How the Trouble Started Read online

  ‘A lad in my English class.’

  ‘You aren’t going to be drunk in the park?’

  I shook my head. ‘He has some new films he wants to watch.’

  ‘I didn’t think you were one for films.’

  She meant she didn’t like me watching films. She thinks they are all loud and stupid and violent.

  ‘I like films,’ I said.

  She was unsure, but didn’t argue further, it was done, and I’d booked myself Saturday night away from the house. Saturday afternoon I met Jake at the playground and gave him his instructions for the night.

  I packed a small bag with some essentials. I’d bought some chocolate biscuits and drinks to see us through the night because who knew what she had to eat and drink in the house. There was a tricky moment just before I was leaving. Mum came up to my room and said she wanted a number for Tom Clarkson’s house, in case of emergency. My brain worked quickly and I told her that they only had mobiles and I didn’t know the numbers. I got away with jotting down a house number and a street name and said a silent prayer that no emergencies occurred.

  It was a close, muggy evening and even though the sun wouldn’t be setting for a few hours, the threat of a thunderstorm hung in the air and heavy clouds darkened the town. As I headed away from our house there was a deep rumble over the other side of Denple Hill, and I thought about the town we’d left behind eight years ago and wondered if the same thunder had visited them too. It had been a hot day, and normally by now the town would be cooling down, relaxing into the evening, but the heat was trapped by the clouds and clung to the streets. Suddenly I felt uneasy about it all. The tension in the air added to the tension in my shoulders and I was on the verge of letting the panic win. I had to breathe deeply and slowly to stop an attack from mounting. As I got closer to the town centre there was the odd spot of fat rain falling and I thought about the impact of rain. Would rain make her give up on her night out and stay in? I didn’t think so. I thought she needed her Saturday night and her thick-necked man in his black shirt too much. The rain never quite breached the clouds anyway. Splat, splat, splatter and then nothing. I was at the steps by the dentist’s for seven and sat and waited. It wasn’t long until the street became busy and I even recognised a few faces from the time before. Some of the ladies were rearranging themselves as they walked along, making sure that dresses were pulled up at the front and down at the back. The men were in short-sleeve shirts or T-shirts, despite the threat of rain. Tanned arms as thick as babies’ heads were on show, stretching the material out to busting point. I contemplated my puny arms and wondered if they could ever end up as wide as those out on the streets below. It seemed impossible. She was earlier this time, I saw her about half seven. Different dress, same handbag, same small, fast steps. As soon as the back of her head disappeared into the black of the Social entrance I was up and off.

  I started to feel good during the walk across town. I was out. Out for the whole night. We’d have a great time, do whatever he wanted, and then he could have an early night and a proper sleep. He could wake up feeling refreshed for a change, a brighter morning in front of him. The streets were quiet now. People were either already out or settled in for the night. A breeze had finally prised its way underneath the clouds and was working its way through the town. It felt good on my neck and underneath my shirt, and the sweat on my back began to cool. Fifteen minutes after I left the dentist’s step I turned onto Fox Street. I walked a few yards until I reached the gravel track that ran behind the houses. I followed the track and walked to the back of Jake’s yard. I closed the yard door quietly behind me, stood still and listened. Some of his neighbours’ windows were open, the houses trying to lure the breeze, but the breeze not yet worked up enough to leave the streets and move indoors. There was Saturday night TV noise coming from the house on the right: laughter, clapping, whooping, a split-second silence and then noisy adverts. I felt safe stood there. The yard walls were high so nobody could see me unless they were in one of the back bedrooms of the adjoining houses looking directly at the spot I was stood. But there was nobody at the back bedroom windows on a Saturday night, nobody looking. I took the few steps to the back door and pushed the handle down. It didn’t budge. I tried again, pushing the handle harder this time, but the door wasn’t for shifting an inch. I was angry for a second. I’d told Jake. I’d told him all he had to do was say nothing and unlock the back door after his mum had gone and everything would be perfect. I caught myself. I was being silly. He was just a little lad. My anger left me quickly. It would be too early for him to be in bed so I knocked on the back door until a small, distorted figure appeared through the frosted glass, making his way forward. The lock clunked and he pulled open the door and I squeezed in.

