Storms - 43. Daniel

‘This will be your bedroom,’ said Grandmother, leading me up a narrow staircase and to a door. She opened it and I followed her inside.

It was an attic room, with slanted ceiling and a large window at the end. It was nice, really, but I instantly missed my room in Stephen and Lewis’s house; it was a lot more colourful and cosy. But the bed looked comfortable enough, and there was a large wardrobe with space for my things, as well as a desk.

‘It was your mother’s room,’ Grandmother continued. ‘We’ve mostly left it as it was. Took down some of her posters.’ She made a face.

She had already shown me the rest of the house. The downstairs was a front room, a kitchen, and a small dining room. Upstairs was the master bedroom and a spacious bathroom. It was not a large house, but it seemed cosy enough. It was odd, though, after being used to all the art on the walls at Stephen and Lewis’s, to be in a house that featured so little of it.

I turned to her. ‘Thanks.’

Grandmother nodded. ‘Of course. I’ll let you get settled. Please come down when you’re finished and we’ll have something to eat. Your grandfather is at work.’ She turned and left the room.

I began to put away my stuff. I hadn’t brought much, as I was only staying for two weeks, but I figured it would be nice to put everything in the wardrobe instead of just leaving it in my suitcase.

While I unpacked, I looked around the room. I could tell where the posters had been; the wallpaper was brighter. Clearly, they had taken them down recently. I got the distinct feeling that no one had been in this room, let alone slept in it, for a long time. About fifteen years, to be precise. I wondered what they had featured. Films? Bands? I had no idea what teenagers had listened to when my mum ran away.

Only two things remained up on the walls; one was a poster for a very wholesome-looking film, the title of which I didn’t recognise, and the other a framed picture featuring the Sermon on the Mount. It looked like something out of a children’s Bible. I wondered if it had been there when my mum lived here, or if they had put it up for my benefit. Even in a black household, Jesus is blonde and blue-eyed . . . I shook my head.

The idea of going downstairs to eat with Grandmother didn’t much appeal to me. For one, I wasn’t especially hungry—the whole situation meant that I’d felt sick and anxious since that morning. For another, I was somewhat intimidated by her.

Still, I was in her home and I was going to be there for two weeks. I’d have to sit down with her sooner or later, so it might as well be now.

I found her at the kitchen table. She had set out plates for us and a Tupperware container full of some kind of curry, which seemed to have been just taken out of the microwave, sat in the middle of the table, along with a bowl of rice. There was also a bottle of lemonade of the cloudy variety.

She smiled at me when I sat. It seemed more genuine than it had before and I returned it tentatively.

‘Curry?’ she said, lifting a spoon. ‘Leftovers from yesterday.’

‘Er, I’m not all that hungry, actually,’ I mumbled. ‘I . . . have a nervous stomach. When I have to, you know, travel and . . . stuff.’ I looked down. I had no idea how she would react to that. Would she force me to eat, the way James used to do?

‘Well, all right. Maybe later, then.’

I looked up to see her dishing curry onto her own plate. My shoulders relaxed somewhat; I hadn’t even realised how tense I’d been. I accepted when she offered me lemonade.

We were silent for a little while. It felt a bit awkward, just sitting there with my glass of lemonade while she ate. Finally, she spoke. ‘I’m sorry this has all happened so quickly. I realise that can’t be easy for you.’

Her words surprised me. ‘Er, that’s okay. I mean, yeah, it’s fast, but . . .’

‘We have good reason,’ she said. ‘It’s important to get you out of that house.’

I frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Because you don’t belong there. You belong here, with your family. You’ll see that, in time.’

I bit my lip, refusing to engage. I had a nagging suspicion I knew what she really meant, why she wanted me out of Stephen and Lewis’s house. It wasn’t an argument I was ready to have on my very first day, however. So instead, I just nodded.

* * *

I went to bed early that night, and the first thing I did when I got into bed was call Michael. It only rang once.

‘Hey, Danny!’ He sounded almost breathless when he answered.

‘Hey,’ I said, smiling. ‘It’s good to hear your voice.’

‘Yeah. You too.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘How are you holding up?’

‘I’m okay.’ I sighed. ‘It’s just . . . really different here.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I dunno. Quiet. It was like we barely talked at tea. At home—’ I cut myself off, cleared my throat. ‘I mean, at Lewis and Stephen’s, we have all these conversations at mealtimes. We talk about everything. But here . . . Grandmother does a little bit of small talk. Grandfather is really quiet, barely spoke three words to me all evening. Tried to ask him about work, but all he said was that he’s a plumber, and I already knew that. He just doesn’t seem like he cares much. About anything.’

