A Song for Issy Bradley (37 page)

“Sister Anderson was going on about it last week when she came.”

“What? When did she come? Never mind—what makes you think the fish was resurrected, Jacob?”

“It was dead before I went to bed. I prayed it would come back to life and when I got home from school the next day it was
alive
.”

Dad sighs. “Oh, Jacob.”

Zippy wraps her arm around him and this time he doesn’t shuck if off. They don’t believe him. He can’t understand how they can go to church week after week and talk about miracles, and faith, and the resurrection, and believe it all but not believe
him
.

“You can think the fish was resurrected if you like,” Alma says. “If it makes you feel better you can think it. Brother Rimmer thinks all sorts of stuff and it makes him feel better, so why shouldn’t you?”

Dad looks sad. “That’s not exactly right. There’s no point in believing something that’s not true, even if it makes you feel better.”

Alma does a long, mean laugh, which Dad talks over.

“Jacob, when the fish died, I went to the shop and bought a new one. I didn’t want you to be upset about Issy
and
the fish. I didn’t realize you already knew the fish was dead. I’m sorry.”

“What did you have to tell him that for? Now you’ve made things even worse.” Alma stomps to the bathroom and shuts the door.

“Never mind, Jacob,” Zippy says. “Let’s have a sing. Shall we do your favorite?” She begins to sing “Here We Are Together” all by herself, not realizing it’s a rubbish idea until she gets near the end. “There’s Mum and Dad and Zippy and Alma and Jacob and …” She stops singing and squeezes him hard and he lets her; she’s not as soft as Mum, but she’s better than nothing.

It’s still All Souls’ Day tomorrow, isn’t it? That hasn’t changed. He tries to cheer himself up but it’s as if there’s a little magnet stuck in his throat and every fragment of unhappiness and gloom, every ache of missing Issy is racing toward it.

“Oh dear,” he says. “Oh dear.”

He is lost, like Hansel. All his breadcrumbs have been eaten, and he doesn’t know how he will ever get Issy home.

Claire wakes in the night to the sound of crying. She thinks it’s Issy and kicks at the duvet, pushing herself up on weak elbows. Then she remembers. The sound comes again—Jacob. She hears the low rumble of Ian’s voice. More cries and more Ian. Maybe it’s just a bad dream.

“Everything will be all right”—
that’s what Ian will be saying.
“You’ll see Issy again in about eighty years’ time. Cheer up. It’s not long, not really.”

She stares up at the dark, comforting shadow of Jacob’s bunk. When she wakes in the night it almost feels like she is in a cave and the slatted roof limits the geography of her hurt, keeps a lid on things as she waits out this standoff with God. All she wants is a moment, a reassuring glimpse, something to counter the yearning that worsens with every inhalation. She is not the first to require such a sign—the disciple Thomas doubted and was allowed to see with his own eyes.

She rolls onto her side. Her tongue is swollen and the tide of her mouth is out, its roof is rippled by dry corrugations. When she swallows, her tongue runs aground. She closes her eyes and falls into a sleep that is deep and bottomless. But after a time, the darkness splinters, light glints through the breaks, and Claire dreams she is walking along a beach with the Lord.

Ian stands in the hall outside Issy’s bedroom. A little hammer of tiredness knocks against the uppermost rim of his eye sockets, acid spurts from his stomach like a geyser, and his thoughts are fuzzy. What to say? He is losing faith in the power of his own words. Perhaps he could sing a hymn. She likes hymns—“Cast Thy Burden Upon the Lord” or “Come, Ye Disconsolate,” something like that, perhaps. Or a poem. She likes them too—she used to read whole books of them, years ago. A poem pops into his head—one he’s heard so many times at funerals: the one about how death is nothing because it’s just like slipping into the next room. He glances at the door. Watching someone you love slip into the next room is
not
nothing. Perhaps the poem gets better; he tries to remember the other words, something about whatever we were to each other, we are still … call me by my own familiar name, speak to me in the way you always used … He can’t recall the rest. In any case, he doesn’t have the time to wait in the hall until he is blessed with the right words, not on a school day.

He edges Issy’s door open. Claire is lying on her side, facing the wall. He tiptoes across the carpet, kneels on the floor next to the bed, and listens to the slow blow and draw of her breath.

He rests his fingertips on the top of her arm.

Speak to me in the way you always used
.

“Please come back. I love you,” he whispers.

What a shitty morning. Al can’t wait to get away from everyone.

“I’ve got to go early,” he says as he grabs one of Sister Stevens’s leftover cookies. He’s even got an excuse ready—some History homework he needs to discuss with Matty—but no one cares enough to ask.

He hurries out to the shed. It’s chilly and still a bit dim but the geese are already mucking about, chasing one another, squawking like loonies, and he can see it’s going to be a nice day ’cause the sky is clear and glassy. He stuffs an old football into his backpack, sticks his headphones in his ears, and grabs his bike.

He’s dog-tired, but his feet find the rhythm of the music as he cycles along the quarry-tile pavements. Once his lungs get going, the cold air inflates and wakes him.

He had a totally crap night. He was woken by Jacob’s crying in the early hours and had to jam his pillow over his head to block it out. He couldn’t get back to sleep properly for ages and then, when he was finally dozing off, it was time to get up.

Jacob blessed the food at breakfast time. “And please bless us all to stay at home today,” he said. “Bless us not to have to go to school—”

Dad interrupted and finished the prayer, which got Jacob crying again.

“Ask and it shall be given to you,” he whimpered, pointing at
the painting on the kitchen wall. “With God all things are possible.”

Dad snatched Mum’s crappy bird picture off its nail and put it facedown on the countertop. “Prayer isn’t like a Christmas list,” he said. “You can’t just ask for any old thing and expect to get it.”

