Strangers

4

The morning arrived too soon. ‘Stop treating me like a little kid,’ Tammy complained as they drove up the high street towards school.

‘I’m not,’ Scott said. ‘I’m just checking you’ve got everything, that’s all.’

‘It’s not like we’ve never been to school before,’ Phoebe grumbled from the back. ‘Just not this school.’

‘Can’t you just drop us here?’ Tammy asked. ‘We’ll follow the other kids.’

‘I told your mum I’d take you all the way to the gates, so that’s what I’m going to do.’

‘Jesus, don’t. Just stop on the other side of the road or something. Don’t take us right up to the gates.’

She looked across and he caught her eye. He’s actually enjoying this. He stopped just short of the entrance to the school in the worst possible place. Hordes of kids swarmed past on either side. Tammy got out fast and slammed the door. Phoebe scrambled out after her, running to catch up. Tammy froze when she heard the car horn. Phoebe started to turn back, but Tammy grabbed her quick. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘He’s just winding us up.’

‘Have a good first day, girls,’ they heard him shout. ‘Stay safe and be good!’

‘He’s such a prick,’ Tammy said, her face red with anger and embarrassment.

They followed the signs for Reception, sticking close to each other as they walked towards the main building, trying to avoid all eye contact. It was a walk of shame, everyone else stopping and looking at them, staring at them.

‘It’s like that horrible TV programme Dad used to watch, remember?’ Phoebe whispered.

‘Which one?’

‘The one with the local shop for local people. You remember? The freak behind the counter who was married to his sister, and they were all played by the same blokes.’

‘I remember. League of Gentlemen. Didn’t like it.’

She was right though. Walking through the crowds this morning, Tammy felt like a social outcast. The kids seemed to part when they got close, like they didn’t want to touch them. The feeling was mutual.

‘There’s that boy,’ Phoebe said.

‘What boy?’

‘From outside the shop yesterday. Jamie, wasn’t it?’

Tammy looked up but looked down again the moment she made eye contact. Boy was definitely the right word. He’d looked quite mature when they’d seen him yesterday, but standing there in his school uniform, he looked like just another kid playing at being a man. She kept her head down, but Jamie had other ideas, making a beeline for her. ‘Hello again,’ he said. Tammy ignored him. She didn’t want to get overfamiliar with any of these kids. In fact, she didn’t want to get familiar at all.

‘Which way’s Reception?’ she asked, no time for small-talk.

‘You’ve missed it.’

‘Which way?’

‘Go back the way you just came. First left.’

Tammy turned around and pulled Phoebe back through the heaving crowds. ‘That was a bit rude,’ Phoebe said.

‘You’re welcome,’ Jamie shouted. ‘Have a good day now.’

The corridor looked the same both ways. It was a long, symmetrical straight line with a set of identical double doors at either end. It didn’t feel right. Hell, it didn’t even smell right. Tammy couldn’t ever remember feeling so out of place.

They missed the turn again, but found it on their third pass. Once they’d introduced themselves to the lady on the reception desk they, in turn, were introduced to the principal, to a couple more teachers who just happened to be passing, and then to Mr Renner, the school’s one man pastoral team. Mr Renner gave them an embarrassingly brief tour of the school’s facilities, then delivered them to their respective form tutors. Tammy looked over her shoulder as they were led off in opposite directions along the front corridor, watching her little sister disappear.

He’d never have admitted it, but Scott thought he was probably as nervous as the kids. After dropping them at school he’d driven back into Thussock to look for work. It was going to be no easy task, that much was clear. The brewery was laying off staff, not taking on, and though they told him he could try again in a month or so, the fracking company were only looking for engineers and specialists at the moment. Thussock didn’t even have a job centre, it seemed. How was he supposed to find a job if the damn place didn’t even have a bloody job centre? He toyed with the idea of driving to the next town, but it was too far and there didn’t seem a lot of point. It would have been a hell of a commute if he’d found work there, and it would probably only have been financially viable if he’d managed to get a job requiring far more responsibility and commitment than he was prepared to give. He wanted something quick and easy: enough to put food on the table and still give him the funds and flexibility he needed to start work on the house, because the sooner he started working on the house, the sooner he’d be back on his feet again.

He parked up near the half-empty retail development they’d visited yesterday. He could see that crazy Graham guy, struggling to keep a snaking chain of shopping trolleys under control, and he thought to himself, if a weird fucker like that can get a job here, surely I shouldn’t have any trouble?

Fuck it. There was nothing left for it. He was going to have to go door to door (if he could find any doors still open) and see if he could find anything that way. Chances were slim, but it was worth a try. And while he was there, he thought, he could try and find someone to talk to about getting Sky installed.

