by Kevin Brooks
‘What would you like me to wear?’ I said sarcastically. ‘A swastika and a black leather bra?’
‘No, no … I didn’t mean … I just meant –’
‘Yeah,’ I sighed. ‘I know what you meant.’
‘Hey, come on,’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t be like that … please?’ He gave me his most endearing smile. ‘You look fantastic, Lili. Really –’
‘Yeah, all right,’ I muttered. ‘Let’s just get going, shall we?’
And before he had a chance to say anything else, I crossed the room, opened the door, and started heading down the stairs. Curtis came scampering after me, followed closely by Jake and William, and although Curtis had enough sense to leave me alone for the moment, he just couldn’t leave it.
‘Doesn’t she look great, Jake?’ I heard him say. ‘I mean, doesn’t she?’
‘Uh huh …’
‘Just look at her.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Billy?’
‘What?’
‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘Lili … how do you think she looks?’
‘Oh, right, yeah … I think she looks fine.’
That was it, I couldn’t take any more. I stopped suddenly and turned round, glaring angrily at Curtis. ‘All right!’ I snapped. ‘That’s enough! Jesus Christ … just fucking leave it now, OK?’
Smiling broadly at me, he held up his hands. ‘OK, OK … I’m sorry …’
‘Not another word, all right?’
Still smiling, he held his lips together and mimed turning a key.
‘Shit,’ I muttered, turning round and continuing down the stairs.
The next time he spoke, we were standing on the platform at Seven Sisters underground, waiting for the tube. I heard him muttering something to Jake, and then I saw him glance at William, and then I heard him say, in a stupid mock-Irish accent, ‘Oh, roight, yeah … I tink she looks foin.’ And as he laughed, too loudly again, and gave William a playful shove on the shoulder, I really felt like killing him. It was just such a pathetic thing to do, making fun not only of William’s accent but also – and, in a way, this was even worse – mocking the words that Curtis himself had forced William to say about me just a few minutes earlier. He’d even got the accent completely wrong. Not that it really mattered, but Curtis’s stereotypical thick Irish brogue was absolutely nothing like William’s distinct Belfast accent.
I really hated Curtis then.
But I didn’t say anything to him.
I thought if I did, it’d just make things worse. And William seemed to be dealing with it perfectly well anyway. He was giving Curtis that steady-eyed look again, the smile that had bothered Curtis so much before, and this time it wasn’t quite so unreadable to me: it was the lazy kind of look that a lion gives a zebra when it’s not hungry.
Things got even worse on the tube journey. It was a long trip, all the way down to London Bridge underground, and at some point I think Curtis must have taken another pill or another tab of acid or something, because as the journey progressed he gradually became more and more out of control – singing and laughing, acting really weirdly, being incredibly rude to complete strangers … it was excruciating. So much so that even Jake began to look a little bit flustered.
As Curtis got to his feet again and started bellowing out the words to ‘Naked’ while lurching all over the place with the movement of the tube, William, who was sitting next to me, leaned over and spoke in my ear.
‘I think it might be a good idea if you got him to sit down.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I said, whispering loudly above the roar of the train. ‘I’m really sorry about this … he’s not usually quite so bad. I mean, I know how embarrassing it is –’
‘It’s not that,’ William said. ‘Some F Troop boys just got on the next carriage at the last stop and they’ve been eyeing up your man for a few minutes now. If he doesn’t sit down and shut up, there’s going to be trouble.’
I looked through the connecting door into the next carriage and saw half a dozen or so tattooed skinheads. They were all watching Curtis with naked hatred in their eyes. It was a look I’d get used to over the coming months – the look of the skinhead or teddy boy or biker who wanted to beat up a punk – but this was the first time I’d ever witnessed it. And I didn’t like it at all. I glanced over at Jake to see if he was going to do anything, but he was just sitting there with a weird kind of half-stoned, half-scared-to-death look on his face.
‘Curtis!’ I said, starting to get up. ‘Curtis, that’s enough –’
‘Leave him,’ William said, putting his hand on my shoulder and gently easing me back into the seat. ‘It’s too late now. They’re going to get him whether he stops singing or not.’
I looked back at the skinheads again. They’d all moved towards the connecting door now and were clearly intent on getting to Curtis. He was aware of them now, and there was no doubt that he knew they were after him, but that didn’t deter him from singing and shouting. In fact, he’d started to sing at them now, taunting them, leaning forward and yelling at the top of his voice – ‘NAKED! NAKED! NAKED! NAKED!’ – and I knew that William was right, it was pointless trying to stop him.
‘What’s F Troop?’ I asked William, just for the sake of something to say.
‘Football hooligans, Millwall boys. Don’t stare at them.’
I looked away. ‘Are they coming through the door?’
‘They’re trying it …’
I heard the door rattling … then a fist slamming hard on the glass. I heard Curtis laughing … then yelling again.
'NAKED! NAKED! NAKED! NAKED!'
‘The connecting door’s locked,’ William said.
‘What will they do now?’
‘Wait for the next stop.’
'NAKED! NAKED!'
