The Room Upstairs: A Novel Page 2

  My eyes lit up. A quid was an acceptable amount of money. “Mum, please?”

  She looked at her watch, and it seemed like a good sign – like she was giving up. With a huff, she nodded. “Fine. But if you have nightmares, it’s going straight in the bin.”

  I snatched the Karazy Klown and clutched it against my chest. “I promise, Mum. Thank you, thank you.” I looked at the smiling old man behind the table. “And thank you too.”

  “You’re welcome, lad. Enjoy your dolly.”

  I frowned at that, but it wasn’t enough to wipe the smile off my face. It was a very good day.

  Or so I’d thought.

  2

  Because my Karazy Klown had only cost a quid, Dad treated himself to a carved jackal he spotted on the final stall before we made it out to the car park. “I can’t believe my luck,” he said as he fingered the small wooden animal. He loved to collect African things whenever he saw them because his parents had come from Zimbabwe. It was part of his heritage. Colourful beads decorated the hallway of our house, along with other cool stuff, but my favourite was a wooden spear over the front door (that Mum strictly banned me from playing with). A metalwork giraffe stood beneath our stairs along with various other animal statues, and I imagined that was where the tiny jackal would end up. Sarah always complained about Dad’s decorations, saying we lived in Birmingham, not the savannah, but we all ignored her. Sometimes, ignoring Sarah was the only option. At least she was happy now as she placed the green glass necklace against her sun-kissed chest.

  It looked old.

  Like treasure.

  I clutched my Karazy Klown against my chest and reminded myself I had treasure of my own. Maybe I could dye my dusky blonde hair green to match. Mum would probably have a heart attack, but there was no harm in asking. I could even get a mohawk, I thought.

  We headed across the car-packed field and searched for our own. The blazing sun beat at my forehead, and a trickle of sweat rolled down my back. In the distance, the horizon did that shimmery thing, which just proved how hot it was. I hated being too warm, and as much as I loved summer, my favourite time of year was winter. Halloween, Guy Fawkes Day, Christmas and New Year, winter was a leisurely snuggle beneath a blanket with gifts and cool movies. Summer always started fun but seemed to go on too long.

  That summer ended up feeling like an eternity.

  Mum rummaged in her handbag until she pulled out a sweet that she popped in her mouth. She spoke around it. “Does anyone remember where we parked?”

  “Course I do.” Dad pointed confidently, but I was unconvinced. None of us had forgotten the day at Merry Hill when it’d taken us two hours to find our car. It was a phobia we all now shared, which made it a relief when I spotted our bright red Vauxhall Cavalier. The fuzzy lion head attached to the aerial confirmed its identity. Despite having spotted it, though, the car still stood a distance away, and the thought of having to walk over to it in the sun suddenly overwhelmed me. I felt the colour drain from my cheeks.

  I doubled over and vomited in the grass.

  “Ew, gross.” Sarah hopped away.

  Mum rushed over and placed a hand on my back. The pressure of her palm against my spine was soothing, but it didn’t stop me from puking a second time. A taste of metal filled my mouth. Fire filled my throat. Tears welled at the corners of my eyes.

  Mum’s face creased. She always looked older when she worried, and despite my sickness, oddly, I noticed the greys starting to take root amongst her brown hair. “Honey, are you okay?”

  I wiped my mouth and straightened up gingerly. “Y-Yeah, I just… It just came over me.”

  Dad moved to join us while Sarah stayed back, covering her face in disgust. “Wow, buddy, you’re white as a sheet. Maybe you need to get out of this sun.”

  “He better not puke in the car,” said Sarah, “or I swear to God…”

  Mum shot her a look, but then her face fell in horror. “Honey, are you okay?”

  I turned to see what was wrong, and it shocked me to see blood all over my sister’s lower face. “Sarah, your nose is leaking.”

  Sarah frowned and put the back of her hand under her nose. Bright red blood spilled down her wrist. Then panic set in. “Oh God, oh God.”

  “Sarah, keep still.” Mum dove into her handbag and produced a ball of scrunched-up tissues, which she quickly held to Sarah’s face. Within seconds it had turned into a sodden red clump. “Jesus, it won’t stop.”

