by Kevin Brooks
All I could feel was Candy.
Her absence, her mystery, her eyes, her smile…God, I missed her so much. She was filling my days with pain, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
I tried talking to Gina about it. I really tried. But it’s hard to explain your feelings, especially when they don’t make any sense, and that was the problem—they didn’t make any sense.
I knew it, and Gina knew it.
She said, “I know how you feel, Joe. I know what it’s like to miss someone…but don’t you think you’re taking things a bit too far?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know…”
“What?”
She spoke gently. “You’ve only met her twice.”
“Two and a half times,” I corrected her.
“All right—two and a half times. But that’s still not a lot, is it?”
“It’s enough.”
“Come on, Joe…you hardly know her.”
“I know how she makes me feel—what else do I need to know?”
Gina looked at me for a long time. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to think of an answer, or if she knew the answer and was trying to decide whether to tell me or not. I was kind of hoping there wasn’t an answer at all.
Maybe she read my mind, because after a while she just smiled at me and gave me a hug. “I don’t know, Joe,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. This kind of stuff—it just happens. There’s not much you can do about it. All you can do is let it happen. You might not always get what you want, but sometimes that’s how it goes.”
Thursday: Jason rang me in the evening. The conversation lasted about thirty seconds.
“Joe?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s Jason. I had a call from Dead House. They’ve booked us into a studio in London on the eighth and ninth of March. That’s the week after next—Saturday and Sunday.”
“Right…”
“We’ve hired the rehearsal hall for this Saturday and we’re trying to get it for an extra couple of nights next week. Are you in or out?”
“Sorry?”
“I need to know if you’re going to be there, because if you’re not, we’ll have to get someone else.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want any more messing around…”
“I’ll be there.”
“You’d better be—this is your last chance.”
And that was it.
End of conversation.
Later on, in my bedroom, I was just sitting around strumming the guitar, hoping to lose myself for an hour or so, when Mike came in. I hadn’t seen him since Friday night. His face was still a bit mashed up and bruised, but apart from that he looked fine. He came over to the bed and sat down beside me.
“All right?” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Well, you know…” I shrugged.
“Gina said you’re making a record or something. Is that right?”
“Just a demo tape…”
“That’s pretty good.”
“Yeah.”
He scratched his head and looked around the room. It felt kind of strange, sitting so close to him. Strange…but OK. He was a big man, and I could sense his weight, his strength, his power. It felt good. Sort of comforting. The scent of his breath and his skin reminded me of the times when I was a kid, when Dad used to sit with me in my bedroom at night, before I went to sleep…
“I’ve been asking around,” Mike said quietly, “about this Iggy guy.”
“Right,” I said, trying to stay calm.
“I found some people who know him.”
“What people?”
He shook his head. “You don’t want to know…just people. The kind of people who know things.”
“How did you find them?”
He looked at me for a moment, then said, “You know I used to work the clubs around London—DJing, raves, that kind of thing?” I nodded. He shrugged. “Well, it’s a shady business…You meet a lot of shady people. Some of them are shadier than others—d’you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Music, clubs, drugs, gangs…” He scratched his head. “There’s a lot of bad stuff going on out there. It’s all about money. Bad stuff, bad people…”
“What about Iggy?”
Mike looked at me. “His name’s Ignatius—Ignatius Ithacaia. No one seems to know very much about him. Either that or they’re too scared to talk. He’s a nasty guy. Very nasty. Very ambitious, too. From what I can gather, he started off as a small-time dealer, then moved on to supplying, and now he’s getting involved in just about everything. Girls, guns, protection…” He paused, wiping his hand across his mouth. “He’s a bad one, Joe…getting badder by the minute. He’s moving up fast.”
“What about Candy?” I said. “Did you find out anything about her?”
Mike shook his head. “Iggy’s got a lot of places—rooms, flats, houses. He runs a lot of girls. No one knows where he lives. He moves around a lot. Candy could be anywhere.”
I stared despondently at the floor. She could be anywhere. She was somewhere…doing something…
“I don’t understand it…” I muttered.
Mike touched my arm. “It happens.”
“That’s what Gina said, but I still don’t understand it. How did she end up with Iggy? How could she get involved with someone like that?”
“Guys like Iggy…they’re clever people. They know how to get what they want. They prey on your weaknesses. They give you what you think you want. They promise you the world, and then—before you know it—you’re chained to them. You can’t get away.” He looked at me. “I don’t know how Candy was taken in, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have known what was happening until it was too late.”
“Is it still too late?”
“I don’t know…I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”
“There’s got to be something…”
“It’s a shitty world, Joe.” He touched my arm again. “Sometimes you just have to let things go.”
I looked at him. “Would you let it go if it was Gina?”
That surprised him. He looked back at me for a moment, his eyes awash with confusion, then he lowered his head and just sat there, staring emptily at the floor. I guessed he was imagining how he would feel if Gina was lost to a man like Iggy.
