The Talented Blackwoods Chapter 2

A few days earlier...

David Blackwood was eleven when his first short story was published. It was the tale of a talking horse that made friends with a boy and then ate him. It was published in a special booklet compiled by the school, with a comment from a visiting writer that read: This is a dark but well-rendered story.

His parents were less positive about his juvenile prose.

“Can’t you write about something nice?” his mother asked. She looked the epitome of “nice” in her white blouse, blue knee-length skirt and neat shoulder-length brown hair.

“It’s a bit, well, disturbing,” said his father, frowning at the final page, while stirring his morning tea. He was wearing a suit and tie, as always on a weekday morning, and had his greying black hair slicked into a side parting with lashings of Brylcreem.

“It’s meant to be disturbing,” said David, scowling as his mother raked a brush through his own unruly black hair. “It’s alternative.”

“Alternative,” scoffed his mother. “You’re not even twelve yet, what do you know about alternative?”

“Well,” said David, snatching the brush from his mother’s hand and slamming it onto the table. “It’s not living in a semi-detached house in Surrey! It’s not working for a double- glazing firm,” (his father looked suitably offended), “And it’s not being a housewife who spends most days watching Pebble Mill at One and chatting over the fence with a seventy-year-old woman!”

“Mrs Raddle isn’t seventy,” said his mother. “She’s sixty-three and looks very good on it. Mr Dabs from the sweet shop calls her the Joan Collins of Sycamore Street.”

“He does have cataracts,” said David’s father, still offering David his offended expression.

“I wouldn’t mind looking like Joan Collins through a pair of cataracts when I’m sixty-three,” said his mother, clearing the table. His father tossed the booklet amongst the remnants of breakfast and pushed back his chair.

“Well, those non-alternative double-glazed windows won’t sell themselves,” he said, standing and brushing non-existent crumbs from his wide, striped tie. “I’d better get to my mainstream job and start earning that dull money that pays for your food, clothes and the typewriter you write your dark, brooding fiction on.”

His mother snorted as she carried their empty breakfast bowls through to the kitchen. “He’s the Emily Bronte of Sycamore Street.”

“Why does everyone have to be a version of someone else for you?” demanded David. “I’m not Sycamore Street’s answer to anything – I’m David Blackwood.”

His mother paused in the kitchen doorway, looking at him over a pile of crockery. “If I weren’t so impressed by how mature you sound, I’d smack your backside,” she said. “When did you become a thirty-four-year-old?”

“If it wasn’t for the fact that the misery you cause me every day of my life makes me a better writer, I’d leave home today,” said David, grabbing his school bag from beside his chair and stomping towards the front door.

“He does have a way with words,” he heard his mother comment as he flung open the door and strode purposefully down the short front path.

Of course, he had a bloody way with words. Words were his power. They were his potter’s clay, his artist’s paint his...

“Hey, Shit Face.”

“Hi, Barry.”

Barry was fat and smelt of cat’s piss. He was sort of David’s best friend. Although David didn’t really understand the need for friends, having someone to sit with at lunch time and in their shared lessons helped him stay below the radar of those whose attention he didn’t want to attract. A boy sitting alone is a target. He didn’t have time to be anyone’s target. Barry was eating a bag of pickled onion-flavoured Space Invaders as he waddled towards David, the strap of his school bag bisecting his wobbling breasts. His face was already flushed and slick with sweat, and he only lived three doors away.

“Read your story last night. What a pile of crap.”

“What do you know about writing?” David strode across Sycamore Street, leaving Barry to trot behind him, huffing and puffing like Darth Vader.

“I know shit when I read it. It was so shit I could smell it. My mum thought I’d crapped myself. When I did take a crap later on, at least I had something to wipe my arse with.”

“Piss off.”

“’My name is Hector the Horse, I want to be your friend.’” Barry said in a squeaky imitation of a three-year-old girl.

“It’s meant to sound childish. I’m playing with genre.”

“Playing with what?”

“Genre.”

“Is that another word for dick? Talking of which – I managed three times last night.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“I thought about Miss Drake the last time – nearly hit the ceiling.”

“Shut up, Barry.”

David felt a twinge of jealousy at the mention of Miss Drake – she was his

fantasy, or at least, he’d tried to make her one. She didn’t have the same effect on him as she apparently had on Barry. It was more the smell of her he liked – a combination of lemony perfume and paint. He always took a deep breath as she wafted past his desk in the art room.

***

That night, David thought about Miss Drake before he went to sleep, and for the first time, she had the same effect on him as she, apparently, had on Barry. He lay afterwards, feeling uncomfortably clammy. And then he was sitting in the art room at school, breathing in the smell of cheap poster paints. He gasped at the suddenness of dreaming and the vividness of the scene. It was accurate to the tiniest detail – penises painted onto orange plastic chairs in Tipex, obscenities scratched into the wooden desks with compass needles, and dried spatters of paint across every surface.

The door to the art cupboard was open, and someone was in there.

It was as Miss Drake stumbled into the room, looking spaced out and slightly agitated, that David realised he was naked apart from a pair of pants with yellow ducks on. Usually, this wouldn’t have bothered him, but this dream felt so real, and the dream Miss Drake looked so much like the real Miss Drake, he wanted to be covered and quickly.

“David?” Miss Drake, who was wearing a short, almost transparent nightdress, stared at him through her big, innocent blue eyes.

“Miss Drake,” croaked David, leaping from his chair and grabbing a white apron from a hook just inside the classroom door. He looped it over his neck and tied the straps with trembling fingers.

