Fifteen Days Without a Head Read online

  ‘Right then, HERE we go—question number three, and remember … get THIS one right and you’re THROUGH. Only THREE more days to go! I BET you can already feel the sand between your toes, can’t you, Dan?’

  ‘Not quite.’ The only thing I can feel between my toes right now, is mud from the ditch by the canal …

  ‘Soon, my friend, very SOON! SO … are you ready?’

  ‘Ready,’ I lie.

  ‘Ah, you’ll LIKE this one,’ says Baz. ‘And you have to BELIEVE me when I tell you—I don’t choose these questions. I JUST read them out! If you want to BLAME anybody, blame Cheryl!’ He laughs. ‘Seriously though, Daniel, as an ENGLISHMAN to a Scotsman, I’m NOT asking you this question to rub salt into bitter wounds, HONESTLY! It’s what’s on the screen, OK?’

  ‘OK.’ Just read the question—please!

  ‘OK, here goes … Which Football League club did goalkeeper Gordon Banks play for when he WON the World Cup with ENGLAND in 1966? Was it A: West Ham United? B: Manchester United? Or C: Leicester City?’

  Baz is still apologizing, going on about Scotland and football—stuff I couldn’t care less about. Meanwhile my heart is doing cartwheels, because I know the answer. I don’t have to guess. I don’t even have to ignore my guess. I know it!

  ‘C, Baz,’ I say, interrupting him in mid-flow. ‘Gordon Banks played for Leicester City.’

  Silence from Baz. A long silence. Dead air. But I know I’m right.

  Han is a massive Leicester City fan, he’s supported them all his life. He’s always going on about it. Sometime or other, Han told me about Gordon Banks. I don’t remember when, or why I remembered the fact. But who cares! It went in and stayed.

  ‘BACK of the net!’ says Baz, accompanied by the roar of a crowd. ‘You’re going to get some STICK from your fellow countrymen for knowing that!’

  ‘I’ve got a mate who’s a big Leicester City fan.’

  ‘Ah! That explains it. What’s his name? I imagine you’ll be buying him a drink next time you see him!’

  I think of Han, on his hands and knees by the Tent of Mirrors, spitting regurgitated vodka into the grass. ‘Yeah, he likes a drink.’

  ‘What’s his name? Will he be listening?’

  His name? My heart thuds. ‘Freddie,’ I say. ‘Er … I don’t know if he’s listening.’

  I hope not.

  I search the flat and find seventy-three pence between the sofa cushions in the front room, and some copper under Jay’s bed. I add what’s left from last night, and there’s just enough for one SavaShoppa bargain pizza. When I unwrap it, the cardboard base is thicker than the pizza and probably more nutritious.

  I put the pizza in the oven and drop the base on top of the tower of rubbish growing out of the bin. Straight away the stack starts to shift, and before I can do anything, the whole lot slides onto the floor. There’s stuff everywhere: baked bean cans leaking thick red gloop; the black skin of a banana I remember eating a week ago; wine bottles and bits of screwed up paper—it’s a mess.

  I swear and start to pick up the rubbish, ramming as much as I can back into the bin. There’s a soggy fag packet and a screwed-up piece of paper by the sink. I notice the edges of the paper are black and crumbly, like someone tried to set fire to it. It seems a strange thing to do, so I open up the sheet and smooth it out. It’s a letter addressed to Mum—typed and official looking.

  Dear Mrs Roach, Thank you for attending the interview for the position of Mr Parker’s Personal Assistant. I’m sorry to inform you that on this occasion you were unsuccessful. It was a very strong field and a hard choice. We did feel however, that your past experience … there’s a hole in the page where the next word should be. A perfect circle the exact diameter of a cigarette, surrounded by a halo of brown scorched paper. There are a dozen of them, peppering the sheet like bullet holes, with a concentration of fire where the author of the letter signed her name.

  Now I remember: Mum had a job interview a few weeks ago at an office in town. She came home dead excited, said the interview had gone really well. The job was hers—that’s what the woman had said. I look at the ugly rash of cigarette burns obliterating the signature. The job paid double the money Mum was getting from the chip-shop and the cleaning job combined. She said we’d be able to look for somewhere better to live, maybe even go on holiday.

