Hard Tail (10 page)

Such reminders of civilisation aside, it was hard to remember this pretty, rural scene was only a stone’s throw away from Southampton. I turned back when I realised the housing estates I was now cycling through were turning into the outskirts of Marchwood, frustrated I seemed to have run out of countryside already.

I was going to have to get out into the forest, I decided as I sped back to Jay’s. Only then would my shiny new bike be able to hold its handlebars up high next to Jay’s array of well-ridden cycling hardware in the garage.

But for now, it was time to get my stuff together for karate. Having parked my bike up against the house, intending to get straight back on it and ride to the sports centre, I went upstairs and changed into my gi—only to realise I’d look pretty daft cycling through Totton in bright white pyjamas. Faced with the prospect of having to change back, then find a rucksack to carry my gi in, I ended up abandoning my never-very-strong green credentials and taking the car after all.

The weekend class, when I got there, had a completely different feel to the Wednesday one. More school kids, with a few who hardly looked old enough for school, their brightly coloured belts wrapped several times around their skinny middles—not that I was one to talk, of course. Unfortunately, my sparring partner from Wednesday was there too. Pritchard—I was damned if I was going to think of him as “Mister” anybody.

He didn’t look any happier to see me than I was to see him—he sneered and turned his back deliberately as I approached, effectively blocking me off from the group of brown and black belts standing around having a pre-session chat.

Ye gods, how old was he? Twelve? I started doing a few stretches, and after a minute or two, John, one of the other black belts, detached himself from the group and came over to join me. He was a sandy-haired man in his forties with a cultured voice and impressively toned abs. I’d noticed those last two on Wednesday, although possibly not in that order.

“Don’t let old Pit-bull get to you,” John said in a low voice. “I think he feels he needs to defend his territory.”

I smiled at the nickname. “As long as he doesn’t try and pee on me,” I murmured, and we both laughed.

I didn’t get it, though. What the hell did the guy have against me? Was it my accent—too “posh”? My face? The way I did my hair?

Or was it the other thing? A cold chill ran through me. Could he tell? Maybe there was something in the way I looked at the other guys—without me even realising it? God, could the other guys tell too? A bead of sweat trickled uncomfortably down my back. No, that couldn’t be it. No one had noticed anything at my old club—but then, they’d all seen me with Kate at the Christmas do, hadn’t they? So if they had noticed anything, they’d have just assumed they’d been mistaken, wouldn’t they?

I’d always thought the “gaydar” thing was a bit of a myth, that you couldn’t tell just by looking at a guy—but what if I’d been wrong? What if it was just me who was rubbish at it?

“Mr. Knight! Good to see you again!” Sensei’s friendly greeting nearly ruptured an eardrum. I spun round to be treated to one of his trademark enthusiastic handshakes. It definitely made a change from the Sensei at my London club, who took his karate very seriously indeed—I think he’d totally forgotten bowing wasn’t the normal social greeting in the West, which was a little sad for a bloke called Brian from Billericay.

We all trooped into the dojo—it takes a while when you all have to stop and bow—and lined up. Sensei bounced on the balls of his feet a couple of times, then called out, “Mr. Knight—would you like to do the warm-up?”

I blinked. I hadn’t expected this on only my second session here—then again, a warm-up was a warm-up, wasn’t it? “
Osu
,” I replied quickly, bowing, and ran out to the front to face a long line of friendly and not-so-friendly faces. Although there was only really one in the last category: Pit-bull Pritchard looked like he’d rather swim naked through boiling lava than have me out the front telling him what to do. “Okay, let’s have you jumping on the spot,” I began.

I took them through the usual exercises, although I may have put in a few more jumps than usual when I noticed Pritchard wasn’t too light on his feet. Maybe he’d had a night on the town last night, and was feeling hungover? I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed the thought as much as I did. By the time we finished, he was looking like he thought skinny-dipping in boiling lava was an excellent idea, only it’d be me taking the plunge, not him. I was careful to meet his glare with a sunny smile, after which he looked like he’d decided lava was far too good for me.