  Dad looked around frantically. I did the same. Seeing all this blood created another wave of nausea that I didn’t want to crash against the walls of my fragile stomach.

  There was a lot of blood.

  And I was no good when it came to blood. For instance, I had embarrassed myself at school once when Mr Morgan asked me to put out the indoor football nets. A rusty corner had sliced my palm, and I spent the best part of an hour hyperventilating in the nurse’s office. Mike still gypped me about it sometimes.

  “I’ll go get someone,” said Dad. I wanted to go with him, but he rushed away before I could follow. Mum had Sarah’s blood all over her hands.

  I started heaving.

  “Not now, Martin. I can’t deal with you both.”

  “S-Sorry, Mum!” I heaved again as a rope wound its way around my guts and someone yanked it up through my throat. I thought maybe I was dying. I definitely could have been dying. My mind filled with newspaper headlines about the tragedy of my youthful end, and I pictured my mum weeping over my coffin. I imagined Sarah laughing.

  Dad returned a minute later, clutching napkins in both hands that he must have grabbed from one of the burger or doughnut vans. He dispensed bundle after bundle into Mum’s waiting hands, but it took several more minutes before the blood stopped flowing, and by then a pile of bloody napkins littered the ground at my sister’s feet. Passers-by seeking their cars grimaced and muttered in disgust. Sarah started to cry, and I knew it was from embarrassment.

  “Sarah,” I said, “it’s okay. It’s stopped.”

  In a rare moment, she looked at me and smiled, albeit weakly. Then she buried her head in Mum’s arms and sobbed. Nosebleeds weren’t usually a big deal, but there had been so much blood.

  So much.

  “Let’s get ourselves home,” said Dad. “Maybe we’re all coming down with something.”

  In agreement, we walked in silence to the car, Sarah leaning against my mum and me clutching my dodgy stomach. I felt better, but a coppery taste lingered on my tastebuds and sandpaper lined my throat. I was thirsty, too, and as soon as I got home I was going to shove my head under the tap and take a long swig. Mum would tell me off for bad manners, but I didn’t care. I was that parched.

  Dad unlocked the car once we reached it, and Sarah slid in the back without a word. I watched her sympathetically. As much as we fought, it bothered me to see her upset. “Sorry about your nose,” I said.

  She pulled her seatbelt down and over her lap. “It’s fine. How’s your stomach?”

  I fastened my own seatbelt and shrugged. “I feel okay now. It’s weird.”

  “You really spewed your guts up. It was gross.”

  Her attitude was gradually returning, so I decided to disengage. I turned and leant against the window, welcoming the cold glass against my clammy forehead. Mum and Dad hopped into the front seats and made the car bounce, which my stomach didn’t appreciate.

  I took deep breaths.

  Don’t be sick in the car. Don’t be sick in the car.

  Don’t think about all the blood.

  “Buckle up,” said Dad, even though we’d already done so, and he slid the key into the ignition. When the engine came to life, it sounded wrong – like a robot coughing.

  Or laughing.

  The disturbing sound went on for several seconds until Dad threw himself back in his seat and punched the steering wheel. “Machende!”

  Machende was an African word Dad used whenever he got mad. Mum stared at him. “What is it?”

  “It
won’t start. Must be the battery.” He punched the steering wheel again. “This is turning out to be a horrible day.”

  Sarah and I groaned in chorus. We didn’t know it then, but the horrible days had only just begun.

  3

  Dad solved the Sunday afternoon crisis by asking a man with a BMW to use his car phone. We waited an hour until an oil-covered old man charged our battery with some leads that looked like crocodile mouths. He then gave Dad a piece of yellow paper that made him groan. Once we were all set to go, Dad started the car in silence, showing no pleasure in it being fixed. At home, he called around local garages to find a new battery as cheaply as possible, but from the look on his face, he failed to find a bargain.

