LITMIR.BIZ

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I was bleedin’ terrified.’

      Bill laughed, a phlegmy rattle. ‘Aye,’ he said, stretching his legs out. ‘I were an electrician. Big firm up north of here. They used to torment us new lads something chronic.’ He stared at me, eyes narrowing in weather-beaten skin as he took another draw on the pipe. ‘Let’s hope this ’un’s better than the last, Pete. Terrible trouble, he were.’ He took his pipe from his mouth and leaned closer to me. ‘Drove us to beyond what a man can endure. Drove us there over and over again until we couldn’t stand no more. We ’ad to do something! We buried him under the storage shed,’ he said in a croaky whisper. ‘His bones is still there.’

      My mouth fell open, until I caught his eyes crinkling up with laughter and I snapped my jaw shut again. Bill winked.

      Pete slapped the desk and his laugh boomed out. ‘Your face . . . priceless!’

      Bill creaked to his feet and patted a heavy hand on my shoulder as he took his mug to the sink. ‘You’ll do all right, lad. Never worry.’

      All the same, it was stressful that morning. I was desperate to get everything right and just as desperate not to be a nuisance. I kept thinking of Cole too. I guess that was from being around Pete and Bill. They reminded me a bit of him and his mates. And they loved those boats. Cole had been like that with the bike.

      After he moved on to the boat with us, he decided he needed to take a trip over to Shrewsbury and he took me along riding pillion. Mum was so loved-up that she let him talk her into letting me go as long as he rode slowly. It might have been slow to Cole, but to me it was like we were an arrow flying through the air. He’d bulked me up in his spare leathers so I didn’t look so much like a kid to any passing road cops who might pull us over to check he had permission for me to be on the bike. We travelled down country lanes for miles, my arms round his waist for balance, and I learned which way to tilt as we cornered and how far to lean out.

      We stopped at a council cottage in a large plot just outside Shrewsbury. ‘This is Jeff’s place,’ Cole said, holding the bike while I scrambled off. ‘Jeff!’ he hollered to a small man fiddling with a bike engine outside the house.

      The guy came over. ‘Cole, mate, how’s it going?’

      They clapped each other on the back and chatted for a few minutes about people I didn’t know, until Jeff asked, ‘So, who’s this then?’

      Cole slung his arm over my shoulder. ‘This is Ryan. He’s part of why I’m here. Me and his mum have a thing going and we’re together now. But she lives on a boat. Moves about.’

      ‘Ah!’ Jeff said, and I couldn’t understand why he sounded so sympathetic. ‘How much do you want?’

      ‘Nothing, man, nothing. Just look after her for me. Take her out. Keep her ticking over.’ He looked like someone taking his dog to the vet for the last time.

      ‘Cole, what are you doing?’ I interrupted.

      ‘Must be a special woman,’ Jeff said.

      Cole’s arm tightened round me. ‘Yeah she is, eh, Ryan?’

      ‘Er, yeah, of course. But what’re you doing?’

      ‘Can’t take a Harley on a boat, son.’

      ‘You’re leaving it here . . . no, you can’t . . .’

      ‘Jeff’s an old mate. I wouldn’t want to see her with anyone else.’

      Jeff wheeled the Harley towards the garage. ‘Any time you’re around, you drop in and take her for a spin. She’s still yours. And when you want her back –’

      Cole held up a hand in warning.

      ‘Oh, yeah,’ Jeff said, glancing at me. ‘No, you won’t, course.’

      ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

      He smiled briefly. ‘It’s only a bike, kiddo.’

      But I think he left a piece of his heart in that garage. I hope he went back for it when he walked out on us.

      Pete sent me into town to the bakery at lunchtime. He told me to get something for myself too and there was no way I was getting that tub of quinoa and lentil salad out of my rucksack in front of them. Sorry, Mum . . .

      She hadn’t talked to me properly since I told her about the job. Said she hadn’t raised me to be part of The System. But I didn’t care. I was finally having a go at real life.

      It felt like a rebellion too. Especially as I watched the woman slapping greasy bacon on to white baps. I’d eaten meat before, but not since Cole went. He used to fall off the vegan wagon sometimes and take me with him for a burger. On my birthdays, he’d take me down the pub for a meal. We’d eat a packet of Polos between us on the way home so Mum wouldn’t find out.

      When I got back with the food, Pete took the change from me without checking it and shoved it in his back pocket. I wondered if he’d count it later when I was out of sight. ‘Your tea’s on the side, lad.’

      This time I sat down without being told.

      ‘You’re travelling people then,’ Bill said, licking his fingers as he finished the roll.

      ‘Er, yeah.’

      He filled his pipe with tobacco from a cracked leather pouch. ‘All boat people was travelling folk once,’ he remarked. ‘The barge men. Used to carry goods all over this country on the canals. Lived on the barges with their families. The kids used to work too. Back in them days, the barges was pulled by horses. No engines then. So when they got to a tunnel, the horse couldn’t tow them through, see. One of the little ’uns would unhook it and lead it round and the other kids would lie on their backs on the wings of the boat with their dad and push against the tunnel wall with their feet. Legging, it were called, and they shoved the barge through that way. Damned hard work. My granddad grew up on one of those barges. Told me some fine tales about it.’ He smiled. ‘Aye, all the boatmen was travellers once.’

      Mum had a face like she was chewing on a rancid nut when I ducked my head in through the door and came down Liberty’s wooden steps. She didn’t say a word.

      ‘Hey, you’ve been busy!’

      She had rows and rows of finished necklaces, earrings and bracelets laid out on the folding table, and a pile of the dragon torcs. She must’ve been at it all day without a break. A twitch ran up my spine. Not a good sign . . .

      ‘I had to do something to keep busy instead of sitting here worrying about you,’ she snapped.

      I thought of the food she’d made me, cast on the roadside halfway between here and Whitmere for the birds to peck at. She’d been on her own all day. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been alone for so long – not since before Cole left. I thought of how never being away from her suffocated me and how I’d felt free today. And then how different it must have been for her, sitting here polishing stones until I came home . . .

      I sat down beside her, guilt knifing me. ‘Today went fine. It’ll bring in some extra money anyway. Mum, these are great. Really great. Want a hand with anything?’

      She took a breath in and combed her fingers through her mess of hair to loop it back. ‘I’ll start dinner. Tidy up for me and bag the finished ones.’

      ‘Want me to put the price labels on?’

      ‘Yes . . . yes . . . OK.’ She hesitated and forced a smile. ‘It was strange here without you today.’

      I fished in my pocket and pulled out the bus timetable I’d picked up in Whitmere on the way home. ‘Got this for you. There’s a bus that runs through the village. Maybe you could go into town tomorrow and give those shops I told you about a try. And you could find out about the market. Do some shopping too?’

      She nodded and put the timetable on the pinboard.

      ‘It’s an OK town,’ I said as she got a pan from the cupboard

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