Ronny was silent for a moment and then he said thoughtfully, Your daughter seems very angry about something.
Lily? You think so?
Lily. Thats pretty.
Yes. Ive always liked it.
Lily growled into her text book. She hated her fucking name.
Sara was holding a bucket and a cloth. Its mainly just her age. You know? Hormones.
Lily growled again. Oh how she would make Sara suffer for this! She was seventeen, for heavens sake. Seventeen!
When I was thirteen, Ronny said, I remember that things seemed very confusing. He didnt add that they still felt that way.
Shes actually seventeen, Sara said, wringing out the cloth and applying it to the banister.
Really?
Yes, Sara grunted slightly as she rubbed, Lilys a late developer. Shes always beerrslightly taller than average but very gawky. Its taken her a while to mature physicallyI mean as quickly as other girls of the same age.
Lily squealed. She threw down her book, pulled on a T-shirt, some jeans, yanked on her trainers, flinching, slightly, when her sore toe clashed with the fabric interior, then ran into the hallway. Lets go! Lets go! she yelled, facing her humiliation head on, butting it aside, taking the stairs two at a time, pushing past Sara and her bucket of soapy water, grabbing Ronny by the arm and dragging him, dragging him towards the front door.
Come on!
The fire was blazing. Jim was preparing a Fray Bentos chicken pie. It was steaming in the kitchen. He sat on the sofa, a pen in his hand, a pad of paper on his lap. He wore no hat. Light from the bulb above glanced off his bright pate. He was fleshy, like a sea anemone. He was bare.
Jim swapped the pen into his right hand. Dear Nathan, he wrote, in shaky print, and then he stared at these words for a long, long time. Eventually he glanced up, into the fire.
Red flames. Red hair. Hot. Hot. Hot. It took him right back. He remembered his brother and the last time he ever saw him, in his fathers house. Nathan. All tough, and bullish and twenty-four, with a regular job and a bedsit and everything.
You can sleep on the sofa, hed said, his eyes dense and glossed with earnestness, and you can stay just as long as you like. Thats a promise.
Little Ronnie, who was now Jim, sat on his bed, his arms around his knees, barely there, really. Eventually he whispered, Its too late.
Its never too late, Nathan smiled, never. Youre fifteen. Fifteen! You can do anything you want with your life.
I dont dare think about it, Little Ronnie mumbled, theres just too much stuff
He gazed around at his dank, grey room, his few books, his posters, his chemistry set, his bed, the notches in the wall from the bedposts, and the scratches in the plaster hed made himself with a compass. Little pictures and lines and notes and messages in baby code. His scratches. This was everything, wasnt it? These were all his possibilities.
Ive got the car. Itll be two trips, thats all. Two stupid trips.
But theres all these arrangements, Nathan. Things I cant get out of.
I want you to come with me. Nathan was insistent.
I cant.
Im begging you to come. Im begging you.
Little Ronnie looked up into his brothers kind eyes. Force me.
No. Nathan would not be drawn. He was better than that, he was bigger than his father, he was decent. I cant force you. Its your own decision. Youre not a child any more.
Its just
Little Ronnie was tugging at his hair. His thin hair, which was worn and patchy like an old animal pelt.
Dont be afraid of him, Nathan exclaimed, hes just a stupid, stinking old man.
Im not afraid.
Oh God, he was.
Then what is it?
I cant make the decision.
Help me, help me, help me, Little Ronnie was thinking. Help me.
Nathan grew impatient. He was offering the world.
Is your suitcase still packed and tucked away under your bed? He suddenly spoke like an ally. Because this was their past, their pact, their sweet secret hed rejuvenated.
No. Little Ronnie shook his head.
Nathan squatted down and glanced under. I see it.
He put out a hand to grab it.
Not the suitcase!
Little Ronnie tried to stop his older brother, but Nathan pulled out the case anyway, and Ronnie bent to his will like a strand of corn, a straw.
Always packed, Nathan said, like when we were kids, remember? And I promised Id take you away the very first time?
He was only eight years old when Big Ron returned from his long trip away. But even then hed longed to escape. Hed planned to.
Nathan opened the case, expecting to find the little shirts and little shoes, the baby clothes that hed packed himself when Little Jim was still a toddler and hed yearned so much to save him. But he recoiled at what he saw instead, and then his expression dulled and his eyes glazed over like the eyes of a fish too long out of water.
In the case lay a collection of polaroids, some self-assembled newsletters, a camera, some rope, a knife, a hot water bottle, a roll of thick brown sticky tape, other stuff. He slammed the case shut. Something inviolate had been violated.
Whats going on? he asked. His voice was heavy-vowelled. He was sticky-throated. Little Ronnie scratched at his cheeks like a limp, long-limbed baby monkey. He said nothing. Nathan fastened the locks on the case and picked it up. He wouldnt leave it. No bloody way.
Are you coming?
