We follow Lochan all the way home. He strides ahead, and something prevents me from trying to catch up with him. Tiffin and Willa don’t seem to mind: they are still full of stories about the new PlayStation they got to try out. I start a spiel on stranger-danger but it emerges that they have already been picked up by Callum’s childminder several times.
As soon as we get in, Tiffin and Willa spot Mum, still half passed out on the couch. With a whoop they run over to her, delighted to find her home for a change, their anecdotes pouring out all over again. Mum uncovers her face, sits up and laughs, hugging them tight. ‘My little bunnies,’ she says. ‘Did you have a good time? I missed you all day, you know.’
I stand in the doorway, the sharp edge of the frame cutting into my shoulder, watching this little scene unfold in silence. Tiffin is showing off his juggling skills with some old tennis balls and Willa is trying to interest Mum in a game of Guess Who? It takes me a moment to realize that Lochan disappeared upstairs the moment we entered the house. I turn away from the front room, utterly spent, and slowly climb the stairs. Music blasting from the attic above reassures me that at least the third child made it home without incident. I go into my room, shed my blazer and tie, kick off my shoes, and flop down on my bed in an exhausted heap.
I must have dozed off, for when I hear Tiffin shout ‘Dinner!’ I sit up in bed with a start to discover a bluish dusk filling the small room. Combing the hair out of my eyes with my fingers, I pad sleepily downstairs.
The atmosphere in the kitchen is jarring. Mum has mutated into a butterfly – all wispy skirts and trailing sleeves and bright, patterned colours. She has showered and washed her hair – having apparently recovered from her earlier bout of flu. The heavy make-up gives her away – clearly she isn’t staying in to watch EastEnders tonight. She has cooked up some kind of baked beans and sausage dish that Kit is prodding around disdainfully with his fork. Tiffin and Willa sit side by side, swinging their legs and trying to kick each other under the table, tell-tale signs of chocolate round their mouths, ignoring the unappetizing mixture laid out before them.
‘This isn’t food.’ Head propped up on his hand, Kit scowls down at his plate, flicking the pieces of sausage around his plate. ‘Can I go out?’
‘Just shut up and eat,’ Lochan snaps uncharacteristically, reaching into the cupboard for glasses. Kit is about to retort, then appears to decide against it and starts prodding at his food again. The tone of Lochan’s voice suggests that this is no time to argue.
‘Well, get started, everyone,’ Mum says with a nervous giggle. ‘I know I’m not the world’s best cook, but I can assure you this tastes a lot better than it looks.’
Kit snorts and mutters something inaudible. Willa lances a single baked bean with the prong of her fork and brings it reluctantly to her mouth, licking it gingerly with the tip of her tongue. With a long-suffering air, Tiffin takes a mouthful of sausage and then pulls a face, his eyes watering, ready to either gag or spit it out. I quickly bring over the water jug and fill the glasses. Finally Lochan sits down. He smells of school and sweat, and his tousled black hair contrasts sharply with his wan face. I notice the clench of his jaw, the stormy look in his eyes, and feel the tension radiate from his body like white heat.
‘Are you going out again tonight, Mum?’ Willa asks, taking delicate bird bites out of a piece of sausage.
‘No, she’s not,’ Lochan says quietly without looking up. Beneath the table, I press my foot against his in warning.
Mum turns to him in surprise. ‘Davey’s picking me up at seven,’ she protests. ‘It’s OK, bunnies. I’ll tuck you in before I go.’
‘Forget about it,’ Tiffin mumbles angrily.
‘Seven o’clock is a very early bedtime,’ Willa comments with a sigh, spearing a second bean.
‘You’re not going out again tonight,’ Lochan mutters at her.
There is a stunned silence. ‘Told you he thinks he rules the place!’ Kit looks up from his plate, delighted at his chance to chip in. ‘Are you gonna let him boss you around like this, Mum?’
I shoot Kit a warning look and shake my head. His face instantly darkens again. ‘What – I’m not even allowed to talk now?’
