by Kevin Brooks
“Who is she?” Gina asked gently. “Is it—”
“What happened then?” I said. “After you’d seen her?”
Gina hesitated again. Then she said, “Nothing…I just apologized and left her to it. She didn’t seem to mind. She just sat there, smiling. I found another cubicle, then went back to Mike…Then, five minutes later, that’s when I saw her again, dancing in front of you.”
I remembered how Candy looked—dancing alone, her eyes closed, moving like a dream, like a child lost in time…
I gazed out the car window. We were heading out of London now, speeding through the orange-lit darkness on the way back to Essex. The rain had stopped and the night was starless and black.
“What about the fight?” I asked Gina. “How did that happen?”
She took a deep breath, picturing the scene. “It was near the end of your song. A gang of black guys had been hanging around the door for a while. They seemed as if they were waiting for someone. Mike had noticed them earlier and said they looked like trouble. Then this really big guy came in—big and hard, nasty-looking, scary eyes. One of the guys by the door went up to him and pointed out the girl at the front of the stage. The big guy looked over and nodded his head, then a couple of the guys by the door shoved their way to the front of the stage, grabbed the girl, and started dragging her back to the big guy.” Gina paused and looked at me. “Didn’t you see any of this?”
I shook my head.
“Well,” she continued, “that’s when it happened. I saw the girl getting dragged over to the big guy, and it was obvious she didn’t want to go, she was really struggling…and no one else seemed to be doing anything about it…so I pointed it out to Mike.” She sighed. “God, I wish I hadn’t now. I’d wish I’d just turned a blind eye like everyone else.”
“No,” said Mike. “You did the right thing.”
She looked at him. “What—getting you beaten up?” She turned to me. “Mike tried to stop them. He went over and asked the two guys what they were doing, and the next thing I knew he was surrounded by the rest of the gang, getting the crap kicked out of him, and the big guy had taken the girl away.” She glanced at Mike again, reaching out and stroking his hair. “I’m sorry, Mike—I got you involved for nothing.”
He smiled at her. “Like I said…you did the right thing.”
Gina smiled back at him, then turned her attention to me. She didn’t say anything, she just looked at me, waiting for an explanation.
I thought about lying again, making something up…but it was all too complicated, and I was too tired to think, and Gina and Mike didn’t deserve any more lies.
So I told them all about Candy.
I told them everything—finding her phone number, ringing her up, making a date, going to the zoo, asking her to the gig…
“You went to the zoo?” Gina said incredulously.
“Yeah…”
She stared at me, her eyes wide open, shaking her head in disbelief. “Let me get this straight—when you rang her up, you knew she was a prostitute, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah…I suppose…”
“And this guy who was with her before, the one who threatened to cut your throat—you knew he was her pimp?”
“She said he was just someone she knew—”
“What—and you believed her?”
“Not really.”
“But you went ahead and made a date with her, anyway?”
“Yeah…”
“And you took her to the zoo?”
“Yeah…”
“God, Joe…I don’t believe it. Why? Why would you do that?”
“Because…I don’t know…because I like her, I suppose. She’s nice…”
“Nice?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s a prostitute, for Christ’s sake. A heroin addict…” A sudden flash of fear crossed Gina’s face. “God, you haven’t taken anything, have you? If she’s been trying to get you—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I haven’t taken anything, and she hasn’t offered me anything.”
“Honestly?”
“I wasn’t even sure what she was taking until you told me.”
“But you knew she was taking something?”
“Yeah,” I admitted, looking Gina in the eye, “but that doesn’t make her a monster or anything, does it? I mean, she’s just a kid, the same as me. Do you think she likes what she’s doing?”
“I don’t know,” Gina shrugged. “Have you asked her?”
“Sort of…”
“And?”
“She lied—she told me she was a dancer.”
“A dancer? Oh, right—and this Iggy guy’s her choreographer, I suppose?”
“Yeah, all right…but she’s bound to lie, isn’t she? She’s not going to go around telling everyone she’s a prostitute—”
“She probably doesn’t have to…”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said angrily.
“Nothing…I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“God,” I sighed. “I thought you’d understand.”
Gina reached back between the seats and laid her hand on my knee. “I’m sorry, Joe…It’s just…well, it’s hard. I mean, it’s difficult. I’m your sister…”
“Yeah…”
“I’m just a bit shocked.”
“Me, too.”
She smiled gently and squeezed my knee. We looked at each other for a while, renewing our closeness, and my momentary anger began to ease. I don’t often lose my temper, and I’m not sure why I did then. I suppose I was just disappointed with Gina—the way she was putting Candy down, making catty remarks, jumping to stupid conclusions…
I don’t know.
Maybe it was too much to expect, but I just wanted someone to understand how I felt.
“Are you OK?” Gina asked me quietly.
I nodded.