More fists slammed against the glass. Shouts rang out – ‘You wanker! You’re fucking dead! You’re all fucking dead!’
'NAKED! NAKED!'
And now I could feel the train slowing down … we were pulling into a station. And I was petrified. I felt sick. Any second now, the doors were going to open, the skinheads were going to jump out, run along the platform, jump into our carriage …
I looked down at my hands.
They were shaking.
‘Wait for me at London Bridge,’ I heard William say.
I looked at him. He’d got to his feet and was watching the skinheads as they gathered round the doors of their carriage, waiting for the train to stop.
‘What?’ I said.
William smiled. ‘Just wait for me at London Bridge, OK?’
‘What are you doing?’
But the train had pulled to a stop now, and William had moved away from me and was standing at the doors, waiting for them to open. Curtis was still bawling away like a lunatic …
'I’M NAKED! YOU’RE NAKED! WE’RE ALL FUCKING NAKED!'
… and I was too frightened, too confused, too totally mixed up to do anything. All I could do was sit there and watch as the doors slid open with a weary hiss, and William – incredibly – stepped out onto the platform and moved calmly towards the skinheads, who were piling out of their carriage and racing towards ours. I thought he’d had it then. I was fully expecting the skinheads to simply launch into him, punch him to the ground, kick the shit out of him, then carry on into our carriage. But as William approached them, smiling pleasantly and holding up his hands, I saw the two leading skinheads hesitate for a moment, looking slightly confused. And that was all William needed. He went up and said something to the first one – a huge young man with horns tattooed either side of his forehead – and although I couldn’t hear anything above the echoed roar of the tube station, I could see the effect that William’s words had on the skinhead. He froze for a moment, and then almost immediately his eyes filled with rage and he
spat in William’s face. William didn’t react at all. He just stood there, watching as the first skinhead turned to the others and yelled at them, pointing at William, telling them, I guessed, what William had just told him. Their reaction was the same as his – a sudden surge of rage – and as they all started moving menacingly towards William, that’s when he made his move. In a blur of speed, he grabbed the big skinhead by the shoulders, jumped in the air, and hammered his forehead into the skinhead’s face. And then, before the others had a chance to grab him, he leapt to one side, kicked the second skinhead in the groin, and sped off along the platform.
The train doors were closing now, but the skinheads weren’t bothered. They’d forgotten all about Curtis. The big one was staggering around holding his face, his nose broken, blood streaming everywhere. The second one had collapsed to his knees and was moaning and cursing in agony. And the rest of them were now stampeding along the platform after William. As the train began pulling away, I got to my feet and went over to the doors, desperate to see if William was getting away. The train picked up speed, rattling and roaring towards the tunnel, and as it passed the chasing pack of skinheads I could see them shouting and yelling at each other as they ran, pointing up ahead … and then, a second or two later, just as the train entered the tunnel, I caught a very quick glimpse of William running at top speed down a dark little corridor marked NO EXIT, STAFF ONLY …
And then he was gone.
15
There were plenty of times back then when I wondered why I stayed with Curtis. Why did I put up with him? Why did I tolerate his increasingly uncaring and chaotic behaviour? Why didn’t I just face up to the truth – that he was spiralling out of control, that he was hurting me more and more, and that for a lot of the time I was finding it really hard to actually like him any more, let alone love him …?
Why was I still with him?
Looking back on it now, I think there were probably a thousand different mixed-up reasons, but I’m sure a big part of it was that I’d never really been shown much affection before – growing up with no father, and not much of a mother – and now that I’d been given at least some kind of love, I just couldn’t bear to let it go. I needed it. And no matter how wrong it was to stay with Curtis, no matter how painful things had become, the idea of not being with him any more, of being on my own again, was even more painful.
And I think, deep down, that I probably equated being on my own with being like my mother, and the thought of ending up like her was absolutely terrifying.
It’s hardly an ideal reason for staying with someone, I know. But back then I don’t think I was even aware of it. All I knew at the time was that there was something inside me – something much stronger than rationality and common sense – that wouldn’t let me leave Curtis, whether I wanted to or not.
That night, as the tube train disappeared into the dark roar of the tunnel, I stood by the train doors for a while, staring forlornly at the blackened reflections in the glass, trying to calm the fear and anger beating in my heart. Curtis wasn’t singing or shouting any more, and I couldn’t see him anywhere in the reflected glass, so I guessed that he’d either sat down or moved along the carriage or something … not that I cared where he was. I really didn’t. For the second time that night, the only thing I felt for Curtis was hatred.
It was Jake who finally came over and spoke to me. ‘Come on, Lili,’ he said. ‘It’s all right now –’
‘Yeah?’ I snapped back at him. ‘You think so?’
‘Curt didn’t know what he was doing –’
‘He never knows what he’s fucking doing, does he?’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Jake sighed. ‘I know …’ He gently touched my arm. ‘Come on, why don’t we sit down?’
