Naked

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘Have you got a spare?’ I shouted.

  He shook his head. ‘Flat.’

  ‘A spare tyre,’ I yelled. ‘Have you got a spare tyre?’

  ‘It’s flat.’

  ‘The spare’s flat?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Shit.’

  Chief didn’t seem bothered at all, he was just standing there in the pouring rain, not saying anything, not doing anything … apparently not feeling anything. He was just kind of being there, just accepting the moment for what it was – which was pretty much what he did all the time – and it suddenly struck me that it wasn’t such a bad way to live your life. No complications, no catastrophes, no calamitous ups and downs …

  I shook my head.

  ‘Hey, Chief!’ I yelled. ‘Open the doors, will you? We might as well get out of the rain for a minute.’

  ‘Eh?’

  I mimed turning a key. ‘Unlock the doors!’

  ‘They’re open.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re already open.’

  The sound of the rain hammering down on the roof of the van was, for some reason, oddly comforting. It somehow made me feel safe, secure, almost cosy. And I wouldn’t have minded just sitting there for a while – watching the rain streaming down the windscreen, looking out for the lightning, listening to the thunder …

  But I had things to do.

  I turned to Chief, who was sitting beside me in the driver’s seat, calmly smoking a cigarette. ‘I’m going to have to get a taxi,’ I told him. ‘Can you let Curtis know?’

  He nodded.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the money I’d taken from Mum’s purse, making sure I had enough for a taxi. I’d actually got a lot more than I thought, well over £100, which was more than enough.

  ‘Just tell him that I took a taxi to Cranleigh Farm,’ I said to Chief. ‘And that I’ll get a taxi back, OK?’

  Chief nodded again.

  I said, ‘I’ll be back by eleven thirty at the latest.’

  ‘Right … eleven thirty.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, peering through the windscreen. ‘Well, it doesn’t look as if this rain is going to stop any time soon, so I might as well get going now.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Chief said, reaching over the back of the seat. ‘Here … take this.’ He passed me a coat, a big black donkey jacket, the kind of thing that workmen wear. ‘It’s not pretty,’ he said, ‘but it’ll keep you dry.’

  ‘Thanks, Chief,’ I said, smiling at him.

  ‘And this …’ he added, passing me a dusty old biker’s cap.

  I stuck the cap on my head, still smiling at him. ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ he said, and for the first time in my life I saw him smile.

  I leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. ‘See you later, Chief.’

  He grinned. ‘Not if I see you first.’

  I smiled at him again, then opened the van door, put on the donkey jacket, and scurried off into the rain.

  24

  Cranleigh Farm wasn’t the worst council estate in North London, and it probably wasn’t the biggest either, but for someone like me – a public-school girl from a wealthy family, with a big house in Hampstead – it was like stepping into a whole different world. And as I stood in the middle of the concrete square where the taxi driver had dropped me off, and I gazed all around me at the high-rise blocks and the ruined playgrounds, the rusted iron railings and the graffitied walls … I couldn’t help wondering what the hell I was doing here.

  This wasn’t my world …

  This wasn’t where I belonged …

  This was scary.

  The thunderstorm had faded away now, but the rain was still coming down pretty heavily, so it wasn’t surprising that there weren’t that many people around. An old black guy was walking his dog across the square, and there was a group of kids hanging around the entrance to one of the tower blocks, but apart from that, the estate seemed deserted. I knew that it wasn’t deserted though. I could hear music playing somewhere – the Bee Gees – and from somewhere else, the sound of Alice Cooper. I could hear a car revving up, and voices in the distance … someone laughing, someone shouting. And I could feel people watching me too. People in the tower blocks, watching me from their windows … wondering who I was, and what I was doing here …

  I felt really uneasy.

  I didn’t want to feel uneasy. I wanted to feel how I thought I should feel – not scared, not out of my depth, not like a prim little rich girl haughtily sniffing the dirt …

  But I was what I was.

  And, like it or not, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  I looked at my watch. It was 10.05. I pulled up my coat collar, tucked my hair into my hat, and started heading over to the kids by the tower block.

  There were four of them – three boys and a girl, all of them about seventeen or eighteen – and they’d been watching me on and off since I’d got out of the taxi. One of the boys was a tough-looking black kid wearing a black leather coat and platform shoes, the other two were slightly younger-looking white boys. They both had longish hair, parted in the middle, and they both wore round-collared shirts and flared denim jeans. The girl had feathercut hair and was dressed in a tank top, miniskirt, and long brown boots.

  I had no idea if they were friendly or not, but I was glad that I’d forgotten to get changed before I left the house, so I wasn’t wearing the kind of clothes that I usually wore for a gig. If I’d been wearing anything even remotely punky … well, back then, in a place like this, it really wouldn’t have been a good idea. As it was though, in my T-shirt and jeans, and Chief’s donkey jacket and cap, I was reasonably sure that I didn’t look too weird. And even if I did look a bit weird – which, come to think of it, I probably did – it wasn’t in an obviously identifiable way. As long as no one could look at me and think she’s a punk, I’d probably be OK.

