Hideaways

It was the roll of threadbare carpet his mum had left by the back door that gave Danny the idea. He would transform the shed into a cool den – the hideaway he’d always dreamed off. ‘What you doing?’ enquired his sister Sal as he dragged the dusty flooring across the lawn. ‘Oh, just moving some stuff for Mum,’ he shrugged. If Sal found out, the game would be up. Everyone knew the whole point of a hideaway was that it was secret. And right now he really needed to hide. Only once Sal had been safely thrown off the scent did he risk the trip to the bottom of the garden. The shed looked sadder than the one in his head, the door hanging off its hinges, but the carpet instantly restored its promise. He’d pushed all his Dad’s stuff to one side, taking care not to cut himself on the rusty hacksaw (he still had the faint tingle of a scar across his left hand to remind him). Now all he needed to do was fill the place with supplies.

He was just about to dart behind the towering screen of Leylandii with a box of comics when he spotted Jessie doddering across the lawn. Damn, she’d seen him. ‘Whaadis?’ she dribbled, threatening to scrunch the sun-bleached Beano on top. ‘Nothing,’ he snapped rescuing Dennis and Gnasher from the toddler’s clutches. ‘Mama’s calling, JJ. It’s lunch time.’ Obediently she turned and wobbled back into the house, stopping to eat a clump of moss on the way. Danny would have to be more careful in future. There would be no escaping that annoying little tyrant if she got so much as a whiff of the shed. He began sneaking about more carefully, covertly adding to his stash: his GI Joe collection, football stickers, a guitar with no strings… all good booty.

‘I thought he’d make a scene when I told him I was sorting out the playroom,’ Mum whispered to the girls as they watched Danny through the kitchen window rummaging through a bin bag of spoils. 'But he's been really good.' Becky set down the steaming roast potatoes and rolled her eyes: 'It's about time he grew up anyway,' she sneered. She might be two years older than Sal, but she behaved as if there was a decade between them – that serious face that always looked like she was working out sums in her head, and the way she’d always punish everyone with her silent strops, especially Danny. Sal picked over her green beans, wondering what growing up actually entailed, and how you could tell if you had. She suspected she still had a fair way to go – but not as far as her little brother. Danny had always been a bit distant, but ever since Jessie had come along, she’d watched him retreat every chance he got. Like just now. ‘Want play blocks,’ Jessie had screamed, tugging at Danny’s leg. A pause. ‘Um, OK,’ he'd called, disappearing out the back door. ‘I’ll go get some blocks, shall I? Won’t be a minute.’ Becky had given him evils.

Danny cleared his plate faster than usual and excused himself before he got landed with the washing up – or worse still looking after Jessie. The shed beckoned. With an upturned wine crate for a seat and an old cable drum for a table, he was in his element. He lit a candle, rested his muddy welly on a deflated leather football and surveyed his fortress. Mum might have chucked out his treasures but, here, they were safe; a tiny corner where faded He-Man and one-armed Lion-O would forever keep guard. Outside a wood pigeon did its best owl impression; the air became damp, creeping up Danny’s arms in whispers. He pored over an Oor Wullie annual until his eyes started to strain and the Broon Family became a fuzzy blur. Dad had read the books to him every Christmas, determined they’d never forget their Scottish roots, although secretly Danny preferred Asterix. Now that Dad was gone, Wullie had taken on a new significance. He gazed at the Broons and felt sad his own family had fallen short. And now… he was so tempted to run away again. The last time, when he was 8, no one had even noticed. After a day of shivering beneath an upturned rowing boat in the Wilson’s back garden he’d returned to find Mum setting the table, the unmistakable smell of Sundays filling the kitchen. ‘Ah, good timing, pet. Go tell your father to stop tinkering with that blessed engine and wash his hands for dinner, will you?’ Sal had stuck out her tongue and hissed, ‘Have fun at the Wilson’s, did you?’ She’d been spying on him the whole time, the creep.

Danny eyed up his Dad’s toolbox in the corner and thought back to all the afternoons he'd been in charge of passing the spanner, wrench, hammer. The look of absolute concentration on his father's face as he'd manoeuvre his powerful thumbs, patiently explaining every little job. 'Very few people realise it, son, but even when you're removing a screw you have to apply steady pressure. See? You can thank Archimedes for that gem. Greatest invention ever.' He was building shelves for Sal's bedroom at the time, and she and Danny sat in awe, watching as their father transformed a few old planks into a nifty storage unit for Sal's Enid Blyton books and knotty-haired Sindy's. Danny couldn't imagine ever building anything with his bare hands, let alone being someone's hero. These days if Mum needed something doing she'd pay a handy man. He prized open the rusty catch. A jumble of spanners lay across a stiffened chamois leather and beneath this a spirit level and the usual array of screwdrivers and allen keys. What Danny didn't expect to find was a faded packet of cigarettes – he had no idea his father had smoked – and… oh. Dog-eared, mildewy women. Ugh. He dropped the magazine to the ground, then – he had no idea why – shook out a cigarette and lit it from the candle, coughing and spluttering into the gloom. It was hard to tell if it was the smoke making his head spin or the realisation their father wasn’t so perfect after all. Danny picked up the magazine once more and puzzled over the giant breasts before him.

Suddenly the door flew open and there was Sal. ‘Oh my God!’ she boomed. ‘All this time you’ve been sneaking off for fag breaks while me and your seriously pissed off wife look after your daughter?! You have got to be kidding me. Danny, man – you’re 36. Don’t you think you’re a bit old for building dens?’ He shoved the magazine behind the make-shift coffee table and took a breath ready to explain himself. ‘It’s fine. I get it,’ laughed Sal. ‘Kids are fucking annoying. God knows, you were. Now budge up and give me a drag.’ Danny exhaled, relieved. Sal smiled; maybe they both had some growing up to do, but right now she was happy to enjoy their childhood a little while longer.