  At midnight the storm finally hit. I knew it was on its way because the clouds had dropped even lower, the air had thickened and there was nowhere for all the energy to go so it had to turn in on itself to fight a way out. Just like Mum and her silences. We were up in Jake’s room, the light was off and I was stood close to the window watching the storm accumulate, enjoying the drama of it all. Jake was in bed, fast asleep, not making a sound. We were safe and dry and the weather couldn’t touch us. The weather couldn’t touch us until the first bang went off. It sounded like the belly being torn from under the town. Jake shot up with the force of a jack-in-the-box. ‘What was that?’ His eyes as wide as his old friend Harry’s.

  ‘It’s thunder,’ I said. ‘It’s a storm; it’s going to be noisy. Do you get scared?’ I could tell, looking at him, that he was scared, terrified, in fact. I moved over to the bed and sat down and told him to lie back. ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ I said, just as another panel of thunder dropped and shook the street. His face told me he didn’t believe me, and I understood; this was some of the loudest thunder I’d ever heard and I was sure that to an eight-year-old it could sound like the world was ending. I thought it best to distract him. Distraction: a panic attack technique. I told him all I knew about thunder, that whilst it might sound horrible, it’s only the sound of lightning, and lightning is just electricity in the atmosphere. It didn’t have much effect; he lay there, still terrified, looking up at the ceiling, then across to the window, dreading the next explosion. ‘Do you ever daydream Jake?’ I asked. He wasn’t listening, he was too intent on what was going on outside. I took hold of his hands and told him to close his eyes and breathe slowly. I asked him what he wanted to be when he was older. ‘Astronaut,’ he said, without having to think. Just like me back then. ‘OK. Imagine you’ve done all the training. You’ve been preparing for months. You’re walking to the space shuttle with your helmet under your arm. And then you’re in the shuttle and you’re strapped in.’ Another wall of thunder hit and Jake flinched. I told him to keep his eyes shut, to concentrate on what I was telling him. ‘You’re in the shuttle Jake and they’re counting down to lift-off. You can hear the roaring and the shuttle is shaking and then you’re leaving the ground and pushing up into the sky.’ He gripped my hands tighter. ‘The whole spaceship is shaking and the noise is huge and your head is wobbling like it might explode and then, suddenly, it’s calm and quiet and you’re cruising through space.’ A flash of lightning lit up the room, I kept going. ‘You unstrap yourself and now you’re floating in the spaceship. You’re doing slow-motion somersaults and swimming through the air.’ I described the planets as he sailed past them. I described Earth as it faded away to the size of a blue full stop. Looking at him there I could see myself eight years ago, my bed a spaceship, vanishing into space, dying to escape. Slowly the storm began to move away and Jake’s hands relaxed in mine, his face softened. The thunder was rumbling more than exploding now. I started leaving gaps between descriptions, there was no reaction from him, and I could see he’d fallen back asleep. He was flat on his back, nose pointing to the ceiling. I let go of his hands and placed them at his side. I caught his tiredness quickly and curled up at the bottom of the bed, just meaning to rest
my eyes, to be close if the storm returned, but I was too tired and fell asleep myself.

  I woke up feeling nervous. I checked my watch and saw it was half five and light out and the storm was long gone. I pulled myself up and sat down next to Jake. I gently ruffled his head and he moaned and twisted. I said his name and he squinted at me. ‘It’s light now Jake, it’s early in the morning, I’m going to head off.’ He nodded and put his thumb in his mouth. ‘Are you going to be OK now?’ I asked. He nodded again, his eyes closed and he was back in the land of sleep again. I leant down and kissed his forehead lightly. He was warm and smelt of sleep. I looked down at him and wondered how he would have coped with the storm if I hadn’t been there. I didn’t want to leave him but I dragged myself away, down the stairs and down the hall, towards the kitchen and the back door, wondering where I could go until it was time for me to go home. I pushed open the kitchen door and she was there in front of me, asleep in a chair, her head resting on her hands on the kitchen table. The air in the room sour and thick. I didn’t move. I rode out the panic that rushed my body. Before I decided what to do the head in front of me lifted up. Two unreadable eyes looked at me before the head dropped back to the hands. I stayed where I was, unsure what would happen next. I don’t know how long I stood there watching her, looking for a sign of movement, but none came. I backed myself out of the room and out into the hall. I opened the front door as quietly as I could and closed it the same. I ran as fast as I’d ever run down Fox Street, away from Jake and his mum and their house.

