We get off the Number 10 bus at a pub called ‘The Fox and Hounds’. ‘If anyone asks,’ Mum tells me, ‘say we came by taxi.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
‘I thought lying was wrong,’ I say. Butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth. Mum gives me a look. ‘It’s called “creating the right impression”.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
A lorry rumbles by. ‘Besides,’ adds Mum, ‘if your *father* paid what the judge told him to pay, on time, we would travel more by taxi.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
Westwood Road’s not a run-down road, but it’s hardly posh either. Joined-up red-brick houses, like ours. Small drives. Dustbins.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
Not like you’d expect a Lady to live in. ‘Right,’ says Mum, double-checking the directions she wrote on an envelope. ‘This way.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
‘So we’re looking out for an alley called “Slade Alley”,’ says Mum. ‘On the left. And mind the puddles.’ Off we trudge.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
It’s a grey afternoon. Rain’s forecast for later. Through a front window, I see wrestling on the telly. Mum walks ahead. I follow.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
I hope to God nobody from school sees me in this tweed jacket and tie Mum bought me from Littlewoods. I look like a total ponce.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
If any of Gaz Townshend’s lot catch me dressed like this, life won’t be worth living come Monday. His gang shits on me enough as it is.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
It’s all very well for Mum to say, ‘You shouldn’t care what people think’: kids have laws and if you break those laws, you’re dead meat.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
(No point telling Mum about getting picked on: she just sighs and says, ‘You should have passed the scholarship for King’s, Nathan.’)
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
Leaves blow down from an overhanging branch. There’s more leaves off than there are leaves left. October. The clocks go back tonight.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
Suddenly here it is: ‘SLADE ALLEY’ says the old-style sign, high up on the windowless side of one of two houses the alley cuts in between.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
You can’t see Slade Alley till you’re smack bang in front of it. Dark. Dunno. It’s like Slade Alley shouldn’t even be here.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
A real live Lady, married to a real live Lord, living down here? If you ask me, Mum’s ballsed it up. Wouldn’t be the first time.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
‘Lord and Lady Briggs’s main residence is in Oxfordshire,’ Mum tells me for the umpteenth time. ‘This is only Lady Briggs’s town house.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
‘I didn’t say anything,’ I say. ‘Good,’ says Mum. ‘Come on then, don’t dawdle.’ Her voice and footsteps echo a bit.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
It’s colder in Slade Alley than on Westwood Road. After twenty paces, the alley turns left, then carries on between two high walls.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
‘We’re to keep our eyes peeled for a door,’ says Mum. ‘A black iron door. Lady Briggs said it’s easy to miss.’ You can say that again...
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
...’cause there’s no door down here at all. No gate. No ‘townhouse’. The alley turns right, then after twenty more paces, you’re out...
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
…where a sign says ‘CRANBURY ROAD’. Mum scowls at her A to Z, at her scribbled directions, at me. ‘I don’t understand,’ she says.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
I think I do. It’s Mum’s Valium. Makes her slapdash. She gets two prescriptions from two different doctors, and takes a double dose.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
Valium calms Mum down enough to teach her students, but it makes her mix things up. She called me Frank yesterday – Dad’s name.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
Mum doesn’t notice that I nick the odd pill. Valium’s like my power pill, from Pac-Man. I get nervous too. I took a pill before we left.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
The pill’s just kicking in now. Valium breaks down the world into bite-sized sentences. Like this one. All lined up. Munch-munch.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
Valium or no Valium, when the dog barks I nearly shit myself and my lungs fill with dark and my blood fills with a scream—
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
But it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s only a yappy little thing through this fence. Not a bull mastiff. Not the mastiff. The dark drains away.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
That was three years ago. They had the dog put down. ‘Destroyed’, it said in the papers. Maybe Mum’s noticed I’ve gone pale and sweaty...
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
...but probably not. She’s still too flustered about not finding Lady Briggs’s house. Our visit’s all she’s talked about all week.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
Ever since Lady Briggs invited us over to a soirée after the rehearsal. Mum’s a piano teacher. Lady Briggs plays the harp.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
Mum made me shine my shoes, like, a gazillion times. ‘Don’t let me down, Nathan,’ she keeps saying. ‘These people are the right sort.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
A bald man in overalls with a broken nose walks by, turning off Cranbury Road into Slade Alley. He’s carrying a ladder.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
He’s whistling ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’. Mum cuts in. ‘Excuse me, do you know where I’ll find Lady Norah Briggs’s house?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
(She’s used her posh voice. ‘House’ is ‘Hice’. I want to die. Being posh at my school is worse than wearing flares or being gay. Almost.)
