Taking Flight

Chapter 1

DECLAN

First the crack of bone, then the gush of blood. I never knew blood came out that fast. I flex my fingers. ‘That’s the last time you call my ma a slag, McCann.’

Emmet McCann doesn’t say anything, just stands there in the playground with his hands up to his nose and blood spurting through his fingers. The knot of boys and a few girls who two minutes earlier had been egging us on with, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ now mutter, ‘Payne’s coming!’ and melt away. Seaneen Brogan is last to leave. ‘Good on you, Declan,’ she says.

Payne looms up and Seaneen scrams.

‘Fighting again, boys?’

Emmet mumbles and splutters and points at me but he can’t talk.

‘Sir, he started it. He called – well, he was saying stuff.’

‘Saying stuff.’ Payne sighs and gives me his usual you’re-a-piece-of-dog-turd look. ‘Your articulacy never fails to astound me, Kelly.’

I rub my fist on my school trousers.

‘McCann – school nurse; Kelly – my office. Now.’

He can’t drag us – they’re not allowed to touch you – but he marches between us back to the main building. ‘Another phone call home,’ he says in a bored voice as if he has better things to do.

Emmet turns to me before he goes into the nurse’s room. ‘My da’ll get you for this, Kelly.’

‘Oh, I’m so scared.’

‘Enough!’ roars Payne. ‘In here, Kelly.’

Mr C. Payne, Deputy Head (discipline) makes me stand while he lets on to be doing something dead important at the computer on his desk. He’s probably playing solitaire or looking up porn. It’s just one of his techniques, making you wait. Making you sweat. I am sweating, but only because I’ve just been fighting and maybe a bit because I’m thinking about Barry the Bastard McCann and what he might do when his precious wee Emmet tells him Declan Kelly broke his nose. Cause I’m pretty sure it is broken. I can’t help smiling at the memory of that sickening, satisfying c-r-a-c-k!

‘Take the smirk off your face, Kelly.’ Payne stops looking up porn and reaches for the phone on his desk. ‘Didn’t have the pleasure of seeing your mother at last week’s Year Twelve parents’ evening, did I?

‘No.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Sir.’

She never comes up to the school. Or anywhere else these days. At first I thought it was better than having her hang round Barry’s flat all the time, sometimes for days, but now I’m pissed off with it. Every day, sitting in front of the TV, sometimes still in her jammies at tea time. I imagine the phone ringing in the living-room. She won’t answer. I glance at the clock on the wall. Five to two. She might not even be up yet.

When Barry first dumped her, she used to leap on the phone every time it rang, but it was never him.

Payne puts down the receiver and gives me a dirty look. ‘Does your mother work, Kelly?’

‘No …’ I leave it as long as I dare. ‘… sir.’

‘This is not the first time you have assaulted a fellow pupil, Kelly.’

Assaulted. Payne is so far up his own arse. ‘Sir, he called my ma a slag.’

Payne winces, like I just dirtied his precious office. ‘Kelly, it is not helpful to bring these’ – he sniffs – ‘domestic issues into school. Now, I have been familiarising myself with your record. Not terribly impressive, is it?’

I shrug. ‘Dunno, sir.’

He raises grey eyebrows behind gimpy specs. ‘Oh, let me assure you, Kelly. Very unimpressive indeed. Poor work; anger issues. Then, of course,’ he sneers, ‘let us not forget last year’s little … eh, holiday.’

They always bring it back to that. It wasn’t a holiday and it was nothing to do with school. But there’s no point saying anything.

Payne’s starting to sound bored. ‘You know the punishment for fighting as well as I do, Kelly.’

Should do by now, he means.

‘Suspension, sir.’

‘And reintegration only following parental interview,’ he snaps.

Whatever.

Payne taps a few keys and the printer whirrs and hums. He must have a letter on file and just changes the names – there’s fights all the time at our school. He makes a big deal out of sealing the envelope and thumping down on it just to make sure. ‘Take this home to your mother now. You are suspended pending parental interview.’

I stuff the envelope in my blazer pocket. At least I’ll get out of the Friday afternoon boredom – Personal Development with Mr Dermott (bearable) and English with Psycho Sykes (not).

