Page 38 of The Cut
CHRISTMAS 1993
On Christmas morning, Mark Cherry wakes and wiggles his toes, searching for the stocking propped at the foot of his bed. It sags, completely empty, and his heart sinks. The Cherrys aren’t poor, there is always food on the table, but every penny of housekeeping is accounted for. Green Shield Stamps were saved year-round for the Christmas bills and all year, Mark would flick through the Argos catalogue, turning down the corners, dropping hints to his mum.
Mark is downstairs at the crack of dawn. Standing in the lounge doorway, he looks over to the Christmas tree. A suspiciously shaped present is leaning in the corner, half obscured by tinsel and baubles. He stares at it, his heart close to bursting. He sits patiently waiting until his parents finally come downstairs. He sits through breakfast, throughTopsofthePopsandCarolsfromKing’s, eyes flicking between the screen and the plastic Christmas tree. When lunch is over, everyone sits round as Mark gently removes the wrapping paper, revealing the varnished auburn woodgrain, the elegant Baroque curve of the neck and the pale carved wooden bridge of the German Stentor cello. He can hardly breathe.
‘Don’t you like it, son?’ His dad glances up from theRadioTimes, under his glasses. Mark can’t answer, he’s choking back the tears that are threatening to come. His mum bustles off into the kitchen to fetch tea and mince pies. As the bags are dunked into the hot water, she feels two arms slide around her waist and a head snuggle into her back. She pats his hand,148embarrassed to show him the tears rolling down her face. She knows so much about Mark that can never be spoken. Mrs Cherry was so worried about her son, but the only balm she knew was love. She’d sat with him on the stool in the kitchen and held cotton wool to his bleeding nose, she’d stroked his head in the early hours when he’d cried out with another night terror.
She knows him better than he knows himself, but they can never talk about it, they both have to pretend everything is OK, that everything is normal. That he is ‘normal’. So, when she touches Mark’s heart, like she has this Christmas morning, it is almost too much to bear.
After it happened, Mark Cherry had spent some time in Hayes Hospital. ‘Rehabilitation’, they had called it. Then he was packed off to boarding school. He had always attributed his complicated, almost reclusive nature to that time when he had left home at the age of fourteen, never to return.
But that child had been the father of the man.
Max Crow stood alone in his vast open-plan living room. The twelve-foot Christmas tree, tastefully decorated with plain lights and tartan ribbons, left him feeling empty. It was Brandon’s year to have Charlie to himself. Last year, Max had taken him to the Hollywood Methodist on Franklin for the family evening concert, and they’d spent Christmas Eve cuddled up under a blanket watchingHomeAloneand munching on Celebrations decanted into an old tin from his childhood home. He wished he’d taken up Brandon’s offer, jumped into the back of the Mustang and stowed away with them both to Italy, but their lives had become far too complicated for that.
The Sinatra Christmas Spotify playlist had looped its way back to ‘The First Noel’. Max tapped his iPhone to turn it off and stood in the silence, feeling the emptiness in his stomach. Cocoa, asleep149on his bed, didn’t stir. The multiple WhatsApp pictures of Charlie and Brandon having a ball pelting down the Mottolino Valley at Teola faded up and out on the digital picture frame propped up against the grand piano. Max poured himself another drink, a Hendrick’s and tonic, and slid open the huge glass door. The night air was cool and the fairy lights slung across the garden fence reflected in the still water of the swimming pool. Every now and then waves of loneliness would swarm out of the dark, like tentacles reaching from the past to grab hold of his heart and twist hard. He loved solitude but hated being alone.
Max breathed in deep, holding back a wave of sadness. He knew the remedy; his solace was hidden in the darkest recess of the room. A velvet blackout drape was obscuring the thing he was seeking. He walked over to the piano and drew back the curtain to reveal the instrument that was propped in the corner, facing the wall. He gently clasped the neck of the old German Stentor cello and spun it gently on its pin. He caressed his thumb across the four strings. It was out of tune. He sat on the piano stool and lifted the lid to the keyboard and softly played the A, then the D, the G and finally the C notes, tuning his beloved instrument. He lifted the bow, remembering how to spread his fingers and place his thumb. He paused for a second, awash with the memory of tearing away the wrapping paper to reveal the varnished walnut. He rested the horsehair on the string and, as if his best friend Catherine Maddock was right there by his side, he began to play.
