The house is quiet at last. I hear the audio book come to an end and the air falls silent. My alarm clock reads twenty past eight, and the golden dusk of the Indian summer is fading rapidly. Night is falling, the streetlamps coming on one after the other, casting a funereal light on the exercise book in front of me. I finish off a comprehension exercise and find myself staring at my own reflection in the darkened window. On an impulse I stand up and walk out onto the landing.
My knock is tentative. Had it been me, I’d have probably stalked out of the house, but Lochan isn’t like that. He’s far too mature, far too sensible. Never once in all the nights since Dad left has he stormed out – not even when Tiffin plastered his hair down with treacle then refused to have a bath, or when Willa sobbed for hours on end because someone had given her doll a Mohican.
However, things have been going rapidly downhill lately. Even before his adolescent metamorphosis, Kit was prone to throwing a tantrum whenever Mum went out for the evening – the school counsellor claimed that he blamed himself for Dad leaving, that he still harboured the hope that he might return and therefore felt deeply threatened by anyone trying to take his father’s place. Personally I always suspected it was something far simpler: Kit doesn’t like the little ones getting all the attention for being small and cute and Lochan and I telling everyone what to do, while he’s stuck in noman’s-land, the archetypal middle child with no partner in crime. Now that Kit has gained the necessary respect at school by joining a gang who sneak out of the gates to smoke weed in the local park at lunch time, he bitterly resents the fact that at home he is still considered just one of the children. When Mum’s out, which is increasingly often, Lochan is the one in charge, the way it’s always been; Lochan, the one she dumps on whenever she has to work overtime or fancies a night out with Dave or the girls.
There is no answer to my knock, but when I wander downstairs I find Lochan asleep on the couch in the front room. A thick textbook rests against his chest, its pages splayed, and sheets of scrawled, spidery calculations litter the carpet. Uncurling his fingers from the book, I gather his things into a pile on the coffee table, pull the blanket off the back of the couch, and lay it over him. Then I sit in the armchair and draw up my legs, resting my chin on my knees, watching him sleep beneath the soft orange glow of the streetlamps falling through the curtainless window.
Before there was anything, there was Lochan. When I look back on my life, all sixteen and a half years of it, Lochan was always there. Walking to school by my side, propelling me in a shopping trolley across an empty car park at breakneck speed, coming to my rescue in the playground after I’d caused a class uprising by calling Little Miss Popular ‘stupid’. I still remember him standing there, fists clenched, an unusually fierce look on his face, challenging all the boys to a fight despite being vastly outnumbered. And I suddenly realized that, so long as I had Lochan, nothing and no one could ever harm me. But I was eight then. I’ve grown up since those days. Now I know that Lochan won’t always be here, won’t be able to protect me for ever. Although he’s applying to study at University College, London, and says he will continue to live at home, he could still change his mind and see that this is his chance to escape. Never before have I imagined my life without him – like this house, he is my only point of reference in this difficult existence, this unstable and frightening world. The thought of him leaving home fills me with a terror so strong it takes my breath away. I feel like one of those seagulls covered with oil from a spill, drowning in a black tar of fear.
Asleep, Lochan looks like a boy again – ink-stained fingers, creased grey T-shirt, scuffed jeans and bare feet. People say there is a strong family resemblance – I don’t see it. For a start he is the only one of us with bright green eyes, as clear as cut glass. His shaggy hair is tar-black, covering the nape of his neck and reaching his eyes. His arms are still tanned from summer, and even in the half-light I can make out the faint outline of his biceps. He is beginning to develop an athletic look. He hit puberty late, and for a while even I was taller than he was, something I teased him about mercilessly, calling him ‘my little brother’, back when I thought that kind of thing funny. He took it all on the chin of course, the way he does everything.
