by Luan Goldie
If only she could get out of her flat and into his, it would be so much better to talk face to face. She always feels so comfortable in his flat, so at home. It was weird at first, being somewhere that was exactly the same as her home, but also opposite in every way. The rooms reversed, the plug sockets and light switches all in slightly different places. But the main difference is the light. Her own flat is always so dingy and dark, but Mal’s is open and filled with brightness. She loved being there with him so much; she loved every minute of it.
Pamela pulls the letter from its envelope and rereads it. It’s filled with the words she should have been brave enough to say a month ago, rather than allowing her dad to pack her off to her mum’s house.
She presses it against her lips, glad that he will soon know the truth. Then he can make up his own mind. But how will she get it to him? She slides down the inside of her front door and wipes the tears from her cheeks.
The sound of life pours into the corridor behind her. Tristan? She opens the door and through the bars of the security gate sees the woman who lives in the opposite flat, all dressed up, in a white and green swirled head wrap and dress, green fabric heels to match the green handbag on her arm.
‘Tunde, come,’ the woman shouts into her flat.
‘Hello,’ Pamela tries. But the woman does not even turn her way.
Dad made a fast enemy out of her when, during their first week living in Nightingale Point, he stood between the flats and declared her ‘food stinks out the whole bloody floor’, in response to what smelt like fried fish.
‘Hello, running girl,’ Tunde shouts from behind his mum’s legs, his smile, as always, set to full beam. He makes a jogging on the spot motion. He’s dressed up too, in a white suit and embroidered hat, like a little prince. Pamela is used to seeing him on the green in his school uniform, dropping his game of football in an attempt to run alongside her and pester her with questions about the Olympics.
‘Contenders ready? Gladiators ready?’ he shouts.
‘Come.’ The woman pinches him by the sleeve. ‘You are making me late.’
‘Bye, running girl,’ Tunde calls as he runs ahead to the lift. ‘Broken again,’ he sings as he pushes open the door and disappears into the stairwell, his mum trailing behind as she attempts to outrun their lateness.
Pamela rests her head on the bars. She does not know what she would have said or done if the woman had spoken to her anyway.
Then a voice Pamela used to dread, but today welcomes, says, ‘Here comes the cavalry.’
Tristan’s bare-chested, for some reason, and a fake diamond glints in his right ear. She’s never been so pleased to see him, but quickly tries to set her face back to neutral.
‘Really? It’s not that hot.’
‘Whatever.’ He pulls at the bars. ‘So it’s true then. Can’t believe your dad is locking you in. That’s some crazy Fred West shit. And why you standing out here crying? You still upset about Take That splitting up?’
‘This is serious. This is my life.’
He holds out his hand and clicks his fingers. ‘Hand me this letter of yours.’
She passes it through the bars of the gate and he fans his face with it.
‘So you’ll give it to him?’ she asks.
He shrugs. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? Your own personal Postman Pat.’
‘Please don’t read it. It’s private.’
‘I can’t think of anything I’m less interested in.’ He stuffs the letter roughly in the pocket of his white shorts and begins to walk off.
‘Tristan,’ she calls. ‘Thanks. I owe you.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Buy me a burger when you break free.’ He waves an arm and disappears into the stairwell.
