When I Was Joe (28 page)

Claire opens her mouth to argue, but Mum says, ‘I'm going to take Joe home now, and we're going to have a talk, and I think you need to talk to your parents too. I'm sorry, but I think you'd better say goodbye for now.' She looks at Janet and Gareth. ‘Maybe we could give them a few minutes?'

They go out on to the landing and we're left together. I put my head down on the pillow next to her. ‘I'm so sorry,' I say, ‘I've screwed everything up.'

And she says, ‘You talk to her and explain and I'll talk to them. Don't give up. You're so important to me.'

‘I don't know what's going to happen now. There's a load of stuff going on at school. Ashley. . .' But I can't even finish the sentence.

‘It'll be all right,' she says. ‘Don't give up.'

And we kiss, and it's the best feeling in the world to taste her sweet lips, and to stroke her soft hair.

But I have almost given up, and I think she realises.

Mum and I walk to the bus stop in silence, and we sit on the bus and get all the way home without saying a word. And all the time I'm getting more and more angry with her for interfering. And for all the things she hasn't told me. And for letting this happen. All of this. It's her fault. I think the anger is going to choke me.

I'm not talking to her about anything. I'm not talking to her ever again. I'm going to ask the police to provide a different appropriate adult. I throw myself down on the sofa and switch on the television. There's a new episode of
The Simpsons
and it's really funny. I concentrate hard on zoning everything else out of my head, and it works. I can do this. It's all about focus.

She gives me five minutes and then she marches in and switches it off. ‘Hey! I was watching that.'

‘For Christ's sake, Ty, don't you think it's more important to talk about what just happened?'

‘No,' I say, and I switch it back on again.

‘Ty, I want to know what's been going on. What did you do to Claire? Why?'

‘Why didn't you find that out before you told her she shouldn't see me again? I'm not telling you anything.
I'm not even talking to you.'

I turn up the volume. She stands in front of the screen and puts her hand out for the remote.

‘Give it to me.'

‘No.'

‘Give it to me.'

‘Make me.'

She can't make me. I'm bigger and stronger than her. This thought freaks me out so much that after a minute's furious silence, I fling it on the floor by her feet.

‘Leave me alone, you interfering bitch,' I say, but I mutter it in Turkish, so she ignores me.

‘Right. Now. Tell me,' she orders.

‘You know it. You know . . . I already told.'

‘No, you didn't. You didn't tell us any details.'

‘It was the day of the swimming pool thing. You were in the hospital with Gran. My contact lenses came out underwater and Claire saw that my eyes were green. So she asked and I had to . . . I tried to scare her . . . not to tell anyone.'

‘What the hell did you do? Did you . . . you didn't hit her, did you?'

‘No!'

‘Thank Christ for that. So what did you do?'

‘I took hold of her wrists . . . and kind of squeezed.'

‘Oh. That wasn't a nice thing to do, Ty. A sweet little
girl like that. How could you?' She sits down in the armchair, which is better than having her stand over me. Her face looks all twisted and ill.

‘I said I was sorry. And I explained . . . I explained why. . .'

I stop. Her eyes are wide and her mouth's dropped open.

‘What do you mean, you explained?' she says slowly.

Oh, God.

‘I just sort of explained . . . that it had to be secret. . .'

‘What exactly did you just sort of explain?'

I'm not telling. I'm actually scared of her.

‘Just that it had to be secret. . .'

‘I don't believe you. Why did she say she understood?'

‘She's very understanding.'

‘Tell me exactly what you said. Or I will go back to their house and ask her, and I will embarrass you so much that when I've finished she will never want to speak to you again.'

I can't believe that my own mother is doing this. Gran would never ever treat me like this.

‘I told her. I told her about witness protection and being Ty and Joe and everything. But she'll keep it secret. It's OK.'

‘Ty! What were you thinking? You've put her in danger.'

‘No . . . she won't ever tell anyone. Claire's sound, you can trust her. ‘

‘You're not meant to tell anyone anything. How could you? She's in danger and you're in even more danger. What if she tells someone? What if someone gets their hands on her and does what they did to your gran? I'm going to have to ring Doug.'