  That’s what I was hoping anyway.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, walking up to the four kids. ‘I’m looking for a boy –’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ the girl said, grinning.

  I smiled.

  She stopped grinning.

  The black kid said, ‘You got any cigarettes?’

  ‘Uh … no, sorry –’

  ‘Got the time?’

  I looked at my watch. ‘It’s nearly ten past –’

  ‘Nice …’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The watch … very nice.’ He looked at one of the other boys. ‘Looks like yours, Dave, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The black kid looked back at me. ‘Dave lost his watch … someone nicked it. Looks just like yours.’ He moved towards me, smiling. ‘Where do you get it?’

  ‘It’s mine,’ I said, stepping back. ‘Look, I don’t want any –’

  ‘What?’ he said, suddenly stopping. ‘You think I’m going to rob you?’

  ‘I don’t –’

  ‘Now why would you think that?’ he said, grinning.

  I didn’t know what to say then. I was frightened, confused … not sure if I ought to be frightened or not …

  ‘What do you want?’ the black kid said, not grinning any more.

  ‘I’m looking for someone –’

  ‘Who?

  ‘William Bonney. He lives somewhere on this estate –’

  ‘Bonney?’

  ‘Yeah …’ I said, realizing that they were all staring at me now, and that their demeanour had suddenly changed. It was as if, at the mere mention of William’s name, they’d all become smaller, less confident … less scary.

  ‘Do you know him?’ I asked.

  The black kid shook his head. ‘No …’

  As I looked over at the others, I saw one of the boys glance briefly at the block of flats to his right.

  ‘Is that where William lives?�
� I said to him.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Do you know which flat he’s in?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘I don’t know anyone called Bonney.’

  It was obvious that he was lying.

  But not so obvious why.

  And when I asked the other boy and the girl if they knew anything about William, they were both equally evasive – mumbling and shaking their heads, avoiding eye contact. I turned back to the black kid. He’d lit a cigarette now and was moving away from me.

  ‘I’m a friend of William’s’ I told him. ‘You don’t have to worry –’

  ‘You’re not listening,’ he said. ‘We don’t know him, OK?’

  ‘Yeah, but –’

  ‘You’re starting to piss me off, girl,’ he said, staring hard at me. ‘And that’s not something you want to do, do you understand?’

  ‘Well, yeah –’

  ‘Good. Now why don’t you just turn round and fuck off back to wherever you came from, all right?’

  We stared at each other for a while then, and I realized – somewhat to my surprise – that I wasn’t quite so frightened of him now. I still didn’t feel confident enough to push him any further about William, but I certainly didn’t feel threatened any more.

  ‘See you then,’ he said, still staring at me.

  I held his gaze for a few more moments, then nodded, turned round, and calmly walked away.

  I didn’t look back until I was halfway across the square, heading for the exit to West Green Road. All four of them were still just standing there, watching me, so I turned back and carried on walking. The rain had almost stopped now, but the air was still heavy and thick, and I was pretty sure the storm wasn’t over yet.

  I went out through the gates of the estate, turned right, and walked along the pavement for a while. When I stopped in the shelter of a big old plane tree and looked back at the estate again, I saw the four kids heading across the square towards the tower block that one of the boys had glanced at earlier.

  I stepped back behind the tree, making sure that I had a clear view of the kids and the tower block, and then I just watched and waited.

  I watched them going into the block.

  I waited.

  I kept my eyes on the tower-block windows, scanning them for any sudden movement – a face at the window, a light coming on, a light going off …

  I knew that it was probably a waste of time. I was only guessing from the boy’s reaction that this was where William lived, and even if my further assumption was right – that the kids not only knew him, but that they knew him well enough to keep their mouths shut about where he lived, and that he’d want to know immediately if anyone started asking questions about him – well, even if that was what they were doing right now – letting him know about me – the chances of me spotting him when, and if, he looked out of the window were still fairly slim. He might be in one of the flats with no lights on, he might live on the other side of the block, he might not be home at all …

  But I carried on watching anyway.

  And after a minute or two I did see something.

  It wasn’t William’s face, it was the face of a woman. I only saw it for a moment – a brief twitch of a curtain, a face looking out, scanning the streets … it could have been anyone. But then, just before the curtain closed again, I saw someone else at the window, someone standing behind the woman, talking to her and pointing down at the square …

  The girl in the tank top.

  The curtain closed, but I kept my eyes on the window, fixing its position in my mind: seventh floor, last window on the left … my left. I muttered this over and over again to myself – seventh floor, last on your left … seventh floor, last on your left – until I was absolutely sure that I wouldn’t forget it, and then I just waited.

  It didn’t take long.

  After a few minutes, the four kids came out of the tower block and began wandering back across the square. When they got to the other tower block, the one they’d come from, the two boys and the girl went inside and the black kid carried on without them. I watched him as he wandered off across the estate, heading – I guessed – for whichever block he lived in, and I didn’t stop watching until he was out of sight. I waited a couple of minutes, just to make sure that he wasn’t coming back, then I stepped out from behind the plane tree and went looking for the woman whose face I’d seen at the window.

