Fugues on a Funny Bone E-Book

Jan Woolf

• Herausgeber: Muswell Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

A collection of short stories about children in a referral unit, the book also charts the relationship between a young man and woman who meet, part and come together again in and woman in unusual circumstances.

Leseprobe

For Liam

fugue, n. in mus. a form of composition in which the subject is given out by one part and immediately taken up by a second (in answer), during which the first part supplies an accompaniment or counter-subject, and so on: a form of amnesia which is a flight from reality

Contents

Title page

Dedication

Jordan Meadows

Beth in Venice

Moving On

Cossack Warriors and the Hanging Chads

The Wheel

ANT£

Soho Square

The Dissertation

Muggins and the Griot

Madame Marchand

Albanian Bananas

Titles of works

About The Images

Acknowledgements

Copyright

Jordan Meadows

Tuesday morning: special assembly at the Pupil Referral Unit, then a test. But Jordan Meadows has other business. Shaking muddy dreams from his head he looks into his bedroom mirror, his father still alive in the china blue eyes set above fine cheek bones; his mother in the wide curved mouth. Freckles adorn the bridge of his nose as if someone had flicked ink at him. Jordan should be beautiful, but his face is like a miss pelt word.

‘Don’t fuck up today yeah?’ he yaps at the mirror while he gels flat the cowlicks sprouting in his short brown hair.

‘Jawda–aan,’ his foster mother shouts up the stairs.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll be late for PRU. It’s your test today. Nothing to worry about, lovey.’

Jordan isn’t so sure. ‘Comin’ Shelagh.’

He pulls on a pair of grey track suit bottoms, red tee shirt and black hoody, topping it off with a grey peaked cap. ‘Sick.’ He looks in the mirror, twisting the cap a few degrees. ‘Just right for business, just fuckin’ right.’

He pulls his phone from its charger and drops it into the pocket of his trackies, where it lodges beside a small parcel, as dense as toffee and as carefully wrapped.

‘I’ll see G soon,’ he whispers, as he thrusts his feet into the new white trainers parked by the end of his bed, ‘an’ I’ll fly again.’

He bounces down the stairs and hovers outside the frosted glass kitchen door.

‘The fing is Shelagh,’ he wheedles, his mouth set against threatened kindness.

‘What Jord.’

He shuffles into the kitchen, locking his gaze onto the steadying trainers. The strip light neutralises the shadow the morning sun should have made, yet Jordan feels all shadow.

‘Come on, breakfast,’ urges Shelagh. ‘You know it helps you learn.’

He perches like a huge robin on the stool at the breakfast bar, peering forlornly into a bowl of Weeties. He likes chocolate nougat pillows or Pop Tarts, but social services said they weren’t appropriate, like the bottles of bright blue drink and packets of Monster Munch he also wants. He slurps at his orange juice and pours milk onto the beige briquettes, smacking them mindlessly with the back of his spoon.

‘Won’t be back for tea, yeah?’ He mumbles, tensing as Shelagh stands next to him.

‘Where are you off to then, in case the Social want to know?’

‘Marcus’s to play.’

‘That’s nice.’

Play she knows is important; as important as boundaries, especially for twelve year olds. And Marcus is his special friend at the Unit. ‘Want you back for six mind. Remember your ASBO.’

She wants to put her arm around him but Social Services said she shouldn’t.

As Jordan slides off the stool Shelagh risks an appropriate good bye hug, but he wriggles through her arms.

‘Zip up your cardy lovey.’

She reddens and smiles, hugging herself instead with her useless arms. ‘Straight to the Unit mind. It’s special points day and Mr Willoughby says you’re doing really really well.’

Jordan slouches to the front door. Why can’t she say ‘really’ just once? he thinks. And not make the cardy joke ever again, the stupid cow. Anyway, Willoughby’s a cunt.

‘Bus or walking Jord?’

‘Bus.’

He hunches his shoulders, pulls his hood over his capped head and plods into the summer morning like a monk off to prayer.

Fuck the bus. Jordan’s trainers bounce him the other way, through the narrow alley, down to the river Lea towpath where dogs are walked, nutters wander and drunks recover. A tang of something wild and green hits his nostrils. It smells like the salad Shelagh sometimes makes him eat.

He sniffs it in and walks east towards Hackney.

He likes the river, if you could call it that. It’s more of a fat stream that’s either twinkly green or black, depending on the weather. It supports clusters of house boats and the odd energetic rower. There’s one now, the daft fucker, all red in the face, busting a gut to get up upstream to Enfield where the posh people live.

