B002RI919Y EBOK

by Peters, Joe

  I was getting tired of all the questions and said nothing. I just wanted to get some soup inside me and go back to my cardboard box for more sleep.

  ‘Is anybody looking after you?’ she asked, looking across at Jock as she spoke.

  ‘Yes,’ Jock sighed. ‘I’m looking out for him.’

  ‘You make sure you do, Nigel. He looks very young to be down here. Who else have you met?’ she asked me.

  ‘Jake.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, pursing her lips. ‘The less said about him the better.’

  Just at that moment Jake came stumbling over for his soup and I could see she was trying to pack him off back to the boxes again as quickly as possible so that she could get back to talking to Jock and me.

  ‘Keep Joe away from him, Jock,’ she said once Jake was out of earshot. ‘That boy is confused. And that Max! You stay away from him, Joe, or he’ll get you into a lot of trouble.’

  ‘I fucking told him today, Sarah,’ Jock assured her.

  ‘You keep him in your sight all the time, Nigel. And don’t let Jake anywhere near him.’

  I felt comforted by this kindly woman’s obvious concern for my safety, but at the same time her words of warning worried me. I had met enough violent and dangerous men during my childhood to know that I didn’t want to meet any more. Standing in the middle of a strange city in the dark and cold made me feel suddenly vulnerable, and anxious to hurry back to my box so that I could curl up under my blanket to hide from the world until morning. I moved off but found Sarah was coming with me.

  ‘Is that your box?’ she asked, obviously horrified.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘For goodness sake!’ She turned to Jock. ‘Nigel, find Joe a decent-sized box. He can’t sleep in that little thing.’

  ‘He can have mine,’ Jock muttered grudgingly, wandering off to find himself something else while Sarah settled me in and made sure I was as comfortable as I could be, like a mother tucking in her child even though he was too old for such attention. It was an experience I had certainly never had with my own mother and I didn’t know how to react to it. She took no notice of my protests that I wasn’t a kid. By the time she had finished, every part of me was as warm as toast apart from my nose.

  The next time I woke up it was morning and Jock had already disappeared. I felt a momentary lurch of anxiety at having lost my protector, but I knew I couldn’t really expect him to look after me just because some mad old woman had told him to in the middle of the night. Jake was the only one of our group still around.

  ‘Where have they all gone?’ I asked.

  ‘Up the centre. Want to come?’

  Although Sarah’s warnings about Jake were still ringing in my ears, I didn’t think I had any choice, unless I wanted to stay in the park on my own. The park workers were already starting to clear away the cardboard debris of our almost abandoned camp. I decided any company was better than none and went with him. As we made our way through the streets, I became aware of a car drawing up beside us and I recognized the old Mercedes I had seen Jake getting into the previous evening. Jake stopped as the man I now knew was Max got out and came round to talk to him.

  ‘Hiya, fella,’ Max said to me. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I nodded cautiously.

  There was something about this man that told me I shouldn’t give him any cause to get angry. I noticed the big gold sovereign rings on his fingers, and he had the words ‘love’ and ‘hate’ tattooed on his knuckles, as well as the illustrations I had already noticed on his neck.

  ‘Do you need any money?’ he asked.

  I couldn’t understand why he would be offering money to someone he didn’t even know. Then I remembered how Mohamed had given me money for nothing and told myself not to be so suspicious, and that maybe people were nicer than I had been led to believe by my childhood experiences. I took the fiver he was offering and slid it into my pocket.

  ‘If you need anything, you come and see me,’ he said with a wink that should have seemed friendly but didn’t.

  The following days fell into a routine. We would go to the centre in the morning to get something to eat and have a shower. The volunteers there were always really good with us and helpful. There was a doctor there each day, who checked us over and gave us prescriptions if we needed them. I had always had trouble with asthma, so they gave me a prescription for an inhaler. It was nice to know there was someone to go to if I got ill. Then we would wander out into the streets, buy something to drink and drift around from place to place getting pissed and begging, going back to the centre for an evening meal and then settling down under whatever cardboard we had been able to find for another night. I never needed to touch the money in my bag because everything was provided or could be bought with the change that people gave us.

  I frequently ended up spending most of my time with Jake because Jock and his girlfriend, Charlotte, were always drunk and stoned and hanging out with the tramps and winos around the Strand, while Jake and I didn’t want to be doing that the whole time. Charlotte was a really pretty girl and I never worked out what she was doing with Jock and the other losers. Jake and I got bored with their company quite often and wanted to see different things and different places, so we would go off begging together. Jake knew all the different outreach centres where we could get food through the day and my initial wariness after Sarah’s warning faded as I got used to him. He seemed pretty harmless to me. It wasn’t such a bad life, I told myself: better than being locked in a cellar and continually beaten up and raped, and better than being in a care home with everyone bossing you about and treating you as if you were some kind of problem.

  Some nights Jake would disappear and not turn up again till the following morning.

  ‘Where have you been?’ I’d ask.

  ‘Oh, I just stayed at Max’s for the night,’ he would say, obviously not interested in saying any more.

