A Boy Called Hope Page 9

  Everyone in the class turns round to look at me and Christopher. They’re nudging and elbowing each other and saying how we’re going to live unhappily ever after. A few have their hands over their mouths in case they break out laughing. Kevin is pinching hillocks on his hand to stop himself snorting with glee.

  “I think we can drop the whole fairy tale thing now because fighting is not a pretty story. Fighting is ugly and not tolerated. You two will not be allowed onto the stage at the Project Eco Everywhere show. Instead you will be expected to work behind the scenes helping everyone else. Don’t think you’ve been let off lightly, because I haven’t finished yet. You will also write fifty lines saying: I AM HAPPY TO WORK WITH MY FRIEND, BEHIND THE SCENES. And…”

  Will the agony never end?

  “You will not be allowed to do PE this afternoon. Instead you will go to the library and write these lines, and if you have a spare moment, you will think about the misdemeanour. From the library you will go straight home and tomorrow you will come back to school and be the model pupils I know you can be.”

  Later on, when Mrs Parfitt is going on about prime factorization, I start writing my lines under the desk. By the time I get halfway I’ve started making mistakes. I AM HAPPY WITH MY BEHIND is the last line I scribble before Mrs Parfitt declares it is time for Christopher and me to take the walk of shame. We’re to get our coats and go to the library.

  For some reason I take a wrong turning. Easily done. The library is left and I go right and walk straight out the front door and through the school gates. With a whole afternoon free and thoughts of Dad in my mind, I head towards the buildings on the outskirts of town. Luckily, I’ve got enough bus money and an idea of seeing Dad. This is stage three of Operation Baskerville.

  The TV studio looks like a large shard of broken glass nestled between older Victorian buildings. A wintery sun throws a pale wash across the windows and just inside I can see a Christmas tree stretching from floor to ceiling and decorated with hundreds of silver bells. If I go in by the front door I’m going to have to explain why I’m there. And I doubt Dad is going to be impressed if he gets a call from the receptionist saying, “Your son is here.”

  Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t do it that way. He’d use observation. As I wander around the shard, figuring out what I’m going to do next, I spot an open fire exit with stone steps leading up inside the building. The door might as well be saying, Come in. This is an open invitation. Checking no one can see me, I slip in and run up the stairs until I come to a door marked First Floor. I don’t take that one because I’m worried it will be too close to reception. Instead, I run up two more flights. Before I open the door there, I rest my head against the wall. The light from the fluorescent tube above me turns my skin into beige hummus and my breath comes in ragged little gulps.

  I’m scared about what I’ll find on the other side.

  The corridor is littered with photographs of celebrities, including one of Dad and Busty Babs. He has his arms wrapped around her waist and she’s staring into his eyes like a pop-eyed colossal squid. Dad looks old and tired but he’s wearing a soppy grin and a tie dotted with hearts. I’m staring so hard, I forget I’m standing in a corridor in the TV station building where I’m not supposed to be. Well, I forget until I hear a door open further down and I have to run and turn a corner into another corridor.

  The next corridor looks exactly like the one before except there are no photos. It leads to another corridor and another. In the end it’s as if I’m in a maze, with no idea how to get back to where I started. Footsteps are coming towards me from an unseen corridor and that’s when the panic sets in. I pull open the first door to my right and duck inside. When my eyes adjust to the dimness, I realize I’ve walked into an empty TV studio. Rows of seats rise diagonally from floor level and there’s a stage with two chairs in front of a bright green background.

  The temptation to sit in one of the seats is too great. As I settle down, I pretend I’m interviewing Dad.

  “So hello, Malcolm Maynard,” I say, “or may I call you Dad?”

  “Dad would be lovely.” I deepen my voice in reply.

  “Well, Dad, it’s a pleasure to see you again. It’s been a long time.”

  “Has it really?” I raise my eyebrows.

  “Four years, five months, fifteen days, fourteen hours, twelve minutes, thirty-six seconds or something like that.” I look at my watch to make sure I haven’t missed a single moment.

