Free Eight Inches to make Johnny Smile by Claire Davis, Al Stewart

Chapter One
    Ever since he could remember, people always watched him in this street.
    When he was a young kid he would play out on the small green in the middle, football or chasing, but even then he was aware of the mothers, gathering and nodding disapprovingly. Once, he bought an ice cream – a double rocket sundae – and heard them laughing at him. It hadn’t stopped him from gobbling down that ice cream, tasting nothing, with his cheeks burning up red from shame.
    Then, as a teenager, he tried for a while to fit into the skinny jeans and little T-shirts the other boys wore – he could scarcely call them friends – but he would notice the curtains move as he slunk past the watching whisperers. It wasn’t long before he stopped being able to squeeze himself into anything but joggers and big T-shirts, and he accepted that he was a freak.
    That last year before he left home for college he really gave up and piled on the weight. The more they called him names, the more he ate. In a way it was to spite them, but also to spite and spike himself.
    All that was ten years ago; now he had a job and was moving into his own flat, but he still hated this street and the way that it always waited for him, throwing chocolate wrappers and bags full of embarrassing memories at him every time he came around the corner. Even now he hurried anxiously, past the houses with their windows like calculating eyes, keeping his head down and holding his breath.
    ****
    “Hello, love.” She pecked him on the cheek then prodded him in the stomach. “You still going to the gym?” she asked, shrewdly, meaning ‘are you putting on weight again?’
    “Hello, Mum, the traffic wasn’t too bad today. That new roundabout seems to be really working, doesn’t it?” he answered breezily, because sometimes he could divert her from the inevitable digs. She looked him up and down and nodded absently as she made tea, and he wondered for the millionth time if she even knew she did it.
    “Your father’s up the garden doing the digging. Why don’t you go up and have a look? He’s worked ever so hard on it. Go on, I’ll bring the tea up.” The house was pristine as always. He was the only messy thing that ever came in here. Sometimes he wondered if she dusted and sprayed his chair after he left.
    He made his way up the garden with a thudding heart. If Dad started on him today he wasn’t going to bite back; he’d just smile and sip his tea politely then leave.
    Dad appeared and shook his hand as always. “There you are. Mum was getting worried. You not giving her a hand with the tea? She’s not as young as she was.”
    “She told me to come up and wait here.” He wasn’t going to rise to anything today. Dad brushed his hands off on his jeans and sniffed. “Well, you can get the big chair out the shed yourself. Don’t go breaking the others.”
    He felt the sting right through to his bones but kept his face wooden. People only went on at you more if they knew they’d hit a target.
    He sat resolutely on the wall. “Here’s fine, Dad. The garden’s looking great.”
    “It is, isn’t it? See what I did with that patio?”
    And thank God, Dad was no longer looking at him. Despite the large baggy top, Mat felt naked, and tugged at the T-shirt to prevent any clinging, wishing he could wear a sheet.
    They settled themselves with tea and cake, and there was that awkward thing of whether he should accept or refuse cake – didn’t really matter because either way invited speculation.
    “How’s the job going?” Mum asked, making him cough slightly as he swallowed the cake whole.
    “Fantastic,” he lied. “I really love it.”
    “Well, thank heaven for that. Me and Dad thought you’d likely never find a job, the size you got to.”
    And there went a year’s worth of therapy down the drain, just like that.
    ****
    He parked a way down the road so he could have a good look around before he got out of his car. The meeting was in the community