Skin Deep

6 – Ryan

I snuck out of the library after the girl and her mother left.

Outstanding success there. Major league. I’d made her cry again. Only this time I didn’t have a clue why.

She was crazy. I hadn’t done anything.

If I saw her again, I was going nowhere near her.

I stood in the town square and pulled the sketch map out of my pocket. How did I get to the canal from here? When I looked up to get my bearings, three lads hanging around a black car were staring at me, narrow-eyed. I stared back at them just long enough to let them see I’d noticed, then I leaned against the lamp post next to me and examined the map. Just another set of small town lads who thought they were hard men. I found the street I needed and set off. I could feel their eyes following me and they straightened and stiffened as I passed them, but when I carried on ignoring them, they turned back to the car. It’s all in the body language, Cole said, in the way you stand, the way you walk. Get it right and they won’t touch you.

I never got it right before Cole came, but he sorted me out all right. He’d ridden into our lives four years ago on a Harley. We’d moored up by a skanky little place off the Llangollen canal – Mum’s Welsh phase – and Mum and I had gone to the Co-op to get some supplies in. The shop assistant followed us round from the moment we entered the shop. My face heated up as Mum strolled around filling her basket with lentils, carrots and peppers and the woman behind us watched, scowling.

‘Mum, hurry up, please.’

‘Quiet, Ryan. Don’t rush me.’

‘Can I wait outside?’

‘Oh, go on then. But don’t wander off.’

I went outside and sat on a bench. Some boys my own age, around twelve, kicked a football round the empty car park. It looked like a laugh, but I didn’t go over to join them. No point.

Quarter of an hour later and Mum still hadn’t come out of the shop. The boys noticed me and looked over, moving together into a pack, muttering. It set the hairs on the back of my neck on end. I knew this script, but Mum had said don’t wander off.

They came over, swaggering more the closer they got.

‘You a gyppo?’ one called. He was shorter than me, but stockier.

I shook my head.

‘You look like one. Don’t he look like one, Rhys?’ He turned to the boy nearest.

I balled sweaty hands into fists. I didn’t look like them, for sure, in the tie-dyed crap Mum made me wear back then.

‘Can’t you speak?’ the third asked, stepping closer.

‘Yes.’

‘Ha! He’s English. An English gyppo.’

‘I’m not a gyppo.’

The five surrounded me. The one called Rhys slapped me on the head. I scrambled up, meaning to make a dive over the back of the bench and run into the shop, but the stocky one grabbed me and kicked me in the knees.

Crunk!

I hit the pavement hard and brought my arms up to protect my face. The first kick wasn’t as hard as I expected – a taster. Maybe they hadn’t done this before. But it landed in my stomach and winded me all the same.

‘Go on, Huw! Boot him!’

The second kick slammed into my arms as the boy aimed at my face.

I heard them laughing.

‘Gyppo!’

‘English bastard!’

‘Kick his head in!’

Feet hit into me from every angle, in my back, my legs, my arms still curled around my head, my chest, stomach. I never got a chance to hit back.

Please don’t let Mum come out and see this. Please.

But please make it stop . . .

The feet kept kicking. Above the sound of their laughter, I heard another roar. An engine. Coming closer.

The kicks to my front stopped suddenly.

‘Brave little shits, aren’t you? Five on one.’

The kicks behind me stopped as well.

‘Get out of here. Unless you want to take me on too.’

Feet slammed on tarmac, running away. Big hands hauled me up.

‘You all right, kiddo? Let me see.’

He pulled my arms away from my face. A big man in leather trousers and a vest, tattoos down both arms – bands of Celtic knots, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a beard. His chest hair poked over the top of his black vest. The Harley engine thrummed next to us.

‘Getting a bit of hassle?’ He grinned at me and wiped blood away from my nose with his hand. It was hot from the sun and as hairy as the rest of him.

I nodded.

‘No harm done?’

‘No, I’ll be OK.’ I sat up properly. ‘Thanks.’

‘No worries.’ He held out his hand for me to shake. ‘Cole.’

‘Ryan!’ Mum shrieked as she dropped her bags and ran towards us. ‘What happened?’

Cole stood up. ‘He had some trouble with the local kids, but he’s fine.’

Mum stopped in her tracks.

He looked at her. She looked at him. And that was that.

A week later he moved in.

I walked through the town, keeping an eye open for craft shops for Mum. There were a few potentials. I scribbled the names down. Better give her something to sweeten her up because when she found out what I was planning, she’d go mental.

