Fairy Boy

The shrill cry of the whistle cut through the playground air, but did not have its desired effect. It never did. The circle of schoolboys, three or four deep remained. There would be a fight in the middle. There always was. It was only when Mr Benton, one the Geography teachers, began to push through the boys that the circle reluctantly dispersed. Though this time, at the hub, there was not a stand off between two boys to haul before the Headmaster. There was only one, lying on his side: head shielded under his arms, knees tucked up to his chest, with scuffed shoes and a torn blazer that had been issued from the lost property bin.
‘It’s Darren Cole isn’t it?’
The boy uncurled himself, revealing unkempt hair the colour of dirty straw. He glanced up with acute red-rimmed eyes and nodded. A bruise was budding on one cheek and his hands were covered in black scribble marks. Not only had he been attacked with punches and kicks but also with permanent markers.
‘Who did this?’
‘Dunno sir,’ came the reply – with monotone unconcern.
‘Come on,’ said Mr Benton gently, helping Darren to his feet. There was always a boy in every year that was different in someway. And in this year it was Darren Cole, who smelled of old popcorn and always had sleepy dust encrusted in his eyes – away with the fairies most of the time.
‘Let’s get you inside. Get you cleaned up a bit.’
Darren stepped back, ‘Got to get home.’
And with that he ran – like a startled fox – away towards the high railings and the open gate and out.

*

When Darren heard the door go, he scrubbed his hands faster beneath the running tap. His pale skin, already raw, was smarting but the work of the marker pens wasn’t budging. By the time Dad appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, Darren was by the stove, stirring the orange spaghetti hoops
‘Tea nearly ready?’ said Dad with a voice that hinted there would be trouble if it weren’t.
‘Yes Dad.’
Dad got a cold can of lager from the fridge and sat down on one of the two chairs at the small kitchen table. There was no show of love from this man. He was all hard exterior, housed in tight jeans and a polo shirt that revealed his well-toned physique and tattooed arms – a menacing dad more to be feared and hated than be proud of.
Darren and Dad didn’t talk much over their tea.
‘You got any homework?’
Darren lied. And in the absence of conversation, he knew it would only be a matter of time before Dad noticed. Still, he continued to empty his plate of hoops, reaching over to take another slice of bread thickly spread with margarine.
Dad grabbed hold of his wrist. ‘What’s happened to your hand?’
‘Some of the other boys were messing about with a pen…’ Darren’s voice trailed off as Dad examined the back of his hand then turned over to his palm. And there they were. The words that pulled the pin on the Dad grenade: Fairy Boy.
‘I THOUGHT WE’D BEEN THROUGH ALL THIS!’ Dad exploded.
‘I know, I know,’ said Darren, his voice wobbling.
Since Dad had a vice-like grip on his hand, Darren could do little to avoid the cuff round the head that he knew was coming. It stung sharply thanks to the signet ring Dad wore.
‘There are –
Dad slammed a fist on the table making the plates and Darren jump
– NO. SUCH. THING. AS. FAIRIES!’
Darren nodded meekly.
‘GET IT! THEY ARE NOT REAL.’
‘Yes, I know, I know.’
There was a silence then, in which Darren thought this piece of theatre – that had been rehearsed and performed so many times – was over. And yet there was more, ‘You haven’t got any of those fairy books in your room?’
‘No! I haven’t got anything – I promise,’ pleaded Darren.
His bedroom did not take long to search. There was little there. Darren hung back just inside, hovering by the door, while Dad pulled back the unwashed, coverless duvet and checked under the mattress. Then he went through the chest of drawers. It was full of a jumble of crumpled clothes, a handful of dried out felt tip pens that had lost their lids, a Weeble and a few Stickle Bricks that Darren had nicked from his old school, and a grazed marble. The bookcase was empty save for the silvery trails where the snails had been.
Dad did not apologise. He commanded ‘bed’ then slammed the door behind him. Darren flopped down onto the mattress. The springs had long gone, had given up their resistance to the weight that bore down on them. It was pretty much how he could have felt about his life. Only he didn’t. The more times he was shouted at, or hit, or punched, or kicked, the more he steeled himself. The stronger his mind grew. While Dad sat in the other room getting drunk in front of Tomorrow’s World, Darren lay on his bed and watched the colour slowly drain away from the bedroom, the backs of his hands pressed against the cool comforting walls, letting the heat seep out from them. In his imagination he was drifting beyond the walls, trying to reach the entrance of the Realm of the Faerie that always seemed so close, yet so far.
When the room was so dark that Darren could clearly see the pencil of light under the bedroom door was unbroken, he soundlessly got up from his bed, removed one of the carpet tiles from the floor, and retrieved a shoebox hidden beneath a loose floorboard. Inside, were a pocket torch and a red notebook – his most treasured possession – crammed with everything he had learned about the Faerie. There were notes and descriptions taken from the pages of library books, and in some cases, the actual pages themselves, which Darren had carefully torn out – particularly the ones with ethereal illustrations by Arthur Rackham and others. He had built up quite a bit of knowledge of the Faerie realm. He knew of the Faerie love for honey cakes and milk, how not to thank them verbally in an encounter, or whistle or ring a bell. And to never accept any offerings of food or drink, or invitations to dance, lest you be lost in their world, which he increasingly wanted. Darren opened the notebook, sure that the pages held a key to lift the veil between their worlds. Or something.

