‘Don’t know,’ Sam said helpfully.
Skelton reached behind him, grabbing a manila file. He flicked through, almost uninterested. ‘Seen this fairy chappie recently?’
‘No.’
‘Hmmm. What about lasses?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Lasses. Any lasses on the scene yet? Any sign of ’em?’
Sam shrugged.
‘Girls,’ said Skelton. He pronounced the word ‘girruls’, biting hard on his pipe. ‘You see, I think all your problems will be over as soon as those naughty wee lasses come into play.’ Then he stared hard and long at Sam, so hard and long that Sam was forced to look away.
The discomfort was relieved by the appearance of Skelton’s secretary, bearing a tea tray with biscuits. ‘Is there an extra ginger snap for the boy, Mrs Marsh? It is Christmas, after all, and me and young Sam here are having a bit of a heart-to-heart. Facts of life, isn’t that right, Sam?’
Mrs Marsh laid down her tray and looked at Sam as if he’d been caught stealing apples. Sam coloured.
‘Thank you, Mrs Marsh, thank you.’ After his secretary had left the room, Skelton resumed. ‘So no lasses, eh? You might think about getting a move-on in that department. Advice, laddie: he who hesitates is lost.’
‘I want to confess,’ said Sam. ‘Eh? What? Confess what?’
‘I want to confess to a murder.’ ‘What? You’re a murderer now?’ He poured the tea and gave Sam a cup. Then he reached into his desk drawer, and as his hand withdrew, it passed across his own cup. Sam heard a small splash of liquid.
‘Yes.’
‘Hold on, laddie. Don’t misunderstand me. Just because you don’t bite people or puddle your bed doesn’t make you an inferior person. You don’t get ten points and a gold star with me for being a murderer.’
‘No. I killed someone.’
Skelton chuckled. ‘I’m on to you, Sonny Jim. You don’t think I was fooled by that lovely Celtic cross and the bat coming out of your grave, do you? We call that attention-seeking round here. But, you see, I knew that you knew that I knew. The reason I kept you on is that I want to know why you’re busy
pretending
to be disturbed. ‘‘Rest in peace’’, indeed. That’s a Catholic song, and you’re no more a left-footer than I am!’
‘It’s true. I killed someone.’
The psychiatrist folded his arms and bit hard on his pipe. ‘Right then. Let’s be hearing it.’
Sam felt a sudden weight fold in on him. The room darkened slightly. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked louder. He focused on the exposed, hairy inch of leg above Skelton’s Argyle socks and thought of Tooley lying buried under leaves in a tree hollow in the woods. He had come today determined to tell Skelton all about it. But now, as he looked at the hairy flesh and listened to the sound of him chomping on his pipe, it suddenly seemed less than a convincing idea.
He looked up at the window, half expecting, half hoping to see the Tooth Fairy, ready with advice. But there was no help from any quarter. The Tooth Fairy, who had watched him
through the same window on previous occasions, wasn’t there. ‘You gave me the gun,’ Sam said suddenly.
‘What? I gave you what?’
‘A gun. You gave it to me last time I was here.’
Skelton suddenly tired of the game. ‘Laddie, I’ve never given you a gun in my life. What in God’s name are you jabbering about?’
‘Last time I was here!’ Sam protested, loud with indignation.
Skelton, taken aback by Sam’s outburst, scratched his head. ‘You mean . . .’ He blew the smoke from an imaginary gun.
‘Yes!’
‘Aha! And it worked, by golly! You shot and killed him?’
‘Her.’
‘Her?’
‘He became a she.’
‘Aha! Aha! And she’s dead now? Killed by a silver bullet?’
Sam shook his head. ‘She came back. Worse than ever.’
Skelton looked defeated. He checked his watch and buzzed through to his secretary. ‘Mrs Marsh, make another appointment for this boy. He’s cleverer than we thought.’ He turned back to Sam. ‘I was hoping to send you away from here for the last time. But listen, laddie. I’m on to you. Hear that? Skelton is on to you.’