  But she didn’t get it.

  I’m sorry to inform you …

  Why didn’t she tell me?

  Then a thought grabs my heart, holding it still for a beat, while my eyes travel up to the date on the letter. Last Monday. Which means it would have been here, waiting for Mum when she got back from her cleaning shift on Wednesday morning. The day she disappeared.

  I sit down at the kitchen table and stare at the scorched sheet in my hand. It’s like one of those pictures you have to look at for ages before you can tell what it is. At first, all you see is loads of dots and squiggles, patterns of colour. Then all of a sudden—snap—there’s a picture. And it’s so obvious you don’t know how you ever missed it.

  Now I can see everything …

  Mum gets home after her shift last Wednesday. She’s hungover, tired, hungry. She picks up the post on her way in, sees the letter and her mood changes in an instant. This is it. The job she’s been waiting for. The job she was promised. She’s cleaned her last toilet!

  Mum tears open the envelope, standing here in the kitchen, right where I am now.

  She reads it through twice, just to be sure. There has to be some mistake.

  But she knows there isn’t.

  She throws the letter onto the table and lights up a cigarette … pours herself a drink, then picks it up again. She reads it through—swears—then holds the tip of her ciggie to the paper, right where that cow who promised her the job has signed her name. She watches the paper discolour, a wisp of smoke and then a hole appears—a perfect circle ringed with black. She keeps doing it, swearing as each hole burns through, until she gets bored, screws the letter up and dumps it in the bin.

  So now I know.

  That job was her way out—an escape from a life she hated.

  But when she didn’t get it, she went anyway.

  Because she couldn’t take any more.

  So now I know.

  ‘Why are you crying?’

  I look up and Jay is in the doorway. I wipe the back of my arm across my eyes. ‘I’m not, it’s hayfever.’

  Jay looks at me and wrinkles his nose. ‘What’s that smell?’

  The pizza!

  I grab a tea towel and yank open the oven door. The pizza is a smouldering wreck, burnt beyond recognition, completely uneatable. Of all the things that have gone wrong today, this is the one that breaks me. I sink to my knees on the kitchen floor, the smoking pizza still in my hands, tears streaming down my face. After a moment I feel Jay’s arms round my neck, and his voice, small and scared, in my ear.

  ‘Don’t cry, Laurence. It’s only pizza.’

  If only that were true.

  ‘Eat your breakfast, Jay.’

  A crust of toast smeared with strawberry jam—it’s all we have.

  ‘My tummy hurts!’ Jay looks at me through creased eyes, clutching his belly.

  ‘Do you need a poo?’

  He shakes his head and sniffs. It’s the noise he makes when he’s getting himself charged up ready to cry. I look across at him and his face is such a cartoon of misery, I laugh.

  Jay scowls. ‘It’s not funny!’

  ‘I know—I’m not laughing at you.’ But I can’t help it. I mean, he couldn’t look any more fed up if he tried.

  And then he bursts into tears.

  I kneel down and try to cuddle him, but he punches me.

  ‘Go away, I hate you!’

  ‘Jay, I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you,’ I say, trying to keep my face straight.

  I put my arms round him and after a few minutes he stops struggling. He feels hot and sweaty and his hair smells like wet dog.

  ‘
I want Mum,’ he mumbles into my neck. ‘When’s Mum coming home?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I want her to come home now!’

  ‘I know.’ I hesitate. ‘She can’t … at the moment. She needs to be somewhere else, so she can earn some more money.’ I’m thinking on my feet—my knees actually—making this up as I go along.

  How do I tell him that I don’t think she’s ever coming home?

  I think it will be safer if Jay doesn’t go to school. In this sort of mood I don’t know what he might say. I can see him now, getting all upset and telling Miss Shaw that he’s missing Mum—how he hasn’t seen her for days, that it’s just me and him on our own at home. How long then before the Do-Good Squad arrive with their clipboards and their insincere smiles?

  If Jay doesn’t go, it means I can’t either. But what does it matter if Mr Buchan does put me on report? Going to school suddenly seems a lot less important than working out where our next meal is coming from.