The corridors are quiet, just a few after-lunch crisp packets and chip papers drifting in corners.

‘Oi, Declan!’ It’s Seaneen Brogan again, heading out of the photocopying room with a pile of papers that look like very like Mr Dermott’s PD worksheets. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Home. Suspended.’

‘God, Declan, you’re an eejit.’

‘Thanks.’

She clutches the pages tighter to her chest. She has massive tits. ‘You know Emmet McCann’s da’ll be after you for this?’

‘So?’

‘So he’s a psycho. Seriously, Declan – watch your back.’

‘Go on back and suck up to Dermie. He must be missing you by now.’ I lift the top worksheet. ‘What am I missing? Assertive, not aggressive. Christ. God love him, he tries, doesn’t he?’

‘He’d need to. See ya, Declan.’ She wiggles down the corridor, arse and curly pony-tail bouncing.

‘See ya.’

I sling my bag over my shoulder and head through the main doors. The shiny silver Jeep – BAZ 67 – crouched outside makes my stomach nosedive and I press myself back into the doorway until it’s gone. Barry must be taking Emmet to casualty. I make sure the Jeep’s well away before I carry on, head down against the rain.

I’m dead.

When I get to the top of our street I do my automatic check to see if the curtains are open. No. Shit.

She’s staring at the TV – some daytime crap; she’d watch anything. When I flick on the light she jumps. ‘What are you doing here at this time?’

I fire the letter at her. ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I say while she rips it open. ‘I just got the blame as usual.’

She explodes of course. I zone out. Heard it all before. Can’t cope; you’re out of control; can’t hold my head up in the street after the last time …

Sure she’s never in the bloody street.

‘And I’m going up to no school,’ she finishes. She ties her dressing gown belt tighter, like she’s getting ready for battle. There’s a tea stain down the front of it. ‘I’m not having them tell me I’m a bad mother.’

‘You’re not a bad mother.’ I sit down beside her and try to slip a fag from the packet in her dressing gown pocket, sort of joking, but she slaps my hand away, hard. I catch the greasy stink of her hair.

‘Don’t you try and get round me. I’ve had as much as I can take.’

‘Mum, you’re overreacting.’

‘And don’t you dare patronise me! You sound like our Colette.’

The phone rings. She hesitates, then picks it up. From the look on her face I think I’d be as well to hide out in the kitchen. Maybe even make her a cup of tea.

But when she slams into the kitchen five minutes later she goes straight for the vodka cupboard.

‘Mum, it’s only three o’clock …’

She swings round. The glass trembles in her hand. ‘You never told me who it was!’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Course it matters!’ She slams the glass down on the fridge then reaches for it again. ‘How d’you think I felt? That snobby get saying they wanted to keep domestic issues out of school. He knew all my bloody business.’ Her voice shakes.

No he didn’t. And neither do you. You don’t know what Emmet said about you. Drunken slag – and me denying it! You’re a crap mother. I hate you. I wish you were dead.

I think these things. I don’t say them.

‘So how long am I suspended for?’

‘You have to write an apology letter to Emmet and take it with you on Tuesday.’

I laugh. ‘Well, they can piss off. I’m not writing it.’

She shakes her cigarette at me. A lovely whiff of ash. ‘You’ll bloody write it.’

‘Make me.’

She hits me. Across the face. Not hard but her rings catch my cheekbone.

So I do say the things.

All of them.

Out in the street it’s still raining and I’ve run out without my coat so I don’t think I’ll be hanging round too long. Just enough to let her calm down. I reckon I’ve got a couple of hours while Barry and Emmet are safe in casualty. Christ, it’s boring though, walking round in the rain. No one’s about. I head up onto the main road, past the chippie, the chapel where Gran used to go, the bookies, the waste ground where we burned that car out – yeah, it was stupid, far too close to home. I’d know better now. Maybe not the best place to hang round now. I’d better head on back. She could be sorry by this time – she might even let me go for chips.

The silver Jeep is parked outside our house.

I can’t go in. But I have to.

