When they eventually twigged where the voice was coming from, she continued: ‘Stay there, please. I need to speak to you urgently. Well, my father does. He’s a police inspector. We’ve recently moved to the village and he’s very unhappy about what happened to Elliot yesterday. You two will be in big trouble if he catches up with you.’
Soon, as Elliot looked on in utter bewilderment, she was asking which of them was the faster runner. Johnny said it was Carl and his friend nodded in agreement.
‘Right. How about this, then?’ she said. ‘I’ll race Carl across the field and back and, if he wins, I’ll let you off the hook. It was me who told my dad it was you. Elliot didn’t say anything, not wanting to be a grass. That means I could easily change my mind. I could tell my father I’ve made a mistake, simple as that. And do you know what? I’m still prepared to do so even if I win. But then it’ll be on the condition that you both apologise to my good friend Elliot, return his stuff today and promise to leave him alone from now on.’
They took the deal. Elliot didn’t have a clue what Lisa was up to. However, she’d done such a good job of pulling the wool over the boys’ eyes so far, using her hypnotic status as the attractive new girl to maximum advantage, that he had no intention of interfering.
It turned out she was one heck of a fast runner. She easily beat Carl in the race and, after he and Johnny gave Elliot a reluctant apology, to his surprise that evening they also returned his clothes and shoes. No such luck with his glasses, but they’d been so badly damaged, there wouldn’t have been any point in getting them back. Plus that was down to Peter, rather than them, which was a fight for another day.
Saturday, 21 July 2018
Mike came round gradually. For a moment or two there was a blissful nothing. No dreams, no reality, no real thoughts. Just a calm feeling of being half-asleep, half-awake; comfortable in his own bed. Then reality started to trickle in. It began with a dull pain in his head and a vague sickness in his stomach. Next he realised he was on top of the quilt rather than underneath it, which was unusual. Plus he was wearing a shirt, despite usually sleeping in just boxer shorts. And how come he could smell wine?
He opened his eyes and looked down to see, as feared, that he was still wearing the shirt Lisa had thrown red wine all over in the restaurant. Shit. The uncomfortable scene replayed in his mind. He remembered feeling shocked, embarrassed, furious as she left him there alone – all the staff and other diners watching him, like he was in a freak show. Had he really shouted out loud for everyone to stop bloody staring? Things got sketchy from that point. He hadn’t stayed in the restaurant for long afterwards, he didn’t think. He had vague memories of being in a couple of other bars, talking to whoever would listen. Did one of them have pole dancers or was that a dream? And how had he got home? He had no memory at all of making that journey or of getting into bed.
Mike looked over at Lisa, who was lying in a foetal position under the quilt, facing away from him on the far side of the bed. At least she was there. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Hopefully that meant he hadn’t said or done anything too stupid last night. Because God, he’d been furious at her.
Now, with the alcohol no longer raging through his veins, he felt stupid more than angry. He’d been a drunken pig. He could even understand why Lisa had done what she did. What a disaster of an evening. Not exactly the romantic night out he’d planned. He’d got carried away on the booze, as usual, and … oh no.
Mike leapt up from the bed and ran to the toilet to be sick. After he was done, his throat sore and dry, he washed his face in the sink and swilled his mouth out with some water before taking a drink. He could see in the mirror that his shirt was ruined. It looked like it had been soaked in blood. He considered shoving it in the dustbin, but since it had been a gift from Lisa, he dropped it into the washing basket instead. Better to let her make the decision to throw it away.
‘Lisa?’ he whispered, returning to the bedroom.
There was no answer, so he slipped on his dressing gown and tiptoed out of there, gently closing the door behind him. Leaving Lisa to sleep was a good idea, especially if he wanted things between them to be okay again any time soon.
Mike was surprised to find two used tumblers resting in the kitchen sink. They both smelled of Baileys, which turned his stomach in its current state. Had he and Lisa had a drink together when he’d got back? He racked his brains, but there was nothing there.
After swallowing a couple of painkillers to ease the thumping headache that had developed since he rose, Mike headed to the lounge and sprawled on the couch. He felt horrendous. And once he was horizontal, he couldn’t even muster the energy to get back up to turn on the TV. This was why he preferred to leave devices in standby, so you could turn them on with the remote, but Lisa was far too energy conscious for that. And these days, thanks to him no longer having a job, it was also a matter of saving money, so it wasn’t even like he could argue against it.
As awful as Mike felt, he didn’t think he’d be able to fall back to sleep. He was wrong.
‘What am I going to do with you, Liam?’
The boy continued to stare out of the window, as if he was alone in the room and hadn’t been asked a question. So Mike walked over to it and shut the blinds; cut off the view of the school playground.
‘I asked you a question, Liam. It’s polite to answer.’
‘Go screw yourself.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard.’
Mike could feel himself getting riled by this boy again. He’d been sent to his office countless times before. The head was currently away at a conference, so there was no passing him along on this occasion. As the primary school’s deputy head teacher, the buck stopped with him today.
Liam Hornby was easily the school’s most troublesome pupil. He was in Year Six now, which at least meant he’d no longer be their problem by the end of the school year. But it was only October, which meant months more of this nonsense ahead. He’d joined the school halfway through Year Five, after his parents had moved to the area, and he’d been a pain in the neck from the word go. But despite numerous incidents with other pupils and staff members in that time, he’d never quite done enough to allow them to get rid of him, like he knew just how far he could push the boundaries.
Liam’s parents were much the same. When contacted, one or both of them would come into school eventually; often after cancelling a couple of times first. Then they’d be apologetic, pledging to take their son to task, but Mike could tell it was an act. Behind the facade, they didn’t care. You developed an intuition for these things after years of teaching. They said and did what was required to keep Liam at school. They knew exactly how disruptive their son was but did nothing about it. Why? No clue. They seemed normal enough. They lived in one of the nicer parts of the catchment area and both had jobs. Some people didn’t deserve to have kids. Had they taught him the foul language, Mike wondered, or was it something he’d picked up from being allowed to watch the wrong things on TV?
‘Language like that is unacceptable, Liam. I won’t tolerate it.’ Mike tried to maintain a poker face; to hide his shock at what the kid had just said to him.
