The Immaculate (14 page)

Phillips peered at Jack—a little fearfully, Jack thought. Perhaps he was afraid of being robbed. Then he nodded and muttered, “ 'Ow do.” He dipped into his pocket and produced a vast handkerchief in bilious green tartan that he used to mop the sweat from his face.

“Have you got any letters for me this morning?” Jack asked impatiently. “I'm expecting my exam results. I need decent grades to get into University.”

Phillips carefully folded up his damp handkerchief and replaced it in his pocket. Jack had to resist an urge to snatch his bag from him and rummage through its contents.

“Aye,” Phillips said wearily. “Let's just 'ave a look.” He tugged on the strap, pulling the bag open and delved into it. Eventually his chubby hand emerged clutching two letters. Jack saw that the top one was addressed to him, a brown envelope, his name and address computer-printed behind a transparent window. He wanted to grab the letter and tear it open there and then. He made himself accept it without snatching, made himself stand and smile politely whilst Phillips turned his bicycle round, mounted and weaved unsteadily away.

When he was gone, Jack held up the envelope and stared at it, his entire body seeming to pulse with anticipation. The envelope was smeared and wrinkled with the sweat from his hands. The other letter, addressed to his father, he stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans. “Please God,” he said, then wriggled his finger beneath the loose corner of the flap and ripped the envelope open.

He pulled out the white slip of paper inside, almost dropping it in his haste. At first his mind raced, refusing to focus on the black print. “Come on, calm down,” he urged and stared at the paper until he was able to take in its meaning. He saw the words:

ENGLISH LITERATURE: C

HISTORY: C

ART: D

“No,” he breathed, not wanting to believe. “No, it can't be.” He squeezed his eyes shut, thinking that maybe he had read the grades incorrectly, willing them to change before he opened his eyes again.

He opened his eyes.

The grades were the same.

“Aw, no,” he moaned. He had a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach; it was only now that Jack realised how completely he'd pinned his hopes on these grades being right, how he'd believed they would be, if only because he desired it so much. He felt desolate. He stared at the grades again, but still they hadn't changed. Despite the brightness of the sun beating down on him, he felt as if darkness were closing in, felt like a prisoner about to begin a sentence that would never end. He couldn't think straight. He turned, pushed open the gate and trudged up the path to the front door. He opened the door and stepped into the house. Its smell enveloped him, pungent and sour. It made him think of death. The death of his dreams.

He pulled his father's letter from his pocket and dropped it on the mat just inside the front door. He could hear his father in the kitchen banging blearily about. He tiptoed up the stairs, gritting his teeth at each creak; the prospect of a confrontation now was unbearable. He entered his room and threw himself face down on the bed, crumpling the letter in his hand. He felt like weeping, but didn't. He just lay there, not moving, eyes closed. However bad he felt, he had to be sensible about this, think it through, consider his options. He wouldn't give up; there
had
to be a way. But already he was wondering what sort of future there was for him around here, how he could bear to stay with his father much longer.

But of course he didn't have to stay with his father, did he? He was eighteen now, he could do as he liked. And he didn't have to stay in Beckford, either. Maybe he could move to Leeds and look for work there.

Even as he mulled over these possibilities, however, part of his mind rejected them. The fact was, he was scared. He'd spent his whole life scared, had grown up that way, had learned instinctively to be cautious, not to take risks, not to rock the boat. Moving away, finding a place of his own, getting a job—it all seemed like pie in the sky, a crevasse too wide to leap. Most kids who moved away still had their parents to cushion them against the blows of life, to guide them through the mine fields, to show up on their doorsteps when things got bad with a nice fat cheque and the reassuring words, “You can pay us back whenever. We're in no hurry.” And those that didn't have such help ended up on the scrap heap. This, at least, was the way that eighteen-year-old Jack Stone saw the world. What he had been hoping was that he would be eased into the big bad world via University, which he saw as three years of independence without the crushing responsibilities of real life.

