The Boy Who Hit Play Read online

  I jump into Lene’s boat and unwind the rope.

  Dad and Kirsten run. Dad grabs the rope on the dock. I pull it. ‘Let me go.’ I pull hard. He slips. I fall back and my head hits the wood. Dad loses his balance.

  He doesn’t fall back. He falls down. Down over the edge. I hear the splash.

  I do what Lene did. I switch the engine on and go. I can’t stop.

  I’m drifting away.

  Wipe Out

  I don’t know what I’m doing.

  I scrape along the bow of a white yacht. Someone yells.

  I look back for Dad and see his head bobbing, his hand reaching for the jetty, a crowd gathering round.

  The Gullfisk moves on, out into the waves. Into the middle of nowhere.

  I feel tiny.

  And scared.

  The water rolls the boat, playing with it like it knows I don’t know what I’m doing.

  My stomach pulses.

  What am I? A past Floyd doesn’t want to own up to? That’d destroy him.

  I lean over the side and am sick.

  I sick up every part of me that might belong to him and switch the engine off.

  The boat eddies and spins.

  I sink down into the bottom and curl up.

  I am a ball, curled up inside itself.

  No one can reach me.

  ’Cos I’m a phone with a black screen.

  And zero battery.

  And everything wiped off from the inside.

  Sucker Punch

  I don’t know how long I stay like that.

  I hear a

  PSHHHHH

  and a

  PSHHHHH.

  The boat creaks.

  click

  whirr

  click.

  It rises on one side.

  I look up and see a mist creeping over. White swirls pushing in.

  I look over the edge and see a black nose.

  White back.

  Black fin.

  One, two … three of them.

  Orcas.

  Killer whales.

  Pure meat and muscle.

  A head bobs up. A back.

  They get closer.

  One noses the boat.

  It creaks.

  This is it, I think.

  I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die in the sea.

  Tears pour down my face.

  ‘Do it,’ I say, shaking. ‘If you’re gonna do it. Just do it.’

  But they don’t do anything.

  One looks me right in the eye. We stare at each other like it’s reading my brain.

  It dives.

  I hear the buzz of an engine. I can’t see anything. The mist is too strong.

  When I look back I see the whales’ heads and bodies rolling away.

  Slinking off into the sea.

  And a white yacht pings out of the mist. It’s coming this way.

  Big.

  Posh.

  High out of the water.

  And I think it can only be one person.

  He knows I know.

  It’s Floyd.

  It’s Floyd coming for me.

  If he comes here I’ll punch him.

  It he tries to touch me I’ll sock him in the face.

  All this time Floyd just didn’t want me to find out.

  I’m an embarrassment am I?

  A dark bit of MP Floyd Partington’s life that he doesn’t want to admit to.

  That’ll ruin his career.

  His shiny family-friendly face.

  The engine stops.

  It drifts alongside.

  A face hangs over.

  It isn’t Floyd. It’s Lloyd.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’ I turn my back on him and drop on to the floor.

  The boat rocks.

  ‘Your father isn’t Floyd,’ Lloyd says. ‘He isn’t Floyd, Elvis.’

  Like how.

  I don’t turn round.

  ‘It’s my other brother Boyd,’ he says. ‘It’s Boydy.’

  What Happened

  ‘Who’s he?’ I turn round.

  Lloyd drops his head.

  ‘He died, Elvis. He died just after you were born.’

  Dead?

  I go cold and am suddenly sick again. Over the side of the boat.

  ‘My little brother.’ Lloyd hangs his head. ‘I wish you could have met him.’ He puts his hands over his ears. I splash salty water over my face. It sets tight.

  Lloyd bobs closer. ‘I would come aboard –’ he waves his hands in front of the controls – ‘but this is Floyd’s boat. I nicked it. I have actually no idea what I’m doing.’ He laughs. ‘Boyd would have been proud. I miss him.’