The town looked like most of the country towns we stopped in, except for the lake on the edge of it – the mere that gave it its name. There were a few streets of shops and a mixture of houses, from the big, posh places to pokey cottages. You could probably walk from one end of it to the other in under half an hour. I passed the edge of a council estate and then I turned into a lane with a sign pointing to Whitmere Marina.

The boatyard was bigger than I expected, but there didn’t seem to be much going on there considering how many boats they had in. A ginger cat eyed me from its sunbathing spot on top of a van. There was an old guy in the dock area working on a flue on the roof of a narrowboat, his bald head burnt red. He looked up as I went over, squinting his eyes before he shielded his face from the sun.

I decided to get in first. ‘Excuse me, is the boss about, please?’

He looked me up and down. ‘Aye, lad, over there, back of that shed sorting a delivery.’

‘Thanks.’

The shed turned out to be the size of a small barn. There was no sign of life at first so I stepped inside and spotted a man at the back bending over a crate and counting out rope fenders.

‘Hello?’ I called.

He straightened up. ‘Yeah?’

‘Sorry to disturb you. Um, have you got a minute?’

He laughed and put the fender down. ‘That depends on how much you’re spending.’ He strolled over, dusting his hands off on his jeans. ‘What can I do you for?’

My stomach steadied when I saw the tattoos up his arms and the ring through his eyebrow. He was around Cole’s age, with a big build like him.

‘I’m looking for work. I wondered if you needed any help.’

He looked around. ‘I don’t see any sign up advertising a vacancy, do you?’

‘No.’ I shrugged and tried a smile. ‘Thought I’d ask though, just in case.’

He snorted. ‘How old are you?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Ever worked in a boatyard before?’

‘No, but –’

‘Ever worked before?’

I hung my head. ‘No.’

In the pause that followed I got ready to apologise and get out of there. There were other yards I could try, but this was the closest. He broke the silence in the end with another laugh.

‘Guess you won’t have picked up any bad habits then.’ I looked up quickly and he winked. ‘Come on, convince me.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Um . . . er . . . I’m looking for work with boats because they’re what I know about. This is the first place I’ve tried and it’s a big site so I thought there was a chance you might have some jobs that needed doing. I’m good with narrowboats. We’ve had one all my life and I’ve been brought up around them and I do all the work on ours and I’m not scared of hard work or getting my hands dirty and –’

‘Woah! Slow down!’ He held up a hand to silence me, but he smiled. ‘Are you a local kid?’

‘Ah . . . no . . .’ This would be the difficult bit.

He frowned. ‘Moved here recently?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So where did you come from?’

I heaved a sigh. Might as well leave now. ‘Nowhere. We move around. We’re here for the winter.’

He rubbed his chin. ‘You’re a traveller?’

I nodded.

‘You got a police record?’

‘No.’

‘Cautions?’

‘No, nothing like that.’

‘So you said you had a boat. You mean you live on it?’

‘Yes, me and my mum. She makes jewellery. Good stuff, not rubbish.’

His lips pursed together in thought. ‘You were honest about it. You could’ve lied,’ he said finally.

‘I don’t lie.’

‘I wasn’t looking for any help, but now it’s sitting here offering itself up, I could do with another pair of hands around the place. Tourist season’s nearly done and I’ll have boats coming in for full maintenance soon. I can take more if I’ve got someone who knows what they’re doing.’ He nodded slowly. ‘You don’t look like you’d faint at pumping waste out or fall over with a bit of heavy lifting.’

I shook my head, and then wondered if I’d got that the wrong way round. Maybe I was supposed to nod.

He got the message though. ‘Can’t give you a contract. You’ll be casual labour, but I’ll send you on your way with a good reference when you leave, if you’ve proved yourself.’

‘That’s fine with me.’

‘You’re polite enough too. I could use you in the shop on Saturdays. We get a good bit of passing trade in at the weekend. Can I trust you with the till?’

I set my teeth together. ‘Yes, you can.’

He laughed. ‘I see you can keep your temper too. That’s important with customers, especially some of the stuck-up sods you get round here. Peace, lad, I’m not stupid. I can spot trouble when I see it and I don’t see it in you. I’ll give you a go if you want. It’s good to see someone your age getting off his arse and looking for work.’ He held his hand out. ‘I’m Pete, and that’s Bill over there.’

A grin broke over my face as I shook hands with him. ‘Ryan. And thank you!’

My first job! Yes!

7 – Jenna

On Monday morning, Charlie and I waited for the school bus at the crossroads on the edge of the village. He nudged me with his elbow as the bus came into view.

‘What?’

‘Will you look after my case for me on the bus?’

His trumpet case – he had a lesson today. Mum and Dad wanted him to learn an instrument so, of course, he’d picked the noisiest one he could. ‘What do I get in return?’

