Текст книги "You Against Me "

Автор книги: Дженни Даунхэм

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‘Karyn’s in Year Eleven, so was about to leave school anyway, and Holly thinks she’s sad because a boy dumped her.’

‘That’s what you’ve told her?’

‘Kind of.’

She nodded. ‘And what about you? It must be very tough being the older brother of a girl in this situation.’

He wondered what she wanted to hear. Was he supposed to want vengeance, or was it best to tell her that he was leaving the whole thing well alone? He remembered what Mum had said once and went with that.

‘I’m letting you lot deal with it.’

She nodded. He’d got that right at least.

‘And we will deal with it, Mikey. I know the police ask a lot of questions and those questions can be upsetting for Karyn, but they need to get their facts straight. You know that, don’t you? It’s very personal stuff, very difficult to deal with. It’s hard for all of you.’

He shrugged. How could this woman understand? No one would ever speak to her the way the cops spoke to Karyn, asking her if she’d slept with Tom before or if she usually got so drunk at parties. Women like her had been to university and knew all the right things to say. They had parents who came in pairs and grew up expecting the same for their own kids.

Mikey looked right at her for a second. For some strange reason, he imagined her eating an ice cream – strawberry and vanilla in some sunny back garden.

She smiled at him. ‘You said earlier that you have a job.’

‘I’m training to be a chef.’

‘Good for you.’ She was obviously impressed. ‘Do you work full‑time?’

He made it sound brilliant. He was practically head chef in this little story and the pub couldn’t function without him. He described dishes he’d never made – coq au vin, cassoulet, choucroute garnie and a classic Russian coulibiac. No, he told her, he had no intention of leaving Norfolk. Yes, he said, the pub was sending him to college soon to do his NVQ. Yes, that would mean more hours, but he was completely up for it. He was a hard worker. He had a focused mind. He didn’t mention London and his dream that Karyn would get over this quickly so he’d be free to go there.

He finished with a flourish, told her he was bound to be promoted before the end of the year, then sat back on the sofa with his best grin.

But she didn’t smile back. In fact, she was frowning again.

‘That worries me, Mikey. That amount of responsibility and all those hours. I know your mum’s not well and I know how hard the situation with Karyn must be. It might be worth considering if there’s anyone else who can help you out for a while. A relative or family friend perhaps?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘there’s no one.’

Why wasn’t he getting this right? And what did she mean about Mum not being well? How much did she know?

He imagined her going back to the police station and telling all her cop mates that he wasn’t coping, then popping over to social services and telling them too. They’d all be tutting and fussing and making suggestions as to how he could do better in his sad little life.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘We can manage this. We’ll make Holly go to school every day. It’s not too much. We can do that, she likes school, so it’ll be easy.’

‘There’s more to it than that, Mikey.’

‘Like what?’

He’d offer her anything, promise everything.

She told him what social services would be looking for: Holly needed to be at school by nine o’clock every day and she needed her PE kit and book bag with her. She mustn’t be smelly or dirty or tired and she must have had breakfast. Mum needed to call social services to see if they could offer support. Karyn needed to keep her appointments.

‘I can help her, Mikey. It’s my job to help her, but I can’t do my job if she won’t talk to me. If you could encourage her to trust me a bit more, that’d be great.’

She wanted him to call if he was worried about anything or wanted to talk, or if he thought of something Karyn might need. She gave him a little card with her direct number on it. It even had her name – Gillian.

He agreed to it all. It was a chance to believe everything could be better simply by saying it out loud.

In return she said she’d contact social services and tell them she’d spoken to him and that the family were perhaps managing better than she’d thought. She’d ask them to speak to Holly’s school about getting her into some club that didn’t finish until six o’clock, and maybe they could even investigate the possibility of a family support worker, whatever that was.

He promised that Mum would call her. He told her he understood that Karyn not meeting appointments was worrying and he’d do his best to persuade her to keep them. They nodded at each other. It was agreed. It was like beginning something new, starting over.