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
The ladder man says, ‘Nah, but if you find her, tell her Ladyship I fancy a bit o’ posh if she fancies a bit o’ rough’. He winks at me...
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
…then the ladder goes down the way we came, into Slade Alley. ‘What a repulsive, greasy oik,’ says Mum, quietly, thank God.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
What a waste of time. I could be at home, playing ‘Germans versus British’ on my desert battleground. Rommel’s tanks are cornered.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
(Me and Dad invented the game before he went back to Rhodesia. We built the landscape from papier-mâché. It’s epic.)
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 14, 2014
Theo Jukes would never do war games. Theo Jukes is a trombone-playing accountant. Theo Jukes is divorced. Theo Jukes is a twat.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
I think Theo Jukes and Mum have done it. She’s dressing different. She’s only been properly divorced from Dad for a month.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Several times, she’s ended a phone call when I’ve come in from school. I’ve asked her who it was and she’s said, ‘A wrong number.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Theo Jukes told me, ‘Know what, Nathan – I think we’re going to be mates.’ Right. Know what, Theo – I don’t.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
‘It *has* to be here,’ says Mum as we turn into the middle section of Slade Alley. We see the ladder vanish at the far end.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
There are no windows overlooking Slade Alley. Not one. You could be murdered here and not a soul would see.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
I get one of those moments that aren’t like other moments, when you’re so aware that the world’s real it feels like you’re dreaming it.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Then here it is: a door in the brick wall. Black metal. Mum sort of half laughs: ‘Some boy scout *you* are.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
‘I left Scouts ages ago,’ I remind her, sulkily. I left after Mr Moody took over. He was all ‘poofter this’ and ‘bumchum that’.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
The black door’s not shiny, not dull. No handle, no keyhole, no gaps round the edges. Like it’s made of night. Like the wall’s grown it.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
The door sort of summons my palm. The smooth metal’s not warm, not cool. The door swings inwards. Its hinges shriek like brakes...
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
...and it opens onto a garden, a buzzing, summery, magazine garden, just as the sun comes out and turns up all the colours.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
‘Well would you cop a load of *that*,’ says Mum, forgetting to sound posh. We’re speechless. Even me. It’s just so beautiful.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
The garden’s an explosion of roses, foxgloves, sunflowers, poppies...More I can’t name. A rockery, a pond. Bees, butterflies, birdsong.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
The garden draws us in. Gravel crunches under our feet. I hardly noticed the black door shutting, like a butler closed it.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Lady Briggs’s house is old grey stone. Square, windows, a posh front door with steps. Half smothered by that fiery red ivy.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Valium brightens colours a bit. Reds are bloodier, blues go glassy, yellows sort of sing and greens pull you under like quicksand.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
How could this big house fit in the gap between Slade Alley and Cranbury Road? Where’s the drive? What’s it doing here?
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
When an invisible boy says, ‘Mrs Bland?’ me and Mum jump like we’re trespassers, and look up, up to the high wall – there’s a kid.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Black, wavy hair; big lips; pale skin. Thirteen-ish? About my age? Mum hadn’t said anything about Lady Briggs having a son.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Another boy around changes stuff. Who’s cooler? Who’s harder? Who’s cleverer? Who’s swottier? I’ll have to work it all out.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Mum’s uncertain too. ‘Yes. I’m Mrs Bland. But that wall’s jolly high, you know. I suggest you come down – carefully.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
The kid says, ‘Nice to meet you, Nathan,’ like he’s a teacher or something. Bet he goes to a posh school, being the son of a Lord and Lady.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Him being posher ought to give me a big advantage – but that’d only be true in the non-posh world, like ours. Here, I’m the pleb.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
He’s dressed in a black shirt, jeans and pumps. *Not an inch of tweed*, I want to tell Mum. I just nod and say, ‘All right.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
‘Lady Briggs is expecting us,’ says Mum. ‘For the soirée. Are you...um, related to her, at all? She didn’t mention any, uh...’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
‘I’m Jonah,’ says the kid, like that’s not a weird name in the least. ‘Let’s say that Lady Norah Briggs is my mother.’ *Let’s say*?