He grinned at me, the blond curls he hated plastered down with gel because Mum wouldn’t let him cut his hair short enough to get rid of them. ‘I’ll wait until you go to feed the ponies to practise tonight.’

‘You’re on.’ Charlie was not a natural musician. When he practised, we all suffered.

The bus drew up and Charlie abandoned me to sit with his friends. I made for a window seat at the front, putting my bag and Charlie’s case beside me so no one could sit there, and I took out a book. Now I didn’t have Lindz to talk to, I always read on the bus. The journey from Strenton to school took forty-five minutes, the bus winding down narrow country lanes to pick up in Whitmere and all the villages. I looked out of the window occasionally to see where we were, but otherwise I kept my head down.

Charlie paid me no more attention as he got off the bus than he had when we were on it, except to grab his trumpet as he went past. Big sisters were fine to play with at home, but were to be ignored at school in front of mates. The Prep department was in a different building to the Upper School and he and his crew ran off to play football in their yard before the bell went. I headed round the side of the building to the girls’ locker rooms. The noise hit me as soon as I went in, all the post-weekend chatter about who’d done what, with who and when. I hung my coat up and collected some textbooks I needed for the morning. This area was only for Year 10 so everyone here knew me; it was safe.

Walking out into the corridor was different. A bunch of younger girls stopped at the sight of me, their mouths screwing up before they turned away. And then the whispers . . .

When would it stop? We’d only been back a couple of weeks and I was still a novelty – Shrek Goes to High School. But would they ever get used to me?

A couple of Year 8 boys pushed into me, not looking where they were going, and I shoved them out of the way before they knocked me over. ‘Eww, that’s disgusting,’ the geeky spotty one muttered to his friend. ‘She should put a bag over her head or something.’ Even a minger like him found me repulsive.

The second boy sniggered and I couldn’t stand the idea of them following me down the corridor so I veered into the girls’ toilets and locked myself in a cubicle.

I leaned on the door for support as I waited for my pulse to slow and the usual choke of anger and humiliation to die away. Walking down that corridor was the hardest part of the day and every time I did it, I had to fight back the memory of the first day back at school after the accident.

The locker room had been bad enough as girls from my year rushed over to say, ‘Hi! We missed you . . .’ before their voices tailed off. Their eyes widened in shock, even though they all knew what had happened to me. But knowing it isn’t the same as seeing it. I saw the thoughts flash through their heads: if that happened to me . . . oh God, I’d die . . . it’s . . . it’s . . . They tried to pretend they weren’t horrified, but they couldn’t hide it. I didn’t know what to say to them. I wanted to run out of the building and phone Mum, then sit in the field and cry until she came to get me.

But she’d talked me through this so many times and I didn’t think she’d come for me anyway. She’d call the school and they’d send a teacher to find me. They’d already offered to get my form tutor to meet me from the bus, but I didn’t want that. To be escorted down the corridors would only make people stare even more – Exhibit One, Fugly Scarface with Mrs Barker as bodyguard. Instead Beth had met me at the lockers and linked her arm through mine to march me to the form room.

When a new girl gasped at the sight of me, Beth’s face set as stiff as the plastic mask I’d discarded only the week before. My heart raced so fast I felt faint and I needed her arm to stop me falling. The corridor went quiet – a Mexican wave of silence spread along it as people saw us coming.

Stop looking at me! Leave me alone! I screamed it so loudly in my head that I was scared for a second I’d yelled it for real.

Everyone around me took on that blurry quality as if I was sleepwalking through a nightmare. Fuzzy blobs of faces, staring bulbous eyes. Beth half-dragged me down that corridor; I couldn’t have done it by myself.

I took a deep breath and opened the toilet door, remembering just in time to look away from the mirrors. Another deep breath, and I stepped out into the corridor again.

Beth was sitting on the desk in the form room changing the cartridge in her fountain pen. She looked up as I walked in and I sensed she had news. Big news.

‘Jen, hi!’

‘Hi, good weekend?’ I sat down on the desk next to her.

‘Yeah, the battle re-enactment was brilliant! The best I’ve ever been to.’ Beth’s parents were members of a historical society who dressed up and did role plays of famous events in the area. This meant Beth wasn’t exactly the coolest girl in school. Tramline braces, glasses and hair that wouldn’t be tamed out of a frizz by even the hottest straighteners didn’t help her case either – Lindsay used to be really catty about that – but we’d been friends since our first day at school and I liked Beth no matter what anyone said. ‘I had this amazing costume – an amber underdress and a blue one over the top with this neat belt made of rope. Mum did my hair in plaits with ribbons wound in them. It looked totally authentic.’