She began to put her coat on. ‘It’s fantastic you’re working, Mikey.’

He smiled without meaning to. ‘Yeah, I like cooking, it’s cool. Have you ever been to the Queen’s Head? It’s one of the pubs by the harbour.’

‘I don’t know it,’ she said. ‘But maybe I’ll try and get there one day.’

‘It’s all you can eat for a tenner. That’s pretty good, eh? After my shifts end, I even get stuff for free.’

He hesitated. He meant the meal he got after work, the bits of meat and stuffing balls and chipolatas, all piled high. But he wondered if by saying it out loud, she’d know about the crisps he stuffed in his jacket for the girls, the peanuts and pork scratchings for Mum. She was a cop, wasn’t she? She had a nose for crime.

‘The boss is pleased with me,’ he blustered. ‘She says I’m a natural.’

‘I’m sure you are.’

She stood up and hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. ‘Well, I’ll be off, Mikey, but remember, I think Mum should call social services today if possible.’

‘I’ll get her to do it.’

She nodded. ‘Good.’

He’d survived. She smiled as she left, even said she looked forward to seeing him again.

As soon as the door was shut he yelled up to Karyn and she came out of her room and stood at the top of the stairs, wrapped in her duvet.

‘She’s gone,’ he told her. ‘I handled it.’

‘What did she say?’

‘That you should keep your frigging appointments. You know, if you hadn’t pissed her off, she’d never have grassed us up. She’s only trying to help. Considering she’s a cop, she’s OK.’

‘She keeps wanting to talk about how I’m feeling and I want to forget it.’

‘Maybe she actually cares. You ever thought of that?’

Karyn walked down the stairs, trailing the duvet behind her. When she got to the bottom step she held out her arms for a hug. He put his arms round her and they stood there together for a minute.

‘There’s some stuff we need to do,’ he said.

She leaned back and looked at him. She looked paler than yesterday, and shorter. ‘What stuff?’

‘First, we’ve got to sober Mum up. Actually, you’ve  got to sober her up, ‘cos I’ve got to go to work. She has to phone social services and tell them why she bunked off the other day, get some shopping in, then collect Holly. Get her to call me as soon as she’s properly awake and don’t let her go to school if she’s still hung‑over – they’ll be watching for that. Your cop rang the school as well, can you believe it?’

‘Stop calling her my  cop.’

‘If Mum hasn’t had a bath and isn’t completely sober, you’ll have to sort Holly out.’

Karyn shrank away from him. ‘I’m not leaving the flat.’

‘You don’t have to. Ring one of your friends and get them to pick her up.’

‘I’m not talking to people.’

‘For God’s sake, Karyn! It’s just a few phone calls.’

He wanted to hit her. He wanted to slam the door and walk away. Couldn’t she see that her mates needed something to do? Day after day they rang the doorbell to ask how she was. Giving them a job might make everyone feel better. But if he got into an argument about it now, he’d be even later for work than he was already. And if he walked off, Karyn’d go straight back to bed and she and Mum would sleep the whole day through.

He put his hands on Karyn’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. He felt like a hypnotist.

‘We’re in this together,’ he said, ‘and you have to do something to help. Make Mum strong coffee, get her to drink loads of water, go in and talk to her, don’t take any crap. We can’t be late to collect Holly today. Do you understand?’

She nodded, but her eyes were full of tears.

‘You’re very brave,’ he told her. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all going to work out fine.’

Fifteen

Tom stopped the car before the bridge, switched the engine off and turned to Ellie.

‘I’m not allowed any closer than this,’ he said.

She looked down at her lap, at her fingers gripping the strap of her bag.

He said, ‘I had a word with James and Freddie. They’ve got brothers at the school, and they’ll be straight in there if anyone gives you trouble today.’

