White Goods (20 page)

‘What you looking at
there? What’s your current favourite?’

We did
Our Price
first and then
we still had five minutes left, so there was time for
WH Smiths.
As we
approached the record department, I saw a familiar face filling up
the blank C90 cassettes.

‘Alright, Scot,’ said
Russell Dunbar, Ian’s old friend who had looked out for me at the
swimming pool. ‘Ian.’ His acknowledgement of my brother was
somewhat different to mine. Mine was friendly; Ian’s was just said,
formal.

‘Yeah,’ Ian had replied,
like he wasn’t saying anything, and he pushed me ahead towards the
singles section. ‘Come on, Scotty, you need to get on and choose
your present.’

I think it
was Ian’s original intention to quiz me first and then come back
and pick out a single for my Christmas present. But something told
me he wanted to get me away from Russell. I knew they weren’t
really mates anymore. Russell had been a regular at our house until
the last summer and then he’d stopped coming round. Ian didn’t even
talk about him any more.
‘Fallen out with
your boyfriend?’
Della had teased, but Ian
hadn’t bitten-back, hadn’t said anything. I wanted to ask him what
had happened, even more so after their frosty exchange.

‘Come on,
we’ve only got a minute before Della’s expecting us,’ he said,
rushing me to make a decision. So I picked Paul McCartney’s
Wonderful Christmastime.
To Ian’s visible relief, Russell didn’t serve us at the till,
but we did pass him on the way out. He tipped Ian a quick nod and
Ian returned it.

This told me they didn’t
hate each other, so maybe there was still hope for their
friendship. But I didn’t say anything; didn’t see the point in
provoking Ian. And I didn’t want to. He’d been great so far that
evening, much better than our absent dad would have
been.

Leaving
WH Smiths
, we could see Della waiting for us just ahead. She had a
face on and instantly we saw why: she’d been joined by another of
the Tankard clan. Sharon had turned up, with her latest boyfriend,
who was a fat skinhead with love bites on his neck.

‘Lee,’
she said by way of an introduction, but there was
really no point in her telling us his name – it would be someone
else by the next time we saw her. Lee didn’t say anything either,
so we didn’t need his name for the purpose of conversation; he was
too busy leaving matching marks on Sharon’s neck. He also spent his
time with his hands inside her coat, fumbling about and we did our
best to look away, pretending neither of them was there.

At just after
eight-thirty, we were back by the poultry cross in the centre of
town, joining the crowd around the big Christmas tree. There was
the traditional chorus of ‘Oohs’ and ‘Aahs’ when the tree lights
finally came on. To the right of the tree was the official choir
that sang at the cathedral.

When the singing started
- the choir boys sounding like a bunch of girls, all high pitched
and that - I could sense a bit of a kafuffle going on behind me,
and I looked back.

Della and Ian
looked as well and I heard an
oh-great
from my sister and I knew
from the tone that she was in her say-the-opposite mode.

It was Justin and Stevie,
doing-a-runner by the look of things. You wouldn’t have known they
were in trouble, because they were both grinning and Justin was
laughing his head off. But they were. Behind them, keeping up a
good pace, were two blokes in uniform. Not policemen, but security
guards.

‘From Woollies,’ I
informed Della.

‘
Cos I really
care,’ she told me, confirming that her opposite-mode was now
permanent.

I looked at Ian and he
knew what I was thinking: that we should follow, should see if we
could help. But he was the grown up that night, what with Dad not
being with us, and he held me by my shoulders, forcing my body, if
not my head, to face the choir.

‘
They made
their own trouble,’ he said, all wise. ‘And they always land on
their feet.’

Normally, at points like
this, I’d give example of when one of them hadn’t, like the time we
went for a walk in the dump and Justin’s foot got caught in some
wire and he landed on his face, but I held it back. I knew what he
meant, and it was a chance to show that for once. Match Ian in the
growing up stakes.

I took one more look back
for Justin and Stevie, but they’d legged it.