  There was no one around as I entered the tower block and got into the lift. I hit the button for the seventh floor, waited for the doors to close, and shook the worst of the rain from my coat. As the lift groaned and rattled its way up, I found myself looking around at everything – the graffitied walls, the rows of buttons, the printed instructions on what to do in case of an emergency – and it wasn’t until the lift had almost reached the seventh floor that I realized what I was actually doing. I wasn’t just looking around at everything, I was trying to sense William’s presence. I was trying to imagine him travelling up and down in this lift every day, trying to imagine his face, his eyes, his thoughts, his feelings …

  The lift tinged.

  And stopped.

  Seventh floor.

  The doors opened, and I stepped out into the corridor. It was empty. A desolate silence hung in the air, and as I turned right and headed down the hallway, the sound of my footsteps on the hard linoleum floor seemed to resound with the weariness of age-old echoes.

  I stopped outside the door at the end of the corridor, double-checking in my mind that I was in the right place. The window had been the last on my left when I was facing the tower block, so now that I was actually in here, facing the other way, it was the last on the right.

  Was that right?

  I was pretty sure it was.

  I lifted my hand to knock on the door, then hesitated …

  What if I was wrong? What if this wasn’t the right flat? Or what if it was the right flat but I was wrong about everything else? What if the girl in the tank top I’d seen at the window wasn’t the girl in the tank top? What if she was just a girl in a tank top? Or what if she was the Tank Top girl, but she was just visiting the woman who lived here … and the woman who lived here wasn’t Nancy at all, she was just a woman, and she’d just happened to be looking out of the window earlier on to see of it was still raining or something? Or what if …?

  ‘Shut up,’ I muttered to myself. ‘For Christ’s sake … just shut up and get on with it.’

  I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and knocked on the door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  It was a woman’s voice, a Northern Irish accent.

  I leaned in close to the door and said, ‘My name’s Lili, I’m a friend of William’s. We play in the band together –’

  ‘What’s your surname?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Your second name, what is it?’

  ‘Garcia.’

  ‘What’s your band called?’

  ‘Naked.’

  ‘And what instrument do you play?’

  ‘Bass guitar. Is William –?’

  ‘Name one of your songs.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Give me the name of one of your songs.’

  ‘Well … there’s one called “Heaven Hill”. And another one –’

  ‘All right, just a second.’

  I heard lots of bolts being unlocked then – bolts, chains, locks – and eventually the door swung open and I was face to face with the woman I’d seen at the window. There was little doubt in my mind now that she was Nancy – who else would have asked me all those questions? – and the smile on her face as she opened the door was enough to banish any remaining doubts from my mind. It was a good smile – kind and friendly and true – but it was a troubled smile too. Tired, sad … the smile of a weary soul.

  ‘Hello, Lili,’ she said. ‘It’s so nice to meet you at last. Willia
m’s told me all about you. I’m Nancy.’

  I nodded, suddenly unsure what to say.

  Nancy smiled again. ‘Would you like to come in?’

  ‘Uh … no,’ I muttered. ‘No, thanks … I’m just … I was just –’

  ‘You’re soaking wet,’ she said, looking at me. ‘Why don’t you just come in for a minute and get dried off?’

  She stepped back, opening the door to let me in.

  I hesitated for a moment, not really sure why I was hesitating, and then – with a slightly embarrassed smile – I went inside.

  Before I had a chance to ask her about William – who obviously wasn’t there – Nancy showed me into the bathroom, gave me a towel, and went off to fetch me some dry clothes. I tried telling her not to bother, that I was fine, but she insisted.

  ‘Here,’ she said, coming back with a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. ‘I think they should fit you OK. We’re just about the same size.’

  ‘Thanks …’

  She smiled. ‘I’ll go and make us a cup of tea, OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The clothes were a fraction too big for me, but it was nice to get into something dry at last. And despite their slight bagginess, and the fact that they belonged to a woman at least twice as old as me, the T-shirt and jeans were actually not bad at all. Faded blue denims, with narrow legs and patched-up knees, and a short-sleeved black T-shirt with a question mark printed on the front.

  Nancy, I decided, was a pretty cool person.

  She was younger than I’d imagined – in her mid- to late-thirties – and the way she looked and dressed was also quite different to the picture of her I’d built up in my mind. For some reason, I’d come to think of her as being fair-haired and pale-skinned, with a slim figure and a rather stern face. Whereas, in fact, she had shoulder-length dark red hair, a fairly full figure, and a classically beautiful face. And in place of the traditional nurse’s uniform that I’d – quite stupidly – always imagined her wearing, she was dressed almost hippyishly in a pair of denim dungarees over a lacy white vest.

  I thought for a moment about my mum …

  And then I had to remind myself that Nancy wasn’t William’s mum …

  And also …