“It’s a weight off my shoulders, anyway.” Mum smiled to herself as I walked in and went to the fridge to grab a can of Coke.
“He’ll see her right.” Dad nodded to himself.
I closed the fridge door, leant up against it and popped open the can, sipping as I shifted my gaze between the two of them. Against my better judgement, they’d reeled me in, and I took the bait.
“Who will see who right?” I asked, looking bored with this conversation before it’d even started.
“Tony.”
I froze when my mum said his name. Fingernails down a chalkboard would’ve sounded better and probably given me a less visceral reaction too.
“What about him?” I croaked out. The Coke was doing nothing to wet the sudden dryness in my throat.
“He’s moved to Brinton Manor. Got a lovely little two-bed, right by where Alice is staying.”
I slammed the can on the counter next to me, making the liquid fizz up and spill over the top, but I just shook the drops from my hand and turned my heated stare on my mum.
“What the hell do you mean, close to Alice? Does he know where she lives?”
“Of course he does. His place is right around the corner, on Spires Lane.” Mum frowned at me, like I’d made the most ridiculous statement. I mean, why wouldn’t we tell dear old Uncle Tony where his beloved niece was? I couldn’t fucking believe her, and I was equally pissed at myself for the fact that Alice had been put in danger yet again.
“You told him where, didn’t you?” I shouted, really losing my shit. “Why? Why would you do that?”
“He’s her uncle,” she snapped back. “He has every right to know. Why wouldn’t we tell him?” She looked to my dad for back up, but she couldn’t bring herself to look my way. I would say she felt guilty, but it was more likely she couldn’t be bothered to argue with me and wanted me gone.
“He has fuck all rights, Mum.”
“Watch your language,” Dad barked back, ever the guard dog with a bark no one took any notice of and a bite that didn’t exist, not when it came to his brother-in-law, anyway.
I moved my glare from Mum to him, and wished to God I could tell him exactly why he was such a fucking awful father in every way that counted. But I’d never betray Alice in that way. It was her truth to tell, not mine.
“I’ll say whatever the fuck I want,” I spat. “I can’t fucking believe you.”
“Now listen here, son…” He waved his finger at me as if he had authority in my life. “We overlook a lot of your crap in this house, but that stops tonight––”
“You’re damn right it’s gonna stop. I’m out of here. You have no fucking clue what you’ve just started. But I’ll tell you this… I am fucking ending it.” I pushed off from where I stood and marched across the room.
“Always talking in riddles, and that’s when you do decide to bloody speak.” Dad laughed at his cruel jab at my anxiety.
It was the last straw.
I couldn’t be in this house or in their presence for a moment longer.
I stormed out of the room, grabbed my coat from the foot of the stairs and left, slamming the front door shut. They may have thrown Alice to the wolves, given her up like she was nothing, but she wasn’t alone, and I would make damn sure nothing happened to her. If that meant I needed to pay a visit to Brinton Manor, then so be it.
I walked for what felt like hours, using my mobile phone to track where I was headed. I didn’t know Brinton Manor all that well, and I didn’t want to spend any more time than I had to walking around the place.
As I turned a corner, I saw the sign indicating the boundary where Sandland ended and Brinton began. ‘Welcome to Brinton Manor’ the official road sign said. Behind it, spray-painted in amateur graffiti that stood six foot high and looked like the work of a seven-year-old, were the words, ‘All who come here, abandon all fear.’ They didn’t need to warn us. Nobody ever came here because they wanted to. It was hardly a tourist attraction.
There were broken bottles, glass and other shit littering the pavements and the gutters. The roads were full of potholes and sprigs of grass grew through the walls of the desolate buildings and along the street. Nature was trying to survive here but dying a death under the weight of industrial Britain. Because that’s what Brinton was, an old industrial town that’d been shafted in the nineteen-eighties and never fully recovered. Old buildings that used to thrive producing steel and other products had become barren, unused and rundown.
We’d never used any of the buildings for our parties. We never wanted to. Brinton wasn’t the kind of place people would choose to go to for a night-out, and we weren’t about to change that any time soon.
It was dark, and the street lights here were even worse than in my part of Sandland. At least some of them worked where I lived. Here, it was a ghost town. I glanced down at my phone, noticing that the indictor for where my uncle lived was getting closer. Not long now.
I shoved my hand into my pocket to check I still had the Stanley knife safely tucked away. I hadn’t spent much time planning what I’d do when he opened that door. Dwelling on it would only make me nervous. Instead, I focused on my surroundings and tried to regulate my breathing. Anything to keep me calm and help me prepare for what I was about to face.
The streets were dead, and all I could hear was the screeching of a car’s brakes in the distance, car horns blaring out and then shouts and bangs. If you closed your eyes, you’d think you were stuck in a video game. Open them and the reality was far worse.