BUNTING’S STRUNG ACROSS Queen Street, like it’s for Holly Sykes’s Independence Day. The Scottish lady in the wool shop’s watering her hanging baskets, and Mr. Gilbert the jeweler’s putting trays of rings into his front windows, and Mike and Todd the butchers’re offloading a headless pig from the back of a van where a dozen carcasses are hanging from hooks. Outside the library a bunch of union men are collecting money in buckets for the striking miners with Socialist Workers holding signs saying COAL NOT DOLE and THATCHER DECLARES WAR ON THE WORKERS. Ed Brubeck’s freewheeling this way on his bike. I step into the Indoor Market so he can’t see me. He moved to Gravesend last year from Manchester, where his dad got sent down for burglary and assault. He doesn’t have any friends and shows no sign of wanting any. Normally that’d get you crucified at our school, but when a sixth-former had a go at him Brubeck punched his nose out of shape, so he’s been left alone since. He cycles by without seeing me, a fishing rod tied to his crossbar, and I carry on. By the games arcade a busker’s playing funeral music on a clarinet. Someone lobs a coin into his case and he bursts into the theme from Dallas. When I get to Magic Bus Records I peer inside. I was looking at R for Ramones. Vinny says he was looking at H for Hot and Horny and Holly. There’s a few secondhand guitars along the back of the shop, too. Vin can play the intro to “Stairway to Heaven,” though he’s never got past that. I’m going to teach myself to play Vin’s guitar while he’s at work. Vin and me could start a band. Why not? Tina Weymouth’s a girl and she’s the bassist in Talking Heads. Imagine Mam’s face if she goes all, “She’s not my daughter anymore,” then sees me on Top of the Pops. Mam’s problem’s that she’s never loved anyone as deeply as me and Vin love each other. She gets on okay with Dad, sure, though all her family in Cork were never crazy about him not being Irish and Catholic. My older Irish cousins enjoyed telling me that Dad got Mum pregnant with Brendan before they were married, but they’ve been married for twenty-five years now, which isn’t bad going, I s’pose, but still, Mam’s not got this amazing bond with Dad like me and Vin. Stella says me and Vin are soul mates. She says it’s obvious, we’re made for each other.
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OUTSIDE NATWEST BANK on Milton Road, I run into Brendan. Moussed-back hair, paisley tie, and his blazer slung over his shoulder, you’d think he was off to Handsome School, not the offices of Stott and Conway. Bit of a heartthrob is my older brother, among my friends’ older sisters—pass me the vomit bucket. He married Ruth, his boss Mr. Conway’s daughter, at the town hall with a flashy reception at the Chaucer Country Club. I wasn’t a bridesmaid ’cause I don’t wear dresses, specially dresses that make you look like a Gone with the Windcollectible, so Sharon and Ruth’s nieces did all that stuff, and loads of our Cork relatives came over. Brendan’s Mam’s golden boy and Mam’s Brendan’s golden mam. Later they’ll be poring over every detail of what I say right now.
“Morning,” I tell him. “How’s it going?”
“Can’t complain. All well at the Captain?”
“Fine. Mam’s full of the joys of spring today.”
“Yeah?” Brendan smiles, puzzled. “How come?”
I shrug. “Must’ve got out on the right side of bed.”
“Cool.” He notices my duffel bag. “Off on a trip, are we?”
“Not exactly. I’m revising French at Stella Yearwood’s—then I’m staying overnight. It’s exams next week.”
My brother looks impressed. “Good for you, little sis.”
“Is Ruth any better?”
“Not a lot. God only knows why it’s called ‘morning sickness’ when it’s worse in the middle of the night.”
“Perhaps it’s Mother Nature’s way of toughening you up for when the baby arrives,” I suggest. “All those sleepless nights, the arguing, the puke … Needs stamina.”
My brother doesn’t take the bait. “Guess so.” It’s hard to imagine Brendan being anyone’s dad but, come Christmas, he will be.
