Three. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one

Eighteen

November the nineteenth. November the fucking nineteenth. That was definitely a new record, Will noted darkly. Last year it had been November the fucking twenty-sixth. He hadn’t made it through into December for years now; he could see that when he was fifty or sixty he’d be hearing his first rendition of ‘Santa’s Super Sleigh’ in July or August. This year it was a busker at the bottom of the escalator at the Angel station, a cheerful, attractive young woman with a violin who was obviously trying to supplement her music scholarship. Will scowled at her with all the hatred he could muster, a look intended to convey not only that he wouldn’t be giving her any money, but that he would like to smash up her instrument and then staple her head to the escalator steps.

Will hated Christmas, for the obvious reason: people knocked on his door, singing the song he hated more than any song in the world and expected him to give them money. It had been worse when he was a kid, because his dad hated Christmas too, for the obvious reason (although Will hadn’t realized it was the obvious reason until he was much older—back then, he just thought that his dad was as sick of the song as everybody else): it was a terrible reminder of how badly he had failed in his life. Quite often people wanted to interview his father about ‘Santa’s Super Sleigh’, and they always used to ask what else he had written, and he would tell them, sometimes even play them things, or show them records which featured another of his songs. They would look embarrassed, cluck sympathetically and tell him how hard it was for everyone who was famous for only one thing, a long time ago, and ask him whether the song had ruined his life, or made him wish he’d never written it. He would get angry, and tell them not to be so stupid and patronizing and insensitive, and when they had gone, he would complain bitterly that the song had ruined his life, and say he wished he’d never written it. One radio journalist even went away and made a series called One-Hit Wonders inspired completely by his interview with Charles Freeman, all about people who’d written one great book, or appeared in one film, or written one famous song; the journalist had had the cheek to ask him for another interview and, perhaps understandably, Will’s father had refused.

So Christmas was the season of anger and bitterness and regret and recrimination, of drinking binges, of frantic and laughably inadequate industry (one Christmas day his father wrote an entire, and entirely useless, musical, in a doomed attempt to prove that his talent was durable). It was a season of presents by the chimney too, but even when he was nine Will would gladly have swapped his Spirographs and his Batmobiles for a little peace and goodwill.

But things changed. His father died, and then his mother, and he lost touch with his stepbrother and stepsister, who were old and dull anyway, and Christmas was usually spent with friends, or girlfriends’ families, and all that was left was ‘Santa’s Super Sleigh’ and the cheques it carried to him through the snow. But that was more than enough. Will had often wondered whether there was any other stupid song which contained, somewhere deep within it, as much pain and despair and regret. He doubted it. Bob Dylan’s ex-wife probably didn’t listen to Blood On The Tracks too often, but Blood On The Tracks was different—it was about misery and damage. ‘Santa’s Super Sleigh’ wasn’t supposed to be like that at all, but he still felt he needed a stiff drink, or counselling, or a good cry, when he heard it in a department-store lift or through a supermarket tannoy in the weeks leading up to 25 December. Maybe there were others like him somewhere; maybe he should form a Successful Novelty Song support group, where rich, bitter men and women would sit around in expensive restaurants and talk about doggies and birdies and bikinis and milkmen and horrible dances.

He had no plans for this Christmas whatsoever. There was no girlfriend, and so there were no girlfriend’s parents, and though he had friends on whom he could inflict himself, he didn’t feel like it. He would sit at home and watch millions of films and get drunk and stoned. Why not? He was as entitled to a break as anyone else, even if there was nothing to break from.

If the first thing he had thought of when he heard the busker at the tube station was his father, the unexorcizable ghost of Christmas past, the second was Marcus. He didn’t know why. He hadn’t thought about him much since the trainers’ incident, and he’d had no contact with him since Fiona dragged him out of the flat the previous week. Maybe it was because Marcus was the only child he really knew, although Will doubted whether he was soppy enough to swallow the repulsive notion that Christmas was a time for children; the more likely explanation was that he had made some kind of link between Marcus’s childhood and his own. It wasn’t as if Will had been a nerdy kid with the wrong trainers; on the contrary, he had worn the right shoes and the right socks and the right trousers and the right shirts, and he had gone to the right hairdresser for the right haircut. That was the point of fashion, as far as Will was concerned; it meant that you were with the cool and the powerful, and against the alienated and the weak, just where Will wanted to be, and he’d successfully avoided being bullied by bullying furiously and enthusiastically.

But there was more than a whiff of the Freeman household in Fiona’s flat: you got that same sense of hopelessness and defeat and bewilderment and straightforward lunacy. Of course, Will had grown up with money and Marcus had none, but you didn’t need dosh to be dysfunctional. So what if Charles Freeman had killed himself with expensive malt whisky, and Fiona had tried to kill herself with National Health tranquillizers? The two of them would still have found plenty to talk about at parties.

Will didn’t like the connection he had made very much, because it meant that if he had any decency in him at all he would have to take Marcus under his wing, use his own experience of growing up with a batty parent to guide the boy through to a place of safety. He didn’t want to do that, though. It was too much work, and involved too much contact with people he didn’t understand and didn’t like, and he preferred watching Countdown on his own anyway.

But he had forgotten that he seemed to have no control over his relationship with Marcus and Fiona. On November the fucking twentieth, the day after November the fucking nineteenth, when he had more or less decided that Marcus would have to get by without his help, Fiona rang and started saying mad things down the phone.

