“Well, what were it then?”
“You’re as bad as your mam, you are!”
Asa entered, carrying the tea. “Jan’s had some shifts at Masons so’s splashed out,” he said, tossing Lawrence and Arthur a chocolate biscuit each. Arthur could smell the whiskey in his own mug. Asa winked.
“Another thing not mentioned is that girl. Calamity Jane an’ her size twelves,” Arthur said.
“Has Seabreeze got himself a bird?” Asa rolled his sleeves up.
“He wishes.”
“What d’you know about it, Dad?” Lawrence snapped.
“I know she’s not all there.” Arthur tapped his head. “Bad influence. You’re best getting rid.”
“Why, what’d she do?” said Asa.
“Nowt.”
“You don’t get it,” said Lawrence, hands scrunched in his lap.
“No, I don’t,” replied Arthur, though definitely he did.
Their eyes met. “I’m sorry, all right?” Lawrence conceded, which choked Arthur. He blamed the hangover for this mimsiness. He always felt fraught the day after a bout of drinking.
“I should bloody well hope so,” he said, downing the last of his hot, splendid tea. As it slipped down his throat, quick as mercury, he had the feeling of a glorious neon fluid being poured over his brain, coursing into every rivulet, every artery.
“Any chance of another, Scanny?”
“Course.” Asa left the room and a moment later the kettle could be heard.
“Still ran though, didn’t you. Couldn’t help yoursen, leaving your old man in the lurch.”
The kettle was getting louder. Lawrence was so soft.
“First the rug, then the tree, now this. As if I don’t have enough on us plate. Never mind your bloody mam.”
“None of that were my fault, Dad.”
“Never is. Never has been. You don’t care ’bout school. He’s not fussed, my grammar lad’s not bothered about making summat of hisself. All he wants is to muck about and drop his dad in it. Standing there while some loony attacks him.”
“Dad, I didn’t—”
“Oh fucking own summat for once, will you, kid?”
Lawrence set down his own mug. “You what?”
The carpet at their feet was some imitation Afghani thing, a crystal pattern surrounded by acanthus leaves. At home they were back to the old floor and whose bloody fault was bloody that? A pessimist wife and a feeble fucking kid who refused to make the most of the opportunity gifted to him. All those nights going over the practice papers, all that encouragement, fuck’s sake. Lawrence was on the wag and making out to Shell that the tree had been nicked and Het was one nil up and as for Shell that ungrateful sack of spuds. Arthur realised he was standing. “You’re weak, lad, moaner like your mam! Look at you, shy as fuck. You’re a liability. I used to be able to rely on you.”
Lawrence stood too. “That’s rich coming from you!” he shouted, and maybe he was right. Maybe in a lot of ways he had a right to say such a thing, but as a son there was no way he was getting away with talking to his father like that. Arthur slapped Lawrence around the face.
Have that.
The two of them glared at one another, breathing heavily. When Arthur looked away, Lawrence flopped so heavily into the armchair that the poker set fell over by the fireplace. The sound of the ringing ash pan and sweep was the sound of something broken between the two of them.
In the shrinking that followed, Arthur retreated to a framed photo mounted on the wall. It was another one of Ken Scanlan. This time Ken was holding baby Asa in front of a huge drill rig. Arthur removed his mask. Within the sheen of the glass, he could make out the motley patch of grazing on his cheek. It spread from the main impact point under the socket of a marshmallow eye, a bruised hump like a spoil heap.
“Mess, isn’t it?”
Lawrence had his head in his hands.
“I said it’s a mess, isn’t it?”
Silence.
“Kid?” Remorse marched its challenge. Arthur went over to crouch by Lawrence’s knee. The greasy antimacassar behind his son’s head was badly in need of a wash.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You’re a flaming hypocrite!”
“I know.”
“You can’t blame us for everything, Dad. I said I were sorry.”
“Me an’ all.”
“I couldn’t stop her.”
“You weren’t to know she’d do that.”
“She didn’t know who you were…”
“Well… likewise.”
“She thought you were some nutter.”
“Well, that were one thing she were right about.”
That got a laugh.
“She’s my friend.”
“Who, Lawrence? Who is she?”
“Evie Swarsby.”
Course it was.
“Swarsby?” said Asa, who’d chosen that moment to re-enter the room. “That prick’s had the nerve to be posting Tory leaflets through us doors.”
“Aye,” replied Arthur, re-setting the mask against his face and tugging the elastic over his head. “An’ what you doing knocking around with her when you should be in school, kid?”
“Because I’ve been expelled, Dad. They’ve gone and expelled me.”
11
NO ONE LIKES having to apologise, it’s a horrible thing to have to do.
Lawrence was in the lounge listening to the familiar metal scratch of the key pushing into the lock. “I’ll do the talking,” said Arthur, acting as if he cared.
“Do we really have to tell her?”
“You’ve sat on it long enough. I’d start getting yourself straight if I were you. Tuck your shirt in. Do them laces.”
The front door opened. Lawrence scrunched his toes. He could hear the muted rustle of his mam’s denim jacket being hung on the hook. He assessed how quickly he could make it to the back door. His hair had only just grown back after the last disaster.
She pushed into the room. “Oh…” She laid a hand against her heart.
“All right, love.”
Shell glanced at Arthur, who tried to act as if he couldn’t recognise the way his wife was deliberately keeping her distance from him. Lawrence knew better. He watched the removal of the mask. How it was laid on the armrest with great care.
“Sorry, love,” said Mam, setting down her handbag. The cloud out of the open window looked like bubble wrap.
“’Bout what?”
“Nowt.”
“You’re back late.”
“Am I?”
Mam apologised again.
“Not to worry,” said Arthur while Lawrence waited, the awkward plaintiff, the scent of honeysuckle coming at him through the open window.
His dad tried again. “So were the march—”
“I did hear you, love. It were fine.”
Knotted fingers and swimming eyes, Lawrence’s mam finally noticed him. He held her gaze long enough for her to know what she could do with it.
“That’s good then,” his dad said, glancing at the sky breaking through the cloud like a blueberry splat in a bowl of semolina. Lawrence and he were nearly the same height these days, neither gangling, simply sizable, though Arthur, hewer by trade, had broader shoulders from hefting the drills and the picks and what have you. Lawrence didn’t know much about his dad’s work. He didn’t care to know. This might be the worst day of his life. He could practically hear the gush of blood in his arteries and veins. The pastel day was terrifying in its stillness.
“Aye,” Mam was saying, a blistered feel to her voice. “But nowt to write home about.”
She addressed Lawrence directly. “You all right, kid?”
It was an old trick of hers, coming at you sideways. The best thing to do was answer quick. “Not bad,” replied Lawrence, thinking of those sooty hands clamping his skull; the fervid swish of the kitchen scissors.