“We took them up the moor. Oh, what were their names, Art? When you found that skull.”
“Hang a left here, Scanny. Is that him?”
“Where?”
“Going up Flintwicks.”
On their way towards the Grey Grebe, the Fiesta turned up the estate. Flintwicks was a puzzle of streets built to retain pit workers after Litten was declared a manpower deficiency area back in the fifties. For some reason its streets were named after towns on the south coast. Horsham, Arundel, Tonbridge, Swanage… Up one of these closes strode a narrow youngster in jeans and t-shirt.
“Fucking down there. Turn left, Asa.”
The car swung crazily down Rudgwick. The windscreen was so mucky that Asa had to put the wipers on as he said it didn’t look like Lawrence, he had too much hair.
“It’s grown back loads. Now slow down, I don’t want him spooked…”
“Jackie and Pauline.”
“Eh?”
“Them birds.”
“Bob on, lad. Now I remember.”
Though Arthur had never really forgotten. Jackie possessed a hefty nose and teeth that in the right light had looked like rock, calcified deposits in her gums. She’d been fending off the advances of a slippery little man in the Bluenote so Arthur had stepped in, then, at closing time, let Jackie persuade him into a night walk. The pair were splash-lit by street-light, looking almost radioactive, thought Arthur, as Jackie said she thought he was dead brave, when in fact he knew he was one of the biggest cowards who had ever lived.
The Morse Code wink of an aeroplane’s lights. The lull of the dark. Side by side, strolling the uneven camber of the Litten Path. “It’s wet,” said Jackie. “I said it’s wet out.”
“Have us coat, if you like.”
“Oh, warm us, will you, Arthur. Come here.”
She wasn’t a patch on Shell. Arthur let her take his arm anyway. Asa and the other one were laughing as they picked their route behind, the sky looking tender to the touch, a shifting honeycomb as Jackie leaned in for her kiss. Why the fuck not? Arthur was so pissed he’d have agreed to anything. Colour. Fireworks. Het. Arthur was leaning forward, listening to Jackie’s nostrils, the weird whistling noise they made, when he heard the crunching sound.
He pulled back. “Jesus.”
“What is it?”
“I think you’ve stood on summat.”
It had misted. Jackie peered at her feet and saw that she had trampled on the body of a dead badger. She leapt away. Arthur picked up the beast’s skull. The moment felt profound. He had stumbled upon the remains of the most English of all creatures, and it was dead. Eventually Jackie must have left him to it, or maybe Arthur left her; he could forget so easily what wasn’t relevant. He jogged home, walked home, floated home to his dozing wife and sleeping son, the tiny augury stowed inside his anorak pocket. He’d watched his family wake up. He’d made them breakfast.
“It’s him, Asa.”
The subsidiary drag of Flintwicks stretched beyond, with enough road for Asa to put his foot down and speed towards the figure a hundred or so yards away, the figure who turned, saw the car and broke into a run.
“Only a lad of yours would run for nowt, Arthur.”
“Well get after him, Scanny. Carpe diem.”
“I don’t speak French.”
“Just fucking drive.”
The Fiesta hurtled up the macadam, following the dirty soles of Lawrence’s shoes that blinked in sequence. They were going uphill and the car managed to catch him easily.
Arthur wound down his window and told Lawrence to stop. When the lad didn’t he told him he was grounded until further notice.
He pulled his head back into the car. “Get on t’curb. Scanny.”
“That’ll do tyres.”
“You’re not on a penny farthing!”
“I need this motor, Arthur, I’ll not risk it!”
Arthur was about to grab the wheel when a ginnel emerged to the car’s left. A walkway with cement-panelled walls and waist high railings at either end. Lawrence headed straight down it.
“Fuck’s sake, pull over.”
Arthur jumped out of the car, vaulted the fence and sprinted down the shortcut after his son. Tall weeds sprouted between the paving and there were several white dog turds, NO SURRENDER spray-painted up the length of one of the sidings.
Hard to gain on a young man. Although Arthur lived a physical life, giving chase meant a different kind of fitness. Step. Step. Step. His beat on the pavement sent jagged bolts of pain up his fractured face.
“Stop, lad!”
Lawrence kept going.
“Lawrence, please stop!”
Little bastard.
Arthur had a stitch. He watched his son go and was about to call after him when the end of the ginnel flooded red. It was Asa. He had driven around the block and barred the way with the Fiesta.
Arthur hurried as best he could, while Asa stood at the passage’s exit with both arms crossed. Realising he’d been bagged, Lawrence leant, breathless, against a wall. Arthur was about to give him what for when he realised the boy was crying.
“You’re all right, kid,” he said, putting his arms around his son. “Your dad’s here.”
The front door opened directly into Asa’s living room on Winchester Close. A picture of Ken Scanlan smiled above the wooden mantelpiece. Ken had been a banksman at Brantford, hauling back the cage gates, responsible for the loading and reloading of men and tubs of coal. He’d bought the house from the NCB and passed it on to Asa and Janice and the girls. Their very own home that they now couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage on.
Arthur had shielded Lawrence long enough for his face to dry. He sat him down while Asa went to make the tea.
The long minute, the endless second.
“State of that shirt. What you been ironing it with, an hot brick?”
Lawrence didn’t reply.
“You needn’t have run.”
“You needn’t have locked us in last night.”
Asa was whistling in the next room. Lawrence had always been like this. “If anyone should be angry, it should be me, kid.”
Another shrug.
“Skipping school, you’ll end up like me, let alone that we’re at risk of having Education Welfare round. They’ll have us up in court, lad, then what will your mam say?”
Lawrence fiddled with the laces of his trainers.
“Can you at least look at me?”
Rubbing the tears had left Lawrence’s eyes inflamed. His defiant expression suggested he knew this would be something Arthur hated to see. He was dead right about that.
Arthur’s voice cracked. “I said you were out of school again, weren’t you?”
“Aye.”
“And that’s a poor do.”
“Suppose.”
Fuck me, what did it take to make the lad budge? It was bad enough having a son, one that looked so much like you made you feel like you were telling yourself off in situations like this. Shell was better at this sort of thing. Discipline, dinners and the day-to-day were her territory. Advice, schemes and homework were Arthur’s.
He decided upon a different approach, pointing at himself with both thumbs. “You’ve not even asked about the face.”
“You’ve hardly given us chance. I mean I did wonder…”
“Jesus, I weren’t pissed-up if that’s what that look means.”