As always his belly is the first thing I notice. His T-shirt stretches across it like a blown-up balloon. My mum had sex with this man.

‘Och, Barry,’ she goes, ‘it’s just boys being boys. Sure, you used to fight the bit out when you were that age.’

‘Never mind boys will be boys.’ He jabs a fat finger at me. ‘That wee toerag broke our Emmet’s nose. And they can’t even set it till Monday, it’s so swollen. Four hours sitting in casualty!’

You can’t have been, it’s not even five o’clock, I think, and if it was anyone else I’d say it.

‘He started it,’ I say instead. I hate the way my guts have curdled. I hate the way my voice just came out, higher than I planned.

‘If I have to take him private’ – he swaggers a bit at ‘private’ – ‘you can pay for it.’

‘Och, Barry, come on now. Let them sort it out between them; they’re only kids.’

‘Oh aye, don’t you worry. Our Emmet’ll sort him out as soon as he’s fit. And he’s got plenty of mates.’

I want to think, you are pathetic. A forty-year-old man threatening a fifteen-year-old boy cause he gave your son a bit of a thump. But I can’t. His voice, the way he slaps his keys against his thigh, the smell of his aftershave, all make me shrivel.

‘Barry, would you not stay for a wee drink? For old times?’ Mum is sucking round him so hard I could scream.

‘I think you’ve had enough already, love.’ The way he says ‘love’ turns it into an insult. He looks round the room and I can see his piggy eyes snapping up the closed curtains, the overflowing ashtray, a couple of days’ worth of dirty plates. ‘Let things go a bit, haven’t you?’

Mum’s hand flies up to smooth her hair, and she moistens her lips – God, it’s sad to watch her – but there’s nothing she can do about the grubby dressing gown.

‘Let yourself go, too. No, I’ll not be staying.’

As soon as he’s gone she starts to cry: ugly, snottery sobs making her face hideous. She blunders into the kitchen to pour another glass and I follow her.

‘Yeah, Mum, that’ll really help. If Gran –’

‘The less you say about your gran the better!’

I head up to my room. Stupid cow. Let her drink herself into a stupor if that’s what she wants. I put on some music and lie on my bed and wonder how I’m going to keep away from Barry and Emmet. My fist still throbs when I remember it smashing into Emmet’s face. Was it worth it? I thought so at the time but now … Nobody messes with the McCanns.

The CD finishes and I can’t be bothered to get up and change it. The room goes darker and darker round me till I can only make out shapes. All the stuff on top of the wardrobe morphs into humps and shadows. How will I stand a weekend of this and then a long, empty Monday?

I wake up to hear Mum crashing around. Doors creaking. Shouting. Tomorrow she’ll be as sick as a dog, spend half the day in the bog and yell at me for breathing. And then that’ll be her off the drink for ever – till next time. I just hope she makes it up to bed. Once, I had to step over her, passed out on the stairs, and there was puke all down the wall. If Gran was alive … But that’s a bad thought for the middle of the night, so I stop it right there.

Later I wake up again and hear snoring. It annoys me so much that I get up and close her bedroom door and mine.

When I wake up the third time the sun’s shining through the curtains and the house is quiet. I go to switch the light on but nothing happens – that means the electric’s run out. If she’s still out of it I’ll have to get the card and some money out of her purse and top it up at the shop. And I’m starving. So while I’m at it I’ll go to the chippie.

No sign of life in the living-room. I open the curtains to let a bit of light in. There’s ash spilled on the floor and an envelope of photos on the sofa. I pull some of them out. Mum and Colette and my dad laughing outside the chippie. Around my age. I remember Gran showing me these one time. ‘Was my dad nice?’ I asked her, and she said he was, he was lovely. I wonder why Mum was looking at them. I put them back on the sofa and rifle through her purse for the money and the electric card.

There’s a new bit of graffiti on the wall of the community centre. SUICIDE KILLS. Ha ha. Fat Frankie’s is empty and I shovel the fry into me like I haven’t eaten for twenty-four hours. Then I realise I haven’t. I never got any tea last night and I spent lunchtime breaking Emmet’s nose. I’m so full after that I walk up the main road for ages. It feels safer there, but I can’t keep away for ever.

