I followed his gaze. At the far end of the playground a boy I didn’t know was knocked to the ground. I shivered and recited a quick Bismillah.
‘Talk about wrath, he’ll kill him if he carries on like that.’ Maley narrowed his eyes as though concentrating on some scenic detail.
I stood up to get a better view.
‘Natural selection. Survival of the fittest,’ Maley continued complacently. Then, turning his attention to a small green plastic coin, a free-meal token, between his fingers, he patted his stomach. ‘Have to stock up for the weekend.’ Without waiting for my response, he raced nimbly off towards the canteen.
The fallen boy was crawling about on his hands and knees, and circling him was Adrian Hartley. Each time his victim tried to push himself up, Adrian would kick his feet out from under him. The lad, his clothes wet from a puddle on the tarmac, sank back to the ground. There was something terribly wrong with that lad. There was something terribly wrong because there was nothing obviously wrong. He was a gora and stocky, and yet Adrian struck him hard and carelessly like he would a Paki.
I went over, negotiated a gate and stood on the far side of a tall wire fence separating Adrian and me. The wire was cold and rusty. Adrian and the boy were about six feet away.
‘Hey,’ I called out, ‘leave him alone!’
Adrian ignored me.
‘I’ll tell your dad about Bobby.’
Adrian stopped and looked at me. A wave of panic flashed across his face, replaced by a grin spreading in slow motion as though the small movements of his face were catching up with his thoughts. In Adrian’s language I had volunteered for a beating: his eyes grew wide and wild and the grin worked itself into a snarl. I ran first. Adrian would have to go the long way past the exit gate that led onto the street; by that time, I had disappeared into a side street.
I circled back and cautiously approached the school gates. The boy, alone now, was leaning against them, fingering a new hole in the knee of his trousers. His knee bled.
‘All right?’ I asked.
‘I owe you,’ he said, pulling a pound note from his pocket.
‘Put it away.’
‘Have it. I’ve got fifteen left.’ He smiled. ‘Coming to the chip shop?’
‘Okay.’ I could already smell the pungent aroma of chips and bits with extra vinegar at Ivan’s.
‘I’m Dax Cogger,’ he said, limping beside me. ‘Just here for the winter.’
‘How come?’
‘Fairground,’ he said. ‘What you call a gypo. I didn’t steal the money, by the way, I run a stall.’
I examined him closely but could still find nothing obviously wrong. He had a kind face, square with ruddy cheeks, and short brown hair. He had gentle eyes you immediately trusted and a snub nose. He wore trendy Dunlop trainers and his school uniform was bang-on regulation. His lower lip seemed to hang loose and every now and then he’d gather it between his teeth as though holding it in position.
‘Coconut shy. Darts. That kind of thing,’ he explained.
We cut down a slippery bank to a babbling stream dotted with mossy green stepping stones where my feet got wet, and then walked through a short section of woods.
‘Odds stacked in our favour though.’
‘What did you do to Adrian?’
‘Nothing.’ Dax shook his head. ‘I just told him I don’t cry. I can’t make tears. I can’t even make an ouch sound.’
‘You’ve just made one,’ I said, laughing. Dax laughed too. ‘They’re stupid around here, especially that Adrian. His dad’s a skinhead and when he grows up that’s what he wants to become. Just don’t tell him anything else that marks you out.’
Dax nodded. I led him along a path that avoided the main roads and emerged by a graveyard. Beyond the damp tombstones was a chapel, grey and solid in the gloomy afternoon, and from the gates of the chapel you could just about see Ivan’s chippy a bit further along the high street.
After we’d been to Ivan’s we spread our coats on the tombstones and ate our chips. Dax had bought me a drink, and when he was paying for it I had seen him pull out all fifteen notes. Eating chips on a cold day was one of the best things you could do. Although the clouds threatened, it didn’t rain.
‘I’ve seen most of the country,’ Dax said.
‘What’s the best part? I mean, if you were going to live in a house, where would it be?’
‘You mean like to stay?’ He thought for a while. ‘There’s plenty of nice places. London’s nice — we get to camp in a park right in the middle where the millionaires live and you see ripe cars rolling by — and Yorkshire’s nice too, you can go for hours in just fields.’
‘What’s your favourite?’
‘I met a girl in Ripon once. I’d like to go back there.’ His thick lower lip trembled.
I had never even spoken to a girl at school. ‘A girl?’
‘Her dad owned the land we camped on. She’d bring us eggs in the mornings. Yeah, if I were a settler I’d go to Ripon, but I’m not. I’m going to marry a fairground girl.’
‘Marry?’
‘It’s important,’ he said. ‘Keeps the fairground ours.’
‘Would you cry if the girl in Ripon died?’ I said.
He shook his head.
‘How about if your mum died and you had to watch her being cremated?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he said, stamping a foot angrily against the ground. ‘I just can’t cry, and what use is crying anyway?’
We ate for a while without speaking, the silence broken only by the rustle of chip paper and the sound of our cans clinking on the stone. The wind gathered leaves, blowing them across the path and piling them up against the church door. As it grew in strength it carried a wetness with it, as though it had already started to rain.
‘What’s wrong with you then?’ Dax asked eventually. ‘I’m never in one place long enough to make any proper mates, just the kids no one else wants to be mates with.’
‘You can’t see what’s in front of you?’ I replied harshly.
He stared at me and shook his head. ‘You seem all right. You risked a kicking for me.’
‘I’m different.’
‘I didn’t notice. It’s what you’re made of what counts.’
‘You didn’t?’ Scrunching up the chip wrapper, I sprang to my feet and set off along the path. Dax caught up with me and put a hand on my shoulder. I stopped. The rain was real now and we were getting wet. He looked at me kindly.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘It’s a big world.’
We walked side by side through the school gates. Thankfully Adrian and his mates weren’t waiting. Dax was in the year above me. He slipped off to his class and I went to mine.
At home time there was a crowd at the gates. I caught a glimpse of Dax as they swept him, like a wave, across the street, his head bowed and arms hugging his sides. Kids conspired in excited whispers, a scrap, and I followed the tail end of the group as it sped across the road and down a side street towards a square of green turf with grassy mounds on two sides and tall council blocks on the other two. I scrambled up onto a bank where I had a panoramic view.
Two entire classes of year seven and eight, boys and girls, circled Dax. I looked for Adrian but didn’t see him. Perhaps he had detention. Dax put up his fists, like an old-fashioned boxer. Kids shouted at him, urging him to cry. I heard one of the boys say they’d let him go only if he shed a tear. Dax grunted, an almost inhuman sound, as though he was a bull breathing through enormous nostrils.
One boy punched Dax square on the nose. Clutching his face, Dax cried out and reeled backwards into a girl with hooped earrings. She screeched like a cat and scratched at Dax’s face with her fingernails. A second boy put his arm across the girl, pushing her back. ‘You’ve hurt my girlfriend,’ he declared, kicking Dax in the shins with a sickening crack. Dax fell onto his knees and the crowd jeered, urging him to get up. He staggered unsteadily to his feet but remained bent over.