A Ladder to the Sky(83)

‘Please, Daniel. You can tell me. Maybe I can make it stop.’

‘James,’ said Daniel, after a lengthy pause during which he snuffled a few times and looked as if he might start to cry. ‘And William.’

‘But I thought you got along with them? You sit beside James in class, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t like me.’

‘Why not?’

‘He says I’m a freak.’

Fuck him, the little fucking shit, thought Maurice. But, ‘You’re not a freak,’ he said.

‘He says I am.’

‘Then he’s an idiot.’

‘It’s because I don’t like playing with them,’ he continued.

‘Why not?’ asked Maurice.

‘Because every time they play someone always ends up going to the nurse’s office with blood pouring from their nose. And they say I never speak either. They say I’m scared.’

‘And is that why they hit you?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘They say it’s just a game.’

‘Well, it seems like a stupid game to me,’ said Maurice, and Daniel looked up at him now, wounded by the irritation in his father’s voice. ‘Just stay away from them from now on, all right?’ he continued. ‘You’re only seven years old, after all. I don’t want you acting like you’re in Fight Club.’

‘What’s Fight Club?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Just don’t let your friends hit you, and don’t you hit anyone either. Especially not the girls. We got lucky this time, there’s no lawsuit, but remember, this is America. People here will sue you just for looking at them the wrong way in the street and, if they find out that we have a little money, then they’ll try to find a way to take it off us.’

‘Are we rich?’ asked Daniel.

‘We’re comfortable. You don’t have to worry, put it that way. But we’re nowhere near as rich as most people who live in this city. So we have to hold on to what’s ours and not let anyone steal it from us. Okay?’

The boy nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Stealing is bad.’

Maurice smiled. ‘Stealing is very bad,’ he agreed. ‘Only really bad people take things that don’t belong to them. Now, it’s time for bed, don’t you think?’

Henry Rowe had been new to the school that year. His family were originally from Belfast, Catholics who lived on the junction where the Falls Road met Iveagh Drive, but his mother, sister and he had relocated to Harrogate in 1980 to escape the Troubles. Even though he’d heard reports on the news of the bombing campaign in England and was vaguely aware of the hunger strikes taking place in the H-Block of the Maze Prison, Maurice had almost no interest in what was taking place on the island next to his own and, at fourteen, the concept of death, such a distant and other-worldly idea, bored him. Politics, he believed, was for other people and while he longed to be set free from the daily tedium of his home life, he had scant interest in the causes that his peers wore, quite literally, like badges of honour on their school uniforms. Only when the rumour went around that Henry Rowe’s father had been murdered by the IRA for betraying them was Maurice’s interest piqued. That would make a good idea for a story, he thought: a teenage boy, forced to relocate to a strange country, gradually begins to understand his father’s criminal past. He might have been out of step with his classmates when it came to their political concerns but Maurice already knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life, which was more than most of them could claim.

‘A writer?’ his dad had said when he first told him his plans. ‘You’ve more chance of winning the World Cup for England. You have to come from London if you want to write books. Have a fancy education and all that.’

‘Not every writer comes from London,’ said Maurice, rolling his eyes at the parochial nature of his father’s worldview. He’d never read a book in his life, as far as he knew, and barely worked his way through the local newspaper once a week. ‘D. H. Lawrence’s dad worked at Brinsley Colliery. Isherwood came from Derbyshire. William Golding’s from Cornwall.’

‘That D. H. Lawrence only wrote filth,’ replied his father. ‘Naked men wrestling with each other and posh pieces having it off with the gamekeeper. Queer stuff, if you ask me. Written for poofters with fancy ideas. I’ll not have any of it in the house.’

‘You’ll be a plumber, like your dad,’ said his mother. ‘That’s good honest work, that is.’

‘I’ll not,’ said Maurice, and meant it.

He was popular in school, of course, because despite being a bookworm, he was good-looking, which somehow made the other boys want to be his friend, even if they didn’t quite understand why. The teachers liked him too – he was one of the students with whom they tried to ingratiate themselves – and he’d only found himself in trouble once, when it was discovered that he’d plagiarized a history essay from a book he borrowed from the local library, an offence that resulted in a week’s suspension. There were boys who wanted to know him better, to get closer to him, but he was essentially a loner and kept others at a distance. Until Henry arrived, that is.

Even now, thirty years later, he could still remember the moment when the boy walked through the classroom door for the first time, a few steps behind the headmaster, Dr Webster, to be introduced to his new classmates. He was tall and lean with brown hair that both fell into his eyes and stood up above his head. When he opened his mouth to tell the class his name and what had brought him to Harrogate, the room broke into uncontrollable laughter at his strong Northern Irish accent and Henry’s face had betrayed a mixture of anger, humiliation and confusion at how they mocked him. He looked around the room, disconcerted by this unruly and vaguely threatening group of strangers with whom he would be spending his days, until his eyes met Maurice’s, the only boy who wasn’t laughing. Maurice tilted his head a little, a sort of greeting, and Henry stared back, his tongue peeping out from between his lips, unable to look away.