Junk - Melvin Burgess [48]
He was full of it once we were clear. He was dancing around me, beaming away. He gets really carried away, Tar. One minute you think he’s really quiet and then suddenly he starts bouncing like that.
‘Let’s go back in and have another go,’ he says.
I just shook my head. ‘Next time,’ I told him. He didn’t know how to look. You have to look like someone boringly buying something for a boring tea. Tar was putting on this desperado face. But on the way home we had to call in at the offie for some beer, and when we came out he showed me what he had under his coat. A bottle of wine and I’d never even noticed.
I banged him on the back and grinned, and he beamed at me like I’d just given him a hundred thousand pounds. Well, I had. He could have anything he wanted after that. See?
He was as high as a kite on the way back. Gemma took one look at him and said, ‘What’s got into you?’ Lils was all ready to be pissed off because I’d been so long, but when she saw how I’d spent the time with Tar she was okay about it. Me and her went into the back and did a chase. We were doing too much, really, but we’d been bingeing that weekend and it’s important to come down slowly.
Tar was sitting on the floor showing Gems that book he’d got from the skip, and telling her about the book in Allen’s and all the rest of it. Gems was treating him like a bit of a divvy and that annoyed me. I mean, just because she was leaving him behind. I’d like to see her cope with all the stuff he had.
I looked at Lily. She was craning over Gemma to have a look at that book and Tar started telling her about how he wanted to paint. She was interested, Lily. And I thought, It doesn’t have to be messy. It doesn’t have to hurt. Maybe we could find a way of bringing him in with the rest of us instead of just elbowing him out like that.
We had a big meal. Steak, wine, the lot. Lily really got into eating meat, we hadn’t had any for weeks. Then we got a big fire going in the garden.
We’ve got a brilliant garden. You’d love it. There’s a big tall tree at the end of it that hangs right over the road. There’s a little bed with flowers and a few veggies in it that we’d planted earlier in the spring but we’d never done anything more with them and the weeds were coming back. I got inspired that night and started digging but the spade broke.
There were dandelions in the grass. Tar was going on about the dandelion he’d painted and how he wanted to do a really big, bright one some time with the pastels Gems’d bought him.
It was a beautiful evening. Gems was lying there with Tar in her arms. They looked so happy together. I wanted her to change her mind. We were going to get our bags and sleep out, but later on the rain started so we all went to bed.
*
In the morning I looked out of the window. The bonfire was wet but part of it was still smouldering away. It was a damp day. I’ve got this picture very clear in my mind, because it wasn’t something you see every day. Tar was sitting there on a milk crate by the bonfire staring up at the tree. He was crying. I thought at first it was the rain on his face, but it was tears all right. I just thought, Shit.
I gave Lily a rub to wake her up so she could have a look.
We both leaned against the window, quietly, half behind the curtains so he couldn’t see us. It was early.
‘Ahhhh…’ Lils leaned her arms on the window-sill and watched him weeping there by the fire.
‘Isn’t he lovely?’ she said. I put my arm around her. ‘Isn’t he lovely?’ she said again.
Chapter Thirteen
Tar
I went back to my room and I got out the pastels that Gemma had given me and had a go at the dandelion. I had a big piece of cartridge paper that Vonny gave me on a board over my knees. The pastel sticks were bright, just what I’d wanted. But it was no good.
Vonny came in and asked how I was. I said, ‘Okay.’ She asked where Gemma was and I had to tell her that she wasn’t coming back. Then Jerry came in and asked what