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| The Boy They Called Whiff | |
| By Loz | ||||||||||
| 09 January 2008 | ||||||||||
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I wrote this short story last summer but I've recently gone back to it and pruned it. Doing it in this way has made me realise that it helps to leave a piece for a while before editing. I found I could look at it with a less subjective eye - which is a bit obvious now I think about it - doh! Derek was sitting on a sofa in the spinney when he came to a decision about Jack. He was going to have to kill him. He had no idea what a chocolate-brown velour sofa was doing crushing the bluebells under the ancient oaks, but its sagging cushions had called to him and he found himself side-tracked from his route through the park. He was sitting in blotchy sunlight, picking at the scab of a cigarette burn on the armrest and thinking about how to do away with Jack, his best - his only - friend. Jack had come into his life following the arrival of Miriam. “Now then, Derek,” his Dad had said, “I’m bringing someone special to meet you on Sunday. She’s told me that you can call her Aunty Mim and if we all get on okay she might come and live with us. We’d like that, wouldn’t we? To be a family again.” Derek disappointed his father by replying with the blank stare of a confused nine year old. Aunty Mim moved in and overnight one of Derek’s mother’s best china saucers filled up with lipstick-stained cigarette butts. Then, just as quickly, she filled the bathroom cabinet with mysterious things which repelled and attracted Derek in equal measure and, like the torpedoes that strained under Mim’s blouse, he couldn’t decide whether to take a closer look or not. Derek tried hard to reserve judgment on his new Aunt, but one day, when he and his father returned home from Derek’s first ever trip to London, Aunty Mim was waiting for them at the front door. She was holding an empty birdcage and biting a scarlet lip. “I thought I’d let it stretch its little wings. I was trying to be kind, Stanley. I didn’t know the window had been left open,” she said and Derek was hit by the second disappointment of the day. Firstly there had been no big top and no clowns at Piccadilly Circus and now his mother’s budgie had abandoned him. That night, when Derek was lying like an ironing board between the sheets, Jack spoke to him in the darkness. He spoke about the place - Tower Hamlets - where Derek’s mother lived; not alone like some Lady of Shallot, but with ‘that bloody twerp’. “It’s not a castellated turret surrounded by thatched cottages, Derek mate. It’s a council maisonette in Limehouse. Get out of bed and I’ll show you something.” Derek tip-toed across the bald carpet, pausing to listen to the drone of the television below before he entered the bedroom his father shared with Aunty Mim. The room had developed a new smell; fusty violets with a hint of Vicks VapoRub. Derek edged round the back of the bulky dressing table and into the secret space created by the bay window. “Now,” whispered Jack, “tear the net curtain. Go on. You’ll feel better for it, believe me.” So Derek tore about an inch of the tired lace and as he did so his anxiety dimmed, he felt the warmth of consolation. Over the following weeks and months Derek had cause to return to the space behind the dressing table until the curtain was as frayed as Aunty Mim’s temper.
Jack was his ally but he wasn’t much use when it came to the gang of youths who hung around at the benches on the corner of the precinct. They started shouting at Derek every time he passed. “Hey, look its Whiff!” and “Wotcha Whiff!” This made Derek worry about body odour and caused him to constantly sniff his arm-pits, like a tic. He had a feeling that it was only a matter of time before the precinct louts lashed him with more than their tongues, but what could he do; Aunty Mim was strict about how often he could use the immersion heater in the bathroom. Aunty Mim had made it clear that she wasn’t his ‘skivvy’. That was one he’d had to look up in the dictionary. She’d caught him with it open on his lap. “What’s that you’re reading?” she’d asked, wiping floury hands on her apron. “It’s the book where darkness always comes before dawn” mumbled Derek, using one of Jack’s typically cryptic quotes. “Suit yourself, Derek,” sighed Aunty Mim, turning on a sturdy Queen Mother heel. But recently his friendship with Jack had been causing him serious problems. A policeman had turned up at the house following some prank calls and Jack’s influence was clearly affecting his school work. The teachers told his worried father that the once hard-working Derek had become a daydreamer. In the battle for his attention the blackboard had lost out to the window. Thinking about all this reminded Derek that his father was strict about Sunday lunch so he reluctantly hauled himself out of the sofa’s embrace and headed for the park gate. When he got there he found a council van parked across the entrance. A man with a closely shaved head and the thick neck and shoulders of a prop forward, jumped out of the cab. He stood jangling unseen coins in his trouser pocket. He was followed by what could have been one of the precinct clones, a bored looking youth with scabby stubble and tombstone teeth. “Hello lad. There’s been a report of fly-tipping,” said the man, “have you seen a sofa?” Derek had a good idea what Jack’s advice would be. He knew it before he even heard it. “Don’t tell them. Don’t be a snitch. Warn the sofa, tell it to head for the hills!” said Jack. Derek clenched his fists and willed the voice to be silent; it took all his strength to strangle the life out of Jack. “You’ll find it in the spinney,” said Derek in a rush of breath. He listened carefully but there was only silence; Jack was gone. Derek felt happy and sad at the same time. As he left the park he found himself thinking about how he’d spent the last few months trying to prove Aunty Mim wrong. He could still recall the exact words he’d overheard just after her arrival: “But your boy’s alright, Stanley, you’ve done a good job bringing him up. He’s a bit of a loner, I’ll give you that, but he’s a bright boy. You’re lucky he doesn’t behave like Jack-the-lad.” Then Derek thought about how his father had learnt to smile again and, better still, Aunty Mim’s roast dinner that was waiting for him. He walked home accompanied by birdsong, the distant hum of traffic and the whiff, whiff, whiff of his corduroy trousers.
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