Boycey3

Danny didn’t want to move. His grey shorts showed a damp dark-raddled faced map of Italy at the zip and whatever way he shuffled his bum cheeks on the plastic chair made him more uncomfortable. Even when he was a wee boy, he couldn’t remember peeing himself. His face was fire extinguisher red with shame. It felt hot enough to set off the fire alarms on each of the three landings. He kept his head down trying to avoid the care officer’s eyes.

When he hazarded a quick look through his long eyelashes he could see that the man was also in no hurry to move. He was ensconced behind his desk and looked as if he was thinking, because he was smoking and watching the smoke spread out like a billowing picnic blanket above his head.

‘Let’s get you moving.’ Iain was talking to the boy, but he might just as well have been talking to himself. He stroked his beard, as if considering the next move. The cops had left. He was on back-shift and had another two hours before handover. Now everything was back to routine, a daub of grey entered his voice and the forced friendliness of his tone slipped down several gears. He pushed his chair back against the wall and leaned over with two hands on the desk supporting the weight of his voice. ‘I’m really, really sorry about your mum.’ He cleared his throat and made a move towards the door.

Danny bit on a loose bit of skin on his bottom lip. He knew the care officer wasn’t really sorry, but couldn’t stop his eyes filling up again. His legs felt strange when he stood up, wobbly and colt like, as if they were somebody else’s. He had to hurry to catch up with him.

Iain figured if he could fire the boy into bed early that would be one less to worry about. He would need to put him in somewhere, beside someone. The obvious choice was Carruthers. They were about the same age, give or take a year. ‘Let’s get you changed into something more comfortable. It will be bedtime soon and you must be tired.’

A telly blared out of one of the front rooms. Some of the kids were piled up like bric-a-brac on the couch and lying on the floor, watching what sounded like The Generation Game. One young blond haired girl turned her head as they passed and half smiled and waved as if they were passing tourists. Now that the cops were gone, none of the children seemed interested in them.

Danny was so close behind Iain he almost stepped on his heels when he stopped. Iain fiddled with a set of sliver keys, bunched up on his belt and flipped through them, like playing cards, before finding the right one for the laundry room. ‘Here we go,’ he said, pleased with himself.

The boy stood, his feet planted, at the door. A 30-watt bulb hung like a child’s drawing of hangman. A load of washing spun dust mites in the air and washed in what seemed like an endless cycle. A green and gold jumper sat half-in and half-out of the dryer, its sleeves trailing the concrete floor as if it had died there.

Iain saw none of this. He tutted because he had meant to check on how much soap powder they had earlier, to see if he should put it on The Home’s shopping list. He ignored the washing machines and the industrial tumble-dryer. The faraway window was wedged open like a tobacco pouch with an orange plastic sandal, pushed between the two rusted metal bars. It had been that long since the cupboard beneath the window had been opened he had to look twice to make sure it was still there. It contained all the clothes that the children had left behind. It was a poor-man’s jumble. Iain picked up and let drop denims that were too big, or too small, a round collared shirt that was probably worn by Oliver Twist and a long coat that Marco Polo seemed to have left behind. He concentrated on the plastic beige washing basket at the bottom of the cupboard. He pulled out a pair of boy’s pyjamas with red elephants and whorls of blue on them. He knew that he might as well fit him up with convicts’ arrows and prison numbers than make him wear them. Even the light colours were full of shadows. The other kids would immediately know they were from the smelly cupboard, as they called it. The only other option was to pick something out of the dryer from one of the other boys. But that would mean arguing and hassle. He held up the old set of pyjamas. ‘These look as if they’ll fit you.’

Danny eager to please, nodded in agreement and hazarded a step into the washing room.

‘Let’s try them on. There’s a toilet just down the hall.’ Iain bundled up the pyjamas and met him at the door. ‘These are just great. You’ll see.’

The handle of the toilet would not turn and Iain banged on the door. ‘Who’s in?’

‘Me.’

Iain let go of the handle. He knew from the snap of the reply that it was one of the Russell twins. God knows what she was doing in there and he didn’t want to find out. ‘How long are you goin’ to be?’ He tried to sound conciliatory.

‘ ‘till I’m ready,’ came the reply.