Random boys acting as bodyguards would only get her noticed more. What she really needed was for everyone to stop taking any notice of her whatsoever, then her life could go back to how it used to be.

‘I’m sorry Dad gave you grief,’ Tom said. ‘He came down way too hard.’

It was true, he had. On and on about the shame she’d brought on the family by fighting in public, and the disappointment she’d caused by running away and not taking responsibility for her own behaviour, blah, blah. He’d only let her have two days and the weekend off, and was forcing her back already. This morning, he’d leaned over the breakfast table and said, ‘I hope you realize how tough this is for your brother.’

Tom had been sweet, stepping in and saying it was tough for her too, that she’d been defending his reputation and the kids at school sounded like total losers. But even Dad’s golden boy hadn’t been able to blag her any more days off.

And now she had to get out of the car and walk over the bridge. She had to go through the gate on the other side and cross the empty playground, then through the main door and report to reception. From there she would be escorted into Spanish by Mr Spalding, the learning mentor. It had all been planned by her father on the phone, including the late arrival. She was allowed to miss registration, assembly and the busy morning corridors. She was officially a troubled child.

‘You want my advice?’ Tom said. He twisted in his seat to look at her properly. ‘Keep your head down, stay focused on revision and exams and stay out of trouble. When you disappear for hours and refuse to say where you are, Mum and Dad are bound to go crazy.’

She shook her head at him. ‘I didn’t tell them where I was because I didn’t want to lie.’

‘But you haven’t told me either and we normally share stuff like that.’

But the gatecrasher was her secret. She’d had five texts from him since the river and the latest one said, When can I see you?  She wasn’t going to tell anyone that.

‘I hung around town.’

‘So, why’s that such a secret?’

‘Dad hates me doing nothing. He probably expects me to go to the library and revise when I bunk off and Mum always takes his side. I didn’t want the lecture, that’s all.’

Tom nodded sympathetically. ‘Yeah, yeah, they’re ridiculous.’

There was a moment’s silence, then she said, ‘Would you phone in sick for me?’

‘What?’

‘Can you phone the school and pretend to be Dad?’

‘No! He’ll go round the bend if he finds out.’

‘Please, Tom. I can’t face it.’

She held her hand to her belly. It was going weird again, as if it was wrecked inside and small things were fluttering about. She thought she must have clutched it in her sleep too, because she’d woken up with the shape of a button from her pyjamas imprinted on her palm.

‘What will you do all day?’ Tom asked.

‘I don’t know, hang out with you?’ She gave him a pleading smile. ‘If I get home at the normal time, they’re never going to know.’

He gazed at her for a second, then nodded. ‘Don’t tell them I did this.’

As he dialled, she watched his face and thought how weird it was that by sheer fluke of birth, she was his sister. Sister, sister. She said the word silently in her head and tried to make sense of it.

‘Good morning,’ Tom said. ‘I’m ringing on behalf of my daughter, Eleanor Parker, in Year Eleven. Just to let you know, she has a migraine and won’t be in today.’ He nodded as he listened to the response. ‘Yes, yes, of course I’ll tell her that. Thank you very much.’ He snapped his phone shut and smiled. ‘The receptionist hopes you get better soon.’

Ellie laughed. She couldn’t help it. One simple phone call and she had a free day ahead of her.

‘There’s another trick,’ Tom said as he started the ignition. ‘You could try this one tomorrow. You go in for registration, leave before your first class and spend the morning in town, then go back for afternoon registration and bunk straight out again. I did it loads when I was at school and no one ever found out.’

She shook her head at him, amazed. ‘I never knew that about you.’

They pulled away from the bridge, down Lower Road, past the newsagent’s and Lidl and swung a right at the post office, then a sharp left. Space opened up quickly – fields, trees, hedgerows. Ellie opened the window. The verge was rich with wild flowers and swaying grass. She stuck her hand out and let the wind play with her fingers. Across the field a bird flew very fast in a straight line, then swooped down to the earth. This was great. Her and Tom off on an adventure. Like old times.

