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‘You didn’t think it was?’
‘Going back to the football analogy I felt as if I was always fighting for my place on the team. I was looking to score the goal that would finally cement my place. I mean it wasn’t simply about David, it was about acceptance in the wider sense.’
‘And did you? Score that goal?’
‘I thought I had,’ Adam said.
Morris rested his chin thoughtfully on his steepled fingers. He sensed that this was what Adam had been leading up to.
The year was 1985 and spring had been unusually warm and dry. By summer the country was baking in a heat wave. Adam had turned sixteen and had a holiday job at the Courier in Carlisle. The pay was terrible, and his job was mostly running errands and making coffee, but at least he got to see how a real newspaper worked, even if it was only a local daily where news meant local horse shows and reports of council meetings.
The editor was a dour Yorkshireman who spent most of his time secluded in his glass-walled office. Now and then he would emerge and gruffly summon one of the reporters. The door would close and the unlucky victim would have to sit in full view of the rest of the office while his or her work was savagely criticized. The only person who escaped these sessions was the paper’s senior reporter who, alone it seemed, had the editor’s respect.
Adam had been at the paper for three weeks the first time he spoke to Jim Findlay. He was standing at the photocopier feeding endless sheets of paper into the machine when Findlay paused on his way past.
‘Adam isn’t it?’
Findlay was rarely in the office. He did most of his work from the pub on the corner, where he habitually sat at a table in a sunny corner by the window with a pint glass and a whisky in front of him and an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts. He was Scottish and spoke with a broad accent. He looked to be in his forties, and had thinning hair that was turning grey and mournful eyes that gazed on the world with a kind of weary resignation.
‘Yes it is,’ Adam answered, recovering from his surprise.
Findlay nodded. ‘How’re you liking our wee paper then?’
‘It’s fine. I mean, I’m enjoying working here.’
‘Is that so? I expect you’ll be wanting to become a journalist yerself one day, is that it?’
‘Hopefully, after university anyway.’
Findlay seemed amused. ‘University eh? You’ll no’ want to be working at a place like this then. I’ll expect you’ve bigger plans.’
There was something faintly mocking in his tone, though Adam didn’t feel that he was the target, but rather that Findlay was mocking himself. The humour in his eyes faded and was replaced with something closer to regret. He placed a hand briefly on Adam’s shoulder.
‘Don’t mind me laddie,’ he said, and with that he wandered off.
At the end of the day Adam caught a bus back to Castleton. It was a sunny late afternoon, the heat of the day trapped in the narrow lanes between the hedgerows. In the fields the grass was drying to pale yellow. The hedgerows of hawthorn and crab apple and cow parsley were in full bloom. Towards the woods the air shimmered in a haze.
As the bus rounded a bend and crossed a stone bridge, a cluster of vehicles and caravans parked in a cut off the bridleway came into view. A grey horse was tethered to a tree stump near an ancient truck and smoke drifted lazily across the river. Back in April Adam had first seen the camp on the way home from school. David had stayed late for cricket practice and the only other person on the bus had been an old man who sat across the aisle. He had pale skin and thin wispy hair and his eyes were rheumy and red-tinged.
‘Gypsies,’ he’d muttered. ‘Come around every few years they do.’ His mouth turned down in a grimace and he said something quietly to himself.
A little further along the road the bus had stopped and the old man got off and walked towards some cottages set back from the lane. The bus had barely moved off when it slowed again and pulled hard over so that the hedge scraped against the side. Out of the window Adam saw a brown horse carrying three figures on its back. Two were small children, and behind them was an older girl of perhaps seventeen or so. Her head was almost level with Adam so that as she passed by only the glass and a few feet of space separated them. He registered wide, dark eyes, a full mouth, and thick, unruly, almost jet-black hair. She stared back at him without expression. She wore a simple shapeless plain cotton dress. After she had passed he looked back and glimpsed her bare legs and the full rounded shape of her breasts against the material of her dress. The horse had no saddle and only a rope for a bridle. As he watched the girl kicked her bare heels into the horse’s flanks, and then the bus turned a bend and they were lost from sight.
The gypsies had stayed throughout the spring and into the summer. The old women called at houses selling lucky charms and muttering curses if they found a door slammed in their faces. The rate of break-ins and petty crime in the area rose, which people generally attributed to the gypsies. Johnson’s sawmill was broken into one night and a load of lumber stolen, but though the police went to the gypsy camp none of it was ever recovered. Kyle warned Adam to steer clear of them.
When the bus reached the square in Castleton, Adam crossed the street towards the newsagent’s with his jacket slung over his shoulder. The bell above the door rang as he went inside. He paused, allowing his eyes to adjust to the comparative gloom. The shop smelt of sherbet and liquorice, underlain with the whiff of tobacco. Angela smiled when she saw him.