Nothing. Absolutely bloody nothing.

He went into a few places and looked through the windows of others, but no one had anything. The library didn’t open until later, and the lady manning the tourist information kiosk had plenty of ideas of places to try outside Thussock, but next to nothing in the town itself. Scott stood outside the Black Boy pub, wishing it was a few hours later. He’d have propped up the bar for a while if it had been open. Pulling pints wasn’t beneath him, and even if the landlord didn’t have any work available, there was a chance he might know someone who did.

Christ, job hunting was tedious. His heart really wasn’t in it. He wanted to work for himself again, to be his own boss and not have to answer to anyone else. It would be a while before that happened.

It was too soon to give up and go home, so Scott kept walking. Without the distraction of his family – their constant bickering and complaints – he saw more of Thussock this morning, things he’d missed previously. There was a small police station opposite the pub, a branch of a Scottish bank he’d never even heard of, and a betting shop that looked busier than pretty much everywhere else. A little further and he’d reached the bridge over the river. He stopped, leant over the balustrade, and peered down into the murky waters.

‘Don’t do it, son,’ a man shouted, grabbing Scott’s back and scaring the hell out of him.

‘Wasn’t planning on it,’ he said quickly as the elderly gent walked on, laughing with his mates.

Scott realised he was almost back at the school. Bloody hell, he was rapidly running out of town. He thought about going down to the rail station, figuring that if he was going to have to commute, maybe public transport would be a better option. It wasn’t what he wanted, but if there were no jobs here, what else could he do? Surely there’d be work in Edinburgh or Glasgow or somewhere between?

He stopped to cross a narrow side street, and had to pull himself back quick when a dusty builder’s merchant’s truck thundered past and swerved out onto the main road. He looked down the street to check there was nothing else coming and saw a sign on the fence the same as the logo on the side of the truck that had almost hit him. Walpoles. Strange name, he thought. The sign might as well have said ‘Welcome to Dodge’, because it looked pretty desolate down there. Less the Wild West, he thought, more like the Numb North, and he laughed at his own pathetic joke as he followed the track down into a decent-sized builders yard. Scott thought this place looked slightly more promising. The familiarity of bricks, tiles, cement and sand was welcome and, if nothing else, he figured he might be able to price up the materials he needed for the kitchen wall. The sooner he made a start on that the better. He’d heard what Michelle had said yesterday, but she was looking at it all wrong as she so often did. And if he couldn’t find work, which seemed increasingly likely, then wasn’t this the perfect time to get done everything that needed doing to the house?

Walpoles looked like a typical builder’s merchant’s place: a dustbowl of a yard with pallets of bricks, slabs, joists and various other mounds of material dotted all around. It looked scruffy and rough, as behind the times as the rest of Thussock, but it reminded him of the work he used to do and the business he’d built up from nothing then lost. Three hundred and fifty miles away from home he might well have been, but a brick was a brick wherever you found it.

He couldn’t see any prices. He walked over to a pallet loaded with sacks of plaster, the whole thing still wrapped in plastic like it had just been delivered. ‘Help you there?’ a gruff, barely understandable voice asked. Scott turned around and saw a short, stocky, balding man standing behind him. He wore a grubby blue polo shirt with the ‘W’ from Walpoles embroidered on the breast pocket.

‘Just looking, thanks.’

‘Not the kind of place folks usually browse, this,’ the man said, and Scott thought he should explain.

‘Just pricing up. I’ve bought a house not far outside town. Got a few alterations planned.’

‘You in the trade?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I was,’ he answered, ‘until I moved up here.’

‘You in the grey house?’

‘Haven’t heard it called that before, but yes, it’s grey. Needs a lick of paint.’

‘On the road into Thussock.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Willy McCunnie’s old place.’

‘Was it?’

‘Aye. Poor old Willy. Terrible, that was…’

Scott paused, uneasy. ‘You sound like you know something I don’t. You gonna tell me a horror story or something? Something bad happen there?’

‘Not that I know of. Lovely guy, Willy.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He died.’

‘Oh.’

‘Ninety-two he was.’

‘Oh,’ Scott said again.

‘Cancer.’

‘Right.’

‘So what’re you doing?’

‘What?’

‘To the house. What you plannin’?’

‘Complete overhaul by the time I’m done. The place needs gutting. Heating, wiring… Got some structural stuff to do first. Couple of walls to knock through, that sort of thing. Probably replace the kitchen and bathroom, maybe add a conservatory… like I said, pretty much a complete renovation.’

