The Swap - By Antony Moore Page 0,96

Jeff Cooper or Carl Butcher or Rob Calderwood or any of those other sports boys, "the jocks", as the Americans would call them. They were cruel to me, of course, but your cruelty was greater.'

'Um. OK.' Harvey stepped back and prickled himself on a gorse bush. 'Fuck, ow. OK.' Did Rob pick on Bleeder too? He couldn't really remember but he assumed Bleeder must know. He really had managed to unite the school, quite an achievement. Harvey began to grin and then turned it into what he hoped was a sensitive grimace.

'You probably want to know what I mean,' Bleeder went on without turning back, thus wasting Harvey's expression, 'because, of course, you didn't pick on me the way those others did.'

That was right. Harvey nodded vigorously, he didn't bully Bleeder, whoever told Jarvin that he did was wrong, he was one of the good guys, on the side of righteousness and justice. He pictured Spider-Man for a moment, how he looked after Aunt May died and Mary-Jane left him. So unjustly dealt with. He took a long sad pull on his cigarette. He knew that feeling.

'And what I mean is that I looked to you for help. You were one of the people I really thought might stop what was happening. You could have done. You had the status in our year to stop it. You could have made friends with me. I just needed one friend, H, and then I might have been OK. If you had done that I might have survived what happened, might even have had a youth I could remember without a professional there to help me. For so long I hoped that you would be my salvation. That's what my analyst said: you were my fantasy, the one I dreamed would save me. And then I heard the singing outside my house. I heard Rob Calder-wood's voice and next to it I heard yours. Do you remember that day, H? Do you? Do you know what it felt like to have been through that with Jeff only a few weeks before? And to be back there, locked in that house with my mother, hearing those voices again, singing that same song, hearing Mother going out to hide by the wall to try to grab another of them and then to realise that one of the voices was yours? Can you imagine that, H? Is it in your range of possibilities? I think that was the greatest betrayal of them all. I think it was the moment when I realised it wasn't ever going to be all right. Do you remember, Harvey, the day my mother caught you?'

'Eh?' Harvey's mind had begun to wander slightly at the point when Bleeder said he had status in the school. He did really. He'd been popular and influential. Where had that status gone? Why didn't he have any status now? If the boy is the father of the man, where was his position and influence in his current life? Bossing Josh around, that was about it, and Josh bought Pokemon cards. He wanted to do the sigh, but realised that it might really be Bleeder's perogative. As for the rest, that was bollocks and Bleeder should know it, especially if he'd had therapy. Nobody could save anyone else. Harvey had known that as long as he could remember. But this last remark caught him by surprise and he choked a little on smoke.

'When she caught me?' he said, spluttering.

'The day you were singing outside my house, not the first time probably, but the first that I realised it was you, recognised your voice alongside the others. And she came out and grabbed you, don't you remember that?'

Harvey thought for a long moment, then slowly nodded.

'Er, yeah, kind of. She sort of told me off and stuff and you said I was your mate and that I didn't do it before, so let me off. So she did, sort of thing.' Harvey shrugged. He did remember, of course, bloody scary it had been, but what did Bleeder want, a letter of thanks? Mad woman grabbed him and shouted at him. He should have had her arrested. He took a last drag and flicked the butt, with insolent skill, into a rabbit hole.

'Yes, I saved you. You see? You would have been beaten, like Jeff, but I stopped that. And then I was beaten instead.' He had turned to look at Harvey now and reacted to his expression. 'Oh