Wicked! (12 page)

Opening a jumbo bag of crisps with her teeth, then bending down to pull out a blue bowl into which to decant them, she found all three boys staring at her. Barefoot, wearing tight jeans and a clinging blue-striped matelot jersey, with her wild russet curls escaping from a tartan toggle, she didn’t look remotely like a headmistress.

‘I don’t bother to dress up much at weekends,’ she stammered.

‘Nice Aga.’ Graffi patted its dark blue flanks. ‘My mum’s ambition’s to have one.’

‘It was already there when I moved in,’ said Janna hastily.

She loved the Aga, but felt, like the burglar alarm, it was rather too middle-class.

‘Why don’t you explore?’

As she put knives, forks and willow-patterned plates on a tray, the boys careered round the house, opening doors and cupboards, picking up and examining ornaments.

‘It’s fucking tiny,’ said Paris, who was accustomed to Oaktree Court, a great house once belonging to the very rich, now ironically inhabited by children who had nothing.

‘This bed’s fucking large,’ agreed Graffi and Feral, who were used to sharing with several brothers and sisters and sometimes a drunken father or fleeing mother, when they discovered Janna’s attic bedroom.

Hung with blue gingham curtains, the four-poster only left room for triangular shelves slotted into one corner, a television, fitted cupboards and a dressing table which Janna had to perch on the bottom of the bed to use.

‘Fink there’s a bloke in her life?’ asked Feral.

‘Hope not,’ said Graffi, breathing in scent bottles.

‘Wouldn’t mind giving her one,’ said Feral.

‘Oh, shut up, you’re incorrigible,’ snapped Paris, who was examining the books, mostly classics, on either side of the bed.

‘Whatever that means. This bed’s fucking comfortable,’ said a bouncing Feral. Then, glancing sideways at Stew’s photograph, which, after Monday’s flowers, was on show again: ‘That must be her father.’

Joyous as otters, they bounded downstairs (emptying the crisp bowl en route) out into the garden, fascinated by reddening apples, French beans hanging from wigwams, potatoes and carrots actually growing in the ground.

‘What the hell’s that?’

‘It’s a marrer,’ said Graffi. ‘My nan used to stuff them.’

Holding it against his groin, Feral indulged in a few pelvic thrusts. ‘Looks as though it orta do the stuffing.’

While Paris stopped to stroke Lily’s cat the General, who was tightroping along the fence, Graffi and Feral began kicking a football round the lawn. Watching their antics from the kitchen, Janna thought how perfectly they complemented each other. Paris, ghostly pale, seemed lit by moonlight, Feral by the sun. Feral was so arrogant, like George Eliot’s cock, who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow. It wasn’t just the lift of his jaw, or the swing of his hips, or the lean elongated body that made a red T-shirt, cheap fake leather jacket and black jeans look a million dollars. He’d make a fortune as a model. The long brown eyes curling up at the corner, with thick lashes creating a natural eyeliner, were haughty too; even the huge white smile said, ‘I’m superior.’

But, despite this hauteur, like a feral cat he constantly glanced round checking for danger. Made edgy by the alien territory of the countryside, he shot inside when a dozy brown and white cow put her nose over the fence, and ran upstairs to watch football.

Physically, Graffi was a mixture of the two and, with his stocky build, olive skin and wicked dark eyes, needed only a black beret on his unruly dark curls, a smock and an easel to be having
déjeuner sur l’herbe
with naked beauties.

Janna took him into the low-beamed living room, which was painted cream with a pale coral sofa and chairs. Set into one wall was a stone fireplace filled with apple logs. The second wall was mostly a west-facing window overlooking fields and woods. Against the third was an upright piano and floor-to-ceiling shelves for Janna’s books, music and CDs. The empty fourth awaited Graffi’s genius.

Blown away that Janna trusted him, Graffi borrowed paper and pencil and started sketching. How would she like a view of the cathedral, houses in the Close, softened by lots of trees, a few cows paddling in the river to ‘scare Feral away’, people walking their dogs on the towpath?