“What am I..?.” Miss Drake studied her own scanty clothing before scanning the room, as if she’d never seen it before, or had only ever looked at it through cataracts, like Mr Dab had, and was now seeing it clearly.

“I was watching TV,” said Miss Drake, sitting on the edge of a desk, her expression distant. “I think I fell asleep, but...”

If this was a dream, why wasn’t she slipping out of the nightie and ravishing him, thought David. This was all much too real.

“I was in bed,” said David, “Then I was here.”

Not exactly stunning prose, but he’d wanted to say something.

Miss Drake stood and walked to the window. She was wearing white lace underwear, David noticed, as the light from the window – it was daytime in the dream – took the transparency of her attire to a whole new level. David quickly thought of Mrs Raddle from next door to avoid embarrassment.

Miss Drake glared at him. “Why the Hell am I dreaming about some spotty kid from year seven who gives me the creeps?”

“Do you actually want me to answer that?” asked David.

“Why not Peter Bradley?” mused Miss Drake, staring out of the window again.

“Peter Bradley?” David knew who she meant; Peter Bradley was 17 – a six foot, toned lad who every girl fancied, apart from Gill Nice.

“Now that would be a great dream,” said Miss Drake. She looked at David again and frowned, “But David Blackwood. Why David Blackwood?”

“I am here!”

“I’m going to find Peter Bradley,” said Miss Drake, her initial uncertainty suddenly gone. “Peter!”

She sprinted across the classroom, bare feet slapping on the wooden floor.

David could hear her calling Peter’s name all the way down the corridor. And then, suddenly, she was silent.

“Great.” David sank even lower into the chair. “She doesn’t even fancy me in my dreams. She doesn’t even like me.”

In other dreams, she’d liked him.

David took a deep breath. The room was filled with the smell of Miss Drake’s lemony perfume.

He woke as suddenly as he’d fallen asleep to find his mother leaning over him, her hand resting on his forehead.

“Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to wake you. You were mumbling in your sleep, and you feel a bit hot.”

“I’m fine,” snapped David.

“Are you sure? I can get you a Disprin if you’d like.”

“No!”

“Okay. ‘night then.”

David grunted something resembling good night.

It took him more than an hour to fall asleep again, and when he dreamt it was the usual blurry kind of dream. He was in the school, but it was a maze of corridors – far more complex than in reality – with Miss Drake running ahead of him, always just out of reach.

***

Miss Drake lived in a flat above the newsagents in Strutland Drive. David had followed her from school one afternoon and watched as she let herself into the door behind the row of shops. He’d stood on the corner by the new library and watched until she appeared in the first-floor window, pulling off her coat, before disappearing into another room. He was standing on the same corner now, hoping for a glimpse of her. Well, more than a glimpse. He wanted her to pass right by him and see how she reacted. He wanted to know for sure that she’d really been in his dream last night. Why did it have to be the night before the summer holidays that he’d had the weird dream about Miss Drake. If today had been a school day instead of the start of the holidays, engineering a meeting with her would have been so much easier.

He heard a bell ring as the door to the newsagent opened and Miss Drake stepped into view. Her blonde hair was messy, as if she’d rolled out of bed into the shop. She was dressed in a baggy t-shirt and a pair of stripy cotton trousers – not the alluring nightdress from the dream – but to David, she still looked beautiful.

She headed towards the corner where David stood. He began walking towards her, ready to feign surprise.

“Miss Drake!” he greeted, his voice irritatingly shrill.

Miss Drake jolted into full consciousness, clutching a pack of Silk Cut and a magazine to her chest. She stopped dead when she saw him.

“What?” she blurted.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

She certainly didn’t seem pleased to see him.

“You look tired. Bad dream last night?”

“Don’t be so nosey, David.

“Sorry. I had a weird one – I was in the art room actually. You were there too.”

“Really?” Miss Drake was acting uninterested, but David saw something behind the false expression that suggested otherwise.

“Did you find Peter?” he asked.

He saw horrified realisation dawn on his art teacher’s pale face, and knew it had been the real Miss Drake in his dream. Suddenly, she didn’t look so pretty.

“Stay away from me,” she said, clutching her purchases even closer to her bosom. “I’m off duty now.”

She scuttled past him, disappearing behind the parade of shops.

***

That night David thought as hard as he could about Miss Drake before he went to sleep. But when he emerged into the dream world, he was inside some kind of huge tent. The ground was covered in rugs in numerous clashing patterns, and there were large cushions, in similarly garish hues, scattered everywhere. He heard someone groan behind him and turned, hoping to find Miss Drake, but instead, draped across an elongated couch, wearing what looked like a net curtain, was his mother. And crouching next to the couch and kissing his mother feverishly was Dennis, the man who delivered fresh eggs to the house every Thursday.

“Mother!”

His mother looked at him through one eye – Dennis was busy kissing the other one.

“David!” She sat upright, knocking Dennis’s strapping form backwards.

“What are you doing with the egg man?” demanded David.

“I…well…why are you here?” his mother spluttered, swinging round into a sitting position.

“I really don’t want to be.”

His mother scrutinised him, pushing Dennis, who had righted himself and was leaning in for more passion, to one side. “David, does this dream feel normal to you?”

“There is nothing normal about this,” said David.

“Is this the first extra-vivid, unusual dream you’ve had?” his mother asked. At some point, Dennis had disappeared.

“No, I had one last night about Miss Drake. I much preferred it. I don’t think she felt the same, though, not judging by the way she looked at me this morning.”

His mother sighed. “David, I want you to wake up now, or try to go into a dream of your own. In the morning, your dad and I need to have a chat with you. But it’s probably best you don’t mention about Dennis.”