‘Marcus doesn’t need a father, and he certainly doesn’t need a father like you, ’ she said. Will was lost even before they’d started. At this point in the conversation he had contributed an admittedly guarded but otherwise entirely unprovocative, ‘Hello, how are you? ’

‘I’m sorry? ’

‘Marcus seems to think he needs adult male company. A father figure. And somehow your name came up. ’

‘Well, I can tell you, Fiona, I didn’t put him up to it. I don’t need junior male company, and I definitely don’t need a son figure. So, fine. You and I are in complete agreement. ’

‘So you won’t see him even if he wants to see you? ’

‘Why doesn’t he use his father as a father figure? Isn’t that the easiest solution, or am I being dim? ’

‘His father lives in Cambridge. ’

‘What, Cambridge, Australia? Cambridge, California? Presumably we’re not talking about the Cambridge just up the M11? ’

‘Marcus can’t drive up the M11. He’s twelve. ’

‘Hold on, hold on. You phoned up to tell me to keep out of Marcus’s way. I told you that I had no intention of getting in Marcus’s way. And now you’re telling me… What? I missed a bit somewhere. ’

‘You just seem very keen to be shot of him. ’

‘So you’re not telling me to leave him alone. You’re telling me to apply for custody. ’

‘Are you incapable of conducting a conversation without resorting to sarcasm? ’

‘Just explain to me clearly and simply, without changing your mind halfway through, what you want me to do. ’

She sighed. ‘Some things are a little more complicated than that, Will. ’

‘Is that what you phoned me up to tell me? Because I got the wrong end of the stick early on, I think, during the bit about how I was the most unsuitable man in the world. ’

‘You’re really not very easy to deal with. ’

‘So don’t deal with me! ’ He was nearly shouting now. He was certainly angry. They had been talking for less than three minutes, yet he was beginning to feel as though this telephone conversation was going to be his life’s work; that once every few hours he would put the receiver down to eat and sleep and go to the toilet, and the rest of the time Fiona would be telling him one thing and then its opposite over and over again. ‘Just put the phone down! Hang up on me! I really won’t be offended! ’

‘I think we need to talk about this properly, don’t you? ’

‘What? What do we need to talk about properly? ’

‘This whole thing. ’

‘There isn’t a whole thing. There isn’t even a half thing! ’

‘Are you free for a drink tomorrow night? Maybe it would be better to talk face to face. We’re not getting anywhere here. ’

There was no point in fighting her. There wasn’t even any point in not fighting her. They made arrangements to meet for a drink, and it was a mark of Will’s frustration and confusion that he was able to look on the agreement of a time and a place as a resounding triumph.

Will had never been alone with Fiona; up until now Marcus had always been there, telling them when to talk, and what to talk about—apart from the trainers day, when he was kind of telling them what to talk about, even though he wasn’t saying anything. But when Will had got the drinks in—they went to a quiet pub off the Liverpool Road where they knew they would get a seat and be able to talk without competing against a juke-box, or a grunge band, or an alternative comedian—and sat down opposite Fiona, and ascertained, once again, without even meaning to, that he did not find her in the least attractive, he realized something else: he had been drinking in pubs for nearly twenty years and not once had he been to a pub with a woman in whom he had no sexual interest whatsoever. He thought again. Could that be right? OK, he’d carried on seeing Jessica, the ex, who always insisted he was missing out, after they had split up. But there had been sexual interest once upon a time, and he knew that if Jessica were ever to announce that she was looking for a discreet extra-marital affair, he would certainly apply for the job, put his name forward for consideration.

No, this was certainly a first for him, and he had no idea whether different rules applied in these situations. Obviously it would be neither appropriate nor sensible to take her by the hand and look into her eyes, or move the subject gently on to sex so that he could introduce a more flirtatious note into the proceedings. If he had no desire to sleep with Fiona, then of course there was no necessity to pretend that every single thing she said was interesting. But a strange thing happened: he was interested, mostly. Not in a well-I-never-knew-that kind of way, because even though Fiona probably knew a lot of things that Will didn’t, he was almost sure that all of them would be very dull… It was just that he was absorbed in the conversation. He listened to what she said, he thought about it, he answered. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened, so why was it happening now? Was it just sod’s law—you don’t fancy someone, so they’re bound to be endlessly fascinating—or was something happening here that he should think about?

She was different today. She didn’t want to tell him what a useless human being he was, and she didn’t want to accuse him of molesting her son; it was almost as if she had decided that this was a relationship she was stuck with. Will didn’t like the implications of that.

‘I’m sorry about yesterday, ’ she said.

‘That’s OK. ’

Will lit a cigarette, and Fiona made a face and wafted the smoke away. Will hated people who did that in places where they had no right to do so. He wasn’t going to apologize for smoking in a pub; in fact, what he was going to do was single-handedly create a fug so thick that they would be unable to see each other.

‘I was very upset when I called. When Marcus said he felt he needed some male input, I felt as though I’d been slapped round the face. ’

‘I can imagine. ’

He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. Why would anyone take the blindest bit of notice of anything Marcus said?

‘You know, it’s the first thing you think of when you split up with the father of your son, that he’s going to need a man around and so on. And then good feminist common sense takes over. But ever since Marcus has been old enough to understand we’ve talked about it, and every time he’s assured me that it doesn’t matter. And then yesterday it came right out of the blue… He’s always known how worried I am about that. ’

Will didn’t want to get involved in any of this. He didn’t care whether Marcus needed a man in his life or not. Why should he? It wasn’t his business, even though he seemed to be the man in question. He hadn’t asked to be and, anyway, he was pretty sure that if Marcus did need a man, it wasn’t his sort. But listening to Fiona now, he realized that in some respects at least he understood Marcus better than she did—possibly, he conceded reluctantly, because he was a man and Fiona wasn’t, and possibly because Marcus was, in his own junior and eccentric way, a devious man. Will understood devious men.

