The Killswitch - Ian Parson

The Killswitch by Ian Parson

Book excerpt

Aiden Fitzpatrick was five years old. He strolled along a tree-lined path with a book tucked under his arm. Aiden loved books. He’d spent the afternoon beneath his favourite oak, rolling new words around in his mouth, pretending he knew how to pronounce them and what they meant. He lived just up the hill.

“Where you goin’?”

He looked up at a boy about the same age as him on a bend in the path. The kid wore a Spiderman T-shirt. Aiden smiled. He liked Spiderman and was always up for new friends.

“Where you goin’?” the stranger repeated.

“‘Ome,” Aiden told him.

“You can’t come this way.”

“I always go this way.”

In the 70s, it was not unusual for small children to make their own way within their locality. Nobody gave it too much thought.

In response to Aiden’s statement of fact, the boy held up a stone. He drew back his arm as though about to throw.

“Nobody passes this way!” he declared.

Aiden dropped his book and picked up a stone of his own.

“I am,” he said defiantly and launched his missile.

They threw simultaneously. It was impossible to say who actually started it. It didn’t really matter. Aiden dived under a shrub on his side of the path and hastily gathered some stones about him.

The other lad ducked behind a tree. It was a good spot. He had the sweep of the path covered. He popped out intermittently, launching missiles. His aim was nothing for Aiden to worry about. But he clearly had a large supply of ammo within easy reach.

The kid had prepared for this at leisure. He’d been waiting for an opponent. It was nothing personal, anyone would do. He just liked stone fights. He was that age. It was the seventies.

He needs the practice, Aiden mused.

He took to firing sparingly, allowing his opponent to run down his superior reserves.

The boys merrily set to, each using their own tactic. They were rather enjoying themselves until they heard a shout.

“Oi!”

It was the park keeper holding his hat in place and jogging towards them. He didn’t look best pleased, and to five-year-olds he was big.

“Leg it!” the unknown kid shouted, and Aiden followed him through the rhododendrons, out of the park, and up the main road.

After a few minutes they fell in behind a stationery car. The parkie was no longer chasing them. Once they’d left the boundary of his responsibility he didn’t care.

“You’re not a bad shot,” the kid told Aiden.

“Thanks,” Aiden replied. “You need practice.”

The kid smiled. “Do you live round ‘ere?”

Aiden pointed up the hill. “Up there.”

“I’m Stevie.”

“Aiden.”

They beamed at each other and that was it. They might never meet again, but if they did, they were already buddies.

A few weeks later, and it was Aiden’s first day at school. He heard the alarm go off in his mum’s bedroom.

“Aiden!” she shouted across the landing. “Get up!”

“I am up.”

He’d already eaten a bowl of rice Krispies and drunk a glass of milk. Now he was browsing a comic.

“Don’t leave a mess in that kitchen!” his mother shouted.

He ignored her and glanced at the clock. Eight-thirty. The school started at nine. It was only a five-minute walk. He carried on reading.

At a quarter to the hour his mum poked her head around the kitchen door. She stood there in her dressing gown with her hair ruffled. She seemed more subdued than normal. “You better not be late.”

He glanced at the clock again. “I won’t.”

She hovered in the doorway, and he couldn’t concentrate on his comic.

“I might as well go,” he announced, sliding back his chair.

His mum tried to give him a kiss on the cheek. It was clumsy, awkward. Neither of them were used to shows of affection.

“See ya,” he said, squeezing past her.

“Don’t take no shit,” she called after his tiny departing form. “And learn something.”

At the school gates, hordes of parents and children buzzed around. The noise was deafening. Aiden slowed his walk as he approached. He glanced suspiciously at all the kissing and cuddling. He skulked to a parked car and leaned on the front wing. All the other kids had somebody to see them off. He felt like a misfit. Not that he wanted his mother present; she would only find a way to embarrass him. But it would have been nice to have somebody.

“Aiden!” He heard his name being called and was stupidly grateful. “Are you startin’ today?”

It was Stevie, his stone-throwing pal. Things were looking up.

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

They beamed at each other.

“Mum, this is Aiden, my friend from the park.”

“Hello, Aiden.”

He looked up at an impressively tidy woman. Her hair and makeup were immaculate and her coat well cared for. She wore it with the collar turned up—

Like a movie star, Aiden thought.

“Hello,” he mumbled.

“So, you boys are friends? That’s nice. Stay close and they’ll let you sit together.”

They both liked the sound of that. Then a bell clanked above the general hubbub.

“Hold hands, quick,” Stevie’s mother whispered. “Say you’re together.”

They did as she suggested. They clung tightly to each other as the group of new recruits shuffled towards the gate.

Very soon, they were standing before an ancient-looking man. Aiden looked up at tufts of hair protruding from his nostrils. Stevie noted the coating of dandruff halfway down his shoulders.

“Names?” he barked.

“Aiden Fitzpatrick.”

He ticked his sheet of paper.

“Stevie Williams.”

He ticked again.

“Go through,” he instructed.

A young woman hovered behind the door.

“Go through and find a chair,” she said.

They did.

The room filled up with noisy five-year-olds until the woman finally closed the door behind herself.

“Good morning, children, my name is Miss Anderson.”

An expectant hush fell over the room.

“The seat you are now in will be your place for the rest of the school term.”

The boys beamed at each other. It felt like a victory.

“We’re going to stay best friends forever.” Aiden whispered

A few years passed. Aiden was eight now.

“Are you awake yet?” His mother’s voice blew across the landing.

“Yeah,” he called back.

He’d been awake for ages, lying on his bed, reading how the Victorians had built the London tube network. It blew his mind that this had actually been made to work, and that it still worked over a hundred years later.

He rolled a new phrase around his mouth.

“Metropolitan Line.” He said it aloud purely because he liked the sound of it. He was improving his vocabulary at an alarming rate.

“Metropolitan Line,” he whispered softly.

“Get me a cup o’ tea,” his mother shouted from her bedroom.

Aiden went to the kitchen.

As he waited for the kettle to boil, he threw an empty wine bottle into the bin.

“‘Ere.” He plonked a mug of sweet tea on the floor beside her bed.

“I threw the empty away,” he said. She smiled sarcastically.

“I ‘eard you chuckin’ glass around.” There was a don’t judge me air about her.

“I’m goin’ to Stevie’s,” he announced and turned on his heel.

“They don’t want you round there this time o’ the morning!”

He ignored her.

The streets were filled with people heading to their daily tasks. Aiden was suspicious of them all. He used the quieter back lanes. He never approached Stevie’s house from the front door. Besides, you never knew what you might find in the lanes. Once he’d come across a pile of books in perfect condition.

From the cobbles, he looked up to Stevie’s kitchen window. He could see his mum wrapped in a dressing gown, fussing over the stove.

She saw him and waved him up.

He climbed the back wall using the same hand and foot holds he always used. He slid across the roof of the outside toilet and lowered himself into the yard. He skipped to the door and flicked the latch.

He could hear old Mr. Stanray coughing from the downstairs flat. He hurried up the stairs to where his pal was waiting for him.