  I clear my throat and say gruffly, “I didn’t realize. Do you forgive me for not getting in contact sooner?”

  Thinking about it for a second, I reply, “I forgive you because you are my dad.”

  “It will never happen again. From this moment on we’ll be together. We will play football and eat takeaways together. I will come to your school concerts and sports days. I will help you with your homework and teach you to drive. Do you think it will be enough?”

  I smile. “It’s a start, Dad. And there’s one more thing I’d like you to know. You’re going to be a granddad.”

  The invisible audience bursts into imaginary applause and I extend my hand to give Dad’s a shake. The breeze brushes my fingers as I lift them up and down.

  A head pokes through the door. “Hey, what are you doing in here? We don’t allow work experience in the studio. Are you lost?”

  “Yes,” I say, dropping my hand from the empty handshake. “I’m here for Malcolm Maynard.”

  The man beckons me over. “Take it from me: you’re not going to find him in an empty studio without an audience. Anyway, you’re on the wrong floor for work experience. Come with me.” He walks off and I follow until we reach a lift. When it opens, the man ushers me inside, saying, “You look very young for work experience. And what’s with the school uniform?”

  “I had to come straight from school today.” The man nods at my answer as if it’s entirely logical. “And um…I’m really sixteen. It’s just that I shaved my beard this morning and look baby-faced now.” I pull my most grown-up face, which is nothing more than me looking bewildered.

  Floor five looks exactly the same as floor three and we work our way through the maze until the man opens a door and tells me to go inside. I stare at the room and then back at him. Dad isn’t here, unless he’s hiding beneath hundreds of packages and letters. The man tells me this is the post room, where all work experience end up. It seems I’ll be opening Malcolm’s mail and sorting it into piles. He smiles and leaves me to it.

  I pick up a letter addressed to Dad and open it. A fan says how much she is enjoying Malcolm’s style of presenting. You’re my only friend. You’re in my living room everyday. Could you blow me a kiss? There is a huge greasy coffee-coloured lipstick stain on the paper.

  Letters two, three, four are much the same, only with different shades of lipstick. Letters twenty, twenty-one and twenty-two are asking for autographs. Letters fifty-five, fifty-six and fifty-seven want a photo. Letters sixty-six and sixty-seven are complaining about how Dad looks like he needs a good sleep.

  Letter sixty-eight is the one that makes me feel as though I’ve swallowed a golf ball. It’s from a little girl called Katy and she wants my dad to be her dad because he’s much nicer than her own. Apparently, her own dad is always at the pub and never wants to read her stories any more. If I could have you, she writes, all my dad problems would be sorted.

  I squeeze the letter between my fingers and the paper crackles like salt on a frosty path. “You don’t want a dad like mine,” I say out loud. But I put her letter to the top of the pile, hoping that Dad will reply to her first anyway.

  An hour later the door opens and a young woman with four piercings in her left ear and one in her nose appears. “You’re the work experience for Malcolm, right?”

  I nod rather than speak. That way she can’t tell I’m lying.

  “If you’ve sorted out Malcolm’s post, you can drop it on his desk if you like.”

  I nod my head until it almost falls off and she
laughs and tells me to follow her to the news floor.

  I can hardly wait to see Dad’s office and when I do I’m not disappointed. It is a huge open-plan area with loads of people buzzing around and a TV showing the news in the far corner. The lady points to Malcolm’s desk and says I am allowed to set the piles of post neatly on top.

  This is it! I am in Dad’s world. I am so close I can feel the heat from his computer and there is the faint smell of spiced apples – exactly how I remember his aftershave. If I could stand for hours, pour the spiced apples into a glass and drink it in, I would. Only the girl is watching me, so instead I try to take everything in while walking towards the table very slowly. On his desk there is a pile of papers, a fountain pen, a clear paperweight that looks like someone has spilt coloured ink in a globe of water, and a photo of Busty Babs hugging the same beefy lad I recall from my encounter in the garden. To the left his computer flickers and to the right I can see the remnants of his lunch. Dad ate sushi: actual uncooked fish with splats of yolk on top. When Dad lived with us he took me to the zoo and said raw fish was only suitable for penguins.

