by Tom Anderson
Surely, if the voice was something to do with Gigi Carranero, then it would be stupid to trust him. A criminal, a thief. I knew that. But the way that voice of his throbbed through the water, so soothing, so disarming… It was almost as if it was the source of the warmth around.
Trying to force words through my throat and into the thick water, I noticed it was getting warmer. I hoped the ocean was hearing my thoughts. I tried to call again, but something had changed and I’d lost the ability to do anything but breathe gently out of my nose and drift forward with the movements of the ocean, as the cold trickles started to wind in and out of my path. Then I heard the vibrations, growing slowly, until I could make out the voice, clearer than before.
At last, my ears were tuning in. A whisper, rising gradually to something more, seemed only to say, ‘Swim straight, LLJ. Swim through, Luca.’ Was that all? Maybe I should have listened harder. Or maybe I shouldn’t have listened at all.
The water grew even warmer, and the cold patches rushed through me and over me. Then the sand started to mix in again.
‘Swim straight, LLJ. Swim through. Almost there. Almost…’
Chapter 18
The water was like treacle in the end, which is when I knew it was almost time to emerge. There was a whoosh upwards and then I was in this thick, mud-type stuff before I could feel the grains of sand and was on hard ground, walking forwards through what felt like a waterfall of the stuff. A sandfall! Cool, eh? And it was so dry, too. There was this warm, warm wind, tearing through the dust at me and then, just like that, I was stepping clean out of the big dune at Chapel Shores.
The night was cold and the men were nowhere in sight. Running would keep me safe from the chill.
When I got in, my mind was full-on tunnel-vision. I had two things to do. Number one: get into the house without causing any trouble; and number two: psych up and go the party next week.
Number one went pretty smooth. I kept feeling my jeans and hoodie as I jogged home. They were still a bit damp, and my socks and boxers were still wet, but this time I was nowhere near as sorry a sight. The key was still there, under the flat rock, and there was no one up. I looked at my watch as I pulled the cold socks off my feet, and slipped into bed. It was ten to four. My feet were sticky and chilly, and I could feel salt and sand clinging to my skin, but I was too tired to do anything about it. If I showered now my mum would think something was up.
Just before drifting off, I went to google ‘time in Tokyo now’, but, like trying to hit Cartagena on street view, something stopped me before I could press ‘Go’.
Then I was out. No music in my head, nothing. Out until Gaby’s text woke me, mid-afternoon the next day.
* * *
‘HAPPY SUNDAY,’ it said. Nothing else – apart from four smiling emoji in a row after the words.
I reckoned I’d wait an hour before replying, but sent one in ten. That was pretty much the time it took me to wake up enough to type, anyway.
‘You too. What’s up?’
‘Nothin much, been busy, u?’
‘Nothin much, not busy tho,’ I replied.
‘You shld be LLJ, work is important nowadays innit.’
I mimicked throwing the phone at the floor – in front of an audience of nobody, so it must have been a creative act. Work! Why was I still full-on lying down to this no-speak-in-school rubbish?
‘Good for u,’ I replied.
‘Aw come on, u understand sure, come on, dont wanna hav to kidnap like poppi gigi when im older do i!’
I wanted to say ‘You don’t need to’, or something about school not being ‘work’ at all. Instead I just stared at the screen.
‘Anyway, gonna be at Jackdaws party on fri and ella says u comin!’
‘Dunno,’ I replied.
‘U should LL Cool J be COOOOL to catch up innit.’
‘Maybe.’
I shoved my phone along the carpet, under my bed, and got up.
Downstairs, Dad was counting money again, and lots of it.
‘Lukee boy!’ he grinned, getting up from his seat behind the table. ‘Check it out. Markets here sold up, and Jeff flogged a load in Swansea, too! Drove up there last night and slept in his van to get a good stall. We’re quids in. Going up to Birmingham this week, now, to pay in for some doubloon melting.’ Then he laughed. ‘Wanna throw a ton in yourself? Hundred quid?’
‘Haven’t got a hundred quid,’ I said.