The door opened and Mrs Marsh stood waiting, the usual signal for him to leave. She was still looking at Sam as if he’d been caught doing something really quite forgivable.
‘And have yourself a nice Christmas,’ Skelton called. Sam turned in time to see Skelton bite on his pipe and reach a hand into his desk drawer.
Mrs Marsh closed the door behind him.
It was the last day of term before the Christmas break. Sam stood in the bus queue, braced and ready for the girl to jolt him with her satchel. Every day for the last week she had bumped him from behind, hissing, ‘I saw you,’ in his ear before taking her place further along the line. Today he was waiting for her. He was ready to bump back.
It was not as if Sam was going to make a fight of it. In any case, the bumping had been rather restrained, but there was still something intimidating about the girl. All he knew of her was that she was in the study year above him, and whenever she pushed into him and whispered those three words, he felt more disconcerted than threatened. What discomfited him most was not what she said, nor even the accusing way she looked at him. It was something else. It was the smell of her.
There was always a whiff of shampoo in her long hair, then a deeper, second smell, like a scent which was nothing like the flowery perfumes used by his mother or, these days, by Linda. It was perhaps more like sweet yoghurt, he decided; then, no, he thought it had more of a salty tang; but, no, it was like a yeast extract; no no no, the task of pinpointing it was maddening, but whatever it was like, it possessed the extraordinary power to arrest him, to make his muscles seize and his body stiffen. And because of that, because he was always momentarily paralysed by these actions of hers
en passant,
he was inevitably too slow to
respond and was consequently left feeling foolish. But today he was ready for her.
She didn’t come. The day before he had also been ready for her, and yet in the one moment when he’d slackened his guard and looked away, that was when she’d bumped him from behind. But today she didn’t seem to be around. Sam relaxed. The bus arrived; he climbed aboard and took a seat. As the bus was about to leave the girl jumped on and swung into the seat next to Sam.
Every sinew went into a state of alert, every muscle locked instantly. For an inflated moment Sam stopped breathing. He knew it was ridiculous, but he felt himself in the presence of abstract danger. The girl kept her eyes averted, fumbling with the straps of her satchel, putting away her bus pass. Flicking her hair from her eyes, she turned to him. ‘Where’s the short trousers?’
His ears burned. ‘Where’s the pratty jodhpurs and the kiddie’s rosette?’
‘Touchy.’
Her unruly scent drove him crazy. It made his blood itch. He caught himself scratching his arm. Her satchel had rucked her skirt up around her thighs. He hated her proximity; he wanted to jump out of the seat and climb over her. He felt trapped. ‘Actually I don’t go any more.’
‘To Scouts? Excitement too much, was it?’
‘You could say that.’
They sat in silence for some distance. She started stroking her long hair, one handful over the other. It streamed perfume. Looking into her lap, she said, very softly, ‘I saw you.’ The tip of her tongue tapped her upper lip. ‘In the hut. Hiding.’
He waited a while before answering. At least it was not the incident in the woods she had seen. ‘I didn’t do it.’
Now she looked up at him. Her pale, slate-blue eyes were unblinking. ‘But I saw you.’
‘I know you did. But I didn’t do it. Why have you started taking this bus?’
‘Pardon me. You’re not the only one allowed to take the bus.’
‘I only wondered . . .’
‘Well, don’t.’
Silence. They stared ahead. The bus crunched through its gears.
‘Are you going to tell anyone?’ said Sam.
‘Tell anyone?’
‘About seeing me. In the gymkhana hut.’
‘I thought you said you didn’t do it.’
‘I did say that. Are you going to?’
‘I don’t know. I might. It all depends.’
‘Depends on what?’
‘On you. It all depends on you.’ She got up out of her seat, swinging her satchel over her shoulder, and rang the bell for the bus to stop. After getting off, she didn’t glance back at Sam, who looked hard at her through the window.
After they’d stopped attending Scouts, everyone became disgusted with the Heads-Looked-At Boys.
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you lot,’ Eric Rogers complained. ‘You mope around, you never go anywhere. What’s got into you?’