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
From the house we hear a woman’s voice. ‘Oh, splendid, Rita, you managed to find us!’ A woman strides down the pebbly path.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Lady Briggs looks Mum’s age, mid-thirties, but slimmer. I expected her to be older and crotchetier. Her dress matches the garden.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
(Mum’s dressed like she’s off for an interview.) ‘De*light*ed you could join us!’ Lady Briggs’s voice is fruity bronze like a clarinet note.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Her black curls look alive. Creamy skin, strawberry lips. Even on a warm afternoon, Lady Briggs gives off a sort of heat.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
‘Thank you, Lady Briggs.’ Mum’s gone all twitchy and fragile. ‘Your directions were, um, easy to follow. This is, uh...Nathan.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
‘Oh, Rita, call me Norah,’ says Lady Briggs. She shakes my hand. Her handshake’s like a steel claw inside a warm rubber glove.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
‘Very nice to meet you, Lady Briggs,’ I say. She holds my eyes. I couldn’t look away if I tried. The afternoon sways a bit.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
‘What a mannerly boy,’ says Lady Briggs. ‘Ill-bred children are a modern plague. Have you inherited your mother’s gift, Nathan?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
She releases my hand. I feel both let go and kicked out at the same time. I ask, ‘What gift, Lady Briggs?’ Lady Briggs replies, ‘Music.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 15, 2014
Mum answers for me, as usual. ‘His Bach’s not as awful as it was, but I’m afraid Nathan simply doesn’t practise enough.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘I practise an hour a day,’ I say. ‘It needs to be two, Nathan,’ says Mum. ‘I see you’ve met Jonah already,’ says Lady Briggs.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
Me and Mum both turn around, and Jonah gives us a second shock. He’s standing behind us. On the ground. When did he jump down?
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Jonah’s an incurable show-off,’ says the Lady. I’m dead impressed and I can’t hide it. ‘How did you do that?’ I ask the boy.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Built-in teleport,’ says Jonah. Like most kids, he’s taller than me. Townshend calls me ‘Nathan Bland the Midget Gland’. Hilarious.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘The others have arrived,’ says Lady Briggs, gesturing at her house. ‘Oh, and Yehudi’s dropped by. I’ve told him all about you, Rita.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
Mum’s like, ‘*The* Yehudi Menuhin? Here?’ Lady Briggs nods like it’s no big deal: ‘He drops by, when he’s in London. You don’t mind?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Mind?’ says Mum. ‘No! This is...Like a, a dream.’ Lady Briggs steers Mum towards the house, saying, ‘Don’t be shy, Yehudi’s a teddy bear.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Why don’t you boys,’ Lady Briggs tells us, ‘play outside for a little while? It’s a sublime afternoon. I’ll call when dinner’s ready.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
I guess Mum’ll be okay. Lady Briggs looks like she’s used to putting people at ease. She guides Mum up to the big grey house.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Have a plum,’ says Jonah, picking a fruit from the tree. Its perfumed slushy flesh tastes of August mornings.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Thanks,’ I say, ‘and is Yehudi Menuhin really visiting?’ Jonah gives me a funny look. ‘Why would Norah lie about such a thing?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
I shrug, noticing how Jonah calls his mum by her Christian name. My mum would purse her lips and call that, ‘Very modern, no doubt’.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘I didn’t say she is lying,’ I tell Jonah. ‘I just mean...well, Yehudi Menuhin. I mean he’s like...one of the most famous violinists alive.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘True.’ Jonah spits his plum stone into tall pink daisies. So I spit mine further and ask, ‘Where do you go to school, then?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘I was never the going-to-school type,’ says Jonah. I don’t understand. ‘You’re a kid,’ I say. ‘You *have* to go to school. It’s the law.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Laws are for sheep,’ states Jonah, though not in a show-offy way like he wants to impress me. I ask, ‘What about the truancy officer?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
Jonah looks puzzled, or acts it. ‘I’ve heard of them,’ he says, ‘but remind me: what is it a truancy officer does, exactly?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
I ask Jonah, ‘Are you taking the piss?’ Jonah says, ‘I wouldn’t dream of taking your piss, Nathan. In fact, I’d prefer it if you kept it.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
That’s kind of witty, I s’pose. I’d use it against Gaz Townshend but then he’d *really* kick the shit out of me.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
So I explain what a truancy officer is. ‘Oh,’ Jonah says. ‘Then, no. I’m happy to say I’ve never met one. Let’s say I’m an autodidact.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
So I say, ‘What’s one of them?’ Jonah says, ‘It means I’m self-taught.’ I suppose that means he’s got like a home tutor or something.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
Jonah asks, ‘Is your father a pianist too, like your mother?’ (If you said ‘father’ or ‘mother’ at my school you’d be a laughing stock.)