  As I place the letters on his desk I hear a door open somewhere behind me. I swing around and grab a fleeting glimpse of Dad far across the room. For a second our eyes lock and liquid pain pours from mine, making a river over the desks between me and him. The current grows stronger, yet no one else seems to notice they’re in the middle of it. For a second I half expect him to need a life jacket, because he’s drowning in my hurt. Instead, he fires back out the door again and disappears into the maze. I’d like to run after him, but someone appears to have glued my feet to the floor without telling me. The girl who is with me disappears back out of the room, telling me to wait here. I stare at the pair of used chopsticks dotted with rice and I replace the lid on his fountain pen. The ink could leak onto his papers.

  When the girl returns, she’s a little less friendly than before. “I think you’d better finish up and go. You’re done for today and, in fact, you’re done for every day. Malcolm didn’t have anyone doing work experience for him.”

  “He’s m-m-my dad,” I stammer.

  “You’ve got some imagination.” She folds her arms and I notice the stud in her nose is in the shape of a dragonfly. “Malcolm said he didn’t know who you were. Now you’re telling me he’s your father. I’m not sure what your game is, but if you want proper work experience you need to write in. You can’t just wander in off the street. Did you speak to the receptionist?” She’s so annoyed I think her dragonfly is about to go bang, with all its legs shooting off in different directions.

  “I’m related to Malcolm,” I whisper. “Ask him again. Perhaps he didn’t recognize me at first. It’s been a while.”

  “Look, I’ve met Malcolm’s son. You’re nothing like him.”

  I’ve lost the battle. Whatever I say she has an answer and I can’t explain my whole family history while she’s tapping her sheepskin boot on the tiles. Holding my hands up I say, “Okay, I’d better go now anyway because Mum is serving snails for dinner and I can’t be late.”

  Snails? Man, why did I say that as she was dragging me from the office? It didn’t even sound exotic, it just sounded gritty. The young woman escorts me down in the lift and out through reception. I’m half expecting all the silver bells to ring on the Christmas tree and proclaim me a stalker. The receptionist looks at me as I’m frogmarched past a bowl of purple orchids. I think a flower head falls as I waft past.

  “Don’t come back either,” says the young woman, pushing me out into the street and closing the door. The glass shard, it seems, is shut.

  I dream of the Dad tree again. It’s still standing. However, the branches are bending and breaking so much that I fear it is going to split apart. Glittering jet-black leaves rise high into the air before forming black clouds over Saint Gabriel. Then they fall again, covering my feet as if the sky has slipped to earth. Slowly they build up until they’re around my middle. Higher they rise, until they’re up to my shoulders and it’s all I can do to force my hands up through them. My fingers stretch upwards and I see a hand reach for mine. It grips me and won’t let go. I swear it is pulling me out of this and I strain to see Dad’s face but it never becomes clear. But I know he’s there. His touch is warm and the feeling is familiar and safe.

  I never want this dream to end.

  A cardboard box of Big Dave’s belongings appears in the hallway. I can see a few car manuals, a football, some zombie novels and a silver frame with a photo of a young boy inside. “That’s Kit,” says Big Dave, appearing behind me. He takes the frame in his hand. “He’s my boy.”

  “Uh, okay,” I reply, surprised that Big Dave doesn’t seem to be keeping his son as much of a secret as I imagined he would. “You’ve never mentioned him before.”

  “Really?” Big Dave thinks about it for a second. “I thought I had.”

  I stare at the little boy in the picture. At a guess I’d say he’s about five and he’s got two plasters criss-crossing his knee, like an X marks the spot. To his left I can see a wafer-thin slice of a floral skirt, a bare leg and a flip-flopped foot. “Is that bit his mum?” I look again. She has cherry-red toenails.

  Big Dave pops the frame back into the box. “I can’t remember,” he replies.

