A Song for Issy Bradley (38 page)

“The 1890s?”

“Very funny.”

Three men. Three really old men with skin like battered leather. Purple noses and massive ears, flat caps, parkas, mad eyebrows like dog’s whiskers—they’re ancient and there’re three of them. Al’s breath catches in his throat and he is assailed by a spluttery sort of laugh—he’s been rescued by the three fucking Nephites, it’s a bloody miracle! The three Nephites, last seen changing a tire on the M58, are here in the park, demonstrating that the Lord is looking out for him. There’s clearly no other explanation—ha ha! Wait till he tells Brother Rimmer.

His backpack is on the ground next to his bike and his best football cards lie beside it—Luis Suárez shiny, and Steven Gerrard Man of the Match—torn to bits. His house key rests in the grass beside a
couple of empty candy wrappers, his football sits next to the trunk of a tree, and alongside a small drift of leaves he can see one half of his emergency fiver. That’s the icing on the crap cake. Not the pain in his back or his bleeding lip, not his earlier thought about needing someone to fetch the ball and the subsequent, inevitable ache of missing Issy, but the money and the way it’s not even been stolen, just ripped—ruined.

He cries. He tries to do it quietly, tries so hard it sounds like he’s panting, and the little dog in the red coat thinks it’s a game and dances about, licking his shoes.

A gloved hand rubs a wave of static along his head.

“Come on. There’s a good lad. There’s nothing wrong that can’t be mended.”

The man crouches slowly, creaks, like he needs a squirt of oil in his hinges, and picks up the torn note. Al stares at it. He’s in a horrible amount of debt, all kinds of it: the kind Dad goes on about, the kind that has to be settled with payments of goodness and devotion, and the other kind, the real kind—all the money he’s borrowed or stolen or whatever it is he’s done.

“Here’s the other half.” Another gloved hand waves money at him.

Al pulls his school tie out from under his sweater and uses it to wipe the tears sliding off his jaw.

“… to the bank, all right, lad? Are you even listening?” He shakes his head and wipes his nose on his sleeve.

“You just take it to the bank. The money.”

“But, but—it’s ripped.”

“Yes. Are you listening, lad? They’ll give you a new one.”

“A n-new what?”

“A new fiver.”

“They’ll give me, they’ll—really? You’re n-not joking?” He makes a noise that’s a cross between a laugh and a sob, it sounds a bit like a bark, and the little dog joins in and Al notices that there are other people about now, a lone dog walker and a woman jogging
through the alley. He lifts the bottom of his sweater and buries his face in it.

“Come on.”

The old man tugs at the sweater and Al emerges, still breathing the rhythm of his tears.

“I’m not joking, lad. Take the pieces to the bank and they’ll give you a new one.”

“Is it—is it a special fiver?”

“Do you think he’s all there?” The old man looks to his friends, points at his head, and taps his temple a couple of times.

“What if, what if it got dead wet? And what if—what if there was a sort of hole burned into it?”

“It’s not wet or burned, it’s just ripped. Have a proper look. Did those lads knock you in the head?”

“Would the bank replace it—would they?”

“Well, yes. I expect they would.”

“That’s incredible!” He doesn’t know what to do with himself. He feels all balloony, as if he might float above the park on a cloud of relief and join the geese in their mad, follow-the-leader games. If he has tipped Mum over the edge, he can winch her back with a trip to the bank.

The old men return his smile, pleased that he’s pleased.

The little dog catches the excitement and jumps up to rest its wet paws on Al’s school trousers.

“Down!” One of the men puts his hand in his pocket and the dog removes its paws from Al’s leg and sits dead still. When the man pulls his hand out of his pocket, fingers pressed together, he isn’t holding anything, but the dog waits, certain there’s a reward in the offing.

Another of the men chuckles and says, “That’s dogs for you, lad. Just like gamblers. They try harder if they don’t get rewarded the first time. Go on, lad, you have a go.”

Al waits until the dog is back on all four paws, then he stuffs his hand in his pocket and pulls it out slowly, fingers pressed together.
The dog sits and looks up, eyes wide, its little face fixed, pleading, hopeful.

“See? They’re funny, aren’t they, dogs?” The man stoops to ruffle the animal’s head with his gloved hand and when he straightens he does the same to Al. “All better now?”

Al nods.

“You’d best be going then, lad.”

Al stuffs his things into the backpack and slides his arms through the straps. He climbs onto the bike, clasps the handlebars, and flicks the pedal into readiness. The old men lift their hands in a sort of saluting wave. He waves back, then he pushes down on the pedal and cycles along the tree-lined path toward the gate. Just before he reaches the gate, he glances over his shoulder and shouts, “Bye.” The three Nephites are still waving.