A couple of guys from my class are hanging round outside the Spar – Kevin Walsh and Chris Reilly. I just go ‘alright’ to them and push past. Most of my class are well in with Emmet McCann. I get a two litre bottle of Coke. She goes mad for Coke when she’s been on the drink.

Getting close to home, the plastic bag handles cutting into my hands, I do my automatic curtain check. Open. Yay. Then I remember I opened them before I left.

I race down the street, fish my key out. It doesn’t matter – I wouldn’t expect her to be up yet, after a night on the drink. I just have a feeling.

I pause outside her bedroom door. Nothing. I remember the snuffling snores of last night. But now – silence. I push the door open. She’s lying on the bed, half-slumped over the side. Her face is a bluey colour and when I touch it the skin’s cold.

I hit her.

Nothing.

Shout at her.

Nothing.

Something takes over and throws me back down the stairs, shoves the phone into my hand and finds the 999 buttons. I’m outside watching myself. I see my fingers shake. My voice sounds scrambled but I must make some kind of sense because the voice at the other end says an ambulance is on its way. It asks me if I know how to put her into the recovery position. I keep saying it’s too late and the voice says stay calm, it’ll be with you in a few minutes. ‘Stay with her,’ it says.

But I can’t go back in there.

I make it as far as the landing. Stand outside the door. Why didn’t I go in last night? I just closed the door to shut her up. I squeeze my eyes shut but the image of that room the way I just saw it is scratched onto my eyelids. The rumpled bed. Mum’s face hanging, collapsed. And something else, something weird – what was it? The bottle of tablets on the bedside cabinet. Jesus!

Sickness floods me. Bathroom. White tiles. Hands grip something cold and hard. I’m still spitting up bits of sausage when I hear the loud rap at the door.

Chapter 2

VICKY

‘D’you miss me at weekends?’ I asked while Mum was cutting my sandwiches.

She paused, mid-chop. ‘Sort of. Well, yes. But I know you’re happy with Dad and Fiona.’

‘And Flight.’ I didn’t mention Molly. ‘Can I take some of those apples for him, Mum?’

‘They’re Pink Ladies – far too good for a horse! There’s a bag of carrots in the fridge.’

‘Nothing’s too good for Flight!’ But I rooted in the fridge. It was a huge bag. Mum was pretty nervous around Flight but she didn’t mind buying him stuff. ‘Oh Mum, I can’t believe I got asked to be on the senior team!’

‘And you’re sure you’re ready for it?’ She looked anxious – horses had that effect on her.

A little worm wriggled in my stomach while I shoved the bag into the rucksack I always took to Dad’s. ‘Well, he’s a showjumper. He’s bound to be a bit more – well, complicated, than a pony. But Cam thinks I can do it.’ And that feeling of not bonding with Flight – maybe I was imagining it.

‘Well, she should know, darling. And Flight’s a very good horse. He’d need –’

‘I know, he’d need to be, the amount Dad paid for him! So you’ve said about a million times.’

She laughed and set my lunchbox on the table. ‘Hurry up, love. It’s past eight and you haven’t dried your hair yet.’ She ran her fingers through her own short, dark hair.

‘Can I use your straighteners? We’re going to the Rowan Tree for Fiona’s birthday tonight, and it is so posh.’ I didn’t tell her my main reason for wanting to look my best – that Rory from three doors down had a part-time job there.

‘Go on then.’ Her voice was a tiny bit tight. Maybe she minded me talking about Fiona’s birthday. Fiona was thirty, a barrister, though she was on maternity leave now.

I squeezed Mum’s waist on the way past. I’d been taller than her for ages.

‘Hurry up if you want a lift!’ she called after me.

Swinging out of the driveway we saw Rory out for his run. He stepped back onto the pavement to let us pass and waved.

‘He likes you,’ Mum said.

‘Mu-um! He’ll hear.’ I felt my cheeks catch fire and hoped Rory hadn’t noticed.