‘Oh, I won’t be late—’ Mum says with a benign smile.
‘You’re not going out!’ Lochan shouts suddenly, slamming his hand down on the table. The crockery rattles and everyone jumps. I feel a familiar tension headache grip my temples.
Mum claps a hand to her throat and lets out a highpitched exclamation of surprise, a kind of shrill laugh. ‘Oh, listen to the big man of the house, telling his mummy what to do!’
‘See how the other half live,’ Kit mutters.
Lochan throws down his fork, his face puce, the cords standing out in his neck. ‘Two hours ago you were too damn hungover to make it down the street to fetch your own children from school, and you couldn’t even remember you’d asked someone else to pick them up!’
Mum opens her eyes wide. ‘But, darling, aren’t you pleased I’m feeling so much better?’
‘That’s not going to last if you go out for another night on the piss!’ Lochan yells, gripping the edge of the table with both hands, his knuckles white. ‘We nearly had to involve the police today. Nobody had any idea where the kids were. Anything could have happened to them, and you’d have been too out of it to notice!’
‘Lochie!’ Mum’s voice quivers like a little girl’s. ‘I had food poisoning. I couldn’t stop throwing up. I didn’t want to disturb you and Maya at school. What else was I supposed to do?’
‘Food poisoning, my arse!’ Lochan leaps up so violently he sends his chair crashing back against the tiles. ‘When are you going to face reality and accept you’ve got an alcohol problem?’
‘Oh, I’ve got a problem!’ Mum’s eyes flash suddenly, the little-girl act tossed aside. ‘I’m not a conventional mother – so sue me. I’ve had a hard life! I’ve finally met someone great and I want to go out and have some fun! Fun – something you might want to try experiencing, Lochan, instead of living your life with your head in a book like your father. Where are your friends, hey? When do you ever go out – or bring someone home for that matter?’
Kit has rocked back in his chair, watching the scene with relish.
‘Mum, please don’t—’ I reach out for her but she swats me away. I smell fresh alcohol on her breath – in this state she is capable of saying anything, doing anything. Especially as Lochan has mentioned the unmentionable.
Lochan has turned to stone, one hand gripping the sideboard for support. Tiffin has his hands clamped over his ears and Willa is looking from one face to the other, her eyes wide and staring.
‘Come on.’ I get up and pull them after me into the corridor. ‘Go up to your room and entertain yourselves for a while. I’ll bring you some sandwiches in a minute.’
Willa scampers fearfully up the stairs; Tiffin scowls, trailing in her wake. ‘We should of stayed at Callum’s,’ I hear him mutter and his words make my throat ache.
With no choice but to return to the kitchen in an attempt at damage-control, I find Mum still shouting, her eyes narrowed under the weight of her lids. ‘Don’t look at me like that – you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve never had a proper girlfriend, never even managed to make a single friend, for chrissakes! What does being top of the class matter when the school keeps telling me you need to see a psychologist because you’re so shy you can’t even speak to anyone! The only person who’s got a problem is you!’
Lochan hasn’t moved: he’s staring at her with a look of sick horror. His lack of response only serves to spur Mum on as she starts trying to justify her outburst by fuelling her own rage. ‘You take after him in every way – thinking you’re better than everyone else with your long words and your top grades. You have absolutely no respect for your own mother!’ she shrieks, her face mottled with fury. ‘How dare you speak to me like that in front of my children!’
I position myself in f
ront of her and start manoeuvring her out of the kitchen. ‘Just go out with Dave,’ I beg her. ‘Go and meet him early or something. Surprise him! Go, Mum, just go.’
‘You always take his side!’
‘I’m not taking anyone’s side, Mum. I just think you’re getting yourself into a state, which isn’t a very good idea considering you haven’t been feeling very well.’ I manage to get her into the hallway. She grabs her handbag, but not without one last barb thrown over her shoulder. ‘Lochan, you can accuse me of not being a normal mother the day you start acting like a normal teenager!’