‘Ah, no worries about that,’ he said. ‘Howbout I lend you a stake, and then you can pay me the ton back when we cash in? You’d make four or five times as much, I reckon. Me and Jeff are gonna pay a big load in. You saw the quality on that gold up there.’
He took a swig of his bottle of Bud. ‘Anyway, I reckon you should come with us again. Be a really good education for you. You can say you’ve done your first metals deal, then, for real, you know. Like, paid in, been a shareholder in it, you know? Plus, I reckon that Haz guy liked us better when you were there.’
‘Will you let me have a beer if I buy in?’ I asked him, turning for the door.
He laughed. ‘Come on, mate! Imagine your mum if she comes in and I’ve got you on the beers with me. Ha! D’you realise how much grief I had convincing her to even let you come to that market last time?’
I walked to the back door and looked outside, at the patch of patio where I knew my mum smoked sly roll-ups without him knowing. Nobody had picked the tarpaulin up yet from that night when I shivered under it, and I remembered the mix of excitement and hypothermia.
‘JEFF,’ yelled my dad. I turned around. It was the phone, though. He had a habit of answering it so loud you’d think someone was about to step in front of a bus.
That would be wishful thinking I thought. Jeff, in front of a bus.
He was only down the pub, though, tuning hard for my dad to join him.
‘Can’t for a few hours yet, mate,’ he boomed, down the phone. ‘Hannah’s coming back soon and then we got a load of finances to sort so that I can deffo swing her to give us the thumbs up. Gimme, like, two hours?’
Jeff must have mumbled some reply.
‘Ah come on!’ said my dad. ‘Hang back. I wanna meet her anyway! Heard so much about her!’
I stepped out into the garden. The days were getting warmer, but I’d have stayed out here even in the cold right then. More laughter came from inside the house, so I walked round the front, and headed for the beach again.
By day it looked so… blank, maybe? The dune was about half the size under grey skies and faint sun. The sea looked greyish brown, too, and tired. And small.
In the dark, this was where I could make plans, so I tried plotting now, too. If I was going to take a shot at anything resembling being a normal kid in this town, I would need to turn up at Jack Dooley’s house this Friday. I needed to do two things this week. Find out where it was, and line someone up to either meet me there, invite me or even to go there with – top of my list was Ella Bowen. Well, top middle and bottom, actually. Except BTEC was going to be the day Dad tried to drag me to Birmingham. I had it on Tuesday, too, but it would be better to use the Thursday lesson to bring it up – closer to the party, and I’d have to let Ella lead into the conversation.
‘Give me a plan!’ I whispered to the sea. Then I repeated it, to the dune, and into the grass, maybe in case the fox could hear and was nearby, or maybe for someone else.
No reply. Not even in my head.
None of this stuff worked by day though, so I wandered back to my street, kicking chippings along the path with my toes. Dad was out. Pub with Jeff? Had to be. Least it meant he’d come in a bit pissed up instead of having this meeting with my mum sober. Hey, he might even lose out trying to tune her for a Luca market-pass this Thursday.
Maybe someone was hearing me, I thought, and headed upstairs to gaze at the ceiling and listen to Bob. May
be someone was.
* * *
I was back to earth with a thump by midweek, though.
School trudged by for the first couple of days. Gaby was off again, which was odd considering she was meant to be trying hard in classes, and on Tuesday Ella only talked about her really briefly. Apparently Gaby had said she was studying from home, because the boys in her class were such idiots and the teachers so crap that she could do just as well in most subjects by reading out of text-books or booking a tutor. Ella did start to mention the party, but that was right before one of Mr Powell’s passes and so she had to switch to flirt-mode immediately to save us from a bollocking.
‘He’s not giving us any space today, is he?’ she complained.
I looked for chances to get us back to talking about what would happen on Friday night, but Ella seemed keener to grumble about teachers. When it did come up again, by her choice, all she said was, ‘People will probably start making a plan later in the week.’