Of course, I then had to make sure I avoided Pritchard for the rest of the class, but I’d been planning on doing that, anyway. I managed to keep at least three people between us at all times until the very end, when I had to walk past him to leave.

“Fucking poofter,” he muttered as I bowed my way out of the dojo.

I was glad my face was hidden. All I could think of was getting away. Luckily my body was on autopilot and even managed to wave good-bye to the guys as I went. My mind was paralysed, frozen with shock. He’d known. How had he known? What was it that gave me away?

I hadn’t been eyeing his tank-like form with illicit desire, that was for sure.

I wondered who else he’d told. I guessed I’d find out on Wednesday, when nobody wanted to spar with me…

Damn it.

I spent Sunday afternoon trying to distract myself by doing mundane but necessary tasks. I threw my dirty clothes in the washing machine, then unpacked all Gran’s pottery dragons and arranged them on Jay’s shelves. All right, perhaps not strictly speaking necessary, but it definitely cheered the place up a bit. I found the one that looked most like the picture of Puff the Magic Dragon I’d had as a kid and bunged it in the loo next to Jay’s bong. It looked right at home. I found myself whistling the song every time I went for a pee.

After that, I drove into Southampton to buy some more casual stuff to wear. It was probably a bit extravagant—I almost certainly had some stuff back in London that would have done, more or less—but I had a nasty feeling Kate and Alex might be there packing up some more of her things this weekend, which would make me turning up a bit awkward. Discretion being the better part of cowardice, I decided to stay away and hit the shops instead. It’d be good for the general economy, anyhow.

I wasn’t sure what to buy at first—I tried on some baggy jeans like Matt’s, but they just looked ridiculous. In the end, I cast my mind back to what I’d seen in Jay’s wardrobe and just bought more of the same. I ended up with two pairs of straight-cut jeans and some longish shorts—summer was coming, after all—plus some shirts that didn’t make me look quite so buttoned-up. When I looked in the changing-room mirror I hardly recognised myself. I wondered what Matt would think of the new, casual me.

The boot of my car stuffed with carrier bags, I stopped in to see Jay on the way back. There was a welcome sight waiting for me in Jay’s hospital room. “Dad!”

His face lost the vaguely worried look it tends to wear when he’s around Mum, and he gave me a bony hug. Dad’s built on the same scale as I am, only with even skinnier legs and a bit of a pot belly to balance that out. “Tim, my boy. Wonderful to see you looking so well.”

“You too, Dad. How’s the, er, you know?” I patted my chest with a furtive glance around in case Mum was watching. Fortunately, she was too busy multitasking to notice: plumping Jay’s pillows while giving one of the nurses a ticking off for something or other.

“Ah! Well, between you and me,” Dad stage-whispered, not without a furtive glance of his own, “it’s been a great deal better since your mother’s been too busy coming down here to bother with cooking.” Mum and Dad lived in Winchester, which was only half an hour away by road, but, like me, Mum was always glad of an excuse not to cook. “I think Dr. Loving may have been right all along. But you know your mother—she’s determined I should have one foot in the grave.”

I grinned, more relieved than I wanted to let on. “That’s Mum for you—never one to admit she’s wrong. How’ve you been managing, then, with her spending half her time down here?”

Dad put on a martyred expression. “Oh, you know. Surviving. It’s not been easy, I can tell you—some days I go hours without hearing a single order to mow the lawn, fix the shelves, fetch something from the attic and while I’m at it, stop
doing
so much, it’s bad for my heart.” He chuckled and lowered his voice even further. “Don’t tell your mother, but I’ve been having butter on my toast for lunch. And popping to the baker’s for the odd eclair.”

“On your own arteries be it,” I warned semi-seriously. Dad just gave me a mischievous smile and made a
shh
gesture, with a significant look over to Mum.

I thought I’d better say hi to the person I was actually here to visit, so I went over to Jay. Mum had finally got the pillows plumped to her satisfaction but obviously hadn’t finished ticking off the nurse yet. From her resigned expression, I guessed the nurse knew she’d be there awhile yet. “So, any news on the leg front?”

