Pat Barker - Another World

He knows more about things than Mum does, some things anyway. About this estate for a start, about the kids who nick off from school and shove petrol-soaked rags through the letter-boxes of empty houses and drop matches on them. And then they call the fire brigade and stone them, and when the police come out to protect the firemen they stone the police too. Mum doesn’t like him walking through the estate, because she knows about the gangs, but when she talks about the school it’s, ‘Oh, you’ll soon make friends.’ Where does she think the kids at school come from? They’re not being bussed in from Mars.

He’ll go home that way, across the estate. If he has to come to this school, he might as well start getting used to it.

The streets are deserted. Too early for the kids: they come out later, streaming across the waste land, past the burnt-out cars, past the charred houses, to the recce or the chippie or the wall outside the pub. There’s glass on the road, shiny like a river. He crunches through it, looking at his feet. And that’s why he doesn’t see the kid till he’s almost on top of him. He’s playing on a sort of trolley thing, going ‘broom broom’ like Jasper does. Dead cool now, zero cool, Gareth drawls out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Hasta la vista, baby,’ and kicks him.

Then he looks up. A girl’s standing on the base of the next lamp-post, frozen in the act of swinging round it. She’s got a white top on that shows her tits, though she’s only about twelve, and she’s looking at him with a sort of slow anger. She’s in no hurry about this, she’s enjoying it. It’s the sort of feeling Gareth knows well, like when you want to shit and you won’t let yourself. Behind her are three more girls, but they’re waiting for her to do something first, because this kid’s her brother.

Gareth knows the worst thing he can do now is to look frightened. He daren’t turn and run. She lets him get level before pushing her clenched fist into his chest. ‘So what’s he done to you?’

It sounds entirely reasonable, but it isn’t. He can see the excitement on her face and on the faces of the other girls crowding in behind her. They watch him go past, but it’s just like cats letting a mouse escape, as soon as he’s gone a few yards they start following him. He walks faster. They walk faster. He runs, they run. Two at the front, the big fat slag and the little one who’s skinnier though still bigger than him. He darts down an alley between the houses and realizes he’s trapped himself, because it’s harder to run here, the cobbles are slippery, he skids and nearly falls and then they’ve got him. ‘What do you want?’ he says when he feels the first girl’s hand on his anorak. He hasn’t got any money, if he had he’d throw it at them and run. ‘Show us what you’ve got,’ the fat lass says. ‘I haven’t got any,’ he says. He only realizes what they mean when they shriek with laughter. He tries to run, but they’re on to him, dragging at his shorts, and he’s fighting them. Clutching, clawing, trying to keep himself covered up. The skinny one punches him in the guts and when he bends the fat one knees him in the face, and he lets go of the shorts. He can’t look, his eyes are streaming, he keeps them tight shut, but he knows from the feel of the air on his skin that they can see everything.

‘What do y’ call that?’

‘Jesus Christ, I’ve seen bigger on a budgie.’

‘You want to watch a bird doesn’t see that.’

‘Ooh, look, at him, Jackie-no-balls.’

He feels the shorts pulled further down, and doesn’t resist because nothing worse can happen now.

‘Skid marks!’

It’s true. He sees it himself, the brown streak in his pants, as he pulls the shorts up.

‘Skid marks! Skid marks!’ they shout after him, as he runs crying down the alley and out into the street.

The strange thing is that though they soon stop following him, he can still hear them shouting, even when he’s running up the drive and into the house.

They’ll go to the same school, they’re the same age as him, a year older perhaps. Even if they don’t know where he lives they can easily find out. He wonders why he was ever bothered about wearing the wrong shoes because this is fifty, a hundred times worse, and all the time inside his head there’s a voice shouting, ‘Skid marks! Skid marks!’

Miranda lies on the lawn at the back of the house, sunbathing and listening to her Walkman. She sees herself, long and pale, with big sunglasses that look like insects’ eyes.

A cloud moves over the sun. The shadow starts at her feet and moves upwards, chilling her body inch by inch, until at last the orange glow behind her closed lids dies to a dull purple. She opens her eyes and watches the shadow creep over the garden, encroach on the terrace until it reaches the house and every rose is quenched.

The night Dad left, the house was full of bangs and shouts and screams and slammed doors. Then silence. Miranda stood covering her face with her hands in a corner, then, when she couldn’t bear it any longer, ran across the landing to Mum and Dad’s room. Dad had a suitcase open on the bed and his back was turned. She crept round the door, not knowing whether she was wanted or not. As soon as he saw her, he picked her up and hugged her tight enough to hurt. And then she looked over his shoulder and saw his suits and shirts and ties in the case, and a row of socks rolled up in pairs, all along one side, like a litter of dead puppies.

Dad said to her once, ‘You know, I wouldn’t blame you if you were angry.’

But she’s not angry. She’s never angry.

Dad calls, ‘Miranda?’

They must be nearly ready to leave. Reluctantly, she gets up and goes back into the house to find the usual chaos of preparations well advanced.

‘Miranda?’ Fran says. ‘Could you go into the living room and get Jasper’s bye-bye? I think it’s in there.’

His bye-bye’s a yellow blanket with a satin binding that he stuffs into his mouth and strokes whenever he’s tired. Most of the time he just ignores it, but if it’s missing when he wants to have a nap all hell’s let loose. She’s sick of fetching and carrying after Jasper, but she doesn’t say anything. Fran’s got Jasper and Gareth to cope with, and half the time Dad’s not here. It’s no wonder she grabs every bit of help she can get.

Miranda goes into the living room. It’s bright sun outside and the blinds are half closed, making a pattern of yellow and black wasp stripes on the floor, but she sees the bye-bye straight away, draped over the back of a chair. She’s just stretched out her hand to pick it up when she realizes she’s not alone.

There’s a girl at the french windows, shielding her eyes to peer through the slats of the blinds into the room. If it had been a man Miranda would probably have screamed, but because it’s a girl she’s not frightened. Though there is something horrible about this girl, the way she moves up and down along the window, scanning the room, her movements quick and eager, like a stoat outside a rabbit’s cage.

Miranda takes in very little about her appearance. Partly the blind obscures her, partly Miranda’s almost too shocked to register anything. She takes one step towards the window, intending to challenge her, then, realizing it’s locked, tears out of the room and races down the side of the house on to the terrace. Quick as she is, the girl’s gone before she gets there. She must have gone through the side entrance out into the road, though by the time Miranda opens the gate she’s already turned the corner, and there’s nobody in sight.

Miranda returns to the terrace and, on some obscure impulse, presses her own face against the window, peering into the room with shielded eyes, trying to see what the girl saw.