She leans against the locked security gate and looks into the gloom of the flat. Finally, a weight has been lifted. Her face lightens into a smile, but then freezes as she tries to locate the noise: a fizzing, a drill, hollow and sharp, closer and closer until it escalates into a rumble. Then a bang, loud and long, and with it a force that lifts Pamela off the gate. Her face cracks against something scratchy and flat. For a few seconds there is nothing but pain. Nothing makes sense. She realises her face is pushed against the carpet and she rolls her head away from it. Opens her eyes. Sees white. Everywhere white. Her eye sockets feel raw. She has broken her nose. Her mouth is full of tooth. She spits it out. Her tongue fills the wet, fleshy space behind her teeth. Then another force, smaller than the last, but it shakes her. She uses her arms to push herself up onto her knees and attempts to grab at something for support, but falls back down. Her hands feel around the floor and come to stop on the ash-filled saucer and cigarette butts. She is in the living room. Has she been knocked out by something? Lost time? The room is in semi-darkness. Has night fallen? She feels around more. Finally, she touches the sofa. She uses it to pull herself up and rests her face on the soft cushion of it. How did she get to the living room? She looks around. The white has begun to clear and now grey smoke billows past the balcony door, rich and silky. She crawls over and pushes on the door. It feels warm to the touch and outside there is no longer a view, but a thick curl of hypnotic smoke, which she coughs to clear from her throat. There has been an explosion and now there is a fire somewhere, somewhere close. From which flat? Her own?
She needs to get out. Her legs, the most reliable part of her body, let her down. They turn to loosely set jelly and she is forced to crawl. Back into the hallway, now littered with things, sharp and foreign. There’s a light. Not the blinding white kind of after the explosion, but of daylight beyond the fire. She moves faster, ignoring the pain in her face and chest. Then, as she reaches the front door and gate, she remembers. She’s trapped.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Chapter Thirteen ,Tristan
Pamela didn’t even lick the seal on the envelope. It’s almost like she wants him to open it and read it. And why did she have to mention that it’s private? Of course it is. She’s trying to get him interested. But he’s not interested. He’s already way too involved in this soap opera. Why didn’t Mal take his advice in the first place to hook up with a local hood rat? Minimal effort, maximum satisfaction.
He fans himself with the envelope. Private. There was nothing private about how loud they used to have sex while Tristan was playing Donkey Kong alone in the next room.
And why is her dad locking her in anyway? Not right, really. Tristan can think of plenty girls who would genuinely benefit from being put behind a locked gate, but Blondie isn’t really one of them. If anything it’s her dad who needs to be locked up, stomping about in big old army boots, regardless of the weather, always scowling and muttering under his breath.
Tristan never did tell Mal about the run-in he had with the dad a few months back. He’d skipped his last lesson of the day because it was the most pointless subject of all: History. Craving a lie-down, he slipped out the school gates and started to head home for a nap when he saw him, hanging by the bus stop, like some pervert on the hunt for underage girls.
He spotted Tristan straight away and came marching over. ‘Is it you?’ he asked, getting all up in Tristan’s face.
‘What? Is what me?’ Tristan had no issue giving adults a bit of backchat but was aware none of his boys were around if he needed reinforcement.
‘I saw her with you this morning.’
Shit. Tristan knew walking with Pamela would come back to haunt him. But he was thinking more about how it would damage his reputation to be seen with some unknown.
‘With Pam? Yeah, well, we live in the same place and go to the same school. So, surprise surprise, we do sometimes end up walking together in the morning.’
But her dad was having none of it. ‘Keep your black hands off my daughter.’
Boom, there it was. The confirmation that Mal was never getting approval. It was so obvious, Tristan could tell from a mile off that this was the case with Blondie, but Mal kept denying it.
‘I put my black hands wherever I like.’
The dad grabbed Tristan by the blazer and pushed him against the wall. Up close his face was red and flaky, and Tristan worried it was something contagious.
‘You think my Pam would want you? If she’s given you a minute of her time it’s only ’cause she wants to piss me off. She’s not really going to drop her standards for someone like you. Some estate scum. I know what you lot are like. I see you all sitting on the wall smoking weed every day.’
‘Mate, you’re spending too much time watching me.’
‘Yeah, watching you doing nothing, going nowhere. Stay away from my daughter.’
Pamela appeared out of nowhere. ‘Dad? What are you doing? He’s a friend from school.’
But his grip remained tight. ‘A friend? You don’t need friends like this, Pam. Keep yourself to yourself.’ He turned back to Tristan. There was spit gathered at the sides of his mouth like some rabid animal. ‘And you, stay away from her.’
