Beneath The Skin Episode 14

Walt found the park. He’d known it was there, from his one recce when, after a few late-night beers in his room, he’d decided to go walkabout. He hadn’t gone into the park, that time, not trusting himself.

Just stood at the gate breathing in the cool dark and thinking of his mam’s garden, and the scent of damp flowers and the leftover teatime smells. There was a pizza place nearby. He could smell garlic and pepperoni and it had seemed so ordinary, so life-goes-on; he’d turned round and gone back to his single room.

Now he went into the park, marched in, his steps jerky, and made for the nearest tree, an oak, wanting to lay his brow against it, feel the patchy roughness of its touch. But instead he did the civilised thing and sat down on a bench with a brass plaque to someone long dead and watched the squirrels and the ducks on the pond like a regular person.

He’d shoved the Tesco bag under the seat first, not wanting to be reminded of it.

It was the kind of park you’d call mature, a city oasis of big trees and gravel paths, formal shrubberies clipped back by council workmen in hi-vis jackets.

The place was big enough to put some distance between you and your fellow man; the benches were widely spaced, the pond some way off. There were shiny black bins for litter and red ones for dog poo but there was still muck on the grass and Irn-Bru cans in the flowerbeds.

A watery sun had made an appearance for the kids coming out of school; there were a few of them in the park, running wild with their coats tied round their waists, and mothers with double buggies and the odd dog.

The pond looked sluggish, a bit out of its comfort zone amid the tenements and the traffic, the sweet wrappers and the lager cans. Even the ducks lacked enthusiasm.

He spotted a couple with two underfives, looking so like Stephen and Natalie that he almost got up. They had that obliviousness about them, cocooned in their own little world, their own family unit.

The kids looked about the same age as his niece and nephew, although he couldn’t exactly remember the numbers. Ella was just starting school in September and what would Jack be now – three? Down by the water’s edge, the little lad kicked his football and was toddling after it in that stiff-legged, no-knees way you do when you’re learning to walk.

Walt shivered. Someone walking over your grave, his mother would have said. Another little boy kicked the football gently back to the toddler. This lad was taller, thinner, with a mop of blond hair and a bright blue backpack. It was William, with his mother watching from a distance.

Walt automatically felt in his pocket for the button that was lurking there. He must give it back to the kid. It was one of his collectibles, fallen out of the box when he packed them all away.

Walt had found it on the easy chair, a heavy silver button with a distinctive crest, an eagle, the kind you’d see on a vintage overcoat of some kind. He didn’t know why he’d slipped it into his pocket; it had a military feel about it, maybe that was why. He really should give it back, before it became a talisman for his fingers in the dark of his pocket.

Mother and son began to walk towards him, and William spotted him first. The kid had that hyperactive after-school look about him, with the shirt flying out of his trousers and his tie round his head like something out of Lord of the Flies. Grubbyfaced, he had picked up a tree branch and was wielding it like a weapon.

“Walt! This is a sub-atomic space-alien vaporiser! Boom! Ratatatat. Boooosh!” Walt felt the blood drain from his face. “William!” Mouse’s voice was shrill with annoyance. The space-alien vaporiser continued to rain ammunition down on him until Mouse confiscated the stick and William stalked off in a huff.

Mouse was unsmiling. Walt could see the hem of her white uniform below the blue coat, the coat belted so tightly it nearly cut her in half. Her hair was tied back and there were insomniac smudges below her eyes. She looked forlorn, like she needed a hug. The thought shocked him.

His girlfriend, Jo, used to look like that when the kids gave her a hard day. She was a maths teacher; kids hate maths. It had been a natural thing, to jump up and give Jo a bear hug. But now he was too used to the cold touch of trees.

“Hi.” It was a safe enough greeting. He didn’t get up and she paused in front of him. She had the height advantage and it made them both uncomfortable. William jumped onto the end of the bench, resuming his laser noises. “William, get down.”

“He’s grand.” Walt was glad, somehow, that the boy was doing boy things. He felt sad sometimes when he looked at William, without knowing why.

It was the magpie thing maybe; all those treasures squirrelled away. Was that what kids did when they were insecure? It wasn’t a great life for the kid, stuck in that house with an unstable aunt and loads of dead animals.

He fingered the odd button in his pocket – but he didn’t give it back. Instead he said: “Good day at school, son?”

“It’s school.” William shrugged and jumped down from the bench. “We did art, though. I like that.”

“Taking after your auntie?” Walt smiled. “God forbid.” Mouse flopped down beside him on the hard seat, as if reluctantly obeying a stronger force. She sighed and lifted up her feet, rotating the stress from her ankles. “My boss is a plonker.”

Walt grinned; she glanced sideways and caught the grin, a small smile creeping in around the corners of her mouth.

“He is,” she said. “He offered me a pay rise.”

“The b*****d.”

She giggled. It was a nice sound, unexpected. “He wants me to do more hours, be like a manager or something.” “And you can’t because?”

She nodded towards William, now searching for God knows what in the long grass at the base of the oak tree.

“I couldn’t ask Mrs Petrauska to take him any more than she does. She already helps me out on school holidays and stuff.

“And you know he had the cheek to say to me: ‘ Money must be tight, you being a single parent.’ ” She adopted a low, ponderous Galen tone. “‘My offer might help you get your own place.’ As if!”

Walt was glad that the boy was doing boy things. He felt sad sometimes when he looked at William, without knowing why

More tomorrow.

Beneath The Skin, by Sandra Ireland, is published by Polygon, £8.99. Her latest book, Sight Unseen, is out now.