*

The next day at school was uneventful. Darren found his school bag under a park bench and did his homework in assembly. The school secretary cut out a piece of chewing gum that had been squashed into his hair during lunch break. That evening, against a fading sunset that drowned in too much grey cloud, Dad sent Darren to go up the shops and buy some more cans of lager and a tin of beef stew. He went home the long way round so as to avoid the bully homes. It took him by a gap between fag ash coloured council houses, where in the dwindling light he saw the bridge over the brook, and beyond, the small sickle-shaped wood. Several worn paths forked and weaved their way through a patch of stingers and into the wooded gloom. He seldom went in – it was out of bounds by Dad’s ruling. Once though, he spent an entire day in the woods, exploring every nook and hollow, where he had sat beneath its dappled canopy – a slow-moving kaleidoscope of brilliant leaves – and waited to see a fairy till it was dark. He was rewarded only with an inquisitive robin that came close in the afternoon and a thrashing when he got home.
Darren paused and took a step onto the bridge, took in the refreshingly cool air that came from the woods. He had a feeling that he should stay. That he shouldn’t go back. Pushing the feeling away like an unwanted balloon, he turned for home.

*

When Darren got back, the back door was open. Immediately he felt something was not right. As he appeared in the doorway he saw Dad was sitting at the kitchen table. There, placed right in the middle – a conversation piece – was his notebook. He did not wait to hear what Dad had to say, dropping the carrier bag he broke into a run: across the road – without looking – into someone’s driveway, pushing through a back gate and under a line of washing. He knew Dad was not far behind, as he was yelling abuse, but his concentration was on getting away, not on being caught. He jumped over a low picket fence and ran across the lawn, then jumped across another and another, till he arrived in a garden that was unfenced or blocked with sheds at the bottom. There, it was a jump over the small brook. Then he was safe, in the dark sanctuary of the woods.
Darren ran blindly, arms outstretched, pushing through several bushes that gave little resistance and one that did, catching on his blazer. Then, feeling a fallen bough ahead, he ducked underneath and waited, with his jackhammer heart, hardly daring to breathe. It was not long before he heard a rustling crash and the sound of something wrestling with nearby bushes followed by an expletive. Dad was in the woods. Darren crouched low, despite of the darkness, and decided not to go any further into the wood – not wanting his sounds give him away. Dad too, had decided not to go very far, and stopped dangerously close to where he was.
‘DARREN! DARREN COME BACK!’ Dad bellowed, as if he were deep into the woods. ‘IF YOU DON’T GET HERE NOW … I’LL BURN YOUR NOTEBOOK!’
Darren hugged his knees and ignored the threat.
There was a long pause.
‘I’LL BURN IT ALONG WITH THE ONE YOUR MUM WROTE … YES … SHE WROTE A FAIRY NOTEBOOK TOO!’
Darren couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Yet he somehow knew it was true – all those bedtime stories. Maybe Mum had found a way through to the Faerie, to take her away from Dad’s drunken violence. Any amount of beating he decided, would be worth it to get his hands on Mum’s notebook. Even for a few stolen minutes. He stood up and called out.

*

‘Did you really think I kept your mum’s notebook? Eh?’ said Dad tugging Darren’s hair so hard it brought tears to his eyes. ‘I burnt it ages ago!’
‘Ow – let go. You’re hurting me!’
‘When I get you home I’m going to beat this fairy nonsense out of you … once and for all.’
Darren felt dizzy and screwed his eyes shut, as Dad pulled his grip tighter
‘Please … please … please,’ Darren cried, but these cries were
not to Dad. They were to the Faerie – willing them to come and take him – summoning them through the strength and intensity of his pain.
For a moment, nothing, then Dad fell away, like the boys in the playground. There was an offering hand when he opened his eyes, but it was not Mr Benton’s. It was a slender woman’s hand, reaching from a figure he could barely make out – silhouetted against a blinding doorway of sunlit woodland that had appeared a foot away.
‘Mum?’ said Darren, seeing the red dress – taking the hand.
‘You cannot take him,’ Dad’s voice cracked, ‘he’s my son!’
‘He was never your son,’ said the woman with indifference. ‘How can I say … blanks – you only shoot blanks.’
The air filled with high laughter, intoxicating and otherworldly, voiced by an invisible audience of thousands. Then the door of daylight vanished. Darren and Mum were gone.