He nodded thoughtfully. Scott waited for him to say something, and had to wait a little longer than was comfortable. ‘You need to talk to Barry,’ he eventually said.

‘Barry?’

‘Barry Walpole. This is his yard, see. I don’t know what terms he’s doing at the moment. We just shift stuff about for him, he likes to do all the figures and the sellin’ himself.’

‘I’m not looking for any favours.’

‘Good. Barry won’t do you any.’

‘So where is he?’

‘Just gone out in the van to kick a supplier up the arse. Bugger short-changed him.’

‘Not a good move?’

‘Nope. You don’t upset Barry. You should come back later.’

‘Okay. Any idea when he’s due back?’

‘Nope.’

‘Right.’

‘Give it an hour.’

‘Okay. Is there a number I can get him on?’

‘He has a mobile.’

‘Great.’

‘But he leaves it here. Doesn’t like carrying it.’

‘Isn’t that why they’re called mobiles? So you can carry them around?’

‘Like I said, give it an hour.’

Scott turned to leave. He wasn’t getting anywhere. He started back towards the driveway and passed a grubby caravan he’d barely noticed on the way in. It was obviously being used as an office, and equally obviously had been parked in the same spot for some considerable time. There were piles of bricks propping it up at either end, the tyres were flat, and the curved roof had been stained green by fallen leaves and bird muck from the overhanging trees. In the window was a handwritten sign. It simply read ‘Driver wanted’. Scott looked back at the man and pointed at the sign.

‘Talk to Barry,’ he said.

‘Warren says you’re lookin’ for work?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you’ve got experience?’

‘I can drive a truck, if that’s what you mean.’

‘It’s not. You know about the trade?’

‘Absolutely. I’ve had more than fifteen years experience, both working for myself and being employed on plenty of sites. Small scale domestics right up to large corporates. I was a project manager with—’

‘Fair enough. That’ll do.’

Barry Walpole chewed the end of an already well-chewed pen and watched him. Scott could handle himself, but Barry was an imposing character. Six feet tall and probably the same wide, he’d had to turn sideways just to get through the caravan door. The floor had groaned under his weight. The usual fitted furniture had either been stripped out of the van or had worn out, and Barry sat on a threadbare swivel chair behind a desk piled high with unsorted papers. There was a filing cabinet in one corner and a key cabinet screwed to the wall. The door of the key cabinet swung open several times and he slammed it shut as though he was swatting a nuisance fly. He took a swig from a mug of coffee, then put the cup down on a mountain of invoices. The silence was increasingly uncomfortable. Scott felt obliged to try and fill it. ‘So, how long have you been in business here?’ he asked.

‘Long enough.’

‘Trade good?’

‘S’all right. Shouldn’t complain but I usually do.’

‘Getting any business from that fracking thing over the way?’

‘Nope,’ he said and he leant forward and stared into Scott’s face. ‘Listen, this is one of those interviews when I ask the questions, right? So tell me this, why you here?’

Trick question? ‘Because you need a driver…?’

‘No, not here, here. Why d’you come to Thussock? Warren says you’ve bought Willy’s old house. Why d’you do that?’

‘We wanted a change of scene. A change of lifestyle, I guess.’

‘Just you and the missus?’

‘Three kids. One son, two step-daughters.’

‘You from the Midlands, ain’t you?’

‘Yep.’

‘Then I call bullshit.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. I don’t buy it.’

‘I don’t really care if you—’

‘Look, man, I don’t really give a shit who drives the bloody truck for me. Thing is, I don’t do bullshit, that’s all. No one moves their entire bloody family to a place like Thussock for the fun of it. Be straight and honest with me and we’ll get along fine. If you ain’t, then we won’t get along at all.’

Scott took a deep breath. Obnoxious fucker. Did he really need this? He was on the verge of walking out. For fuck’s sake, this was just some two-bit driving job. This Walpole bloke could shove it if he was going to be this anal. But he stopped himself. It was pride swallowing time. He needed cash, and this would do until he found something better or got the business up and running again. Lay it on thick, he thought, make him think you’re pouring your heart out. ‘I took on too much. Over-stretched myself. Lost a couple of blokes, defaulted on a loan payment and the bank threatened to pull the plug. I wound things down before they could wind the business up. Same old same old… happens all the time.’

Barry nodded and chewed his pen again. ‘It don’t take much these days. Never trust banks, me. Try and avoid them.’

‘Bit late for business advice now.’

‘So why Thussock?’

‘Why not?’

‘I could give you a hundred reasons.’

‘Fair enough. Distance, I guess. We wanted a clean break. It’s over three hundred miles. Six hour drive.’

‘You runnin’ away?’

