Deity

so many levels. Well, I’m having a few people round — not many, just a handful.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘I don’t have a block full of friends.’ Jake’s expression remained sombre so Kyle said his piece. ‘About nine o’clock. Only if you want, of course. And no present, just presence.’ Kyle laughed, embarrassed at his own pun.

Jake stared at him, making no attempt to reply. Finally he squirrelled a glance at Kyle’s hand. ‘You said you had something for me.’

‘Right.’ Kyle handed over a pen drive, a CD case and a rolled-up poster. ‘I’ve done that film review for Media Studies. I thought you might like to borrow it — you know, get some ideas for your own essay.’ Jake kept his eyes on Kyle then unrolled the poster. ‘It’s Morrissey from The Smiths. Greatest Living Englishman,’ Kyle looked around and laughed shyly, ‘far as I’m concerned. And I burned you a Smiths CD — you know, just to thank you.’ Kyle nervously rested one plimsolled foot on the other. He looked about twelve to Jake with his short crop and pale girlish features. Not even a suggestion of facial hair.

‘You didn’t have to. But thanks.’

Kyle took his hands out of his pockets and looked up into Jake’s face but Jake had turned away.

‘Was there anything else?’ he said coldly.

Kyle looked at the ground. ‘A ten-ton truck would be nice.’ He pulled his hood back up and walked away into the night.

‘What does that mean?’ shouted Jake after him.

Kyle turned, a wistful smile on his face. ‘When you listen to the CD you’ll know. Track nine.’

Rusty walked slowly along the pavement, his eyes glued to the glow of his camcorder. What a result. Becky Blake dancing for him, stripping for him. Forget Animal House starring John Belushi and directed by John Landis. This was no American frat-house comedy, this was. . this was. . Body Double. That’s it. Brian de Palma’s remake of Vertigo starring Melanie Griffith as the erotic dancer, performing her dance of death for the hapless Peeping Tom in a nearby apartment.

Rusty grinned at the playback. Becky had seen him, he was sure. Cry for help? Goddamn right. He was so engrossed in the image of Becky’s naked body that he didn’t hear the noise from behind until it was too late. At the last minute the whirring of a bicycle registered and he turned in time to catch a flash of steel descending towards his neck. He screamed in shock and pain and fell to the ground, clutching at the wound.

As he hit the ground he tried to keep hold of the camcorder but it fell from his grasp and rolled along the pavement, coming to a stop with the lens facing him. As the blood trickled through Rusty’s fingers, clamped to his neck, he tried to right himself but caught sight of the camcorder as he did so. The red light was on.

Ignoring his injury, he reached out a bloodied hand towards the lens just out of reach. A second later, he slumped down to the hard pavement with a rasping sigh, and lay motionless while the camcorder continued to store his image.

‘What was that little pooftah doing outside?’

Jake turned at the foot of the stairs to face his father sprawled out on the living-room sofa, beer can perched on his belly. Jake wondered whether to pretend he hadn’t heard and just bound up the stairs.

‘I asked you a question,’ growled his dad.

‘His name is Kyle.’

‘Yeah, that gay boy. Poor Steve Kennedy’s lad,’ retorted his father, unable to turn his face away from the TV. ‘What did he want?’

‘Leave him alone,’ his mother said. ‘They’re friends. Kyle’s a nice lad.’

‘That right, Jake?’ hollered his father, a mocking edge in his tone. ‘Are you and that shirt-lifter friends?’

‘Malcolm. I don’t want to hear that sort of talk in my house.’

Jake turned away and shouted back from the bottom stair, ‘He’s in my Media Studies group. We sometimes swap essays.’

‘Essays, my arse,’ his father shouted back. ‘Just mind you don’t catch nothing.’

Jake started up the stairs. ‘Why don’t you have another beer, Dad? You still sound half-sober.’

‘You cheeky little bastard,’ bellowed his father, stirring himself.

‘I wish,’ Jake hollered back from his bedroom door.

‘What the fuck does that mean?’

‘That’s enough, Malcolm. Sit back down. I’m trying to watch this.’

Malcolm McKenzie sank blearily back to the warmth of the sofa. ‘Cheeky little fucker’s cruising for a bruising,’ he muttered under his beer breath.

Jake fed the CD into his music centre and pressed 9 on the remote. A grubby scrap of paper fell out of the blank case, which he stooped to pick up and unfold. It was a handwritten track list. Track 9 was called ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’. He turned the paper over. There were childlike drawings of unknown yellow flowers around the margins and a small poem in the middle which Jake read aloud.

Morrissey,

you should have died when you was younger,

For you then, we would have hungered,

We would have seen some flowers then

And never seen your like again!!!!!

It was signed KK aged 13.

Jake listened carefully to the song until he heard the reference to a ten-ton truck. He skipped the song back to listen again.

Jake ejected the disc and sat in silence. The song was a love letter and Kyle Kennedy had given it to him. A moment later he carefully picked up the unfolded track list and tore it into tiny pieces. Then he picked up the CD and case and headed downstairs.

‘Going out, Jake?’ shouted his mother from the armchair. She was a small nervous woman with a birdlike way of moving her head. Jake’s drink-befuddled father was on the sofa snoring and the TV was turned up to drown out the noise.

Jake smiled reassuringly at her as he zipped his tracksuit. ‘I’m going for a run, Mum.’

‘At this time? I was just going up.’ On my own was left unsaid.

‘I’ve got a lot of pent-up energy,’ he explained. His mum nodded then looked at her husband without expression. Jake followed her gaze. He managed a watery smile. ‘Anything good on?’

His mother looked at him for longer than felt comfortable. ‘I’ve no idea.’

Jake turned away and opened the front door. ‘I won’t be long.’ He jogged out into the warm night.

Jake turned left on to Western Road and continued to jog powerfully towards the new houses before turning on to Brisbane Road. He kept his eyes peeled for Kyle. He knew roughly where he lived with his mother. Kyle’s father had left them a few years ago because of the shame of having a gay son. Although Kyle’s sexuality had only become blatant over the last couple of years in college, likely his parents would have known sooner. And Kyle’s dad hadn’t hung around to listen to behind-the-hand whispers.

After her husband’s departure, Jake knew Kyle’s mum had been forced to cope as a single parent, on a mixture of benefits and the bits of maintenance she could squeeze out of Kyle’s dad, as well as the odd bit of cash- in-hand work serving at a stall in the Eagle Centre. The years of scrimping and saving had not been kind to Mrs Kennedy and she seemed old and worn out for her age, like his own mum. At least things were looking up for them moneywise. Leonard Poole, a pensioner with a big car, had been taking an interest in her for a year or so. There was a twenty-year age gap — Poole was about sixty — but he seemed to have plenty of money. ‘Daddy Warbucks.’ Jake laughed in spite of his mood. ‘Good one.’

Ten minutes later, Jake slowed to a walk and put his hands on his hips, feeling the pleasant rush of adrenalin in his system. ‘Maybe he’s gone to a gay bar,’ he panted, his eyes narrowing. Was there even such a thing in Derby? He’d heard rumours but he’d never seen any obvious faggots in the city. Just Kyle. Still,