The Swap - By Antony Moore Page 0,10

of the nicest cars he'd ever entered, and climbed aboard.

'Thanks,' he said again. 'I came without a coat. It was all right earlier.'

'Yes. Cornish weather.' Negotiating the driveway, Bleeder seemed to have other things on his mind. They sat in silence for a few moments until the car had pulled out of a difficult blind turn and onto the main road. Then came traffic lights, which were red.

'Which way are you heading?' Bleeder broke the silence and Harvey waved his hand vaguely.

'Oh, into town. I just wanted to get out of there really. It's a bit . . . I don't know.'

'Yes, there are better ways to spend an afternoon.' Again, Harvey was astounded by the change from boy to man. He was articulate, precise, engaging, competent. All the things he hadn't been at school.

'I guess for you it's very hard.' Harvey only realised he'd said this aloud as he heard it echo to the backbeat of the rain.

'Me, why?'

'Well, I guess you had a rough time here. At school, I mean. I mean, didn't you? I seem to remember you getting a bit of stick and stuff . . .' A bit of stick.

Bleeder smiled, he actually grinned. 'Did I? Yes, I suppose I did, though I was hardly aware of it at the time. I had other things going on in my life.' He put this last sentence in slightly ironic parentheses and then added with even greater emphasis: 'I had issues.'

'Right, yeah. Well, I guess we all do at that age.'

'Do we?' Bleeder looked across at him with genuine interest. 'Did you?'

'Er, well, yes, I guess.'

'What were your issues?' Jesus. Harvey had the strange sensation of suddenly wanting to get out of a conversation he had been waiting twenty years to have.

'Um. Well, you know, teenage stuff and home was, you know, tricky.'

'Yes? Can you say more about that?'

Christ. 'No, no not really . . . I mean, it's kind of my stuff, I guess, water under the bridge and so on.' What was he supposed to say?

'OK. I can understand that.' Bleeder was nodding. 'But it can help to talk that stuff through a little bit, engage with it and let it sort of unpick itself, don't you think?'

'Oh sure, yeah, I talk about it a lot. I just don't really want to now.' 'Sure, that's fine.'

'Thanks.' Harvey found himself literally mopping his brow with his sleeve, though whether it was rain or sweat he wasn't sure. He went on quickly, 'I mean, so, you know, what's up with you being here? I mean, you said inside that you just happened to be passing. But, I don't know why, I don't get the impression you pass through town that much or that often.'

'No I don't.' They were driving down the main road to St Ives, and suddenly caught a glimpse of the sea. The rain was blowing from that direction, buffeting the driver's side of the car as they passed the lines of hotels and guest houses, mostly empty so early in the year and poignant with that special decay of a resort town in winter. 'I'm only here now to sort out Mother.'

'Sort her out?' Harvey was dying for a cigarette but didn't like to ask if he could light up in this extraordinarily civilised car. The seats were deep cream leather, the dashboard a riot of technology, set, with the typical obscenity of the engineer, in wood-look surround. It was warm and Harvey could sense underchair heating, which, after the rain, made him feel just a bit as if he had wet his pants.

'Move her. She's reached an age when she can no longer rattle about in the old house. Do you remember my old house?' He shot a glance across at Harvey and Harvey ducked. He did remember the house. He had been inside only once, but had bicycled past it many times. Indeed he and his friends sometimes used to ride past and sing at the same time. And what they sang was: 'Bleeder Odd, super-bore, looks like a spastic and his mum's a whore'. To the tune of 'Jesus Christ Superstar', of course. Sometimes they had sung it twenty times or more before Mrs Odd, 'Old Mrs Odd' as she was even then, had run out screaming at them, her hair always a mess of tangles, her clothes weirdly smart but filthy. Screamed words of such obscenity that secretly Harvey had been terrified. But he had laughed and ridden off, yelling