‘As if I’d want her.’ He just was being provocative, he couldn’t help it. ‘As if I go back to the same place twice.’
The dad pulled back his fist but Pamela grabbed him, so when the punch hit it didn’t have as much power as intended. Thank God because it still hurt like a bitch.
‘Are you crazy?’ Pamela screamed. ‘He’s fifteen. They’ll put you in prison.’
Tristan shook his head. He couldn’t believe the guy actually hit him. He’d been in plenty of fights but never been hit full in the face before. He didn’t know what to do; he couldn’t exactly run back to school or the police. All he wanted was to get away. He waited till he rounded the corner before he stopped and wiped the blood from his split bottom lip.
That evening when Tristan got home, Mal took one look at the busted lip and his face ran through shock, anger and amusement before getting to concern. ‘What have you done now?’ he asked.
Tristan already had a lie prepared. ‘I fell in the stairwell. Was proper lean.’ He sank down on the sofa and picked up the controller.
Malachi grabbed his face and inspected the cut. ‘You fell? When?’
‘This afternoon. A little post-school smoke.’
‘I don’t get it – you fell because you were high?’
‘Yeah, stop making a big deal out of it.’
What would be the point in telling him? Besides, Tristan took the hit for him. Surely that would take the scent off Mal. For once, Tristan got to be the hero.
‘Mal, you wanna play Kong? You ain’t beat me in months man. You need to get some practice in.’
He looked at Tristan closely, as if trying to figure out whether to pry more or not. ‘I’d like to but Pam’s dad is on a night shift, so she can get out. We’re going to the cinema.’
Tristan wanted to say something then, to warn Mal that Pamela’s dad was an aggressive racist and that Pamela was probably only using Malachi to rebel. But Mal looked so happy, so damn eager to go out and get laid, that Tristan didn’t have the heart to say anything other than, ‘Great. Enjoy yourself.’
As if Tristan would ever get lean enough to fall down some steps. Mal is smart but he’s also gullible as fuck and Pamela knows that. Tristan pulls the letter from his pocket. Yeah, it definitely makes sense to check out what this girl is up to before he passes it on. If he passes it on. He unfolds the letter and starts to read, skipping past the pages with details about ‘their love’ and quotes from Aaliyah songs. He flicks to the third page and stalls halfway down.
What is she playing at? She’s trying to throw Mal’s whole life off-track, his degree, his internship, the career he’s planned, everything he’s worked for. This girl saw Mal’s virgin arse coming and now sees him as a ticket off the estate. No way. Not going to happen.
Tristan roughly shoves the paper into the envelope and puts it back in the pocket of his shorts.
‘Dumb bitch,’ he mumbles as a noise approaches. Zzz, like last summer when a random mosquito flew straight into his ear. Zzz. It escalates quickly and then there is a huge burst of air, which smacks his body. The floor disappears from beneath his feet. He feels weightless and insubstantial as he’s thrown, then heavy as a ton as his body smacks the glass window on the exit door that leads to the stairwell. It feels as if his bones are loose within his skin; they rattle around, joints bounce out of place and crash back into each other wrongly, awkwardly. The door to the corridor falls open slightly and he lays half in and half out. He pushes his body through. Then another vibration, where he feels something hit his face and explode in his left eye. Then it all goes quiet.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Chapter Fourteen ,Malachi
He takes a long zigzagging route back to the estate, across the field, thinking over what to say to Pamela’s dad. The words aren’t coming easily. There’s so much he has to get across to Jay in order to get Pamela back.
On the edge of the grass near the block lies a group of sunbathing teenage girls with their stomachs out. One smiles at him as she turns up a stereo set to dance music.
‘Let me be your fantasy. Let me be your fantasy, yeah.’ She sings along and Malachi looks away quickly. No other girl even comes close to Pamela.
He remembers how he described himself to her that first time they sat in the café: ‘twenty-one going on sixty’. It was true and it was tragic. But when he was with her he was no longer this struggling, moping, sad person. He was happy.
