what?”
“When you’re a baby in the womb, there’s this cord—”
“I know what an umbilical cord is, thanks. But a second one?”
“Well, psychologists say there’s a second umbilical cord, an invisible one, an emotional one, which ties you to your parents for the whole time you’re a kid. Then, one day, you have a row with your mum if you’re a girl, or your dad if you’re a boy, and that argument cuts your second cord. Then, and only then, are you ready to go off into the big wide world and be an adult on your own terms. It’s like a rite-of-passage thing.”
“I argue with my mam, like,
daily
. She treats me like I’m ten.”
Brubeck lights another fag, takes a drag, and passes it to me. “I’m talking a bigger, nastier fight. Afterwards you know it happened. You’re not the kid you were.”
“And you’re sharing these pearls of wisdom with me why?”
He lines up his answer carefully. “If you’re running off because your dad’s a petty crim who beats your mum up and throws you downstairs when you try to stop him, then running away’s the clever thing to do. Go. I’ll give you my InterRail money. But if you’re sat on this wall tonight just because your umbilical cord got snipped, then, yeah, it hurts, but it had to happen. Cut your mum a bit of slack. It’s just a part of growing up. You shouldn’t be punishing her for it.”
“She
slapped
me.”
“Bet she feels like shit about it now.”
“You don’t even know her!”
“Are you sure you do, Sykes?”
“What’s
that
s’posed to bloody mean?”
Brubeck lets it drop. So I let it drop too.
• • •
T HE CHURCH IS quiet as the grave. Brubeck’s asleep in a nest of dusty cushions. We’re up on this gallery thing along the back wall, so we won’t be spotted if any Satan worshipers drop by for a black mass. My calves are sore, my blister’s throbbing, and my mind keeps rewinding to the scene with Vinny and Stella. Wasn’t I good enough at sex? Didn’t I dress right, talk right, like the right music?
22:58, glows my Timex. The maddest minutes of the week at the Captain Marlow are right now: last orders on a Saturday night. Mam, Dad, and Glenda, who just works weekends, will be going full pelt; a roaring wall of drinkers flapping fivers and tenners through the fog of smoke and the racket of chatter, shouts, laughs, curses, flirting … Nobody’ll care where Holly’s ended up tonight. On the jukebox “Daydream Believer” or “Rockin’ All Over the World” or “American Pie” will be booming through the building. Sharon’s fallen asleep with her flashlight on under the blanket. Jacko’s asleep with people murmuring foreign languages on his radio. Up in my room, my bed’s unmade, my schoolbag’s slung over my chair. A basket of washed laundry’s just inside the door, where Mam puts it when she’s pissed off with me. Which is most days now. The big glow of Essex at night’ll be shining orangy light across the river, through my undrawn curtains, over the
Zenyattà Mondatta
and
The Smiths
posters I scavved from the Magic Bus. But I’m not going to start missing my room now.
No fecking way.
July 1
T IN WHISTLES, SCRATTY NOISES , birdsong, and a stained-glass angel. The little church on the Isle of Grain, I remember now, lit by sun through the first crack of the day. Mam. The row. Stella and Vinny, waking up in each other’s arms. My throat goes tight. I s’pose if some man’s been inside you often enough, it’ll take a while to get rid of him. Love’s pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices. 06:03, says my Timex. Sunday. Ed Brubeck: There he is, asleep on his cushiony things, mouth squashed open, hair floppy. His baseball cap sits on his neatly folded lumberjack shirt. I rub the sleep from my eyes. I was dreaming about Jacko and Miss Constantin holding open a curtain of air, and stone steps going up like in an
Indiana
“When you’re a baby in the womb, there’s this cord—”
“I know what an umbilical cord is, thanks. But a second one?”
“Well, psychologists say there’s a second umbilical cord, an invisible one, an emotional one, which ties you to your parents for the whole time you’re a kid. Then, one day, you have a row with your mum if you’re a girl, or your dad if you’re a boy, and that argument cuts your second cord. Then, and only then, are you ready to go off into the big wide world and be an adult on your own terms. It’s like a rite-of-passage thing.”
“I argue with my mam, like,
daily
. She treats me like I’m ten.”
Brubeck lights another fag, takes a drag, and passes it to me. “I’m talking a bigger, nastier fight. Afterwards you know it happened. You’re not the kid you were.”
“And you’re sharing these pearls of wisdom with me why?”
He lines up his answer carefully. “If you’re running off because your dad’s a petty crim who beats your mum up and throws you downstairs when you try to stop him, then running away’s the clever thing to do. Go. I’ll give you my InterRail money. But if you’re sat on this wall tonight just because your umbilical cord got snipped, then, yeah, it hurts, but it had to happen. Cut your mum a bit of slack. It’s just a part of growing up. You shouldn’t be punishing her for it.”
“She
slapped
me.”
“Bet she feels like shit about it now.”
“You don’t even know her!”
“Are you sure you do, Sykes?”
“What’s
that
s’posed to bloody mean?”
Brubeck lets it drop. So I let it drop too.
• • •
T HE CHURCH IS quiet as the grave. Brubeck’s asleep in a nest of dusty cushions. We’re up on this gallery thing along the back wall, so we won’t be spotted if any Satan worshipers drop by for a black mass. My calves are sore, my blister’s throbbing, and my mind keeps rewinding to the scene with Vinny and Stella. Wasn’t I good enough at sex? Didn’t I dress right, talk right, like the right music?
22:58, glows my Timex. The maddest minutes of the week at the Captain Marlow are right now: last orders on a Saturday night. Mam, Dad, and Glenda, who just works weekends, will be going full pelt; a roaring wall of drinkers flapping fivers and tenners through the fog of smoke and the racket of chatter, shouts, laughs, curses, flirting … Nobody’ll care where Holly’s ended up tonight. On the jukebox “Daydream Believer” or “Rockin’ All Over the World” or “American Pie” will be booming through the building. Sharon’s fallen asleep with her flashlight on under the blanket. Jacko’s asleep with people murmuring foreign languages on his radio. Up in my room, my bed’s unmade, my schoolbag’s slung over my chair. A basket of washed laundry’s just inside the door, where Mam puts it when she’s pissed off with me. Which is most days now. The big glow of Essex at night’ll be shining orangy light across the river, through my undrawn curtains, over the
Zenyattà Mondatta
and
The Smiths
posters I scavved from the Magic Bus. But I’m not going to start missing my room now.
No fecking way.
July 1
T IN WHISTLES, SCRATTY NOISES , birdsong, and a stained-glass angel. The little church on the Isle of Grain, I remember now, lit by sun through the first crack of the day. Mam. The row. Stella and Vinny, waking up in each other’s arms. My throat goes tight. I s’pose if some man’s been inside you often enough, it’ll take a while to get rid of him. Love’s pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices. 06:03, says my Timex. Sunday. Ed Brubeck: There he is, asleep on his cushiony things, mouth squashed open, hair floppy. His baseball cap sits on his neatly folded lumberjack shirt. I rub the sleep from my eyes. I was dreaming about Jacko and Miss Constantin holding open a curtain of air, and stone steps going up like in an
Indiana
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