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you get on with her?”

      Ritchie looked baffled for a moment, as if no one had ever asked him that question before. “Yeah, yeah. I do. She can be hard to live with, but she’s my mum.”

      I could relate to that. I was quiet for a bit and stared ahead at the lake. Then I thought it was sad that Ritchie hadn’t had a proper education up till now, and then I thought that a so-called proper education wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Half of what I was learning for my GCSEs was going to be useless to me. And so much of the time I switch off in lessons – we all do. It unsettled me, the way Ritchie was making me see things differently. I had to admit he might be right about schools. But surely it couldn’t be right to steal, and that’s what he and his mates did. You see, at that point I still felt things like stealing and vandalism were wrong.

      Ritchie carried on talking, telling me about his mates. None of them went to school either. Tanner had been relentlessly bullied and the school couldn’t stop it. Loz had been excluded lots of times. Woodsy used to go to a special place for kids thrown out of school, but he even refused to go there.

      I asked him what they did all day. Ritchie lit another cigarette.

      “Hang out in town. And we watch what’s going on, where they’re careless about security. We’ve nicked a few things. We know some people to pass them on to.”

      I could tell he was trying to impress me. There was a slight swagger in his speech. After having admitted he’d opted out of school I suppose he felt the need to show me he was smart. But I told him he’d get into trouble, and you couldn’t defend theft. He turned then and looked me straight in the eye.

      “Listen. In my life what have I taken? A few packs of fags, stuff that’s been left around where any fool can see it, cash if I can find it. And what’s been taken from me? Everything. I’ve got no future – I know that. I live in a stinking hole of a flat with my mum, who was kicked out of her job because the pub landlord wanted a younger barmaid – he robbed her of her income.

      “Everywhere you look, people are on the game. Businessmen, politicians, builders – everyone’s on the make, everyone’s only out for number one. Even the bloody Big Issue sellers pretend they haven’t got change if you offer them a fiver. So tell me why I should be any different?”

      At that moment a toddler set up a wail near us and I heard his mother screaming at him. But his wail drowned her voice. I tried to think what I could say to argue against Ritchie and came up with nothing. Looking at life from his point of view, I could see why he’d made his choices. They now seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

      “My mum’s out of work too,” I offered. “Through stress. She’s normally a practice manager for some doctors, but she gets periods of depression, ever since my dad left. He lives in Exeter with my brother. I don’t get to see them very often. Do you see your dad?”

      There was a beat, and Ritchie said, “I saw him the other day.”

      “Yeah?” I encouraged him.

      But Ritchie’s face had darkened into an ugly scowl. I backed off. I could see I’d accidentally soured the atmosphere, and that was the last thing I wanted to do.

      “Let’s drop all this shit,” Ritchie interrupted. “I’m not a loser – even though you think I am.”

      “I don’t,” I said.

      But the atmosphere had changed, unmistakably. We both left the bench and walked on along the side of the lake for a while, saying nothing. A few clouds had appeared, though it was still a nice day. I tried to lighten up by telling him about school and trying to make him laugh. And I succeeded, and he told me about the books he’d been reading and about the punk tapes he collects, music from the seventies. He liked The Clash and The Adverts. He said just because he hadn’t gone to school didn’t mean he was braindead. He read the papers when he could. The more we were talking, the more I was beginning to see that Ritchie was my superior – he’d lived more and even read more. He’d had tough choices and he’d thought about things. I felt shallow in comparison. But that wasn’t a bad feeling. It made me determined to be more like him – that wasn’t a conscious determination. It was just his influence working on me.

      We sauntered all the way to the gates at the other end of the park, which happened to be near my side of town. I knew I ought to offer to go, and I did. I asked Ritchie if he’d be in school tomorrow. He shook his head and I felt a rush of disappointment.

      “Why?”

      “It isn’t right for me. Maybe when I’m older, but not now. I’ve got to get my head straight first. But, Anna, I owe you some money.”

      I was glad. It was a bond between us.

      “Meet me at the shops near school at four. By Music Zone.”

      I told him I would, and meant it. He turned and went back through the park. I began to walk in the direction of my house but I found I didn’t want to go home. I would have like to have stayed with Ritchie. This had been the best afternoon I’d had for ages. I wanted his life, not mine. Only we were so different – but were we?

      I had a lot of thinking to do.

      When I got home, I could tell my mum was feeling bad again. Sundays often got her like that – Sundays are pretty depressing for anyone, but my mum beats herself up about being off work and how it’s all her fault. She was sitting in the kitchen when I found her, cradling a cup of tea, her voice nervous and weepy. She asked me whether I’d managed to get any shoes and for a moment I hadn’t a clue what she was on about, until I remembered that was what I was supposed to have borrowed the money for.

      “No,” I said. “I’m going to carry on looking.”

      “I should have gone with you,” she said. “I’m such a bad mother.”

      I told her she wasn’t. She disagreed, and said the proof was that she was off work on sick pay. I tried to argue with her but it was no use. In this mood, she keeps knocking herself all the time. Like a dog tied to a pole, she goes round and round in circles, treading the same ground. Dad left her because she wasn’t good enough for him, she ought to work on her self-esteem but what is there to like about her, life was just a black pit and she was at the bottom, what could she do to get out?

      This might sound dreadful to you and maybe you’re feeling sorry for both us, imagining I get upset when my mum gets upset. I did in the beginning, but now I find I cut myself off and I don’t feel anything. It scares me sometimes, that I don’t feel anything. I just wait for her to stop. I do try to tell her positive things but I know from experience she won’t listen. Sometimes I feel resentful and I want to scream: “I’m only sixteen – what do you expect me to do?” Or I start thinking traitorous thoughts, like, you could help yourself if you want to. For example, Mum won’t take antidepressants because she says they’re drugs and she’s scared of being dependent on them. Instead she does all this therapy stuff.

      But she was crying now so I knew I had to do something. I gave her a hug and said she ought to ring Julia and have a chat. That shows how desperate I was. I can’t stand Julia. Mum met her at the therapy group. She’s got more money than sense and too much time on her hands, as her husband is rolling in it. She doesn’t go to work, and her hobby is working on herself. She not only goes to the group therapy sessions, but she’s in private analysis with the therapist, and is in training to become a therapist herself. It’s a nice little business. A lot of money changes hands.

      I realised I was starting to think like Ritchie. But he was right – he was so right. Here was my mother, ill and in need of help, and – hey presto! – here were lots of people eager to help her: her therapist, her hypnotherapist, her masseuse, all charging piles of money, feeding off my mother’s problems. Julia

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