Дэвид Муди - Strangers

‘I’m not,’ Scott said. ‘I’m just checking you’ve got everything, that’s all.’

‘It’s not like we’ve never been to school before,’ Phoebe grumbled from the back. ‘Just not this school.’

‘Can’t you just drop us here?’ Tammy asked. ‘We’ll follow the other kids.’

‘I told your mum I’d take you all the way to the gates, so that’s what I’m going to do.’

‘Jesus, don’t. Just stop on the other side of the road or something. Don’t take us right up to the gates.’

She looked across and he caught her eye. He’s actually enjoying this . He stopped just short of the entrance to the school in the worst possible place. Hordes of kids swarmed past on either side. Tammy got out fast and slammed the door. Phoebe scrambled out after her, running to catch up. Tammy froze when she heard the car horn. Phoebe started to turn back, but Tammy grabbed her quick. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘He’s just winding us up.’

‘Have a good first day, girls,’ they heard him shout. ‘Stay safe and be good!’

‘He’s such a prick,’ Tammy said, her face red with anger and embarrassment.

They followed the signs for Reception, sticking close to each other as they walked towards the main building, trying to avoid all eye contact. It was a walk of shame, everyone else stopping and looking at them, staring at them.

‘It’s like that horrible TV programme Dad used to watch, remember?’ Phoebe whispered.

‘Which one?’

‘The one with the local shop for local people . You remember? The freak behind the counter who was married to his sister, and they were all played by the same blokes.’

‘I remember. League of Gentlemen . Didn’t like it.’

She was right though. Walking through the crowds this morning, Tammy felt like a social outcast. The kids seemed to part when they got close, like they didn’t want to touch them. The feeling was mutual.

‘There’s that boy,’ Phoebe said.

‘What boy?’

‘From outside the shop yesterday. Jamie, wasn’t it?’

Tammy looked up but looked down again the moment she made eye contact. Boy was definitely the right word. He’d looked quite mature when they’d seen him yesterday, but standing there in his school uniform, he looked like just another kid playing at being a man. She kept her head down, but Jamie had other ideas, making a beeline for her. ‘Hello again,’ he said. Tammy ignored him. She didn’t want to get overfamiliar with any of these kids. In fact, she didn’t want to get familiar at all.

‘Which way’s Reception?’ she asked, no time for small-talk.

‘You’ve missed it.’

‘Which way?’

‘Go back the way you just came. First left.’

Tammy turned around and pulled Phoebe back through the heaving crowds. ‘That was a bit rude,’ Phoebe said.

‘You’re welcome,’ Jamie shouted. ‘Have a good day now.’

The corridor looked the same both ways. It was a long, symmetrical straight line with a set of identical double doors at either end. It didn’t feel right. Hell, it didn’t even smell right. Tammy couldn’t ever remember feeling so out of place.

They missed the turn again, but found it on their third pass. Once they’d introduced themselves to the lady on the reception desk they, in turn, were introduced to the principal, to a couple more teachers who just happened to be passing, and then to Mr Renner, the school’s one man pastoral team. Mr Renner gave them an embarrassingly brief tour of the school’s facilities, then delivered them to their respective form tutors. Tammy looked over her shoulder as they were led off in opposite directions along the front corridor, watching her little sister disappear.

He’d never have admitted it, but Scott thought he was probably as nervous as the kids. After dropping them at school he’d driven back into Thussock to look for work. It was going to be no easy task, that much was clear. The brewery was laying off staff, not taking on, and though they told him he could try again in a month or so, the fracking company were only looking for engineers and specialists at the moment. Thussock didn’t even have a job centre, it seemed. How was he supposed to find a job if the damn place didn’t even have a bloody job centre? He toyed with the idea of driving to the next town, but it was too far and there didn’t seem a lot of point. It would have been a hell of a commute if he’d found work there, and it would probably only have been financially viable if he’d managed to get a job requiring far more responsibility and commitment than he was prepared to give. He wanted something quick and easy: enough to put food on the table and still give him the funds and flexibility he needed to start work on the house, because the sooner he started working on the house, the sooner he’d be back on his feet again.

He parked up near the half-empty retail development they’d visited yesterday. He could see that crazy Graham guy, struggling to keep a snaking chain of shopping trolleys under control, and he thought to himself, if a weird fucker like that can get a job here, surely I shouldn’t have any trouble?

Fuck it. There was nothing left for it. He was going to have to go door to door (if he could find any doors still open) and see if he could find anything that way. Chances were slim, but it was worth a try. And while he was there, he thought, he could try and find someone to talk to about getting Sky installed.

Nothing. Absolutely bloody nothing.

He went into a few places and looked through the windows of others, but no one had anything. The library didn’t open until later, and the lady manning the tourist information kiosk had plenty of ideas of places to try outside Thussock, but next to nothing in the town itself. Scott stood outside the Black Boy pub, wishing it was a few hours later. He’d have propped up the bar for a while if it had been open. Pulling pints wasn’t beneath him, and even if the landlord didn’t have any work available, there was a chance he might know someone who did.

Christ, job hunting was tedious. His heart really wasn’t in it. He wanted to work for himself again, to be his own boss and not have to answer to anyone else. It would be a while before that happened.

It was too soon to give up and go home, so Scott kept walking. Without the distraction of his family – their constant bickering and complaints – he saw more of Thussock this morning, things he’d missed previously. There was a small police station opposite the pub, a branch of a Scottish bank he’d never even heard of, and a betting shop that looked busier than pretty much everywhere else. A little further and he’d reached the bridge over the river. He stopped, leant over the balustrade, and peered down into the murky waters.

‘Don’t do it, son,’ a man shouted, grabbing Scott’s back and scaring the hell out of him.

‘Wasn’t planning on it,’ he said quickly as the elderly gent walked on, laughing with his mates.

Scott realised he was almost back at the school. Bloody hell, he was rapidly running out of town. He thought about going down to the rail station, figuring that if he was going to have to commute, maybe public transport would be a better option. It wasn’t what he wanted, but if there were no jobs here, what else could he do? Surely there’d be work in Edinburgh or Glasgow or somewhere between?

He stopped to cross a narrow side street, and had to pull himself back quick when a dusty builder’s merchant’s truck thundered past and swerved out onto the main road. He looked down the street to check there was nothing else coming and saw a sign on the fence the same as the logo on the side of the truck that had almost hit him. Walpoles. Strange name, he thought. The sign might as well have said ‘Welcome to Dodge’, because it looked pretty desolate down there. Less the Wild West , he thought, more like the Numb North , and he laughed at his own pathetic joke as he followed the track down into a decent-sized builders yard. Scott thought this place looked slightly more promising. The familiarity of bricks, tiles, cement and sand was welcome and, if nothing else, he figured he might be able to price up the materials he needed for the kitchen wall. The sooner he made a start on that the better. He’d heard what Michelle had said yesterday, but she was looking at it all wrong as she so often did. And if he couldn’t find work, which seemed increasingly likely, then wasn’t this the perfect time to get done everything that needed doing to the house?