‘Good money thrown away on perfectly good Scout uniforms,’ Connie Southall protested. ‘And you were doing so well. I don’t understand any of you.’
‘What’s happened to you lot?’ said Terry’s Uncle Charlie with irritating cheeriness. ‘I’ve never seen you so miserable. Terry’s like a wet weekend; Sam’s got a face as long as a gasman’s mackintosh; and Clive looks like a Cleethorpes donkey on Bank Holiday Monday. What a moody bunch! What happened? Did somebody die?’
‘Leave them,’ said Linda, certain now that something
untoward had happened at Scouts. ‘It’s just a phase.’ Linda was no longer Moody Linda. She was blossoming by the day into something gorgeous, something special. She had left her moods behind her; indeed, it could be said she had passed on the baton of moodiness to the boys. She was preparing, too, to turn her back on the Guides. She was sixteen and rumours of boyfriends smoked the air. Somehow in all that she had taken on the mantle of defender, interpreter and apologist for the three boys who, all her life, had been a vexation. ‘A phase they’re going through.’
It was Saturday morning. Uncle Charlie offered to take the boys to Highfield Road to see Coventry City play Wolver-hampton Wanderers, but only Terry showed any enthusiasm. When Aunt Dot enjoined them to help Terry tidy his room, Clive and Sam made their excuses.
Outside the house Sam said, ‘What shall we do now?’
‘I’m going home,’ Clive said sullenly.
‘That’s right,’ Sam said disparagingly, ‘go and play with your chemistry set.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘You fuck off’
‘No, you fuck off.’
Clive went home, leaving Sam to mope alone. Not wanting to return home himself, he shuffled dispiritedly up the lane. The pond had recently been fenced off from the road after the land had been bought outright by Redstone Football Club. Golden, pine-scented and unseasoned timber had already dulled to become a drab yellow fence ringing the land. It was another violation, another marking off of the boundaries of childhood geography. Together the three boys had tried to kick a part of the fence down, but it proved too sturdy for their efforts.
Someone was sitting on the new fence as Sam approached. He stopped in his tracks. The Tooth Fairy was there, her feet hooked on to the lower bars of the fence, her hands held
limply between her thighs. Sam felt the claw in the pit of his stomach, a dredging in his bowels. The familiar flutter of fear whenever the Tooth Fairy appeared coated his mouth. It squeezed his heart. Each encounter always seemed worse than the last, and each meeting with her left him more in dread of the next.
He was about to retreat, to turn away, when a flicker of movement from the figure on the fence made him gasp. He was mistaken. It wasn’t the Tooth Fairy at all. It was the girl, the girl on the school bus. She was looking at him. How could he have been mistaken?
She saw him hesitate. Now he had to go on. He couldn’t let her think that the sight of her was enough to make him turn back. He proceeded slowly, avoiding eye contact, but he knew she was staring at him. As he drew abreast of her he looked up, self-consciously nodding in recognition. Coolly, she nodded back. Not until he’d gone several yards past her did she call out to him.
‘Where are you going?’
He stopped and turned, having nothing to say. He tried to think of a clever remark, but none came to him.
‘Don’t you know? Don’t you know where you’re going? That seems dumb!’ He shrugged. ‘Come here,’ she said.
He found himself stupidly obeying. When he reached the fence, she cocked her head to one side, squinting at him through her long hair. She wore jeans and baseball boots and a leather jacket with fringes hanging from the arms. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me where you’re going?’
‘I’m not going to smash up the gymkhana hut, if that’s what you mean.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.’
‘I know you didn’t. Want a ciggie?’ She held out a box of Craven A, with a black cat on it. Sam, who detested cigarettes, having sampled a few along with Clive and Terry,
found himself taking one from the box and accepting a light. He climbed up on the fence beside her and put the lighted cigarette to his mouth.
‘You didn’t inhale. It’s pointless if you don’t inhale.’ She almost seemed to want the cigarette back. Just to demonstrate, she gave a passionate suck on her own cigarette, held down the smoke, tilted her head back and exhaled a vertical stream. Sam took another drag, inhaling as much as he could bear.