‘Where you headed, lad?’
‘Newcastle.’
‘Hop in then.’
Daniel knew the man could be a nutter but he climbed up beside him anyway. He wanted to see his mam again. The man was listening to the radio and it was loud enough that Daniel didn’t feel the need to talk. The man drove with his hands folded over the steering wheel. The muscles in his arms flexed when he turned the wheel. He smelled of old sweat and the van was dirty, full of crushed cans and empty cigarette packets.
‘Eeeh, man, better put your seatbelt on, eh?’
Daniel did as he was asked.
The man bit a cigarette out of the packet that was on the dashboard and asked Daniel to hand him the lighter that was by his feet. Daniel watched the man light his cigarette. He had a tattoo of a naked lady on his arm and a scar like a burn on his neck.
The man rolled the window down and exhaled smoke out into the air that rushed behind them.
‘You want one?’
Biting his lip, Daniel took a cigarette. He lit it and rolled his window down as the man had done. He put one foot up on the seat and let his left arm rest on the open window. Daniel smoked like that, feeling free and bitter and wild and alone. The cigarette made his eyes water. He laid his head back as the rush hit him. He felt sick, as he always did when he had a cigarette, but he knew he wouldn’t throw up.
‘What you up to in Newcastle, then?’
‘Just going to see me mam.’
‘Got yerself in a scrap, did ye?’
Daniel shrugged and took another drag.
‘You’ll be able to clean yerself up when you get home, like.’
‘Aye.’
‘What would you’ve done if I hadn’t stopped?’
‘Just walk.’
‘Eeeh, that’s a long way, lad. Take you all night.’
‘I’m not bothered, but thanks for the lift all the same.’
The man laughed and Daniel didn’t know why he was laughing. The man’s front teeth were broken. He finished his cigarette and then flicked it out of the window. Daniel watched the red sparks of the discarded cigarette leave them. He too wanted to toss his cigarette but it was only smoked halfway. Daniel thought he might get in trouble for wasting it. He took another few drags then flicked it out of the window when the man leaned out of his truck to hawk and spit.
‘Will yer mam have your tea on, then?’
‘Aye.’
‘What does she make for you?’
‘She makes … roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.’
His mother had only ever made him toast. She made good cheese on toast.
‘Roast beef on a Tuesday? My, I need to come live with you. That’s not bad, that is. Where am I dropping you?’
‘Just the centre. Wherever’s easier.’
‘I can take you home, like, man? I’m overnight in Newcastle. I want you home in time for your roast beef, don’t I? Where are you?’
‘The Cowgate, it’s …”
The man laughed again, and Daniel frowned at him. ‘Yer a’right, man. I know the Cowgate, like. I’ll take you there.’
Daniel felt cold when he was dropped off. The man left him at the roundabout and hooted his horn as he drove away.
Daniel pulled his shoulders up against the cold and ran the rest of the way: down Ponteland Road and along Chestnut Avenue on to Whitethorn Crescent. His mam had been living there for the past two years. Social services had allowed him to spend a night with her there a few months ago. It was a white house on the end of a row, next to two red-brick houses that were boarded up. He ran towards it. His nose was starting to bleed again and it hurt when he ran, so he slowed down. He put his hand up to touch it. It felt too big, like someone else’s nose. Even with his nose blocked with blood, he could still smell the cigarette off his fingers. His satchel was jumping up and down on his shoulders, so he let it fall off and ran with it in one hand.
He stopped at the path to the house. The glass was broken in all the windows, and the upstairs window was gone; everything inside was black. He frowned up at her window. It was getting dark, but the window looked blacker than all the other unlit windows. The grass in the garden was tall as his knees and growing all over the path. He took giant steps through the grass to the side door. The grass was littered with objects: a flattened traffic cone, an upturned baby’s pram, an old shoe. He could hear a dog barking. He was breathing hard.
He paused at the door before he turned the handle. His heart was thudding and he bit his lip. There would be no roast beef. Still he thought about her throwing open the door and holding him. Maybe she didn’t have a boyfriend just now. Maybe her friends weren’t round. Maybe she was clean. Maybe she would make him toast and they would sit on the couch together watching Crown Court. He felt a strange burning in his chest. He held his breath.
When he opened the door and stepped into the hall, it smelled damp and charred. He peered inside the living room but everything was black. He didn’t cry. He walked inside. The kitchen was gone. He placed a hand on the wall and then looked at his black palm. The air was still damp with smoke and it caught the back of his throat. In the living room, the couch was scorched to a spring skeleton. He climbed upstairs. The carpet squelched with water and the banister was charred. The bath and the sink were black with soot. In one of the bedrooms, the glass of the mirror wardrobe was broken, but he managed to slide the door open a little. Her clothes were still inside, unburnt. Daniel slipped inside the wardrobe and pressed her dresses against his face. He slid down to crouch among her shoes and sandals. He put his forehead against his knees.
He didn’t know how long he was crouched in the wardrobe, but after a while he heard someone on the stairs. They were walking from room to room shouting, ‘Is anyone in here?’
Daniel wanted to find out where his mother had gone, but when he walked into the passage a man grabbed him by the collar and pushed him against the wall. The man was only a little taller than Daniel. He was wearing a white vest. Daniel could smell the man’s salt sweat over the charred smell of the house. The man’s stomach pressed against Daniel as he held him to the wall.
‘What the hell are you doin’ in ’ere?’ the man said. ‘Scram, go on.’
‘Where did me mam go?’
‘Yer mam? Who’s yer mam?’
‘She lived here, her clothes’re still here.’
‘The junkies burned the place down, didn’t they? Out of it, all of them. They didn’t even know the place was on fire. I had to call the fire brigade. The whole bloody row could’ve gone up.’
‘What about me mam?’
‘I don’t know anything about yer mam. They took them all out on stretchers – still bloody out of it probably. One of ’em were burnt to a crisp. It were right disgusting. Couldn’t tell if it were man or woman.’
Daniel twisted away from him and ran down the stairs. He could hear the man calling after him. He started to cry on the way down and then he slipped and fell down a few of the steps. He scraped his arm, but he didn’t really feel it. He got up and ran out of the door and through the grass, stumbling again on the traffic cone. His feet slapped on the pavement. He didn’t know where he was running, but he was running as fast as he could. His satchel must have fallen off somewhere, in the wardrobe or on the stairs, and he felt light and fast without its uneven weight. He ran right down Ponteland Road.
It was dark and he was sitting on the kerb on the West Road when a policewoman came up to him. He didn’t look at her, but when she asked him to go with her he went because he was tired out. At the station they called his social worker and she drove him back to Minnie’s house.
*
It was after ten by the time they arrived in Brampton. The town seemed so dark, the green of the fields black against the night sky. Daniel’s eyelids felt thick and he tried to keep them open as he looked out of the car window. Tricia was talking to him about running away and about borstal and how he would be going there if he couldn’t stay put. He didn’t turn to look at her as she spoke. The smell of her perfume hurt his nose and his head.