The Tooth Fairy Part 11

She was already gone before Sam had scrambled to his feet. The temperature had dropped sharply, and the sky was darkening. The pond, which moments earlier had seemed such an ideal and favoured place, now looked cold and lorn, apt to draw the darkness into its unpleasant depths. He zipped up the leather jacket and was arrested in the act of turning up its Alice-scented collar. Someone was watching him from the other side of the pond. Poised in the twilight, half-hidden among the bushes and trees, the Tooth Fairy stood with one foot in the water and one on the clay bank, shoulders hunched, arms folded tightly. She wore the bright scarlet neckerchief of the Coventry Thirty-ninth. Sam felt a wave of spiteful and poisonous disapproval. The Tooth Fairy met his eyes, then spat into the pond. Sam sank deeper into the collar of Alice's jacket and left.

'Where's your good denim coat?' Connie wanted to know when he got home. It was the first time she'd referred to it as 'good'.

'I swapped it.'

'What?'

'Only for a day'

Connie flicked at the fringe dangling from the worn leather sleeves. 'Well,' she sniffed, 'I don't think much of that one.'

19.

Redstone Moodies A hand placed over his mouth woke Sam in the middle of the night. The chill from the Tooth Fairy's body swept across his skin like a contagion. She was naked. Her clothes lay on the floor in an untidy heap. Blue with cold, her skin glittered with h.o.a.r-frost. When she decided he wasn't about to cry out, she reduced the pressure of her hand on his mouth. But she began to explore his lips with her fingers. Her fingers were long and elegant ivory carvings, but her sharp, tapered fingernails were fetid and filthy, black with earth or other dirt upon which he preferred not to speculate. He wished she would keep them away from his mouth. As if guessing his thoughts, she pressed inside his mouth, seeming to count his teeth with loving slowness, teasing the vulnerability of his gums with her nails.

'I know what you did,' she breathed. 'In the woods. I know what you did.'

'It was you,' Sam tried to whisper through his crowded mouth. 'You did it.'

She withdrew her fingers, squeezing his cheeks in her strong hand. 'Oh, no. I couldn't have done it without you. We were partners. Just remember that. You let me down and I'll let you down. I might just tell someone what you did to that poor Scout.'

She slipped between the sheets, pressing her chilled flesh against his. The cold pleasure of her body stung his skin. Still squeezing his cheeks, she crouched over him, forcing her free hand down on his chest and pressing her lips to his, kissing him deeply. He was aware of her sharply filed teeth as she mashed her lips on his. Then her tongue explored inside his mouth, probing, slippery, like a live fish. She pulled back from him and released his face. 'Keep away from her. She's no good.'

'Who?' said Sam. 'Alice?'

'She's no good.'

'You say everyone is no good. You said Skelton is no good. You always say that.'

'She'll hurt you, Sam. Believe me. Aren't I enough for you?' She smoothed her hand across his belly, reaching for his c.o.c.k.

'You're not real.'

The Tooth Fairy jack-knifed upright, releasing his c.o.c.k and lashing out at his head with her hand. He managed to avert his face, but not quickly enough to stop her flailing fingernails tearing a thin track of skin from the line of his jaw.

She was already out of his bed, dressing hurriedly, spitting with rage. 'I know what you did! I know! I could tell someone at any time!'

Sam was left nursing the torn flesh on his face.

'I'm going to leave you something,' she hissed. 'Something for you to show the shrink.'

Then she left by the window.

The next morning Sam woke early, dressed at speed and slipped out of the house wearing Alice's leather jacket before his mother and father were awake. He didn't want any questions about the three-inch scratch down the side of his face. He didn't want to invite further comment about his jacket.

There had been a freeze overnight. The gra.s.s and trees and the pavement were sprinkled with white powder-frost. A pallid sun was up, already unpicking the glittering lace-work. Sam's sleep had been disturbed by elusive dreams in which his bedroom window swung open and closed, open and closed; and when the window opened it admitted a chilling voice calling to him from varying and unknown distances. A kind of dream residue still clung to his mind like streamers from a bad party. He dug his hands into the jacket pockets and, with hours to kill, stared gloomily at the frost.

The bottoms of the pockets of Alice's leather jacket were peppered with debris. From one he pulled out strands of tobacco, crumbling nuggets of horse feed, a torn cinema ticket and a twisted fragment of gold foil bearing the italicized word readable after he'd straightened out the foil Gossamer. He let it all fall to the frozen ground while rummaging in the other pocket. Here he found some torn sc.r.a.ps of what had once been a letter. The slivers of paper were too small and too few to comprise the full letter, but a few words could still be deciphered. He returned the sc.r.a.ps to the pocket and set off for the Bridgewood newsagent's, one and a half miles away.