‘Well there you are then, ’ he said flatly.

‘Where am I? ’

‘That’s why he said it. Because he knew it would do the job. ’

‘What job? ’

‘Whatever job he wanted it to do at the time. I expect he’s been saving it. That was his nuclear option. What were you arguing about? ’

‘I’d just reiterated my opposition to his relationship with you. ’

‘Oh. ’ That was very bad news. If Marcus was willing to go nuclear on his account, then he was in even deeper than he’d feared.

‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That he was attacking me in my most vulnerable spot just so he could win an argument? ’

‘Yeah. Course he was. ’

‘Marcus isn’t capable of that. ’

Will snorted. ‘Whatever. ’

‘Do you really think so? ’

‘He’s not daft. ’

‘It’s not his intelligence I’m worried about. It’s his… emotional honesty. ’

Will snorted again. He had intended to keep his thoughts to himself throughout this conversation, but they kept escaping through his nose. What planet did this woman live on? She was so unworldly that she seemed to him to be an unlikely suicidal depressive, even though she sang with her eyes closed: surely anyone who floated that high above everything was protected in some way? But of course that was part of the problem. They were sitting here because a twelve-year-old’s craftiness had brought her crashing down to earth, and if Marcus could do it, any boyfriend or boss or landlord—any adult who didn’t love her—could do it. There was no protection in that. Why did these people want to make things so hard for themselves? It was easy, life, easy-peasy, a matter of simple arithmetic: loving people, and allowing yourself to be loved, was only worth the risk if the odds were in your favour, but they quite clearly weren’t. There were about seventy-nine squillion people in the world, and if you were very lucky, you would end up being loved by fifteen or twenty of them. So how smart did you have to be to work out that it just wasn’t worth the risk? OK, Fiona had made the mistake of having a child, but it wasn’t the end of the world. In her position, Will wouldn’t let the little sod drag him under.

Fiona was looking at him. ‘Why does everything I say make you do that? ’

‘What? ’

‘Make that snorting noise? ’

‘I’m sorry. It’s just that… I don’t know anything about, you know, stages of development and what kids should do when and all that. But I do know that it’s around now you shouldn’t trust anything a human male says about what he feels. ’

Fiona looked bleakly at her Guinness.

‘And when does that stop, in your expert opinion? ’ The last two words had a rusty serrated edge on them, but Will ignored it.

‘When he’s around seventy or eighty, and then he can use the truth at highly inappropriate moments to shock people. ’

‘I’ll be dead then. ’

‘Yup. ’

She went to the bar to get him a drink, and then sat back down heavily in her seat. ‘But why you? ’

‘I just told you. He doesn’t really need a male influence. He just said it to get his own way. ’

‘I know, I know. I understand that. But why does he want to see you so much he’d do that to me? ’

‘I don’t know. ’

‘Do you really not know? ’

‘Really. ’

‘Maybe it is best if he doesn’t see you. ’

Will said nothing. He had learnt something from the previous day’s conversation, anyway.

‘What do you think? ’

‘I don’t. ’

‘What? ’

‘I don’t think. I don’t think anything. You’re his mother. You make the decisions. ’

‘But you’re involved now. He keeps coming round to your house. You take him out to buy shoes. He’s living this whole life I can’t control, which means you have to. ’

‘I’m not going to control anything. ’

‘In which case, it’s best that he doesn’t see you. ’

‘We’ve been here before. What do you want me to do if he rings on the bell? ’

‘Don’t let him in. ’

‘Fine. ’

‘I mean, if you’re not prepared to think about how to help me, then keep out. ’

‘Right. ’

‘God, you’re a selfish bastard. ’

‘But I’m on my own. There’s just me. I’m not putting myself first, because there isn’t anybody else. ’

‘Well, he’s there too now. You can’t just shut life out, you know. ’

She was wrong, he was almost positive. You could shut life out. If you didn’t answer the door to it, how was it going to get in?

Nineteen

Marcus didn’t like the idea of his mum talking to Will. A while ago he would have got excited about it, but he no longer thought that he and his mum and Will and Ned and another baby perhaps were going to live together in Will’s flat. For a start, Ned didn’t exist, and for another start, if you could have two starts, Fiona and Will didn’t like each other very much, and anyway Will’s flat was nowhere near big enough for them all, even though there weren’t as many of them as he had originally thought.

But now everyone knew too much, and there were too many things that he didn’t want the two of them to talk about without him. He didn’t want Will to talk to his mum about the hospital, in case it made her go funny again; and he didn’t want Will to tell her about how he’d tried to blackmail Will into going out with her; and he didn’t want his mum to talk about how much telly he was allowed to watch, in case Will started turning it off when he went round… As far as he could tell, every possible topic of conversation meant trouble of some sort.

She was only gone for a couple of hours after tea time, so they didn’t have to find a baby-sitter; he put the chain on the door, did his homework, watched a bit of TV, played on the computer and waited. At five past nine she buzzed the special buzz on the doorbell. He let her in, and stared at her face to try to work out just how angry or depressed she was, but she seemed OK.

‘Did you have a good time? ’

‘It was OK. ’

‘What does that mean? ’

‘He’s not a very nice man, is he? ’

‘I think he is. He bought me those trainers. ’

‘Well, you’re not to go round any more. ’

‘You can’t stop me. ’

‘No, but he’s not going to answer the door, so it’s a waste of time. ’

‘How do you know he’s not going to answer the door? ’

‘Because he told me he wouldn’t. ’

Marcus could just hear Will saying that, but it didn’t worry him. He knew how loud the buzzer was inside the flat, and he had the time to ring it and ring it and ring it.