  I couldn’t go home. It wasn’t yet six and an early return would provoke questions and I didn’t need Mum’s attention all over me after what had just happened. I pushed open the door to the haunted house and leant back into it until it closed shut. My heart thumped and my legs wobbled. I stood against the door in the dirty old hallway and tried to calm down. It felt strange to be there at that time of day, to be there alone. And even though it was a battered, desolate house, where nobody had lived for years, it still had the hushed feeling of early morning. I walked quietly up to our room, crawled under the plastic table, curled myself up and prayed for a sleep that refused to come.

  In the afternoon tiredness hit and I told Mum I was going upstairs to read. It was a heavy, deep sleep, and I woke groggy and in a dark mood a couple of hours later. Had she seen me? I know she’d seen me, she’d looked right at me, but had she seen me? I’d heard lads at school saying they couldn’t remember anything because they were so drunk, but I didn’t know how much of that was truth and how much was talk. I wished I’d been drunk at least once in my life so I would know how you felt, so I would know what you remembered and what you forgot.

  21

  The man didn’t even look at me as he bagged the drink. I didn’t expect to be asked for ID, people always think I’m older than my age because of my height, but it could have been a toddler stocking up with booze and they’d have got served the same. I carried the drink back to the haunted house, got settled in my chair and opened a can. I’d bought eight cans of lager and a bottle of gin. I wasn’t sure if it would be enough, but I thought I could always go back for more if I needed it. I drank a can of lager quickly and felt nothing so I tried some of the gin, but it was like drinking petrol and the only way I could get it down was by mixing it into the lager. After the lager and gin together, it started to hit. But Jake’s mum had been in a proper state when I saw her so I ploughed on to try and get to where she’d been. It didn’t take long. I remember I went to the quarry. I remember I shouted to the moon that it was a big silver-faced bastard and thought that was funny. I don’t remember how I cut my hand, I don’t remember how I hurt my knee. I do remember trying to sneak back up to my room and getting caught by Mum and not being able to stop laughing as she shouted at me and slapped me across the head. I don’t remember being sick out of my bedroom window but I know that I was because I was made to clean it up the next morning and the smell and sight of it made me sick again, and then I was cleaning up new sick on top of old. And at the end of it all I was no nearer to learning if Jake’s mum would remember seeing me. The only thing I’d found out was when you drink like that, the next morning you feel like you’ve been poisoned and you want to die.

  *

  I couldn’t stand not knowing. I would rather have been in an interview room, answering questions, than sat in my room at home wondering if every car coming down the road was a police car heading to the house. I hadn’t gone to school, the way I’d felt that morning I wouldn’t have made it to the front gates without being sick again, and Mum didn’t even try and make me. In the afternoon I still felt terrible, but I needed to know what was going on. I set off to try and intercept Jake on the way back from school, to ask if his mum had said anything, but my head was a mess and my timing was all wrong and I got to the school just as the last few dawdlers were leaving, and Jake was long gone. I set off on his route, to see if I could catch him up, to see if he was at the playground, but it was hard to walk fast, every footstep sent a jolt of pain to my brain, a kick of queasiness to my stomach, so I had to slow down just to make the distance. As I was about to turn onto Fox Street I saw the police car parked outside the front of Jake’s house. Right outside, no mistaking, no room for hope. I veered back onto Waddington Road, my legs suddenly drunk again. I headed to the river, to where me and Fiona had walked a few days before. I left the road as quickly as possible, crossed a field and walked down to the riverbank. I found a spot by a bend where the water chops its way around the corner. I dropped myself into the grass. I didn’t think about anything. I watched the water hit the rocks and negotiate its way around the turn. Groups of gnats lowered themselves over the water and flickered together like TV static. A brown fish launched itself into the air and hung for a second before dropping back into the water. I’d been there at least two hours before I finally got up to leave. I felt strangely calm as I walked through town and home. It was like I’d reached a conclusion somehow. It was a warm night and people were out and a friendliness hung over the place. Dogs gave me an interested sniff as they passed, neighbours were chatting over hedges in front gardens, and windows and doors were open everywhere. I was reminded that I liked Raithswaite. That it had been good to me, considering. The terror edged its way back in before I turned the last corner to our house, but when I saw there was no police car in sight I knew I had a while longer as a free man. I went straight up to my room and was in bed early. Before I drifted off I realised that these things could take a while. She didn’t have a clue who I was and Jake didn’t know where I lived exactly. Come to think of it, he didn’t even know my second name. They would be coming, I was sure of that, but they hadn’t worked me out yet.

