entered the lane, the bright sun blocked out by the steep wooded bank that rose up on our right towards the factory fence. The ground beneath the hillside trees was covered with a dense thicket of brambles and weeds.

  ‘I hope the den’s still there,’ I said.

  Raymond looked at me. ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

  ‘I don’t know… someone might have trashed it or something.’

  ‘It’ll be ther
e.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Raymond shrugged. ‘I don’t… I’m just saying, that’s all. I’m just saying it’ll probably be there.’

  I looked at him. His face seemed pale.

  ‘Are you still OK with this?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah… I think so.’

  ‘It’s not too late to change your mind, you know.’

  He didn’t say anything for a while, we just carried on walking in silence. And that was fine with me. I hadn’t been in Back Lane for a long time, and I was happy enough just looking around, remembering how everything was. It was strange how it all seemed so familiar. The lane itself, still rutted with bike tracks. The bank on our right, dark with trees. And on our left, another steep bank, this one leading down to a wasteground area of concrete and weeds that stretched away across to the docks. At the far end of the wasteground, the huge rusted cylinders of two derelict gas towers glinted dully in the sun.

  ‘The star’s going out tonight,’ Raymond said quietly.

  I stared at him. ‘What?’

  He looked at me, his eyes pale and glassy. ‘Black Rabbit,’ he whispered. ‘That’s what he said this afternoon – the star’s going out tonight.’

  ‘The stars are going out tonight? What stars?’

  ‘No,’ Raymond said. ‘The star is going out… not stars. The star.’

  ‘What star?’

  Raymond blinked, and all at once his eyes seemed to clear. He seemed lost for a moment or two, but then he blinked again, looked at me, and his face broke into a grin.

  ‘What?’ he asked me. ‘What are you looking at?’

  I frowned. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah… why?’

  ‘Nothing… I was just checking… Raymond?’

  As I was speaking to him, his eyes had changed again, only this time they weren’t pale or glassy, they were just staring straight ahead, glazed with fear.

  ‘Raymond?’ I said again.

  ‘You said he wouldn’t be here…’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You said…’

  For a moment I thought he was talking about Black Rabbit again, but when I turned my head and followed his gaze, I suddenly realized what he meant. About twenty metres ahead of us, four or five kids were hanging around by the junction of a little pathway that branches off Back Lane and heads down to the wasteground. At first, I only recognized one of them – Pauly Gilpin. But when I shielded my eyes against the sun and took another look, I realized that the kid standing beside Pauly was Wes Campbell.

  ‘It’s all right, Raymond,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘You said he wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Yeah, I know… but he’s not going to do anything.’ I smiled at Raymond, trying to reassure him. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘just keep walking. It’ll be all right.’

  It wasn’t a particularly confident smile, and I’m pretty sure that Raymond wasn’t fooled by it, but we both kept walking anyway. Neither of us wanted to, but the only other option was to turn round and start running away, and somehow that felt even scarier than not running away.

  ‘They’ve seen us,’ Raymond said.

  ‘I know.’

  I could see now that there were five of them: Pauly, Campbell, and three hard-looking kids from the Greenwell Estate. Pauly was his usual hyperactive self – jigging around, waving his arms, grinning like a madman – but I could tell by the nervous look on his face that he wasn’t quite sure of the situation. It was as if he wasn’t quite sure who he was supposed to be looking at. Me and Raymond? Or Campbell and the others? His eyes were flicking around like pinballs. Campbell and the other three didn’t have any doubts, though. They were all just standing there, hard as hell, their eyes fixed coldly on Raymond and me.

  My heart was beating hard as we approached them, and I wondered if I looked as scared as I felt. Or worse – if I felt as scared as Raymond looked. He looked terrible – his face drained of colour, his eyes unblinking, his skin all tense and twitchy. Nothing’s changed, I thought to myself. He’s still that petrified little kid who pissed himself on his bike…

  We were almost at the junction now. The three Greenwell kids were just slouching around in the background, all of them dressed in their TK Maxx gangsta gear – skanky white track pants, XXL basketball shirts, chains, rings, bright white Nikes. Campbell was standing beside Pauly, and he looked just as intimidating as ever. The angular face, chiselled and lean. The dark narrow eyes, the slightly crooked mouth, the high forehead topped with razor-cut black hair. He hadn’t changed one bit. In his short-sleeved Rockport shirt and his spotless white jeans, he looked like a psychopathic catalogue model.

  As we slowed to a halt in front of them all, I kept my eyes on Pauly. He had a scrunched-up carrier bag in his hand, shaped like a bottle, so I guessed he was on his way to the den. But what was he doing here with Campbell?

  ‘All right?’ he said chirpily, grinning from me to Raymond. ‘How’s it going?’