As they got nearer to the coast, the sun began to look hazy and far away. Ellie knew it was something to do with the weight of the atmosphere at sea level. Advection,  it was called, or sea mist. By the time they pulled into the car park at the harbour, it had substance to it and was hanging damp and heavy above them.

They parked by the sea wall. Ellie had been to the harbour before, when it was busy with tourists – kids with crabbing lines and buckets, whole families trailing down through the car park to the beach. But today was a weekday and the weather was so dull now that the line between sky and sea was lost and the edges of the boats in the dock were blurred. Apart from a bloke fishing on the end of the jetty, the place was deserted. Even the souvenir shop had its hatches down.

‘So,’ Ellie said. ‘What are we doing here then?’

Tom shrugged. ‘I like the boats. I’m not allowed into town and I’ve got a curfew, but I can come here whenever I want.’

It was as if she heard it for the first time – what this meant to him, how hard this was. And she’d been all wrapped up in herself.

‘I’ve been here every day since they let me out. And you know what I do when I get here?’ He did a magician’s Duh‑da!  and pulled a tin from his pocket.

‘What is it?’

He took out a small chunk of something wrapped in cellophane and danced it in front of his nose. ‘I’m trusting you with this, Ellie.’ He sniffed it. ‘Shame it’s only Rocky.’

‘Rocky?’

‘Moroccan. It’s a bit mild, but it’s all I could get hold of.’

She knew he’d tried dope before – he’d been smoking it the night he brought everyone back. In the morning she’d buried the joint ends in the garden so their parents wouldn’t find out. But this whole chunk – soft and dark as fudge – was something else completely.

She watched him lick the seam of a cigarette and strip the damp paper away. He didn’t even bother checking outside as he emptied the tobacco into a giant Rizla and began to carefully heat the dope over his lighter.

‘Watch and learn,’ he said.

The car filled with sweet fumes. Ellie wondered if the smell would cling to her hair; if, when she got home, her dad would sniff and say, ‘Are you on drugs now, Eleanor?’

Two women walked past in matching blue windcheaters and backpacks. They looked determined, solid. Ellie envied them.

‘Should you be doing this?’ she said. ‘I mean, what if the police give you a drugs test or something?’

Tom sighed. ‘I have to have something to look forward to.’

He crumbled the dope on top of the tobacco, then picked up the whole thing and rolled it with such infinite care it was mesmerizing. He twisted one end, then laid it on his knee while he tore off a small piece of cardboard from the Rizla packet and rolled it into a tube, which he stuck in the other end.

‘What’s that for?’

‘A roach. It’s to stop your lip burning.’

Her  lip? Was he expecting her to have some?

He lit the joint, inhaled hard and closed his eyes to exhale. ‘Every morning I look forward to this.’ He took several more drags, and just as she thought she’d got away with it, that he was going to keep it all for himself, he said, ‘So, now you’re officially hanging with your big brother, are you going to have a few draws?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You won’t even feel it. Just a little rush.’

It felt awkward in her hand, as if it was a prop from a game. She had a sudden memory of her and Tom rolling leaves from a bush in the garden into a sheet of A4 and setting it alight. They must’ve been about six and eight years old and pretending to smoke cigars.

She shot him a look. This was her brother. He always had been, always would be. She took a small drag and swilled the smoke around her mouth.

‘Take it right down,’ he said. ‘Don’t waste it.’

She tried to drag the smoke from her mouth into her lungs, but her throat tensed and she sent it straight back up again in a spluttering cough.

Tom laughed. ‘You’re such a rookie. Come on, you’re not going to get stoned, you’ll feel warm and a bit happy. Don’t give up so easily.’

Under his instruction, she took a deeper drag and tried to pull the smoke right down. Her lungs burned, her brain swung sideways and the smoke came hacking out again.