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Dad lives in Salisbury,’ I answer. ‘Not Salisbury near Stonehenge, but Salisbury in Rhodesia, in Africa. He works for the Rhodesian Army.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘So he’s a soldier of some type?’ asks Jonah. ‘No.’ I boast, a bit. ‘He’s a gun expert. And an ace marksman, too.’ Jonah asks, ‘Oh?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Sure. My dad can put a bullet between a man’s eyes at a hundred metres. I’ve seen him.’ *Bet your posh ‘father’ can’t do that*, I think.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘What, so your father actually let you watch him shoot a man?’ asks Jonah. ‘That’s a very broad-minded attitude to education.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘It was a shop dummy,’ I admit. ‘At a rifle range.’ I can’t work out if Jonah Briggs is laughing at me. I can’t read him.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘It must be hard,’ he says, ‘your father being so far away.’ I shrug. ‘You get used to it.’ Mum told me to keep schtum about the divorce.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Have you visited him in Rhodesia?’ asks Jonah Briggs. ‘That’s one part of the world I’ve not yet seen.’ I think, *You’re only a kid*.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
I say no, I haven’t, but that Dad’s promised I can go at Christmas. ‘When it’s winter here,’ I explain, ‘it’s summer in Rhodesia.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
I don’t say how Dad promised I could visit last year, but he was too busy. I ask Jonah, ‘What about your dad?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
I’m expecting Jonah to say his father’s a magistrate or admiral, but no. ‘A horse kicked his head in when I was seven. He was a blacksmith.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Bloody hell,’ I say, feeling a bit of a shit. Jonah says, ‘He was dead before he hit the floor, we were told. Such is life.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
I knew lords need horses for fox hunting, but I didn’t know lords could be blacksmiths too. Maybe it was just Lord Briggs’s hobby.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘That’s terrible,’ I say. Jonah shrugs like it’s no big deal: ‘It was a long time ago.’ Can’t be that long ago, I think. ‘Right,’ I say.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
‘Your mother’s kept her looks,’ says Jonah. I follow his gaze. His mum and mine are climbing the steps up to the front door.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
What am I supposed to say to that? I suppose she’s not ugly. Theo Jukes seems to like her. She always puts on make-up and stuff.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
Mum came to school a couple of months ago (to complain about our music teacher) and Gaz Townshend called Mum a horny honey.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
Mark Ireland told everyone he wanted to give Nathan Bland’s mum a yeast infection. I had no idea what that meant. I still don’t.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 16, 2014
Anyway, the door of the house closes on Mum and Lady Briggs. Jonah says, ‘Tell me about your recurring nightmare, Nathan.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
I ask Jonah, ‘What makes you think I have a recurring nightmare?’ Jonah replies, ‘You have that hunted look. Around your eyes.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
All the purple foxgloves sway like something’s there. There isn’t. Jonah asks, ‘Is it anything to do with those scars?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
Immediately my hand’s pulled my hair over the white-and-pink-streaked area. ‘No,’ I tell him. That day’s none of his business.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
The mastiff’s none of his business. How it launched itself at me, how its fangs pulled skin off my cheek like skin off roast chicken –
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
– the mastiff’s black eyes as it shook me like a doll, my own blood blinding me – the weeks in hospital, the injections, the drugs –
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
– the bandages – Mum and Dad’s shouting matches – the ‘jokes’ – ‘Hey, Bland, you’ve got a rasher of bacon stuck to your cheek.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
I dream it. Even three years later. The mastiff pads through every dream, and if it sees me, my only hope is to wake up before—
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
Jonah’s teeth are perfect, like the kid with zero fillings off the Colgate ad. *None of his business*. I say, ‘What’s it to you?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
Jonah says, ‘I’m a collector.’ A skylark’s transmitting from some far-off star. ‘I never remember my dreams,’ I tell him.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
'Why?’ I ask him. ‘What’s your recurring nightmare?’ Jonah’s ready: ‘That’s easy, Nathan – Hunger.’ A bee blunders by.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
