It’s About Love

Tommy smiles through a mouthful of cheese. “So you gonna sort out an actual gig then?”

Zia stares at him. “Maybe I will.” Something clatters from inside. Zia looks back over his shoulder. “I gotta go. Come get me later, yeah?”

We nod. Fists bump.

Me and Tommy start towards the car, but stop when Zia calls out, “Lukey!” We turn back. “One more week, eh?”

Tommy looks down. I give an awkward shrug. Zia does his good Samaritan smile. “Ring me if you wanna talk, yeah?”

Then he slides inside and the door shuts, leaving me and Tommy standing there, silent. I stare at the ground.

“You all right, Lukey?”

“I’m fine.” I start walking.

As we get to the car, Tommy points at the box. “Yo, the Relentless is mine.”

I look at him as I open my door. “Course it is.”

He opens his. “What you saying then? FIFA at mine?”

I nod. He smiles. “Friend upgrades, that is pretty funny.”

I stare up at the supermarket building, at the security camera, and picture a dark room with a wall of black-and-white screens. I zoom in on one and see me, standing next to the car, staring up into the lens.

One more week. Is he thinking about me?

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Mum said: Life’s a record on loop; we just have to learn to love the song.

It’s after midnight when Tommy drops me off.

Mum works nights at the weekend and she turns the heating off when she leaves, so the house feels like an empty cave. I kick off my shoes and climb the stairs.

The landing light has no shade so the bulb shines a circle across the ceiling and walls. Standing outside my room the landing stretches away to my left, towards his door. I feel it pulling me. Like I always do. Like part of him is always here. So I walk towards it.

The gloss painted wood, something pulsing behind. The cheap silver handle. The dark jagged letters carved into the white:

MARC’S ROOM

I remember sitting in my pyjamas on the landing right here, my hair still damp from the bath, listening to him play the first Eminem album. Knowing the words were bad, but not really understanding and feeling like I wanted in on the secret.

I picture inside now. The perfectly made bed with his barbell underneath. The football posters. The black veneered shelves full of trophies, nearly two years untouched. Two years of waiting, weighing everything down, pressing things into their place. My hand moves up to my face. Not long now.

I push my bedroom door closed behind me, take Leon from my DVD shelves. I switch off my light, open my laptop on my bedside table to face my pillow, slide in the disc and lie down on top of my covers. The Columbia Pictures logo comes up, the lady holding the torch as the trumpets play, and I feel the tingle in my blood. My heads sinks into my pillow as the camera flies over the water, then trees, and the strings start to play and the names of actors appear and everything’s all right. I get to go somewhere else.

Morning sunlight splits my ceiling in half. I stare at the crack in the ceiling plaster that cuts from the corner in towards the lampshade like a thin black root and I feel my face.

I reach down into my bag, pull out my notepad, grab a pen from my bedside table and …

A waterfall of rain.

Leia’s staring from behind it. Her hair’s out in a big afro like from some old 1970s cop show. She’s wearing the big black coat, but the front is undone and there’s a clear V of naked skin. It’s like inside a tent or a cloud or something, everything washed in white. Leia licks her lips and raises her hand to point straight at me with two fingers. The water hits her hand and her face goes out of focus. Then there’s fire, behind her and on both sides, tall flames that don’t touch her but feel like they’re all around. Her face becomes clear again and she’s wearing an eye patch and the water is gone. Her head tilts. She smiles, then her mouth mimes a gun shot and she’s stepping forward, fingers still pointing, as she moves closer and her coat is falling open. Flames dancing. Closer, and her skin, and closer, and the fire behind her, and more skin, and closer and closer and

I lower my pen and stare at the ceiling. What the hell’s all that about? You think she dreamt about you?

My laptop’s still open from last night. I close it, then slide off my bed down into press-up position on the floor. Back level, I feel the warmth spread across my shoulders and I smile. Thirty reps, then fifty crunches and repeat. Every morning for two years. At least my body will be ready.

I can hear the TV as I come downstairs.

Mum’s lying under her duvet on the sofa, half watching a chunky man cooking something with fish. The curtains are open. Dad’s old varnished wooden clock, shaped like Jamaica, ticks like a mantelpiece metronome in between Marc’s trophy for under-sixteens’ 800m champion and a glass-framed photograph of a younger me and him on a climbing frame, me watching as he swings from the bars.

“Make us a coffee, Luke.” Her heavy eyes don’t leave the screen.

INT. – DAY

Close-up: Bubbles and steam cloud clear plastic.

I stare out of the window over the sink, holding the milk, as the kettle starts to boil. Our small square of back garden is overgrown and next to the fence I see the old deflated leather football nestled into the grass like a white rock.

I spoon coffee into the big mug with the black cat on it and keep stirring as I pour the hot water three quarters to the top. I shake the plastic milk carton like I’m making a cocktail, bang it on the sideboard to bubble it up like Marc showed me, then stir slowly as I add a little to the coffee, making a whirlpool of froth to the top edge of the mug.

Some people have machines that do it for you; in our house you do it yourself.

Mum’s eyes are closed and she’s mouth breathing. I kneel down next to the sofa, resting the mug on the floor and see she’s still wearing her nurse’s clothes under the duvet. Her skin’s pale and, with her mousey hair in a ponytail, she looks young for a mum. I hold my hand up next to her face. My skin’s darker than hers, but lighter than Dad’s, and I think about genes and twisted strings of code. Then I notice the photograph of Marc in his Aston Villa youth kit tucked between the cushion under her head and the arm of the sofa.

“Mum. Mum, why don’t you get into bed?” I put my hand on her shoulder.

She jerks awake and sits straight up, kicking the coffee all over my lap. I shout out and fall back as the hot coffee burns my thighs through my jogging bottoms. Mum looks terrified.

“Luke!” She falls forward off the sofa half on top of me, grabbing my shoulders. “Are you OK?”

The photo of Marc drops on to the floor. I can feel the heat branding my skin. “I’m OK, Mum. It’s all right.”

She sees the photograph and lets go of me to pick it up. Then she pulls the duvet away and looks down at the dark brown patch on the cream carpet. “Oh, look what you did! You need to be careful, Luke.”

“Me?”

“This is gonna need shampooing. Get a cloth, hurry up!”

So I go to the kitchen, my thighs pulsing from the heat, to get a tea towel to clean up the mess I didn’t make.

Walls work both ways. What keeps you safe, keeps you separate.

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“Of course there’s a difference! These ones are Honey Nut, Dad. They’ve got honey and nuts in …”