‘Sounds . . . boring,’ said Michael.

‘Yeah. I mean, it could be a lot worse, definitely. They’re not mean to me or anything.’ I swallowed. At least not yet. I lay down on my back and stared up at the slanted ceiling. ‘I’m scared, Michael,’ I whispered. ‘I want to go home.’

‘I know, Danny.’ I heard him take a deep breath. ‘I want you to come home too. You’ll be home soon, though.’

‘How was school today?’ I asked. ‘How is everyone?’

‘They’re okay. Oliver and them were really sad when I told them you’d be gone for a couple of weeks. I think there’s a rumour going you’ll be gone for good.’

‘Bet that makes a lot of people happy . . .’ I thought about Jason and his friends.

‘You know, weird thing was, Patrick came and asked me about it. He said he hoped it wasn’t his fault.’

I raised an eyebrow involuntarily. ‘What did you tell him?’

‘I said it wasn’t. You know, I haven’t seen him bully anyone since he got back from his suspension. He’s been downright helpful to people. And because he’s being nicer, so are Neal, Dinesh and Ethan.’

‘I guess he’s changed.’

Michael laughed. ‘Yeah, I think maybe he has . . . Anyway, the gang all said to say hi when I talked to you. They miss you. I . . . I miss you.’

‘I miss you too.’ Saying it, it was difficult to hold back the tears.

After we hung up, I had a hard time falling asleep. I was afraid that I’d wake up from a nightmare and be sick. I didn’t want to have to run down the steep attic stairs in the night, and I didn’t want to wake my grandparents with my retching. In the end, I was so exhausted I fell asleep anyway and didn’t dream a thing.

* * *

The next day, Grandfather dropped me off at school. It was a smaller school than I’d gone to before. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. All I knew was that I was new again. I was unsurprised when the first bully confronted me at dinner break. He cornered me in a corridor.

‘New kid, eh? What’s your name?’

I didn’t answer. I recognised his ilk. His posture, his tone of voice, they all screamed predator. And I was prey. Such is the high school food chain. It wouldn’t matter what I did, he’d still find a reason to pick on me.

‘I said, what’s your name, faggot!’

And there it was. I sighed and looked up at him. ‘It’s Daniel. What’s yours?’

‘You disrespectin’ me?’ He was tall, white, dark-haired. We both wore the same uniform, so you couldn’t tell by the way he dressed, but his accent was a clear but exaggerated attempt to sound like how people talked back home and it gave him away as a chav.

‘Just introducing myself,’ I said, though I knew it was no good.

‘Oi! Dav!’ someone called, and a moment later, two other white boys, who also made a mockery of my accent in an attempt to be cool, stepped up to us. ‘Who’s this, then?’

Dav the chav greeted them both with elaborate handshakes. ‘Just gettin’ to know the new kid, innit?’ He turned to me again. ‘Not very impressed, so far.’

The others eyed me and one of them said, ‘You as much of a poof as you look, then?’

And I was tired. I was so sick of this routine, this dance, of trying to save my own skin by making myself small and quiet and unassuming. These guys were the least of my problems. So in a fit of insanity, I said, ‘Yeah. Just as gay as I look. Now fuck off.’

I tried to walk away, but of course, it wouldn’t be that easy. One of them grabbed me by the collar, and the next thing I knew, a fist landed in my gut and knocked the air out of me. It was Dav. I doubled over and he released me, guffawing along with his mates.

‘That wasn’t a very nice thing to say, now, was it?’ he said.

I righted myself, coughing a couple of times, and glared at him. ‘Just leave me alone, okay? I’m only here for two fucking weeks.’

‘Well, best have our fun now, then,’ said one of the others and grabbed me again.

Enough was enough. Without thinking, I kneed him right in the crotch and he doubled over in pain with a groan. I took the opportunity to run.

‘You’re dead, you little fucker!’ one of them called after me, but I ignored them. I ran past the first boy’s bathroom I saw and went into the second, locking myself in one of the stalls. This was familiar. This felt safe. In a way, there was comfort in that.

* * *

The next couple of days went by in much the same way. Dav and his boys (whose names I learned were Bradders and Ben, though I had no idea which was which) had singled me out, and they weren’t about to let me off for kicking one of them in the balls. I avoided them when I could, but they still managed to corner me occasionally. Nobody came to my defense. I had essentially outed myself on my first day, and word had travelled. No one wanted to be friends with the fucking queer.

