Cold Boy's Wood by Carol Birch (best books to read for students txt) 📕

those cats. Like wailing babies. Such fierce misery. Hear them sing along to these memories.

*

I was walking up from town, me and Eve and her baby in the pram, and Harriet skipping and dancing alongside and the sky piling up clouds.

‘Ooh, look at that,’ said Eve, ‘well, he’s a sweet little thing, isn’t he?’

Mark Gaunt his name was. Gaunt of name, gaunt of face, with a bony jaw and milky, freckled complexion. They were at the door, he’d walked her home from Drama. Trust Lily to go from one extreme to the other. The boy blushed like a maiden when we walked up.

‘Coming up?’ I said, holding the door open for Eve to get the pram in. ‘I got some little Indian sweet things. Come on up.’

They dithered. ‘Johnny in?’ she asked.

‘Not that I know of.’

So up we all went, and Eve and her baby came in too, and I made tea and coffee.

He was a funny little thing, fragile, fairish, very quiet. He came into the kitchen and drank his tea and said hardly a word. Lily ignored him completely once he was in and played about with Harriet, rough old stuff like they used to do when they were much younger, rolling around on the floor, handstands, headstands, showing off for him, look how spontaneous and wonderful and playful I am. She didn’t bother to introduce him so we introduced ourselves and asked his name and tried to make conversation, working our way through the Indian sweets while the baby slept in her pram.

‘Here,’ I said, ‘these are lovely. Quick before they all go.’

Smiling, he dragged his eyes off Lily and shook his head.

‘So,’ I said, ‘are you in the play?’

‘I play Alan.’

‘Oh. That’s a big part, isn’t it?’

‘Well… quite big.’

His voice was clear and low and extremely posh. It sounded weird in our house.

‘Can we come and see it?’ asked Eve.

‘No!’ said Lily.

‘Huh,’ I said, ‘hark at her. All we have to do is buy tickets, Lily.’

‘I can’t do it if you lot are sitting there looking at me.’

‘Bloody hell, you’ll have to get over that.’

The front door downstairs banged closed; Johnny’s familiar tread was on the stairs, the way he rushed up the last flight.

‘Oh fuck fuck fuck,’ said Lily.

‘Lily!’

The boy giggled soundlessly. He had the face and demeanour of a twelve year old.

The key turned in the lock. Johnny came in smiling with his hair in a mess as if he’d just shoved his fingers through it and left it sticking up. His eyes went straight to the newcomer.

‘This is Mark,’ I said, ‘he’s a friend of Lily’s. From Drama.’

‘Daddy,’ said Harriet.

Mark stood up. ‘Very pleased to meet you,’ he said, holding out his hand. Johnny glanced down, surprised, then took and shook it too vigorously, a big smile on his face. The boy looked subtly unnerved.

‘Grab one of these before they’re all gone,’ I said, pushing the round milky sweets in Johnny’s direction. He stuffed his face, one, two three, one after the other. Something about Mark seemed to amuse him tremendously and not in a good way.

‘Acting, eh?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Mark, and Johnny stifled a splutter.

The two of them sat down, Johnny still grinning manically. Harriet leaned against Johnny’s knee. Lily stood behind his chair. There were two sweets left. ‘Want one?’ He slid the plate towards Mark.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes, thank you, I’m sure.’ Both of them blushers, Terry and him.

‘Tea?’

‘I’ve still got some. Thank you.’

‘So sorry,’ Johnny said with that awful smile, speaking like an old Pathé newsreader or a member of the aristocracy, ‘I’m afraid we’ve completely run out of cucumber sandwiches.’

There was one horrible moment.

‘My God,’ the poor boy said, looking over Johnny’s head at Lily, ‘is my accent that bad?’

She grabbed Johnny’s head by the curls on either side and shook it backwards and forwards as if she wanted to pull it off. It made him laugh more. ‘You bastard!’

‘Ow!’

She stood back then whacked the back of his skull with the flat of her palm.

‘Fuck’s sake, Lily,’ he said.

She ran round the table, grabbed Mark by the arm and hauled him up as if he was a child. ‘We’re going,’ she said, dragging him after her to the door.

‘See you later, Lily!’ called Johnny with laughter in his voice.

Slam.

‘Oh God, that was awful,’ I said, ‘that was really embarrassing.’

‘Oh come on.’ He laughed. ‘I was only mucking about.’

‘That was really rude,’ said Eve.

‘So is she two-timing them?’ he asked.

‘I have no idea.’

‘That Drama lot,’ he said, ‘load of toffee-nosed twats, from what I can see.’

‘Don’t be such a meanie.’

‘What awful middle-class farce have they got them on now?’

‘Time and the Conways.’

‘It’s just the airs they give themselves,’ he said. ‘It’s not proper acting, is it?’

‘Oh, shut up.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Well, I think it’s a good thing for her to do,’ I said.

‘Yeah. What you moaning about?’ The baby was mewling and Eve started getting her things together.

‘Well, here’s a to-do,’ said Johnny, pulling Harriet up to sit on his knee. ‘Our Lily’s got herself a nob.’

*

Next time we saw the Hatchet lot Johnny said, ‘You ought to see this creep Lily’s going round with. Young Lochinvar. You ought to hear him,’ and he went off into his best haw haw haw splutter splutter upper-class-twit-of-the-year voice. He was good at it.

Everyone laughed.

‘He does this,’ I said, ‘it’s not funny. Takes the piss out of the poor boy to his face. It’s embarrassing.’

‘Oh come on,’ he said. ‘No one has to talk like that.’

Everyone was laughing.

I was laughing.

‘He can’t help his posh voice,’ I said, ‘you don’t choose your parents.’

‘Some say you do,’ said Shiv.

I don’t know what got into me that night. Everything started getting on my nerves. I lay on my back on the floor taking no part in any of it but listening to the conversation, which I’d heard several times before.

‘We live in a terrible world.’ Maurice’s noble, serious face moved slowly from side to side as he idly kicked against the floor