Non Pratt - Trouble

I leave Aaron under the bridge as he fails to find the words to explain why he embarrassed me like that. Screw him. Well, not screw him… you know what I mean.

Heading back to the park isn’t an option, so I find the nearest bus stop that’ll take me where I need to go. It’s cold now there’s no one else here to keep me warm and I wish I’d brought my hoodie.

I scrunch my eyes tight shut. There will be no tears over this. None over Aaron stupid Tyler.

When I get home I go up to Jay’s room and flop into the bean bag like I used to whenever I wanted to vent. The place is almost empty — most of the stuff Jay took to uni came from here rather than his mum’s. Even though the walls have been stripped bare and the bed’s made up with the wrong duvet cover, it still feels like he’s here.

I wish he was.

I get out my phone, leaving a new text from Katie unopened as I scroll down to the last message I had from Jay. Two weeks ago. There’s no room in his life for the things he left behind — I’ve seen the Facebook photos of all the fun he’s having at Warwick, surrounded by unfamiliar faces. It hurts, but I’ve got to get over it. Besides, it’s not like he’d want to hear all my problems even if he was here.

“Thought you had better taste than that, mate,” says Mark Grey, who is sweating all over me as we sit on the subs bench during PE. Despite being nothing short of MASSIVE, Mark is not a particular asset on the basketball court and Mr Prendergast has grown tired of calling fouls on him.

“Huh?” I’m not really listening since I’m too busy wondering when I’m going to be called up. Basketball isn’t my kind of sport — not that any of them are — and I can imagine my ineptitude mattering more than it should.

“…Hannah.”

That’s when I pay attention.

“What about Hannah?” As if I didn’t know.

“On Friday. Doesn’t take a genius to work out what you were up to.”

“Obviously not,” I murmur but Prendergast calls me up before Mark has time to process the insult.

I’m on the team that’s playing against Tyrone’s. Prendergast hasn’t given much thought to balancing the teams since mine consists of Gideon, who considers Converse All Stars suitable sportswear, a couple of shorter-than-average girls and a boy who spends a lot of time chatting to the token girl on the other side. Excluding her, the other team are made up of the best basketball players the school’s got.

“You left in a bit of a hurry the other night,” says the guy marking me, whose name I never quite caught. Might be called Rad. Or Rod. Or neither. He was the one Mark Grey had been talking to in the park and he’s wearing an expression somewhere between a smirk and a leer. It’s unpleasant. I ignore him, jump to intercept a pass and bounce it on to Gideon, who runs with it to score two much-needed points.

“So, what did you get up to?” Rad/Rod/Neither asks, as Gideon takes a victory lap.

I shrug. I did a lot of shrugging on Friday when Mum questioned me about my night out as a normal teenage boy, punctuating my shrugs with grunts like a normal teenage boy, which seemed to please her. I know how to hide things.

“Saw you left with Hannah, my man,” Tyrone chips in as he walks to the centre, head tilted back so he can look down his nose at me. I’m guessing the effect he’s going for is gangster, but it’s spoiled by a bogey in his left nostril that flutters with each breath. All this attention is unnerving. No one made this much of a fuss over the Mark Grey/Katie interaction and that was so public a live show may as well have been projected into the sky like a Bat-Signal.

The ball bounds in and I track back to try and stop Rex from belting down the wing. I underestimated how good Rex is at basketball; he might be short, but he’s fast and springy. He’s better than Tyrone, but no one admits this. It is not OK to be better at anything than Tyrone.

“You wanna steer clear of that skank,” Tyrone says behind me. I turn around, not understanding the venom in his voice and Rex dodges right past me.

Tyrone isn’t paying any attention to the game; he’s looking at me, eyes narrowed, then he nods, once, like I’m to obey him and turns away.

Today is the first time that Hannah acknowledges me since she ran off last week.

“Can we borrow your copy of Jane Eyre?”

“Of course.” I hurry to hand it over, but I don’t let go when she takes hold of it. I want to at least try and clear the air. I’m frustrated that I’ve ended up involved in something that didn’t even happen. There’s been a seismic shift in Tyrone’s love for my jokes and I’m certain it’s linked to Hannah in some way. “Hannah, about last Friday…”

“Huh?” For a moment it looks like she’s forgotten she even knows my name.

