Caro and I have talked about this a lot. Caro said, ‘A sex attacker has to be a grown-up man, doesn’t he?’
I said, ‘Yes. Except, what about some of those boys from Broadgate Estate?’
And she said, ‘They wouldn’t be strong enough.’
I said, ‘But it’s very weird, Josie Farraday buying smokey bacon flavour crisps for a grown-up man.’
Caro said, ‘Maybe he hadn’t paid his paper bill, and he didn’t want to go into the shop in case Mr Dessai shouted at him for the money.’
I thought that was a very good idea. But I said, ‘Yes, except can you imagine him, out on the main road with everyone going by, saying to Josie Farraday, “Would you mind going in there and buying me a packet of crisps?” I wonder if he gave her the money?’
Caro said she didn’t think sex attackers had any money.
So I said, ‘Suppose he had already decided to do a sex attack on Josie Farraday? When they were outside the shop. So he sent her in alone so that Mr and Mrs Dessai wouldn’t see him. He wouldn’t want anyone to see him and Josie together.’
But Caro said, ‘If he’d already decided to do a sex attack he wouldn’t want any smoky bacon flavour crisps either.’
And I really couldn’t argue with that.
Actually, that’s one thing Josie Farraday and I have in common. I don’t like smokey bacon crisps either. Outside the shop I wondered if I really had to buy them. I had some money, but I wondered if I was supposed to pay for crisps I didn’t want to eat. And what was I supposed to do with them when I had them? Josie gave them to a sex attacker. I don’t have anyone to give them to.
I went inside, and there was Mr Dessai in his grungy old suit and Mrs Dessai with that hand-knitted cardigan she always wears over her sari.
The last time I was in there was when Caro and I bought the Evening Standard to find out what really happened to Josie. That time, Mr Dessai hardly looked up. He just said, ‘Thirty p.,’ and that was that. This time he looked all nervy and jumpy and he didn’t say anything. But a lady in a brown woolly hat did. It was awful.
She said, ‘Don’t you go telling no one it was a black man did it.’
I said, ‘Pardon?’
And she said, ‘You folks’ shit stink too, y’know.’
And Mr Dessai handed me a packet of salt and vinegar flavoured crisps. But his hand was shaking so much he dropped it.
The lady in the woolly hat said, ‘You, little girl.’
‘Me?’
‘You little girl know nothing, get yourself in trouble, firs’ thing happen you blame one of us.’
I left the salt and vinegar flavoured crisps on the floor and got out as fast as I could. I mean, what a thing to say! It was incredible. Fancy telling a total stranger her shit stank. In public.
My face burned, and I wondered if the cameras could see how red I’d gone. Josie Farraday has a lot to answer for, getting me humiliated like that.
And then I almost turned back into the newsagent. I wanted to tell the lady that I hadn’t got into any trouble and I wasn’t blaming anyone. And I wanted to pick up the crisps and tell Mr Dessai he’d got the wrong flavour. But I couldn’t go back in. I just couldn’t. It’s all too horrible. And it isn’t my fault. It’s Josie’s.
So I pulled up Josie’s socks again. It was funny, because this time I was quite glad she wore loopy old socks and flopped her hair all over her face. It meant the cameras couldn’t see me blushing. And I was glad the cameras hadn’t been inside Mr Dessai’s shop.
It’s bad enough when horrid things happen, but it’s even worse when other people know about it. When horrid things happen to me I never tell anyone any more.
Once I went to the Tate Gallery with a boy called Mark. It was sort of like a date except that our parents arranged it. I liked Mark and I was quite excited I’d been allowed to go out alone with him. We caught a bus down to Millbank and we sat right at the front on the top deck. We were sitting so close together our legs touched and I wondered what I’d do if he held my hand. Just thinking about it made my hands sweat so I hoped he wouldn’t. But on the way back, he did. He picked up the hand closest to him in both of his. And my heart kicked the inside of my chest and I thought I was going to be sick.
He said, ‘You know what really hurts?’
I said, ‘What?’
So he said, ‘What, what?’
And I said, ‘What really hurts?’ I wasn’t thinking about anything except him holding my hand.
And he folded my hand into a fist. Then he squashed down really hard on my bent little finger. Really hard. I couldn’t get my hand away because he was holding on so tight. And it hurt. It really hurt. I had tears running down my face. I screamed. And he let go.
I said, ‘What did you do that for?’
And he said, ‘You asked me to.’
I said I didn’t. But he said, ‘Yes you did. You asked, “What really hurts?” And I showed you.’
So it wasn’t much of a date. But when I got home, Caro said, ‘What happened? Does he like you? Did he kiss you?’
I said, ‘We just held hands.’
And she said, ‘Is that all?’ But I could see she was jealous because she kept going on about Mark being my boyfriend. I got pretty fed up, so in the end I told her about how he squashed my finger.