Then I sort of smirk at his wazzocky answer: ‘You’re afraid of being hungry?’ Jonah replies, too patiently: ‘No. The enemy is Hunger.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘If Hunger’s so bad,’ I say, ‘why don’t you just carry a packet of biscuits around?’ Jonah’s smile is faint. ‘Not that sort of Hunger.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘Then what sort of hunger is it?’ I ask. A crow glides by, too slowly to stay airborne, you’d think. ‘Hunger that erases,’ says Jonah.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘Hunger that dissolves the line between you and it. Hunger that kills. Ancient hunger. Future hunger.’ This, from a kid my age.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
No wonder he doesn’t go to school. Gaz Townshend and Mark Ireland’d crucify him in his underpants on the monkey bars.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
I ask Jonah Briggs, ‘Has anyone ever told you, you say pretty freakish things?’ Just to annoy me, he acts like he’s thinking about it.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘In our salad days,’ says Jonah Briggs, ‘some people described my sister and me in such terms. Mr Grant did. He regretted it.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
I ask, ‘You have a sister?’ Jonah Briggs winds a stem of grass round his thumb. ‘Why the surprise?’ I don’t know what to say to that.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
So I say, ‘Why be afraid of hunger? It’s not like the atom bomb, or a black mamba, or the Yorkshire Ripper. Hunger’s just a lack of food.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘You only say that,’ Jonah answers, ‘because you’ve never known it. Not the Hunger that extinguishes.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
I ask, ‘Why do you *talk* like that?’ Jonah asks, ‘Like what?’ I sort of take the piss, a bit: ‘“The hunger that extinguishes.” Come *on*.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘And,’ I say, before he can reply, ‘I have a hard time believing that a Lord’s son was ever, like, a starving kid in China or somewhere.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘I talk the way I talk,’ says Jonah Briggs, ‘just as Nathan Bland talks the way Nathan Bland talks. Listen. I want to teach you a game.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘What sort of game?’ I ask cautiously, so I don’t sound too gay. Wouldn’t surprise me if he says ‘a spiffing game of croquet’.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
Jonah says, ‘It’s called “Fox and Hounds”.’ What bell does that ring? The world outside the garden’s a bit of a Valium-blurred fog.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘It’s basically a race,’ Jonah says. ‘We each go to an opposite corner of the house. I shout, “Go”: the chase is on. Anti-clockwise. Game?’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘And so whoever catches the other is the winner, right?’ Jonah nods. ‘Sounds like you’re a dab hand at this.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘Actually we live in a terrace,’ I say as we cross the lawn, ‘so we don’t have a path going round our house.’ Jonah just says, ‘Right.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
Close up, the Briggs’s townhouse is bigger, as if its scale changed when I wasn’t looking. No sign of the soirée inside.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
The house has windows made of little framed squares. All the pale cream curtains are drawn. Which one’s Yehudi Menuhin behind?
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘What are these meetings of your mum’s like?’ I ask. Jonah strokes his throat. ‘You’ll find out for yourself soon.’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘Stay here,’ says Jonah, at the front corner. ‘I’ll go round the back. We’ll chase each other clockwise, okay?’ And off he trots.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
On one hand Jonah Briggs is a posh twat, but on the other, I wish I could be so totally myself and not give a toss what anyone thinks.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
A path runs between a holly hedge and the side of the house. The drive to Cranbury Road must be round the back. Or the front?
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
‘Ready!’ Jonah’s voice travels around corners to find me. ‘Steady!’ I shout back. A loud silence, then ‘Go!’ and I leg it.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
Jonah Briggs is in for a bit of a surprise. I’m going to win at Fox and Hounds. I’m short but I’m the third fastest kid in our year.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
Dad says I’m a natural runner. I fly down the side path – *slap slap slap* and echo – and hurtle round the corner, swinging on a drainpipe.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
As I thought, it’s the back of the house – a narrow strip of lawn with an empty clothesline, dark trees blocking whatever’s behind them.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
Where’s the drive? There’s no back door – only four arched windows, too high to see through. No time, now. I’m running...
