Shy (eBook)

The rucksack is shockingly heavy.

The floorboards complain.

He checks again: the spliff is diagonal-snug in the empty Embassy box.

The daytime check is a half-dream away.

The room is molten soft. Tempting.

Jumpy.

The rucksack is shockingly heavy.

It’s 3.13 a.m.

It’s a full bag of rocks, of course it’s heavy.

Snapping point. Creaking straps.

Walkman ready.

Pandemonium Andromeda Tour, Plymouth 1994, Tape 1.

Randall back2back Kenny Ken.

Jungle.

The pinnacle.

The Amen.

Almighty.

A way of life.

600 million years, and we think we’re tough lasting one hundred tops. He can’t hold it still in his head.

Size.

Butterflies in his tummy.

Time.

Slightly needs a shite.

He leaves the room dark. Shy’s room minus Shy. Eve 1965 carved in the beam. A wonky heart carved in the beam. 1891 carved in the beam. Shy 95, fresh and badly scraped in the beam, with a jagged S like a Z. Couldn’t even get that right.

He stays in the middle of the carpet down the corridor to avoid the squeak.

Jamie never sleeps, but he’ll have his headphones on. Steve, Amanda, Owen downstairs, Benny, Posh Cal, Paul, Riley, Ash.

The rucksack is shockingly heavy.

His shoulders are killing him.

One step then another.

Easy does it.

Smell the chilli con carne from earlier.

Armpits and food carpets farts.

Tex-Mex and old-damp stone.

He stops at the bottom and nibbles on his thumbskin.

Shwooshtick-Shwooshtick, the electric meter like a slowly rewound break.

Caught between times. In the fold. Escaping.

Little Shy at thirteen o’clock with the last of his skunk and his favourite tape. Boy on the stairs, stepping through. Tom’s Midnight Garden. That’s what it feels like, fuckinell that’s exactly it. He hasn’t thought about that book for years.

‘This is Shy. He’s usually to be found here, in the snug, with his headphones on, chatting to himself.
He’s asked not to be filmed. But say hello, will you, Shy?’

If the straps go then it’s game over, a hundred flints clattering on the flagstones at the foot of the stairs. Listed stairs, listed floor, listed history, pissed-off teachers.

Shitty Reebok rucksack he’s had forever.

Lynx Africa.

His heart is bomp-bomp-bomping like he’s scared.

Idiot drama with no audience. Overthinking overlapping voiceovers.

He’s sprayed, snorted, smoked, sworn, stolen, cut, punched, run, jumped, crashed an Escort, smashed up a shop, trashed a house, broken a nose, stabbed his stepdad’s finger, but it’s been a while since he’s crept. Stressful work.

‘Psychologically disturbed juveniles requiring special educational treatment, or a bunch of teenage criminals on a taxpayer-funded countryside retreat?’

He’s through to the conservatory, carpet-quiet nine careful steps to the tall window behind the skanky floral curtain. This’ll be some posh twat’s kitchen next year. The old windows don’t open. The newer windows, sixties upgrades, open nice and silent. He steps out of the musty house and puts his hood up.

[The camera pans across the lawn.] ‘An ordinary bunch of teenagers kicking a ball about, or some of the most disturbed and violent young offenders in the country? Here at the unconventional Last Chance school, it’s reiterated time and time again: they can be both.’

He could jog, to be out of view faster, but the stones would be noisy, so he keeps on creeping. He peers back at the house and thinks of them all in there. Tucked up. Owen and the overnight staff and the boys. Out for the count til alarm, guffing and breathing and dreaming of whatever stressed or violent or sweet and easy shit they dream of. Everyone always says they sleep mad deeply here. New kids talk about their fucked-up dreams and then the ghost stories do the rounds (Mrs Nash who watches over you while you’re sleeping and sips your nightbreath; the skinny old man in the nightie who walks up and down the back stairs dripping piss) and the true story of Sir Henry Radcliffe who murdered a servant in the top locked bedroom and that’s why everyone hears a scream when they first move in, dead of night, a single scream, a welcome to the house from its own traumatised past. Everyone’s heard it, and if they haven’t they pretend.

The night is huge and it hurts.

He turns his back and wanders into the blue. Moving shadow.

*

Last year, still at home, still at normal school, when he went to Becky’s at lunch and he was fiddling around trying to get the smelly greasy-thick condom on, useless knob like a dumpling, numb, Becky being sweet and too helpful, gently caressing, flopping it side to side and squeezing, trying an awkward semi-blowy, pity smile, looking at it like it was hurt, poor sad willy, which made it worse, so he got dressed, didn’t say anything, wasn’t nice, stormed off red and untucked, Becky asked him to stay, to chill, skin up, relax, not make it into a big deal, but he thumped downstairs embarrassed and tearful, left Becky’s house ashamed, stormed back to school and thought if life was this much stress, this much pressure, it’s too much, it’s too fucking much, the whole thing is hassle, how does anyone deal with it, Becky being sweet, shame into anger, tethered to the last mistake, everyone waiting for the next one, never be sat in a tidy clean room with a nice person listening, thinking of something they want to hear, occasional stretches of fine, sat inside time’s strict channel, just being alright, pissing about, sometimes fun then back in a hole, all the damage, then the inescapable atmosphere of having fucked up, tilted back to square one, rigged, Becky’s sad face looking at his little beige dick shrinking, foreskin bunched like a mole rat, like a traitor, after all that raging horn, all the nice snogging, learning to lick her, boners galore, sticky boxers and chapped lips and god he wants to curl up and sob, all the handjobs in the rec, all the waiting til we’re ready, such a typical let-down, he always imagines how things will be and gets upset when they don’t work out exactly like that, now he’s got double chemistry, of all the lessons, bad mood aggravator, the smell of the lab, Mrs Fryn getting on his tits, wishing he could go back, rewind operator, back to the brag, the excitement, the tingles, the school is taunting him, endless stairs, long corridors, missed the bell, still got his V-plates, barged into the science wing, threw his bag on the floor of the chemistry lab and started chatting shit to Noddy, and Mrs Fryn said I don’t think I like your attitude and he said I don’t think I like your face and she told him to leave and see the head immediately and he said Actually fuck you and as he walked out he dragged an arm along and brought one, two, three, four, five whole chemistry kits smashing down, glass flasks and pots of acid and metal clamps and Bunsen burners, and there was nothing but gasps and giggles from his lab-coated classmates and he walked straight out of school, lit a fag on his way across the playground, guessed today was probably the final straw as far as the school was concerned and knew he’d have to sit and listen to his mum’s snotty repetitive questions all evening, But why, but what possessed you, are you hearing me, what’s going on with you, why are you doing this to me, speak to me, to us, his stepdad leaning in the door giving him judge-eyes, fucking self-important twat, so he headed for Gill and Michael’s house, they left a key under the mat for him...