I began to dread going to school. Not that I’d been especially keen on it from before, but Friday I woke up with my brain screaming at me to stay home.

I went down to breakfast and sat down, but didn’t eat. After a moment, I said, ‘Grandmother?’

‘Yes, dear?’ She’d taken to calling me that and was treating me more warmly than she had when I had just arrived, but she still seemed a bit cold at times.

‘I was wondering if I could stay home from school today. I . . . I don’t feel well.’

She looked up at me. ‘You look fine.’

‘Well, I . . . I have a headache.’

Grandmother got up and crossed to the kitchen cabinet. She got out a box of paracetamol and returned to me with two pills. ‘Take these and go to school,’ she said.

I did as she asked. But when I got to school, I was almost immediately hunted down by my bullies. They cornered me in a stairwell.

‘So,’ said Bradders/Ben conversationally. ‘You ever taken it up the arse?’

I froze. I was not prepared to have this conversation.

‘Bet he has,’ said Ben/Bradders. ‘Bet you loved it. Squealed like a bitch, didn’t you?’

‘Bet you love to suck dick too,’ said Dav. ‘But nothin’ beats a good arse pounding for you.’

Had I been somebody else, had the things that had happened to me never happened, I might have taken a dig back and then accepted my beating. The irony of three supposedly straight homophobes standing around describing in graphic detail the sort of sex acts they thought I enjoyed was not lost on me. In another life, I would have laughed at them.

But not in this one. Instead, I shook with the effort of keeping my brain in check, of preventing the full-on, out of body panic attack often brought on by the memories these three were currently inadvertently unearthing. I stood still, unresponsive, while the three of them continued with their speculation, until a teacher walked by and they were forced to stop. Then I turned and walked away from them. I was cold sweating. Breaking into a run, I found a toilet where I threw up.

When I was done and my heart rate had slowed, I rinsed my mouth and washed my face. Then I left the school.

I wandered aimlessly for several hours, unwilling to return to my grandparents’ house. The school had probably rung Grandmother. I had switched off my phone to avoid any potential calls. But when the school day was over, I realised I had to go face the music. I turned on my phone—to find several missed calls, which I did not return—and navigated by Google maps.

As soon as I entered the house, Grandmother came running. ‘Where have you been?’ The look on her face was one of fury and her voice was hard. ‘I’ve been worried sick! School called, said you’d just left!’

‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘I . . . I wasn’t . . . I didn’t feel well.’

‘Then you should have gone to the nurse! Or come home! Where were you?’

‘Nowhere,’ I said. ‘Just . . . walking.’

‘Well, you won’t be walking anywhere for a while,’ she said. ‘You’re going to your room, come on.’

She led the way up the stairs and I followed with a knot in my stomach. Was she going to punish me? She opened the door and ushered me inside. ‘Give me your mobile.’ I handed it to her. ‘You’re staying in here until tea, is that understood?’ Then she closed the door . . . and locked it.

‘No . . .’ Panic and dread welled up inside me. ‘Wait! Please, no!’ I tried the door handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. I banged on it with both fists. ‘Grandmother, please! I can’t . . .’

Memories. Memories of being locked in a closet, locked in the bathroom, locked in my room for a whole day. They filled my mind and clouded my vision, and I sobbed. ‘Fuck, no . . .’ I banged on the door again. ‘Please, let me out!’ My voice broke.

I stumbled over to the desk, got hold of the wastepaper basket that stood under it, and retched into it, but nothing much came up as I hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink since the last time I vomited. Only bitter, sour stomach acid. I sat on the floor, hugging my knees, with my back against the bed, rocking and sobbing.

A good while later, I couldn’t be sure how long, she returned to find me still sitting like that, though I was no longer crying. Still, my eyes were red and I must have looked awful. She frowned. ‘What on Earth?’

‘Please,’ I said weakly. ‘Please, don’t do that. Don’t lock me in.’ The tears started again. ‘I . . . I can’t take being locked in!’

I really didn’t expect it, but she came over, sat down next to me, and hugged me. ‘It’s all right, dear,’ she said softly. Then she wrinkled her nose and looked at me. I glanced at the wastepaper basket.

‘I . . . I threw up a little bit. I throw up sometimes when I . . . when I get panic attacks.’

‘Panic attacks?’ Grandmother pursed her lips. ‘Being locked in gives you panic attacks?’