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 17, 2014
...low, fast, hard. Jonah may talk posh, but there’s something indestructible in him. When I catch him, he’ll respect me.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
*Slap slap slap* and echo. Not an echo after all, but the *wham-wham wham-wham* of Jonah Briggs. He must be fast too.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Round the corner and down the other side path – this one’s as dark as the first, but clustered with brambles a bit.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Then I’m back to the front, my elbow smacks the butterfly bush and butterflies blizzard, orange and black and red and white.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
I dart past the steps to the door, leap the rockery – bet you anything Jonah can’t do that – and I’m back at my starting point.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Down the echoey side alley – *slap slap slap* versus faint *wham-wham wham-wham* – I’m a natural runner – a natural runner – and…
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
…round the back again – the back lawn’s half the size it was. It can’t be. It is. It can’t be. Keep running. Keep running. Keep running.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
I leg it down the bramble side – the brambles have half blocked it off. A breeze stirs the thorny tentacles...No, I’m imagining it.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
The brambles scratch and try to trip me as I pass. *Wham-wham wham-wham*. I’m losing. *Christ, I’m not the hounds, I’m the fox*.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Round the front, the sun’s gone in, the front lawn’s not what it was and the ivy’s not fiery now. Half the flowers are dead...Stop.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Summer’s gone. How? Is the Valium wearing off? I turn round to tell Jonah Briggs, *I twisted my ankle – I’m not playing any more*.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
I wait. Silence. Just my breaths, the empty passage, running down the side. The brambles move like hungry underwater things.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
I call out, ‘Jonah?’ My voice is frayed. ‘I’ve got a stitch.’ Nothing. Okay. Jonah’s backtracked to ambush me with a scary ‘Blagh!’
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
(I remember Mark Ireland’s tenth birthday party. I hid for ages in a shed while everyone else scoffed all the food. Hilarious.)
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Then Jonah comes round the corner. No. It’s not Jonah any more. It’s a darkness with dark eyes. Eyes that know me.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Darkness in the form of a mastiff, but as big as a horse, cantering, now bounding, and it’ll be on me in moments
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
and I’d scream if I could but I can’t my chest’s too full of panic I can’t blast out it’s choking me it’s choking me because it’s not Jonah
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Christ it did Christ there’s Jonah’s head flipping side to side Christ from its fangs dangling by a flap of skin Christ closer closer closer
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
one howl two wails three snarls it’s surging wolves it’s winter killing it’s scenting meat it’s joy at pain it’s a cat toying with a bird…
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
…Something that isn’t me takes over and turns me round and runs me back but the garden’s half gone now like it’s eaten by fog no wall
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
no black door no lawn no roses, butterflies lie smeared and mangled, powder-paint skidmarks and get inside get inside before this *thing*
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
this Hunger this Hunger this dog *the* Dog closes its teeth into me *through* me through bones cartilage nerves skin dick liver lungs
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
up the steps *stumble* up up the steps what if the door’s locked then it’s got me I daren’t turn round daren’t look back the doorknob turns
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
*Please turn* it’s stuck it’s scratched gold it’s stiff it’s ridged does it turn twist pull or what push pull turn twist my hollow shriek
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
(*A page flips* – Dad’s face melts into focus in African light – ‘Jesus, *you* had the mother of all nightmares, matey’ – *A page flips* –)
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
And my hand’s still clutching the doorknob, but I’m crouching in a hallway, gasping, croaking – in Lady Briggs’s house. My heart’s still –
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
– still going *slap slap slap slap slap slap* like billy-o, but slowing, slowing. I’m safe. Tchaikovsky’s ‘Chant de l’alouette’. Mum.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Mum’s playing, upstairs. It’s her. I recognize her style. Mum’s notes tiptoe down the carpeted stairs. She’s safe. I’m safe. It’s okay.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
The hallway is sort of square, with black and white tiles like a chessboard. Three closed doors. White walls. No windows.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
So. So. So. I must’ve opened the door, sort of...fallen in, and shut it behind me. Shut out the...shut out the...what did I shut out?
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
I take a step back. Look. An ordinary front door, from the inside. Ordinary hat-stand. Ordinary coats. Ordinary umbrella.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
A giant mastiff as big as a horse that was chasing me and bit off Jonah’s head? Listen to yourself. Oh for shit’s sake. Valium.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
I looked ‘Valium’ up in the encyclopedia at school. In very rare cases it can make you hallucinate. I’m a very rare case. Obviously.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
I know it *felt* real, but if it hadn’t, it would just have been a daydream. That’s the point of hallucinations. Or else it was bad Valium.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Bad Valium, like a bad pork pie, that gives your mind food poisoning. That’s what that mastiff and Jonah’s head were: mind-puke.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
Jonah’s still probably running round and round the house. No: he’s lying in wait to ambush me. For a laugh. Right. Hilarious.
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
I can’t believe how badly I scared myself. Thank God nobody saw. Could Jonah have seen? I hope not. Probably not. Probably…
— David Mitchell (@david_mitchell) July 18, 2014