As he approaches the first bridge he thinks about yesterday.

‘Puked with Marcus, didn’t I?’ He mutters darkly at a weeping willow, the tips of its branches drowning in the water. ‘After just one Special Brew an’ a spliff. But the spliff was wrong, not like G’s skunk, the flyin’ stuff.’

He kicks a stone into the water. Plop. ‘Marcus can get his own shit and go fuck himself, he ‘in’t even got an ASBO, the cunt,’ he yaps at the river.

He walks on, thinking of Marcus, of when they were together in the children’s home waiting for foster parents. ‘We had a laugh, man.’ He throws his head back, chuckling at the sky. ‘Glad we’re both at The Unit.’

He checks the time on his phone – eight thirty – and sits on a bench, staring at a supermarket trolley lying upturned in the water, its rusted wheels garnished with river weed and shreds of plastic carrier bag. A family of ducks swim towards him breasting the brilliant green algae.

He remembers feeding the ducks on Clapton Pond when he was little, chucking lumps of white bread at them with Beverly, his real mum. (Biological, Social Services call her).

He picks up a stone and throws it at a duckling. Plop. He misses and the duckling glides effortlessly to its mother’s side. This makes him feel funny and he throws another. Plop. He peers into the deep black holes, wondering what it would feel like to drown, whether it would hurt. Probably not as much as burnin’, he thinks, or being run over. But who wants to do anything stupid like that when you can fly? He thinks about Shelagh, what she’d do if she found out about the dealing. There’d be another meeting with the social workers, where he’d have to share his feelings.

‘Hate them meetin’s man,’ he informs the ducks, now swimming back towards him. ‘My feelin’s are my business.’

Jordan wonders about feelings. Was he having some now? Did that baby duck make a feeling? He stands aflame with indignation, remembering the last meeting – a conference they’d called it – just after he’d set a fire in the big school. But that supply teacher had shouted at him – ‘get a move on or I’ll tell your mother Jordan Meadows.’

I’ll tell your mother Jordan Meadows. The words lick the inside of his head like the fire licked out the science block. ‘Brilliant burn man,’ he tells the ducks now quacking and clustering needily at the waters’ edge. ‘Them school alarm bells were wicked. Every one getting out and standing in the playground. I made sure the windows were open though, so they could all get out, even that stupid supply teacher.

‘Didn’t want to burn no–one.

Burnin’ hurts.’

He remembers how easy it was. Just a flick of a match in that bottle of blue stuff – and whoosh! Lovely flames with purply bits in the middle, pretty colours in the day time, just like the arcade down river where G waits for him now. Waits for him; Jordan Meadows.

‘A very important member of our little team aren’t you, lad?’

Two joggers thump by on the towpath and a woman stops beside him to empty her dog. She picks up the mess with a plastic bag, knotting it at the neck. It reminds Jordan of the packet of heroin in his pocket. He tried some once, but it filled up the space inside him where his real mum lived, where he keeps her till they let her out of prison.

Shelagh took him to visit her last week,

And it was nice.

They had a snuggle

She’s got another year.

‘I’ll be a teenager.

Year eight.

Key Stage Three.’

He checks the time again. Nine fifteen. He should be in special assembly now, getting some smiley face stickers for last week’s good behaviour. Then it’s Circle Time, where he learns to take turns when he speaks and be polite. It’s like a little family, with his teacher Hannah as the mum. She’s quite pretty really, for a teacher. Mr Willoughby, the head’s like a kind of dad. Comes in their class room a lot and says things like well done, and you’re on target, smiling at Hannah as well.

‘Reckon he fancies ‘er,’ he tells the river. ‘Reckon she fancies him too, the slag.’

They’ll be wonderin’ where I am, he thinks, an’ I’ll miss Circle Time an’ it was my turn to be a chair. He feels sad. Willoughby’ll be cross and go on about personal goals. But then it’s the test. ‘Well fuck that,’ he barks, kicking a stone. ‘Anyway, who needs smiley faces stuck on a chart when you can fly?’

He wanders along the towpath thinking about the Unit; Hannah and Mr Willoughby, Louise, the fat, kindly learning assistant in the track suit, who helps him with his letters and chuckles all the time.

Marcus his best friend,

And Calvin and Ryan;

Malik the towel head,

And that slapper Amy Moon.

‘Lee don’t come any more though, the nutter.’

Don’t like Lee.

Too quiet and skanky.’

Then there’s the Anger Management lady who smells like flowers and has a face like a pop tart. ‘Wanted to hit her once,’ he mumbles, ‘not hard mind, not like the slaps I used to get from Barry.’

