Billy Christmas Read online

  * * *

  Pulling the covers over his head to avoid the morning sunlight, Billy wondered how long he could put this day off. Losing the bike was a bitter blow, mainly for sentimental reasons, though he wasn’t sure how he would get about without it. It was certainly too small for him now, but it had got him out of so many scrapes he was loathe to lose it—especially to Robert. Although he felt guilty about the fight, he wasn’t sure that he owed him much of an apology. If you compared the scorecards between them, you couldn’t really say that one random act of hostility added up to the legion of incidents that Robert had enacted on Billy and the rest of the school. Then there was Saul. The transformation in his mother had been breathtaking, but he was quite certain that the deerhound’s departure would mark an equally rapid return to the crippling depression. Why did the Tree ask such things of him?

  “Not the Tree,” said Billy, repeating the Tree’s words.

  But if not the Tree, then who? Was it some dark part of his own psyche that was jealous of the dog’s ability to bring his mother out of herself? Or was it some other, as yet unidentified, force? Billy grew tired of his thoughts and threw off the bedclothes. He would deal with the bike first.

  It took longer than he thought to walk into Marlow. He’d chosen not to ride the bike ever again, pushing it along with just a hand on the saddle. He decided to go past Boots to the bike shop up the alley, to see how much it would cost to buy a second-hand one that actually fitted him. The owner recognised him, and offered him a good deal if he part-exchanged his old Trek.

  “Get you one with a reflector that isn’t broken this time,” said the owner, trying to be kind. Even with the part-exchange, which he knew he wasn’t going to be able to offer, the several hundred pounds needed were more than Billy had to feed his mother and him for the next two months.

  Robert’s house was one in the rows of ex-council properties that ran up the hill behind the small police station. Billy walked slowly up the hill.

  He looked down at the cracked reflector and ran his finger over the outline, in the same way he had when it was new, but with a completely different emphasis. His father had been right. Billy wished with all his heart that he could tell him so. With much pain, he closed his mind to thoughts of the bike, and tried to remember the quest.

  The outside of Robert’s house was much tidier than Billy had pictured it, with neat rows of edged flower beds lying dormant in anticipation of the warmer months. Billy walked up the drive, trying to hold his nerve. Robert had to get his temper from somewhere, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to meet its source. He tapped quietly on the letterbox, unable to find a bell or knocker, and took a couple of paces backwards. Perhaps everyone was out. A glimmer of hope struck him. If they were out, he could just leave the bike with a note on it; the Tree couldn’t argue with that. The house was still silent. He tapped gently on the letterbox once more, just to be sure his story would stand up.

  The door flew back.

  “What the hell do you want?” said Robert, throwing a worried glance over his shoulder.

  “I need to speak to you,” said Billy, wondering what had Robert so nervous.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to sue,” said Robert. “You should go.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Who is it?” came a low voice from inside the house. Billy wondered if this was his father.

  “No one,” said Robert, before turning back to Billy with some urgency. “Just get lost. You won, OK? Everybody saw it.”

  “I don’t care about that,” said Billy. “I need to speak to…”

  “Robert! Tell whoever it is to bugger off, you’re letting the cold air in.”

  “Just go,” said Robert, now moving to shut the door.

  Billy held out a long arm, stopping the door. “No. I have to speak to you.”

  There was the sound of a newspaper being thrown down inside the house, and Robert looked at Billy half angry, half pleading. Billy held the door, not knowing what he’d do if it were shut, but feeling awful for Robert. An arm appeared at the door and sent Robert flying past Billy, out into the cold.

  “If you want to chat, close the frigging door and do it.”

  A man in his early twenties rounded the doorway. He was pale, with dark rings under his eyes. He was clearly strong, having propelled Robert out of the door with some ease, and far too young to be his father.

  “Sorry, Alex,” said Robert quietly.

  “Who is this? Hang on, I know. This is the Christmas kid. The one who gave you the hiding the other day.”