Marcus had to go and see the headmistress about his trainers. His mum had made a complaint to the school, even though Marcus had told her, begged her, not to. They’d spent so long arguing about it that he ended up having to go days after the event. So now he had a choice: he could lie to the headmistress, tell her that he had no idea who had stolen his shoes, and make himself look stupid; or he could tell her and lose his shoes, jacket, shirt, trousers, underpants and probably an eye or a piece of ear on the way home. He couldn’t see that he’d lose much sleep worrying about what to do.

He went at the beginning of lunch break, the time his form teacher had told him to go, but Mrs Morrison wasn’t ready for him; he could hear her through the door, shouting at someone. He was on his own at first, but then Ellie McCrae, this sulky, scruffy girl from year ten who hacked off her own hair and wore black lipstick, sat down on the far end of the row of chairs outside the office. Ellie was famous. She was always in trouble for something or other, usually something quite bad.

They sat in silence for a bit, and then Marcus thought he’d try to talk to her; his mum was always on at him to talk to people at school.

‘Hello, Ellie, ’ he said. She looked at him and laughed once under her breath, shook her head bitterly and then turned her face away. Marcus didn’t mind. In fact, he almost laughed. He wished he had a video camera. He’d love to show his mum what happened when you tried to talk to another kid at school, especially an older kid, especially a girl. He wouldn’t bother trying again.

‘How come every squitty little shitty snotty bastard knows my name? ’

Marcus couldn’t believe she was talking to him, and when he looked at her it seemed as though he was right to be doubtful, because she was still looking the other way. He decided to ignore her.

‘Oi, I’m talking to you. Don’t be so fucking rude. ’

‘Sorry. I didn’t think you were talking to me. ’

‘I don’t see any other squitty little shitty bastards here, do you? ’

‘No, ’ Marcus admitted.

‘So. How come you know my name? I haven’t got a bloody clue who you are. ’

‘You’re famous. ’ He knew that was a mistake as soon as he had said it.

‘What am I famous for? ’

‘Dunno. ’

‘Yes you do. I’m famous because I’m always in trouble. ’

‘Yes. ’

‘Fucking hell. ’

They sat there for a while longer. Marcus didn’t feel like breaking the silence; if saying ‘Hello, Ellie’ caused that much trouble, then he wasn’t about to ask her whether she’d had a nice weekend.

‘I’m always in trouble, and I’ve never done anything wrong, ’ she said eventually.

‘No. ’

‘How do you know? ’

‘Because you just said so. ’ Marcus thought that was a good answer. If Ellie McCrae said she hadn’t done anything wrong, then she hadn’t.

‘If you’re being cheeky, you’ll get a slap. ’

Marcus wished Mrs Morrison would hurry up. Even though he was prepared to believe that Ellie had never done anything wrong, ever, he could see why some people might think she had.

‘Do you know what I’ve done wrong this time? ’

‘Nothing, ’ Marcus said firmly.

‘OK, do you know what I’m supposed to have done wrong? ’

‘Nothing. ’ This was his line, and he was sticking to it.

‘Well, they must think I’ve done something wrong, or I wouldn’t be sitting here, would I? ’

‘No. ’

‘It’s this sweatshirt. They don’t want me to wear it, and I’m not going to take it off. So there’s going to be a row. ’

He looked at it. They were all supposed to wear sweatshirts with the school logo on them, but Ellie’s showed a bloke with scraggy hair and half a beard. He had big eyes and looked a little bit like Jesus, except more modern and with bleached hair.

‘Who’s that? ’ he asked politely.

‘You must know. ’

‘Ummm… Oh, yes. ’

‘So who is it? ’

‘Ummm… Forgotten. ’

‘You never knew it. ’

‘No. ’

‘That’s incredible. That’s like not knowing the name of the prime minister or something. ’

‘Yeah. ’ Marcus gave a little laugh, to show her that at least he knew how stupid he was, even if he didn’t know anything else. ‘Who is it, then? ’

‘Kirk O’Bane. ’

‘Oh, yes. ’

He’d never heard of Kirk O’Bane, but he’d never heard of anybody.

‘What does he do? ’

‘He plays for Manchester United. ’

Marcus looked at the picture on the sweatshirt again, even though that meant sort of looking at Ellie’s tits. He hoped she understood that he wasn’t interested in her tits, only in the picture.

‘Does he? ’ He looked much more like a singer than a footballer. Footballers weren’t sad, usually, and this man looked sad. He wouldn’t have thought that Ellie would be the sort of person who liked football, anyway.

‘Yeah. He scored five goals for them last Saturday. ’

‘Wow, ’ said Marcus.

Mrs Morrison’s door opened and two white-faced year sevens came out. ‘Come in, Marcus, ’ said Mrs Morrison.

‘Bye, Ellie, ’ said Marcus. Ellie went through her head-shaking routine again, still apparently bitter that her reputation had gone before her. Marcus wasn’t looking forward to seeing Mrs Morrison, but if the alternative was sitting out in the corridor with Ellie, then he’d take the head’s office any day of the week.

He lost his temper with Mrs Morrison. Bad idea, he could see afterwards, losing your temper with the headmistress of your new school, but he couldn’t help it. She was being so thick that in the end he just had to shout. They started off OK: no, he’d never had any trouble from the shoe-stealers before, no, he didn’t know who they were and no, he wasn’t very happy at school (only one lie there). But then she started talking about what she called ‘survival strategies’, and that was when he got cross.

‘I mean, I’m sure you’ve thought of this, but couldn’t you just try keeping out of their way? ’

Did they all think he was thick? Did they reckon that he woke up every morning thinking, I must find the people who call me names and give me shit and want to steal my trainers, so that they can do more things to me?