His mood darkens as he thinks of Barry, then of his mum, sent down last year for trying to murder him. ‘She should’ve, Barry was a cunt.’ He kicks a clod of earth.

‘Why don’t Shelagh give me a slap now an’ then?

Fuckin’ love it man.

Wouldn’t tell the social.’

His little fists clench as he whispers at the river, ‘she’s paid to look after me innit?’

Jordan strides out, the bounce in his feet higher, his anger like a waking animal. A swan tries to get into the air, splashing, flapping, running on the water with its big black feet. ‘Go on, get up. Flap, flap,’ he urges, as its wings beat the air.

He watches it stretch its long neck and rise, its feet trailing little beads of water that catch the sunlight, and feels suddenly tearful. He picks up a stick and slashes at a clump of brambles as another hooded figure approaches. It’s Marcus, yet his smile is slow to break.

‘Yeah Jord. You goin’ Unit?’ Marcus too is pleased to see his friend, but tenses at the stick.

Jordan catches the look.

‘Fuck off wanker.’

‘Cool it bruv.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Fuck off you.’

‘Yer mum!’

‘YOUR mum’.

‘I’m yer dad.’

‘Got any stuff?’

‘Later yeah but not for you, cunt.’

‘Bastard. I’m off.’

Gnats dance around Marcus’s disappearing head.

‘There he goes, off to the PRU special assembly, chancing it with his SATs test like some geek,’ Jordan tells no one in particular.

‘Come back,’ he shouts, his voice breaking on ‘back.’

He walks on, thinking about wild life. Is Marcus wildlife? He wonders if he’ll be able to tell his mobile ring tone from the birds chirping in the bushes. He likes the idea of snatching a bird from a bush and putting it to his ear. ‘Mobile birds innit?’ He laughs, recovering from Marcus’s defection and thinking of G.

He loves G. G does much more for him than get him new trainers and stuff. He makes him feel special, just as special as the cripples and mongs at the other school down the road. Everyone feels sorry for them, just ‘cos they can’t walk and they dribble and make stupid honking sounds like that swan. No wonder their mums don’t want them at home. His knuckles tighten as he thinks about the sunshine coach and their little trips out. ‘Well fuck them,’ he grumbles, ‘I’m on a trip right? An’ my mum will want me at home when she gets out.’

The phone vibrates against his thigh.

‘Comin’ G.’

He loves his fairy land; his glittering cave, the sparkly lights, fruit machines and pumping music. He looks round and sees a group of black boys clustered round a fruit machine, all with the same high foreheads, white dots for teeth and long faces; not round like Marcus’s. Look at the state of them, he thinks, bad jeans, shite hair, horrible little hoodys from the market.

The anger management lady said he has to breath in and out when he feels like hitting someone, to remind himself that he is as good as anyone else, that this would help his – what did she say? Self–Esteem.

IN

‘At least I, Jordan Meadows, am white.’

OUT

‘And English in my own country.’

IN

‘Go back to where you come from.’

OUT

‘You bastards.’

IN.

‘All except Marcus.’

OUT

‘Where’s G?’

IN

‘What the fuck?’

‘Jordan mate. Run.’ A man as big as a bear reels towards him. Another man, smaller, all red in the face bursts into the arcade waving a big lump of metal. ‘This one’s for you Tinkerbell,’ he snarls, bringing the wrench down hard on G’s head.

Dark purple blood seeps from the side of his mouth. He has a kind of smile, but his teeth are bared and frightening, with blood round the edges. His feet twitch as if he was trying to get up. But then they stop, flopping outwards like a clown’s. G’s eyes look straight at him, like the fruit in the fruit machine when it stops and you know you haven’t won.

‘What’s happened to G?’ Jordan yells at the Somali boys as if they were suddenly his friends. But they’ve gone.

Jordan feels small, even smaller than the parcel in his pocket.

‘Where is it then?’ hisses the little red man, raising the wrench.

‘Dunno,’ Jordan lies, a patch of urine blooming around his crotch.

‘You little fucker.’

Then everything goes black.

He doesn’t see the police with dogs swarming into the arcade, or the face of the policeman as he cradles his bloodied head in the crook of his arm.

Jordan’s eyes open to the pillow. So white, it’s as if that swan had settled beside him. A shaft of evening sunlight lay in a wide stripe at the bottom of his bed. The smells are strange but familiar, like when auntie Shelagh has cleaned the kitchen floor and cooked tea at the same time. He turns his head – it hurts – towards the woman standing beside the bed.