This meant the main thing to get through in my world – and standing in the way of Friday like a giant fence hurdle with a muddy pool behind it – was going to be this nonsense with my dad and his impending gold deal. After my parents and Jeff stumbled back from the pub Sunday, they ended up on the rum again, and Jeff had been over every night since. Then, on Wednesday, as the three of them went through their financial stuff and another pair of giant pizzas at the same time, my dad announced that they were going back to Birmingham the next day and that I was coming.
My mum looked at him and frowned.
Go on, I thought, and clenched my fist in anticipation.
‘I’m not sure, Steve,’ she said, as a voice in my head went, Yes! Yes! Yes!
‘Why not, Hann?’ asked my Dad in the whiniest voice he could come up with.
‘Well, I’m happy with you two going, but I’m still not sure it’s the right place for Luca to be instead of school.’
‘You wannim to miss out?’ mumbled Jeff, who seemed, whenever he came for dinner, to only ever wait until he was chewing food before speaking.
‘Course not,’ said my mum. ‘But Lukee’s attendance is so important since we got those letters from Mr Kleener, and we want him to be able to get a job that…’
‘That what?’ said Jeff, swallowing his mouthful.
My mum frowned at them, and then said, ‘Luca, d’you really want to hear these conversations?’
Of course I did. This was the most important chat they had ever had about my future. Could I tell them that, though?
Even though I wanted to stay and listen – be involved in their discussion even, although I knew that wouldn’t happen – I still trudged up the stairs and away, as if my legs had decided to leave for me. I’d been up there about half an hour when I heard the bad news – from my mum of all people, who must have thought it was a chance to tell me something nice.
‘Lukee?’ she said, gently popping her head round the door, as I flicked through iTunes looking for some Bunny to soothe the moment.
‘What?’
‘Can I come in a minute?’
‘Can’t stop you.’
She laughed, timidly. Then came in.
‘I’ve told them you can go tomorrow, if you want,’ she said.
I lost a beat, and my feet throbbed hot for a second. Gutted. Had I ever stood a chance of telling her what was really on my mind? I mean, would you? Come on, of course not. Imagine her reaction? Ah, mum, I need to be in school tomorrow so I can sit by a girl in BTEC to get her to help me show up the right way at a party, coz Gaby’s gonna be there and actually…
Yeah. Course you wouldn’t. So what chance did I have?
Yeah. I’ll say it again: gutted. First time ever in eleven years that I actually wanted to be in school and what was waiting for me? That grimy jewel market, and another day itching in the company of Steve Lincoln-James and Jeff Rafferty.
You might have thought mothers were meant to be tapped into that crap about intuition? Not mine, as you can see. No. She took me at my word. Well, not my word as much as a weak nod of a tired head.
I’m surprised she couldn’t hear my soul groan, though.
* * *
The great obstacle had shown up, then. I was going to that hell-hole market with them, right when I least needed it – and instead of being sensitive to this situation that neither of them knew existed, Dad and Jeff seemed determined to be even more hard work than normal. All morning Jeff nagged me about stuff I simply didn’t want to talk over with him and Dad: ‘Got a girl on the go then, Lukee Boy?’ ‘Been pissed yet?’ ‘What about getting a girl pissed? That’s the thing to be trying to do at your age, buddy, I can tell you! Two birds, one stone. Wey!’
They had these cheesy, photocopied appointment badges when we got there this time, too, with their full names on them. I wouldn’t wear the one they’d made me, obviously. Jeff also brought one of those metallic briefcases – even though the four lumps of gold they planned to buy would almost fit in your pocket.
‘Love it here, don’t you, Steve?’ said Jeff, putting his hands on his hips and taking a deep breath. ‘Makes me realise how small the world of Chapel Shores is, eh? Look at all these people doing something with themselves.’
‘They were useless immigrants last week,’ laughed my dad.
‘Yeah, well that was then,’ said Jeff. ‘Now’s now!’
‘Deep.’ My dad looked at me and winked, but quivering just behind his dark eyes, I saw his nerves again.