‘Hello, Adam.’
‘Hi.’ He went to the fridge and took out a cold bottle of coke. ‘Hot out there.’
‘It’s lovely.’ Angela pulled a face. ‘Not that I would know. I’ve been stuck in here all day.’
He handed her some money, and as she operated the register her smock tightened over the swell of her breasts. His gaze lingered for a fraction of a second and then he fixed his eye on the magazine rack.
‘Here’s your change.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ He feigned distraction, hoping she wouldn’t notice the flush of colour creeping into his cheeks. Her eyes were blue, but unlike any blue he had ever seen. Pale, but shimmering with light. Her long pale yellow hair was bleached in highlights by the summer sun, her arms brushed with a light tan.
‘How’s your job going?’ she asked him.
‘Fine. I like it.’
‘Are you going to the disco?’ She gestured to the notice board on the back of the door where a bright orange flyer advertised a disco at the church hall at the weekend.
‘Are you?’ he asked impulsively. He realized his question could almost be construed as asking her out and he felt his cheeks burn. He wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole. If she noticed, however, she didn’t let on.
‘Yes,’ she answered.
The door opened. ‘Well, I better go,’ Adam said, relieved and disappointed at the same time.
‘See you at the weekend then.’
‘Right. See you there.’ As he left he caught the eye of a woman coming in. She smiled at him.
He walked down through the town to the bridge and then along the path across the water meadow. On the far side Johnson’s sawmill was hidden in a copse. The familiar tangy scent of cut pine and sawdust hung in the air. The gates were open and two trucks were parked in the yard outside the cutting shed. The saws were silent. On one side of the yard stood a two-storey wooden building with an outside staircase that led to the office door. Underneath was a room where the men had their tea. Every morning Adam left his bike around the back before he caught the bus to Carlisle.
As he passed the open tearoom door he almost tripped over Nick who was sitting outside smoking a cigarette in the shade. He had left school by then and was working full time at the sawmill.
‘Sorry, didn’t see you there.’
Nick squinted up at him, his expression managing to look like a sneer, though it might have been the sun. ‘Been working hard then? All that sharpening pencils and making the tea, you must be knackered.’
Adam ignored the sarcasm and stepped over Nick’s legs.
‘Better watch you don’t get a blister on your little finger.’
‘I’ll try to remember that. Is David around?’
Nick shrugged unhelpfully and picked a shred of tobacco off his lip. ‘Somewhere.’
Just then David appeared at the top of the stairs. He was tanned and muscular from working outdoors in the sun, in contrast to Nick, whose face remained pale beneath his black hair and who still looked like a skinny kid.
‘Have you finished?’ Adam asked. He was thinking that they could go down to the river for a swim but David shook his head.
‘We’re working late today. There’s an order that needs doing.’ He aimed a kick at Nick’s foot. ‘Come on. We’ll see you tomorrow, Adam.’
Adam watched as they headed towards the shed and Nick laughed at something David said. He knew that when Nick had applied for a full-time job a few months earlier David’s dad hadn’t been too keen on the idea. Adam had overheard David pleading Nick’s case, insisting that Nick couldn’t be blamed for the way his dad was, and though in the end Mr Johnson had conceded, Adam had the feeling he’d never really been happy about it. He wondered if Nick knew about that.
It was getting dark by the time Adam and the others arrived at the disco at the weekend. A group of younger boys lurked in the darkness at the edge of the tiny car park furtively smoking cigarettes. In the entrance hall two women from the church social committee sat behind a scarred wooden table taking money and dispensing entrance tickets. One of them cast a disapproving eye over Nick’s leather jacket.
‘You can leave that in the cloakroom if you like,’ she said.
He gave her his money without answering and held her eye until, flustered, she dropped her gaze. Inside they stood bunched near the door. The hall was about half full. The music was loud and clusters of local kids stood around the walls, boys on one side, girls on the other, except for three young girls dancing together near the stage at the front. The DJ seemed to be absorbed with his record collection. A bank of coloured lights in front of his sound system blinked on and off with the music and a single silver glitter ball suspended from the rafters cast a forlorn pattern on the dance floor. A woman and a balding man wearing a knitted tie with a brown check shirt were selling cups of orange juice and sandwiches, which nobody was buying. The woman wore a fixed smile and jigged determinedly in time to the music. Occasionally they both glanced uneasily towards a group of four teenagers standing in one corner of the hall.
