Half Bad by Sally Green
SALLY GREEN lives in north-west England. She has had various jobs and even a profession but in 2010 she discovered a love of writing and now just can’t stop. She used to keep chickens, makes decent
jam, doesn’t mind ironing, loves to walk in Wales even when it’s raining and will probably never jog again. She really ought to drink less coffee. Half Bad is her first novel.
For my mother
‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
part one
the trick
the trick
There’s these two kids, boys, sitting close together, squished in by the big arms of an old chair. You’re the one on the left.
The other boy’s warm to lean close to and he moves his gaze from the telly to you, sort of in slow motion.
‘You enjoying it?’ he asks.
You nod. He puts his arm round you and turns back to the screen.
Afterwards you both want to try the thing in the film. You sneak the big box of matches from the kitchen drawer and run with them to the woods.
You go first. You light the match and hold it between your thumb and forefinger, letting it burn right down until it goes out. Your fingers are burnt but they hold the blackened match.
The trick works.
The other boy tries it too. Only he doesn’t do it. He drops the match.
Then you wake up and remember where you are.
the cage
The trick is to not mind. Not mind about it hurting, not mind about anything.
The trick of not minding is key; it’s the only trick in town. Only this is not a town; it’s a cage beside a cottage, surrounded by a load of hills and trees and sky.
It’s a one-trick cage.
press-ups
The routine is OK.
Waking up to sky and air is OK. Waking up to the cage and the shackles is what it is. You can’t let the cage get to you. The shackles rub but healing is quick and easy, so what’s to mind?
The cage is loads better now that the sheepskins are in. Even when they’re damp they’re warm. The tarpaulin over the north end was a big improvement too. There’s shelter from the worst of the wind and rain. And a bit of shade if it’s hot and sunny. Joke! You’ve got to keep your sense of humour.
So the routine is to wake up as the sky lightens before dawn. You don’t have to move a muscle, don’t even have to open your eyes to know it’s getting light; you can just lie there and take it all in.
The best bit of the day.
There aren’t many birds around, a few, not many. It would be good to know all their names but you know their different calls. There are no seagulls, which is something to think about, and there are no vapour trails either. The wind is usually quiet in the pre-dawn calm, and somehow the air feels warmer already as it begins to get light.
You can open your eyes now and there are a few minutes to savour the sunrise, which today is a thin pink line stretching along the top of a narrow ribbon of cloud draped over the smudged green hills. And you’ve still got a minute, maybe even two, to get your head together before she appears.
You’ve got to have a plan, though, and the best idea is to have it all worked out the night before so you can slip straight into it without a thought. Mostly the plan is to do what you’re told, but not every day, and not today.
You wait until she appears and throws you the keys. You catch the keys, unlock your ankles, rub them to emphasize the pain she is inflicting, unlock your left manacle, unlock your right, stand, unlock the cage door, toss the keys back to her, open the cage door, step out – keeping your head down, never look her in the eyes (unless that’s part of some other plan) – rub your back and maybe groan a bit, walk to the vegetable bed, piss.
Sometimes she tries to mess with your head, of course, by changing the routine. Sometimes she wants chores before exercises but most days it’s press-ups first. You’ll know which while still zipping up.
‘Fifty.’
She says it quietly. She knows you’re listening.
You take your time as usual. That’s always part of the plan.
Make her wait.
Rub your right arm. The metal wristband cuts into it when the shackle is on. You heal it and get a faint buzz. You roll your head, your shoulders, your head again and then stand there, just stand there for another second or two, pushing her to her limit, before you drop to the ground.
one Not minding
two is the trick.
three The only
four trick.
five But there are
six loads of
seven tactics.
eight Loads.
nine On the look-out
ten all the time.
eleven All the time.
twelve And it’s
thirteen easy.
fourteen Cos there ain’t
fifteen nothing else
sixteen to do.
seventeen Look out for what?
eighteen Something.