The Wall by William Sutcliffe Page A

about money now, is it? Is that why we’re here?’
    ‘I’m not having this conversation.’
    ‘Is it God or money? You keep changing your mind.’
    ‘What happened to your trainers?’ she snaps, pointing at the filthy flip-flops I’m still wearing.
    I prepared a story for this, too, but it isn’t a good one. The girl’s scarf is hidden in my bag, but there’s nothing I could do about my missing shoes. ‘It was some boys at school. They played a trick on me.’
    ‘What kind of trick?’
    I’m cornered. I’ve run out of excuses. It’s time to go on the attack. ‘Why are you hassling me? I thought you’d be pleased I’m safe!’
    ‘I am pl–’
    ‘Well leave me alone, then!’
    ‘Do you know how much those shoes cost? Are you going to get them back?’
    I run upstairs, dodge into my room and slam the door. For a long time I stand there, waiting for her to burst in, turning over possibilities in my head for how I might have lost the shoes. I could say some boys were picking on me. I could say they threw my trainers over The Wall. If she makes me say who did it, there are plenty of names to choose from. But the door doesn’t move, and after a while I flop on to my bed.
    Liev can say whatever he likes when he gets back, I don’t care. He’s not my father. He’s my anti-father.

By the time Liev arrives home, I’ve washed and changed, and I’m curled up on the sofa in a nest of cushions, watching a cartoon. It’s about a dog who keeps on trying to leave his house to get the bone he’s left outside, but whenever he does he’s smacked in the face with a plank by another, bigger dog, who hides in wait for him. The smaller dog never gives up, and keeps on looking for new routes to his bone, but every time he gets close, the bigger dog appears with his plank and whacks him over the head. It’s quite funny.
    Liev does what he usually does when he walks in. He goes to the kitchen. Mum is there, cooking, and I can tell by the tense gabble of her voice that she’s telling Liev what I’ve done – or what she thinks I’ve done – and is asking him to tell me off. From the suck and slap of the fridge door, I can hear that Liev is snacking as she talks.
    I feel him appear in the doorway, but don’t look up.
    ‘Your mother tells me you did something stupid today,’ he says.
    I shrug, contemplating my options. I could ignore him, putting off the conflict, but that would just make him angrier. I could be sarcastic, calling Mum ‘your wife’ to match his ‘your mother’, which might be briefly satisfying, but would ultimately make everything worse. It’s never worth getting Liev angry. Most conversations I have with him, I’m thinking ahead like a chess player, figuring out my best moves to give away as little ground as possible without pushing him into one of his rages.
    I glance up and see that although he’s facing towards me, his neck is turned, and his eyes are on the cartoon. This is a good sign. If he was in the mood for an argument he’d have switched the TV off before speaking, to get my attention. He would have positioned himself in front of me, with his hot breath on my face. Having other people’s attention is a big thing for Liev. Few things make him crosser than the idea that you might not be listening to him.
    The way he’s standing and his weary tone of voice give the impression he’s ticking me off only to satisfy my mother. She clearly hasn’t succeeded in communicating the level of her panic. Everything looks calm now. No one is missing; no one has been harmed. It seems as if he just doesn’t believe anything bad really happened. He’s going through the disciplinary motions as a domestic chore. I just have to play along.
    ‘I lost a ball in the building site. It wasn’t even me that kicked it there.’
    ‘You gave your mother a terrible fright.’
    ‘I know. I said sorry.’
    ‘Well, that’s good,’ he says. ‘But if you ever . . .’ His voice tails away, distracted.