All his plans in ruins. What had he done to deserve this? He rolled onto his back, stared out across his room and hated everything he saw. All the things he had cherished and loved—his books and games and comics and posters and silly knickknacks—he now despised because it was all part of the trap. This stuff had comforted him, this place had been a haven, but now it felt burdensome, suffocating, intolerably heavy.

A thick cone of sunlight fell through the window and formed a glowing pool on the carpet. The sunlight oozed across his bookcase, touching the spines of books and making them flash like metal. Jack rolled off his bed, pulled himself into the sunlight and slumped down in front of the bookcase. He hooked his finger into the hollow spine of a large fat book and tugged. He shifted into a cross-legged position, back arched forward, cradling the book like a baby and smoothing a hand across its cool shiny cover. The book was entitled
The Bumper Book of Fairy Tales.
Jack opened it, anticipating the familiar soft creak of cardboard, the gentle rustle of paper. He began turning pages until he reached the story of
Dick Whittington and His Cat.
One illustration in that story showed the cat, standing upright and dressed in boots and gloves, gesturing to a thought bubble above his head that showed London as an opulent city, its streets paved in shimmering gold. Of course, Jack knew that London's streets were not really paved in gold, but that illustration had nevertheless captured his imagination as a child and had continued to inspire him as he grew older. Jack's plan had been to spend three years at a University within shouting distance of London, and then, when he had finished his studies, to move to London and find work there.

His father's words from two days before came back to him:
You'll never get away from this place. Never.

“Fuck you!” Jack snarled, and hurled the book across the room. It flew like a heavy broken bird and crashed into the door. “You bastard,” Jack muttered, “you bastard.” He felt as though his father's outburst had somehow cursed him. “I'll fucking show you,” he muttered, jumping to his feet and stomping to the window. He clenched his fist and drew it back as if to punch a hole in the glass. But after a few moments he lowered the fist to his side, still clenched.

Why would his father say something like that anyway? The number of times his father had threatened to throw him out of the house, Jack would have thought the old bastard would have been glad to get rid of him. He pressed his forehead to the warm glass. “It wasn't my fault she died,” he muttered. “You killed her just as much as I did.” He heard his father's heavy footsteps on the stairs and his heart sank. “Don't come in,” he murmured, half-turning. “Not now.”

The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and began to approach along the landing. “Go past,” Jack murmured. “Don't come in.” The footsteps stopped outside his door. Jack's heart was pounding; he felt suddenly afraid. But when his door handle turned and the door began to open, his fear was dispelled by a fierce black surge of outrage and anger.

“What do you want?” he snapped as his father entered the room. “Why can't you just leave me alone for once?”

For an instant Terry Stone looked taken aback, almost hurt by his son's venom, and Jack nearly felt sorry for him, nearly apologised. Then the rheumy eyes narrowed, the lips twisted into a snarl. “Don't you bloody talk to me like that, you little shit,” he said.

Jack felt it all bubbling up, the years of resentment and anger, and it was like a power, like an irresistible energy inside him. He strode towards his father, feeling something wild, something primitive and dangerous, struggling for release inside his head. He screeched, “Don't you
dare
call me a shit, you fucking drunken waster! Look at you! You make me sick and ashamed! You're a nothing, a nobody! What fucking right have you got to call
me
names!”

He was three strides away from his father now. He halted, both hands squeezed into fists by his sides. Though he was the same height as his father, he suddenly felt two feet taller and twice as broad. His father's face was struggling for expression, so animated it was almost comic. Jack saw astonishment there, and fury, and—he believed—more than a little fear.

Eventually his father spluttered, “You . . . you little murdering bastard! How dare
you
talk to
me
like that!”

“Murderer,” Jack sneered. “What a moron you are. Can't you get it into your thick skull that I never murdered anyone? I was a fucking baby, Dad. I didn't ask to be born, did I? If anything, you're the one who murdered Mum. You were the one who screwed her!”

With a howl, Terry launched himself at his son. Jack caught him by the sleeves, but could not prevent his father's weight from crashing into him. They fell to the floor, Terry on top. Jack felt his gorge rise at the stifling odours—unwashed flesh, stale urine, sour breath, smoke, alcohol—that settled over his face and seemed to cling there like a web.