But recently things have begun to change. Despite the fact that he is painfully shy, most of the girls in my year fancy him – filling me with a conflicting mixture of annoyance and pride. Yet he is still unable to talk to his peers, rarely smiles outside these walls, and always, always wears the same distant, haunted look, a hint of sadness in his eyes. At home, however, when the little ones aren’t being too difficult or when we are joking together and he feels relaxed, he sometimes displays an entirely different side: a love of mischief, a dimple-cheeked grin, a self-deprecating sense of humour. But even during these brief moments, I feel he is hiding a darker, unhappier part of himself – the part that struggles to cope at school, in the outside world; a world where for some reason he has never felt at peace.
A car backfires across the street, jolting me out of my thoughts. Lochan lets out a small cry and struggles up, disorientated.
‘You fell asleep,’ I inform him with a smile. ‘I think we could market trigonometry as a new treatment for insomnia.’
‘Shit. What time is it?’ He appears panicked for a moment, pushing back the blanket and swinging his feet to the floor, running his fingers through his hair.
‘Just gone nine.’
‘What about—’
‘Tiffin and Willa are fast asleep and Kit’s busy being an angry teenager in his room.’
‘Oh.’ He relaxes slightly, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands and blinking sleepily down at the floor.
‘You look whacked. Perhaps you should forget homework for tonight and go to bed.’
‘No, I’m OK.’ He gestures towards the pile of books on the coffee table. ‘Anyway, gotta finish revising that lot before the test tomorrow.’ He reaches out to switch on the lamp, casting a small circle of light on the floor.
‘You should have told me you had a test. I’d have done dinner!’
‘Well, you did everything else.’ There is an awkward pause. ‘Thanks for – for sorting them out.’
‘No problem.’ I yawn, shifting sideways in the armchair to hang my legs over the armrest, and comb the hair away from my face. ‘Perhaps from now on we should just leave Kit’s meal on a tray at the bottom of the ladder. We can call it room service. Then we might all get a bit of peace.’
The hint of a smile touches his lips, but then he turns away to stare out of the blank window and silence descends.
I take a sharp breath. ‘He was being a little shit tonight, Loch. That stuff about school . . .’
He seems to freeze. I can almost see the muscles tighten beneath his T-shirt as he sits sideways on the couch, an arm slung over the back, one foot on the ground, the other tucked beneath him. ‘I’d better finish this . . .’
I recognize my cue. I want to say something to him, something along the lines of: It’s all an act. Everyone else is pretending anyway. Kit may have surrounded himself with a group of kids who spit in the face of authority, but they’re just as scared as everyone else. They make fun of others and pick on loners just so they can belong. And I’m not much better. I might appear confident and chatty, but I spend most of my time laughing at jokes I don’t find funny, saying things I don’t really mean – because at the end of the day that’s what we’re all trying to do: fit in, one way or another, desperately trying to pretend we’re all the same.
‘Goodnight then. Don’t work too late.’
‘Night, Maya.’ He smiles suddenly, dimples forming at the corners of his mouth. But when I pause in the doorway, looking back at him, he is flicking through a textbook, his teeth chafing at the permanent, painfully red sore beneath his bottom lip.
You think no one else understands, I want to tell him, but you’re wrong. I do. You’re not alone.
CHAPTER THREE
Lochan
>
Our mother looks raddled in the harsh grey morning light. She nurses a mug of coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Her bleached hair is a tangled mess, and smudged eyeliner has leaked into black halfmoons beneath her bloodshot eyes. Her pink silk robe is knotted over a skimpy nightdress – her dishevelled appearance a clear sign that Dave did not stay over last night. In fact I don’t even remember hearing them come in. On the rare occasions they come back to this house, there is the bang of the front door, muffled laughter, keys being dropped on the doorstep, loud shushes and more thuds, followed by cackling laughter as he attempts to give her a piggyback up the stairs. The others have learned to sleep through it, but I have always been a light sleeper and their slurred voices force me to acknowledge consciousness, even as I press my eyelids closed and try to ignore the grunts and squeals and the rhythmic squeak of bedsprings from the main bedroom.