  I nodded at him and spoke calmly. ‘Hi, Pauly.’

  He smiled at Raymond. ‘Y’all right, Rabbit?’

  Raymond stiffened slightly at the name, but he didn’t say anything. He’d got used to the names a long time ago – Rabbit, Bunny Boy, Mental Ray – but he’d never forgiven Pauly for starting it all. And neither had I. Raymond had always been known as a slightly weird kid, but a few years ago, when he’d confided in Pauly about Black Rabbit, and Pauly had gone round telling everyone else… well, from that moment on, Raymond had never been known as anything but weird.

  ‘Yeah, good one, Pauly,’ I muttered.

  He grinned hesitantly at me. ‘Say what?’

  ‘Have you seen Eric and Nic yet?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m just on my way,’ he said, his eyes flicking furtively at Campbell.

  ‘Where you going?’ Campbell said to him.

  Pauly grinned at him. ‘What?’

  Campbell just stared at him for a moment, then he looked over at me. ‘Where you going, Boland?’ he said.

  I shook my head. ‘Nowhere, really…’

  ‘Nowhere?’

  ‘The fair.’

  Campbell said nothing, just carried on staring at me. He had the kind of eyes that drill right through you and make you go cold inside. I watched, guiltily relieved, as he turned his attention to Raymond.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said to him. ‘What are you looking at?’

  Raymond just stood there, unable to speak.

  Campbell stared at him. ‘What’s the matter with you? You got something wrong with your head or something?’

  Pauly sniggered.

  Campbell turned his stare on him. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Pauly said, grinning nervously. ‘I was just –’

  ‘The fucker’s sick, Gilpin. It’s not funny.’

  Pauly hesitated for a moment, his eyes flicking around, trying to work out if Campbell was joking or not. When he realized that no one else was smiling, he looked back at Campbell and grinned again. ‘What?’ he said innocently, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I didn’t mean anything. I was just, you know… I mean, Raymond’s all right. I was only…’

  His voice trailed off as Campbell turned away from him and looked at me. ‘What do you think, Boland?’ he said, tilting his chin at Raymond. ‘You think he’s all right?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ I heard myself say.

  Campbell smiled then, which surprised me. It was a genuine smile, no menace intended, and just for a second I saw a completely different Wes Campbell – harmless, friendly… charismatic even.

  ‘You like him, do you?’ he said to me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bunny Boy there… you like him?’

  I didn’t know what to say. Like him? Did I like him? I mean, what kind of question was that?

  Campbell looked at Pauly. ‘He likes him.’

  Pauly grinned awkwardly. His mouth twitched as he looked for something to say, but nothing came out. He glanced over a
t me, then quickly turned back to Campbell again. Campbell’s smile had disappeared now. He was staring dead-eyed at Pauly.

  ‘Friends,’ he said quietly.

  Pauly frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘You know what a friend is, Gilpin?’

  Pauly didn’t know whether to laugh or not. He glanced anxiously around again, looking for clues as to what he should do, but the Greenwell kids were just as blank-faced as before, and there was no way he was getting any help from Raymond or me. He blinked quickly a couple of times, nervously licked his lips, then turned back to Campbell.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘Is this some kind of joke or something?’

  ‘No joke,’ Campbell said coldly. ‘Just a simple question – do you know what a friend is?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Pauly snorted, pretending to be offended, ‘of course I know what a friend is. Why shouldn’t I?’

  For a moment or two, Campbell just carried on staring at him, then all at once his eyes lost their coldness, his face broke into that smile again, and he stepped up and gave Pauly a friendly pat on the arm.

  ‘See?’ he said casually. ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’

  Pauly grinned, not quite so nervous now, but still a little unsure.

  Campbell gave him another reassuring pat on the arm. ‘We’ll see you later then, OK?’

  ‘Yeah… where’re you going to be?’

  But Campbell didn’t answer him. He’d already turned round and was heading off down the pathway towards the wasteground, the three Greenwell kids following along behind him. He wasn’t smiling any more. His friendly face had shut down as soon as he’d turned away from Pauly. I’d seen it disappear – click – like a light going off. And now, as I watched him go, it was hard to believe he’d ever smiled in his life.

  I turned to Raymond.

  He was watching Campbell too.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.

  He nodded.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah…’ He looked at me, his brow furrowed. ‘He’s weirder than me, isn’t he?’

  ‘Who – Campbell?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I laughed. ‘Yeah, I think he probably is.’

  ∗

  The den in Back Lane is hidden away at the top of the bank, about three-quarters of the way along the lane. You can’t see it from ground level, and unless you know exactly how to get there, it’s almost impossible to find. And even when you do know how to get there, it’s still pretty tricky.