‘That sounds champion, as long as you don’t graffiti the buildings.’

‘Make it look more lived in. Nice place this. My da’s a builder, does a lot of work for Randal Stancombe. If you want anything done, he could hide it.’ Then, going back to the wall: ‘It’ll take a few Saturdays.’

‘That’s fine. You could come Sundays as well.’

‘Nah, I’m busy Sundays. Going to look at them cows.’ And he wandered off to kick a ball on the lawn with Feral.

Chests of books were lying round, so Paris took them out and put them on to the shelves, his face growing paler as he kept stopping to read. Janna helped him, pointing out favourites:
Rebecca
,
Middlemarch
,
Wuthering Heights
, giving him spare copies of Byron,
Le Grand Meaulnes
and
The Catcher in the Rye
.

Paris found the cottage blissfully quiet after Oaktree Court, where someone was always sobbing, screaming and fighting, and wardens or social workers were always asking questions or needling him: ‘Get your long nose out of that book. Come on, open up, open up.’

‘How long have you loved reading?’ asked Janna.

‘Since I was about nine. Head teacher of my school in Nottingham put me in charge of the library, so I could borrow all the books I wanted. I saved up to buy a torch and read under the bedclothes all night. That torch lit up my life.’

Children in care are usually attention-seekers, or, like Paris, internalize everything. Looking at the cool, deadpan face, its only colour the eyes bloodshot from reading, few people realized the raging emotional torrents beneath the layers of ice.

Paris had been two when his mother dumped him on the door of a children’s home in Alvaston, outside Derby. He had been clinging on to a glass ball containing the Eiffel Tower in a snow storm – still his most treasured possession. On his royal-blue knitted jumper was pinned a note: ‘Please look after my son. His name is Paris.’

No one had ever found his mother. Early adoption was delayed, hoping she’d come forward. Afterwards, there was no one to sign the papers.

Every so often, when the moon was full, longing for his mother overwhelmed him, and he went searching for her on trains round the country. When he was twelve, he had suffered the humiliation of putting his photograph in the local paper advertising for a family. The photograph, taken in the fluorescent light of the children’s home, made him look like a death’s head. Paris for once had dropped his guard and written the accompanying copy, which Nadine his social worker had rejigged: ‘Paris is a healthy twelve-year-old, who has been in care for a number of years. He has a few behaviour problems and needs firm handling,’ which, translated, meant trouble with a capital ‘T’.

Paris, affecting a total lack of interest, had hung around waiting for the post, expecting Cameron Diaz or Posh and Becks to roll up in a big car and whisk him off to love and luxury. But there had been no takers.

Feral and Graffi had carried him during this humiliation. He, in turn, had carried Feral when his older brother Joey dissed the head of a rival gang, who took him outside and shot him dead. Feral’s mother, Nancy, had emerged briefly from a drug-induced stupor to achieve fleeting fame bewailing the loss on television. But as it was only black killing black, the public and police soon forgot and moved on to another tragedy. Nancy turned back to her drugs.

Feral was dyslexic and, ashamed he wrote and read so poorly, truanted persistently. Paris, who was very clever, translated for him and explained questions.

‘He’s my one-to-one teaching assistant,’ boasted Feral.

Out of eighteen homes and eleven schools, Paris’s three years at Larks and Oaktree Court had been his longest placement. Terrified of being dragged away to a new care home in another part of the country, he tried not to complain or rock the boat.

‘I’ve got two copies of
The Moonstone
, so here’s one for you,’ said Janna, ‘and here’s Lily coming up the path.’

Lily was in high fettle. She had just won a hundred pounds on the three o’clock and been making elderflower wine. Feral and Graffi came scuttling down the stairs for new diversion.

‘Boys, this is my friend Lily Hamilton who lives next door, and Lily, these are my friends, Graffi, who’s painting me a mural, Paris, who’s sorting out my bookshelves, and Feral, who’s an ace footballer.’