And she said, ‘That would never have happened to me. I don’t have sweaty hands. Your hands sweat. Yeugh! Boys only like cool dry hands, like mine. You should have dusted your palms with talcum powder before going out. It isn’t romantic to have sweaty hands.’
I shouldn’t have told Caro about it because she made it seem like it was all my fault when it wasn’t.
From then on, I always dusted my hands with Mum’s talcum powder. Until one day when I dropped the tin in the basin and it all spilled out.
Mum said, ‘What on earth were you doing with my powder?’
So I told her what Caro said. And she said, ‘I don’t know why you waste your time with Caroline. She’s a profoundly ignorant little madam.’
I didn’t tell Caro that because it isn’t true. Caro isn’t ignorant. She knows a lot more about what boys like than Mum does.
I always keep my hands in my pockets so no one will see them. That’s where they are now – in the pockets of the brown leather jacket just like the one Josie Farraday wore. If this really was Josie Farraday’s jacket I bet the pockets would be all wet and soggy. Her hands sweat too. But nobody knows this except me, because even the police and TV cameras can’t see into people’s pockets. Which is just as well, because the lights from the Esso Station and car-wash are very bright and everyone is staring at me.
The lady policeman said, ‘Slow down. Don’t run.’ She made me jump. I’d almost forgotten about her.
She said, ‘We want everyone to get a good look at you.’
Then she said, ‘Are you all right?’
And I said, ‘Where’s Mum?’ But I regretted it immediately. I don’t want her. Only little girls want their mothers. Mothers spoil everything.
The lady policeman told me to keep my mind on what I was doing, and walk slowly to the Social Security office on the corner.
It isn’t so bad at this time of night, but usually the Social Security office is a place to avoid. It’s a huge, dark grey building and in the daytime it’s always busy. People just hang around and sit on the steps smoking cigarettes and drinking things. Even now the pavement is filthy with cigarette ends, drink cans and broken glass.
If I have to come this way, I always go on the park side of the road. But that is where all the bus-stops are. So even if I’m on the other side of the road to the Social Security office there are still lots of people, and there’s always the risk someone might stop me.
They ask me for money and they say things like, ‘The bastards wouldn’t give me no emergency payment.’ And then they ask for the bus fare home, or a cup of tea. And sometimes they say, ‘Ain’t you lucky to have such lovely shoes?’ And that makes me feel awful. So usua
lly when I come this way I run.
I haven’t got any money either. Why can’t they see that? Mum is very mean with my allowance.
You don’t see many girls from my school here, and I can’t think why Josie Farraday came this way. If, all the time, she was planning to go into Kennington Park, why wasn’t she walking on the park side of the road? There are a lot of things I don’t understand, and now that I’m actually walking in Josie’s footsteps they seem even more mysterious. I keep looking towards the park, even though it’s so dark and I don’t want to. I am going to walk in there later. But there are other things to do first.
If you don’t look at the park, but instead you look across the big junction where Kennington Road meets Kennington Park Road you see the bank, the cafe and the Post Office. And you see Ashton’s, the funeral parlour.
I stood for a long time waiting for the lights to change so that I could cross the road. Lots of police people stood around handing out leaflets with my photo on them. I mean Josie’s photo. But I didn’t see a single hearse.
When Josie Farraday crossed Kennington Road she walked right up to the funeral parlour. She could have touched the window. She might have seen one of the hearses. She might even have seen her own hearse. Because, as Caro said, it was awfully convenient Josie getting herself murdered so close to a funeral parlour.
What Josie Farraday did next was very peculiar. She dithered outside the Parma Café for several minutes. The Parma has windows from top to bottom, and the lady behind the counter saw her dithering before she went in. So I tried to dither a bit although it’s difficult when there’s nothing to dither for.
And then I went in. I went over to the counter and I asked the lady how much a cup of tea was. Even though the price is written on a board right in front of me.
The lady behind the counter said, ‘Big cup or little cup?’ And I said little cup. The lady told me how much. But I didn’t ask for a cup of tea. I asked her what the time was. Even though Josie and I are wearing watches.
This watch does not do anything clever, such as stopping at exactly the time of the murder, like watches do on TV. It was still working when they found Josie in Kennington Park at four-thirty the next morning.
After the lady told me the time I said thank you, and left the café. The lady told the police she thought Josie was waiting for someone who didn’t come. She said she thought Josie was too embarrassed to wait inside by herself.
I said, ‘How awful to wait and wait in a public place with everyone staring and thinking you’ve been stood up.’
Caro said, ‘That might happen to someone like Josie, but it’ll never happen to me. I won’t wait for anyone.’
And I said, ‘It all depends.’ Because I can imagine waiting and waiting until my heart breaks. Not for any old boy like Mark. But I’d wait for someone tall and strong.