  ‘Your own brother.’ I wipe my mouth with my sleeve. ‘And you never said. Twelve years and you never said.’

  Lloyd hangs his head. ‘My family never speaks of him. I did what I thought was best. I gave you George. He is the best man I know.’ He frowns. ‘They came to my house,’ he says. ‘From Norway. They had nowhere to go.’

  ‘My parents?’

  He nods. ‘Boyd wanted to see Father. He hadn’t seen him in a very long time. He wanted you to meet him … But him and your mother fell out. They did that a lot,’ he says. ‘They liked each other, I’m sure. But things were difficult. They had no money and nowhere to go. And they had a row. A very silly row.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Boyd suggested she get some help. She had problems, Elvis, and she wasn’t coping very well and she left with …’ Lloyd slaps his hand over his mouth. ‘Your father drove after her, but he’d been drinking and he swerved to avoid a rat and crashed into a tree.’ Lloyd wipes his eyes. ‘It was the worst night of my life.’

  ‘What about my mum?’

  Lloyd shakes his head. ‘She thought you died too.’

  ‘You should’ve told her!’

  ‘I tried …’ Lloyd pulls his hair. ‘I had no name, no number. Nothing. I looked for her. Everywhere. But it was hopeless. Then she rang. Out of the blue. I said, Boyd’s dead, and she said, Where’s the baby? and I said …

  ‘What? What did you say?’

  ‘He’s gone.’ Lloyd plasters back his hair. ‘I didn’t mean gone dead. I meant gone.’

  ‘You left me on a bench!’

  ‘I knew your father was finishing work. I knew the way he’d walk home. He always called in on Wednesdays – Janet used to pass on any hedgehogs from the area. He’s great at rescuing things. Just think of all those hedgehogs, Elvis.’

  ‘I’m not a hedgehog.’

  ‘I knew he’d be wonderful!’

  ‘Didn’t you ring her back?’

  ‘She hung up. She rang from a phone box. How could I trace her?’

  ‘You had the address.’ I think about the note.

  ‘I found that in Boyd’s notebook. So I copied it out. It was a guess. I thought. Well …’

  ‘It was a clue?’

  ‘Yes. And you’d have it for when you needed it. For when you needed to know.’

  ‘We could’ve known loads sooner.’

  ‘How? How could your dad come to Norway, Elvis? He did it when you needed to know. When you wanted to find out, he gave up everything.’

  I think about Dad’s job.

  I think about Lloyd standing up to Floyd just by being here.

  ‘And Nina had her hands full with …’

  ‘Nina?’

  Lloyd looks up. I follow his eyes.

  Sync

  A silent dot pings out of the mist. It gets closer. And closer.

  A white dinghy tacking towards us.

  I see a girl with dark hair.

  And a steel-set face.

  Who pulls up alongside the Gullfisk.

  I think about the dream.

  The room I didn’t know existed. A hand comes out of the mirror.

  Lene.

  It was Lene.

  I look down.

  Lene’s dad was from England.

  Lene’s dad died when she wa
s a baby.

  Lene’s mum has ‘problems’.

  She got the Gullfisk for her birthday.

  In the summer.

  Same as my birthday.

  ‘Lene’s mum is Nina,’ I whisper out loud.

  ‘She had her hands full with your sister …’ Lloyd’s voice trails off.

  Me and Lene look at each other.

  Lene holds her hand out like the dream.

  It was her.

  It was her face in the mirror.

  I take it.

  ‘You’re my brother,’

  ‘You’re my sister,’

  we say in sync.

  Now

  If you were looking down on Brymont on the 25th of June 2005, you’d have seen a man running, apples flying. Down Minton Street, past the Happy Shopper and the monkeys and the screech owls.

  Writing:

  and laying a baby down gently. Ever so gently on a bench and hiding by the lemurs.

  Waiting for the Stetson to turn the corner …

  And if you look down on the Traena Festival right now you’ll see a woman tearing up papers and chucking them into the wind.