Zippy wishes Jacob and Dad wouldn’t argue. She’d like to give Dad some of his own good advice: If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

“Prayers
can
be like a Christmas list, Dad,” Jacob insists. “And anyway, Santa Claus is in the Old Testament.”

“What?” Dad bangs his hand on the countertop and Mum’s painting jumps.

“Sister Anderson told us in Primary. In Zechariah it says,
‘Ho, ho, from the land of the north.’
 ”

“She said
what?”

Zippy catches Jacob’s eye and shakes her head but he carries on. “She said in Zechariah—”

“I heard you.
That
woman …”

“She said it in Primary, so it’s true.”

“No it’s not.”

“You’re not even
listening
to me, Dad.”

“It’s not true. Prayers are
not
like Christmas lists, and Santa Claus isn’t in the Old Testament.”

“But Sister Anderson read it out loud from the Bible, I saw her with my very own eyes.”

“It’s absolutely not true because there’s no such—”

“Dad!”

She smacks her spoon into the side of her cereal bowl and it rings out like the bell at the end of a boxing round.

Dad stops and she thinks she’s done enough, but he’s too wound up, so intent on being right, that he’s forgetting to be kind.

“There’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”

Zippy gasps. Jacob closes his eyes against Dad’s words and when he opens them he looks straight at her. There’s a long, gluey moment in which she is unable to respond, but when she realizes it’s too late for anything but the truth, she nods.

“Is there such a thing as Jesus?”

“Of course there is,” Dad says. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What about Rudolph?”

Zippy takes her bowl to the sink and rinses it.

“And the tooth fairy?”

She listens for Dad’s answer as she dries her hands, but he is silent and the kitchen noises—the hum of the fridge, the clanking pipes, the tick-tock of the Celestial Marriage clock—are heavy and cheerless. When she turns, Dad is holding Mum’s painting.

On her way out of the kitchen she stops to hug Jacob. She feels the thud of his heart through his school sweater and whispers, “It’s OK. We’ll do something after school—some coloring. You can come up to my room, it’ll be fun.” Then she hurries up the stairs and packs her school bag.

On the way back down the stairs she pauses outside Issy’s room. She lifts a hand to the door but she doesn’t have the guts to push it open.

She leaves the house ten minutes early and traipses down the road to the bus stop, her breath sending swirls of steam into the cold air.

L
AUREN IS WAITING
outside the school gates, frowning at her phone—it’ll be Jordan Banks, he’s probably chucked her because she hasn’t had sex with him yet. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she says.

Zippy tries a smile and takes it back when it isn’t returned.

“I tell you everything. We’re supposed to be best friends.”

“We are!”

“Yeah. Whatever. I told you all about Jordan.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“And then you go and do this.”

Zippy can’t think what she’s done, but Lauren’s expression suggests it’s something awful. When she holds the phone out Zippy takes it, hoping to see a joke, a meme, something hilarious they can laugh at in a moment’s time. But she sees herself, in Mum’s wedding dress, on Facebook. And there are sixteen Likes and a load of comments—thirty-four of them.

She strokes her thumb down the screen.

Lauren grabs the phone back. “You got married and never told me.” She scowls and folds her arms.

“No!”

“You’re my best friend and I didn’t know. I found out on fucking Facebook!”

“No, I—”

“Don’t lie. I know it happens—I watched a documentary about it. Are they going to make you leave school? You don’t have to, you’ve got rights.”

Zippy’s knees are slack and trembly. She opens her mouth but her lips are rubbery and no sound comes out.

“Have you
done it?
What was it like? Did it hurt? I can’t believe you haven’t told me any of this.”

“No! I’m—I don’t—” She sits on the school wall. “I’m not married. I was dressing up, it’s not real. No one would force me—that’s a different religion. I’m not married, promise.”

“You’re sure?” Lauren sits next to her and looks at the phone again. “It’s a horrible dress.”

“I know. At church, there was this thing—it wasn’t—”

“So why the hell did you dress up like that?”

“We had to. It was just this wedding thing, that’s all.”

“Not an
actual
wedding?”

“No.”

“Why’s it on Facebook, then?”

“I don’t know—I … whose page is it?”

“Have you read the comments? They reckon you’ve married Adam, by the way.”

Zippy snatches the phone back. She scrolls to the top of the page; the photo has been posted by one of Adam’s friends, Ethan Taylor. His status reads: Adam Carmichael you sly bastard!

She scrolls through more of the comments.

“There’s something else you should see,” Lauren says. She takes the phone back and fiddles with it for a moment.

“Here.”

She holds the phone out and there’s the photograph again, repeated with a variety of captions.