He was rough now. Little Ronnie shook his head. It was too late. It had always been too late. Even breathing implicated him. Even blinking.
This is the very last time, Nathan said, his voice creaking, that Im going to ask.
Little Ronnie huddled up.
Nathan felt his heart judder inside his rocky chest like a pebble on the thick-set surface of an icy pond. He wouldnt crack. He couldnt. He inhaled. Deep, deep. He exhaled. He turned. He went. And that was the end of everything. Because when Nathan left his fathers house, all decency left with him.
Nineteen
He was sick four times. The first time, up against the back wheel of the green Volvo.
Yuk.
Lily watched him.
Is it food poisoning?
Nope.
Then what?
Misery.
Shiiiiit!
Ronny straightened up and began walking down the farms long drive. It was dark and the moon was high.
Why dont you take the car? She limped along next to him.
I dont want to.
Why the hell not?
He glanced at her with something approaching bewilderment. She was so angry. After a while he said gently, So weve all appreciated the joke now, Lily.
What joke?
She scowled at him.
That I walk a little strangely.
Lily stopped short. I didnt even notice, she said, all stiff-necked huff, and if you actually want to know, Ive injured my foot.
While she spoke, Ronny was sick again, up against a wire fence. Im sorry about this. He wiped his mouth.
Itll merge in. This is a farm. In the country every-fucking-thing merges.
Sick doesnt merge, Ronny muttered hoarsely, its always synthetic-looking, dont you think?
Synthetic? How?
Lily peered at his vomit in the darkness. She was a farmers daughter with a cast-iron stomach. She saw nothing amiss.
The colour, he said, the texture.
Then he walked on, disgusted at himself. What about eggs then? Lily asked, catching him up, what about jellyfish?
Pardon?
The whole fucking worlds synthetic.
Ronny stopped walking. Hold on a second, he said, and made Lily stop too. She thought he was going to be sick again but he wasnt. The problem was something exterior this time. His back and his neck were prickling.
Whats up?
I dont know.
He rubbed his neck and glanced around him. To his right lay a ploughed field. To his left a high wire fence. He was tall, though, and everything was flat here. He tried to adjust his sight-line. He looked low, and then lower. He froze. Lily chuckled. Its the beetroots. Theres a few of them dropped outside the fence. He wants one.
He was a hairy beast; hunched and bear-like and giant and tusky. His eyes shone out, brownly. Wild, wild eyes. He was prehistoric. Ronny took a step backwards. Lily picked up a beet and tossed it over the fence. The boar ambled towards it.
Get back to bed you silly bugger! she hollered, then added, See all the others?
What Ronny had believed to be bushes and hillocks he now saw were animals, bristle-backed with a Bronze Age craggi-ness. Watching, waiting. Hoofy, toothy. Meet the harem, Lily said, they dont often come out at night, but it feels quite balmy and they werent fed today.
Ronny moved forward and reached out his hand. Lily said nothing until his wrist was through the fence wire, then she said calmly, Well, I certainly wouldnt.
He jerked back quickly and his fist caught in the wire. He yanked it through roughly.
Arent they friendly?
Lily snorted and walked on. Eventually Ronny followed her. He caught up at the gate. She held it open for him and then closed it behind them.
See the bats? she pointed.
He gazed into the sky. He almost tripped. It was a rough road.
So how did you meet up with Mum?
She needed to know.
Uh he thought for a moment, is it true that she doesnt actually drive?
Yes.
Lily wondered why it was that people invariably evaded her questions. Shed always presumed that the act of requesting information was fundamental to polite intercourse. Ronny was studying her. So how did you hurt your foot? he asked. Lily paused. It was such a fine dark night. She longed for some kind of spice. For significance.
Bite, she said, her voice vibrating, her mouth virtually champing on the thick night air like it was candy floss.
Bite?
Yep.
What bit you?
A thing.
Ronny smiled. A bad thing?
Lily shrugged. They walked past a cluster of dark caravans and some large, empty barns. A freak, she said, finally, and then, in case he didnt understand her, a demon.
Ronny veered sharply to the side of the road and sat down on its grassy verge. Theres no such thing, he said calmly.
Why are you stopping? Lily wanted to walk.
I feel bad. I might be sick again.
She stood in front of him, twisting her feet about. Ronny collapsed slowly on to his back and looked up into the sky. Demons are just something people invented to channel their feelings of anger and pain. Bad feelings. Theyre like an excuse, thats all.
What?
Take poltergeists
Poltergeists?
But Ronny chose not to follow this up. Instead he said quietly, I was in Shepherds Bush, he linked his fingers over his chest, just wandering around, and I saw a small crowd of people outside this antique shop.
Lily also glanced up into the sky, but nothing she saw there impressed her. She looked down at Ronny instead. He was too thin. She scowled. Something told her that this shouldve been her big moment, but shed gone and missed out on it. Again.