We drove on in silence for a while, the three of us lost in our thoughts, just drifting along to the hum of the engine and the hypnotic rush of the road. As I gazed through the rain-snaked window, I found myself wondering at the chain of events that had brought us all together—me, Candy, Gina, Mike, Iggy. How did it happen? Was it fate? Karma? Destiny? Did it mean anything? Or did it just happen, like everything else just happens?
What’s the difference? I thought. However it happened, it still happened, didn’t it?
I looked up and saw Mike watching me in the rearview mirror. I nodded at him.
He nodded back, then cleared his throat and said, “The big guy at the club…I take it that was Iggy?”
“Yeah.”
“What about the others?”
“I don’t know…I saw them in the pub across the road earlier on. I think they might have been in McDonald’s when I first met Candy.”
He nodded.
I said, “I heard them talking in the pub…They were looking out for someone.”
“Candy?”
“I didn’t hear any names, but I suppose it must have been.”
Mike nodded again. “They found her, called Iggy, and he came to get her. How’d they know where she was?”
“I don’t know…I gave her a poster for the gig…Maybe she left it lying around somewhere and Iggy found it.” I looked at Mike’s eyes in the mirror. “What do you think he’ll do with her?”
“I don’t know. Not much, probably. She works for him. He’s not going to do anything that stops her earning…” He looked at me again. I nodded, letting him know that I knew what he meant. I didn’t really know, but I assumed he meant that Iggy wouldn’t hurt her too much—at least, not where it showed.
“Is there anything we can do to help her?” I asked him.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know…How about calling the police?”
“No point,” he said, shaking his head. “We don’t know where she lives, we don’t know where Iggy lives. And even if we did, there’s not much the police can do unless she makes a complaint about him, and
she won’t do that, because she needs him. She’s an addict and he provides her with drugs. And besides, it’s not as if he’ll have her locked up or anything. She’ll have her own flat, probably…and there won’t be anything to link her with Iggy, anyway—he’ll have made sure of that. He knows what’ll happen if the police get hold of her—they’ll lock her up for a day or two, then let her go, and she’ll go straight back to him.”
I didn’t want to believe him, but I knew he was right.
“What about her parents?” Gina asked me. “I mean, do you know where she comes from or anything?”
“Heystone, believe it or not,” I said. “That’s what she told me, anyway. She said she had some problems with her mum and dad and she left home to live in London. I think she’s got a place around King’s Cross somewhere.”
“You don’t know where?”
“No.”
“Phone number?”
“Nothing—it’s dead. Disconnected or something.”
Gina looked concerned now, but I couldn’t tell if it was concern for me or concern for Candy. I hoped it was a bit of both.
She turned to Mike. “Are you sure there’s nothing we can do?”
“I could ask around, I suppose,” he said. “See if anyone knows anything. But I’m not sure it’ll make any difference. If she’s addicted…” He shrugged. “She won’t leave him—she can’t. That’s how it works.”
The rest of the journey was quiet. Gina spoke softly to Mike now and then, and occasionally she’d look back at me and ask if I was all right, but apart from that, it was a time for silence. The rain had started again, pattering faintly on the roof of the car, and the sound of it seemed to bring out the tiredness in me. I didn’t want to be tired, I wanted to think, but my eyes were so heavy…my mind so dull…my body so drained…
I couldn’t think.
Couldn’t imagine…
And maybe that was for the best.
Because Candy was somewhere…doing something…and no matter how hard I tried to think, no matter how much I imagined…
There was nothing I could do to help her.
We got home around midnight. Dad was out, the house was quiet, and the rain was still coming down. Gina took Mike into the kitchen and started seeing to his battered face—cleaning the blood away, disinfecting the wounds, checking his head for unseen damage. I watched them for a while, but then I began to feel as if I was intruding.
I said, “I think I’ll be off to bed.”
“Don’t you want any tea or anything?” Gina asked.
“No…I’m really tired.” I looked at Mike. “I’m really sorry about everything—”
“Not your fault,” he said kindly. “Shit happens.”
“Yeah, I suppose…”
“Hey, try not to worry too much—OK? You can’t do anything about it right now…and she’ll probably be all right, anyway.”
“You reckon?”
“Yeah.”
I nodded. I didn’t believe him, but I appreciated what he was trying to do.
“Look,” he said. “I’ll do what I can—all right? Like I said, I’ll ask around and see what I can find out. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know—OK?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
He nodded his head.
I said good night and made my way upstairs. In my room, I tried Candy’s phone again, but there was still no tone—just an earful of emptiness. I got undressed and turned off the light and lay on the bed, staring into the darkness, trying to sleep. My body was aching with tiredness. My limbs were numb. My sightless eyes were crazed with lights.
I was dying for oblivion.
But it wouldn’t come.
I didn’t think I’d ever sleep again.
chapter ten
One of the worst things about feeling helpless is the constant intrusion of doubt. Even when you know there’s nothing you can do about something, even when you’re absolutely sure, even when you’ve considered every possibility, over and over again, knowing full well that you’re wasting your time…even then, you still can’t help feeling that maybe you’re wrong.
There must be something you can do.
