It’s About Love

“What the hell’s in Wolverhampton?” says Zia. “At least Blackpool’s got a rollercoaster.”

Tommy thinks about it. “Oh yeah, the Pepsi Max one, eh?”

Zia’s nodding. “Exactly. The Big One.”

Tommy nods back. “Yeah, sick. I’d go Blackpool. We should go to Blackpool. What you saying, Lukey? Blackpool road trip soon?”

The two of them look at me, chewing in sync, and it feels like they’re on one side and I’m on the other.

I shrug. “Yeah, Blackpool. Wicked.”

(#ulink_330976d0-1a19-57f1-9be0-1d214b6c9b97)

Zia said: My life is my scrapbook.

INT. PUB – NIGHT

The cackle of old man laughter.

I step out of the toilet into the noise of The Goose. It’s already pretty full and I can’t see across the room, but I can hear Dad’s deep laugh from the corner. I weave between bodies, tensing my shoulders the whole time in case I’m bumped.

Most people in here know each other, or at least they know of each other. I’m Little Lukey, Big Joe Henry’s kid, to the older ones, and to everyone else, Marc Henry’s little brother. I’ve been getting served at the bar since I was fifteen.

As I pass the bar, Donna smiles at me. My brain sends mixed messages to my face and I half smile, half grimace. What the hell was that, you idiot?

The flatscreen TV up on the wall shows Sky Sports News and it looks out of place, like a rectangular piece of future pasted into an old photograph. Don’t start with that stuff. Not here.

Dad’s sitting in the corner on the leather bench with two workmates from the garage on either side of him, all five of them still in their dark blue overalls, like some old boy band with Dad as the lead singer. The wall behind them’s deep burgundy and holds cheaply framed pictures of the local area from like a hundred years ago.

Whenever I see Dad with other men, even now, his size still hits me. He’s another half bigger in every direction than the closest guy to him. I think of kids looking up at him when we’re in town, their eyes wide, like they’ve discovered Big Foot.

“You OK, son?” He’s looking at me as I sit down on my stool across the circular table.

“I’m fine, Dad. Just déjà vu.”

Dad’s mate Lenny sticks out his bottom lip as he looks at me. “Catching your old man up, aren’t you, college boy?” He bends his arms like he’s a posing body builder and I turn in my seat.

“He’ll be bigger than me,” says Dad, smiling proud and nodding at me. I sit up straight and look at him. His square face is tired and scuffed with oil, but his eyes sparkle. I think of him driving me to pick up my GCSE results and the pair of us sitting in silence in the car after I opened them and got what I needed.

Lenny points at me. “Just don’t forget us when you’re rich and famous, eh?”

He nudges Dad. Dad does his polite laugh and I watch the little fans of wrinkles spread from the outside corners of his eyes.

“What’s on your mind, Lukey?” His voice is like thick gravy and everything about him has that calm that comes from knowing that nobody can really mess with him. It makes you feel safe. Mum used to call him her ‘handsome Shrek’. He knows what I’m thinking about. Him asking me what’s on my mind is his way of letting me know that he knows, and that now isn’t the time or the place to talk about Marc coming home.

It’s never the time or the place.

I shrug and shake my head and he carries on his conversation about fan belts. I sip from my half of Guinness, letting the metal taste swim around my teeth, and watch him, turning the volume down in my head so the scene goes silent. I try to picture him my age, nearly seventeen and unsure of himself, or scared, or confused or even slightly nervous, but I can’t. Dad’s emotions only seem to do the primary colours; happy, sad or angry. I know that can’t be true, all the other shades must live underneath his skin.

I look round the room of mostly men. A collage of weathered faces from different generations and I think about how each face has a life attached to it. A string of details that stretches out of the door, along local roads to where they sleep. A wife, a kid, an old sofa, an empty fridge. The spaces they own, somewhere else. How they choose to come here, and how people like to keep the different parts of their lives separate.

“Stop thinking will you, Lukey?” Dad’s frowning. I stare back at him, trying to let him know how stupid his statement is, but I know what he means, and sometimes I wish I could.

Dad finishes his pint and sighs. “You know where too much thinking gets you.”

By the time Tommy shows up with Micky, Dad and his mates are telling the same story for the seventh time, with slurred edges. Micky rubs his knuckles over my head. “And how’s Mr College?” I look at Tommy as Micky grabs my shoulders. “Shame some of your brains couldn’t rub off on this one.” He points at Tommy with his thumb, then sits down and gets immediately absorbed into the group of grown-ups. Tommy doesn’t say anything. Dad sends me to the bar and Tommy takes my seat to go through the same customary greeting and piss-taking from each tipsy mechanic in turn that I got an hour and a half ago.

Donna’s changing a vodka bottle from the spirit rack. She smiles as I place my empty glass on the rubber beer mat.

“Same again, Lukey?” Her voice is a beam of light cutting through the coarse bush of testosterone. What the hell are you talking about?

I look down.

“Two pints and two halves please. Micky and Tommy are here.”

Donna puts the vodka bottle down and starts to pour the drinks. I’m watching her as she moves, like she’s operating a machine she’s known forever and, like I do most times I speak to her, I get a flash of lying on my side on our living room floor under my duvet. I’m ten years old and pretending to be asleep while her and Marc fool around on the sofa behind me. Getting a sneaky glimpse of her black bra.

“So how’s college?” She places two halves on the bar and starts on the pints.

“All right, yeah,” I say, and even as the words are coming out of my mouth, I know they’re too quiet.

“What? I can’t hear you, babe, speak up.” She just called you babe.

I punch out my words to cut through the pub noise, just as things fall quiet. “It’s all right. Just started this week.”

My stomach drops as people turn to look at me. My head goes down as I wait for them to stop staring. Donna puts a full pint next to the two halves and they look like a single parent Guinness family. I stop myself saying it out loud. She’s laughing.

“That’s good. Knew you were the one with the brains.”

Her eyes lift my head up and I’m looking at her. Her black hair cut short like only some girls can do, her chocolatey eyes, the warmth in her smooth face. Her mum’s Italian and you can tell. I crack a smile and feel the skin of my cheek, and I want to say sorry. Sorry for what happened.

“Be uni next, eh?” she says.

I hold out the tenner Dad gave me. “Dunno about that.”

Donna holds my hand as she takes the money. Her thin fingers are strong.

“You get out of here first chance you get.” And she’s smiling, but there’s something else in her face, and she knows I see it. I look down again and she lets go.

“You do what you want, handsome. Ignore us bitter old ones.”

I take my change and feel Marc’s name crawling up my throat. I know she’s been counting days too, walking around under the same cloud of my big brother. Handsome?

I swallow, then look back at Donna. “You’re not old.”

Donna leans forward on the bar, her thin arms pushing her boobs forward. I try not to stare.

“Just the bitter I need to work on then.”