She was not this excited just about a costume. There was more. ‘And?’

She giggled. ‘I met this boy . . .’

‘Yeah?’

‘Mmm, and he’s a really nice guy.’

Well, good for her. I’d met the biggest jerk on the planet myself.

‘His name’s Max and he’s in Year 11. And he’s asked me to go to the society’s harvest dance at the end of the month. I told you about it, remember? The one with the medieval theme.’

She still had more to spill, I could tell. ‘Yes, I remember. And?’

Beth went red. ‘Oh . . . he kissed me.’

‘No way! You jammy cow. Is he fit?’

‘I think he is,’ she said guardedly. That meant no, I decided. That meant Natasha Green and her friends – the bitch queens of our year – wouldn’t think he was. They’d raise perfectly plucked eyebrows at him and laugh when Beth was out of sight.

‘What’s he look like?’ After all, she could lie if she wanted. I’d probably never see him.

‘About that height.’ She pointed to an averagely tall boy chatting to a girl outside the classroom door. ‘Brown hair. He’s got a lovely personality.’

Which meant he must be hideous. Not that Beth and I were in any position to be critical because neither of us were likely to trouble the modelling world any time soon.

‘Is he local?’

‘He lives near Whitmere, but more your side than mine. He goes to Badeley College – boards in the week and comes home at weekends.’

‘Badeley?’

‘Um, yes. I asked him if he knew Steven Carlisle and he remembers him from before he got excluded. His older brother’s on the rugby team with Steven, but Max says he doesn’t like him much.’

I sniffed. ‘Max’s brother has good taste.’

‘Have you seen him around lately?’

‘No, but I think it was him vandalising cars at Dad’s campaign group meeting.’

‘What’s he doing now?’

‘Still working for his dad. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that loser. So, you haven’t met Max before?’

‘Not exactly. I’ve seen him at other events, but I’ve never had a chance to talk to him. Parents around – just too embarrassing. But it was so mad on Saturday with the battle going on that we ended up spending loads of time together because my lot and his lot were on the other side of the field. We got on really well and when our side was celebrating at the end of the battle, he kissed me.’

‘Properly?’

‘Not at first. He snuck it in like it was part of the re-enactment. But I didn’t object, so . . .’

‘And how was it?’

She grinned. ‘Awesome!’

I prodded her. ‘Bitch! I told you you’d get there before me.’

‘Jen, maybe you should come to the next one. I know it’s not your thing, but . . .’ She hesitated. ‘It’s something to do. Get out, go somewhere new, you know.’

‘Yes, I’d go down a storm.’ I pointed to my cheek. ‘Authentically blown up with a musket ball.’

Beth flinched. ‘Don’t say that. I didn’t mean that and you know it.’

‘Sorry,’ I mouthed at her as our form teacher came in and we scrambled off the desks hastily before she went mental at us for sitting on the furniture.

8 – Ryan

On Monday morning, I lifted the bike off the boat with my ears still ringing from the sound of Mum crashing about in the kitchen. She hadn’t said a word to me since I got up, not even when she slammed a bowl of soya milk porridge under my nose and shoved a tub of salad in my rucksack. I cycled the eight miles to Whitmere and freewheeled down the long hill towards town, rattling over the last stretch of cobbles. As if my nerves needed any more jangling.

Eight fifty. I was early.

Pete stuck his head out of the office. ‘Mornin’. And a filthy one it is. Come in for a brew before we get started.’

I parked the bike up by the side of the Portakabin. Pete handed me a mug of tea when I went inside. Bill nodded to me, puffing up a cloud of blue smoke from his pipe.

‘See that semi-trad outside?’ Pete pointed out of the window.

I looked out at a yellow and black narrowboat hauled up into dry dock. ‘Yes.’

‘Needs an overhaul – do the works on her. You any good on the painting side?’

‘Yeah, not bad.’

‘The arty stuff?’

I nodded.

‘Good, because I’m not. Bill normally takes that side of things, but he’s got a lot on so I’ll let you have a go with this one. You give me a shout to check your work regular, mind. I can’t afford for you to be making a mess.’

I hovered by the sink, gulping hot tea and agreeing.

He threw an amused glance up to the ceiling. ‘Sit down and drink it, lad. You’re making Bill nervous.’

I shuffled over to the spare chair. I’d never seen anyone look less nervous than Bill did, sucking away on his pipe.

Pete’s mouth twitched. ‘Got first-day jitters, eh? I still remember my first day at work. Apprentice in a car plant in the Midlands. 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.’