Tom took the joint from her then, and inhaled ridiculously deeply, as if showing her how to do it properly. He blew the smoke out towards the windscreen. It bounced straight back at them in a pungent cloud.

He smiled dreamily at her. ‘You’ve joined the dark side of the force now. You know that, don’t you?’

She slunk down in her seat, embarrassed. She’d never in her whole life bunked school, smoked dope or kissed a boy whose name she didn’t know, and yet in the last few days, she’d done all these things. This was what it must be like to have control of your own life. This is what it would be like at university – she’d do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. No questions asked. No surveillance. Maybe she’d even get into smoking. It was quite nice after the initial rush.

Tom looked happier than she’d seen him for days, sitting there with a joint in his hand. She smiled at him. He was her brother. They were bound.

‘Tom?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Did you like Karyn McKenzie once?’

He turned to her, surprised. ‘Do we have to talk about this?’

‘I know you hate her now, but before all this happened, did you like her?’

Tom opened his window, stretched his arm out and flexed his fingers. ‘She’s a slut.’

‘So, why did you invite her round?’

‘I didn’t – she followed me home.’

‘But you gave her a lift from the pub. You stood in the garden with your arm round her.’

‘You want this to be a love story?’

‘I just want to know.’

He sighed. ‘You saw what she was wearing. You think I should go to jail for saying yes when she offered herself to me on a plate?’

‘Did you send her threatening texts when she said she was going to the police?’

He looked at her sharply. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Is that why they didn’t give you bail straight away? Dad said it was the rubbish lawyer, but it wasn’t, was it?’

Tom licked the edge of his mouth with his tongue. ‘When you saw her the next morning, when she came downstairs and you were in the kitchen, what did she say to you?’

This again. She hated this. This was like the police station. ‘I already told you: she asked me for some orange juice and directions back into town.’

He nodded. ‘Exactly. She didn’t look hassled or anything, did she? She wasn’t crying and she didn’t say anything about being attacked, did she? She drank a glass of juice and left the house and went home. She didn’t even bother going to the cops for hours.’ He tossed the joint end out of the car and shut his window. He put the Rizla packet and the dope back in the tin. ‘I sent her texts because she was about to stitch me up.’

This is what grief is like,  Ellie thought. It had a shape in her mouth like an O.

‘If I said I didn’t want to be your witness, what would you do?’

He looked genuinely alarmed. ‘You can’t bail out on me!’

‘I’m scared of going to court.’

‘We’re all fucking scared!’

‘But they’ll ask me questions and what if I get it wrong?’

‘How hard can it be? Just say you don’t know anything.’

‘I did tell you Karyn was only fifteen though.’

‘And I didn’t hear you.’

‘We had a whole conversation about it on the landing.’

‘So now you want me to go to jail because I’m hard of hearing?’

She turned to him, her cheeks burning. ‘How do you know she wanted you? How do you really  know? She was so drunk she couldn’t even walk.’

He leaned towards her, his face only centimetres from hers. He spoke very quietly. ‘If you pull out, the cops will think I’m guilty.’

She shook her head, heart thumping. ‘They won’t.’

‘They’ll haul you down the station and ask you tons of questions. Then they’ll get a witness order and force you to court, whether you want to go or not. They’ll put you in the witness box and cross‑examine you for hours. They’ll think it’s really suspicious that my own sister can’t be bothered to defend me.’

Ellie blinked. She knew what would happen next. He’d withdraw all the warmth and replace it with coldness. It would be brutal, like the sun going in and sheet ice covering the sky. It had always been this way with Tom.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘It’s ironic, I actually thought you were old enough to hang out with. But you’re worse than Dad.’

She’d ruined it between them now and it had been so perfect.

‘Get out of the car.’

‘Here?’

‘I’m meeting Freddie.’

‘Can you take me home first?’

‘Mum’s there. You want her to know you’re not in school?’

‘So, what will I do all day?’

