Twenty-seven

Marcus had meant to try. He knew the lunch with Rachel was a big thing for Will, and he knew too that if he did well today, acted out his part, then Will might feel that he had to help him out with Ellie somehow. But this Ali kid never gave him a chance. Will and Rachel went downstairs, Ali stared at him for a few seconds and then started on him.

‘There’s no fucking way, ’ was the first thing he said.

‘No? ’ said Marcus, in an attempt to buy himself some time. He had obviously missed something already, although he wasn’t quite sure what.

‘I’ll tell you, if your dad goes out with my mum you’re fucking dead. Really. Dead. ’

‘Oh, he’s all right, ’ said Marcus.

Ali looked at him as though he were mad.

‘I don’t care if he’s all right. I don’t want him going out with my mum. So I don’t want to see him or you round here ever again, OK? ’

‘Well, ’ said Marcus. ‘I’m not sure it’s really up to me. ’

‘It better be. Or you’re dead. ’

‘Can I have a go on the computer? What games have you got? ’ Marcus knew that a change of subject wouldn’t necessarily work. It worked sometimes, but maybe not when someone was threatening to kill you.

‘Are you listening to me? ’

‘Yes, but… I’m not sure there’s very much I can do at the moment. We’ve come for lunch, and Will… that’s my dad, I call him Will, because, anyway… he’s talking to Rachel, that’s your mum—’

‘I fucking know it’s my mum. ’

‘—downstairs, and to be honest he’s really pretty keen, and who knows? She might be keen on him, so—’

‘SHE’S NOT KEEN ON HIM! ’ Ali suddenly shouted. ‘SHE’S ONLY KEEN ON ME! ’

Marcus was beginning to realize that Ali was nuts, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He wondered whether this had ever happened before and, if it had, whether the kid who had been in his position was still here somewhere—either in pieces under the carpet, or tied up in a cupboard, where he was fed once a day on leftover bits of Ali’s supper. This kid probably weighed three stone and only talked his own language that nobody else could understand, not that anyone ever listened anyway, not even his mum and dad, who he would never see again.

Marcus considered his options carefully. The least attractive, he felt, and also the most unlikely, was to stay here and pass the time of day with Ali, chat about this and that, have a laugh and a couple of games on the computer; that simply wasn’t going to happen. He could go downstairs and join in with Will and Rachel, but Will had as good as told him to stay upstairs, and if he went downstairs he’d have to explain that Ali was a psycho who was on the point of cutting off his arms and legs, and that would be really embarrassing. No, Marcus’s choice would simply be to dash downstairs without anyone noticing, sneak out of the front door and get a bus home; after a very brief moment’s thought, that is exactly what he did.

He was standing at a bus stop near the Lock when Will found him. His sense of direction wasn’t brilliant and he was actually standing on the wrong side of the road, waiting for a bus that would have taken him to the West End, so it was probably just as well that Will drew up alongside him and told him to get into the car.

‘What are you playing at? ’ Will asked him angrily.

‘Have I messed it up? ’ And then, although he shouldn’t have said it, even though, or probably because, it was the first thing he thought of: ‘Will you still help me out with Ellie? ’

‘What happened upstairs? ’

‘He’s off his head. He said he’d kill me if you went out with her. And I believed him, too. Anyone would have. He’s really scary. Where are we going? ’ It was raining now, and Camden was choked with traffic and market shoppers. Everywhere Marcus looked there were men and women with long wet straggly hair who looked like they probably played in Nirvana or one of the other bands Ellie liked.

‘Back to Rachel’s. ’

‘I don’t want to go back there. ’

‘Tough. ’

‘She’ll think I’m stupid. ’

‘She won’t. ’

‘Why not? ’

‘Because she thought something like this might happen. She said Ali could be difficult sometimes. ’

That made Marcus laugh, ‘Ha! ’, the kind of laugh you did when there was nothing much to laugh at. ‘Difficult? He was going to tie me up and lock me in a cupboard and only feed me once a day. ’

‘Is that what he said? ’

‘Not in so many words. ’

‘Anyway, he’s crying his eyes out now. ’

‘Really? ’

‘Really. Blubbing like a three-year-old. ’

This cheered Marcus up no end; he was perfectly happy to go back to Rachel’s, he decided.

As it turned out, running away from the house was the best thing Marcus could possibly have done. If he’d known it was all going to end so well, he wouldn’t have been so panicky when Will found him at the bus stop. He would have just winked at Will like a wise old owl, and said, ‘Wait and see’. When they got back, everything had changed: it was like everyone knew why they were there, instead of pretending that the whole lunch thing was a way of Ali and Marcus getting together to play computer games.

‘Ali has got something to say to you, Marcus, ’ Rachel said, when they walked in.

‘Sorry, Marcus, ’ Ali snivelled. ‘I didn’t mean to say those things. ’

Marcus couldn’t see how you could threaten to kill someone by mistake, but he didn’t want to make a thing of it; the sight of Ali snivelling away made him feel generous.

‘That’s OK, Ali, ’ he said.

‘OK, shake hands, guys, ’ said Rachel, and they did, although it was a rather peculiar and embarrassing handshake. They went up and down much too far three times, and Will and Rachel laughed, which annoyed Marcus. He knew how to shake hands. It was the other idiot who was doing all the up-and-down business.