“Sorry,” I told him. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No,” he said quietly, “you’re right. I wasn’t thinking of it like that…” He raised his head and looked at me. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“If you were me, what would you do?”
His eyes were helpless. “I don’t know, Joe. I really don’t know.”
Friday morning, eight o’clock: I was sitting at the kitchen table when Dad came in carrying an overnight bag and a couple of suitcases. He put them by the door, sat down at the breakfast table, and poured himself some coffee. I looked at the bags, then at him. He was dressed for traveling—suit, coat, aftershave, tie, thoughtful face and preoccupied eyes.
“Where are you going?” I asked him.
“Hmm?”
“Where are you going?”
He looked up from the table. “You know where I’m going, Joe—I told you. Edinburgh.” He frowned at me. “The conference?”
“I thought you were leaving tomorrow?”
“It starts tomorrow—that’s why I’m going today.” He sighed. “I told you all this. I told you about three times. I knew you weren’t listening—you’ve been acting strangely all week. What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing…I was listening. I just got the dates mixed up, that’s all.” I looked at the clock. “Are you driving?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“With Mum?”
“I’m meeting her up there.”
“What time?”
“This evening…”
&n
bsp; “So what time do you have to leave?”
He frowned at me again. “Why all the sudden interest?”
“No reason…I was just asking.”
His eyes narrowed. “Look, you’ve done really well this week. You haven’t asked to go out, and—as far as I know—you haven’t tried sneaking out. But you’re still grounded, don’t forget, and you’re still only halfway there, so don’t go spoiling things by taking advantage of my absence. You’ll only be letting yourself down if you do—you know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You can lie to me, but you can’t lie to your conscience.”
Wanna bet? I thought.
“It’s all right, Dad,” I said. “You can trust me.”
He kept looking at me for a while, then looked at his watch, hurriedly drained his coffee, and got up from the table. “Right, then,” he said, fetching his suitcases. “I’d better go. Tell Gina I’ll call her midweek, and don’t forget to put the bins out on Wednesday. There’s plenty of food in the fridge. I’ve left some money in the drawer. If you need me for anything, you’ve got my cell phone number, and I’ve put the hotel number in the pad on the hall table.” He started patting his pockets, looking for his car keys. I picked them up off the table and passed them to him. “Right,” he said. “Well, I should be back next Saturday.”
“Have a good time,” I said.
He paused for a moment, gave me another long look, then rattled his keys and left.
Half an hour later I was standing on the platform at Heystone station, waiting for the London-bound train.
chapter eleven
I didn’t know what I was doing. I hadn’t planned on going to London to look for Candy. I hadn’t been waiting all week for Dad to leave. I hadn’t been thinking about it—scheming, plotting, biding my time—I hadn’t planned anything. Not knowingly, anyway. I suppose the idea must have been there all along, just drifting around inside my head, waiting for me to accept it…or maybe I did know it was there but was afraid to recognize it, just in case it was all I had and something went wrong and took it away…
I don’t know.
I just didn’t know. My actions seemed distant and disconnected, as if my body had a mind of its own. Contradictions made sense: The world was blurred, I was sharp; I was fast, the world was slow…
It was pretty weird.
But utterly normal, too.
As soon as Dad left, I picked up the phone and called school. My voice remained calm as I explained that I wouldn’t be coming in, that I wasn’t feeling well, that it wasn’t anything serious, and that no—I’m sorry, my father can’t come to the phone, he’s away on business. Good-bye.
I got my coat.
Left the house.
Got on a train.
Got to London.
Got off the train.
Got on the tube.
Got to King’s Cross.
Got off the tube.
Got myself back to where it all started.
Like I said, I didn’t know what I was doing—but I knew I was doing it.
Outside the station, the pavements were crowded and the streets were as busy as ever. The chaos roared all around me—cars, buses, taxis, speeding bikes, flashing lights, roadworks, cranes, building sites, pedestrian crossings, signposts, junctions, commuters, street people, mad people, blank-faced hippies with long dirty hair and scabs on their faces—and I just stood there, immersed in the roar, letting it all wash over me.
I was standing outside Boots, as close to where I’d first met Candy as I could remember. I knew it was irrational. She wasn’t going to be there…not this time. No matter how long I stood there, hoping to hear the sound of her voice, sweet and clear, cutting through the chaos like a diamond-tipped knife…no matter how many times I looked over at the doorway, hoping to see her standing there, leaning against the wall, smiling at me…hoping to see those lips, those teeth, those dark almond eyes…
She wasn’t going to be there.
I knew that.
But I had to start somewhere, didn’t I? And what better place than the beginning?
So I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited…
And, after an hour or so, I began seeing things I hadn’t noticed before. Hidden things, things within the chaos…things that took time to see. The guy in the dirty green jacket, for example—going into the station, coming out, looking around, going back in again…or the beggar with the muddy gray blanket, cold and sleepy but never closing his eyes, always watching the streets, looking out for trouble…and the well-dressed women, waiting for friends but never waiting too long and never too pleased to see them…
It was a world within a world. An underworld. Another world. And simply by being there, I was slowly becoming part of it.
