“Did you get a dog?” Taylor said, staring at the front door. It had dirty paw marks all over the white PVC that were too fat to be from wolf feet, and a huge hole punched through the bottom.
William shook his head. “Nah, one of Dad’s friends has an XL Bully. Dave’s his name.”
“The friend or the dog?”
William laughed. “Dad’s friend. The dog’s called Stan.”
“Stan the dog. Wow, that’s practically animal cruelty.”
The quiet contentment drained out of William’s face as he looked at the door, then at the collapsed swing set and crumbling wall between his house and the neighbour. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, wrenching open the car door and lurching up the path.
Taylor unclipped his seat belt and followed.
“What’re you doing?” William said, speeding up as Taylor trailed him.
“I’m coming in with you,” he replied, falling in line with him. “I wanna see your mum after all this time.”
And ask why the hell she didn’t take her son with her.
“Please don’t,” William said, walking even faster. “You’ll just make it worse.”
Taylor hummed. “I won’t. I promise.”
William flung open the front door, which was already unlocked. “It’s fine!” he snapped, and Taylor caught the door with the tip of his boot as it bounced off the wall.
Which was when William’s whole demeanour changed. Gone was the aggressive, moody pre-teen and in its place was a boy who looked half his size. His head sank, shoulders hugging his ears as he carefully stepped into the house.
“M-Mum?” he called, not looking back at Taylor as he made his way through the hallway. “Mum?”
There was no answer, so Taylor hung back and watched as William rounded the corner out of sight. A moment later there came the frantic clang of pots and pans, and Taylor followed him into the living room.
He’d been inside William’s house half a dozen times with Johnny over the years, but something was off now. There were no carpets on any of the floors, not even lino or wood, just bare concrete with grippers stuck around the edges. There was shit everywhere—bedding, dirty clothes, bags full of rubbish spilling out—and Taylor had to step over at least three just to get into the kitchen.
The place smelled atrocious, like William, all musty and rotten like a rat had crawled into the central heating system and died.
For what Taylor’s own parents lacked, they at least kept a tidy house. Mostly. When his mum wasn’t drinking and smoking herself into a stupor and his dad wasn’t in some fuck buddy’s bed for the night.
Dirt and grease coated the walls, the kind of grime that embedded itself when someone brushed against the same spot several hundred times. There was a dark patch in the middle of the uncarpeted stairs, another at the end of the hall, and Taylor wondered if that was where William sat when he listened to his dad beating up his mum.
Taylor’s spot had been at the top of the stairs, until his mum eventually left and Taylor got sick of the arguing and left too.
William was in the kitchen, throwing dirty plates and cups into the sink. He scowled at Taylor. “It isn’t usually like this,” he said, picking up empty cider cans and bottles of half-drunk beer. He threw them into a bin that was already spilling over.
Taylor watched him. Watched the way he tidied up with practiced efficiency, how he threw his dad’s empty snap bags away and tipped unfinished bottles of methadone down the sink.Jesus, Taylor knew Manders was an addict, but he didn’t know it had gotten that bad.
Usually, rage would have bubbled up in Taylor like a fucking volcano and he’d have marched back to the police station andripped Manders out of his cell. Instead, he stepped back into the living room, grabbed William’s coat from the back of a filthy armchair and made his way over to him.
“Come on,” he said, gripping William’s shoulder. “Put those down, you’re coming home with me.”
William tried to pull free, the desperate spark in his eyes making a return when Taylor didn’t let go. He struggled, but whatever fight he had in him seemed to die when he looked up into Taylor’s eyes.
The tears came then. Thick and heavy on William’s cheeks, running down his chin and onto his neck. Taylor knew his mum wasn’t coming, he knew William just wanted to see the house one last time before never being allowed back. Taylor understood that feeling all too well, because for better or worse, William would have had at least one happy memory there. With his mum, surely.
But children shouldn’t have to look after their parents, or cover for their shitty behaviour.
“Mum’s not well,” Taylor used to say to the social workers. Or “Dad’s busy tonight, he’ll be back tomorrow.” Looking back, it was probably why he bit his parents—to stop them from leaving. From leaving him, and each other.
But, in the end, his mum left and he ran away all on his own.