‘I don’t know, it was your idea to bunk. Why are you going on at me all the time? There’s a bus back into town.’

So, she was stuck, the same as last week. Only then she’d had her anger and the river and the gatecrasher, and today she was dizzy from the dope and was being dumped in the middle of the harbour in a mist.

She closed her eyes, tried to get back to the anger. She wanted something to hold on to.

‘Do you have any money?’ she said.

He sighed, reached into his pocket and pulled out some coins, counted out five pounds and handed them to her. ‘You’ve got to trust me, Ellie.’ His face was still and his voice was very certain. ‘I mean it.’

And then she got out of the car.

Sixteen

‘Simple things have great weight,’ Dex said as he laid out butter, milk and flour on the work surface in front of Mikey. ‘You ever think how these three ingredients make a basic white sauce, but once you have that, you can make so many other things? Mornay, for instance, or soubise.’

This was what Mikey liked about cooking – you started with something simple and you added another simple thing to it and you ended up with something new and complicated. Alchemy,  Dex called it, which was something to do with magic if you were French.

Dex had asked him to make a béchamel sauce for the lasagne. It was Mikey’s favourite meal – all that pasta and cheese, and he knew Dex rated his sauce. He’d even swapped jobs with him and was now scrubbing out baking trays at the sink.

‘I made lasagne for my mum once,’ he told Dex. ‘You should have seen her face.’

‘She was proud?’

‘She was gobsmacked. She didn’t know I could do stuff like that.’

‘You have a gift, Mikey. It’s what I’m always saying.’

Mikey put butter in a pan and watched it soften, shifted it about with a wooden spoon for a bit, then sieved in an equal weight of flour and stirred. It formed into a greasy ball, slippery and hot in the pan. He added hot milk, slowly moistening the roux with it.

It was great not to have to worry about anything else but what was happening on the stove. Mikey knew that a good roux should be stiff and pull away from the sides of the pan, that an onion stuck with clove added flavour to the milk. Simple things he’d discovered.

‘I think one day you will be a saucier,’ Dex said. ‘You know this is the highest position of the station cooks?’

‘No, I don’t want to make sauces all the time. I want to be a sous‑chef, in charge of the whole meal from beginning to end.’

‘Well, you must work hard then. You must practise and listen well and when the time comes, the food will tell you what your specialism is.’

Mikey laughed, because the idea of food telling him anything was amazing and ridiculous all at once. Dex chuckled too. It was great standing there together laughing.

Jacko came in then. He was carrying a pile of salad boxes and gave them both a puzzled look. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Mikey is perfecting the art of the roux,’ Dex said, and he waved the dishwashing brush at Jacko like a wand. ‘He is whisking and whisking and ignoring the ache in his hand.’

‘Well, it’s really busy out there, you know.’

‘We know,’ Dex laughed, ‘which is why we are hiding in here.’

Jacko banged the boxes down. ‘So, am I supposed to chop these lettuces all by myself?’

All morning Jacko had been edgy and Mikey knew it was his fault. He’d been late for work every day last week and Jacko had covered for him. Today, he’d even lent him the car. Mikey had thanked him, promised him a game of pool and a pint after their shift, but maybe that wasn’t enough.

‘Come and have a go, Jacko,’ he said. ‘This needs attention for a while. You do the whisking, I’ll do the lettuce if you like.’

‘No, ta.’

‘You might love it.’

‘Why would I? I don’t want to be a chef.’

Dex frowned. ‘What finer ambition is there?’

‘Plenty. There’s a whole world out there.’

‘And yet you’re still here, the longest‑serving kitchen assistant we ever had.’

Mikey watched Jacko stumble for words. He knew he’d gone to the job centre loads of times in an effort to get away from the pub. He hated peeling and chopping vegetables, said the smell of cooking got under his skin. But all he’d been offered was a job stacking shelves, and the woman at the job centre had said there was competition even for that. Mikey felt sorry for Jacko suddenly, and upset to see him blushing.