“Get off me,” Jack gasped, “get off me, you bastard!” He was still clutching his father's arms, which were thrashing like giant eels eager to bite. He brought his knee up hard and felt it make weighty contact with something—either his father's balls or the inside of his thigh. Whatever, it was enough to make his father grunt and suddenly weaken. Jack heaved off his weight and slid out from beneath him.

It was all so shocking and sudden. For a long time Jack had been expecting something like this, but he had also expected some warning, some ceremony, some preamble. The fact that he had goaded his father, that he had instigated this violence, did not make it any easier to accept that they were now rolling around the carpet, scrapping like dogs. Jack, off balance, tried to scramble to his feet, but felt a hand close around his ankle and yank back hard enough to make his knee pop. He's dislocated it, Jack thought in a flare of panic, but the pain, though excruciating, was momentary.

He felt hands climbing him, digging in, trying to reach his face. When involved in violence, Jack always found it confusing, a buzzing blur of movement and colour and pain. He punched down to where he thought his father's head would be and felt his knuckles make contact with something very hard, like a building brick encased in rubber. Through the tight radiance of pain that syringed up the bone in the centre of his arm he heard his father make a strange noise, a kind of giant gulp, as if he had been forced to swallow a cricket ball.

Again he felt his father's hands weaken, and threw them off him, scrambling backwards, out of his range. His spine cracked against the edge of the bed. Jack cried out, tears of pain springing to his eyes. Through the swimming film across his vision, he saw his father lying on his stomach, trying to push himself upright with arms that wouldn't quite respond. Did I really hit him that hard? Jack thought, and felt no glee, only fear. What if he had rattled his brain, given him a haemorrhage or something? He blinked his tears away and saw blood on his hand. He looked again at his father. Blood was gushing from a cut that bisected his eyebrow, running down his stubbly cheek, beneath his jaw and into the collar of his shirt.

“Are you all right, Dad?” Jack said. His voice was small, boyish.

His father paused, and then swung the top of his body round to face Jack, like a shark homing in on the vibrations of his voice.

“You're dead, boy, you're fucking dead,” his father said. The words were spoken fuzzily, but with a certainty that made Jack squirm inside.

“No, Dad,” Jack said. “Let's stop now. This has gone too far.”

“
You've
gone too far,” his father corrected him, still in that same quiet voice. “The first thing you ever did was to kill your mother, to ruin my life. I think it's time you paid for that.”

“No, Dad,” Jack moaned. “You don't know what you're saying. This is really stupid.”

Terry Stone shook his head and immediately screwed up his eyes in pain. “No,” he mumbled, “this isn't stupid. Not stupid at all.” He reached for a golf club that was propped against Jack's bookcase. It was a putter, the binding coming off the handle. Jack had bought it at a jumble sale once, intending to buy a whole set piece by piece and take up golf, but the fad had quickly died.

“Put that down, Dad,” Jack said, his voice quavering badly. His anger had dissipated as suddenly as it had come. Now he felt only misery and a crushing depression, wanted only for this whole scene to end, for it never to have begun at all.

Terry Stone showed no intention of putting down the club. He dragged it to him, used it to prop himself up.

“Dad,” Jack warned again, “you don't need that. Here, let me help you.” He pushed himself to his feet, clutching his back, and took a step towards his father. Face twisting with hate, Terry grasped the club in both hands and swung it through the air towards his son.

Jack ducked, throwing up his arms to protect his head. He heard the club whistle through the air. He braced himself for the pain, but instead heard a crash and a curse. He opened his eyes and peeked out from beneath his armpit to see what had saved him.

Somehow his father had managed to snag the rumpled blanket of Jack's unmade bed with the head of the club. He had then tried to drag the club back too quickly whilst trying to free it and had succeeded only in knocking the lamp from the bedside table. He was up on his knees now, yanking the club from the debris, obviously in readiness for another try. “Dad!” Jack yelled. “Stop this! It's crazy!”