Ghosts in the Morning - By Will Thurmann Page 0,43

Mum?’

‘No, Graham’s – your Dad’s at work, and Daniel...well, I think Daniel’s at work as well. He does the odd bit for that plumber, Frank.’

‘Hey, Mum, who were those guys I just saw walking away from the house? They looked a bit official.’

‘Oh, they were just, um, Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ I said and turned the kettle on.

***

‘Shall we have another cheeky one?’ Anita said, pointing to my glass.

‘Er, okay, but just a small one, I’ve still got shopping to do.’

Anita signalled the waiter and I stared at the people thronging the walkway, clutching Christmas-themed bags and boxes of toys. The café sat at the edge of a large department store, and was a welcome respite from the manic hordes. Like predators, they circled the shelves, stripping them in an avaricious frenzy, it seemed people could never get enough stuff. Necessary or not, it didn’t matter, it was just a greed for stuff, for things, as if happiness was achievable through these inanimate objects of stuff. Anita and I were no better. Two hours in and we were already laden with bags, victims ourselves of the marketers, the manipulators, and the purveyors of clothes and products that would be cooed over, cherished for a brief moment, then discarded in some cupboard. God, I was growing more cynical by the day...

I sipped my wine, reluctant to venture back out there. I didn’t like crowds. I didn’t like to be bumped, to feel closed in, it made me choke, it made me think of my arms held fast above my head, an arm at my throat and an oily rag in my mouth, choking me, suffocating me...

‘Are you okay, Andy?’ Anita looked concerned. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I’m okay, I’m fine, just a bit warm in here that’s all.’ It was warm, the cloying heat created by too many bodies in a small space. I smiled at Anita. Our argument at the club was forgotten, there were no grudges between Anita and I.

‘Yes, I know what you mean. I will never understand why they put the temperature up so bloody high in these places, it must be murder working in here.’

At the care home, after it happened, I stayed in my room for a whole week. I didn’t go to school, told them I was ill, some sort of flu. I was scared, I couldn’t bear to face the boys who had raped me. Soon after that week, things changed. Kevin and Darren were arrested. They were caught trying to break into a till in a shop – the stupid muppets hadn’t even bothered to read the sign that clearly stated that no money was left on the premises overnight. It wasn’t the first time they’d been in trouble, and the local juvenile court must have decided that enough was enough and they were sent to a borstal near Southampton. After that, I came out of my room again.

Jonnie left soon after too - he ran away. Sandra said that she’d heard one of the boys in the care home saying that he’d got scared, someone had beat him with a pool cue apparently. An altercation with one of the other boys, or that’s what they thought, but no-one had seen anything. I knew that one of the pool cues did have a stain on it though, and it looked suspiciously like blood.

My time too at the care home was coming to an end. My sixteenth birthday was approaching and I was due to leave school – I had no intention of doing any further education. I had discovered an aptitude for maths and I had successfully interviewed for a back office job in a bank. Jobs were plentiful in Jersey then, and the money was good. Good quality accommodation wasn’t so easy to find, but I had managed to find a bedsit that I would be able to afford. I couldn’t wait to leave.

There was one final incident that happened before I left; by then, I was making my way to school independently - I had a battered old bike that I used to cycle to and from school, but in my last week of school there was one morning when rain came pelting down and turned to hail. Mick the caretaker had asked me if I wanted a lift, and although I usually didn’t mind a bit of rain, for some reason that morning, I couldn’t face getting drenched. So I had jumped into the front of the now-rusty minibus