  Three boats.

  Together.

  *

  A dad in a blanket, a mum and an aunt on a bench.

  A family like a jigsaw.

  That makes it’s own shape.

  It’s very own lovely wonky-edged imperfect shape.

  With bits that stick out, rough and ready.

  ’Cos sometimes things don’t slot together that

  easy.

  Twins

  This is the story of what happened that night, the next day and twenty-five years before it.

  The reason why I’m here now,

  bobbing in a boat

  with my mouth open,

  part shock, part smile,

  looking at a girl

  who elbows me in the ribs and says, ‘if you take the Gullfisk again, I’ll kill you.’ She looks at Lloyd. ‘Tell him the rest,’ she says and grins.

  ‘Boyd was always Dad’s favourite,’ Lloyd says. ‘Floyd hated that. When he died Mother swore us to secrecy, that we’d never tell Father. He had a heart condition. She thought it’d break his heart. So we kept it secret. He thought Boyd was off travelling the world.’ He rubs the chrome railing. ‘I made up postcards.’

  I think about the brick through the window. ‘He died and you and Floyd fell out.’

  ‘Money,’ Lloyd says. ‘It all comes down to money.’

  ‘Does Dad know?’

  ‘Only the Boyd bit. Not the Floyd bit,’ Lloyd says and puts his hands up. ‘And he hasn’t always known.’

  I think back to the beginning, in the hedgehog basement. George, can we discuss matters? Dad’s face when he came upstairs. ‘You told him on my birthday?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lloyd sags like a leaky balloon.

  ‘What about Lene?’

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘I didn’t tell a soul. I felt too ashamed.’

  Lloyd looks up. ‘Did she sign the papers?’

  ‘No.’ Lene laughs. ‘She didn’t. Thank God.’ She tilts her head at the sun and grins. ‘You still don’t know do you? Tell him the good bit, Lloyd. Tell him the bit that changes everything.’

  The Bit That Changes Everything

  ‘Father died three years afterwards,’ Lloyd says.

  ‘After Boyd?’

  He nods.

  ‘Father had a lot of money.’

  I think about the castle.

  ‘And he left a lot of it to Boyd.’

  ‘But Boyd was dead.’

  Lloyd nods. ‘Floyd thought the money would go to him as the eldest. But I told the estate manager he had children. Twins. None of them knew. Mother, Floyd, the estate. And now it’s set to go to you. Both of you.’

  ‘When we’re thirteen.’ Lene grins.

  ‘I had to find you, Lene,’ Lloyd says. ‘I had to prove you existed. Floyd needed to prove you didn’t. He used a private detective to find your mother. Before we came out here.’

  ‘And one when we got here.’ I tap my leg. ‘To check we didn’t get to her first.’

  Lloyd nods.

  ‘Floyd tried to get Mum to sign papers saying we weren’t Boyd’s. He came up here to make sure she did. To make sure she didn’t get to meet you.’ She elbows my arm and smiles. ‘He offered her BIG money.’ She bulges her eyes. ‘But she didn’t sign. She couldn’t. She said we were the last piece of him she’s got.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘She isn’t … brilliant.’

  I think about the phone call.

  ‘That’s why I go to Kirsten’s.’ She picks wood off the bottom of the boat. ‘People come round to do “checks”’.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Food, money, stuff … That I’m OK.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Sometimes I wasn’t.’ She shrugs. ‘When I was little.’

  ‘Can I see him?’ I point at her chain. ‘The photo.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lene lifts the locket out of her shirt. ‘Brother,’ she says and laughs. ‘That’s mad.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s brilliant though.’

  And I unclick the locket and stare at the photo.

  A Face

  I look into his face.

  Not really knowing what I’m looking for.

  Just to see.

  To see what I feel.

  And I don’t know yet.

  Right now he’s just a face.