He says, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be there, and then everything will be all right.’ He has blue eyes which look at me and see beauty. There is a special me which only his blue eyes can see.
Josie waits outside the Parma. I’m not waiting for someone. No one is coming. I’m waiting till the police say it’s time to cross the road and go into the park.
My mother says, ‘Don’t ever go into the park at night.’
There are so many things I mustn’t do - like hang around the skateboard rink, walk home alone, pet strange dogs. And if it was bad before, Josie has made it much much worse. Mum even started to meet me outside school but I soon put a stop to that. I don’t want to look like a nerd. But I had to promise to stay with Caro, and Caro had to promise to stay with me. Since Josie, Caro and I have been like Siamese twins.
We both had to promise to keep out of the park. But we broke that promise the very next day because we just had to see where it happened.
I said, ‘No, no we promised.’ But Caro said two promises didn’t count. She said two minuses made a plus in algebra. So two promises not to do something made a promise to go out and do it.
There is a little walled flower garden in the corner of the park.
That’s where it happened. At least, that’s where they found Josie Farraday. But we didn’t get to see it, because the police wouldn’t let us in to look. They told us to go home and not be so morbid.
Caro said, ‘But it isn’t morbid. It’s educational. The whole school was taken to the Tower to see where Anne Boleyn got her head cut off.’
And I said, ‘I don’t have to see. I know exactly where it happened.’
‘Where?’
I said, ‘Near the shelter, with the bench and the one-eyed cat.’ Because Caro and I had been there before. Before Josie.
I said, ‘Remember the L-shaped hedge?’
And she said, ‘Ooohh yes!’ Because, one time, we found some very funny things under the yew hedge. We found some donner kebabs, three plastic forks and a syringe.
‘And a condom!’ I might have known Caro would remember the condom.
Caro said, ‘Well, of course. That’s where everyone goes to do rude things. And afterwards he rolled Josie’s body under the hedge with all the Chinese takeaways and polythene bags.’
And I said, ‘After what?’ Because that was the biggest mystery of all. What did he do, and why did Josie let him?
Caro said, ‘Shut up. I’m thinking. After that maybe he ate the smokey bacon flavour crisps.’ And we laughed a lot because it was so ridiculous. But that night I dreamed about hundreds of snakes writhing around under my bed. The snakes all shed their skins and the skins were made of milky white rubber.
What I can’t understand is why a nerd like Josie Farraday was so brave. She went into the park alone in the dark. Or she went into the park with a strange man. Which is very brave and very stupid. I always knew Josie Farraday was stupid but even stupid girls are frightened in the dark.
I have never been into the park after nightfall. It wasn’t me. It was Josie. But I have to go into the park. The police told me to. Even Mum gave her permission. Everyone says it’s all right tonight. Nothing bad will happen.
Nothing bad can happen because this is going to be on TV. People watching TV will see me being brave, walking through the gate into the dark. Like watching the diving on TV. Maybe if there was no one watching, the divers wouldn’t have the nerve to go off the high board and fall headfirst, tumbling, into the water.
So who was watching Josie? Who said it was all right? Someone gave her permission or I wouldn’t have the nerve to go into the park at night.
He says, ‘Don’t be frightened. I’m here. Nothing bad will happen.’
I cross the road, and it’s like crossing a river. It’s wide and deep and full of snakes and crocodiles.
Josie crossed the road and walked into the park. All the gates are locked after dark but there is a path which is always open. There are railings on either side, and trees which hold their bare arms out over the path. The path is wet and shiny. The path says yes, yes. The trees say no, no. They cross their bare arms over the path, and say, ‘Don’t ever go into the park at night.’
I wait at the entrance where everyone can see Josie.
The policeman says, ‘Go on. It’s all right.’
Josie walks into the park. He says, ‘Come on. It’s all right.’
I look up at him. He is much taller than me and his shoulders are broad. He fills the screen. He has blue eyes and straight, dark eyebrows. He is strong and beautiful. He looks down at me and I am small and beautiful. My hands do not sweat. I am not a nerd.
He says, ‘I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Ever.’
He is so strong, he will protect me from everything. I would never go into the park alone. Without him.
He says, ‘Don’t worry. You’re with me.’
So I go into the park. And he is by my side. We are all alone and it’s dark. He takes my hand, and my heart kicks me.
And he says, ‘You know what really hurts?’
‘What?’
‘What, what?’
�
��What really hurts?’
And he half throws, half drags me over the railings onto the grass. There are tears running down my face and I scream but he doesn’t let go. No one comes to rescue me.
My ugly black shoe is wrenched off, and I say, ‘What did you do that for?’
And he says, ‘Because you asked me to.’
They found my shoe in the morning. It was what led them to Josie.
London Noir - [Anthology] Page 8