As I waved goodbye to Mum outside school I thought she looked sort of small in her blue Golf. I wondered if she really didn’t mind me being away all weekend. Fliss kept saying she couldn’t understand why Mum didn’t have a boyfriend yet – after all, she and Dad split up five years ago – but she only thought that because her mum had a new guy, on average, every six months. My mum wasn’t like that. Thankfully. Because that was about the worst thing I could think of. I swung my rucksack and pushed my cuddly Tigger down out of sight. With luck Fliss and Becca would be at the lockers already and we could get a good gossip before tutor group.

They were both there, leaning against our special bit of wall, talking about going into town the next day. Becca looked tired; she’d probably stayed up to revise for our French test. Her mum gave her a hard time if she didn’t get straight As.

‘You up for it, Vic?’ asked Fliss, blotting her lip-gloss with a tissue to get it to just the right level of naturalness to keep Mad Max off her back.

‘Sorry. Got to practise jumping.’

‘You’re always doing that!’ Becca complained. ‘You’re never around.’

‘I am!’ I protested. ‘But you know I’m on the senior school team – the first show’s next week!’

‘What’ve horses got to offer that your best friends don’t?’ Fliss started on her eyeliner. It was green, the same as her eyes.

‘Oh, try fun, excitement, glamour, the odd gorgeous boy rider in skin-tight jodhpurs. Not much, really.’

‘Oh, when you put it like that!’

‘Seriously, though. You two should come and watch me next week.’ I tried to keep out of my voice just how much I would love them to. They looked at each other and then at me, with identical ‘no way’ expressions.

The bell for tutor group made us all groan and shuffle our stuff together. I shoved my rucksack into my locker and had to slam the door to get it closed.

Dad’s silver Merc was waiting at the gates at 3.30 p.m. I called goodbye to Fliss and Becca, swung my bags into the back seat and myself into the front.

‘Hi Dad!’ I hugged him as best I could in the car.

‘Hello, darling. Good week?’

I’d talked to him most days on the phone but this was part of our Friday ritual, part of sliding back into being Dad’s daughter instead of Mum’s. Or as well as.

‘OK. Bashed my leg at hockey today. Otherwise, pretty good. I got 48 out of 50 for my English oral work – I had to do a speech. I did foxhunting. That’s an A star,’ I added, in case he didn’t realise how good it was.

‘Good girl! That’s the old legal brain. You must get that from me.’

‘Maybe.’ I could have said ‘Mum did law, too,’ but unlike Dad, she had only studied it for less than a year. Dropped out of university, pregnant with me, before her first year exams, after being the first person in her family to go to university – first in her whole street, probably, I thought, thinking about the horrible estate where Mum came from. I never used to think it was horrible but that was when Gran was there. And now Mum worked in a library.

‘I can’t wait to jump Flight tomorrow.’

Dad’s eyebrows crinkled in puzzlement. ‘But darling, I thought you knew?’

‘What?’ My stomach turned to water. ‘Oh, my God, what’s happened?’

‘Calm down! He’s absolutely fine. But he and Joy got their flu jabs yesterday. And you know that means no riding for a few days. I thought Fi told you.’

Tears of disappointment sprang to the backs of my eyes. ‘But they weren’t due for a couple of weeks!’

The road crawled past and Dad beeped at a cyclist with a death wish. ‘I know, darling. But the vet was at the yard to see another horse and Fiona thought it was a good chance to save on the callout fee. You know he charges a fortune.’

‘But that’s not fair! It’s OK for Fiona; she never rides Joy these days, but what about me?’

‘Well, I suppose Fiona forgot about the show. There’s always next week.’

Next week! Next week was the show! How was I ever going to be ready?

* * *

‘Champagne?’

I glanced up into Rory’s gorgeous blue eyes and smiled. ‘Lovely, thanks.’ To my amazement my voice came out sounding normal. When he bent over me I caught a wave of coconut shampoo. He turned to fill Dad’s glass and I saw his tight black waiters’ trousers and nearly fainted into my salmon. He played rugby for the boys’ grammar school and it showed.

I touched the sleeve of my new white top. Fiona had bought me it for no reason, ‘because I thought