I glanced behind him and saw Curtis slumped in a seat. He wasn’t asleep – his eyes were open – but he didn’t seem particularly conscious either. He was just sitting there, perfectly still, staring at nothing, as if he was in a trance. There was an empty seat next to him, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near him just now, so I turned away from the doors and started heading for another empty seat further along the carriage. I had to pass Curtis on the way, and I had no intention whatsoever of even looking his way as I passed, but just as I drew level with him I heard his voice.
‘Hey, Lili … how’s it going?’
And he sounded so infuriatingly casual, as if everything was perfectly all right, that my rage boiled over and I stopped in front of him, glaring angrily into his face.
‘What did you say?’ I hissed at him.
He just stared at me for a moment, then he blinked a couple of times and shook his head, and then – with a puzzled grin – he said, ‘What’s going on? Are we there yet? What time is it?’
I didn’t bother answering, I just shook my head in despair.
‘What?’ he said, gazing around the carriage. ‘Where is everyone?’ He looked back at me, grinning crookedly. ‘Where’s Billy the Kid, Lil?’
‘Saving your life, you cretin.’
And, with that, I walked off and left him to it.
The rest of the journey passed off without incident. I sat on my own, not speaking to anyone, just seething quietly to myself. Jake went over and sat next to Curtis. And Curtis, after jabbering incoherently to Jake for a while, suddenly slumped back into his trance-like state and stayed there, silent and motionless, until we got to London Bridge.
Jake had to help him off the train and up the escalators when we got there, and I’m sure he would have liked some help from me, but he didn’t get it. I went on ahead of them, stopping only when I got to the ticket hall. Wait for me at London Bridge, William had said, and that’s what I was going to do. I was going to wait. Whatever Jake and Curtis wanted to do, I was going to wait … it was the least I could do.
It was all I could do.
I found a spot with a good all-round view of the ticket hall, leaned against a wall, and set about waiting.
A few minutes later, I saw Jake and Curtis coming towards me. Curtis was still looking pretty spaced out, weaving around and staggering from side to side, but at least he was walking unaided now. And despite the bugged-out glassiness of his eyes, he seemed to be regaining some kind of awareness of what was going on. In fact, as he came up to me, smiling and running his fingers through his hair, there was even a slight hint of remorse on his face.
‘You all right, Lili?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yeah, great,’ I said coldly. ‘Never been better.’
He smiled nervously, looking around. ‘Where’s Billy?’
I just shook my head, utterly speechless. I didn’t know if he was pretending to have forgotten what had happened, or if he genuinely couldn’t remember. But it didn’t matter. Either way, it was pathetic. And he could stand there giving me his poor-little-boy smile as much as he liked, he wasn’t getting my forgiveness this time.
I shook my head again, sighed, and looked away.
‘Jake?’ I heard him say. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’
And Jake started telling him. He actually stood there and told him what had happened, telling it as if Curtis hadn’t been there – the singing and the shouting, the skinheads, the train stopping, William getting off …
‘He got off the train?’ Curtis said.
‘Yeah …’
‘Why?’
‘Jesus Christ …’ I muttered.
‘What?’ Curtis snapped, turning to me. ‘What the fuck’s the matter with you now?’
‘What’s the matter with me?’
‘Yeah.’
I sighed. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’
‘Get what?’
‘Everything … anything … I mean, you’re just so –’
‘Where’s the toilets in this place?’ he said, totally ignoring me and looking around the ticket hall. ‘I’m absolutely dying for a piss.’ He grinned at me. ‘Sorry, Lil, but
I really need to go. Do you know where they are?’
When I didn’t answer him, he turned to Jake. ‘Any idea?’
Jake shook his head.
Curtis lit a cigarette and looked around the hall again. ‘Yeah, well … I’d better go and find them.’ He turned back to Jake. ‘You wait here, OK?’
Jake nodded, and Curtis wandered off without so much as a glance at me.
I really wanted to leave then. I just wanted to get back on the tube, get back to Hampstead, get into my bed and sink down into the solitary darkness. Forget about everything. Just go to sleep and dream of nothing.
‘He can’t help it,’ I heard Jake say.
I looked wearily at him.
‘Curtis …’ he muttered. ‘I mean, I know he can be really difficult sometimes –’
‘Jake?’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Just shut up, OK?’
Fifteen minutes later, when Curtis still hadn’t returned, I began to wonder what had happened to him. I didn’t want to be concerned, and it kind of annoyed me that I was, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. It was getting pretty late by then, and the ticket hall wasn’t that busy, but there was still a regular stream of people coming in and out of the station. A lot of them had clearly been drinking, and although me and Jake were both dressed relatively conservatively – I mean, we didn’t look too outrageous or anything – we were still obviously quite different to everyone else, and that was enough to draw their attention. It was mostly just dirty looks and muttered curses, the odd shouted insult or two, and at one point someone lobbed a half-empty beer can in Jake’s general direction … but that was as far as it went.
Saturday-night drunks.
Saturday-night violence.
Find someone who’s not the same as you, and laughingly beat the shit out of them.
I didn’t want be there any more.
I didn’t want to be part of this … whatever it was. I just wanted to go home and forget about everything … just go to sleep and sink down into the solitary darkness –
‘Thanks for waiting.’