Martyn Pig Read Free Page A

bus pulled in, the doors pished open and Alex stepped on. ‘About ten?’ she called out over her shoulder.
    â€˜OK.’
    I watched her pay. I watched the bus driver click buttons on his ticket machine and I watched the bus ticket snicker out. I watched the way her eyes blinked slowly and I watched her mouth say
Thank you
and I watched the coal-black shine of her hair as she took the bus ticket and rolled it into a tube and stuck it in the corner of her mouth. I watched her hitch up the collar of her combat jacket and I saw the bright white flash of her T-shirt beneath the open folds of her jacket as she strolled gracefully to the back of the bus. And I watched and waited in vain for her to turn her head as the bus lurched out into the street, juddered up the road and disappeared around the corner.
    She never looked back.
    I first met Alex about two years ago when she and her mum moved into a rented house just down the road from us. I remember watching from my bedroom window as they unloaded all their stuff from a removal van, and I remember thinking to myself how nice she looked. Nice. She looked nice. Pretty. Kind of scruffy, with straggly black hair sticking out from a shapeless black hat. She wore battered old jeans and a long red jumper. I liked the way she walked, too. An easy lope.
    What if ... I’d thought to myself. What if I went over and said hello? Hello, I’m Martyn, welcome to the street. Something like that. I could do that, couldn’t I? It wouldn’t be too hard. Hi! My name’s Martyn, how’s it going ...
    Don’t be ridiculous. Not in a million years.
    She was fifteen then, and I was fourteen. Nearly fourteen, anyway. All right, I was thirteen. She was a young woman, I was just a gawky-looking kid.
    It was a ridiculous idea.
    So I just watched from the window. I watched her as she climbed up into the back of the van. I watched her as she lugged the stuff out and passed it to her mum. I watched her jump down from the van and slap the dust from her jeans. I watched her as she bounced up the path carrying a big green vase in both hands, and I watched as she stumbled over a loose paving stone and the vase went flying into the air and landed on the doorstep with a big hollow smash. Now she’s going to get it, I thought. But when her mum came out they just stared at each other for a second, looked down at the shards of green glass strewn all over the place, and then started laughing. Just stood there giggling and hooting like a couple of mad people. I couldn’t believe it. If that was me, Dad would have screamed blue murder and thumped me on the back of the head.
    When they eventually stopped laughing Alex’s mum started clearing up the broken glass, carefully picking up the big bits and putting them into a box. She was quite tall, for a woman. Sort of dumpy, too. Medium-tall and dumpy, if that makes any sense. Her hair was black, like Alex’s, but short. And her face was sort of grey and tired-looking, like her skin needed watering. She wore faded dungarees and a black T-shirt, long beady earrings, and bracelets on her wrists. As she hefted the box of broken glass and turned to go back into the house she glanced up in my direction. I looked away. When she came back out, carrying a dustpan and brush, she sneaked another look up at my window, then stooped down and started to sweep up the rest of the broken vase. She must have said something because, just as I was about to disappear from the window, Alex turned and flashed a big grin at me and waved.
    â€˜Hey!’
    I gave an embarrassed half-wave.
    â€˜Are you busy?’ she shouted.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Are you busy?’ she repeated. ‘Come and give us a hand if you’re not.’
    I stuck my thumb up and immediately regretted it. Dumb thing to do.
    Forget it.
    I quickly changed into a clean T-shirt then tiptoed down the stairs so as not to wake Dad, who was sleeping off his lunch in the