His thoughts are interrupted by a din creeping up, the unmistakable sound of an aircraft, flying low, flying close. Must be a flyover. He used to love them as a kid, the way they would leave streams of red, white and blue coloured smoke across the city on commemorative days. But there’s no formation of jets, just one large plane, the disappointing normality of a commercial airliner going somewhere he will never go. It makes a loop and turns on its side. That doesn’t look right. Every hair on his body stands as the plane vanishes into Nightingale Point and is replaced by a giant ball of fire. The explosion rolls up the building and coats everything in flames. The force and fright knock him to the ground, and the sting of something hot and acidic in the air makes him cover his face. He shuffles backwards till the firm rubber of a car tyre blocks his movements. The skin on his palms has been scratched off by the pavement. Shakily, he stands and dares to look again. The top half of Nightingale Point is lit up like a flare. A huge white sheet of metal lands a few feet from where he stands. A small line of flames flicker along one side of it.
The boys on the wall shout and holler, but their sounds seem muffled and distorted against the roar of the fire above and the smash of glass. One of them pulls a bike from the ground with a shaky hand, throws a leg over and peddles away, his survival instincts more finely tuned than everyone else who remains motionless. Wreckage and dust falls from the building. As the boy passes, his eyes catch Malachi’s and for a second they share a look that can’t be explained, a mixture of confusion and terror. The boy’s escape seems to kick-start something and every one of those previously frozen in shock now run like a tableau brought to life.
People stream from the main front door of Nightingale Point, pushing their way through the exit that usually suffices, but today seems tiny and mean in its proportions. Everyone yells, swears. A collective racket Malachi can’t quite make sense of. Then a second bang, which sounds hollow, followed by a heavier scattering of debris. Malachi puts his arms above his head and squeezes his eyes shut. A shower of fragments scratches the back of his neck and arms. Then, as he stands in the centre of the carnage, he looks to the wall again. Where’s Tristan?
As he runs through the main entrance of Nightingale Point, the heat intensifies like an oven with its door left open. It dries his lips and causes his eyes to stream. The caretaker stands by the bottom of the stairs with a cordless phone in one hand, while the other pushes onto people’s backs as if they are unwanted guests.
He calls on Malachi, ‘Young man, young man, you mustn’t.’ But his voice disappears into the sounds of the building, the roars and clanks, a song Malachi can’t quit
e place but feels his body squirm to escape from.
People push their way out, a few scream, but most are silent, focused only on their exit. They hold onto each other, onto children, onto things, photo albums and teddy bears. On the first floor Malachi collides with a shirtless elderly man, a brown book under his arm, his chest skin loose and freckled. He shakes his head – an apology – out of habit and then throws a worried look behind himself like a thief caught in the act. Water pours down the stairs and masses of feet, bare and soled, splash past as Malachi pushes against the tide. He scans each face for Tristan as he takes the steps two at a time. His right hand tightly clutches the bannister as he pulls himself up, while everyone else floods down. On the second floor a man with a knot of dreadlocks on top of his head puts two hands on Malachi’s chest and tries to push him into the flow of evacuees.
‘Get out!’ he shouts. ‘There’s been a gas explosion.’
Malachi has seen him before, leaving early in the morning in paint-splattered clothes. They’ve even exchanged nods while waiting for those first sleepy morning buses, populated by cleaners and builders. Malachi has to grip the bannisters with both hands to stop himself from sliding back down all the steps he has fought to climb. They both startle as an alarm sounds, old and tinny like a school fire bell, and Malachi writhes free of the man’s grip. The sound ignites further panic, causing people to flee faster, push harder. Malachi has lived on the estate his whole life and this is only the second time he has ever heard it. The first was years ago, when the fire brigade came to check the alarm system and for one afternoon the block was alive with ringing and chat as neighbours gathered outside the caretaker’s office to collect the free smoke alarms they promised to buy batteries for.