  A few days passed, and thankfully none of us got ill. My stomach remained settled and Sarah’s nose didn’t bleed. That didn’t mean things were normal though. Six bulbs in our house blew on a single day, and the chunky microwave Mum had saved up for stopped working. Two dead pigeons ended up on our garden table, rotting in the sun. The last thing to happen was the TV in our lounge turning slightly purple – just enough to be annoying. Dad’s mood grew increasingly bad as he fretted about all the things that were going to cost us money we didn’t have. The atmosphere in the house turned tense. I couldn’t relax, and my bladder complained constantly. I kept needing to take pathetic little wees, like the frightened beagle puppy my friend Mike had once looked after for a family friend.

  Things didn’t feel right.

  In fact, they felt wrong.

  It was eight o’clock on a Friday evening towards the end of August when I found out just how wrong things were. I remember it being a Friday because of the wrestling. They called it Monday Night Raw, but that must have been American timing or something because it was always on at the end of the week. For me, back then, Friday was wrestling night, filled with the likes of D-Generation X and Stone Cold Steve Austin. It was on late, but Dad was doing overtime and Mum had gone next door to share a bottle of wine with Diane, our next-door neighbour. She often did that whenever Dad worked late, and if she stayed home without him, she got sad. I wondered if she missed him or if it was something else.

  What else could it be though?

  Sarah was babysitting, but as usual she paid me no attention. She had a boyfriend in her room, named Courtney, which I thought was a girly name, but other than that he was okay. When he’d arrived that evening, he’d given me half a pack of Rolos from his pocket, which automatically made him nicer than most of Sarah’s other previous boyfriends (and there had been many). Mum had a rule about keeping bedroom doors open with members of the opposite sex, but like with most rules, Sarah ignored it. I could grass on her, of course, but it would be more trouble than it was worth. I was happy enough watching my wrestling without having to worry about my sister shagging some guy with a girl’s name.

  I settled down on my bed in front of the small television I had got on my last birthday and switched to the satellite channel. I needed to watch whatever was playing downstairs as Dad had snaked an aerial from the Sky box in the lounge out through the wall and up into my room. Because the lounge was empty, I could watch whatever I liked, and I had already set it to the sports channel, which was one of our family’s rare extravagances (Dad couldn’t live without the cricket or boxing).

  The Undertaker was in the ring tonight, threatening to bury Stone Cold Steve Austin alive and take his belt. Undertaker was my favourite, but Stone Cold was cool too. In fact, I’d been thinking about asking Mum to let me shave my head like him. Surely I wasn’t far from growing a beard either, now that my eleventh birthday was less than a month away. I pictured myself as Stone Cold Martin Gable and grinned.

  A glass of fizzy apple juice was perched on my chipped bedside cabinet along with a chicken sandwich I had put together myself – a Friday night ritual because Dad always did the shopping that day. Fresh chicken and fizzy pop is one of the fondest memories of my childhood.

  I grabbed the drink and took a big swig, anticipating the sweet bubbles that would erupt inside my mouth…

  … then spat it back into the glass. “Ew! Flat? What the hell?”

  The bottle of pop had been unopened – I’d broken the seal myself when I’d taken it from the fridge – yet it tasted like rusty water. Where were the bubbles? The sweetness?

  To get the taste out of my mouth, I grabbed the chicken sandwich and took a big bite. I choked. The rancid meat fell from my mouth and I gagged into my hand. The grey, half-chewed mass made me groan. The slices had been a healthy, delicious white when I’d placed them between the bread. How the hell had it spoiled so quickly?

  Something wasn’t right.

  I tipped the chewed mess from my palm onto the plate and grimaced. Knowing my parents, they’d probably bought a load of expired junk from the supermarket’s bargain bin – it wouldn’t be the first time. I’d taken quite a liking to stale doughnuts and funny-tasting yoghurts.

  I looked up at my Karazy Klown doll, which I’d proudly placed on the shelf above my television. It seemed to stare back at me, grinning with its swollen purple lips. My tummy rumbled and I felt I needed to explain. “Man, I’m starving. I wish I had a big fat Big Mac. It’s been months since I ate a McDonalds.”

  The doll continued staring back at me and I swear I detected pity on its face.

  My bedroom light flickered.