‘Please Nicki, please,
please
. . . I'm begging you, Nic, please don't tell Doug.'

‘Jesus, Ty, what's happened to you? You used to be such a sensible boy, so gentle . . . so nice. . .'

‘Shut up! I hate you!' My volume control has gone and this comes out as a shout.

‘Don't talk to me like that,' she snarls. ‘It's completely unacceptable for you to tell the truth to every girl you fancy. You were nearly shot, for God's sake. Think about Mr Patel's shop. Want that to happen to Claire? To Ellie? We can't mess around here.'

I go back to begging. ‘Please, Nic,
please
. . .'

‘Look, it's not so good for me either, right? I've just met a really nice bloke and it's all been screwed up. Story of my bloody life.'

She goes into the kitchen to phone Doug and I stamp upstairs and lie on my bed. I think about all the
things I'm looking forward to as Joe. Running proper races over the summer. Joining the athletics squad. Maybe being in the football team one day. The end of term party – I'd been planning to give Claire a makeover and take her to the party and everyone would realise she was actually completely beautiful, and I'd be the one who had transformed her.

And talking to Claire, and going places with Claire, and kissing her again, and spending time generally with Claire.

None of these things are going to happen. I'm even feeling miserable about not being able to finish the lost property cupboard with Carl.

Mum comes upstairs and sits down on the bed next to me. ‘What did he say?' I ask, and my voice comes out all shaky.

‘He'll come as soon as possible with Maureen. They're going to talk about it with you and make a decision.' She puts her hand on my shoulder and I angrily shrug it off. ‘But it doesn't sound good, I'm sorry.'

Doug and Maureen arrive about nine o'clock, just as I've decided they've had an accident on the motorway and we're never going to see them again. Mum talks to them first and then calls me to come down. I don't want to look them in the eye. It's Maureen who says, quite
nicely, ‘It's all gone a bit wrong, hasn't it, Ty? Doug had a call from your head teacher to say you were suspended again.'

They must have told Mum about it because she's looking even more devastated than before, and she stubs out her cigarette like she's trying to grind the entire ashtray into dust. ‘How come you never told me?' she says. ‘Bullying another girl? Suspended for the second time?'

‘I never – she's just a liar. . .'

And then I remember Maureen and Doug heard me trying to get Ashley to come up to my bedroom and I shut up again. They won't believe me.

‘It's no good, mate,' says Doug. ‘It's a shame, but I think you're going to have to be moved on. Too much trouble here. You've become too visible. And we can't have you putting another family at risk.'

I don't say much. They're all sitting there looking at me and I know that somehow I've screwed everything up again. It seems such a big punishment for the one time I did something good. But maybe life works a bit like Tesco Clubcard points in reverse – you do your normal stuff and it all adds up without you thinking about it, and then suddenly you get a load of vouchers in the post. Or, in my case, you make lots of crap decisions and they all add up to your life falling apart altogether.

I pack my iPod, I pack my Man Utd scarf from Dad. I pack my photos and two lots of school books. I pack all Joe's cool new clothes, his running shoes, his contact lenses and his hair dye. I pack Claire's two scrumpled notes. I try very hard not to feel anything at all. And I lie down on my bed and remember the time when I was Joe.

When Mum's ready, they load the bags into the car. But I don't get up. I'm thinking crazy thoughts about running away. Going to live secretly in Claire's bedroom or her garden shed or something. Maureen comes and sits on the bed next to me. ‘Time to go,' she says.

‘I'm not going,' I say. ‘It's not fair. I like it here. I need to be here.'

‘You'll do all right somewhere else,' says Maureen. ‘You can't hang on here and put yourself and other people in danger.'

‘I don't care.'

‘Think how your gran would feel if anything happened to you. She doesn't deserve to lose you. She's doing so well too, off to join your aunties any day. Think about how this Claire would feel if you were hurt because of her. Is she a bit special?'

And I can only nod and gulp, and Maureen gives me a hug and says, ‘It'll work out.'