Iain tapped Danny on the arm and gestured with his head that he should follow. They tiptoed away and up the hallway stairs. The other Russell twin was sitting hugging her knees on the first floor landing. She was a bit older than Danny. Her day-glo two-tone clasp, a butterfly type hallucination, kept her light brown hair swept down in a side-sweep across her face. Danny thought there was something continental about her long limbed elegance that suggested a lexicon of lust. She ignored Iain coming up the stairs in such a way that Danny guessed she might suddenly burst out with something in Esperanto, or speak Italian. Her long neck arched and grey-green eyes carefully examined Danny as if she was French and he was the child of a lovesick amoeba.

‘Who are you putting that little fat fucker of a chipmonk in with?’ She nodded at Danny as he past. ‘I suppose you’ll be putting him in with that fuckin’ little perv Carruthers.’

‘Language,’ Iain walked on, took a deep breath and shook his head as if he’d heard it all before.

Iain poked at the toilet door on the second floor landing. ‘You can get changed in there.’ He handed Danny the bundled up pyjamas.

Danny checked the bolt on the door was over and then wiggled it again, just to make sure. The shower dripped into the bath and the tap on the sink next to it played a different cold-water note. He didn’t think he was fat. He looked at his face in the mirror as he peed, just to check, but he thought he looked the same. Not fat. Well maybe just a bit fat around the cheeks. Mum had said he was big boned.

The pyjamas didn’t really fit him. They were too small. It was like squeezing into a tube of toothpaste. But he put them on anyway. When he pulled the bolt back he had his shorts and shirt in his hands and held them out and away from him, as if they were slippery bits of fish and he did not know how to handle them properly, or where to put them, or how to put them safely down.

Iain examined him when he came out of the toilet. ‘Perfect,’ a toothy-smile appeared from the bush of his beard. He held out his hand to take the parcel of clothes from Danny. ‘I’m afraid the cook’s finished for the night. So we’ll not be able to get you a cooked meal. Come down to the kitchen and I’ll make you a bit of toast and cheese or something.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ mumbled Danny, looking at his feet.

‘Don’t worry. Nobody is going to bite you.’

Danny looked up. He was scared somebody would see how stupid he looked.

‘C’mon then.’ Iain trudged down the hall. ‘I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.’ He looked back to see if Danny was following. ‘And I don’t usually do this, but I’ll bring you up some toast and tea. How many sugars do you take?’

‘Three –and-a-half. Well, just say four’

Iain chuckled and used his arm to barge open one of the room doors. The window had been pushed up and the yellow curtains blew up and out like deep-water tendrils fingering the room. A boy Danny’s age sat on the Paisley pattern linoleum with his back against the bed with sobbing noises coming from the back of his throat as if he was going to choke on grief. The aircraft wings of his model planes were set in a circle around him like Cowrie-shells. The wingless crafts that were not grounded were still attached to the ceiling by a single white string; still flying overhead His eyes flickered from one broken piece of kit to another as if he they were going to tell him who had broken them off, from, and more importantly why.

Iain banged shut the window. The boy swept the broken pieces in an arc closer and sobbed ever louder.

‘You’ll need to toughen up Carruthers. You’re not a baby.’

Iain patted a bed that sat diagonally across from the weeping boy. ‘This is your bed.’ He tried to smile at Danny, but it came out all wrong like a drunken leer.

He pulled the door open and held it, as if considering. ‘We can’t give you any more glue Carruthers. For obvious reasons. You know that don’t you.’ He banged the door as he left.

Danny sat on the bed with his feet on the floor as if moving would scare Carruthers. Silence sat like a lump in his throat and he felt strangely sorry for him. He dared himself to whisper and found the words on the edge of his tongue. ‘You’ll be ok. You’ll be ok.’

He waited for his toast and tea, which never came and sleep, which no matter which way he tossed and turned under the blankets, also escaped him. He was hungry for sleep in the way he wasn’t for food. He was sure if he could just drop off he would be able to pursue his mother beyond death and into dreams and maybe be able to hold onto her, for one last time.

Carruthers groaned and some babyish phrase escaped his thin lips. In his sleep, his fingers clutched at his blankets as if they were lifebelts, continually pulling them up and over his wavy brown hair. Danny didn’t need to ask about his companion’s life. He sensed that he too was cut adrift, tattooed with motherlessness. The house creaked and groaned, but everyone seemed dead to the world. Danny sneaked up and looked out of the window, trying to figure which way was home. The lampposts teetered and blinked like candles in the wind and the pavements shone like new sprung rivers, but there was no way of seeing.