Sometimes he let himself imagine that he’d run away with Maggie, that they’d travel to the sea and work in an animal sanctuary. He knew that once he was old enough, he’d go. He’d go as far away from Stockport as he could get and never come back.
‘I think Jacob’s already eaten,’ Paula said to his dad.
She had a way of doing that. Speaking to him as though he wasn’t there.
His dad looked over at his plate.
‘You haven’t, have you? Paula spent a long time making this for you.’ It wasn’t a surprise for him to take her side as usual.
‘No,’ Jacob replied, as he put more food in his mouth to prove the point.
Paula shook her head, as if to tell him not to bother.
‘I like it,’ Jacob lied.
‘Don’t speak with your mouth full,’ Paula said. ‘You need to learn some manners from your sister.’ She smiled over at her and Kim smiled back, angelic, perfect, blonde and beautiful. Everything that Jacob was not.
He’d talked of going vegetarian and she knew it. He didn’t like the thought of eating animals. He tried his best to eat as much as he could and looked away from the small puddle of blood on the side of his plate.
She knew he didn’t like the food. She knew everything about him. There was never any chance of a secret. She was like a wisp of smoke. Unseen. You couldn’t keep her out. She could slide under doors and get into the creases of the bed sheets so that she could listen to his dreams. She was everywhere. There was nothing that she didn’t know about him.
She didn’t bother to make excuses anymore and Jacob just accepted it as a part of his life. It was always coming, as certain as Manchester’s rain, it was inevitable. There would be drunks fighting outside the taxi rank, there would be puke outside The Railway pub on a Sunday morning and, for Jacob Clarke, his stepmother would always find new ways to hurt him.
He had stopped trying to please her. It was pointless. The truth was that it wasn’t anything to do with him; she did it because she enjoyed it and he’d learnt to accept it.
Paula laughed about a shopping trip she’d taken with Kim and his dad smiled back at them as though it was all he’d ever wanted.
‘I always get dragged into Greggs for a cup of tea and end up buying a pasty, she’s not good for my figure.’
‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ smiled his dad.
‘It was you that wanted to get cake,’ his sister replied.
‘Don’t tell him about the cake too!’
Jacob looked at their smiling faces. His sister was lucky. Paula had no interest in her. It was him that shouldn’t be here. He was the one that didn’t belong in this family anymore. His dad had moved on and he was the only thing left of the way it used to be.
‘Cheer up, Jacob,’ his dad said.
‘He’s pining. For that girl. He’s not been out for days.’
Jacobs cheeks flushed and his stepmother smiled. He made it too easy for her to win. She caught his dad’s eye, ‘Well, there’s your answer.’ She winked.
‘How’s the family doing? Have you spoken to Maggie?’ his dad asked.
‘No. I haven’t seen her.’
‘And that’s why he’s being so moody,’ Paula replied.
His dad gave him a sympathetic look. He knew how Jacob felt about Maggie. She had been in his life for a long time, since they were at nursery together.
‘We’re going out for a bit this evening. Won’t be too late. Will you be OK?’ his dad asked.
‘Stop babying him,’ his stepmother snapped. Jacob’s dad looked surprised, but she regained her composure. ‘You’re fine if we go out, aren’t you, Jacob?’ She smiled at him, a sickly smile that he could tell was fake.
Jacob nodded. He’d given up hope that things would change. Now the only time that he was happy was when she wasn’t in the house. She was here to stay. His dad got up and started to clear the table without being asked. The house ran on unspoken commands now. His mother used to scream out from the kitchen, calling them in to dinner with a voice that always sounded happy and slightly manic, but now it was well-ordered and cold.
Paula got up from the table and shut the curtains. ‘That’s better.’
‘What’s up?’ his dad asked.
‘I don’t like them open when its dark. You never know who’s looking in.’
His dad laughed. ‘The foxes and badgers aren’t interested in us.’
The dinner had taken longer than usual and Jacob was glad when it was over. After they’d finished, he went upstairs and spat out the chewed up food from his mouth down the toilet. His stomach felt worse than ever. He knew it was because he was missing Maggie. His stepmother was right about that. He was pining. He’d been kidding himself that Maggie was just a friend. The way he ached inside, he knew that she was more to him than that. He’d always known it. It had gotten worse since the Vincents had started coming out with them. He hated the way that she looked at Matty Vincent, as though he was better than anything she’d ever seen. He’d kill for her to look at him like that. If he could have just one day with her adoring him, it would be the best day of his life.
He had a plan for running away. There was a tent in the loft and a sleeping bag in the cupboard under the stairs that he could use. He’d thought about going down south where his mum was from. It was warm there; he’d looked it up in the library. They had palm trees growing in the front of people’s gardens. He could walk out the door and get on a train. Never come back. He could live off the apples and blackberries that grew by the side of roads. There was food everywhere if you knew where to look.
The only thing that stopped him from wanting to leave was Maggie. Everything about her was messy – her hair, her thoughts, her mismatched, crumpled clothes – and yet she made things ordered.
At school she was popular, but she’d sit with him sometimes even if her friends made fun of her. She had her own agenda. She used to write in a black book that she always kept with her. He used to watch as she licked her lips and narrowed her eyes as though she could see something on that page that no one else could. When he’d tried to read it once she’d slammed it shut and punched him in the arm. He just liked everything about her; she was different.
He wanted to ring her. He was worried who would answer though and couldn’t face the thought of having to speak to her dad. As he pictured her misshapen scruffy jumper, he knew that was as close as he was going to get to her. He wished that he was more like the Vincents, because if they wanted something they just took it. He always had to overthink everything. He should just go round and see her. Knock on the door and ask if she wanted to go for a walk or go somewhere. She was probably desperate to get out of that house. She was always restless, always wanting to be in the fresh air and it felt wrong that she’d been shut away inside since her cousin died. It wasn’t how she was meant to be.
After dinner he heard the thud of the base from his sister’s room as he sat on his bed and looked out of his window at the grey sky. Snow was coming in again, from the Arctic, a cold front that would cover Stockport in a thick white blanket in a matter of hours.
He thought about his mother and how one time she’d run outside with her tongue out, spinning and laughing as the snow started. Flakes had melted in her hair and on her face as she stared up at the grey sky. Their favourite storybook was The Snow Queen. He remembered this, but it was hard to remember her sometimes. He had her picture, but he couldn’t remember her voice, not really. He wasn’t even sure if he knew what kind of laugh she had anymore. The memories had started to blur and he worried that one day she really would be gone, taken from his memory as quickly as she had left his life.