  The television blinked out. Stone Cold disappeared mid-swear word. For a moment, I thought there’d been a power cut, but then the lights stopped flickering and stayed on. I lay on my bed, breathing in that tense air that seemed to blanket the house lately, and glanced back at my Karazy Klown.

  It moved.

  No way, I thought, and I pulled my legs up the bed away from the shelf. Bug eyes fixated on me, the doll leant forward until it fell off the shelf and thudded on the floor. I yelped, but then I laughed. It wasn’t alive, just unbalanced.

  The TV blinked back to life.

  I yelped again.

  There was a knock at the door and I yelped a third time. “What the hell?”

  My overeager bladder kicked in and I suddenly needed to wee. It wasn’t until a second knock at the door sounded that I realised someone was lurking outside on the landing. I glanced over at my Aston Villa clock – almost nine. Mum shouldn’t have been back for another hour.

  “Yeah? Who is it?”

  “Who d’you think, Sonic the Hedgehog? It’s Sarah.”

  I hopped off my bed and approached the door. I opened it carefully, suspicious of what she might want from me at this time of night. My nose detected something unusual.

  Something wonderful.

  Sarah clutched a small cardboard box with flashes of red and yellow. She thrust it at me, holding it right underneath my nose. “Courtney went to get us a Maccies but I only fancied a few fries. I was gonna chuck it in the bin, but he said I should give it to you. It’s a Big Mac.”

  My eyes widened and I automatically reached for the cardboard box. My fingers clamped around the corners, but I kept my eyes fixed on Sarah, fearful she might yank it away and laugh.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t gob in it. Courtney’s mate works behind the counter so he didn’t even have to pay. Still, you better say thanks when you see him.”

  “I will.” Courtney had just gone up in my books, so saying thanks wouldn’t be difficult. This was exactly what I had wanted. Screw chicken sandwiches for tea.

  Sarah waved a hand dismissively. “Go on then, idiot, and don’t tell Mum about me shutting my door.”

  “I won’t.” I closed the door and hopped excitedly onto my bed. I placed the Big Mac on my lap and opened the carton slowly, half expecting Sarah to have placed a rock inside – but no, it was real.

  It smelled real.

  I lifted it with both hands and took a massive bite.

  It tasted real.

  Heaven.

  Somehow, an unexpected McDonalds was even better than one you knew was coming – like a gift from God. I chewed slowly,
savouring every mouthful, and as I did so my eyes scanned the room, settling on my fallen Karazy Klown. The doll lay on its side, bug eyes staring at me. I swallowed the food in my mouth but didn’t take another bite because something had occurred to me.

  I had wished for a Big Mac.

  4

  Despite my reservations, I devoured the rest of my Big Mac like a hungry vulture, and yet I averted my eyes from my Karazy Klown the entire time. Mum always told me I had an overactive imagination. That was why I’d been terrified of water for an entire year after watching Jaws. The problem was, I was both curious and sensitive – two things that didn’t mesh well. “You ask questions and get disturbed by the answers,” Dad would always tell me. But knowing about myself made it easier to cope, and that was why I knew I was being silly by thinking my Karazy Klown had got me a Big Mac. It was ridiculous. Of course the doll hadn’t got me a Big Mac.

  I decided to take my plate downstairs and get a glass of water – seeing as the pop was flat – and then I would settle down to watch my wrestling as planned. Before I left, though, I replaced my Karazy Klown on the shelf, and this time I pushed it further back to avoid it falling off again. Then I headed downstairs.

  As predicted, the tiny wooden jackal Dad had bought at the car boot sale had joined the animal collection in our hall. It now perched on the floorboards between a stone elephant and a plastic flamingo. A pair of wooden giraffes towered on both sides. A few more animals and it would make quite the collection. Strangely, the jackal was facing the opposite direction to the other animals. I couldn’t resist bending down and turning it to face the same imaginary horizon as the elephant and flamingo, but as I balanced the plate of spoiled chicken sandwiches in my one hand and rotated the statue with the fingers of my other hand, I felt a pinch.

  “Damn.” I put my thumb in my mouth and sucked it. It didn’t hurt too badly, but I could feel a wooden shard beneath my skin. “Stupid splinter.”