Behind us the NatWest opens its doors and the bank clerks start filing in. “Not that Mr. Conway’ll fire his son-in-law,” I say to Brendan, “but don’t you start at nine?”
“This is true. See you tomorrow, if you’re back from your revision-a-thon. Mam’s invited us over for lunch. Have a great day.”
“It’s the best day of my life already,” I tell my brother and, in a secondhand way, Mam.
One flash of his award-winning smile and Brendan’s off, joining the streams of people in suits and uniforms all going to work in offices and shops and factories.
ON MONDAY, I’LL get a key cut for Vinny’s front door, but today I go the usual secret way. Up a street called the Grove, just before the tax office, there’s this alley, half hidden by a skip overflowing with bin bags smelling of bubbling nappies. A brown rat watches me, like Lord Muck. I go down the alley, turn right, and now I’m between Peacock Street’s back-garden fences and the tax-office wall. Down the far end, the last house before the railway cutting, that’s Vinny’s place. I squeeze through the loose slats and wade through his back garden. The grass and weeds come up to my waist and the plum trees are already fruiting up, though most of the fruit’ll go to the wasps and the worms, Vinny says, ’cause he can’t be arsed to pick it. It’s like the forest in Sleeping Beautythat chokes the castle when everyone’s asleep for a hundred years. Vinny’s s’posed to keep the garden neat for his aunt but she lives up in King’s Lynn and never visits and, anyway, Vinny’s a motorbike guy, not a gardener. Once I’m settled in, I’ll tame this jungle. It needs a woman’s touch, that’s all. Might make a start today, after a session teaching myself the guitar. There’s a shed in the corner half hidden by brambles, with gardening gear and a lawnmower. Sunflowers, roses, pansies, carnations, lavender, and herbs in little terra-cotta pots, that’s what I’ll plant. I’ll make scones and plum pies and coffee cakes and Vinny’ll be all, “Jesus, Holly, how did I ever get by without you?” All the magazines say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. By the rainwater barrel a fingery purple bush is swarming with white butterflies, all confetti and lace; it’s like it’s alive.
· · ·
THE BACK DOOR’S never locked ’cause Vinny’s lost the key. Our pizza boxes and wineglasses’re still in the sink from last night, but no sign of breakfast—Vinny must’ve overslept and raced off to work, as per usual. The whole place needs a good tidying, dusting, hoovering. First a coffee and a fag’s in order, though—I only ate half my Weetabix before Mam started her Muhammad Ali act on me. I forgot to get any ciggies on the way up—it flew out of my head after meeting Brendan—but Vinny keeps some in his bedside table, so I pad up the steep stairs and into his bedroom. Our bedroom, I should say. The curtains are still drawn and the air’s like old socks so I let the light in, open the window, turn round, and jump out of my skin ’cause Vinny’s in bed, looking like he’s cacked himself. “It’s me, it’s only me,” I sort of gupper. “Sorry, I—I—I—I thought you were at work.”
He claps his hand over his heart and sort of laughs, like he’d just been shot. “ Jesus, Hol. I thought you were a burglar!”
I sort of laugh too. “You’re … at home.”
“Cock-up with the rota—the new secretary’s bloody hopeless—so Kev phoned to say I’ve got the day off, after all.”
“Brill,” I say. “That’s great, ’cause … I’ve got a surprise.”
“Great, I love them. But put the kettle on first, eh? I’ll be right down. Shit, what am I saying? I’m out of coffee—be a sweetheart, pop out to Staffa’s and get a jar of Gold Blend. I’ll pay, uh, you when you get back.”
I need to say this first: “Mam found out ’bout us, Vin.”
“Oh? Oh.” He looks thoughtful. “Right. How did she, uh …”
Suddenly I’m scared he won’t want me. “Not great. Went a bit apeshit, actually. Told me I couldn’t see you again and, like, threatened to lock me in the cellar. So I walked out. So …”