wounded solider carrying a comrade.
Afterwards Phil was exhausted. He wanted a smoke. He looked everywhere for his tobacco pouch but it was gone. He got pretty angry, in a breathless sort of way, and kept asking your dad where it was, but your dad just gave one of his heh-heh-heh laughs and said he didn’t know and that smoking was the reason Phil was out of breath in the first place. He said, ‘You’re sucking the dick of death, man. Do you want your kid to grow up without a daddy?’
They didn’t speak for a while after that. Phil just hacked away at the meat. The Top 40 Chart Show was playing on the radio, that song my sister’s always dancing to. ‘Ooo you got me screamin’ boy …’ Eventually your dad took the tobacco pouch from his pocket and slapped it on the block and Phil snatched it and hurried out the back of the shop. I just kept my head down, mopped out the fridge. This week the Top 40 Chart Show was sponsored by Burke’s Clinic: ‘THE place for your boob job’.
After lunch Phil came into my kitchen, smelling like a whole lot of smoke. He gave me a handful of coins and a slip of paper and told me to go to the bookies for him. I said I was too young to go the bookies and he said not to worry, I looked old enough, and if there was any trouble to just say his name. He said not to tell anyone (meaning your dad) where I was going. I went out the back door. It was busy in the bookies so I had to queue. I handed the slip of paper and the coins to the guy with the beard behind the counter and he gave me a different slip of paper without even looking up and I went back and gave Phil the new slip of paper and he tucked it into his pocket. Nobody asked where I’d been.
In the afternoon the Top 40 Chart Show finished and there was football instead. Phil stood by the radio, scratching at his neck with mince-covered fingers. The commentators were angry with the players, shouting and calling them a disgrace. It got me thinking about Lucy Marlowe again. I remembered those times she’d sit on the steps to the Lipton Building, trying to eat her lunch in peace, whilst the boys took it in turns to kick their football at her. How they’d snigger and ask her to throw it back. How she’d still always throw it back. I remember once they hit her Star Trek lunchbox and it clattered down the stairs and smashed open and her ham and ketchup sandwich landed in the gutter and she ran inside crying and nobody even picked up her sandwich and it lay there all day soaking up rainwater until the bread had melted, ketchup veining out across the playground. The boys used to say Lucy Marlowe was a nerd because she was passionate about Star Trek and wore this baggy Mr Spock T-shirt on own-clothes day that would probably still fit her now. I didn’t understand because they all wore matching football shirts on own-clothes day and I think football’s much nerdier than Star Trek . It’s not like Star Trek host radio shows every weekend with phone-ins and episode-by-episode analysis. It’s not like Star Trek fans stand by the radio scratching their necks and chewing their lips, looking like the entire world depends on what the commentator says next.
Someone scored and Phil jumped and punched the air. He kept grinning till the match was over. Then he winked at me and went back out to his block. I didn’t wink back but I couldn’t help smiling when he started singing. He danced around your dad. He gave him a big kiss on the side of his stony face.
Your dad just laughed.
‘Heh-heh-heh.’
01/12
Miss Hayes has a new theory. She thinks I’m not really scared of Them . She thinks they’re just something to blame my anxiety on. She thinks I hide my real fears behind Metaphorical Phantoms. Miss Hayes said when she was little her dad gave her a ventriloquist’s doll, a clown, called Mr Fungal. Mr Fungal was her favourite toy in the world. Her and Mr Fungal used to joint-host shows for her mum and she’d swear she couldn’t see her
Afterwards Phil was exhausted. He wanted a smoke. He looked everywhere for his tobacco pouch but it was gone. He got pretty angry, in a breathless sort of way, and kept asking your dad where it was, but your dad just gave one of his heh-heh-heh laughs and said he didn’t know and that smoking was the reason Phil was out of breath in the first place. He said, ‘You’re sucking the dick of death, man. Do you want your kid to grow up without a daddy?’
They didn’t speak for a while after that. Phil just hacked away at the meat. The Top 40 Chart Show was playing on the radio, that song my sister’s always dancing to. ‘Ooo you got me screamin’ boy …’ Eventually your dad took the tobacco pouch from his pocket and slapped it on the block and Phil snatched it and hurried out the back of the shop. I just kept my head down, mopped out the fridge. This week the Top 40 Chart Show was sponsored by Burke’s Clinic: ‘THE place for your boob job’.
After lunch Phil came into my kitchen, smelling like a whole lot of smoke. He gave me a handful of coins and a slip of paper and told me to go to the bookies for him. I said I was too young to go the bookies and he said not to worry, I looked old enough, and if there was any trouble to just say his name. He said not to tell anyone (meaning your dad) where I was going. I went out the back door. It was busy in the bookies so I had to queue. I handed the slip of paper and the coins to the guy with the beard behind the counter and he gave me a different slip of paper without even looking up and I went back and gave Phil the new slip of paper and he tucked it into his pocket. Nobody asked where I’d been.
In the afternoon the Top 40 Chart Show finished and there was football instead. Phil stood by the radio, scratching at his neck with mince-covered fingers. The commentators were angry with the players, shouting and calling them a disgrace. It got me thinking about Lucy Marlowe again. I remembered those times she’d sit on the steps to the Lipton Building, trying to eat her lunch in peace, whilst the boys took it in turns to kick their football at her. How they’d snigger and ask her to throw it back. How she’d still always throw it back. I remember once they hit her Star Trek lunchbox and it clattered down the stairs and smashed open and her ham and ketchup sandwich landed in the gutter and she ran inside crying and nobody even picked up her sandwich and it lay there all day soaking up rainwater until the bread had melted, ketchup veining out across the playground. The boys used to say Lucy Marlowe was a nerd because she was passionate about Star Trek and wore this baggy Mr Spock T-shirt on own-clothes day that would probably still fit her now. I didn’t understand because they all wore matching football shirts on own-clothes day and I think football’s much nerdier than Star Trek . It’s not like Star Trek host radio shows every weekend with phone-ins and episode-by-episode analysis. It’s not like Star Trek fans stand by the radio scratching their necks and chewing their lips, looking like the entire world depends on what the commentator says next.
Someone scored and Phil jumped and punched the air. He kept grinning till the match was over. Then he winked at me and went back out to his block. I didn’t wink back but I couldn’t help smiling when he started singing. He danced around your dad. He gave him a big kiss on the side of his stony face.
Your dad just laughed.
‘Heh-heh-heh.’
01/12
Miss Hayes has a new theory. She thinks I’m not really scared of Them . She thinks they’re just something to blame my anxiety on. She thinks I hide my real fears behind Metaphorical Phantoms. Miss Hayes said when she was little her dad gave her a ventriloquist’s doll, a clown, called Mr Fungal. Mr Fungal was her favourite toy in the world. Her and Mr Fungal used to joint-host shows for her mum and she’d swear she couldn’t see her
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