Jenny Downham: You Against Me

He slowed to a jog. Here was the lane, like something from a country magazine. Here was the gated entrance. And behind it, the house with its lawn and windows, its shine and curtains and space. There was even a Jag XJ sparkling in the driveway.

Mikey heaved himself over the gate and walked in a straight line up the gravel drive. Things would never be the same after he knocked on the door. He knew it like it was written down and stamped with a seal. He was going to mash Tom Parker and watch him leak all over the doorstep.

The knocker was brass, a lion with a bushy mane and golden eyes. He banged it hard, three times. He wanted them to know he meant business.

Nothing. Nobody came.

There was a kind of hush instead, like everything suddenly shut up and was listening, like all the objects in the posh house took a breath and held it in. He touched the wall to steady himself, then knocked again.

A girl opened the door. She was wearing a skirt and T-shirt. Bare legs, bare arms.

She said, ‘Yes?’

He wasn’t expecting a girl. A girl the same age as Karyn. He could hardly look at her.

‘Are you with the caterers?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Are you here to do the food?’

Maybe he didn’t have the right house. He checked the door for a number, but there wasn’t one. He looked inside the hallway, as if that would give him a clue. It was huge, all wooden floor and fancy rugs. There was a table, a bench, an umbrella stand, a place for boots and shoes.

The girl said, ‘Shall I get my mum?’

He looked at her again – the little skirt she was wearing, the blues and purples of her T-shirt, the way she had her hair in a ponytail that swung.

He said, ‘Are you Tom Parker’s sister?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Is he here?’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘No.’

The sound of a dog barking inside the house. It stopped. Silence.

‘Where is he then?’

She stepped out, pulled the door shut behind her and leaned against it. ‘Are you a friend of his?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then you know where he is.’

He fingered the spanner in his pocket. ‘Well, I know the bail hearing’s today. I just wondered when he’d be home.’

‘We don’t know.’

Seconds went past, minutes maybe. For the first time he noticed a raw-looking scar running from the corner of her mouth down her chin. She saw him looking and stared right back. He knew about girls and she felt bad about that scar.

He smiled. ‘So, what’s your name then?’

She blushed, but didn’t look away. ‘My dad put a message on Tom’s Facebook page to tell his friends what was happening.’

Mikey shrugged. ‘I haven’t checked my computer for days.’

‘Do you know him from college?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I haven’t seen you before.’

He thought of the college in town where he’d gone to ask about catering courses once, and held her gaze. ‘Well, I’m so busy studying, I don’t get time to socialize. I don’t want to mess up my exams.’

She obviously fell for it because her face softened. ‘Tell me about it. Mine start in May and I’ve hardly done any work.’

That was ages away, why was she worrying? But talking about it changed something in her. She leaned towards him a fraction, as if she’d decided to trust him. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘we’re having a party later.’

A party? Because her brother was out on bail?

‘Come if you like. Tom could do with friends around him tonight.’

But before he could tell her what he thought of that, a woman came round the corner of the house, waving crisply at them. ‘At last,’ she called. ‘I was beginning to panic.’

The girl shot him a look of apology. ‘She thinks you’re the caterer.’

The woman came up, swinging a clipboard and looking at Mikey. ‘You’re with Amazing Grazing, yes?’

The girl sighed. ‘No, Mum. He’s not.’

‘Oh, who are you then? Are you the marquee man?’

He was supposed to answer. He was supposed to say no, but all he could think was that she would realize at once, that she wouldn’t be fooled like her daughter. She would call the dog, security guards, the police.

‘He’s one of Tom’s friends, Mum.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, Tom’s not due until later.’

‘I told him that.’

The woman turned to her. ‘It’s all right, love. Why don’t you get back to your revision?’

The girl gave Mikey a quick smile, then went back through the door and shut it behind her. He was left with the mother.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘We really are very busy.’

He hated her. That she didn’t know him at all, that she dismissed him so easily.

‘Come back for the party. All Tom’s friends are welcome.’ She walked briskly away clutching her clipboard, her bony arse barely moving. No meat to her, no swing.

He stood there for a minute, wondering if it was all a joke.

He looked at the driveway, at the trees lining the fence, at the electric gate – so different from the estate, the noise of people living close together. Where were the cars, the yelling, the doors slamming, the sound of other people’s lives?

In his jacket pocket, the spanner hurt his ribs. He smiled as he walked round the Jag twice. Karyn said the bastard’s car was snazzy. Here it was – yellow as a canary and so clean it reflected the sky in its windows.

It was easy, like running a pen across paper, and so satisfying to know how expensive it would be to fix. He let the spanner find a route, let it zigzag across the door, scratch a dented path across the wheel trim and over the bonnet – like a tin you could open if you cut all the way round, then ripped off the lid. The only thing missing was blood.

He’d come back for that later.

There’s a way of slicing the skin from an orange that means none of the bitter white stuff gets left on the fruit. Mikey didn’t use to know this. Dex had taught him. It was hypnotic, seeing if he could peel the whole thing without the skin breaking once, coils of bright orange trailing to the floor. He liked his fingers being sticky. He liked knowing that when he’d peeled the whole lot, Dex was going to show him how to make a brandy glaze.

There was peace at the pub. Routine. Jacko poured peas and sweetcorn into saucepans of hot water. Dex scrubbed potatoes by the back door, his bare feet in the rain. Mikey had sorted the salad bar like he did every morning – prawn cocktail, egg mimosa, coleslaw. They were OK, the three of them. Everything was as it should be. It was easy to forget the world outside.

‘You two boys are quiet today,’ Dex said. ‘You got girl trouble again?’

Mikey shook his head. ‘Not the kind you mean.’

‘I have,’ Jacko said. ‘I can’t get one.’

‘Sienna’s got a sister,’ Mikey said.

‘What’s she like?’

‘Dunno, never met her.’

‘How long you been seeing Sienna?’

‘Two weeks.’

Jacko laughed. ‘Well, introduce me to her sister quick, ’cos that’s a world record for you.’

Dex waved the peeler at him. ‘If I had daughters, you two would terrify me.’

‘It’s Mikey you want to be scared of,’ Jacko said. ‘He can get any girl he wants, I swear it. Hey, Mikey, tell Dex about your first time.’

‘With Sienna?’

‘No, your very first time.’

Mikey grinned. ‘I’m not telling him that.’

‘She went down on him,’ Jacko said. ‘Met her in a bar, never even knew her name and she went down on him.’

Dex tutted. ‘That stuff’s private. You shouldn’t be talking about things like that.’

‘Can you believe it?’ Jacko said. ‘That any girl would do that?’

‘I can’t believe half the things you two get up to,’ Dex said.