  Billy took another step backwards, not knowing what to say. He’d left the knuckleduster at home, because he was sure he could make it back before dark. Right now, despite the mess it would make of this guy, he wished he’d brought it as backup. He tried to hold his ground, but there was suddenly no ground between them. Alex had moved quickly and had his face pressed up into Billy’s own.

  “Heard you did him over when his back was turned?”

  Billy didn’t know what to say, but this was no rhetorical question. “That’s right.”

  Alex stood up, just taller than Billy, and stared at him for a few seconds. He threw out an arm and grabbed Robert by the collar of his polo shirt. “I prefer to tell him exactly what I’m going to do.”

  He threw Robert against the wooden garage door, which gave a muted thud, and held a hand over his throat. To Billy’s horror, Robert was already crying. He had never seen him cry, and had thought it something he wouldn’t ever do.

  “Stop it!” said Alex, pointing at Robert’s face with his other hand. “Stop it or it’ll be worse.”

  Robert sucked in air and glared at Alex.

  “Now, because you didn’t listen to me, you’re getting two in the stomach,” said Alex in a matter-of-fact voice. “You’re getting one in the forehead for letting in the cold air, and one in the leg for not introducing your friend.”

  Billy dropped his bike in horror. “You can’t do that!”

  Alex turned to him in surprise.

  “Don’t!” said Robert, gritting his teeth. “Please.” He shot Billy such a pleading glance that Billy dropped his raised hands.

  “It’s good advice,” said Alex, turning back to Robert.

  He brought back his right hand and hit Robert hard in the forehead with an open palm, slamming his head back against the garage door. Billy looked on despite himself. Before Robert could regain his breath, Alex punched him with his left and then right fist, hard into the stomach. Robert lolled forward, before a boot at his thigh sent him flat to the cold cement drive.

  “As I was saying,” said Alex, “if you let them know what’s coming, the overall effect is that much more…effective.” He smiled at Billy before returning inside, closing the door behind him.

  Robert pulled himself up and sat with his back to the garage door, his head in his hands but apparently no longer crying. Billy went over to his bike and picked it up. He didn’t know what to say, so he just stood there, letting time mop Robert up. Eventually he spoke.

  “He’s my brother.”

  “Your parents let him behave like that…at home?”

  Robert gave an eerie laugh but didn’t reply. There was another awkward silence.

  “I came round to apologise,” said Billy.

  “Your mum trying to get you back into school?”

  “No.”

  “Make sure I don’t sue?”

  Billy almost rolled his eyes as he thought of the numerous assault charges that Robert had managed to dodge. “Not that either. I wanted to make amends. I thought you might like this.” Billy had let a hand drop down over the cracked reflector, and was tracing its edge with his index finger.

  Robert looked at Billy, his face clouding over. “I’m not some bloody charity case. We own this place, you know.”

  “I know. I mean most people do around here.”

  “You don’t need to feel sorry for me.”

  “It’s not that. I’m going to hav
e to get a bigger bike anyway. And I do want to make amends, and stop all the friction between us.”

  Robert got off the ground and looked more closely at the bike. He put a hand on the taped handlebars. Billy was torn. He needed him to take the bike, but it felt awful having him look over it in this way. Robert took his hand back and looked briefly over his shoulder to the house.

  “Thanks, but I can’t take it. Alex’d just sell it if I did.”

  Billy had to think fast. “Well, he couldn’t do that if he didn’t know you had it. If you kept it somewhere else. Like at Olly’s house.”

  Robert turned this over in his mind. “His mum is pretty OK. I bet she’d let me keep it in their garage.”

  “There you go,” said Billy, pushing the bike towards Robert, and taking his hand off the saddle for the last time. “I am sorry about the other day.”

  “Yeah, OK,” said Robert by way of acceptance.