At eleven-thirty, a skinny kid in a stained black coat came scuffling up to me. It was hard to tell how old he was, but he couldn’t have been much more than fifteen. His face was thin and his eyes were sunken and glazed.
“Where’s the score, John?” he said, looking over his shoulder. He was white, but he talked black.
“What?” I said.
His head snapped around and he leaned toward me, lowering his head and staring up into my eyes. “What’s up? You looking for business?”
“No…”
“You doing?”
“Nothing—I’m just waiting for someone.”
He licked his lips and smiled. “Wait somewhere else—OK?” He looked over his shoulder again, then turned back to me, his eyes suddenly cold. “You still here?”
I didn’t move. I said, “Do you know a girl called Candy?”
He didn’t answer, just kept on staring at me.
“How about Iggy?” I said. “Do you know anyone called Iggy? He’s a big black guy—”
“What’s the matter with you?” the kid said, suddenly getting agitated. “This ain’t for you. Look at you, all clean and pretty…shit. You want some of this?” He thrust his face at me, giving me a close-up view of his rotting teeth and his scabbed skin and his dirt-yellow eyes. I almost gagged on the sickly-sweet smell of his breath.
“Nice, eh?” he said coldly, moving back.
I looked at him, trying to hide my distaste but probably not succeeding. Not that it mattered. I guessed he was trying to warn me off and that I was supposed to feel disgusted, so it didn’t really bother me that I did. He didn’t care, anyway. His face was hard and blank now, not showing anything, just staring me out, waiting for me to go.
I could have tried again, I suppose—asked him some more questions. But I was fairly sure he wouldn’t tell me anything. So, with a parting nod, I turned around and walked away.
Across a busy road, onto a traffic island, across to the other side…looking around, getting my bearings…recognizing the junction, the traffic island, McDonald’s…remembering the last time I’d been here…remembering Candy…her face, her eyes, her lips, her legs, her skin…rippling lightly around her midriff, like the gently lapping surface of a pale white sea…
God’s sake, Joe…
Don’t even think about it.
I was facing Pentonville Road now. I knew where I was, but I didn’t know where to go. Streets branched off in all directions—big streets, little streets, quiet streets, busy streets—offering me all the options I could ask for: north, south, east, west…but it didn’t make any difference. I still didn’t know which way to go. All I knew was that Candy lived “about ten minutes’ walk from King’s Cross station in a nice little third-floor flat in a refurbished Victorian house,” which wasn’t a lot to go on. Without knowing the right direction, ten minutes’ walk could take me anywhere. And that’s if it was ten minutes. It might be five minutes or fifteen minutes…or it might be that Candy had made the whole thing up. I mean, for all I knew, she didn’t live anywhere near King’s Cross, she lived miles away, and all I was doing was wandering aimlessly around irrelevant streets, wasting my time…
&nb
sp; Yeah, I told myself, but you’re not wandering aimlessly, are you? You’re not wandering at all. You’re just standing aimlessly in the same place, which really is a complete waste of time. And, besides—what else are you going to do? Give up? Go home? Forget about it? No, this is the best chance you’ve got. It’s the only chance you’ve got. So, make the most of it. Stop thinking and start walking.
I spent the rest of the afternoon walking in ever-widening circles around King’s Cross. It wasn’t much fun, and it wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but I couldn’t think of a better way of doing it. I’d forgotten to bring the A-Z with me, but even if I had brought it, it still would have been hard to trace perfect circles around the streets. I constantly found myself getting lost, or walking the same street more than once, or walking in the wrong direction and ending up back where I started…
But it didn’t really matter. As long as I kept going, covering as much ground as I could, searching as thoroughly as I could…
That was the main thing.
It was pretty depressing, though.
The weather was dull. Leaden skies, gray and low, a lumbering mishmash of nothing. It wasn’t hot, it wasn’t cold, it wasn’t windy, it wasn’t calm, it wasn’t wet, it wasn’t dry…it wasn’t anything. Just dull. And the streets themselves were strangely lifeless, too. I don’t know what I was expecting—probably an orgy of sex shops and brothels and rough-looking pubs—but most of the streets weren’t too bad. There were some sex shops—squat little buildings with blanked-out windows—and there were quite a few rough-looking pubs, and a few dodgy saunas, and some very weird-looking clubs…but there weren’t hundreds of them or anything. There weren’t hordes of scantily clad women standing around on street corners, or brightly dressed pimps driving around in Cadillacs…there were just lots of dull streets and lots of dull people…and only the occasional glimpse of the underworld.
A drugged-up guy with a badly shaved head, giving me the eye.
A couple of very young girls, sitting in a car with a middle-aged Arab.