‘I have tried. ’ That was all he could say for the moment. He was too frustrated to say any more.

‘Maybe you haven’t tried hard enough. ’

That did it. She had said this not because she wanted to be helpful, but because she didn’t like him. Nobody at this school liked him and he didn’t understand why. He’d had enough, and he stood up to go.

‘Sit down, Marcus. I haven’t finished with you yet. ’

‘I’ve finished with you. ’

He didn’t know he was going to say that, and he was amazed when he had. He had never been cheeky to a teacher before, mostly because there hadn’t been a need for it. Now he could see that he hadn’t started in a great place. If you were going to get yourself into trouble, maybe it was best to work up to it slowly, get some practice in first. He had started right at the top, which was probably a mistake.

‘SIT down. ’

But he didn’t. He just walked out the way he had come in, and kept on walking.

As soon as he left Mrs Morrison’s office he felt different, better, as if he’d let go and he was now falling through space. It was an exciting feeling, really, and it was much better than the feeling of hanging on that he’d had before. He wouldn’t have been able to describe it as ‘hanging on’ until just now, but that was definitely what it was. He’d been pretending that everything was normal—difficult, yes, but normal—but now he’d let go he could see it had been everything but normal. You don’t get your shoes stolen normally. Your English teacher doesn’t make out you’re a nutter normally. You don’t get boiled sweets thrown at your head normally. And that was just the school stuff.

And now he was a truant. He was walking down Holloway Road while everyone else at school was… actually, they were eating their lunch, but he wasn’t going back. Soon he’d be walking down Holloway Road (well, not Holloway Road, probably, because he was almost at the end of it already, and lunch would go on for another thirty minutes yet) during history, and then he’d be a proper truant. He wondered whether all truants started like that, whether there was always a Mrs Morrison moment which made them blow their top and leave. He supposed there had to be. He’d always presumed that truants were different sort of people entirely, not like him at all, that they’d been born truants, sort of thing, but he was obviously wrong. In May, before they moved to London, when he was in his last term at his old school, he wasn’t a truant kind of person in any way whatsoever. He turned up at school, listened to what people said, did his homework, took part. But six months later that had all changed, bit by bit.

It was probably like that for tramps, too, he realized. They walked out of their house one evening and thought, I’ll sleep in this shop doorway tonight, and when you’d done it once, something changed in you, and you became a tramp, rather than someone who didn’t have anywhere to sleep for one night. And the same with criminals! And drug addicts! And… He decided to stop thinking about it all then. If he carried on, walking out of Mrs Morrison’s office might begin to look like the moment his whole life changed, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for that. He wasn’t someone who wanted to become a truant or a tramp or a murderer or a drug addict. He was just someone who was fed up with Mrs Morrison. There had to be a difference.

Twenty

Will loved driving around London. He loved the traffic, which allowed him to believe he was a man in a hurry and offered him rare opportunities for frustration and anger (other people did things to let off steam, but Will had to do things to build it up); he loved knowing his way around; he loved being swallowed up in the flow of the city’s life. You didn’t need a job or a family to drive around London; you only needed a car, and Will had a car. Sometimes he just drove for the hell of it, and sometimes he drove because he liked to hear music played at a volume that would not be possible in the flat without a furious knock on the door or the wall or the ceiling.

Today he had convinced himself that he had to drive to Waitrose, but if he was honest the real reason for the trip was that he wanted to sing along to ‘Nevermind’ at the top of his voice, and he couldn’t do that at home. He loved Nirvana, but at his age they were kind of a guilty pleasure. All that rage and pain and self-hatred! Will got a bit… fed up sometimes, but he couldn’t pretend it was anything stronger than that. So now he used loud angry rock music as a replacement for real feelings, rather than as an expression of them, and he didn’t even mind very much. What good were real feelings anyway?

The cassette had just turned itself over when he saw Marcus ambling down Upper Street. He hadn’t seen him since the day of the trainers, nor had he wanted to see him particularly, but he suddenly felt a little surge of affection for him. Marcus was so locked into himself, so oblivious to everyone and everything, that affection seemed to be the only possible response: the boy somehow seemed to be asking for absolutely nothing and absolutely everything all at the same time.

The affection that Will felt was not acute enough to make him want to stop the car, or even toot: he had discovered that it was much easier to sustain one’s fondness for Marcus if one just kept one’s foot down, literally and metaphorically. But it was funny, seeing him out in the street in broad daylight, wandering aimlessly… Something nagged at him. Why was it funny? Because Will had never really seen Marcus in broad daylight before. He had only previously seen him in the gloom of a winter afternoon. And why had he only seen him in the gloom of a winter afternoon? Because Marcus only came round after school. But it was just after two o’clock. Marcus should be in school now. Bollocks.

Will wrestled with his conscience, grappled it to the ground and sat on it until he couldn’t hear a squeak out of it. Why should he care if Marcus went to school or not? OK, wrong question. He knew very well why he should care whether Marcus went to school. Try a different question: how much did he care whether Marcus went to school or not? Answer: not a lot. That was better. He drove home.

At exactly 4. 15, right in the middle of Countdown, the buzzer went. If Will hadn’t seen Marcus bunking off this afternoon, the precision of the timing would have escaped his notice, but now it just seemed transparently obvious: Marcus had clearly decided that arriving at the flat before 4. 15 would arouse suspicion, so he’d timed it to the second. It didn’t matter, however; he wasn’t going to answer the door.

