Shy Chapter Sampler
Uploaded by
Allen & UnwinShy Chapter Sampler
Uploaded by
Allen & UnwinPR
FA OO
BE F
R CO
20 P
22 Y
First published in 2023
by Faber & Faber Limited
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
Typeset by Faber & Faber Ltd
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
All rights reserved
© Max Porter, 2023
22 Y
The right of Max Porter to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright,
20 P
Designs and Patents Act 1988
A CIP record for this book
R CO is available from the British Library
ISBN 978–0–571–37730–5
BE F
FA OO
PR
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
The rucksack is shockingly heavy.
The floorboards complain.
He checks again: the spliff is diagonal-snug in the
empty Embassy box.
The daytime check is a half-dream away.
The room is molten soft. Tempting.
22 Y
20 P
Jumpy.R CO
The rucksack is shockingly heavy.
It’s 3.13 a.m.
It’s a full bag of rocks, of course it’s heavy.
BE F
The average flint is about 600 million years old, said
FA OO
Steve.
Snapping point. Creaking straps.
PR
Walkman ready.
Pandemonium Andromeda Tour, Plymouth 1994, Tape 1.
Randall back2back Kenny Ken.
Express how you’re feelin.
Jungle.
The pinnacle.
3
The Amen.
Almighty.
A way of life.
Big hot and heavy.
600 million years, and we think we’re tough lasting
one hundred tops. He can’t hold it still in his head.
22 Y
20 P
Size. R CO
Butterflies in his tummy.
Time.
Slightly needs a shite.
BE F
He leaves the room dark. Shy’s room minus Shy. Eve
FA OO
1965 carved in the beam. A wonky heart carved in the
beam. 1891 carved in the beam. Shy 95, fresh and badly
scraped in the beam, with a jagged S like a Z. Couldn’t
PR
even get that right.
The future is here, Shy. It’s yours.
He stays in the middle of the carpet down the corridor
to avoid the squeak.
Jamie never sleeps, but he’ll have his headphones on.
Steve, Amanda, Owen downstairs, Benny, Posh Cal,
Paul, Riley, Ash.
4
The rucksack is shockingly heavy.
Sneaky little dickhead.
His shoulders are killing him.
One step then another.
Easy does it.
22 Y
Smell the chilli con carne from earlier.
20 P
Armpits and food carpets farts.
R CO
Your mum.
Tex-Mex and old-damp stone.
BE F
He stops at the bottom and nibbles on his thumbskin.
FA OO
Shwooshtick-Shwooshtick, the electric meter like a
slowly rewound break.
Caught between times. In the fold. Escaping.
PR
Little Shy at thirteen o’clock with the last of his skunk
and his favourite tape. Boy on the stairs, stepping
through. Tom’s Midnight Garden. That’s what it feels
like, fuckinell that’s exactly it. He hasn’t thought about
that book for years.
‘This is Shy. He’s usually to be found here, in the
snug, with his headphones on, chatting to himself.
5
He’s asked not to be filmed. But say hello,
will you, Shy?’
If the straps go then it’s game over, a hundred flints
clattering on the flagstones at the foot of the stairs.
Listed stairs, listed floor, listed history, pissed-off
teachers.
22 Y
Shitty Reebok rucksack he’s had forever.
20 P
Lynx Africa.
R CO
His heart is bomp-bomp-bomping like he’s scared.
Idiot drama with no audience. Overthinking
overlapping voiceovers.
BE F
We made such good progress today, Shy. I’m really
FA OO
delighted.
He’s sprayed, snorted, smoked, sworn, stolen, cut,
PR
punched, run, jumped, crashed an Escort, smashed
up a shop, trashed a house, broken a nose, stabbed his
stepdad’s finger, but it’s been a while since he’s crept.
Stressful work.
‘Psychologically disturbed juveniles requiring
special educational treatment, or a bunch
of teenage criminals on a taxpayer-funded
countryside retreat?’
6
He’s through to the conservatory, carpet-quiet nine
careful steps to the tall window behind the skanky
floral curtain. This’ll be some posh twat’s kitchen
next year. The old windows don’t open. The newer
windows, sixties upgrades, open nice and silent. He
steps out of the musty house and puts his hood up.
[The camera pans across the lawn.]
22 Y
‘An ordinary bunch of teenagers kicking a ball
20 P
R COabout, or some of the most disturbed and violent
young offenders in the country? Here at the
unconventional Last Chance school, it’s reiterated
time and time again: they can be both.’
BE F
He could jog, to be out of view faster, but the stones
FA OO
would be noisy, so he keeps on creeping. He peers back
at the house and thinks of them all in there. Tucked up.
Owen and the overnight staff and the boys. Out for the
PR
count til alarm, guffing and breathing and dreaming of
whatever stressed or violent or sweet and easy shit they
dream of. Everyone always says they sleep mad deeply
here. New kids talk about their fucked-up dreams and
then the ghost stories do the rounds (Mrs Nash who
watches over you while you’re sleeping and sips your
nightbreath; the skinny old man in the nightie who
walks up and down the back stairs dripping piss) and
the true story of Sir Henry Radcliffe who murdered
7
a servant in the top locked bedroom and that’s why
everyone hears a scream when they first move in, dead
of night, a single scream, a welcome to the house from
its own traumatised past. Everyone’s heard it, and if
they haven’t they pretend.
