Unspeakable Read Free Page A

‘Bloody scallywags,’ he spits.
    I try to muster a scathing retort.
Don’t be stupid.
    I bite back a gasp. As he passes, Mr Wexford glowers at me. Then, with a whiff of TCP, he’s gone.
    I stomp down Scrater’s, glaring at the dirt-coloured garages and the burnt-out husk of a car outside Number 5. Why the hell don’t they move it? Or mow their lawn, for that matter?
    Mr Wexford is right. Scrater’s clings to the edge of Brookby like a slug on an orchid. A lot of villagers wish that the whole street could be scooped up and dumped in some grotty city. Then Brookby would actually be in with a chance of winning that stupid ‘Village of the Year’ award they’re all so obsessed with.
    Do they think we chose to live here? Did they imagine that people looked around loads of houses, weighed up their options and said, ‘Yes, I’ll take the one with the back door that’s been kicked in and the neighbours who chuck cigarette stubs over the fence, just next to the phone box that’s been smashed to pieces’? Idiots.
    As soon as I get home, I prise off my shoes and peel the socks from my feet. I set the shoes in their correct place on the floor, aligning them at a right angle to the scuff mark on the wall.
    I head to the kitchen in search of food, but the fridge offers nothing more than a sour, gone-off-milk smell and a couple of shrivelled carrots, and the only thing in the cupboards is a packet of dried cheese sauce that’s three months out of date.
    Last night’s washing-up festers in the sink, the plates encrusted with dried tomato sauce. Double rank , Hana would say. She never made me feel embarrassed, though. She’d just laugh, grab a sponge, and help me to clean up.
    I can’t cope with this. I have to sort it out now. I let the water run until it’s steaming, then squirt a load of washing-up liquid in the bowl. I reach for the rubber gloves, then pause, a gentle smile on my face. Gran taught me to always wear rubber gloves. She said you could tell a lot about someone from their hands. Hers were wrinkled and gnarled with arthritis, but they were so, so soft. She’d taken care of them all her life. I loved the way her skin folded around her wedding ring, as if it had become a natural part of her body.
    I practically grew up at Gran and Grandpa’s. They looked after me while Mum was at work. They did everything they could to fill the gap left by Dad, who buggered off three months after Mum found out she was pregnant. They didn’t speak to him after that. They were ashamed to call him their son.
    I close my eyes. I can almost smell the sweet scent of Grandpa’s baking brownies. In an instant, I’m back in their house, sitting at the kitchen table. Grandpa’s wearing a pink, floral apron. I know he’s done it just to make me laugh. It never fails.
    ‘Here you go, chicken,’ he says, setting a hot tray down in front of me and ruffling my hair. ‘Don’t burn yourself.’
    I grab a spoon, poking it through the crust to the wonderfully gooey bit beneath.
    I blink and I’m back in our own miserable kitchen, staring at the pile of dirty dishes. I leave them to soak. I align all the mugs in the cupboard so the handles face right, then I tidy up the sprawling mess of Mum’s bills and letters. I sit on the sofa and run my fingers through the tassel on the cushion, then I trace the familiar whirls and flounces of the pattern on the fabric.
    I need to get out.
    I rush upstairs to change. Then I open my top drawer and pull out Grandpa’s camera. It’s in a special, velvet-lined case. A Canon EOS 5 with a 100–300mm zoom lens. It’s one of the old ones you put film in. Grandpa didn’t upgrade to digital. He said his favourite part of photography was the suspense, the uncertainty, as he waited for his ‘snaps’ to be developed.
    I leap down the stairs and get my old bike from the utility room. Outside, I pedal furiously until I reach the cattle grid at the top of the street, where I gently bump over the ridges.