‘Am I a bad person, Maureen?' I ask. It feels like
I've never known for sure.

She says, ‘Seems to me you've always been a very good boy, very hard working, never in trouble. But a lot of difficult things have happened to you in the last few weeks and, just occasionally, you've not shown good judgement. Happens to everyone. Doesn't make you a bad person. I don't think you're a bully.'

It's reassuring, but she doesn't know the whole truth. And she's police, so I can't tell her.

So now I have to get into the car and watch the street lights of this not-so-boring little town disappear into dark country roads. And then a motorway, lit up orange and eerie. And then we're checking into another hotel, another little room, where there's no room to unpack and nothing to do but watch a big screen TV.

It's different staying here though. The hotel is pretty similar, but we've changed. I go for a run every day, and there's a leisure centre where I swim and use the gym. Mum comes with me sometimes. And we talk a bit too, and I tell her a little about how awful St Saviour's was and how Arron and I weren't really friends any more. I don't tell her what the boys used to say about her. She doesn't need that. We avoid talking about
Claire, but I explain a bit about Ashley and she seems to understand.

One day I'm feeling brave and I say, ‘What did you mean that day – you know – when you told Claire you knew what you were talking about?' And she replies, ‘Oh, I heard so many terrible things working for a solicitor. I know how important it is for girls to realise that they mustn't take any kind of abuse.' I say, ‘But it wasn't abuse,' and she shakes her head at me. And I know she's not telling the whole truth, and I think she knows that I know.

Maureen chops my hair a bit and dyes it a different colour, a kind of dark reddish brown, which doesn't look right to me. The eyebrows are still in place and she says I can go back to having green eyes, which I'm pleased about, but she wants me to wear glasses, which I'm not. I suspect she's designed my new look to make me as unattractive to girls as possible. She didn't try and change anything about my clothes though, so I still feel there's a basic Joe-ness about me. Joe with geeky specs and a bad haircut.

I try and find a computer to use, but there's no internet cafe and the only library I can find won't let you have a ticket unless you have a permanent address. So I can't even email Claire. And I don't know if I should anyway. I feel some scary emotion which is beyond sad
whenever I think about her – you could call it despair, I suppose – so I'm working on blanking her out. It's like she's left an aching emptiness inside me.

Maureen comes to see us to talk about where we're going next. This time, she says, we can choose our own names. It's surprisingly difficult. I want a cool name, something like Spike. Mum is reading
Heat
magazine and suggesting stupid celebrity mother/son combos like Jordan and Junior, Gwen and Zuma, Angelina and Knox or Maddox or Pax. Pax isn't too bad, I suppose, but I think she's joking anyway. I counter with Marge and Bart but she's not having it.

Maureen says we're both daft and we have to be sensible. So we agree on Melanie and Jake. Mel and Jake Ferguson. I suggested the surname after Sir Alex. He's the manager of Man Utd and it'd be fantastic to be part of his family, except I think he'd shout at me a lot because that's what he's like.

And on a burning hot summer's day we leave the hotel and Doug takes us to another small town, a seaside town, with noisy seagulls circling overhead and a crumbling pier and a long grey beach.

This time we're in a flat and it's small, but it's bright and white and it smells of fresh paint and there's a stepladder which leads out on to a flat roof with a view of the sea. It's not bad. It feels a bit like being on holiday.

‘Is this really a good idea?' says Mum. ‘Don't these seaside places get a lot of visitors?'

‘You're a long way from London,' says Doug. ‘We think it'll be fine. This isn't a big place for day trippers. There's not much going on here.' Doug really knows how to sell a place.

We go and buy school uniform three days before the start of term. As I look at myself in the changing room mirror – dark green blazer, black trousers, grey jumper, white shirt, green tie, stupid red hair (I really don't like the hair) and steel-rimmed glasses – I'm trying to get an idea of what sort of a person Jake is going to be. He doesn't look as cool as Joe, that's for sure, but he's tougher than Ty ever was. He looks a bit miserable, to be honest, hiding behind his specs.