Tuesday is Mum’s day off, which means that for once she gets to sort out breakfast and take the little ones to school. But it’s already quarter to eight, Kit has yet to appear, Tiffin is eating breakfast in his underwear and Willa has no clean socks and is bemoaning the fact to anyone who will listen. I fetch Tiffin’s uniform and force him to get dressed at the table since Mum seems unable to do much more than sip coffee and chain-smoke at the window. Maya goes off in search of Willa’s socks and I hear her pound on Kit’s door and yell something about the consequences of getting another late slip. Mum finishes her last cigarette and comes to sit with us at the table, talking about plans for the weekend that I know will never materialize. Both Willa and Tiffin start chatting away at once, delighted by the attention, their breakfast forgotten, and I feel my muscles tense.
‘You’ve gotta be out of the house in five minutes and that breakfast needs to be eaten before then.’
Mum catches me by the wrist as I pass. ‘Lochie-Loch, sit down for a moment. I never get a chance to talk to you. We never sit down like this – as a family.’
With a monumental effort I swallow my frustration. ‘Mum, we’ve got to be at school in fifteen minutes and I have a maths test first thing.’
‘Oh, so serious!’ She pulls me down into the chair beside her and cups my chin in her hand. ‘Look at you, so pale and stressy – always studying. When I was your age I was the most beautiful girl at school – all the guys wanted to go out with me. I used to cut class and spend all day in the park with one of my boyfriends!’ She winks conspiratorially at Tiffin and Willa, who both burst into paroxysms of giggles.
‘Did you kiss your boyfriend on the mouth?’ Tiffin enquires with an evil snicker.
‘Oh yes, and not just on the mouth.’ She winks at me, running her fingers through her tangled hair with a girlish smile.
‘Yuck!’ Willa swings her legs violently under the table, throwing back her head in disgust.
‘Did you lick his tongue,’ Tiffin persists, ‘like they do on TV?’
‘Tiffin!’ I snap. ‘Stop being disgusting and finish your breakfast.’
Tiffin reluctantly picks up his spoon, but his face breaks into a grin as Mum quickly nods her head at him with a mischievous smile.
‘Aargh, that’s gross!’ He starts making gagging noises just as Maya comes in, trying to coax Kit through the doorway.
‘What’s gross?’ she enquires as Kit slinks grumpily into his chair and drops his head to the table with a thud.
‘You don’t want to know,’ I begin quickly, but Tiffin fills her in anyway.
Maya pulls a face. ‘Mum!’
‘Yeah, well, that little story really kick-started my appetite,’ Kit snaps irritably.
‘You’ve got to eat something,’ Maya insists. ‘You’re still growing.’
‘No he’s not, he’s shrinking!’ Tiffin guffaws.
‘Shut up, you little shit.’
‘Loch! Kit called me a little shit!’
‘Sit down, Maya,’ Mum says with a gooey smile. ‘Ah, look at all of you, so smart in your uniforms. And here we are having breakfast all together as a family!’
Maya gives her a tight smile as she butters toast and places it on Kit’s plate. I feel my pulse begin to rise. I can’t leave until they’re all ready or there’s a good chance that Kit will cut school again and Mum will keep Tiffin and Willa at home until mid-morning. And I can’t be late. Not because of the test . . . because I can’t be the last one to walk into the classroom.
‘We’ve got to go,’ I inform Maya, who is still trying to persuade breakfast into Kit as he remains slumped with his head on his arms.
‘Oh, why are my bunnies in such a rush this morning!’ Mum exclaims. ‘Maya, will you get your brother to relax? Look at him . . .’ She rubs my shoulder, her hand like a burn through the fabric of my shirt. ‘So tense.’
‘Loch’s got a test and we really are going to be late if we don’t make a move,’ Maya informs her gently.
Mum still has her other hand clenched tightly round my wrist, preventing me from getting up to grab my usual cup of coffee. ‘You’re not honestly nervous about a stupid test, are you, Loch? Because there are far more important things in life, you know. The last thing you want to do is turn into a nerd like your father, nose always buried in a book, living like a tramp just to get one of those useless PhD thingies. And look where his posh Cambridge education got him – a flipping poet, for chrissakes! He’d have earned more money sweeping the streets!’ She gives a derisive snort.