“What happened with me and you…?” I prompt.

“Yeah. Let’s just leave it there, shall we, Ty?”

I wish she wouldn’t call me that.

“I just wanted to say—”

“Leave it, Emo Boy. She doesn’t want to talk to you, yeah?” Katie leans round her friend and snatches the book — doesn’t even say thank you as she cracks the spine open, and gives Hannah’s arm a squeeze.

Did Katie just call me “Emo Boy”?

No one here has a clue who I am. Maybe that’s for the best.

Katie’s sympathy isn’t fooling me. What she really wants is for me to tell her more about what happened. As far as she’s concerned it was a really disappointing shag, but she’s annoyed that I’ve gone light on the details. Katie overshares to the point that I could play pick-the-ex by looking at nothing more than snapshots of their penises. Thing is, there’s a lot I’ve not been sharing with her. Whatever I haven’t told her about Aaron, or the on/off thing with Tyrone is nothing compared to what she doesn’t know about Jay’s party.

Neville chews on the inside of his cheek, reaches for a card, then changes his mind. It’s like playing whist with a tortoise — right down to the sagging skin at his neck and the shell of a cardigan he’s wearing. I can’t see a clock — Cedarfields isn’t fond of showing its residents how slowly time moves round here — and I gently twist my wrist to look at my watch.

“Getting bored, sonny?” Neville’s voice croaks out amidst his too-loud breathing.

I am, but I don’t say anything.

“You don’t have to sit with me, you know. I’ve got plenty to entertain myself. Countdown is on in a moment.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve missed it, Mr Robson,” I say.

Neville works his jaw so I can hear his teeth clicking together. Looking down at my cards, I wonder why I’m going to the park at all. After a week of being out of favour I’m certain no one will miss me. And if I “forgot” my sacrificial offering of alcohol, I could get myself frozen out entirely.

“Well, I’m bored.” Neville takes the cards out of my hand and works them effortlessly back into the pack. “Every Friday, you come, you spend some time with the loneliest oldies and then you leave. Not staff, not family…” His voice might be timorous, but I can feel his gaze, straight and steady, pinning me down. “What’s your business about?”

“No business, Mr Robson, just volunteer work,” I reply, standing up to turn on the light.

“Why?”

“Because I’m a Good Samaritan.” I try to sound like I’m joking but it comes out a little bitter. I’m not bitter, I just don’t want to talk about it.

“Suit yourself,” he says, wincing as he stands. I think about helping him, but I’m not sure he’d appreciate it, then I hear him mutter, “Don’t mind me,” and I hurry to offer him a hand, only to be ignored.

I look at my watch and figure I could leave now. There’s a McDonald’s on the way to the park and I’ve got my book with me. Before I even realize what I’m doing, I’ve got one arm inside my coat and I’m turning to say goodbye.

“Have a g—” I stop.

Neville is standing over the waste paper bin unzipping his flies. I bound across the floor and put a hand on his arm.

“Hey!” Neville shrugs me off, spraying a trail of urine over his bedside table. “Do you mind?” And he swings back over the bin.

I turn away and stifle a laugh as I hear a wet patter on the contents of the bin. Neville zips up and turns to face me.

“Poofter.”

I don’t bother correcting him — what good did it do with Hannah? — I just say goodbye and leave, stopping to warn someone about the contents of Neville’s bin.

“He likes you, you know,” the manager says, as she hunts around reception for a set of keys to the cleaning cupboard.

“Really?” I’m not sure Neville likes anyone.

“He does. He asks about you when you’re with one of the others. Wants to know whether you’ll be popping in on him.”

I feel a pang of guilt.

“There you are!” She snatches the keys from under a folder, then turns to me. “Same time next week?”

Somehow I hear myself offering to take care of it. As I head to the cleaning cupboard to fetch rubber gloves and a bin liner, it occurs to me that I find the prospect of cleaning up Neville’s urine-soaked bin more appealing than a night in the park. Not something to tell my mum.