The Choice by Philly McMahon

Author:Philly McMahon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gill Books

At home, I was always trying to be where John wasn’t. If he was lying sprawled on the couch in the sitting room, I would stay in our bedroom; when he came back into our room, I would quickly find a reason to leave. I made sure I was up before he woke in the mornings, and most nights I was either asleep, or pretending to be, when he came home. If he came home.

But once Mam asked me to watch him, when John went out, I went too. When I heard him leave the next evening, I waited until he had gone down the stairwell, then I counted to five in my head and slowly went after him. I didn’t want him to know straight away that I was behind him, but I wanted to see where he was going.

He turned up the road and I followed him. He moved so slowly, dragging himself in the direction of the Towers, barely lifting his feet. From a distance, I could have mistaken him for an elderly man. Nineteen-year-old John had disintegrated into this frail shadow of skin and bone.

I hung back until he cut in off the road. The Friday-night buzz was in the air. Further up the road, I could see three lads my age on bikes, cycling in circles, waiting for somewhere to go, trying to outdo each other with skids and wheelies and bunny hops. I had a good look to see if I recognised any of them from school. I didn’t want anyone I knew to see me with John.

He had stopped in front of one of the blocks and was talking to two men, his hands deep inside his pockets. Behind them, a mother held her young baby in one arm and her pram in the other, struggling to wrestle the two of them up the first flight of stairs towards her flat. I walked across the field, keeping an eye out for anybody that I knew; at least then I’d have a cover story when John asked.

I stopped when I got to the opposite end of the block that he was standing outside, and I started kicking my ball against the side of it. These walls taught me how to play football. For as long as I could remember, if there was nothing else to do – which was a lot of the time – I kicked my ball off the blocks. When I got it right, the ball bounced back off the concrete and came straight back into my hands like a boomerang, without me even needing to move. But if I got it wrong, it would end up on someone’s landing or, worse, going through their window.

And sometimes, I got it wrong.

Tonight there was something relaxing, distracting, about the repetition. Right foot. Left foot. Thump. Thump. Thump. I didn’t look over to see if John had spotted me yet, but I knew he would eventually.

‘Yes, young fella, giz a pass,’ someone shouted over to me as they walked by.

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