  Billy wanted to ask Robert what had driven him to single him out over the last year, making his difficult time that much harder. But Robert was still nervous about Alex coming back and lifting the bike. Another time, or not at all. Besides, the light was fading and he still had to deal with Saul and his mother.

  “You better get that down the road.”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Billy.”

  Billy held out his hand, and after giving him a strange look, Robert shook it. With that, he turned and walked out of the drive, trying as hard as he could not to listen to Robert peddling the bike away in the opposite direction.

  By the time he’d managed to get back to his house, the bike had actually slipped from his memory. The winter sky was threatening the light, and he still had to persuade his mother to part with her dog, and get back into town to find Agnes. By which time it would be dark, and he’d be on foot and that much more vulnerable to the attention of the Gargoyle.

  The house was locked when he returned, meaning that his mother and Saul were out. He looked again at the sky before heading into the kitchen. Unable to do anything else, Billy popped upstairs to his room to collect the knuckleduster, in case he was to be out after dark, then went back to the kitchen. Putting some water on to boil, Billy took pasta from a jar, and then went to the fridge to see what he could find. He hadn’t been to the shops since the Tree arrived, disrupting his careful system of buying food. As he was only able to carry a couple of bags on his bike, Billy had got into the habit of building the kitchen stocks up with frequent trips to the supermarket on his way home from school. He realised this was going to be harder now without his bike. It occurred to him that he could probably borrow his mother’s bicycle. Not what your average teenager wanted to be seen riding around Marlow on, but a lot better than walking with the shopping.

  The kitchen door opened, letting in chilled evening air.

  “Give me a hand then.” Billy’s mother was carrying at least five full bags of shopping.

  He looked at her in surprise before rushing to catch the bags. He had learned the hard way that broken jars meant less food later in the week. They piled the bags on the side, with Saul waiting patiently to be let off his lead. His mother bent down, and the dog padded through the kitchen to the hall and began noisily drinking his water.

  “Where did you get the money?” asked Billy, a tad wrong-footed by this, and checking to see how extravagant she had been. It all looked sensible enough, although there were more fresh vegetables than he would have bought. The frozen ones were much cheaper.

  “In the cookbook,” said his mother in a quiet voice.

  The cookbook was where Billy carefully folded the notes he collected once a month from the bank. He hadn’t known this was common knowledge.

  “I thought I could give you a hand with the cooking?”

  Billy said nothing. The transformation that the massive deerhound had brought about in his mother had been so drastic, and he was quite certain that his departure would mark the start of another withdrawal from the world. This part was a lot harder than his damn bike. As if on cue, Saul came back into the kitchen and looked at Billy. The day was drawing to a close, and they had places to be. He’d thought about making up a story about his owners wanting to collect him, but knew this would only lead to his mother wanting to meet them.

  “About Saul, Mum,” said Billy.

  His mother stopped putting the canned tomatoes in the cupboard above the chopping board, and put both hands on the sideboard.

  “It’s time for him to leave.”

  His mother shut her eyes slowly, before turning back to Billy and speaking with a voice that was only half there. “Leave. But why?”

  Billy folded his arms. “He’s got to go, I’m very sorry.”

  “Please, Billy.”

  His mother put a hand on his shoulder. It shook there a while. Billy would have given anything to keep the happier version of his mother even if it was the dog and not him who had been able to bring her back. He pulled away from her hand and went out to the hall to collect the lead. When he came back, his mother had sunk to the floor with her elbows on her knees and head hanging low. The deerhound had leant forward and was resting his great muzzle, head also down, against her shoulder. Seeing Billy with the lead, he looked up and walked over. His mother was saying something, in the sad way that Billy had gladly forgotten. He knelt down and put his ear close to her face. Gradually, he was able to make out what she was saying.

  “I’m sorry, I just thought, he came at Christmas. Perhaps Tom, perhaps Dad, had sent him.”

  He couldn’t bear this. With his emotions at the point of snapping, Billy stood and led Saul out of the room.