For such a clever boy, you really are intent on
crashing your own train, aren’t you?
22 Y
The night is huge and it hurts.
20 P
Chippy little twat all of a sudden, aren’t you?
R CO
Thought you were depressed?
He turns his back and wanders into the blue.
Moving shadow.
BE F
FA OO
PR
8
Last year, still at home, still at normal school, when
he went to Becky’s at lunch and he was fiddling
around trying to get the smelly greasy-thick condom
on, useless knob like a dumpling, numb, Becky being
sweet and too helpful, gently caressing, flopping it
side to side and squeezing, trying an awkward semi-
blowy, pity smile, looking at it like it was hurt, poor
sad willy, which made it worse, so he got dressed,
22 Y
didn’t say anything, wasn’t nice, stormed off red and
20 P
untucked, Becky asked him to stay, to chill, skin up,
R CO
relax, not make it into a big deal, but he thumped
downstairs embarrassed and tearful, left Becky’s
house ashamed, stormed back to school and thought
if life was this much stress, this much pressure, it’s
BE F
too much, it’s too fucking much, the whole thing is
FA OO
hassle, how does anyone deal with it, Becky being
sweet, shame into anger, tethered to the last mistake,
everyone waiting for the next one, never be sat in a
PR
tidy clean room with a nice person listening, thinking
of something they want to hear, occasional stretches of
fine, sat inside time’s strict channel, just being alright,
pissing about, sometimes fun then back in a hole, all the
damage, then the inescapable atmosphere of having
fucked up, tilted back to square one, rigged, Becky’s
sad face looking at his little beige dick shrinking,
foreskin bunched like a mole rat, like a traitor, after
all that raging horn, all the nice snogging, learning to
9
lick her, boners galore, sticky boxers and chapped lips
and god he wants to curl up and sob, all the handjobs
in the rec, all the waiting til we’re ready, such a typical
let-down, he always imagines how things will be
and gets upset when they don’t work out exactly
like that, now he’s got double chemistry, of all the
lessons, bad mood aggravator, the smell of the lab,
Mrs Fryn getting on his tits, wishing he could go back,
22 Y
rewind operator, back to the brag, the excitement, the
20 P
tingles, the school is taunting him, endless stairs, long
R CO
corridors, missed the bell, still got his V-plates, barged
into the science wing, threw his bag on the floor of
the chemistry lab and started chatting shit to Noddy,
and Mrs Fryn said I don’t think I like your attitude and
BE F
he said I don’t think I like your face and she told him
FA OO
to leave and see the head immediately and he said
Actually fuck you and as he walked out he dragged
an arm along and brought one, two, three, four, five
PR
whole chemistry kits smashing down, glass flasks and
pots of acid and metal clamps and Bunsen burners,
and there was nothing but gasps and giggles from
his lab-coated classmates and he walked straight out
of school, lit a fag on his way across the playground,
guessed today was probably the final straw as far as
the school was concerned and knew he’d have to sit
and listen to his mum’s snotty repetitive questions all
evening, But why, but what possessed you, are you hearing
10
me, what’s going on with you, why are you doing this to
me, speak to me, to us, his stepdad leaning in the door
giving him judge-eyes, fucking self-important twat,
so he headed for Gill and Michael’s house, they left a
key under the mat for him and if things ever got too
much he was allowed to sit in their smart kitchen and
decompress, friends of his mum and stepdad, never
had kids of their own, maybe Gill’s his godmother,
22 Y
he can’t remember, he lets himself in, paces around
20 P
their kitchen for a bit muttering, eats a load of custard
R CO
creams, looks at their stuff, Gill and Michael in Paris,
Gill and Michael in Corfu, a framed poster saying
99% CHANCE OF WINE, a calendar with garden
birds, he opens their drinks cabinet and has a swig of
BE F
Gordon’s, then he smokes a fag on their patio, pacing,
FA OO
wishes he still had that whizz from Fantazia, then
he has a glass of vodders, then he finds some cans of
Kronenbourg in the fridge and glugs one down, then
PR
he has some more vodka and lies on the sofa in the
conservatory, then he has another can of beer and
smokes a fag, then he hears the front door open so he
slams the door to the kitchen shut, wonders what to
do, hears Gill make a scared little oh sound, picks up a
chair, smashes the glass cabinet with all the fancy wine
glasses in, hears Gill shriek, hears the front door slam,
starts on the photos, punching glass, Gill and Michael
at Avebury hugging a stone, Young Gill on a balcony
11
looking sunburnt, punches the whole wall of pictures
fast and hard like the game at the fair whacking pop-
up heads, knuckles bleeding, one deep cut with a tiny
cube of glass embedded, smashes the wine poster,
yanks the microwave out of the socket and chucks it on
the floor, smashes the bottle of vodka against the wall,
wallops the conservatory door with the chair but it’s
reinforced glass so the leg of the chair just breaks, he
22 Y
screams once, a loud crackled yelp, drops the broken
20 P
chair, sits on the sofa and starts crying, hiccupping, shit,
R CO
grrrrr, fuck, starts to feel a little bit better and by the
time the sirens come he’s feeling calm, and sort-of sorry.
BE F
FA OO
PR
12
