Flick by Tarttelin Abigail

Author:Tarttelin,Abigail
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

THE NEAREST I’LL GET TO WIMBLEDON

I think about Fez’s request/outright threat a little more that night and decide I better bite the bullet and make an attempt to get it over and done with before exams. So I make the call he instructed me to make and I meet Kyle Craig, one of his contacts, outside school the next day. He’s a couple of years older than me but because he has the personality of an excitable child, I always feel like he’s my age. We know each other from scouts, when we were kids, and from Ritzies pretty much every Friday, so he grins sheepishly and slaps me on the back.

“Hiya, dickhead!” Kyle’s a character. A lively little shit, full of enthusiasm for his two interests: contemporary social commentary film and hard-core drug use. He’s irritating as fuck, but he’s the only dealer Fez suggested that I knew I could trust to get me the dirt and keep it clean (i.e., not use half of it, then replace it with talcum powder) and, as always, to deliver a detailed account of the latest releases on Collector’s Edition.

“Y’seen La haine, mate?”

“No, Kyle, what’s that?”

“French film, mate, means ‘The Hate’ in English. Ha. Means ‘The Hate,’ mate. Poet and I don’t know it, right?”

I grimace as Kyle beams and lets us into his home, just next to the college gates.

“ALL RIGHT?” He slams the back door shut.

“ALL RIGHT, DARLING.” Kyle’s mum sits in front of the TV in trackies and Sandford football shirt, glass of wine in hand.

“Hello, my gorgeous mam!” Kyle kisses her cheek and sits on her lap. “How was your day? Fabulous, I hope?”

“Get off, you! Yeah, it was fine, oh hello, Will, how are you?”

“Fine thank you, Mrs. Craig.”

“You still doing well in your exams? Your mam said you were getting all As and Bs.”

“Yeah, still going well,” I lie through my teeth, then pretend to be enthralled by the TV. “Oh, is Downing still playing for Sandford?”

“Yeah, isn’t he lovely?”

“She’d grab his bum any day, wouldn’t y’, Ma?” Kyle walks round the back of the sofa, giving my arm a squeeze. “Stay here, mate.”

I have a good chat with Kyle’s mum while he’s upstairs. We talk about football and her social club.

“Well, Kyle said I should get out and have a life.” She grins. “It’s all right, I suppose. The people are nice.”

Kyle bounds back into the room with vinyls for pupils. “What’s that, Ma, the social?”

“Shut up, you.”

“Did you tell him about Colin?”

“Mr. Earnshaw,” his Ma cautions. “No, I didn’t.”

“She’s met a bloke called Colin who fancies her.”

“Shut up! Go and get your mother some wine.”

“It’s down by your feet, Ma. He asked her to dinner at the Italiano.” Kyle snorts and mimics Alan Partridge: “Get your glad rags on, love, I’m taking you out on the town!”

“Oh stop it, you annoying child!”

I grin. “I think you should go for it, Mrs. Craig.”

Kyle’s mum put up with his dad hitting her for years. It’s no secret.

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