He needed to buy cigarettes so that he could casually flip open a box and offer one to Alice, as if it was something he did every day. There was, of course, a nearer shop, but the small detail that Sam was buying cigarettes was certain to get back to his mother. Parents, and mothers in particular, Terry had once observed, were inclined to squawk loudly whenever a teenage boy did anything other than stand still with arms folded. Having scuffed or unpolished shoes, for example, would merit Low Squawk. Borrowing someone else's jacket would engender Medium-low Squawk. Smashing up the gymkhana hut was Ultra-high Squawk. Smoking cigarettes at the age of twelve was Ultra-high Squawk. Brutally murdering a fellow Scout was rather off the scale.

Thus Sam found himself waiting behind a perfumed young woman who was also buying cigarettes at Bridgewood newsagent's. When she turned from the counter, she accidentally bundled into Sam and, on seeing him, she dropped her own just purchased cigarettes. 'Sam!'

For a moment Sam failed to recognize the young woman. Her hair was brushed back from her face, and she wore a revealing, low-cut mini-dress. A pendant dangled above her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and her thigh-length boots drew attention to a deliciously brief expanse of flesh between their tops and the hem of her skirt. 'Linda!'

'You didn't see me!' she hissed.

'Weren't you supposed to be leading some parade today?'

She blushed. 'Promise you didn't see me!' she repeated. 'Promise!' Without waiting for an answer, Linda picked up her cigarettes, swept out of the shop and climbed into a waiting black Austin Mini. Sam peered out of the shop window between the cardboard display units. He didn't know the driver, but he did see Linda's Guide uniform neatly folded on the back seat of the car.

'Twenty Craven A tipped,' said Sam to the shopkeeper after the car had roared off, belching exhaust fumes.

'For your dad, are they?'

'Yes. And a box of matches.'

What was Linda up to? Sam had plenty of time to speculate as he wandered the one and a half miles back to Redstone. Wasn't she supposed to be leading the Forty-fifths that morning in some kind of Commonwealth parade culminating in a service in Coventry Cathedral? He thought of Linda leading them to school in white gloves, and then leading them to church in white gloves, and then to Scouts, still in white gloves, and he hoped she knew what she was doing.

Sam had to pa.s.s by St Paul's mission church on his way back from Bridgewood. Folk were just leaving after the morning service. He saw Mr Phillips, his old Sunday-school teacher, shaking hands with the last of the departing congregation. Phillips then went back inside the church, closing the door behind him. Sam remembered his dream and immediately thought of Tooley's body wedged in the hollow of a tree in the woods, decomposing. Every time he thought of Tooley's body, he thought of crows pecking out its eyes or of foxes feasting on Tooley's beefy thighs. He found himself venturing inside the gate.

'Sam! How are you? Didn't recognize you in your Wild West gear!' It was Phillips, appearing from the other side of the church. Sam realized he was referring to the fringed leather jacket.

'h.e.l.lo, Mr Phillips.'

'Were you looking for someone?'

'Yes. No. I mean . . .'

Phillips waited patiently. 'I don't expect you were looking for me, were you?'

'No. I . . .'

Phillips smiled, then wrinkled his brow, puzzled. He tried to help Sam, saying, 'How are those rascally friends of yours? Terry and Clive? How are they doing?'

'I'm sorry about that day.'

'Pardon? What day was that?'

'That's what I came to say. That day. We were being stupid. Completely stupid. Childish.'

Phillips blinked but plainly at nothing in particular. 'What day?'

'We were just messing around, that's all. Nothing personal.'

'I'm not quite with you, Sam.'

'Mr Phillips, is it true you're like a doctor, and anything anyone says to you can't go any further, like to the police or parents or anybody? Is that true? I heard that you're not allowed to tell anyone things other people tell you.'

'You mean at confession? Yes, the thing is, Sam, I'm a lay preacher do you know what that means?'

'Oh?'

'But I mean . . . yes, if there was something you wanted to tell me, or to talk about in confidence, then of course that would just be between me and you. Have you scratched yourself ?'

Sam took his gla.s.ses off and turned away He didn't want Phillips to see the tears that had formed in his eyes.

'Anyway,' Phillips laughed, resting a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder, 'what can be that bad? I'd only have to tell someone if you were to confess to a murder! So cheer up. Come on, Sam.'

'No. I just came to say sorry about that day. I have to go now. I've got an appointment.'

'An appointment! Sounds important!'

'Not really 'Bye.'

Sam felt Phillips watching him all the way to the gate. After he'd gone a dozen yards or so he looked round. Phillips was still regarding him carefully.

The pond seemed to be the only place where he could get away from the complications of friends' cousins, parents, Sunday-school teachers, so he went there, hopelessly early for his appointment with Alice. He sat on the battered car seat, smoking (or, rather, occasionally holding a lighted cigarette to his lips rather than genuinely smoking, since he still didn't really enjoy the things) and trying to decipher the tiny fragments of the torn letter he'd found in the pocket of Alice's jacket.