I nodded. ‘My stepfather . . . he used to lock me in my room. For hours. Whole days, sometimes. It was . . . it was awful.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know.’ She sighed. ‘All right. I won’t do that again. But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. I won’t let you skip school.’ She sat back and searched my face. ‘Why did you really leave?’

I wetted my lips and looked away. ‘I got a panic attack at school too. There were some . . . some boys. They . . . they were picking on me.’

‘Well, why didn’t you tell anyone?’

I shrugged. ‘Bullies get worse when you tell on them,’ I mumbled. ‘I’m not used to telling. Never did much good, until recently.’

Grandmother stood. ‘What are their names?’

I hesitated. Should I tell her? She looked so stern. In the end, I gave in. ‘They’re called Dav, Ben and Bradders. Dav is the . . . the boss, I guess.’

She nodded. ‘All right. Well, I’m coming with you to school Monday morning and speaking to your headmaster. No grandson of mine is going to be bullied. Not if I can help it.’ Her tone softened. ‘Tea is nearly ready. Do you think you can eat something?’

I considered, and my stomach rumbled. ‘Maybe a little bit,’ I said.

Grandmother pulled me to my feet, then tied up the bin bag in the wastepaper basket and took it with her. We both went downstairs. ‘I’m sorry if I’m hard on you, Daniel,’ she said. ‘It’s . . . it’s only because I care. Your grandfather and I, we . . . failed, with your mother. We have a second chance now.’

I cringed. ‘Is that all I am?’ I said, without thinking. ‘Your second chance?’

She stopped in her tracks and turned to face me. ‘Of course not! You’re our grandson. You’re family.’ Then she hugged me.

* * *

I opened my contacts list and scrolled to Stephen. I hesitated for a moment, my thumb hovering above the call button before pressing it. It rang a couple of times, then he answered.

‘Daniel? Is everything all right?’

I let out a breath. ‘Hey.’ Hearing his voice made me feel better than I had thought it would. ‘Yeah. I’m okay. I just . . . wanted to talk for a bit. Hope that’s okay.’

‘Of course,’ he said emphatically. ‘You can call any time you like, you know that. So how are things in Dudley?’

I shrugged, realised he couldn’t see me, and said, ‘All right, I suppose. I miss you guys. But . . . it’s not as bad as I was afraid of.’

‘How have you been, mental health-wise?’

His question made me smile. The fact that he cared so much about that made me happy. ‘It’s been mostly okay. I . . . had some panic attacks today, though.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Do you know what triggered them?’

Should I tell him? He’d be worried if I did, but then he’d probably be worried if I didn’t, too. ‘Well, first there were some boys at school. They were . . . bullying me, I guess, and they started talking about . . .’ I hesitated.

‘It’s okay,’ said Stephen. ‘You can tell me.’

I sighed. ‘Well, they started talking about, like, gay sex stuff. ’Cause . . . I kind of outed myself before. And it . . . well, it made me think about . . .’ I swallowed, suddenly queasy again.

‘It’s fine, you don’t have to say any more.’ Stephen’s voice had taken on a darker quality. ‘I get it.’

‘Yeah. Anyway, I got away from them, had a panic attack, and then I just left school. When I got home, Grandmother was upset about that and locked me in my room as punishment. I mean, she didn’t know that . . . that James used to . . . But that gave me a flashback, I guess, and I got another panic attack. When she came back I told her and she’s promised she won’t lock me in again.’

‘Well . . . that’s good.’ I didn’t quite believe his tone of voice. ‘I’m sorry that happened to you.’

‘She apologised,’ I said. ‘And . . . and she hugged me. I think . . . I think maybe she’s just out of practice, kind of. I mean . . . It’s been fifteen years since Mum ran off. I think she really wants to take care of me, she just doesn’t quite know how. You know?’

‘Yeah.’ Stephen’s voice sounded a bit strained. ‘I’m glad you’re getting along with her. She’s your grandmother. Your . . . family.’

‘You’re my family too.’ I let out a slow breath. ‘I want to come home.’

‘You will. In a week and a day. And we’ll take it from there. Hang in there, pal.’

I smiled. ‘Thanks. I should get ready for bed. Tell Lewis I said hi.’

‘I will. Goodnight, Danny.’

We hung up. He was right. Sunday next week they’d be picking me up and I’d be going back home. I was due back here in another two weeks after that, but still. I’d be home. And that was something to look forward to.