Clay Read Online Free Page A

called a try-hard. It was just how things were, and trying to change it only made it worse.
    It had been different with his dad. With his dad he’d felt like he was popular or something; interesting. He could say stuff and his dad didn’t laugh, unless he meant him to. Not that his dad was perfect or anything, not that everything had been like a film or whatever before he had gone, but he did actually like TC. Or love him or whatever.
    His mum could see what the other kids thought of him, TC knew, but his dad thought everything was fine. That was good, because if he’d seen it he’d have thought it too. So it all had to be kept separate; inside. The fact that he was used to it didn’t mean it was easy.
    When the police brought him home that day it had been awful. That man there, in their flat. First there was the police thing to get through; they wanted to talk to his mum about him, give them both grief. ‘Is this the boy’s father?’ they asked; he’d sworn at them then, got a talking-to.
    The man – Jamal, she said his name was, like anyone cared – got lost fast. Then it was just him and his mum, looking at each other while the coppers went on about whatever. When they left, then it kicked off. He tried to imagine his dad, what he would want him to do. But he couldn’t do anything, not really. He was only a kid.
    He’d been back since: Jamal, his mother’s . . . what? Friend? He cooked them steaks, the first TC had ever had. And when it got cold he brought TC some gloves. Jamal wanted TC to like him, and with a hard-learned sense of playground ruthlessness TC knew that put him beneath regard.
    ‘Is he your boyfriend, then?’ TC asked as they watched telly one night.
    ‘Look, TC –’
    ‘You shouldn’t have a boyfriend.’
    ‘Well, luckily it ain’t up to you.’
    ‘What about Dad?’
    ‘What about him?’
    ‘Are you gonna tell him?’
    ‘Tell him?’
    ‘When he gets back. Because I am.’
    ‘TC – your dad ain’t coming back.’
    ‘Yes he is.’
    ‘He ain’t, OK?’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Cos it’s over.’
    ‘You won’t let him come back. He’d come back but you won’t let him.’
    ‘It ain’t like that.’
    ‘What, then?’
    But she turned the telly up and told him to get off her back.
     
    Maths went on for years. He was good at it, something he made sure none of the other kids knew; as long as you didn’t put your hand up it was OK.
    It was too cold to go to the common, so after school TC went home, climbing the four flights despite the fact that the lift, for once, was working. He hated the lift, though; it was like being eaten by the huge building, going up and down in its throat like an Adam’s apple – and anyway, the stairs were easy.
    His mum was asleep on the settee, the lounge stale and close, so he got some crisps and went to his room. It was big enough only for his bed with its old blue covers, and a little chest of drawers; his clothes and things mostly went in a plastic zip-up hamper under the bed. It was OK, though; it had a door he could shut, and a window, level with the tree canopy, that looked down to the waste ground behind the tower blocks. It was almost like a hide.
    He got out all his Lego men from a box under the bed and made them fight with his Luke Skywalker. Even though Luke didn’t have a head he was still much stronger than they were, and they couldn’t beat him. TC had almost a whole shoebox of Lego. Other people took it to school sometimes to show what they’d made, but he didn’t want to. What if you lost some, or someone took it? No, it was better just to keep it and play with it by yourself.
    When he’d finished he put everything back in the box along with a corvid skull, a stone with a hole all the way through, a lapis-blue jay’s feather and a mysterious, verdigris half-pence piece that he’d found on the common, and pushed the box back under the bed.
    That evening the wind shifted direction and began to blow from the north-east. It