‘No, I’ll just have to look . . .’ I rummage through my jacket pockets and then through the pile of junk mail and unopened bills on the hall table, sending them flying. My hands have started shaking. ‘Jesus, where the fuck are my keys?’
‘Lochie, you’re never going to find him by combing the streets. He could be on the other side of London!’
I spin round to face her. ‘What the hell d’you suggest I do then?’
I startle myself with the force of my voice. Maya takes a step back.
I stop and heave a deep breath, cupping my hands over my mouth, then running them through my hair. ‘Sorry. I just – I just don’t know what to do. Mum was incoherent on the phone. I couldn’t even persuade the bitch to come home!’ I choke on the word bitch and find myself with barely enough breath to finish speaking.
‘OK,’ Maya says quickly. ‘OK, Lochie. I’ll stay down here and wait. And I’ll call you the moment he turns up. Have you got your phone?’
I feel the pockets of my trousers. ‘No – shit – and my keys—’
‘Here . . .’ Maya reaches for her coat on the peg and digs out her phone and keys. Grabbing them, I wrench open the door.
‘Wait!’ She throws me my jacket.
I pull it on as I stride out into the cold night air.
It’s dark, the houses all sleeping save for a few still illuminated with the flickering blue light of television screens. The silence is eerie – I can hear the juggernauts shifting their loads miles away on the ridge of the motorway. I walk rapidly down to the end of our road and turn onto the high street. The place has a deserted, haunted look, the shop shutters battened down over their dark interiors. Trash from the market stall still litters the street, a drunk staggers out of the all-night Tesco and two skimpily clad young women weave their way across the pavement arm in arm, shrill voices crisscrossing the still night air. Suddenly a car, pulsating with music, accelerates down the road, narrowly missing the drunk, its tyres screeching as it takes a corner. I spot a group of guys hanging around a closed pub. They are all dressed the same: grey hoodies, baggy jeans sliding down their hips, white trainers. But as I cross the road and head towards them, I realize they are far too old to be part of Kit’s lot. I quickly turn my head away again, but one of them shouts out: ‘Hey, what the fuck you lookin’ at?’
I ignore them and keep on going, hands deep in my pockets, fighting the instinct to lengthen my stride. Like wolves, they follow the scent of fear. For a moment I think they’re going to come after me, but it’s only their laughter and obscenities that float in my wake.
My heart continues to pound as I reach the end of the high street and cross the junction, my mind running at full tilt. This is exactly why a thirteen-year-old boy should not be roaming the streets at this time of night. Those guys were bored: drunk or high or both, and just looking for a fight. At least one would have had a weapon of some sort – a broken bottle, if not a knife. Gone are the days of simple fist-fights, especially round here. And what chance would a hot-head like Kit stand against a gang?
It is beginning to drizzle and the headlights of passing taxis splinter the dark, illuminating the wet tarmac. I cross the junction blindly and get honked at by an irritable cabbie. I wipe the sweat from my face with my shirtsleeve, adrenaline coursing through my body. The sudden wail of a police car makes me start violently; the sound fades into the distance and I jump again as a cacophony of demented yaps explodes from my pocket. When I pull out Maya’s phone, my hands are shaking. ‘What?’ I shout.
‘He’s back, Lochie. He’s home.’
‘What?’
‘Kit’s back. He came through the door just this second. So you can come home. Where are you, anyway?’
‘Bentham Junction. I’ll see you in a minute.’
I return the phone to my pocket and turn round. Chest heaving, my breath coming in gasps, I watch the late-night cars flash by. Right, calm down, I tell myself. He’s home. He’s fine. But I can feel the sweat running down my back and there is this pressure in my chest like a balloon that’s about to burst.
I am walking too fast, breathing too fast, thinking too fast. There’s a stabbing pain in my side and my heart is pounding against my ribcage. He’s home, I keep telling myself. He’s OK – but I don’t know why I don’t feel more relieved. In fact I feel physically sick. I was so sure something bad had happened to him. Why else would he have failed to answer his phone – to call?
As I near the house, the streetlamps blur and dance, and everything feels strangely unreal. My hands are shaking so hard I can’t unlock the door: the metal keys keep slipping in my clammy fingers. I end up dropping them and lean one hand against the door to steady myself as I bend down to search. When the door suddenly opens, I stumble blindly into the brightly lit hall.
‘Hey, watch out.’ Maya’s hand steadies me.
‘Where is he?’
The sound of canned laughter belts out of the front room and I push past. Kit is lying back, one arm behind his head, feet up on the couch, chuckling at something on TV. He reeks of cigarettes and booze and weed.
Suddenly the compressed anger of so many months explodes through my body like molten rock. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
Spinning the remote round and round in his hand, he takes a moment before flicking his eyes briefly away from the screen. ‘Absolutely none of your business.’ His gaze returns to the television and he starts chuckling again, turning up the volume, pre-emptively drowning out any further attempts at conversation.
I lunge for the remote and snatch it from his hand, catching him unawares.
‘Give that back, you arsehole!’ He is on his feet in an instant, grabbing my arm and twisting it.
‘It’s four in the morning! What the fuck have you been doing?’
I grapple with him, trying to push him off, but he is surprisingly strong. A bolt of pain shoots up my arm from my hand to my shoulder, and the remote falls to the floor. As Kit makes a dive for it, I grab his shoulders and yank him back. He hurls himself round, and there is a blinding crack of pain as his fist makes contact with my jaw. I launch myself at him, grabbing him by the collar, losing my balance and dragging him down to the floor. My head hits the coffee table and for a moment the lights seem to go out, but then I resurface and I’ve got my hands round his throat and his face is crimson, his eyes wide and bulging. He kicks me in the stomach, again and again, but I don’t let go, I can’t let go, even when he knees me in the groin. There is someone else pulling at my hands, someone else in the way, someone shouting at me, screaming in my ear: ‘Stop it, Lochie, stop it! You’re going to kill him!’
I’ve let go, he’s got away, doubled over on hands and knees, coughing and retching, strings of saliva hanging from his mouth. Someone is restraining me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides, but all the strength has suddenly left me and I can barely sit up. I hear gasping sounds from Kit as he lurches to his feet, and suddenly he is towering over me.
‘You ever touch me again and I’ll kill you.’ His voice is hoarse and rasping. I hear him leave, hear him thunder up the wooden stairs, hear the sound of a wailing child. I seem to be falling, except the carpet is solid beneath me and the cold hard wall presses against my back. Through a dim haze I see Willa wrap her legs around Maya’s waist as Maya lifts her into a hug and murmurs, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, my love – they just had a silly argument. Everything’s fine now. Let’s go back upstairs and tuck you into bed, OK?’
They leave the room and the wails fade but continue above me, on and on and on.
My legs are unsteady as I make my way to my room. Safely inside, I sit down on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, cupping my hands over my nose and mouth, trying to stop hyperventilating, the pain in my stomach sending small aftershocks through my body. I feel sweat running down the sides of my face and cannot stop trembling. The halo round the light bulb above me expands and retracts, creating dancing spots of light. The full horror of what happened is only just starting to hit me. I have never got into any kind of physical fight with Kit before, yet tonight I provoked one, I almost wanted one; once I’d got my hands round his throat, I honestly didn’t want to let go. I don’t understand what’s happening to me – I seem to be unravelling. So Kit came home a few hours late – what teenager hasn’t? Parents get angry with their children, sure: they shout, threaten, swear at them maybe, but they don’t try to strangle them.