‘Really?’ said Lily. ‘My nephew Dicky is besotted with Man U; I confess a fondness for Arsenal.’

‘That’s cool, man,’ said Feral approvingly.

‘I’m about to watch them on Sky,’ said Lily. ‘Would you like to come and have a look and test this summer’s elderflower wine?’

Needing no more encouragement, Feral and Graffi bounded after her.

10

Paris preferred to stay with the books and Janna. With her sweet face and rippling red hair, she was like those beautiful women in pre-Raphaelite paintings. He tried not to stare. As she handed her books and their hands touched occasionally, she told him about her parents’ evening.

‘I want the place to look so good, people will really want to send their children to Larks.’

Paris said nothing. Oh God, she thought, he has no parents, I’m a tactless cow. Changing the subject hurriedly, she said she was planning a project on the lark.

‘In literature, art, music and real life. I don’t know if larks are singing at the moment, but we could take a tape recorder into the fields. I’m going to call the project “Larks Ascending” to symbolize our climb out of special measures.’

‘“To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull night,”’ murmured Paris, handing her a tattered copy of
Anna Karenina
.

‘“From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise,”’ carried on Janna, clapping her hands. ‘Fantastic, exactly the kind of stuff we need. Will you copy it out for me and perhaps write a poem about a lark yourself?’

Larks were always having to move on because of tractors ploughing and harrowing, and people sowing seed and spraying pesticides and fertilizers, thought Paris bitterly, just like him moving from home to home.

Whoops and yells from next door indicated that Arsenal must have scored.

‘Tell me about Graffi,’ said Janna as she slotted
Northanger Abbey
between
Emma
and
Persuasion
.

‘His dad earns good when he’s in work. Nice bloke but the money seems to evaporate in the betting shop or the pub. Graffi’s got two elder brothers and a sister; then, after him, his mother had a Downs Syndrome baby, and all the attention goes on her. Graffi gets the shit kicked out of him by the elder kids, but his mother – when she works in the pub evenings and Sundays – expects Graffi, because he’s easy-going, to look after his sister. Graffi loves her to bits but he gets jealous and worries she’ll be bullied when she goes to primary school next year.’

‘Where does he live – on the Shakespeare Estate?’

‘Hamlet Street. Feral’s Macbeth, Kylie’s Dogberry, Pearl’s Othello – which figures: she’s dead jealous. Monster Norman’s Iago, which figures too.’

‘Is it really rough?’

‘If you want respect, the only way is to act tough and deal drugs,’ said Paris. ‘Randal Stancombe’s sniffing round the place, wants to offer it a leisure centre.’

‘So young people have somewhere to go in the evening to keep them off the streets,’ volunteered Graffi, returning at half-time.

‘I like the streets,’ grumbled Feral. ‘I don’t want no youth club woofter teaching me no ballroom dancing.’

‘More walls to draw on,’ said Graffi. ‘I like that lady next door. She’s got terrific pictures on her wall, that nude over the mantelpiece looks straight out of a porn mag. That elderflower wine’s not bad neiver; she said it didn’t matter as we wasn’t driving.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Janna saw Feral pick up a very pretty pink and white paperweight, put it in his pocket, then put it back again.

‘What d’you want to be in life, Feral?’ she asked.

Feral gave her his huge, charming, dodgy smile.

‘Twenty-one, man.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘If you live on the Shakespeare Estate, it’s an achievement to stay alive to the weekend,’ explained Graffi. ‘I’ve done this drawing of Lily’s cat.’

‘That’s so good.’ Janna took it to the light. ‘You must give it to Lily. When you get back from the second half, I’ll have your tea ready.’

While Paris became immersed in
The Catcher in the Rye
, Janna produced a real Yorkshire tea, with lardy cake, dripping toast, jam roly poly, crumpets and very strong tea out of a big brown pot.

As a returning Feral and Graffi helped her carry it to the table outside, Feral looked up at the kitchen beam. ‘What’s that long thick black thing called?’ he asked.