join in the camaraderie was because that part of him didn’t exist. The only time I saw him smile was when he was kneeling on Tom’s face, holding him in place while thick spittle slowly slid from his mouth and into Tom’s hair. I was terrified of Feggis, but it was probably because of him that I carried a Swiss army knife with me. I would never have shown it to him. I just carried it.
None of the adults ever talked back to us when Feggis was there. As far as my life was concerned his was an entirely negative presence, defined by what would not happen when he was around rather than what did happen, and I am still grateful that I have no memories of Feggis bursting into irreversible action. His is a dead, heavy space in my history. The only thing that really ever happened when Feggis was around, from those that had seen, was violence. The point about Feggis, though – the real reason I mention him and probably the real reason that I tried to emulate him with the knife – is that this is what I admired about him: he was capable at any minute of unpredictable, possibly violent action. He could affect things, and because of this he mattered.
I was in a shop with him once. He was a little bit drunk. He apologized to another man in the queue for “having a pop” at him the week before. The other man said it was okay and shook Feggis’ outstretched hand. The other man had a line of stitches at the corner of his mouth, his right eye was sunk in a mottled bruise, and one of his front teeth was missing.
Tamsin thought Feggis was cool. She liked violent men. It stayed with her into adulthood.
***
We’d heard rumours about it. One of the girls at school was the niece of the butcher next to the laundry, and she’d said that it was going to happen. There were sounds that only children could hear, she said. “Like dogs,” she said, with a meaningful look.
It was like tinnitus at first, and Jake tried to shake the ring out of his head. But it would not go. Will, one of the other boys, said “I feel sick.”
We heard it and then we saw it. A white, grated, squealing box on the corner of Morris Street and Landor Road, pointing its fear and rage directly in the direction of the benches. It pulsed. It felt like a rat lying near your ear, shrill and warm, feeling the rise and fall of its nasty little chest and the whisper of its worm-like tail when it
not allow you to ignore it. Trying to ignore it made Jake feel sick. He looked at Tamsin and saw that her face had turned pale.
“You know what it is,” Tamsin said. “You know what it is.”
“I feel sick as well,” Jake said.
“What is it?” Will asked.
“Anna was right. It’s one of those sonic fucking child repellents,” Tamsin said. “Old people can’t hear it.”