This made Jacob cry even more, and when it began to look like Zippy might join in, Al decided it was time to leave.

He pedals through the gate to the footie pitch past the “No Cycling” sign, and down the tree-lined path. When he reaches the grass he brakes hard, skids, jumps off his bike, and leans it against one of the nearly bald trees. He shucks off his backpack and hangs it from the handlebars. Then he retrieves the football and stuffs his school blazer in its place.

He jogs onto the field, carrying the ball under one arm. The grass is wet and there are heaps of leaves at the edges of the pitch. His shoes are immediately soaked and he wishes he had his boots. He drops the ball and dribbles it down the field toward the goal near the little park. When he reaches the edge of the box he glances up and smacks the ball into the top right corner of the goal. That’s better. He jumps up and down on the spot for a moment and his shoulders start to loosen. He undoes his top button and lowers his tie, wishing someone was there to fetch the ball for him as he jogs to the goal: Issy—the thought smacks into the net of his imagination before he can save it. He pauses to sniff, wipes his nose on the back of his hand, and rubs his eyes while he’s at it—it’s bloody freezing, no wonder they’re watering.

He pulls his iPod out of his trouser pocket and turns the volume up until the music fills his whole head
—“I need a dollar, dollar, a dollar that’s what I need
”—not a single rude word in this whole song and appropriate words too. He grins and dribbles back to the edge of the box, where he repositions the ball. He kicks again, aiming for the top left corner. The ball hits the post and he hurries to retrieve it.

He sees the lads only when he turns round. They’re jogging
toward him—they must’ve come from the alley between the houses that back onto the field—and they’re smirking, already closer to him than he is to his bike.

There’s no one about, but someone is bound to come before long. People walk their dogs on the field. Give it ten minutes and there’ll be shitting dogs everywhere. Al picks up the ball and squeezes it to his chest.

“All right,
fucking wanker
?” Spotty-Face calls. “Where’s your little friend?”

Al flicks the headphones out of his ears and tucks them into his pocket. He wishes he hadn’t been quite so cocky as he cycled away the other day. He wonders if he should run round the back of the goal and at least get the net between them. But there are two of them. They’d just split up and catch him in the middle or chase him round and round like something out of a cartoon.

“All on your own today?”

When Spotty-Face gets close he shoves Al in the chest, the way footballers shove each other when they’re warming up for a fight over a foul or a dodgy penalty decision. Al rocks like one of those wobbly kids’ toys, but he doesn’t fall.

The lad laughs and shoves again. This time Al staggers and regains his balance. He falls only after the third shove, when he drops the ball and stumbles to one side, saving himself with a well-placed hand.

The shorter lad nicks the ball. “Get up and fight, you faggot.”

He doesn’t know how to fight. Not properly. He’s done the shoving thing before on the playground, but teachers have always stepped in and saved him from having to follow through. Spotty-Face lifts his fists and goes all springy at the knees. His mate drops the ball, making fists too.

It’s not like a proper fight on TV. Al tries to throw punches, but his arms aren’t fast enough. He moves more like a windmill than a boxer, and while he’s flailing, their knuckles sneak past his defenses and clout his head and his cheek. Fists don’t bounce, they smack,
and Al is surprised at how little spring there is in the space between his bones and his skin. He keeps thrashing, makes contact with something—it feels like an ear—and is rewarded with a thump in the mouth. He gasps as his top teeth puncture his lip. He wishes he was brave, but he’s scared and hurting.

“Hey, stop it.”

The voice belongs to an adult and it’s coming from somewhere behind him. The relief sends Al all bendy; his arms droop and he has to sit down. As soon as his butt hits the grass, one of the lads kicks him. He grasps his thigh and he rolls onto his side.

“Leave the boy alone.”

Two more kicks. One near his kidney, the other somewhere else, he isn’t sure where ’cause the pain in his back is roaring.

“Stop it,” the same voice calls, closer now.

The lads jog away, toward his bike. He watches as they grab his backpack from the handlebars and empty everything onto the grass. He breathes carefully, trying to keep rhythm with the pulse in his back as Spotty-Face picks his blazer off the ground, frisks it, and empties the pockets.

When the pain slips past its peak, he starts to feel other things all at once, in a big rush—the wet grass soaking into the butt of his trousers, the pain of the second kick—to his calf, it turns out—and the lump inside his lip that’s beating like a small heart. He touches his mouth with the tips of his fingers and they come away bloodied. Spotty-Face waves something he has pulled out of the blazer pocket. He and his mate tussle over what they’ve found, jostling and shoving each other—Al can’t think what could possibly be of any interest to either of them.

“Leave his stuff alone,” a different voice calls.

“Mind your own fucking beeswax, Granddad.”

Al finally looks over his shoulder. Three old men are shuffling toward him—one of them has a dog, a daft dog in a little red coat. He turns back, rests his head on his knees, and watches the lads wrestle.

“I’ve got my phone,” one of the old men calls. “It’s got a camera. I can take a photograph of you.”

The lads go all out in a final scrap. They tear at something and shout at each other before they run away.

“Are you all right?”

Gloved hands reach out and tug at Al’s elbows and shoulders.

“Come on, lad. That’s it. There you go. Let’s get you on your way to school.”

He struggles to his feet. His knees are slack and his trousers are stuck to his butt. There’s no way he’s going to school with a wet butt and wobbly legs.

The men surround him. They tap his back and shoulders and shepherd him toward his bike, muttering to him and one another.

“Poor lad.”

“I’ve been on the end of some hidings in my time.”

“Me too.”

“You’re not hurt badly, are you?”

Al shakes his head and runs his tongue over the burst in his lip.

“If we’d been able to move a bit faster …”

“I’ve not been able to move quickly since the nineties.”