Something else caught my
eye, though. Her. Shirley. There. Just behind us. I smiled. Ian
caught this and looked too, curious. His brow knitted itself up,
crossing over with concern and I wondered if he’d seen her too, but
he was looking slightly left. At someone else. At Russell
Dunbar.

‘What is it?’ I asked and
this time he got hold of my head and twisted it round to the
front.

‘It’s
nothing.’

‘Did you see her?’ I
asked, on the off-chance he had. Taking the chance to share what
I’d seen.

‘Scot.’ He said it
simply. And whilst he just used my name, it was like he was saying
quite a lot to me. Or that’s how it felt and it made me go quiet.
Maybe he just didn’t want to know about me and Shirley White? Maybe
she was only there for me?

‘Are we going?’ Della.
This broke up my reflecting and Ian coughed sharply, as if clearing
his throat and head at the same time.

‘How about a hot
chocolate at the Wimpy?’ he suggested, with a sudden grin
dissolving anything that might make us object.

‘Yes, Dad,’ said Della,
and then we were all grinning. The three-of-us. And I liked it. I
liked the comfort and safety of the three-of-us and wondered if it
would last.

Later, when we were in
bed, drifting off, a voice spoke out from the dark, from the
direction of Ian’s bed. I wondered at first who it was and why they
had said the words they had. But eventually I told myself it really
was Ian speaking.

‘I did see her,’ he
whispered, his words almost lost in the quiet, winter darkness. ‘I
did, Scotty.’

Then I felt my body take
a plunge, like I’d been asleep and suddenly woken. A sleep-twitch,
I think. And he was snoring. Ian was snoring. So, I’d been
dreaming. It was still only me that could see her.

A week before the school
holidays began, the last pre-Christmas visit to Nan Buckley’s
occurred. As had become habit, Della and Ian left me at the top of
her road and went off on their own.

‘
You sure you
don’t wanna come with us?’ they asked me, but I shook my head. Who
would visit Red Nanny?

‘
Meet here in
an hour, ok?’ was Ian’s final word, before he and Della
disappeared, in the direction of the crematorium.

‘Alright
Scotty?’

It was Justin. He was
waiting for me when I came out of the sweet shop next to Beverly
Courts.

His left eye was still a
bit brown from where his Dad had hit him a week or so before,
following the incident in Woollies. Turns out, Justin and Steve had
stolen a radio-alarm-clock and a stack of blank cassettes, stuffed
up their coats. The security guards had cornered them in a back
street, marched them back to Woollies and then called Adrian
Tankard. One of the guards was a drinking pal of Adrian’s and so he
had called him direct, side-stepping any police intervention. Which
was unfortunate for Justin and Stevie, as, contrary to popular
belief, the police didn’t actually beat you up. But Adrian Tankard
did.

‘You allowed
out again now?’ I asked Justin, surprised to see him in public.
After smashing up his face, Adrian Tankard had locked him away,
supposedly so Justin’s social worker couldn’t see the damage his
dad had done. All of Justin’s family had social workers. They
were
that-kind-of-family
, Mum had told
me. Doing
that
face. The one she used whenever the Tankards were mentioned,
in particular Chrissie.

‘No, sneaked out,’ said
Justin, like it was no deal, like he was a bit hard, but brittle
hard. ‘Where you going?’

‘Nan Buckley’s,’ I said,
opening my mouth before I’d really thought it through.

He’d want to come,
wouldn’t he? He’d want to see? But I didn’t want him to. This
wasn’t something I was used to sharing. Not with anyone.

‘Alright then,’ he said,
like I’d made him an invite, but I hadn’t; he’d just assumed. I’d
been to see his nan before, so I guess it wasn’t a big deal for
him. But it was for me.

Geoff wasn’t about today,
so that was a relief. Last time he’d seen Justin it was when Roy
Fallick had hit me with that branch and he’d have had something to
say about him joining me on the visit.

