‘You know that at the outset, though, don’t you? When you have them.’ Ray nodded to himself. ‘When you have kids…’ He tailed off because he’d been about to add, ‘A kid is for life,’ before remembering that was the RSPCA slogan for looking after dogs. He wouldn’t make himself popular saying stuff like that.
The town clock bonged out the hour and from the industrial estate came the air-raid wailing for coffeetime in the factories.
‘I want to go to Boyes,’ Kerry said as they crossed to the arcade. The bairn’s wheels stuck on the tall kerb and Simon had to help.
‘What does she need now?’
‘Not for her,’ Kerry snapped. Boyes did cheap kids’ clothes—there were real bargains sometimes—and she resented him saying she bought too many things there. She liked keeping the bairn nice. She was a little girl. Simon shouldn’t complain. He should keep that complaining tone out of his voice. They were doing all right. ‘I want to go there for something else.’
‘Right.’
Ray had been quiet since they’d cut through the street where he’d lived when he was about ten. He’d had a birthday party in one of those gloomy houses. Simon had been there, but Kerry hadn’t because even though she’d been in the same class she was never really a friend of either of them at that stage.
He remembered Simon staying indoors during the party, while the others ran around, out in the back garden. Ray had been embarrassed because, with everyone just running about in the garden, it wasn’t really like a party at all. It was just playing out. He went in and saw that Simon had put his Jungle Book record on the stereo. It was old and Ray had meant to hide all that kid stuff.
Simon sat looking at the pictures on the record’s sleeve, on the settee next to Ray’s mam. She looked shattered, still wearing her rubber gloves from washing up after the birthday tea.
‘This picture of Baloo the Bear,’ Simon was saying to her. ‘See the way he’s standing? At home I have a Roto-Draw set that lets you draw him standing in exactly the same…’ He struggled to find the word. ‘In exactly the same action.’
Ray’s heart went out to him without his really knowing why. Three years later—when they were thirteen—in the school changing rooms after a rugby game, something struck Ray out of the blue. On the bench beside him Simon sat with elbows on knees, shirtless, picking clods of mud out from between the studs on his boots. Ray said, ‘Position. That was the word you wanted. Baloo the Bear in exactly the same position.’
Simon looked at him in open-mouthed irritation. ‘You what?’
In the precinct, under the big ramp, there was a corner made by the front of Boyes and the side of Weigh Your Own. It was all health food and cheap stuff in there, sold loose from drums with see-through lids. Everything was labelled with stencilled lettering because, in the drums, most things looked alike. Stencilled posters covered the windows, telling you how much everything cost per pound.
‘SUGAR’ 35p lb
Ariel 69p lb
‘Radion’ 75p lb
Pasta ‘Twirls’ 29p lb
Omega ‘Tasty’ dog 72p lb
‘Ginger’ cake mix 33p lb
Herbs ‘n’ Spices ‘Inside’
They paused in that corner because part of Kerry’s usual trip down town was buying a quarter of Flying Saucers sweets from Weigh Your Own and sharing them with the bairn, sitting on a bench. They had a few plants out there now and it was quite a gathering place. Everyone talks to you when you have a bonny bairn with you. Many was the half-hour Kerry had spent talking to someone because they wanted to give the bairn ten pence or tickle her under the chin. Pensioners, usually, who liked to sit on the benches in that corner of the precinct.
Ray and Simon couldn’t find space to sit so they just stood about. A crowd had gathered around some buskers. One had a large roll of paper taped to the flagstones. He was drawing with pastel crayons, a purple sunset and a woman clinging to the back of a unicorn, which was flying. His little basket had quite a few coins in.
‘Let’s nick his fucking basket,’ Simon said.
‘Ay,’ laughed Ray.
Amazingly the busker who was drawing still managed to sing. He drew left-handed, on his knees, and in his right hand he had his microphone, which was plugged into the same amplifier as his friend’s mike and guitar. The song they were doing was ‘Unchained Melody’ from that video with the feller from Dirty Dancing in, Ghost. They were doing quite a good job of it.
‘They’re bloody flat, aren’t they?’ said Ray.
‘Fucking awful. Look at this lot, standing round gawping.’ Simon twirled round on his heel. He saw that Kerry was talking to some old woman. The bairn was out of the chair and being passed from knee to knee. That meant they were hanging about for a while. He read the posters on the windows of Weigh Your Own again and scowled.
‘Our lass tried to get us onto that soya mince stuff from there.’
‘Did she?’
‘Like vegetarian soya.’
‘Ay, I’ve seen it on daytime telly, like. What’s it taste like?’
‘Tastes like nowt. She put three Oxo cubes in with it an’ all and it tasted nowt like mince. Bloody rubbish!’
‘Ay, well, they’d sell you owt, wouldn’t they?’
When ‘Unchained Melody’ finished everyone clapped. The buskers started ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’. The one with the guitar was a good bit older than the artist. It was as if he was bringing him on. Or as if the younger one was an apprentice and he was learning a trade. But he was so enthusiastic he was learning to do two things at once.
Simon never knew why she bothered talking to the old bitches. They came out with a load of shite. And the old blokes! Eyeing