For all the rest of the people at the market it was business as usual; the same cold air-con as you went through, same frosted glass doors and darkened rooms, same light green carpet that smelt too new to be good. Then there was Haz, striding across the aisle between the showrooms to meet us all with a firm handshake. This time he seemed to have wet his mop of long, curly hair and had put on one of those super-tight, fitted suits, complete with a white shirt and the kind of pencil tie that losing contestants on X-Factor might wear.
‘Jeff Rafferty and Steve Lincoln!’ he declared, with a beaming smile. ‘Welcome back. Let’s get straight to business.’
He meant it, too. Except now there was one extra bit that someone from Chapel Shores is hardly ever going to be ready for.
‘Oh, er, gents. Before we head in, now, just a little reminder. Uh, don’t be alarmed but it’s normal for these guys, some of the time to be, er, uh, armed.’
‘Armed?’ choked my dad.
‘Yeah. Nothing serious. Just for security. But yeah, be ready to see a gun.’
My dad’s face went red, then white – almost quick enough to look like a poorly nourished traffic light. He gulped at the air and said, ‘What the…’, and then Jeff interrupted him.
‘Steve! Come on, man. I told you that. Didn’t I? Ah. Maybe I didn’t. Er, yeah. No biggie though, is it?’
‘You want me to take my boy into a room with guns?’
‘He can wait outside,’ said Jeff.
‘No I can’t,’ I said, before even realising it.
‘Come on, lads,’ said Haz. ‘You’re making more of this than you need to. All of you come in. It’s fine.’
My dad looked like he wanted to speak again, but the words didn’t come to him and, pale-faced, he walked on with us. I think seeing him crapping himself meant I’d forgotten to be that rattled myself. I wondered how long that would last, though.
This time we went to a different showroom, still only the size of a small lounge, where the lights were dim and three men sat on a sofa chair.
Immediately, everything went heavy. The air-con vanished and a weight of silence held everything in the room completely still.
These guys were nothing like what I was expecting. When Jeff had said Congolese men, I’d just assumed they’d be black – as you would – and that they’d have African-sounding names and African-sounding voices. These men were pa
lest white, with shaved heads, charity-shop ties and no jackets. They spoke with the strangest accents you’d ever hear. If I had to guess – and there weren’t many chances to bone up on your foreign accents in Chapel Shores – I’d have said they were, maybe, like Swedish or Dutch? Or something else like that rather than African, except there was no tone and no humour in anything they said or did.
And then there was the gun. I saw it only after we were settled. It was held by the fourth man, and he was stood at the back of the room, watching. It was only once you were in and your eyes had adjusted that he could be noticed. Just like the others, he was light-skinned and dressed in a shirt and trousers, but he had slung over his shoulder a strap – and the strap was supporting what looked to me like a machine-gun. Both hands were on it, and he could have probably swung and pointed it about as quickly as one of us might blink.
All four of them looked me, my dad and Jeff up and down, looked at each other, then turned to Haz.
‘No,’ said the middle one, to Haz, immediately.
‘What?’
‘No. Can’t do it today. Something’s not quite right about this.’
Already, the tight chest was fighting for control of my soul.
‘Hang on,’ said Haz. ‘These are the guys, man! They’ve got the money, you’ve got the gold, and so we can fix it up.’
‘No,’ repeated the man. ‘I’m changing my mind. These… men…’ – he hadn’t looked at me yet – ‘They can make a deposit on another melt, but no ingots are coming their way. And anyway, I didn’t fetch the bars from the bonded warehouse.’
‘What d’you mean bonded,’ pleaded Haz. ‘There’s no importing to do.’
‘There is. We melt in the Congo now,’ said the man. ‘So there’s importing to do.’
There was an awkward silence, in which I reckon I could hear at least Haz and my dad’s hearts going wobbly, too – as well as the breath of the man holding the gun – and then another of the Congolese guys interrupted:
‘Hold on, hold on.’ His voice was much smoother, but he still had that bonkers accent. ‘We can so something today, but first we need to do one more trust sale with these three gentlemen…’