Nan Buckley opened the
door cautiously today – her safety chain meaning it only moved a
bit and gave her a limited view.

‘Two of you?’ she said in
a question and I sheepishly introduced Justin.

‘My best friend,’ I said
by way of announcement and giving him a bit of status, making him
more family than not.

‘Oh, okay,’ she said,
taking off the chain, letting us in.

I noticed she had the big
photograph of Mum I’d brought last time sitting on top of her
television and she smiled when she caught me looking.

‘I put it out as I
thought you might be coming,’ she said, her face dropping when she
realised she’d said the wrong thing.

‘Don’t you keep it out
all the time?’ Justin asked, voicing what I was thinking,
doubling-up my disappointment.

We were seated next to
each other on her two-seater sofa.

I kicked him
a
shut-up
, whilst
Nan Buckley popped out to her kitchenette and switched on the
kettle.

‘Chocolate digestives?’
she called out.

‘Yes please, Nan,’ Justin
replied, a grin on his face and in his voice.

‘Stop it,’ I hissed,
quietly, glaring at him, up close.

‘What?’ All innocence.
Like he didn’t know what he was doing.

‘Just-.’ I struggled to
find the words amongst my frustration. ‘Be respectful,’ I finally
managed.

And then he gave me a
look that said it all: he knew. He knew my daft little
secret.

So I was quiet. I
accepted the sweet, milky tea and chocolate biscuits and suffered
in silence. Wishing I hadn’t opened my mouth. Wishing that Justin
was still mates with Roy Fallick. Wishing I’d just been more
truthful in the first place.

At the time, the visit
seemed fine. I felt uncomfortable having Justin there, but he
didn’t make the fuss or trouble I was expecting. I didn’t even
think anything of it when he offered to make another pot of tea,
insisting he did it by himself. He kept me a bit on edge, but other
than that, all seemed normal. We stayed for about an hour and then
suddenly Justin announced we were going.

‘Gotta see a man about a
dog, Nan,’ he said, being cheeky, using words like his
dad.

‘Oh, okay,’ Nan Buckley
said, a bit confused, like she’d been when we arrived, still
wondering why I’d bought this other boy along. And as we left, she
grabbed my arm and said quietly. ‘Just you next time,
Sean.’

‘Scot,’ I reminded her,
and she smiled.

‘Scot. Of
course.’

She closed the door and
that was it.

I didn’t know it at that
moment, but that was the last time I’d be allowed back.

After that day, Nan
Buckley would be gone forever.

‘Come on, Sean,’ Justin
laughed, almost running along the road home, like he wanted to get
as far away as possible. ‘Keep up.’

Christmas Day was soon
with us. The first without Mum. The first without Nan Buckley too.
I didn’t say a thing about that. Not to anyone and Dad made no
reference to it at all. Not even about visiting.

After my trip there with
Justin, I was still nervous. Still waiting for some kind of
fallout. It was coming soon; I just didn’t know it for certain at
that point.

Dad continued to get
things wrong. It had started earlier in the month when Advent
calendars hadn’t appeared on the first day of December.

‘You don’t
want that at your age,’ was his standard response to us all, as if
all of a sudden we were in the same year, like triplets. But
eventually, on the 10
^th
of December, one turned up for each of us. They
were all the same: a big Santa shape, covered in glitter, with a
foldout stand at the back. They were a bit crinkly in the bottom
left corner, so we knew they were rejects he’d got hold of for
free, but at least we had one.

‘Oh,
thanks,’
had been
Della’s response.

Getting it wrong hadn’t
stopped at that, though.

I came home from school
one evening to find an argument in full flow.

‘What do you
mean
no tree?’
Della was yelling, as I came in through the back door. She
had her arms crossed, glaring into Dad’s back. He was facing the
cooker, stirring something brown in a pot. He dropped eight white
lumps into the mix and I was able to identify it as stew and
dumplings. Again. It had become a regular dish now he had taken
over the cooking. I still had trouble keeping it down.