  22

  When nothing had happened by Thursday I didn’t understand. I knew the bullet was speeding through the air but didn’t know when it would hit. My stomach was a mess; I’d hardly eaten in four days and I jumped at the slightest noise, the smallest provocation. I didn’t see Jake in the library at all and I wanted it over and done with so I dragged myself to the bullet to get it done. I planted myself at the end of a quiet street on his route home from school and waited. I half expected him to be walked home flanked by police, helicopters hovering, but he made his way down the street alone as usual, his hands holding his rucksack straps, his bouncy step pushing him forward. He saw me from a way off and speeded up. I couldn’t help the pleasure that gave me, to have him happy to see me. I called out to him. He was walking fast and I had to up my speed to walk with him. I asked what the police had been doing round at his. He narrowed his eyes and looked like he was trying to think back to a time impossibly long ago. ‘There was a police car parked outside your house on Monday, after school,’ I reminded him. It was coming back to him now and he started to nod.

  ‘They came because of the trouble. They asked me questions,’ he said.

  ‘What trouble Jake? What were they asking you?’

  ‘They asked if I’d seen anything unusual.’
/>   ‘And what did you tell them?’

  ‘I told them I hadn’t seen anything,’ he said.

  ‘Did your mum ring the police Jake?’

  He shook his head. ‘It was Mrs Holt next door,’ he said.

  ‘Why did she ring the police?’

  ‘She was crying. They took loads, but she said it wasn’t the money, it was the stuff she couldn’t replace, like the letters from Mr Holt.’

  ‘She’d been burgled Jake?’

  ‘Yeah. She says she feels like her home isn’t safe any more. She was crying at our house.’

  ‘And that’s why the police were at your house?’

  ‘They were asking what was taken,’ Jake said.

  I wanted to hug him.

  ‘Did your mum say anything to you after I’d been round Jake? Did she mention seeing me?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘So she didn’t say anything to you on Sunday?’

  ‘She wasn’t well,’ he said. ‘She had a tummy bug and spent the day in her room and then at night we watched TV together.’

  ‘And she didn’t mention anything to you about anyone being in the house?’

  He shook his head again. She was too drunk to know that a stranger had spent the night in her house with her eight-year-old son. The stupid cow. I didn’t walk with him much further. I thought it best not to risk it. I turned to head home. I was hungry for the first time in days.

  23

  The next Saturday morning I decided to go to the library with Mum. I thought it would do us good to spend some time together, doing the things we used to do, and I wasn’t seeing Jake until the afternoon at the playground. I wanted to try and repair some of the damage from the last few weeks. It wasn’t just me being kind; she’d hardly spoken to me at all since my drunk night and it was hard work to live like that, in even more silence than I was used to, so I was hoping to make life easier for myself. I was expecting a cold reaction but she nodded straight away when I suggested I went with her. On our way across town I found out why she was so keen. I had to check that I hadn’t misunderstood, but she repeated her words as clear as day. We were booked on the internet for half an hour from ten o’clock. After the half-hour was up we’d be charged so we would have to be quick. ‘You’ll have to work it, the internet, Donald,’ she said, ‘I haven’t a clue.’ It was a shock because she doesn’t believe in computers, especially not in the library. The day after they first arrived she wrote a letter to the council telling them to think about all the books they could have bought with the money instead, and wasn’t that what a library was supposed to be for anyway? But recently she’d heard a programme on the radio about the invasion of privacy and at some point the talk turned to the internet. ‘They say they’ve filmed every street of every town in the country. That you can see it all on the screen in front of you. Every street, like you’re there.’