Surely…
There’s got to be something…
That’s how it was with me, anyway. I wanted to do something about Candy. I had to do something. But what? What could I do?
That’s all I kept asking myself:
What can I do?
I don’t know where she is…
How can I do anything when I don’t know where she is?
How can I find her?
What can I do?
There must be something…
But there wasn’t. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t think of anything. But that didn’t stop me thinking, though. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have stopped thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking…thinking of Candy…all day Saturday, all day Sunday, sitting in my room, staring through the window, thinking, thinking, thinking…asking myself the same old questions…getting no replies…wondering pointlessly what might have been…
If only I’d given her my phone number.
If only I’d asked where she lived.
If only she hadn’t come to the gig.
If only we could start all over again.
If only…
I knew I was wasting my time, wishing that things were different, but time was all I had. I was still grounded, and Dad was keeping a close eye on me, so I was stuck in the house all weekend, then back to school on Monday, then straight back home after school, back to my room, back to the window, back to my staring, back to my thinking…
I kept on trying to ring her, of course. Two or three times every day, I’d key in her number and pray for the phone to ring. I didn’t know who—or what—I was praying to, and I didn’t really care. I would have worshipped the Devil if he’d answered my prayers. But he didn’t.
No one did.
There was no one there.
The days passed, as they do, and life went on.
Tuesday: I bumped into Jason, Chris, and Ronny. They were in the year above me, so we didn’t often see each other at school, but that Tuesday lunchtime I had a meeting with the careers adviser, and his office was in the building where Jason and the rest of them spent most of their time, and on the way back, as I was passing an empty classroom, I heard Chris’s voice calling out to me.
“Joe! Hey, Joe.”
I stopped and looked through the door. All three of them were sitting at a table across the room, eating sandwiches and reading magazines. I hadn’t spoken to them since Friday night’s gig, so I didn’t know what they thought about my unexplained and sudden departure from the club. I knew that Jason would still be pissed off with me and I could tell by the look on his face that he was, but—at first glance—the rest of them seemed OK. They didn’t look delighted to see me or anything, but at least they were acknowledging my existence.
Chris beckoned me over, and I went inside and joined them at the table.
“All right?” Ronny grinned.
“Yeah…”
“What are you doing?” asked Chris.
“Not much.” I looked at Jason. He was pretending to read his magazine. I turned back to the others. “Sorry about Friday,” I said. “It was a family thing…I really had to go—”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Chris. “It would have been better if you were there, but it didn’t really matter in the end. They still want us.”
“Who?”
“Dead House—the record company. They’re owned by EMI—”
“What—they’ve offered us a contract?”
“Well, not exactly…” He glanced at Jason, looking for support.
Jason pretended not to notice. He kept on reading his magazine for a moment, then he looked up casually, as if he hadn’t been listening, and raised his eyebrows at Chris.
“What?” he said.
“I was just telling Joe about Dead House…” Chris told him.
/> “And?”
Chris blinked.
Jason looked at him, then turned to me, trying to look bored. “Yeah,” he said. “They want us to do a proper demo for them. They’re going to book us into a studio and bring in one of their producers to work with us. They want three tracks—‘Girl on Fire,’ ‘Candy,’ and something else.”
“That’s brilliant,” I said.
“Yeah…” He shrugged.
“Are they paying for the studio?”
“They’re paying for everything—studio, travel, expenses…they might even buy us some new gear.”
“Fantastic,” I said. “When do we do it?”
He shrugged again. “Couple of weeks, maybe—they’ll let us know.”
Ronny said, “Pretty good, eh?”
“Yeah…” I looked at Jason. He was still trying to appear nonchalant about the whole thing, but I could tell he was really excited. And I could tell he was still really annoyed with me, too.
What I didn’t know was that it was about to get a lot worse.
“So,” he said to me. “Are you all right for tomorrow?”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“Wednesday,” he sneered. “The day we practice—remember?”
“Oh, right…yeah…Well, the thing is…”
“What?”
“I’m grounded.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m not allowed out.”
His eyes filled with scorn. “You’re not allowed out?”
“It’s only for a week—”
“We need to practice. We’ve got to prepare for this demo—”
“Yeah, I know…I’m sorry, but—”
“Christ!” he spit. “I don’t believe it. We’re trying to get a deal here, we’re that close to making it. We need to practice—and you’re not allowed out? What do you think this is? A game? You think we’re playing at something here?”
I almost said yes, just for the hell of it, just to see what he’d do. But I couldn’t be bothered. I couldn’t care less, to be honest. Yeah, it was embarrassing—being grounded, treated like a kid. Yeah, it made me feel small and pathetic. And, yeah, Jason was probably right to be angry.
But so what?
What did I care?
To hell with him.
I stood up and walked out.
Wednesday: I should have been thrilled by the record company interest, I wanted to be thrilled about it, but I couldn’t feel anything. Even if I hadn’t been grounded, and even if Jason hadn’t ruined the moment by putting me down and bawling me out, I’m still not sure I would have felt anything.