  I’d been in London for a week and a second weekend had come round when Jake told me that Max had asked to have a word with me, to check that I was OK. I wasn’t that keen, but I remembered he had been friendly and given me a fiver the last time we had spoken, so there didn’t seem to be any reason to worry about it too much. It was broad daylight in a busy street anyway, so what could happen?

  ‘Why’s he so interested?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s just worried about you,’ Jake said, shrugging. ‘Because you’re a bit young he wants to check that you’re OK.’

  The Mercedes pulled up beside us again as it had before and I saw that there was another guy with Max, who looked like a minder, with an evil fighter’s face that had taken a few punches over the years. They told me his name was Brad.

  Max greeted Jake effusively and handed him a bunch of cash. ‘That’s for the other night,’ he said, patting him on the back as if they were the best friends in the world. The previous times I had seen Max he had been dressed smart casual, as if he was going out somewhere. This time he was just wearing trackie bottoms and looked more relaxed, as if he had just got out of bed.

  ‘How are you doing, fella?’ he said, turning his unconvincing charm on to me.

  We chatted for a bit and then he turned back to Jake.

  ‘Fancy coming back to the flat for a bite to eat?’

  ‘We’re just going to the soup kitchen,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that’s fucking horrible food,’ Max said. ‘Come back and have something to eat with us. I’ll drop you back–don’t worry.’

  The threatening look of the minder as he got out of the car brought Sarah’s warning words back to me. But at the same time I was nervous that if I said no they would be insulted and get angry. They hadn’t done anything bad to me–quite the opposite–so what right did I have to judge them just because they looked a bit rough? And I did fancy a decent meal. I was torn in my mind, and in that moment of indecision the minder opened the back door of the car and I panicked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t want t
o go in the back. No way.’

  ‘That’s all right, fella,’ Max said. ‘You can sit in the front next to me.’

  He opened the passenger door and I allowed myself to be steered into the seat. The minder and Jake got into the back and everyone chatted away as we drove across London. They were so friendly I felt my fears settling and I began to feel foolish for making such a fuss and being so suspicious of their motives. I started to look forward to having a decent meal.

  Chapter Eight

  Max’s Flat

  We drove for about half an hour and pulled up outside a big grey block of council flats, the sort with open concrete walkways on every floor leading from one front door to the next past windows shrouded in net curtains, protected by metal bars or boarded up.

  ‘Maybe we should get back,’ I said to Jake as I stared up at the forbidding, bleak-looking buildings.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ Jake said, avoiding my eyes. ‘Let’s at least have something to eat. I’m hungry.’

  ‘It’s OK, fella,’ Max said, obviously able to see how nervous I had become again. ‘No one will try to hurt you. If they do, I’ll beat them up for you.’

  He and Brad led the way without bothering to look back, laughing and talking together as if they were confident we would follow. Realizing that I had no idea how to get away from the area on my own anyway, I took a deep breath and went after them, clutching my bag tightly to me, sure I was going to be mugged despite Max’s assurances and even though there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Max and Brad were being so friendly and they weren’t trying to force me to go with them, and Jake seemed perfectly happy with them, so why was I being so fearful? I told myself to stop being paranoid. I couldn’t let my past experiences make me frightened for ever.

  We climbed some concrete stairs past walls covered in aggressive-looking graffiti and went along one of the walkways until we reached a black front door with a glass panel in the top. The bottom panel had been boarded over, as if someone had kicked the glass in. Max let us in. As I walked into the front room I could smell a sweet, smoky aroma, which I later discovered was cannabis. There were two guys on a sofa, sucking smoke up from a hubble-bubble, both giggling and stoned.

  ‘Hi, Jake,’ they called out when they saw him. ‘Come here.’

  Jake went over and they were hugging and kissing him, which I thought was a bit odd, ruffling his hair and being really mellow and friendly. I began to relax a little, despite the unfamiliar surroundings. They encouraged me to take a suck of the smoke, which was the first time I had ever done it. I didn’t even smoke cigarettes and I nearly choked as it burned into the back of my throat, making the others fall about laughing like hyenas at my discomfort. They encouraged me to take hit after hit, assuring me I would get used to it soon. As I became high, I felt a bit dizzy and had trouble protesting when Max offered to take my bag off me so that I could be more comfortable, so I just clung on to it as tightly as I could. The cannabis was making me feel strangely calm and accepting of everything that was happening. I found myself chattering away as if they were my oldest friends in the world. They brought me some food, but I wasn’t hungry, feeling a bit sick from the smoke.

  ‘So,’ Max said, ‘do you like to earn money, Joe?’

  Shocked by the suddenness of the question, I tried to muster my drifting thoughts into some sort of order; I was fearful that if I wasn’t careful I would commit myself to doing something I might later regret.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, cautiously. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You want a job?’

  I thought perhaps he needed someone to clean the flat or something. It looked as if it needed it. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What would you be willing to do for it?’ he asked.

  ‘Anything,’ I said, not bothered by how hard or demeaning the job might be, knowing that beggars couldn’t be choosers in the jobs market. I had to start somewhere, after all.

  ‘Anything? Right. Would you sleep with a woman?’

  Even to my befuddled brain that sounded like an odd question. ‘Course I would.’