‘Maybe you’ll meet a girl,’ Mikey said, ‘and she’ll look after you.’

It was meant to be kind. It was meant to make Jacko smile, so that everything could be all right between them again, but the look Jacko shot him said he hadn’t taken it that way.

‘Talking about yourself, Mikey?’

‘What are you on about?’

‘’Cos you always meet plenty of girls, don’t you?’

Mikey stopped whisking. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Jacko stepped back, hands raised as if Mikey was about to shoot him with the whisk. ‘Just saying we had a plan, remember?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘And you asked me to help you. But then you let a girl get in the way.’

‘It’s not quite that simple, is it?’

Jacko shrugged. ‘She didn’t tell you anything useful and now you’ve let another five days go by. She’s not the solution, Mikey. It seems pretty simple to me.’

‘I was busy last week.’ Mikey spoke very slowly, so Jacko would remember his mum had been AWOL and he’d had to cope with Holly and Karyn alone. ‘And I had a meeting this morning, remember? Or maybe you think I should’ve gone round his house before the meeting and kicked his face off in front of his parents?’

‘Maybe you should.’

‘Are you nuts?’

‘Boys, boys!’ Dex said. ‘Look, now you’ve brought the boss in with your noise.’

Sue stood there, arms folded, looking the three of them up and down. ‘I need a waiter.’

‘And every day I tell you, you’re looking at chefs,’ Dex told her.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I am looking at one chef, one kitchen assistant and one dishwasher.’ She took a step in and tapped Mikey on the shoulder. ‘And I think you know which of those three you are.’

Mikey shook his head at her. ‘I’ll be a rubbish waiter.’

‘You’ll get tips.’

‘I’ll drop stuff.’

‘I’ve got a shirt that’ll fit you and those trousers will have to do.’

‘But I’m in the middle of making a sauce.’

‘I’ll do you a trade. You do some waiting and I’ll turn a blind eye to your time‑keeping.’

Jacko laughed as Mikey snatched the shirt and went off to change in the toilets. Sue hovered outside the door waiting for him, then took him into the bar and got him a name badge.

‘You’re called Tyler today,’ she told him.

There were loads of people in the bar area – tourists disappointed with the weather and holed up in caravans and chalets; this would be their day’s main event. One couple had wet hair from the mist, sitting together like a pair of seals, sleek heads bent over the menu. Such ordinary clean lives. It made Mikey feel entirely crap.

He wondered about his mum, whether she was awake yet, if Karyn had managed to sober her up, if Holly was enjoying school. He envied his little sister suddenly – all that glitter and finger paint and sitting about with your mates.

Sue took him with her as she went to greet a family loitering in the doorway. ‘Table for four, is it? Follow me, please.’

She led them to the back of the eating area – mum, dad, a couple of kids. Mikey trailed behind. He wondered what it would be like to be their son, their big boy, coming out with them for his lunch. But the fantasy only lasted until they’d sat down, when Sue turned to him and said, ‘I’m only going to say this once, so listen up.’

She gave them the speech about how they should help themselves from the starter bar, then go up to the carvery to get their main course and veg. ‘Tyler will look after you,’ she told them. ‘He’ll get you drinks and desserts and anything else you need.’

Mikey stood there watching them settle themselves down. They completely ignored him. The little kids fought over the free pencils and drawing booklet, the woman folded their wet coats onto the backs of their chairs and the bloke kept checking his mobile. Mikey smiled at the woman, wanted her to see he knew what an idiot her husband was. He didn’t want to be there, it was obvious. The woman smiled back. ‘What’s at the starter bar?’ she said.

The bloke picked up his menu and scanned it, like maybe he could answer the question, but Mikey jumped in first. ‘There’s different salads, melon, or hot soup.’

‘What flavour?’ the woman said.

‘I’ll find out.’

The bloke looked up. ‘Shouldn’t you know?’