nine

We went back to Tony's house and sat there all afternoon, nervously switching between watching TV and playing guitars and assuring each other that, although we hadn't actually tried the amp out before we'd handed over our cash, it would actually work OK. Well, we waited and waited for Damien to bring the amp round in his little white van and at five when it still hadn't arrived we gave the shop a call.

It turned out that there had been a bit of a mix up with the addresses and Damien had delivered it to my house, which was about two miles away. We ran all the way there and arrived completely knackered-out just before mum got home from the chemist's shop. Dad answered the door clutching a can and wearing a vest covered in beer stains.

"Did Tony's amp come?" I asked.

"It's big and orange and in the hall," mumbled dad.

The amplifier and speaker stood outside the sitting room, somehow seeming much bigger and oranger than they had in the shop that morning. We took the amplifier up to my bedroom and then dad insisted on helping us carry the speaker cabinet up the stairs. We were about halfway up when he finally dropped it and tumbled with loud thuds and yells of, 'you big orange bastard,' to the foot of the stairs. Me and Tony rushed down to see if he was all right, just as mum came through the front door.

She took one look at my dad squirming all dirty and drunk beneath that horrendous orange speaker cabinet, and her arms fell limply to her sides and her face faded. She raised her hands to her head and clutched her hair tight, her hand bag, strung over one arm, dangling against her shoulder. When she lowered her hands there was such a look in her eyes that me and Tony backed off up the stairs. And then she screamed.

I don't mean she shouted something or swore, she simply screamed - a drawn-out, primeval expression of animal anguish. You know, the kind of shriek that certain species of monkey are given to producing when they see a particularly big cat coming their way, the kind of sound that slices straight through your head.

Mum's epic scream was punctuated by the slam of the front door, and was followed by the sound of the car revving, a squeal of tyres on the drive and then rapidly fading gear changes as she sped off up the road. We weren't that worried about her. She'd driven off like that before (for example, the time dad set fire to the spice rack by the cooker). I suppose, sometimes, she just needed to get away.

No one said anything for a bit after she'd gone. I guess we all had our reasons for feeling awkward. Me and Tony sat down on the stairs and dad lay on his back beneath the amp and stared up at the ceiling.

"Now see what you've done," he said.

But, to tell you the truth, I couldn't tell if he was talking to me, himself or the big orange bastard on top of him.

A couple of hours later mum returned. Me and Tony were up in the bedroom. At the sound of the key turning in the lock I was at once relieved and also alarmed: relieved that she'd come back (I mean, it's kind of scary when people drive off like that and you don't know where they've gone); and alarmed because I knew I'd have to go down and explain about the amp which Dad had christened the Big Orange Bastard (or Bob for short).

Me and Tony crept quiet and slow down the stairs and sat at the bottom peering through the crack in the slightly open sitting room door. Mum was sat in an armchair, her shoes kicked off and her coat still on. Her cheeks were flushed the same faded shade of pink as the roses that patterned the armchair and snaked up the wall on pastel green stems - briar bars caging the room.

I sidled into the 'cage' imaging Mum a lioness and me a clumsy tamer.

"Hi," I said nervously.

Mum stared ahead silently, her eyes cold and empty, concentrating the scattered loathing of all she surveyed to a pin-prick of bitterness within, black and smouldering, like a bin-liner beneath sunlight sharpened by broken glass.

"Do you want a cup of tea?" I asked, an offering poured like hot water on ice. Mum shrugged, her face thawing a little.

"I'll make a pot then," I said.

"Do what you like," said mum her voice tainted by the melting bitterness. "You normally do, all of you."

"Look mum, I'm sorry about the amp," I ventured.

"Sorry, whatever for?" she sneered. "Sorry? Why should I care what you bring into this house. Don't bother asking me. It doesn't matter what I think. After all I'm only the one who works morning, noon and night to pay for this place. No you just do what you like."

"I didn't mean to upset you," I started to explain. "Damien from the shop was meant to take it to Tony's, but he came round here and left it in the hall and then dad said we should take it upstairs to get it out of the way and..."

"I'm really not interested," said mum. "As far as I'm concerned you can fill the whole bloody house with your filthy rubbish. You've just about destroyed my kitchen and the stairs. When you've finally finished this place off I suppose you'll go and live in the shed with your father."

"I'm sorry about the stairs," I said. "It was an accident. You see me and Tony were..."

"Oh I might have known he would have something to do with it," said mum. "That's all that matters to you isn't it that bloody Tony. You don't seem to care what me and your father might feel do you, so long as you're keeping your precious Tony happy."

"That's not fair" I said.

"Not fair?" shouted mum. "Not fair? You laze round this house like some kind of long-haired parasite not lifting a finger to help me or your father. And the first chance you get you're off to bloody Tony's. Is that fair on us, is it?"

"I don't know" I said.

"I suppose Tony's mum doesn't care if you smash the house up and spend all day strumming your bloody guitars. I suppose she cooked you breakfast in bed then disappeared for the rest of the day to let you run riot."

"We made ourselves cornflakes," I said. "And then we went into town. Tony's mum knew where we were."

"Tony's mum this and Tony's mum that. That's all I bloody hear from you. Well if she's so bloody perfect why don't you go and move in with her." "Look mum, I don't think you should..." I started to say worried that she would upset Tony who was hidden behind the door.

"Don't you tell me what to do in my own house," shouted mum, not knowing Tony was still there. "I'm sick of you and I'm sick of hearing about bloody Tony. It's about time you got your priorities straight."

"Tony's my friend," I said.

"Oh really?" she said scathingly. "He's your friend is he? You've got a soft spot for poor little single-parent Tony with his big house and his rich uncle have you?"