On one piece he discerned the words you never said and on another memories I have and then loving you will not and then not married and then f.u.c.king yes, yes, it clearly said f.u.c.king and crying all night. There were other words and half words out of which it was impossible to construct phrases or any sense. He tried piecing them all together, placing the sc.r.a.ps side by side like a jigsaw, but most of the letter was missing. Whoever had torn up the letter had made a thorough job of it.

Sam threw the letter fragments into the pond, where they fell like tiny leaves, floating on the cold surface without breaking the skin of the water. He searched through the pockets again, looking for more information about Alice. All he found was a comb in the inside pocket. A few hairs were attached to the comb. He took the hairs from the comb, twining the long, fine strands around a matchstick. It was while he was putting the matchstick in a pocket of his jeans that he caught a flash of something moving on the water at the periphery of his vision. There was a 'gloop' and a brief flash of green and gold as a large fish came up and took the fragments of paper from the surface of the water.

Then it was gone.

Sam scrambled to the edge of the pond, peering into the wintry blackness, seeing only the shadows of fronds and the deeper darkness. Two cool, soft hands reached from behind him, covering his eyes, and he knew from the scent that came with them that it was Alice. Too soon the hands were removed.

'The pike. I just saw it.'

'I don't believe you!'

Oh, yes, he wanted to say, it just ate the last pieces of your love letter. Her head was tilted at a shy angle, but her eyes mocked. Alice's eyes subtly changed colour depending on the time of day, or the condition of the sky, or the brightness of the light on the water. She wore his denim jacket and yards of multi-coloured scarf. She collapsed on to the old car seat. 'I nearly didn't come. My horse has gone lame, and I couldn't ride this morning. Hey, did you scratch yourself ? Then I thought you wouldn't speak to me again on the school bus if I didn't come.'

'Makes no difference to me,' said Sam. 'I was coming here anyway.' He flipped open his box of ciggies, offering them.

They sat together, smoking and playing 'Do You Know Him?', as Alice named all the people she knew at school and Sam named the few he pretended to know. Sam had no sense of time pa.s.sing. Though Alice's presence made him jumpy, and he felt his nerves straining and popping every time she spoke or he had to answer, he was happy in her company in a way he could never have predicted.

There was a scuffling in the trees, and Terry and Clive broke through the bushes. They stopped dead when they saw Alice sitting with Sam. Terry blinked stupidly, a half-smile twitching across his face. He looked at Sam's cigarette. Clive had, the day before, been inflicted with a severe haircut, making his ears and neck seem excessively pink. His eyes widened at Alice, who merely crossed her legs and took a cool drag on her cigarette. Clive looked as though he felt he'd been tricked but in a way he couldn't quite figure out. He picked up a stone and flung it into the pond with unnecessary force.

'Where's your pony?' said Terry.

'It's not a pony. It's a horse.'

'You look a t.w.a.t in that jacket,' said Clive.

'f.u.c.k off,' said Sam.

'You f.u.c.k off, scarface.'

'No, you f.u.c.k off.'

'Is this what pa.s.ses for wit in your little gang?' said Alice.

All three boys looked at her, as if they all wanted to say the same thing and she'd just taken it away from all of them. 'We're not a little gang,' said Clive.

'A little Boy Scout gang.'

'No more than you with your Pony Club. Deborahs and Abigails.'

'And Jemimas,' Terry put in supportively.

'She knows,' said Sam, 'who smashed up the gymkhana hut.'

'Who was it?' said Terry.

Alice narrowed her eyes at Sam. 'I know. But I'm not saying. Crash the ash, Sam.' Sam took out his cigarettes and offered them round with desperate nonchalance. Clive and Terry took one each. 'So. What do you call your little gang?'

'We're the Heads-Looked-At Boys,' said Terry.

'No,' Sam cut in quickly. 'That's in the past.'

'Or the Moodies,' said Terry. 'That's what my Uncle Charlie calls us. The Moodies.'

'That fits,' said Alice. 'The Redstone Moodies.'

Sam was about to protest when Clive barked a mirthless laugh. 'Yeah. That's us. The Redstone Moodies.' Then he tossed another stone in the pond, but more gently this time.

'What do you have to do to join? Wear shorts? Tie a reef knot?'

'Strip naked and jump in that pond,' said Terry. 'For full membership.'

Alice stood up and offered to take off her jacket. 'Come on, then. We'll do it together.'

Terry looked less than keen.

'You have to suck my d.i.c.k,' said Clive.

'Right. I'll suck your d.i.c.k while you suck Sam's.'

'Ha!' laughed Terry, jabbing a finger at Clive. 'Ha!'