Out in the garden, the sultry sound of Mark Cherry’s cello drifted up and out into the LA night.150
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FEBRUARY 1994
‘Mum, I’m only going for four days.’ Annie glances up to the rear window of the coach, where a seat is waiting for her. The coach is already packed with sleepy students for their 5 a.m. departure for Wales.
John Maddock has his eye fixed on Ben, whose face is pressed to the window of the back seat. Ben was hoping that Annie’s dad would have warmed to him by now, but it hasn’t happened; he’s as cold as ever. Marcello was supposed to have put in a good word. The little shit has let him down. Mr Maddock still sees him as nothing more than a bad influence on his little girl; he’ll never be good enough for her.
‘Please be careful, sweetheart.’ Annie’s mum cups her face. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’ She looks to Catherine, who stares at her shoes, reddening.
‘Mum …’ Annie’s eyes flick to her dad, who looks away, embarrassed. Then he presses a ten-pound note into her hand. ‘Dad, it’s too much … you can’t—’
‘It’s for both of you, for emergencies. Don’t spend it.’ Mr Maddock hauls their backpacks into the luggage area under the coach and glances up to the boy sitting on the back seat. There’s no one here to see Ben away safely this morning.
The kids pile on the coach with the usual scramble, ‘bagsying’ their seats with their besties. Mark Cherry is last to get on as usual. He makes his way down the aisle, looking for a place as far away from the trouble-makers as possible. He sees Ben at the152back of the bus and acknowledges him with a secret wave, but is met with daggers. He takes his seat alone and rolls his sweater into a pillow, leaning against the window. The coach finally pulls out of the school gates at 5.30 a.m. in the dark, leaving early to avoid the traffic on the A46 as they hit Tewkesbury. It’s a slow road over the Welsh border, cutting through the Wye Valley and deep into the wilderness of the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. The Black Mountains to the west and the famous Pen y Fan to the east will provide the dramatic setting for the challenging four days of camping on the banks of the River Taff.
‘If it’s good enough for the SAS, it’s good enough for Barton Mallet Secondary School.’ Ben leans forward across the aisle, passing a bottle of Coke to Annie, who is sitting next to Cat. Girls have to sit next to girls, and boys next to boys. No smoking, no radios and no fumbling under blankets. Those are the rules, although Mr Ashton has been assigned to marshal the trip and he’s a pushover. He nodded off just after Solihull, so those silly rules are crying out to be broken.
Lynette Davis has taken off her Doc Martens and has her feet up on her twin brother’s headrest, kicking him in the skull. Her Sony Walkman emits a tinny beat of Duran Duran. She’s bleached her hair to look like Nick Rhodes and her crispy perm is pulsing in time like a demented chicken. Annie passes the bottle of Coke to Cat, who takes a sip and then passes it down the line until it reaches Lynette, who swigs a mouthful. Chris passes her a packet of sweets over the back of the seat. She opens the Mentos Mints and pops one in her mouth before taking another swig and secretly spitting it into the Coke bottle and holding her hand over the top. She rises from her seat, shaking the bottle vigorously before the whole thing explodes across the coach.153
‘Take that, ya muvvers!’
‘Eeeww!’ The screams of protest across the back row wake the whole coach and the driver suddenly brakes. Students tumble off seats and dive for cover as a shower of sticky projectile foam spurts down the aisle, while others hide under blankets, squealing in a riot of jeers and laughter.
‘DAVIS!’ Mr Ashton is up on his feet and storming towards the back, as the coach slows to a crawl and pulls into a lay-by.
‘Sorry, sir, the bottle exploded.’ Lynette slumps back into her seat, chewing and smirking to herself.
Mr Ashton glares at her and pulls out a huge roll of paper towel. ‘Clean it up.’
‘No way, sir.’ Lynette tries to disappear into her seat. ‘I wouldn’t touch their shit with someone else’s barge pole, let alone—’
‘I SAID clean it up.’ Ashton isn’t a tyrant, he finds it quite hard to keep a straight face, but he knows exactly who the culprits are as his eyes shift to Chris, who is red-faced and giggling, eyes nearly popping out of his head. ‘Both of you.’
‘Sir, my seat is soaked.’ Annie Maddock is on her feet, wiping her jeans with paper towel.
