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PROLOGUE

SQUIRT

‘Dad, I’m bored.’ He shuffled in the passenger seat as his dad puffed on his roll-ups, filling the car up with smoke. He always felt car sick when his dad smoked, but his dad would never stop.

‘I’m hungry,’ he whined, hoping his dad would take him home. He liked it a lot when his dad left him alone in the house, when he went to work or had meetings. He got to watch TV – something which his dad otherwise forbade.

‘Can you take me back? I’ll be good, I promise, and I’ll tidy up my room.’ He wouldn’t, but his dad had asked him to do it several times this week already.

His dad brought his arm down, catching his chin and chest with a thud. The boy withdrew as far as the broken passenger seat would let him, but, as always, he was too late and his dad was too fast.

‘Shut the hell up, Squirt. Shut. The. Hell. Up . Before you drive me insane and I flip.’

Withdrawing his arm, his dad sucked on his roll-up again and puffed a cloud of smoke in his eyes, making them water.

He hated being called Squirt. In his dad’s words, he called him Squirt because he was wet behind the ears, like wee. He didn’t know why his dad had said that, as he’d never had wee behind his ears. And now it looked like he was crying, which his dad hated, and he needed a wee. He wondered if he should tell his dad. Maybe he’d let him get out of the car and go behind a tree.

His dad scratched his beard, turned the radio up and the same song that they heard all the time came on: TLC’s ‘Waterfalls’. His dad quickly turned it off and grabbed him. ‘Get your head down, Squirt.’

‘Why?’

His dad reached across, pulling him further down. ‘Because I said so. You do as I say. Got it?’

The boy shook his head and swallowed. He knew whatever they were doing was wrong, but he didn’t know why. He only knew that his dad was acting strangely and the veins at either side of his face stuck out in blue ridges. ‘Dad, I need a wee.’

His dad passed him a plastic cup from the glove compartment. ‘Use this.’

Tears began to fill his eyes. His dad knew he couldn’t wee when someone was listening or watching.

‘Don’t be a stupid baby.’

‘I think I can hold it.’ He wasn’t sure he could, but he’d rather go in his underpants than in the cup in front of his dad.

‘Whatever.’ His dad sighed. ‘Today, Squirt, I’m going to teach you the facts of life. Do you know what they are?’

He shook his head. ‘Is it to do with the rabbits?’ He knew that when they’d had rabbits, the two had played together and they’d had baby rabbits. He remembered his dad trying to talk about the facts of life then, but he didn’t really understand what he meant. He knew that it took a boy rabbit and a girl rabbit to make baby rabbits. Maybe if his dad let him go to school like all the other children did, he might know more. At almost twelve and only ever home-schooled, he felt like he knew nothing.

‘It’s not about the rabbits. You know about the rabbits, don’t you?’

He nodded, even though he didn’t know much.

‘Well, this goes deeper. It’s about humans . There are things I need to teach you. You need to learn how to become a man.’

‘Is that why we’re watching that girl?’

The girl seemed nice; older than him. He assumed she must have left school, as she worked at the café. Or maybe she just had a Saturday job there. Some of the kids on the programmes he watched had Saturday jobs.

‘You got it.’

‘I wonder how much older than me she is.’

His dad snorted. ‘Makes no odds: old enough to bleed , old enough to breed . Girls are different to us. What do you see when you look at her?’

He shrugged. He wanted to say that she looked like the girls he sees on the TV, but his dad would shout at him for watching TV. Only his dad was allowed to watch it. Actually, she looked more like Melanie from the band All Saints. He liked Melanie, she was cool for a girl.

‘She seems nice.’

The girl passed and they both sat up. ‘She’s not nice . Look what she’s wearing. No respectable girl dresses in a skirt that short. What does it mean when a girl dresses like that?’

He didn’t know what his dad wanted him to say, so he shrugged.

‘She’s a slag. She’s asking for it.’

‘Asking for what?’ He scrunched his brows.

‘Facts of life, Squirt.’

He toiled over whether to ask the next question, but it slipped out of his mouth anyway. ‘What’s a slag?’

His dad stared at the girl’s back until she turned a corner at the hardware shop. ‘One that does the facts of life with just about anyone. They wear those clothes to tell men they want us; that they want to do those things with us, like your rabbits. You get me, Squirt?’

Again, he didn’t, but he nodded anyway. ‘Yes, can we go home now?’ If that was his lesson for the day, maybe it was over now.

His dad smirked and let out a laugh. ‘No, this is just the start. Buckle up. You know how we play games at home?’

He nodded. ‘Like when we play chess?’

‘Exactly. But we can also play games with people. When we’re out there, we smile, we are polite. We are the inventors of how people see us.’ His dad paused and Albie frowned as he struggled to understand what his dad was saying. ‘Who am I, Squirt?’

‘The white knight.’ That’s what his dad always called himself.

‘And who are you?’

‘A pawn.’

‘That’s right, son, but what is even lower than a pawn?’

‘A girl.’

‘Clever boy. You’re learning fast. Life is a game and today starts a new game. Let’s play.’