  The cremated pizza is still lying on the table. Looking at it makes my stomach churn. Three floors directly below me the shelves of SavaShoppa are stacked with food. Fat bags of crisps and slabs of chocolate; piles of frozen pizza glistening with frost; boxes of crunchy cereal and row upon row of soft white bread. My mouth starts to water.

  It’s wrong. All that food down there, while up here we’re slowly starving to death.

  I make a decision.

  ‘Jay, I’m just going down to the shop, I’ll be back in a minute. OK? Don’t leave the flat.’

  SavaShoppa is quiet, just me and an old lady with her basket balanced on top of one of those tartan shopping bags on wheels. She looks like she’d fall over if she didn’t have the basket to lean on. I can only see two members of staff—a woman on the till and a bloke in a green SavaShoppa jacket putting milk into one of the fridges; he looks bored, half-asleep.

  Now I’m here, I don’t know if I can do this. I’ve never stolen anything in my life. Apart from that time I took some crayons from nursery school. I felt so guilty then, I burst into tears and confessed everything to Mum.

  But this is different.

  I’m hungry.

  Jay’s hungry.

  I have to do it.

  My hands are sweating. I wipe them on my jeans and walk down the bread and cakes aisle for the third time. The bloke stocking the milk fridge glances up at me, so I turn round and walk back the way I’ve just come. I couldn’t look more suspicious if I was wearing a mask and carrying a bag with SWAG written on it.

  I need something small, something I can slip into my pocket and just walk out of the door. How hard can it be?

  Deep breath.

  Come on, Laurence, you can do this.

  I pause by the chocolate. It’s the right size, but not exactly nutritious. Biscuits? Too big. I should have worn a coat, but how suspicious would that have looked in this heat?

  Walking past the tins of soup my stomach gurgles lustfully. I lift a can of Chunky Vegetable off the shelf and hear the contents slosh around inside, but it won’t fit into my pocket. I move on. Bread? Too bulky. Cereal, milk, pizza—forget it. This is stupid. I go back to the chocolate.

  Two King Size Mars bars—one for me, one for Jay. There must be some goodness in them.

  I glance over to the checkout. The woman on the till is restocking the cigarettes. The bloke with the milk has gone back into the store room.

  I can see the door. Twelve paces and I’ll be outside.

  I take a step and hear a crash. Something hard lands on my foot.

  ‘Ooh, I am sorry, dear, are you all right?’ Tartan Trolley Lady is looking up at me, the contents of her basket scattered at my feet. ‘I’m so clumsy these days.’

  ‘It’s OK!’ My heart is banging and my foot throbs where a tin of tuna cat food landed on it.

  ‘I’m ever so sorry.’ She is trying to bend down to pick up her things, but at the current rate of descent it will be dark before she manages it.

  I do it for her—pick up the spilled shopping and put it back in the basket.

  ‘Thank you, dear, thank you, you’re very kind.’ She smiles, then points at the two Mars bars in my hand. ‘Let me get those for you, it’s the least I can do in the circumstances.’

  ‘No, you don’t have to do that, I’m fine thanks.’ Fine? How could I be fine? I’m an idiot. She just offered to buy me food!

  Luckily she insists.

  Back outside, holding two bars of chocolate in my hand, I look up at the sky and nod a silent thank you. I realize how close I was to making a huge mistake. What if I’d been caught? What would have happened to Jay then?

  I bound up the stairs two at a time, my mouth full of creamy chocolate and caramel. My teeth are screaming but I don’t care. I’m thinking that maybe my luck is finally changing.

  Then I reach the landing and see the door to our flat is wide open …

  Jay!

  I run in shouting his name and he appears in the hall, looking worried.

  ‘What’s going on? You left the door …’

  Nosy Nelly emerges from the bathroom and sees me. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘What’s going on? What are you doing in my flat?’

  Someone else appears behind Nelly: Mr Dawson from next door. I know who he is because he’s been round to complain a few times, when Mum was playing music too loud, or last time, when she smashed the bathroom up. He’s drying his hands on a towel.

  ‘The plug was in,’ he says to Nelly, then notices me.

  I glance behind him into the bathroom and see the floor is shiny with water.