Marcus buzzed again; Will ignored him again. On the third buzz he turned Countdown off and put In Utero on, in the hope that Nirvana might block out the sound more effectively than Carol Vorderman. By the time he got to ‘Pennyroyal Tea’, the eighth or ninth track, he’d had enough of listening to Kurt Cobain and Marcus: Marcus could obviously hear the music through the door, and was providing his own accompaniment by buzzing in time. Will gave up.

‘You’re not supposed to be here. ’

‘I came to ask you a favour. ’ Nothing in Marcus’s face or voice suggested that he had been the least bit inconvenienced or bored during his thirty-odd minutes of buzzing.

They had a brief bout of leg-wrestling: Will was standing in Marcus’s way, but Marcus managed to force his way into the flat regardless.

‘Oh no, Countdown ’s finished. Did that fat bloke get knocked out? ’

‘What favour do you want to ask me? ’

‘I want you to take me and a friend to football. ’

‘Your mum can take you. ’

‘She doesn’t like football. ’

‘Neither do you. ’

‘I do now. I like Manchester United. ’

‘Why? ’

‘I like O’Bane. ’

‘Who the hell’s O’Bane? ’

‘He scored five goals for them last Saturday. ’

‘They drew nil—nil at Leeds. ’

‘It was probably the Saturday before, then. ’

‘Marcus, there isn’t a player called O’Bane. ’

‘I might have got it wrong. Something that sounds like that. He’s got bleached hair and a beard and he looks like Jesus. Can I have a Coke? ’

‘No. There’s nobody who plays for Man United with bleached hair and a beard who looks like Jesus. ’

‘Tell me some of their names. ’

‘Hughes? Cantona? Giggs? Sharpe? Robson? ’

‘No. O’Bane. ’

‘O’Kane? ’

Marcus’s face lit up. ‘That must be it! ’

‘Used to play for Nottingham Forest about twenty-five years ago. Didn’t look like Jesus. Didn’t bleach his hair. Never scored five goals. How was school today? ’

‘OK. ’

‘How was the afternoon? ’

Marcus looked at him, trying to work out why he might have asked the question.

‘OK. ’

‘What did you have? ’

‘History, and then… ummm…’

Will had intended to store the skiving up, just as Marcus had stored the Ned thing up, but now he had him wriggling on the hook he couldn’t resist taking him off and making him swim round and round in the bucket.

‘It’s Wednesday today, isn’t it? ’

‘Er… Yes. ’

‘Don’t you have double walking up and down Upper Street on Wednesday afternoons? ’

He could see Marcus beginning the slow descent towards panic.

‘What do you mean? ’

‘I saw you this afternoon. ’

‘What, in school? ’

‘Well, I couldn’t have seen you in school, Marcus, could I? Because you weren’t there. ’

‘This afternoon? ’

‘Yes, this afternoon. ’

‘Oh, right. I had to nip out and get something. ’

‘You had to nip out? And they’re all right about nipping out, are they? ’

‘Where did you see me? ’

‘I drove past you on Upper Street. I have to say, it didn’t look as though you were nipping. It looked like you were skiving. ’

‘It was Mrs Morrison’s fault. ’

‘Her fault that you had to nip out? Or her fault that you had to skive? ’

‘She told me to keep out of their way again. ’

‘You’re losing me, Marcus. Who is Mrs Morrison? ’

‘The head. You know they always say when I get in trouble that I should keep out of their way? She said that about the training shoe kids. ’ His voice rose an octave, and he started to speak more quickly. ‘They followed me! How can I keep out of their way if they follow me? ’

‘OK, OK, keep your hair on. Did you tell her that? ’

‘Course I did. She just didn’t take any notice. ’

‘Right. So you go home and tell your mum this. It’s no good telling me. And you’ve got to tell her that you bunked off as well. ’

‘I’m not telling her that. She’s got enough problems without me. ’

‘Marcus, you’re already a problem. ’

‘Why can’t you go and see her? Mrs Morrison? ’

‘You’re joking. Why should she take any notice of me? ’

‘She would. She—’

‘Marcus, listen. I’m not your father, or your uncle, or your stepfather, or anybody at all. I’m nothing to do with you. No headmistress is going to take any notice of what I say, and nor should she, either. You’ve got to stop thinking I know the answer to anything, because I don’t. ’

‘You know about things. You knew about the trainers. ’

‘Yeah, and what a triumph they were. I mean, they were a source of endless happiness, weren’t they? You’d have been in school this afternoon if I hadn’t bought you the trainers. ’

‘And you knew about Kirk O’Bane. ’

‘Who? ’

‘Kirk O’Bane. ’

‘The footballer? ’

‘Except I don’t think he can be a footballer. Ellie was making one of those jokes that you make. ’

‘But his first name’s Kirk? ’

‘I think so. ’

‘Kurt Cobain, you jerk. ’

‘Who’s Kurt Cobain? ’

‘The singer with Nirvana. ’

‘I thought he must be a singer. Bleached hair? Looks a bit like Jesus? ’

‘I suppose so. ’

‘There you are, then, ’ said Marcus triumphantly. ‘You knew about him, too. ’

‘Everyone knows about him. ’

‘I didn’t. ’

‘No, you didn’t. But you’re different, Marcus. ’

‘And my mum wouldn’t. ’

‘No, she wouldn’t either. ’

‘You see, you know things. You can help. ’

It was then, for the first time, that Will saw the kind of help Marcus needed. Fiona had given him the idea that Marcus was after a father figure, someone to guide him gently towards male adulthood, but that wasn’t it at all: Marcus needed help to be a kid, not an adult. And, unhappily for Will, that was exactly the kind of assistance he was qualified to provide. He wasn’t able to tell Marcus how to grow up, or how to cope with a suicidal mother, or anything like that, but he could certainly tell him that Kurt Cobain didn’t play for Manchester United, and for a twelve-year-old boy attending a comprehensive school at the end of 1993, that was maybe the most important information of all.

