Skin Deep by Laura Jarratt Read Free Book Online Page A

and his mum have a thing going and we’re together now. But she lives on a boat. Moves about.’
    ‘Ah!’ Jeff said, and I couldn’t understand why he sounded so sympathetic. ‘How much do you want?’
    ‘Nothing, man, nothing. Just look after her for me. Take her out. Keep her ticking over.’ He looked like someone taking his dog to the vet for the last time.
    ‘Cole, what are you doing?’ I interrupted.
    ‘Must be a special woman,’ Jeff said.
    Cole’s arm tightened round me. ‘Yeah she is, eh, Ryan?’
    ‘Er, yeah, of course. But what’re you doing?’
    ‘Can’t take a Harley on a boat, son.’
    ‘You’re leaving it here . . . no, you can’t . . .’
    ‘Jeff’s an old mate. I wouldn’t want to see her with anyone else.’
    Jeff wheeled the Harley towards the garage. ‘Any time you’re around, you drop in and take her for a spin. She’s still yours. And when you want her back –’
    Cole held up a hand in warning.
    ‘Oh, yeah,’ Jeff said, glancing at me. ‘No, you won’t, course.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.
    He smiled briefly. ‘It’s only a bike, kiddo.’
    But I think he left a piece of his heart in that garage. I hope he went back for it when he walked out on us.
    Pete sent me into town to the bakery at lunchtime. He told me to get something for myself too and there was no way I was getting that tub of quinoa and lentil salad out of my rucksack in front of them. Sorry, Mum . . .
    She hadn’t talked to me properly since I told her about the job. Said she hadn’t raised me to be part of The System. But I didn’t care. I was finally having a go at real life.
    It felt like a rebellion too. Especially as I watched the woman slapping greasy bacon on to white baps. I’d eaten meat before, but not since Cole went. He used to fall off the vegan wagon sometimes and take me with him for a burger. On my birthdays, he’d take me down the pub for a meal. We’d eat a packet of Polos between us on the way home so Mum wouldn’t find out.
    When I got back with the food, Pete took the change from me without checking it and shoved it in his back pocket. I wondered if he’d count it later when I was out of sight. ‘Your tea’s on the side, lad.’
    This time I sat down without being told.
    ‘You’re travelling people then,’ Bill said, licking his fingers as he finished the roll.
    ‘Er, yeah.’
    He filled his pipe with tobacco from a cracked leather pouch. ‘All boat people was travelling folk once,’ he remarked. ‘The barge men. Used to carry goods all over this country on the canals. Lived on the barges with their families. The kids used to work too. Back in them days, the barges was pulled by horses. No engines then. So when they got to a tunnel, the horse couldn’t tow them through, see. One of the little ’uns would unhook it and lead it round and the other kids would lie on their backs on the wings of the boat with their dad and push against the tunnel wall with their feet. Legging, it were called, and they shoved the barge through that way. Damned hard work. My granddad grew up on one of those barges. Told me some fine tales about it.’ He smiled. ‘Aye, all the boatmen was travellers once.’
    Mum had a face like she was chewing on a rancid nut when I ducked my head in through the door and came down Liberty ’s wooden steps. She didn’t say a word.
    ‘Hey, you’ve been busy!’
    She had rows and rows of finished necklaces, earrings and bracelets laid out on the folding table, and a pile of the dragon torcs. She must’ve been at it all day without a break. A twitch ran up my spine. Not a good sign . . .
    ‘I had to do something to keep busy instead of sitting here worrying about you,’ she snapped.
    I thought of the food she’d made me, cast on the roadside halfway between here and Whitmere for the birds to peck at. She’d been on her own all day. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been alone for so long – not since before Cole left. I thought of how