  ‘It’s dripping through my ceiling,’ says Nelly. ‘I’ll be sending the repair bill directly to your mother.’

  ‘What?’ It’s taking a while for my brain to put all the pieces together.

  ‘Someone left the tap running and the plug in,’ says Mr Dawson. ‘It overflowed and started leaking through to downstairs.’

  ‘Oh!’ I look for Jay, who has suddenly disappeared. ‘Sorry. Jay must have left the tap running.’

  ‘What was he doing here unsupervised?’ says Nelly. ‘That’s what I want to know. What if he’d started a fire? What then?’

  ‘How can you start a fire by leaving a tap running?’

  ‘Don’t get smart with me, young man!’ she says. ‘You know precisely what I mean. Where’s your mother? And why aren’t you both at school?’

  ‘At work. Inset Day.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  I sigh elaborately. ‘Mum is at work. Jay and I have an Inset Day at school, so we don’t have to go in.’

  ‘So you were supposed to be caring for your little brother then?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Not doing a very good job were you?’

  ‘I only went down to the shop for some food.’

  Nelly tuts and turns to Mr Dawson. ‘It’s not right, leaving a child to look after a child.’

  Dawson nods. ‘Some people shouldn’t be allowed kids.’

  They’re talking like I’m not here, like I’m invisible. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t count because I’m a kid. What I think or feel doesn’t matter.

  ‘Have you seen the state of this place?’ continues Nelly. ‘It’s disgusting. I fear for these children’s health. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an infestation. Have you seen the kitchen?’

  It occurs to me that Nelly has probably had a good snoop around while Dawson fixed The Great Flood. I’ve had enough.

  ‘Get out!’

  Nelly stops mid-sentence and they both stare at me, all wide eyes and open mouths.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Get out of my flat. Now!’ I point towards the open front door. Dawson looks worried. For once I’m glad to be six foot and slightly scary looking.

  Nelly’s not so easily put off. She narrows her eyes to bloodshot slits and leans towards me.

  ‘You’ve not heard the last of this, young man.’ She prods me in the chest with a bony finger.
‘Not by a long chalk.’

  I’m shaking as I stand in the hallway and watch them leave. I should have pushed the old cow down the stairs when I had the chance.

  Jay’s hiding under his duvet in our bedroom. He bursts into tears when he sees me.

  ‘I’m—sorry—Laurence,’ he says, between sobs.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I sit down on the bed.

  ‘When’s Mum coming home?’ Jay shuffles next to me, a sweaty ball of heat.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I’m too tired to lie any more.

  But I lied to him just then, didn’t I? When I told him it didn’t matter. It does matter. Nelly was dangerous enough before. Now I get the feeling we’re really getting on her nerves.

  I must have fallen asleep, because the doorbell wakes me up. I’m on Jay’s bed and my arm has gone numb where I’ve been lying on it. The buzzer goes again, then a knock. Impatient. Insistent. It’s probably Nelly coming to complain about something else. Whoever it is, I don’t want to speak to them. We’re not in.

  Then I hear the letterbox go, and a slap as something hits the lino in the hall.

  I wait and listen for a while before going to see what it is. The envelope is addressed to Mum, but I open it anyway. I was right about it being from Nelly.

  Words fly off the page like darts—children … unsupervised … neglect … Nelly details The Great Flood, and asks Mum to go and see her. Then the part that makes me go cold—I feel it is my duty to inform the relevant authorities …

  So that’s it—

  Mum’s gone and now Nelly is going to tell the social.

  I screw the letter into a ball and throw it down the hall.

  ‘Why do I have to come to the stupid phone box?’ says Jay, stamping on every step down from the Heights.

  ‘Because last time I left you on your own, you flooded the flat!’

  ‘Didn’t! Anyway …’

  ‘It’s not up to me. I know.’

  Jay growls and stops walking.

  ‘Come on, Jay. Please.’

  ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘I know. So am I …’ I’m tempted to give in and go back to the flat. What’s the point in winning the holiday if Mum’s never coming back home?

  But I need to get out of there for a while. I can’t stand just sitting there waiting for the knock on the door. I’ll probably lose tonight anyway, so I might as well get it over with.