Camilla Way - Little Bird

‘Nah. Load of bollocks.’

He sighed. Outside, a train rattled and roared along nearby tracks, a familiar sound from his childhood – the noise of strangers hurtling onward somewhere beneath him, while up here, in this flat, nothing changed and nothing moved. He went to the window and tried to relive the moment when he had kissed Kate goodbye that morning. From his doorstep he had watched her walk the whole length of his street (she wouldn’t let him call a cab or even walk her to the station), until all he could see was the yellow cap of her hair disappearing around the corner, and he’d finally closed the door and sat on his sofa for twenty minutes, grinning into space. He smiled again at the memory and went to make some tea.

On the way to the kitchen he stopped at his old bedroom and gazed in at the peeling FHM posters, the queue of plastic dinosaurs on the window sill, the cork board cluttered with pictures of him, Eugene and Jimmy as teenagers, a collection of ancient gig tickets, flyers for all-night raves, line-ups for long-forgotten Glastonburys. Sitting on the single bed he slipped his hand beneath the mattress to pull out an old photograph hidden there. He hadn’t looked at it for years, but now he stared at the familiar picture, absentmindedly smoothing out the creases with his finger. A summer’s day in some long-forgotten pub garden, his mum and dad clutching drinks and smiling shyly at the camera. He was aged nine or ten, sat between them on a bench eating ice cream. Frank’s eyes rested on his father’s face. A few weeks later he’d gone out for cigarettes one morning and never come back.

Out of habit, Frank searched the sun-dazzled eyes for clues, but not too intensely, not anymore. The old grief had faded to almost nothing now, just a faint scar, albeit one that flared occasionally at odd perplexing moments, or when he spotted, fleetingly, his father’s vanished face in his own. Mentally he sifted through the memories: a smell of tobacco and soap, a croaky laugh, a red tartan shirt, huge hands around him, throwing him into the sky. Memories of memories perhaps, rather than the real thing; he didn’t entirely trust them. Since that morning fifteen years ago, his mother had not once mentioned his father to him again. He pushed the photograph back beneath the mattress and went to the kitchen.

Leaving Chrysanthemum House an hour later, Frank felt his mood lighten as he checked the time on his mobile: 6.30 p.m. Twenty-five hours exactly until he saw Kate again. He headed in the direction of the Hope and Anchor where he was due to meet Eugene and Jimmy and smiled as he wondered how they’d got on the night before.

He had met Jimmy within minutes of his first day at Morden Comprehensive. White-faced, Frank had sat gripping his Star Wars pencil case and trying not to make eye contact with any of the other terrified eleven-year-olds in the unfamiliar classroom. He hadn’t even noticed the large, stocky boy on his left. Their teacher, Mr Jacobs, had just begun bellowing the register when suddenly the kid had elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Oi,’ he’d hissed. ‘Got any fags?’ Frank had turned to see a fat face covered in freckles with two small round eyes staring back at him.

‘Nah,’ he’d whispered. ‘Don’t smoke.’

He’d turned his attention back to the front. A moment later the boy had nudged Frank again. ‘Do us a favour, mate?’ he’d asked. ‘Tell the teacher you feel sick and need the bog.’

Frank stared back at him, horrified, and shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘No way.’

Immediately, the kid had waved his arm in the air. ‘Oi, Sir!’ he shouted, pointing at Frank. ‘Says he feels sick, Sir. Wants me to take him to the bogs, Sir.’ Thirty heads had swivelled in Frank’s direction and, mortified, he’d ducked his head.

The teacher peered at him. ‘That true?’ he’d asked suspiciously. Frank had swallowed hard, and shrugged, while his new classmates looked mockingly back at him. ‘All right,’ Mr Jacobs had sighed. ‘Off you go then. Hurry up.’ Jimmy grinned and dragged Frank to his feet.

‘Cheers mate, I owe you one,’ Jimmy had said, once they’d reached the toilets and he’d fished a crumpled fag out of his pocket. ‘I was gasping. Want one?’

Frank glanced anxiously at the door. In five minutes the bell would go and someone would come in. He was going to get caught bunking off on his first day and it wasn’t even half-past nine yet. He shook his head, lent against a blue radiator and stared through wired glass to the empty playing fields below. He couldn’t even remember his way back to the classroom.

‘You all right?’

Frank suddenly realised the boy was peering at him intently.

He’d shrugged. ‘Yeh.’

Jimmy finished his cigarette and contemplated him for a few moments, his brows furrowed. Finally the penny had dropped. ‘You’re not worried about this place are you?’ he’d asked, amazed.

Frank stared at his shoes and shook his head unconvincingly. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Course not.’

Jimmy chucked his fag butt into the urinal and slapped him hard on the back. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he grinned. ‘Stick with me, mate. You’ll see: this place is going to be a fucking breeze.’ He held out his hand and Frank reached for it, doubtfully. ‘Jimmy Skinner,’ said Jimmy, grasping Frank’s hand.

‘Frank Auvrey,’ said Frank.

Their friendship had been an unlikely one. By the end of that first week it was abundantly clear not only to Frank, but to the other kids and to the teachers too that in the pecking order of Morden Comprehensive, among the bullies and the geeks, the popular and the hated, the invisible and the lunatics, Jimmy would rule: Jimmy would be top dog. He wasn’t particularly cool or good-looking, but he possessed such an endearing combination of charm, confidence and wit (not to mention two notorious older brothers in the years above), that he was respected and liked by almost everyone he met.

It was typical of Jimmy’s personality that while others might have been surprised by their friendship, it hadn’t crossed his mind for a second that it should be any other way. And while everyone else might have assumed that the benefits were all Frank’s, they were missing a crucial factor of the partnership: Jimmy needed Frank as much as Frank needed Jimmy. Whereas Frank’s fears and insecurities were on an impressively mammoth scale, encompassing as they did: accidental death, other people, nuclear war, unspecified future tragedy (including unemployment and homelessness), being murdered by a burglar while he slept, and his mother’s probable, eventual suicide, such things did not feature in Jimmy’s somewhat simpler outlook on life. Instead, his secret anxieties were more straightforward, and included such things as spiders, strange-looking food, and ghosts. Thus, Frank could afford to be admirably, reassuringly laissez-faire about his friend’s more manageable concerns while at the same time basking in the novelty of Jimmy’s absolute refusal to take anything much very seriously. Above all, however, the key to their friendship was a simple one: they made each other laugh.

They’d met Eugene a few weeks later. They’d found him hanging by the hood of his jacket from a fence post not long after the last bell had rung one Tuesday afternoon. He had been trussed like a mental patient, his coat arms tied behind his back, his face a red, spitting ball of rage as he’d writhed and wriggled up there on the post, trying in vain to free himself. Jimmy and Frank had watched the kid struggle for a bit while they sucked on blueberry ice poles. Eventually they’d looked at each other, shrugged, and gently lowered him to the ground. The boy had stood before them, hiccuping and sniffing furiously, scrubbing at his eyes and nose with his stretched-out sleeves.