  Warm from Lene.

  His hair is long. Tucked behind his ears.

  He looks serious. And strange.

  ‘Passport photo,’ Lene says.

  ‘Boyd hated having his photo taken,’ Lloyd says.

  I wonder if he’s like me?

  ‘Did Boyd get brain flicks, Lloyd?’

  Lloyd nods. ‘His brain was very flicky. He’d be halfway through a sandwich and decide to build a matchstick house.’ He pulls his sleeves over his hands. ‘The world was a bit of a cage for Boyd. It never really fitted him.’

  Is he half of me?

  One half?

  The other one waiting on the island?

  Are they halves or quarters?

  I think about Dad. Always being there. Singing through it all.

  Did he make me who I am?

  I think about me.

  Did I?

  And Lloyd. And Aunty Ima.

  I’m a collage.

  I’m pieces of everyone and everything I’ve met.

  Boyd isn’t half.

  He’s just the beginning.

  He’s the seed.

  Lloyd holds up his last Jazz apple. ‘It was an apple tree,’ he says. ‘He crashed into an apple tree. I don’t hold it against the apples. It isn’t their fault.’ He smooths its skin.

  I think of how he plants a new tree in his orchard every year. ‘It’s how I remember him. When I’m with an apple, I’m with Boyd. People say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But it can. It can roll. It can roll all the way down the hill. I am a Partington. But I am nothing like Floyd. Boyd and I are our own people. He taught me to never forget that. So I don’t.’ He takes a bite.

  I look down at the face.

  It’s good to see him.

  It’s kind of like a ghost though.

  Something I can never touch.

  I think of Dad, strong and real and always there.

  And snap it shut.

  Home

  We look out at the mist which is pushing at the sides of the boat. Coming over the edges. And wrapping itself around us.

  The boats chip the water and clunk noses.

  ‘I don’t want to be alarming –’ Lloyd tries to paddle the mist away with his hands – ‘but how are we going to get back?’

  Lene looks over one shoulder then the other.

  I hold up my dad’s dad’s dad’s compass and swing it in my hand. ‘With this!’

  Lene grins and nods.

&nbs
p; Bring us home, Great-Great-Great-Grandad, I think. Take us home.

  The Unknown

  We use the compass to guide us in. Lene shows me how.

  I like the way the past is leading us to the future.

  I think about me on my birthday.

  Birthday me shrugs his shoulders at the me now.

  There’s so much I didn’t know then. I’d never have guessed it.

  From the island a foghorn blares. Pulling us in.

  A lighthouse beam turns and flashes.

  A glint of light in the white.

  Sometimes you have to go out into the mist to discover things.

  Sometimes it’s when you jump into the unknown that you find out who you are.

  How I See It

  The boat pulls into the jetty.

  The mist parts enough to see the shore.

  I see Dad in a blanket.

  I see Kirsten.

  And a woman in between, not sure what to do with her hands. Running them over her hair. Tucking it behind her ears.

  I don’t know what to do either.

  The festival goes on.

  But the world goes silent.

  For me.

  For us?

  I dunno.

  ‘Elvis!’ Lene yells. The Gullfisk bounces into the jetty.

  CLUNK.

  I snap out of it.

  ‘Sorry.’

  I switch the engine off.

  My hands are shaking.

  Lene climbs on to the jetty.

  I chuck her the rope and she ties it up and hauls us in.

  She leans over the boat and offers a hand.

  I take it.

  We look at each other.

  Her eyes say she’s got me. Whatever happens.

  However this goes. Whatever it’s like.

  We’ve got each other.

  I look at Mum.

  Can I say that?

  I can’t even think it.

  It’s too weird.

  I hold Lene’s hand. My legs are wobbling. I feel like I’m gonna fall but I don’t.

  I pull myself up and out on to the shore.

  She comes over to me.

  Her.

  The woman.

  Mum.

  For a long moment we just stare at each other.