They were conspicuous both by their appearance and by the space around them that set them apart from everybody else. Their clothes looked like hand-me-downs and they shared a common dark hue to their skin and eyes. If anybody looked their way they stared back with silent hostility. Adam recognized one of the two girls as the one he’d seen from the bus back in the spring, though there was something different about her. He decided she looked smaller than he remembered, perhaps because last time he’d seen her she was on horseback. She also seemed young, which he put down to the fact that all the other girls in the hall wore clothes and make-up that made them look older than they really were. She looked over as if she sensed him watching her until one of the boys with her noticed and glared at her.
‘Fuckin’ gyppos,’ Nick muttered.
Graham nudged him and nodded towards a couple of girls who had started dancing together. ‘There’s Christine Abbot and that friend of hers.’
They wore high heels and short tight skirts, and when one of them noticed they were being eyed she said something to her friend and they both giggled. Nick and Graham went over to talk to them.
Adam looked around for Angela but he couldn’t see her anywhere. He and David lingered by the door. A few boys plucked up the courage to approach a group of girls. They paired off and started moving to the music with blank expressions. The music seemed to get louder as if the DJ thought sheer volume would make up for what else the hall lacked. It was hot and airless and after a while Adam told David he was going to get a drink. In the toilets he splashed water on his face and then made his way to the entrance and went outside where it was cool and the sound of the music faded.
‘Hello, Adam.’
He turned around and found Angela smiling at him. ‘Hi,’ he said and for a second or two was at a loss for anything more to say. She wore jeans and a pink T-shirt with the imprint of a pair of lipsticked lips on the front like a big kiss. With the touch of make-up she wore and her hair done differently she looked older. ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ he said eventually.
‘Were you waiting for me?’
He wasn’t sure what to say. His heart was beating faster than normal. ‘Would you mind if I was?’
‘No.’ For a moment neither of them spoke, absorbing the fact that they seemed to have crossed some kind of invisible boundary. ‘What are you doing out here anyway?’ she asked.
‘It was hot inside.’
She gestured towards the children’s park next door. ‘Shall we go over there then?’
‘Don’t you want to go in?’
She looked at the door. ‘Not really.’
The park was deserted, lit with a single overhead lamp. Angela sat on a swing and caught the chains in the crook of her elbows. They talked for a while about nothing much, the sounds from the hall drifting over to them. He told her about his job and she told him that she liked art at school but didn’t know what she wanted to do when she left.
‘What about you?’
‘I think I’d like to be a journalist.’
‘You mean work at the Courier?’
‘No. I mean for a national paper. Or perhaps a magazine.’
‘You’d have to live in London or somewhere wouldn’t you?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Don’t you like it here then?’
‘Sometimes I do,’ he said, and grinned at her.
She smiled. ‘Like now?’
‘Yes.’ Suddenly emboldened he said, ‘I’m glad you came tonight.’
She reached across and found his hand. ‘I’m glad too.’
They went for a walk hand in hand around the park. It was warm and the air felt thick and soft in the darkness. The sounds from the hall grew fainter.
‘Shouldn’t you go back inside?’ Angela asked. ‘Who’d you come with?’
‘David and the others. I think Graham and Nick were talking to some girls though.’ He frowned, looking back at the hall, thinking perhaps he should go back, though he didn’t want to.
Angela squeezed his hand. ‘David’ll be alright. All the girls fancy him.’
He was surprised, but when he thought about it he supposed it was true. David was popular and easy-going and he made the girls laugh. He experienced a faint twinge of jealousy. ‘What about you? Do you fancy him too?’
‘David?’ She laughed at the idea. ‘I suppose I never thought of him like that. I prefer the dark serious type,’ she teased. ‘I remember the first time I saw you after you moved here. I felt sorry for you.’
‘Sorry for me? Why?’
‘You looked lonely.’ She squeezed his arm and he smiled though he was slightly uneasy that she had felt sorry for him.
It was late when Graham and Nick came out of the hall with the two girls they’d been talking to. When Nick put his arm around one of them she laughed coarsely and pushed him away, but then the four of them made their way around the back of the building and vanished in the darkness.
Angela raised her eyebrows and looked amused, then looked at her watch. ‘I should be getting home.’
‘I’ll walk you,’ Adam offered.
‘Alright.’
‘I better just go and tell David.’
‘I’ll wait outside.’
It was crowded in the hall and at first he couldn’t see David anywhere. He looked twice around the hall until he finally found him talking to the gypsy girl he’d noticed earlier while her friends looked on with sullen suspicion. One of them in particular stared with obvious hostility. He had the same general look as the girl and might have been her brother.
‘I’m off,’ Adam said when he went over.
‘Alright. See you later.’
The girl went back towards her friends and David followed her with his gaze.
‘Did I interrupt something?’
‘I just asked how long they were staying.’
‘I don’t think her friends liked her talking to you.’