I propel her out of the door, and it is an effort not to slam it hard behind her. Instead I lean against it, afraid she might unlock it and come storming back in. I close my eyes for a moment. When I open them again, I notice a figure sitting at the top of the stairs.
‘Tiffin, haven’t you got homework to do?’
‘She said she was gonna tuck us in.’ There’s a tremor in his voice.
‘I know,’ I say quickly, straightening up. ‘And she meant it. But I said I would do it instead because she was running late—’
‘I don’t want you to do it, I want Mum!’ Tiffin shouts, and jumping up, he runs into his room, slamming the door behind him.
Back in the kitchen, Kit has his feet on the table, shaking with silent laughter. ‘God, what a fucked-up family this is!’
‘Just go upstairs. You’re not helping,’ I tell him quietly.
He opens his mouth to protest, then launches himself angrily to his feet, his chair screeching against the tiles. Grabbing Tiffin and Willa’s dinner money from the hall table, he makes for the front door.
‘Where are you going?’ I shout after him.
‘Out to get some fucking food!’
Lochan is pacing the kitchen floor. He seems somehow dismantled, confused. His face is variegated with lines of crimson, giving his skin a curious raw look.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have started it—’ He sounds like he is being shaken. I try to touch his arm but he jumps away from me as if stung. His pain is almost tangible: the hurt, the resentment, the fury, all filling the small room.
‘Lochie, you had every right to lose your temper. What Mum did today was inexcusable. But listen to me . . .’ I position myself in front of him and try to touch him again. ‘Lochie, listen. That stuff she said was just her way of lashing out. You mentioned her drinking and she just can’t deal with the truth. So she tried to find the most hurtful thing she could to throw back at you—’
‘She meant it, she meant every word.’ He tugs at his hair, rubs his cheeks. ‘And she’s right. I’m not – I’m not normal. There’s something wrong with me and—’
‘Lochie, don’t worry about that right now, OK? It’s something you can work on – it’s something that’s going to get better with time!’
Pulling away from me, he continues to pace, as if the continuous movement will stop him falling apart. ‘But she’s like Kit. She’s – she’s—’ He can’t bring himself to say the word. ‘Ashamed,’ he whispers finally.
‘Lochie, stop for a minute. Look at me.’
I grab him by the arms and hold him still. I can feel him trembling beneath my touch.
‘It’s all right. The kids are all right and that’s all that matters. Don’t listen to her. Never, ever listen to her. She’s just a bitter old cow who never grew up. But she’s not ashamed of you. No one’s ashamed of you, Lochie. God, how could anyone be? We all know that without you this family would fall apart.’
He drops his head in defeat. I can feel the clenched muscles in his shoulders beneath my fingers.
‘It is falling apart.’
I give him a small, desperate shake. ‘Lochan, it’s not. Willa and Tiffin are fine. I’m fine! Kit is your standard screwed-up teenager. We’re all together – all those years since Dad left – since Mum’s problem started. We haven’t been taken into care, and that’s entirely thanks to you.’
There is a long silence. All I can see is the top of Lochan’s head. He leans towards me slightly. I reach up and put my arms around him and hold him tight. I lower my voice to a whisper. ‘You’re not just my brother, you’re my best friend.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Lochan
I replay that sentence over and over during the next few days. It is a way of blotting out everything else – the awful incident with Tiffin and Willa, the row with my mother, the constant hell that is school. Every time I decline to answer a question in class, each moment I spend alone bent over a book, I am reminded of what my family think of me. Pathetic. A socially inept weirdo. A teenage son who can’t get a friend, let alone a girlfriend. I try – I really try: small things, like asking my neighbour for the time. He has to lean across the aisle to ask me to repeat my question. I can’t even hear the sound of my own voice. I still don’t fully understand it – I managed to talk to the school staff the afternoon Tiffin and Willa disappeared. But that was an emergency, and the horror of the situation overrode any inhibitions I might have had. Talking to adults is bearable; it’s talking to people my age that’s impossible. So I keep replaying Maya’s words in my head. Maybe there is someone who isn’t ashamed of me after all. Perhaps there is one member of my family whom I haven’t totally let down.