  “Wait.” She climbed up to the counter and fished through the bags of shopping, pulling out four cans of supermarket dog food. Putting them in a bag, she held it out to Billy.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  Billy didn’t know whether this was meant for him or Saul. He took the bag, and headed back through the hall to the front door, and on out into the cold night air with Saul trailing as far behind him as his lead would allow.

  * * *

  Gradually, the walk worked off the awful feeling of having let his mother down. Saul had stopped dragging on the lead, which was a relief, as Billy thought he must weigh at least half as much as he, and probably more. Whilst perplexed by the effect the dog had on his mother, he’d been impressed by the deerhound’s gentle nature. Despite an intimidating stature and muzzle full of long teeth, Saul had exuded simple, placid assurance. Unable to ignore the failing light any more, Billy started to jog, and Saul trotted alongside, seemingly more comfortable with this speed. Billy suddenly missed his old bike, which would eat up yards of tarmac with each push of a pedal.

  As they turned into the park, the streetlights flickered on. Out of breath, he looked down towards the landing area, hoping that Agnes’s green-feathered hat would come into view. Ignoring the bronze knight, Billy sped down to the water’s edge, then along the riverbank, running over the small humped wooden bridge and carrying on along the path until he was opposite Bisham Manor. With a sinking certainty that he was going to have to trail the streets of Marlow in the dark, Billy headed back along the river’s edge. He passed back over the bridge, when Saul stopped dead, dragging Billy to a halt.

  Such a deep growl motored out of the deerhound that Billy thought he could feel the rumble through the wooden slats beneath his feet. A notion of Saul being completely benign fell away; his top lip was curled back revealing huge teeth, and the hackles over his shoulders stood upright. Thinking of the Gargoyle, Billy slipped the knuckleduster on. Saul took a couple of steps backwards, still growling and sniffing the air. The deerhound suddenly caught another scent, or corrected his first guess, and turned to face the fields behind the path, yanking Billy around.

  By now the dusk was making it difficult to see anything clearly, the fading light robbing any colour from the ground. Some way off, Billy thought he could hear the faintest sound of splashing. A small stream led from under the wooden bridge up into
the fields, and a long way off Billy could now just make out a rising wave of foaming water. Saul barked, the first time Billy had heard aggression in his huge voice, and it broke his stupor. At once, the both were running back up the river path. Billy heard a dreadful clattering as they made it past the landing stage, as if something heavy and maybe made of living stone was following him. He was almost certain he could hear the mistimed canter of a beast with a missing leg, but knew that turning back would cost him precious seconds.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen; people would still be out, shopping for Christmas presents. Perhaps the Gargoyle thought it could catch him before he reached the edge of the park? Perhaps it simply didn’t care. Billy put on an extra spurt of speed, yelling at Saul to pull, despite his aching lungs. To his horror, the three-legged beast appeared to his left, skirting the edge of the park. He must have been planning to cut them off at the entrance. Billy hauled Saul to the right and coaxed even longer strides out him. Their only chance of escape was the path by the bridge.

  They swung around towards the river path, and he heard the Gargoyle’s high-pitched scream. He risked a quick glance back. It was skidding and slipping across the damp grass, desperate to turn towards him, but was finding no grip. Hope surged through Billy. He hit the path at full tilt.

  He’d almost made it to the bridge when he heard the broken canter on the gravel path, but now he was bounding up the steps only moments from civilisation. As he made the road, his heart sank; the town was devoid of people. From behind him, he heard an ominous clang, and he knew without looking that the Gargoyle had sprung onto the bridge. He thought briefly of letting go of the lead to protect the dog. But somehow he had to find Agnes, or the whole quest would have failed, finishing him and his mother. Saul had chosen to lead them into the churchyard, and Billy patted his top pocket frantically, searching for the vestry key. He and Saul sped around the far side of the church.