Free The Toll Bridge by Aidan Chambers Page B

you.’
    A suspicious look while he shovels beans, his fork in a fist-grip.
    â€˜Does it matter?’
    â€˜Yes, if you’re staying. No promises though.’
    â€˜Cautious bugger.’
    â€˜Cautious maybe, anal screwer never. For a start, what’s your name?’
    â€˜. . . Adam!’
    â€˜But Adam what?’
    â€˜Adam in the back seat. Adam in the hay. Adam on the kitchen table.’
    â€˜Groan. I meant your last name.’
    â€˜Haven’t made my mind up yet.’
    â€˜Oh, come on! Stop messing about.’
    â€˜It’s true. Never knew my parents. Brought up in a children’s home. They made me leave when I was sixteen. So I reckon I can have whatever name I like. Nobody else cares a toss so what’s the odds.’
    â€˜Well, how old are you now?’
    â€˜Seventeen. Just.’
    â€˜And what have you done since they chucked you out?’
    â€˜Odd jobs and that. But I wanted to travel a bit so I come down here. Haven’t had much luck with a job though.’
    I gave him a long stare.
    â€˜That’s not what you said before.’
    He didn’t look at me. Went on shovelling beans.
    â€˜When?’
    â€˜In the boat, going to the Pike.’
    â€˜What did I say?’
    â€˜That you’d been chucked out of home by your father because you were always having rows and he was unemployed and you had two sisters still at school.’
    Now The Grin. The Teeth. The Eyes. The Unblinking Gaze.
    I gaze back, unblinking, unsmiling, daring him. ‘Not that I believed you.’
    â€˜No? . . . Yes, well, I made it up, didn’t I.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Don’t want everybody knowing your personal details. Never know who you’re talking to. People take advantage.’
    â€˜Have I?’
    The Grin vanishes, leaving a blank-faced cold look, and suddenly occupying the eyes the other Adam, the one I’d always sensed behind The Grin – wary, troubled, a little frightened, the one who made me curious.
    â€˜Not yet,’ the other Adam said.
    Then The Grin banishes him again.
    I say, trying to keep my own eyes steady, ‘Why should I believe the orphan story?’
    He shrugs, lifts his plate and, his eyes still on me, licks it clean.
    â€˜Good, that,’ he says, putting the plate down.
    I scowl.
    He brazens it out. ‘Want me to wash up?’
    I don’t respond.
    â€˜All right,’ he says after a long pause, ‘I’ll tell you. But you have to promise to keep it to yourself. I don’t want other people knowing. Not Tess, neither.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜I just don’t, that’s all.’
    â€˜Depends what it is.’
    â€˜Nothing bad. I just don’t want people knowing.’
    â€˜Why me, then?’
    â€˜Well, like you said, you’ve been OK.’
    â€˜And you want to stay.’
    â€˜Yes, well, that as well.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜Promise.’
    â€˜Cross my heart.’
    He huffs and toys with his fork for a while, then sighs and says, ‘I was adopted. When I was little. A baby. They told me when I was eight. All this stuff about how it was better for me than for other kids because they chose me. Other kids – their parents just had to take whatever they got. They were all right, my parents. The people I called my parents. They were nice and everything. But I just couldn’t accept it. I hated being adopted. It felt like a disease. I wanted to know who my real parents were but they wouldn’t tell me. Said they didn’t know. When I was grown up, they said, I could try and find out for myself, if I still wanted to know. I hated them for that. I thought they ought to find out for me. I thought they ought to want to know for themselves. I mean, wouldn’t you – wouldn’t you want to know? Where you come from? Why they, why they got rid of you? Had to. Or wanted to. Or were made to. Sometimes that happens,