  How can he not remember? I attempt to give him The Look, but Mrs Parfitt is far better at it than me. When The Look fails, I want to say Liar, liar, pants on fire, but I can’t do that either because it might be a bit insensitive (seeing as his pants nearly were on fire, thanks to us). To start with, Mum was in shock about the whole fire incident but then she just kept asking: “Why did you leave a burning candle unattended?” Big Dave just shrugged. After the shock came the anger: Mum wanted to know why Big Dave was outside looking at his car tyres at the time. “Isn’t that something you’d check when you’re at the garage?” Mum gnawed away at it like a dog with a Tyrannosaurus rex bone.

  Big Dave glanced over at me and I knew that he knew I’d been up to something and it all felt a bit weird. But Big Dave didn’t spill the beans about me being there on the night of the fire, even when Mum was revving up for the nag of her life.

  “Football?” he says now.

  “What?”

  “You and me playing floodlit football.” Big Dave picks up the ball from the box. “Your mum says there’s thirty minutes before dinner’s ready. Come on, a pound for the winner.”

  The street has been scattered with frosty stardust and our hot breath makes white air balloons rise in the chill air. We pull off our scarves and use them to mark out the goalposts. Street lamps throw hoops of gold onto our pitch and every time I run down the road and score a goal, Samson, who is prowling in Mrs Nunkoo’s front garden, yaps. For half an hour I forget about Dad, Christopher, Jo, Grace and Mum. It’s just me, Big Dave and the football.

  “Gooooaaaalllll!” Big Dave screams, lifting up his coat over his head and running down the road whooping. He slips on some ice and I laugh so much that I have to bend over to stop my stomach spilling out of my trousers. “Oi, Dan, you’re looking at the master.” Big Dave straightens up and kneads his back before hobbling towards me. “Where do I sign to join the team for the World Cup?” This makes me laugh even harder – perhaps a tiny bit of wee escapes. It’s hard to say.

  “Do you play football with Kit?” I ask, grinning.

  “Sometimes,” mumbles Big Dave, smoothing his coat down. “But he’s got a lot going on at the moment and I don’t like to hurry him into doing things he doesn’t want to.”

  “Hurry him into football?” My smile disappears.

  “Sometimes you can’t make someone do something they’re not quite ready for. It’s complicated…but when you’re a parent you have to make the right decisions for your family. Do you understand?” Big Dave puffs out.

  I don’t but I nod anyway. Even if I have a lot going on, I’m always ready for football.

  “You’re going to meet him soon,” says Dave. “I’m not sure
if your mum has already mentioned it, but I’m sort of hoping to move in and you’d get to know Kit then.”

  For a moment I stand still in a halo of street light, trying to take in what Big Dave has just said. “You wouldn’t mind me bringing Kit into your home, would you? I mean, if you hated the idea we’d try and organize something else. It’s the rented house, you see, I’ve got to make arrangements to move out.” I nod as he continues talking. “Kit’s a good lad and I think you two will be the best of friends.”

  “Big Dave,” I whisper, “everything is changing.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is, but changes aren’t necessarily a bad thing.” Big Dave throws an arm around my shoulder and pulls me into his body.

  “I don’t like change.”

  “I understand, but life can’t stand still even if we wanted it to,” replies Big Dave. “And those changes that seem so scary could lead to exciting things happening in your future.”

  “Like you and Kit moving in?”

  Big Dave laughs and says, “Yes, like us moving in.” He squeezes me so close that I can smell engine oil, damp wool and pine forests. “If these changes seem scary, promise you’ll come and talk to me. I’ll be there for you.”

  I promise but then an image of Dad pops into my mind and I feel guilty and pull away. Big Dave laughs then ruffles my hair.

  “You’re too old for a hug, eh?”

  But I’m not. I want Dad to hug me more than anything in the world. If he appeared at the end of the road right now, I’d run towards him and open my arms wide. I’d fling myself into his body and I’d hold him and never let go.

  “Come on, it’s getting cold,” says Big Dave, giving me back my scarf. “Let’s go home.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “For the scarf?”