But the void yawns open like a cavern inside my chest. I feel so damn lonely all the time. Even though I’m surrounded by pupils, there is this invisible screen between us, and behind the glass wall I am screaming – screaming in my own silence, screaming to be noticed, to be befriended, to be liked. And yet when a friendlylooking girl from my maths class comes up to me in the canteen and says ‘Mind if I sit here?’ I just give a quick nod and turn away, hoping to God she won’t try to engage me in conversation. And at home it’s hardly as if I’m alone, either. The house is never silent – but Kit is still going through his evil phase, Tiffin is only interested in his Gameboy and his footie friends, and Willa is sweet but still just a baby. I play Twister and Hide-and-Seek with the little ones, help them with their homework, feed them, bathe them, read them goodnight stories, but all the while I have to stay upbeat for them, put on the damn mask, and sometimes I fear it will crack. Only with Maya can I really be myself. We share the burden together and she is always on my side, by my side. I don’t want to need her, to depend on her, but I do, I really do.
At lunch break I am sitting in my usual place during the tired afternoon, watching the cold light slowly move across the empty stairwell beneath me, when footsteps from above startle me. I lower my eyes to my book. Behind me, the feet slow and I feel my pulse rate rise. Someone passes me on the steps. I feel a leg brush against my shirtsleeve and I concentrate on the page of blurred print before me. To my horror, just below me, the footsteps stop altogether.
‘Hi!’ a girl’s voice exclaims.
I flinch. Force myself to look up. I meet the browneyed gaze of someone I vaguely recognize. It takes me several seconds to place her. It’s the girl Maya always hangs around with. I can’t even remember her name. And she is looking at me with a wide, toothy grin.
‘Hi,’ she says again.
I clear my throat. ‘Hi,’ I mumble.
I’m not sure she can even hear me. Her gaze is unflinching and she seems to be waiting for something more.
‘The Hours,’ she comments, glancing down at my book. ‘Isn’t that a film?’
I nod.
‘Any good?’ Her determination to make conversation is impressive. I nod again and return to the page. ‘I’m Francie,’ she says, still grinning broadly.
‘Lochan,’ I reply.
She raises her eyebrows meaningfully. ‘I know.’
I can feel my fingers making damp indentations in the pages of the book.
‘Maya talks about you all the time.’
There is nothing subtle about this girl. Her frizzy hair and dark skin contrast sharply with her blood-red lipstick and she is wearing an obscenely short skirt and huge silver hoops in her ears.
‘Y
ou know who I am, right? You’ve seen me hanging around with your sister?’
Another nod, the words evaporating as soon as they reach my throat. I start chewing my lip.
Francie looks at me pensively with a little smile. ‘You don’t talk much, do you?’
My face starts to burn. If she hadn’t been a friend of Maya’s, I would be pushing past her down the stairs by now. But Francie seems more curious than amused.
‘People say I never stop talking,’ she continues breezily. ‘It pisses them off.’
You’re telling me.
‘I have a message for you,’ Francie declares suddenly. ‘From your sister.’
I feel myself tense. ‘W-what is it?’
‘Nothing serious,’ she says quickly. ‘Just that your mum is taking your brothers and sister out to McDonald’s tonight so there’s no need to rush home. Maya wants you to meet her at the postbox at the end of the street after school.’
‘M-Maya asked you to c-come here and tell me that?’ I ask, waiting for her to smirk at my stammer.
‘Well, not exactly. She was trying to send you a text, but then she was kept in to finish off some coursework so I figured I might as well tell you myself.’
‘Thanks,’ I mumble.
‘And . . . I also wanted to invite you to have a drink at Smileys with Maya and me, since the two of you don’t have to go rushing off for once.’
I stare at her, mute.
‘Is that a yes?’ She eyes me hopefully.
My mind has gone blank. I can’t for the life of me think of an excuse. ‘Uh, well – OK.’