‘Ali finds this very difficult. ’

‘So does Marcus. Marcus feels just the same, don’t you? ’

‘About what? ’ He had drifted off temporarily. He was wondering whether there was any connection between Ali’s tears and his ability to hurt: did it follow that because he cried so easily he wasn’t hard? Or could it be that he was a psycho, and he would pull your head off with his bare hands, blubbing all the time? Maybe the crying had been a bit of a red herring, and Marcus was in even more danger than he had feared.

‘About… you know… this sort of thing. ’

‘Yes, ’ Marcus said. ‘I do. Exactly the same. ’ He was sure he would find out soon enough what he felt exactly the same about.

‘Because you get into a pattern, and then each new person who comes along seems to represent some kind of a threat. ’

‘Exactly. And the last guy I—’ Rachel broke off. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not comparing you to him. And I’m not saying that, you know, we’re—’ She broke off hopelessly.

Will smiled. ‘It’s OK, ’ he said gently, and Rachel looked at him and smiled back. Suddenly Marcus could see why people like Rachel and Suzie—nice, attractive women who you thought wouldn’t give someone like that the time of day—might like Will. He had gone into this way of looking that he never used on Marcus: there was something in his eyes, a kind of softness that Marcus could see would really work. While he was listening to the conversation, he practised with his own eyes—you had to sort of narrow them, and then make them focus exactly on the other person’s face. Would Ellie like that? She’d probably thump him.

‘Anyway, ’ Rachel went on. ‘The last guy I went out with… He wasn’t one hundred per cent good news, and he certainly couldn’t work out how Ali fitted in, and they ended up… not on good terms. ’

‘He was a weirdo, ’ said Ali.

‘Look, I’m sorry that everything’s become quite so… unsubtle, ’ Rachel said. ‘I have no idea whether… I mean, I don’t know, I just got the impression that on New Year’s Eve…’ She made a face. ‘Oh, God, this is so embarrassing. And it’s all your fault, Ali. We shouldn’t have to talk about this now. ’

‘It’s OK, ’ said Marcus brightly. ‘He really fancies you. He told me. ’

‘Are you going cross-eyed? ’ Ellie said after school on Monday.

‘I might be, ’ Marcus said, because it was easier than saying he was practising a trick he’d learnt from Will.

‘Maybe you need new glasses. ’

‘Yeah. ’

‘Can you get glasses that are stronger than that? ’ Zoe asked. She wasn’t being nasty, he didn’t think, just curious.

The problem was that they were walking to the newsagent’s between school and home, and they weren’t talking about anything in particular. Will and Rachel had been sitting down, facing one another, and basically talking about how much they liked each other. Walking along the street meant that Marcus kept having to twist his neck to do the eye thing, and he could see that this would make him look a little peculiar, but the trouble was that he and Ellie never did any sitting down and facing each other. They hung out at the vending machine, and sometimes, like today, they met up after school and just mooched around for a while. So what was he supposed to do? How could you gaze into someone’s eyes if all you ever saw was their ears?

The newsagent’s was full of kids from school, and the guy who owned the place was shouting at some of them to go outside. He wasn’t like Mr Patel, who never shouted and never told kids to clear off.

‘I’m not going, ’ said Ellie. ‘I’m a customer, not a kid. ’ She carried on browsing over the sweet display, her hand poised to strike when she saw something she liked.

‘You, then, ’ said the owner to Marcus. ‘Outside, please. ’

‘Don’t listen to him, Marcus, ’ said Ellie. ‘It’s a breach of human rights. Just because you’re young he’s calling you a thief. I might take him to court. ’

‘It’s OK, ’ said Marcus. ‘I don’t want anything. ’

He stepped outside and read the postcards in the window. ‘YOUNG DISCIPLINARIAN—UNIFORMS AVAILABLE’… ‘PUMA STRIKER BOOTS, SIZE 5, STILL IN BOX’.

‘You’re a pervert, Marcus. ’

It was Lee Hartley and a couple of his mates; Marcus hadn’t had much trouble from them so far this term, probably because he hung around with Ellie and Zoe.

‘What? ’

‘I bet you don’t even know what those cards are all about, do you? ’

Marcus couldn’t see how the first sentence and the second went together: if he was a pervert, then of course he would understand what the cards were all about, but he let it pass, as he let everything pass at times like this. One of Lee Hartley’s mates reached out, removed Marcus’s glasses and put them on.

‘Fucking hell, ’ he said. ‘No wonder he doesn’t know what’s going on. ’ He reeled around for a moment, his arms stretched out in front of him, making grunting noises meant to show that Marcus was in some way mentally deficient.

‘Can I have those back now, please? I can’t see much without them. ’

‘Fuck off, ’ said Lee Hartley’s mate.

Ellie and Zoe suddenly emerged from the shop.

‘You pathetic little shitbags, ’ said Ellie. ‘Give him those back or you’ll get such a slap. ’

Lee Hartley’s mate handed Marcus the glasses, but she hit him anyway, hard, somewhere between his nose and his eye.

‘Tricked you, ’ she said, and Zoe laughed. ‘Now run along, all of you, before I get really cross. ’

‘Slags, ’ said Lee Hartley, but he said it quietly as he was walking away.

‘Now why does hitting someone make me a slag, I wonder? ’ said Ellie. ‘Boys are peculiar creatures. Not you, though, Marcus. Well, you’re peculiar, but in a different way. ’

But Marcus wasn’t really listening. He was too overcome by Ellie—by her style, and her beauty, and her ability to beat people up—to pay any attention to what she was saying.