Raising his head suddenly, Kit asks sneeringly, ‘When’s Lochan ever failed a test? He’s just afraid of coming in late and—’
Maya threatens to stuff the toast down his throat. I disengage myself from Mum’s clasp and rattle through the front room, collecting blazer, wallet, keys, bag. I bump into Maya in the hallway and she tells me to go ahead, she’ll make sure Mum leaves on time with the little ones and Kit gets to school. I squeeze her arm in thanks and then I’m off, running down the empty street.
I reach school with seconds to spare. The huge concrete building rises up before me, spreading its tentacles outwards, sucking in the other ugly, smaller blocks with barren walkways and endless tunnels. I make it to the maths room just before the teacher shuffles in and starts handing out the papers. After my half-mile sprint I can hardly see – red blotches pulsate before my eyes. Mr Morris stops by my desk and my breath catches in my throat.
‘Are you all right, Lochan? You look as if you’ve just run a marathon.’
I nod quickly and take the paper from him without looking up.
The test begins and silence descends. I love tests. I have always loved tests, exams of any kind. As long as they are written. As long as they take up the whole lesson. As long as I don’t have to speak or look up from my paper until the bell goes.
I don’t know when it started – this thing – but it’s growing, muffling me, suffocating me like poison ivy. I grew into it. It grew into me. We blurred at the edges, became an amorphous, seeping, crawling thing. Sometimes I manage to distract myself, trick myself out of dwelling on it, convince myself that I’m OK. At home, for instance, with my family, I can be myself, be normal again. Until last night. Until the inevitable happened; until news finally filtered down the Belmont grapevine that Lochan Whitely was a socially inept weirdo. Even though Kit and I never really got along, the realization that he is ashamed of me takes hold: a horrible, clutching, sinking feeling in my chest. Just thinking about it makes the floor tilt beneath my chair. I feel as if I am on a slippery slope and all I can do is plummet downwards. I know all about being ashamed of a family member – the number of times I’ve wished my mother would act her age in public, if not in private. It’s horrible, being ashamed of someone you care about; it eats away at you. And if you let it get to you, if you give up the fight and surrender, eventually that shame turns to hate.
I don’t want Kit to be ashamed of me. I don’t want him to hate me, even if I feel like I hate him sometimes. But that little messed-up kid full of anger and resentment is still my brother; he’s still family. Family: t
he most important thing of all. My siblings may drive me crazy at times but they are my blood. They’re all I’ve known. My family is me. They are my life. Without them I walk the planet alone.
The rest are all outsiders, strangers. They never metamorphose into friends. And even if they did, even if I found, by some miracle, a way of connecting to someone outside my family – how could they possibly compare to those who speak my language and know who I am without having to be told? Even if I were able to meet their eyes, even if I were able to speak without the words cluttering up my throat, unable to surface, even if their gaze didn’t burn holes in my skin and make me want to run a million miles, how would I ever be able to care about them the way I care about my brothers and sisters?
The bell goes and I am one of the first out of my seat. As I pass the rows and rows of pupils, they all seem to look up at me. I see myself configured in their eyes: the guy who always buries himself at the very back of every class, who never speaks, always sits alone in one of the outdoor stairwells during break, hunched over a book. The guy who doesn’t know how to talk to people, who shakes his head when picked on in class, who is absent whenever there is some kind of presentation to do. Over the years they have learned just to let me be. When I first arrived here, there was plenty of ribbing, plenty of pushing around, but eventually they grew bored. Occasionally a new pupil has tried to strike up a conversation. And I’ve tried, I really have. But when you can only come up with one-word answers, when your voice fails you altogether, what more can you do? What more can they? The girls are the worst, especially these days. They try harder, are more tenacious. Some even ask me why I never speak – as if I can answer that. They flirt, try and get me to smile. They mean well, but what they don’t understand is that their mere presence makes me want to die.