Twenty-one

Marcus went back to school the following morning. Nobody seemed to have noticed that he hadn’t been around the previous afternoon: his form teacher knew he’d had to go to see Mrs Morrison during afternoon registration, and Mr Sandford the history teacher never noticed him even when he was there. The other kids in the class might have worked out that he was bunking off, but as they never spoke to him anyway, how would he ever know?

He bumped into Ellie at breaktime at the vending machine. She was wearing her Kurt Cobain sweatshirt and standing with a friend from her class.

‘Kurt Cobain doesn’t play for Manchester United, ’ he told her. The girl from her class burst into hysterical laughter.

‘Oh, no! ’ said Ellie, mock-horrified. ‘Have they got rid of him? ’

Marcus was confused for a moment—maybe Ellie really did think he was a footballer? But then he realized she was making one of those jokes he never got.

‘Ha, ha, ’ he said, without laughing at all. That was what you were supposed to do, and he felt the thrill of having done something right for a change. ‘No, he plays… he sings for Nirvana. ’

‘Thanks for telling me. ’

‘That’s OK. A friend of mine has got one of their records. Nevermind. ’

‘Everybody’s got that one. I’ll bet he hasn’t got the new one. ’

‘He might have. He’s got lots of stuff. ’

‘What year’s he in? I didn’t think anyone in this school liked Nirvana. ’

‘He’s left school. He’s quite old. It’s grunge, isn’t it, Nirvana? I don’t know what I think of grunge. ’ He didn’t, either. Will had played him some Nirvana the previous evening, and he’d never heard anything quite like it. At first he hadn’t been able to hear anything apart from noise and shouting, but there were some quiet bits, too, and in the end he had been able to make out a tune. He didn’t think he’d ever like it as much as he liked Joni or Bob or Mozart, but he could sort of see why someone like Ellie might like it.

The two girls looked at each other and laughed louder than they had done the first time.

‘And what do you think you might think of it? ’ asked Ellie’s friend.

‘Well, ’ said Marcus. ‘It’s a bit of a racket, but it’s got a good beat, and the picture on the cover is very interesting. ’ It was a picture of a baby underwater, swimming after a dollar bill. Will had said something about the picture, but he couldn’t remember what it was. ‘I think the cover has a meaning. Something about society. ’

The girls looked at him, looked at each other and laughed.

‘You’re very funny, ’ said Ellie’s friend. ‘Who are you? ’

‘Marcus. ’

‘Marcus. Cool name. ’

‘Do you think so? ’ Marcus hadn’t thought about his name that much, but he’d never thought it was cool.

‘No, ’ said Ellie’s friend, and they laughed again. ‘See you around, Marcus. ’

‘See you. ’

It was the longest conversation he’d had with anyone at school for weeks.

‘So we’ve scored, ’ said Will when Marcus told him about Ellie and her friend. ‘I don’t fancy yours much, though. ’

Sometimes he didn’t understand one word Will said, and when that happened Marcus just ignored him completely.

‘They said I was funny. ’

‘You are funny. You’re hilarious. But I don’t know if it’s much to build a whole relationship on. ’

‘Can I invite Ellie round? ’

‘I’m not sure she’d come, Marcus. ’

‘Why not? ’

‘Well… I’m not sure that… How old is she? ’

‘I dunno. Fifteen? ’

‘I’m not sure that fifteen-year-olds hang out with twelve-year-olds. I’ll bet you her boyfriend is twenty-five, drives a Harley Davidson and works as a roadie for some band. He’d beat you up. He’d squash you like a bug, man. ’

Marcus hadn’t thought of that.

‘I don’t want to go out with her. I know she’d never go for someone like me. But we can come round here and listen to your Nirvana records, can’t we? ’

‘She’s probably heard them already. ’

Marcus was getting frustrated with Will. Why didn’t he want him to make friends?

‘OK, forget it, then. ’

‘I’m sorry, Marcus. I’m glad you spoke to Ellie today, I really am. But a two-minute conversation with someone who’s taking the piss out of you… I can’t see that working out long-term, you know? ’

Marcus wasn’t really listening. Ellie and her friend had said he was funny, and if he could be funny once, he could be funny again.

He saw them by the vending machine the next day. They were leaning against it and saying things about anyone who had the nerve to come up and put money in. Marcus watched them for a little while before he went up to them.

‘Hello, Ellie. ’

‘Marcus! My man! ’

Marcus didn’t want to think about what that might mean, so he didn’t take any notice.

‘Ellie, how old is your boyfriend? ’

He’d only asked one question, and already he had made the girls laugh. He knew he could do it.

‘A hundred and two. ’

‘Ha, ha. ’ He’d done it right again.

‘Nine. ’

‘Ha, ha. ’

‘Why do you want to know? How do you even know I’ve got a boyfriend? ’

‘My friend Will said he was probably about twenty-five and drove a Harley Davidson and he’d squash me like a bug. ’

‘Aaaah, Marcus. ’ Ellie grabbed him round the neck and ruffled his hair. ‘I wouldn’t let him. ’

‘Good. Thank you. I have to admit I was a bit worried when he said that. ’

More laughter. Ellie’s friend was staring at him as if he was the most interesting person she’d ever met.

‘How old is your girlfriend, anyway? She probably wants to kill me, doesn’t she? ’ They were laughing all the time now. You couldn’t tell where one laugh ended and the next one began.

‘No, because I haven’t got one. ’

‘I don’t believe that. A good-looking boy like you? We’ll have to fix you up. ’

‘It’s OK, thanks. I don’t really want one at the moment. I don’t feel ready yet. ’

‘Very sensible. ’

Mrs Morrison suddenly appeared beside them.