Scott shook his head. ‘Like I said, clean break. Fresh start.’

‘So how do I know you’re not gonna throw a wobbler and disappear? Go back to wherever you’re from?’

‘I won’t. We bought the house. Sold the assets of the business and paid cash. We want to settle here. Every penny we own has been sunk into that place.’

Barry rocked back on his chair again. ‘There’s not a lot of work going round here right now.’

‘I’d noticed.’

‘You might have had it shitty in Birmingham or wherever you’re from, but it ain’t much better up here.’

‘I didn’t expect it to be.’

‘I need someone I can rely on, understand?’

‘I get it.’

Barry locked eyes with Scott and wouldn’t look away. Scott held his gaze, figuring this was some kind of bizarre initiation test. It was. ‘It’s important to be able to look the other fella in the eye,’ Barry said after he’d been staring a little too long.

‘Is it?’

‘Absolutely. Key to a man’s soul.’

‘That right?’

Barry didn’t answer. He hunted around the desk for a scrap of paper to take down Scott’s details. ‘You’re a lucky bugger, Scotty lad. Right place, right time, an’ all that.’

‘You’re giving me the job?’

‘I’m giving you a try-out. When can you start?’

‘As soon as.’

‘This afternoon?’

‘Why not. I’ll need to go home first, tell the missus. She’ll need the car to get the kids from school.’

‘Fair enough. Pick up some ID, your bank details, national insurance number, drivin’ licence, all that crap, and make sure you’re back here by one.’

‘A good day all round then,’ Michelle said at dinner. ‘All our furniture’s in, you two have settled in at school, and Scott’s got a job.’

‘I wouldn’t say we’re settled in,’ Tammy said quickly, keen to put her straight.

‘No, but your first day’s over. That’s something.’

‘Made any new friends?’ Scott asked.

She glared at him. ‘Hundreds. You?’

He ignored her sarcasm. ‘They must think I’m stupid. I can’t understand a bloody word they’re saying half the time.’

‘What’s your boss like?’ Phoebe asked, wolfing down her dinner.

‘Miserable bugger,’ Scott replied. ‘Huge, he is. Gave me a right grilling too. Asked all kinds of questions about why we’d moved and why we’re here.’

‘Were you honest with him?’ Tammy said.

‘Give it a rest, Tam,’ Michelle said, interrupting before the conversation degenerated into another fight.

‘Is it a nice place?’ Phoebe asked him.

‘Is where a nice place?’

‘The place you’re working?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s a yard. They’re all dumps. It’s not that far from your school.’

‘And they liked you?’

‘They want me back in the morning, so I guess so. That reminds me, you’ll have to drop me off, Chelle. You can do it when you take the kids to school. And I’ll need picking up after five. Okay?’

‘No problem. It’ll be nice to have the car. I was going to walk into town with George anyway.’

‘What for?’

‘Shopping, register us all at the doctor’s surgery, that kind of thing. All very exciting.’

‘More exciting than school,’ Tammy moaned. Michelle ignored her.

‘It’s all coming together nicely,’ she said. ‘If things are going this well after a couple of days, just think what it’ll be like in a few weeks.’

Later, lying in bed together, lights out, Michelle felt Scott’s hand on her under the covers. She’d almost been asleep, but she was awake again in seconds. ‘Hello you,’ she whispered.

‘Hello you.’

‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine.’

He slipped his hand under her nightie uninvited, cupped her breast.

‘Starting to feel good, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘It is to me.’

‘I’m not talking about my boobs, I’m talking about us… about being here. The girls seem more relaxed tonight, and you’ve managed to find some work. I’ve got a good feeling. This is going to work out, you know. If you’d said a couple of months ago that we could have all this, I’d never have believed you.’

‘I don’t let you down, Chelle. You should know that.’

‘I do. It’s just that sometimes you have to take a few steps back to start moving forward again, don’t you?’

‘Nice cliché.’

‘It’s true. Seriously, love, if you’re happy, I’m happy and the kids are happy, it doesn’t matter where we’re living. I’m really proud of you, you know… just walking into a job like that.’

‘It’s no great shakes. I’m just driving a knackered old truck around, delivering bricks and shit.’

‘It’s a start. You never know, your boss might let you have stuff cheap, make it easier to do all the things you were talking about doing to the house.’

‘Doubt it. You haven’t met Barry Walpole.’

‘I’m sure he’s lovely.’

‘He definitely isn’t. You are, though.’

His compliment took her by surprise. Before she could react she felt him kiss the side of her face. He climbed on top and pushed against her. ‘I’m tired, love,’ she said.

‘I’m not.’