  ‘Ah.’ He nodded wisely. ‘Would you sleep with a man?’

  The moment his words penetrated my consciousness alarm bells went off inside my head and I doubled my efforts to sober up and concentrate on what was going on. In a second I was transported back to the vile house that Uncle Douglas used to take me to for days on end, locking me in with the other kids and forcing us all to do the most disgusting things with the men who came to the door, beating us if we dared to protest or refuse, or even to make eye contact or speak before we were spoken to. For a horrible moment I wondered if Max was one of the people who liked to watch the films that Uncle Douglas and his friends had made of us. Was that why he was asking these questions? Had he seen me being raped and believed I’d enjoyed it? I realized now that Max had the same air about him as Douglas and his friends. That was why he had made me so uneasy from the start; that was why he had made me feel so afraid before I even knew why. The other guys in the room just kept on bonging as if they couldn’t hear the conversation, or as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be discussing when we hardly even knew each other. They were far too stoned to be able to help me, even if they had wanted to.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t sleep with a man.’

  ‘Why not?’ He pretended to be surprised by my answer, as if it was stupid or something.

  ‘I don’t do that,’ I said, trying not to let the fear I was feeling affect my voice. I wanted to stay in charge. I had to or else I would be a helpless kid again, as I had been for the previous ten years or more of my life. ‘I’m not gay.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with being gay,’ Max said. ‘It’s about earning money, boy. You can earn good money with me. I’ve got your friend Jake here. He doesn’t mind sleeping with men.’

  Jake was either too stoned to notice what was going on or deliberately avoiding looking at me.

  ‘I’ve gotta go now,’ I said, struggling to get to my feet, willing my legs to stop wobbling beneath me. It didn’t matter how threatening the estate outside might look: I could see now that this flat was where the real danger lay. I remembered Sarah’s warnings my first night on the streets, telling me to steer clear of Jake and Max. She must have known all about this. I realized now why Jake disappeared during the night so often: he was on the game and Max was his pimp. That was why Jock hated Max so much. I wished Jock and Sarah had explained things to me more clearly. I would never have made the stupid mistake of getting into Max’s car if I had known what he was into. This was my worst nightmare, the very reason I had run away from home in the first place. I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid and naïve. The moment I got unsteadily to my feet Max pushed me back down and I toppled over on to the sofa.

  ‘You’re staying,’ he told me. ‘You’re in my house now and I’ll tell you when you are going to leave. I’ve got a punter coming round. He wants to see you.’

  I wasn’t sure what a ‘punter’ was, but it didn’t sound good.

  ‘I’ll show you to your room now,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I shouted. ‘I want to go.’

  ‘I’ll show you your fucking room,’ he said again and there was no mistaking the menace in his voice. He grabbed my skinny arm so tightly with his giant hand that it made me squeak from the pain as he lifted me bodily off the sofa, propelling me towards the door, still clutching my bag. The more I struggled the tighter his grip became, his fingers digging in.

  ‘Just do what I fucking tell you,’ he hissed into my face. ‘Don’t be fucking disrespectful.’

  ‘It’s all right, mate,’ Jake slurred from the depths of the other sofa. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘I want to go,’ I screamed, the panic overwhelming me and making my voice hysterical.

  As Max dragged me through to the bedroom, I noticed there was a key in the lock on the outside and my panic doubled as every memory of being imprisoned rushed back. Once I was past that door they would be able to
keep me there for years and there would be nothing I could do about it, just as it had been with Mum and the men at home. I fought and struggled with all my strength, but I didn’t have a chance against Max. He grabbed me in a headlock, ripped my bag from my grip and threw me into the room, slamming the door behind me and turning the key.

  After a few seconds I forced myself to calm down, knowing that was my only chance of finding a way out. I looked around the room. There was a double bed, made up with fairly clean bedclothes. In fact it looked pretty much like a normal bedroom apart from the fact that the window had been boarded up with screws, cutting out all natural light and the only chance of escape. There was a flimsy wardrobe, which let a stale smell out into the room when I opened the doors. My fear was making me angry and I went back to the door, kicking and banging and shouting to be let out. After a minute I heard footsteps outside. The key clicked in the lock and the door flew open as Max burst in and punched me hard in the side of the head, knocking me to the floor with an explosion of light in my brain.

  ‘Bang this door again,’ he shouted, ‘and I will seriously hurt you.’

  I was crying like a baby. I was mainly angry with myself for letting my guard down and allowing myself to fall into a trap that I should have seen coming. I felt so stupid and so frightened.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, softening his tone a little. ‘If you just show me some respect and do what I tell you, we are going to get on fine.’

  He left the room again, locking the door after him, leaving me to think about what he had said and to ponder on the idea that he deserved my respect just because he was stronger than me and because I was in his house.

  A few minutes later the door opened again and Jake came in. I could see Max hovering behind him, so I knew it was his idea for Jake to talk to me.

  ‘I want to get out of here, Jake,’ I said.

  ‘He won’t let you go.’

  ‘You fucking bastard.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was going to do this to you,’ he lied. ‘Look, just do what they want you to do. You’ll get paid and you won’t get hurt. It’s an easy way to get money.’