‘In my office now, Ellie. ’

‘I’m not changing the sweatshirt. ’

‘We’ll talk about it in my office. ’

‘There’s nothing to talk about. ’

‘Do you want to argue in front of everyone? ’

Ellie shrugged. ‘I don’t mind if you don’t. ’

Ellie genuinely didn’t care, Marcus could see that. Loads of kids acted as if they weren’t scared, but dropped the act the moment a teacher said anything to them. Ellie could keep going forever, though, and there was nothing Mrs Morrison could do. There was a load of stuff she could do to him, though, and Ellie’s friend didn’t look like she wanted to pick a fight with Mrs Morrison either. Ellie had something that they didn’t have—or they had something Ellie didn’t have, he didn’t know which.

‘Zoe, Marcus, I want to talk to Ellie in private. And Marcus, you and I have some unfinished business to attend to, don’t we? ’

‘Yes, Mrs Morrison. ’ Ellie caught his eye and smiled, and for a moment he really felt as if the three of them were a trio. Or maybe a triangle, with Ellie at the top and him and Zoe at the bottom.

‘Off you go. ’

And off they went.

Ellie and Zoe came looking for him at lunchtime. He was sitting at his desk eating his sandwiches, listening to Frankie Ball and Juliet Lawrence talk about some bloke in year nine, when they just turned up.

‘Here he is, look! ’

‘Oooeee! Marcus! ’

Just about every kid in the room stopped what they were doing and turned round. You could see what they were thinking: Ellie and Marcus???????? Even Nicky and Mark, who hadn’t spoken to him for weeks and liked to pretend that they had never known him, looked up from their Gameboy; Marcus hoped that one of them had lost a life. He felt great. If Kurt Cobain himself had walked through the form-room door looking for him, the mouths of his classmates couldn’t have opened any wider.

‘What are you lot staring at? Marcus is our friend, aren’t you, Marcus? ’

‘Yes, ’ said Marcus. Whatever his relationship with Ellie and Zoe was, ‘yes’ was definitely the right answer here.

‘Come on, then, let’s go. You don’t want to hang around here all lunchtime, do you? Come to our form room. It’s a waste of time hanging out with this lot. Boring fuckers. ’

Marcus could see some of them start to blush but nobody said anything. They couldn’t, unless they were prepared to argue with Ellie, which clearly none of them were. What would be the point? Even Mrs Morrison couldn’t argue with Ellie, so what chance did Frankie Ball and the rest of them have?

‘OK, ’ said Marcus. ‘Hang on a minute. ’ He wanted them to wait simply because he wanted the moment to last longer: he didn’t know whether Ellie and Zoe would come looking for him ever again and, even if they did, he doubted whether they’d announce to the world, or the part of the world eating sandwiches in his classroom, that he was their friend and that everyone else was a boring fucker. That would be too much to ask. But now he’d asked them to hang on, he had no idea what they might be hanging on for.

‘Shall I… Do you want me to bring anything? ’

‘Like what? ’ said Zoe. ‘A bottle? ’

‘No, but, like…’

‘Or condoms? ’ said Ellie. ‘Is that what you mean? We can’t have sex in our room, Marcus, even though I’d like to, of course. There are too many people in there. ’ Zoe was laughing so hard that Marcus thought she might be sick. Her eyes were closed and she was sort of choking.

‘No, I know, I…’ Maybe asking them to hang on had been a mistake. He was turning his moment of triumph into what seemed like a year of horrible awfulness.

‘Just bring your sweet self, Marcus. But get a move on, eh? ’

He knew he was red in the face, and the condom bit had been bad. But he still got to walk from his desk to where Ellie and Zoe were standing while everyone else watched, and when he got there Ellie gave him a kiss. OK, she was making fun of him, but it didn’t matter, there weren’t many people in his class that Ellie would bother to spit on, let alone kiss. ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity, ’ his dad had said once, ages ago, when Marcus had asked him why some actor was letting Noel Edmonds pour stuff over his head, and now he could see what he meant. Ellie had kind of poured stuff over his head, but it was really, really worth it.

Ellie’s form room was upstairs and the walk made the good bit, the fucking-hell-Marcus-and-Ellie bit, last longer. One of the teachers even stopped him to ask if he was OK, as if anyone hanging around with Ellie must have been kidnapped or brainwashed.

‘We’re adopting him, sir, ’ said Ellie.

‘I wasn’t asking you, Ellie. I was asking him. ’

‘They’re adopting me, sir, ’ said Marcus. He didn’t mean it as a joke—he just thought that saying what Ellie said was sensible—but they all laughed anyway.

‘And you couldn’t hope for more responsible parents, ’ said the teacher.

‘Ha, ha, ’ said Marcus, although he wasn’t sure he should have done this time.

‘We’ll take that as a compliment, ’ said Ellie. ‘Thank you. We’ll look after him. Have him home by midnight and all that. ’

‘Make sure you do, ’ said the teacher. ‘In one piece. ’

Ellie made him wait outside her form room while she announced him. He could hear her shouting.

‘OK, listen everybody, I want you to meet Marcus. The only other Kurt Cobain fan in the whole fucking school. Come in, Marcus. ’

He walked into the room. There weren’t many people in there, but those that were all laughed when they saw him.

‘I didn’t say I was a fan as such, ’ he said. ‘I just think they have a good beat and their cover means something. ’

Everyone laughed again. Ellie and Zoe stood beside him proudly, as if he had just done a magic trick that they had told everyone he could do even though nobody believed them. They were right; he did feel he’d been adopted.