Jay made a disgusted face. “Yeah. They’ve finally worked out which bits they want to pin together and with what, so I’m booked in for surgery.” He brightened. “According to the bone guy, I’m the only person under sixty-five who’s had a fracture like this in the last forty years. That’s why it took them so long to work out how best to treat it. He’s planning on writing a paper about me.”

Typical. “You know, there are easier ways to get famous. Certainly less painful ones.”

“Yeah? Haven’t seen your ugly mug on the telly lately. So how’s it going with the shop, anyway? Have you managed to stop Matt trashing the place?”

I wasn’t sure I liked Jay’s attitude. “Matt’s been great—you shouldn’t be so hard on him. He was flat out yesterday, what with all the repairs coming in and out.”

“Putting him up for employee of the month, are you?” Jay grinned. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d fallen for his scruffy gay charms.”

“Oh, for God’s sake—can’t I even say something nice about the bloke without you jumping on me like that?” I hoped to God I wasn’t blushing; it’d be a dead giveaway.

“Bet you’d be all right with Matt jumping on you—”

My face was burning hot. Maybe he’d blame it on the stuffy hospital room. “Have you ever seen
Misery
? Because I’m quite happy to stage a re-enactment of a certain scene—”

“Timothy!” Mum’s voice snapped in my ear. “Would you please try and remember your brother is very seriously injured? We’re all extremely worried about his operation.”

“Er, sorry.” I felt about five years old. “Um, is it really that big a deal?” I asked Jay.

“Nah. They’re just going to put a sort of framework in. They said it’ll feel a lot better when they’ve done it, and I’ll be able to walk on it sooner.”

“
If
he doesn’t catch MRSA and lose it altogether,” snapped Mum. “Really, the standards of hygiene of some of these young girls—”

“Mum, I really don’t think talking about that kind of thing is going to help Jay feel better.”

Mum just glared at me.

“God, you two are as bad as each other!” Jay leaned forward, apparently for the express purpose of being able to collapse dramatically back onto his pillows. “You wear me out, you do. Stop
worrying
.”

I wasn’t sure who was more offended by the comparison—me or Mum.

“Anyway,” Jay went on into the stunned silence, “is Matt okay? In himself, I mean. He seemed a bit low last time I saw him, and then there’s the black eye and all.”

“Oh, that’s nearly disappeared now,” I said warmly, glad of the change of subject. “And I don’t know what you mean about him seeming low—he’s always really cheerful when I see him.”

“Yeah? That’s a relief. I’d been starting to wonder…so, no more accidents, then?”

“Well, no more visible bruising, if that’s what you mean. What did you mean, you were starting to wonder about Matt?”

“What? Nah, it’s nothing.” He laughed. “Got too much time to think here, that’s my trouble.”

I nodded solemnly. “You’ve never really been cut out for that, have you? Thinking, I mean.”

Jay threw a pillow at me. It was heading right for my nose, but I blocked instinctively, a perfect
age-uke
that sent it veering wildly off course—straight into Mum’s carefully arranged hairdo. Jay cracked up. “Oh, nice shot, Tim! Well done, my son!” Dad and I burst out laughing, and Mum tutted, looking daggers at me as she smoothed down her hair. Although I swear the pillow had just bounced off the lacquer, not shifting a hair out of place.

I wondered why I’d ever moved all the way up to London. It was so bloody good to be with my family again.

By the time I got home, the funny smell in the house had matured into a foul stench that threatened to sear my eyebrows off. A quick search revealed a festering puddle of mostly dried-in cat sick behind the sofa and prompted an even quicker search for a bucket and a gallon of disinfectant. At least the mystery of Wolverine’s earlier bad breath was now solved. I’d been planning to get a takeaway, but strangely my appetite seemed to have disappeared. I opened every downstairs window to try to clear the lingering reek and had a couple of slices of toast instead. Then I checked my phone, where I found seven messages from Kate, all saying “Call me!” with increasing degrees of urgency.