Junk - Melvin Burgess [6]
4 This is where the pencil and paper comes in. You write them a note explaining that you’re going away so that they can expect to see very little of you in the immediate future. Wish them luck, tell them no hard feelings and that you hope they will understand. Alternatively you can ask them how they can bear to live with themselves after they’ve made your young life so unbearable that you’ve had to go away into the hard world, etc. etc. But beware! This will undermine your credibility.
5 Book your coach ticket using your father’s Visa card.
6 Take the money and run.
If you want to make really sure, you write or telephone and tell them how well fed you are and how many woolly vests you’re wearing. (This is where the warm underwear comes in.) That way, when they ask the police to help them get their property back, the police say, ‘Two woolly vests she’s got on, has she? Took a sleeping-bag, hmm?’ Because, you see, while the police might care a whole load about you while you’re dead, they ain’t going to spend a penny more than they have to on you while you’re still alive.
Actually – this is a secret – I’m only going away for a bit. I’ll know when I get there. Couple of weeks. A month, maybe.
Mum and Dad don’t know that, though.
Tar rang me on Tuesday. My parents had gone to play squash. I started telling him and suddenly I was smiling all over my face. That’s when I knew I was really going to do it. Before… you know, I meant to but there was this thought that maybe I was just kidding myself. But when I began grinning, I knew. He was smiling too. I could hear his face stretching even over the phone.
I felt a bit guilty too because… he wants me so much and… People are always talking about love like it’s something everyday. People say they love their parents, but what does that mean? Not exactly intoxicating, is it? I hate mine sometimes but I don’t suppose I feel any less for them than anyone else. All I know is this: if there is such a thing as being in love, I may not be there yet but when I do I’m going to be INFATUATED. All over the place. I’ll do anything for him. You name it. Whatever.
But in the meantime, I intend to make the most of my freedom.
Tar’s so sweet. He’s the sort of person who makes you want to be close to him. And he’s had such a hard time, and no one deserves a hard time less than Tar. He’s the sort of person you’d pick to be in love with. Knowing me I’ll fall for some real shit with earrings and a loud voice. Just my luck.
So it was… maybe a bit unfair on him. On the other hand, I liked him more than anyone and I fancied him something rotten. After the phone call I started to think about spending days with him with no one to say do this, do that… and I just felt SOOOO good about it. Holding his hand in the dark. Sleeping with him, talking to him when there was no one else there. Looking after him because, poor Tar, he needs someone. He wants someone. He wants me.
Sometimes when we were hiding behind the breakers with the crowd, he’d hold me so tight, I’d think he’s not just holding me, he’s holding on to me, like I’m stopping him from falling off. I’d see him looking at me and his eyes were so full of… I dunno. Like he was about to cry. And, it’s stupid, I know, but I think maybe he’s hurting because he loves me and I don’t love him, and this great lump used to come up into my throat and I’d hold him tight and try and squeeze him as tight as I could and try as hard as I could to fall in love with him the way he loved me.
And then other times I’d think, it’s just the way his face is that makes him look like that.
Chapter Three
Tar
Me and Gemma.
You’d never have believed it. I didn’t to start off. When she first turned up on the beach I thought I wasn’t going to like her. It was Saturday night. We’d built a big fire opposite the old factory sheds about half a mile out of town. It was a good big fire. We’d found a