"You're crazy," I said, wincing as mum continued her tirade, totally unaware that poor Tony could hear every word.

"Well if I'm crazy," she said. "I'd hate to think what that makes his mother."

"She's not crazy," I said. "She's just nice"

"Oh grow up," said mum. "The woman's warped."

"She is not!" I yelled.

Then, as if my outburst had somehow absorbed mum's anger, the tone of her voice softened.

"Look," said mum. "I know Anthony's a very nice boy. But I'm not happy about you spending so much time at his house."

"Why?" I asked.

"I really don't think you're good for each other," she said.

"That's stupid?" I said.

"Now listen to me Peter," said mum (she only calls me Peter when she has something serious to say). "Now you know I like Anthony and I'm sure he likes you. And I know things have been difficult here with me your father and I can understand that you should try and look for some kind of escape route."

She reached out to touch me and I flinched away. She paused and smiled sadly. "I do understand," she said. "But I don't think you and Anthony are being fair to each other. I know it must be hard for him living alone with his mother the way she is. But you're not really helping him by being there all the time. You're never going to be a replacement for his father."

"I can't believe you," I said backing towards the door. "I just can't believe you."

"Now Peter don't get upset," she said. "I know you mean well, but Anthony is a very mixed up little boy. He needs professional help."

"Don't be stupid mum," I said. "There's nothing wrong with Tony."

"Please Peter do try to understand," she said so sure of her home-spun psychology.

I turned toward the half open door.

"Peter please listen to me," said mum.

"Oh shut up," I said and walked out of the door to Tony who was sitting with his head in his hands on the stairs. I sat beside him with an apologetic smile and grimaced as mum shouted.

"How dare you speak to me like. Come back here at once. Peter!...Peter!...Pete...errr."

Her voice trailed away as she followed me out of the room and saw Tony sat there.

"Oh, Peter!" said mum, paling. "I didn't know he was...Peter, why didn't you tell me that...Tony I'm sorry."

Tony shrugged.

"Come on I'll take you home," said mum reaching out nervously to touch Tony's arm.

"Oh sod off and leave him a-fucking-lone," I said pushing her hand away.

Mum sensing an opportunity to deflect her guilt-ridden embarrassment, acted with total outrage at the defiance of my gesture. Her eyes filled with exaggerated indignation, she grabbed my wrist and dragged me to my feet, practically wrenching my arm from its socket. As we glared at each other I clenched my teeth and started to breath in and out like I'd just sprinted the two hundred metres on sports day. After a couple of moments she let go and two ruby beads of blood welled up where her nails had dug into my wrist. I wiped the blood on my face so that it smeared across my cheeks like red Indian war paint.

"I think I better go home now," said Tony, getting up.

"I'll come with you," I said.

"If you dare set foot outside this house," said mum. "You'd better never come back again. Do you understand? Never!"

"I'm sorry," mumbled Tony to everyone and no one.

"Don't waste your breath," I said and followed him out of the front door.

Mum rang Tony's mum later on. I could hear her being all sweetness and light on the phone, and pretended to put my fingers down my throat to make myself sick. But Tony didn't laugh.

Tony's mum told me that my mum was coming round to pick me up so I thanked her for letting me stay there on Friday night and told Tony not to worry about what my mum had said about him as she was probably just tired and everything. Then I went to wait outside the house for her to arrive.

We didn't speak to each other at all on the way home. When we got in Dad had put on a clean shirt and was mending the broken banister. My brother had laid the table for tea and heated up a frozen pie in the microwave. Later that evening mum knocked on the bedroom door and came in to see me. She told me that she had discussed the amplifier with my dad and that I could keep it in my room so long as I only used it at certain times.

"I don't want to have the amp here," I told her. "I'd rather take it round to Tony's"

"But I'd like you to have it here," said mum falsely.

"But it was all a mistake," I explained. "Damien delivered it to the wrong address."

"Well, it's here now," said mum. "I've spoken to Anthony's mother and told her that he's very welcome here anytime he wants to use it OK?"

"OK," I said grudgingly.

So, that's how I came to have Bob, the Big Orange Bastard in my bedroom. My brother didn't mind because my mum decided the room was too small for two of us and an amplifier. My mum moved the armchairs and the telly and the bookcase out of the sitting room and into the dining room. The dining room table was moved into the kitchen, the dining room became the new sitting room and the old sitting room became my brother's new bedroom. It would have been a hell of a lot easier to have hired a van to take the amp round to Tony's house, and left everything as it was. But mum was adamant. "It's time things changed round here anyway," she said.

Although it was quite exciting having the amp in my room at first, after a while I began to wish it were round at Tony's. The ridiculous colour and size of the amp had begun to get on my nerves, and although it seemed to work OK, it smelled really weird. When the amp had been on for a few minutes the valves behind the dust-coated grill at the back of the amp would glow bright orange and this strange burning smell would fill the room.

The smell was a combination of scorched dust and a heady herbal aroma which I didn't recognise until a couple of years later, when I went to see some reggae band play at a Friends of the Earth benefit gig. The gig was in a club called Paradise Island and the place was full of smoke which smelled exactly the same as my amp did. Burning dust, I thought with splendid innocence. The smell was so strong it made my head spin and my knees tremble. Boy I told myself as I returned the knowing grins of my fellow concert goers the band's equipment must really be overheating!

It was only a few weeks later when the police raided Paradise Island and arrested about fifty people for possession of certain substances that I finally cottoned on to precisely what that aroma was and, with amusement and regret, realised that over the last few months I had unwittingly burned away a sizeable (and probably highly valuable) stash of some dubious herbal delicacy hidden between Bob's valves! The Big Orange Bastard.