Nobody Saw No One

by Steve Tasane

“Why?”

  What a stupid question.

  “Why?” I yell it again. What else can I say? Why? Why?

  “It’s just…” He dun’t know what to say, does he? “When you’re grown-up, you’ll understand. Sex. It’s – it’s what grown-ups do. It’s how it is.”

  “Not with kids!” Byron snaps. “Not with us!”

  “Doug never!” I say.

  “Doug?”

  “And Danny wun’t. You’re a liar.” I look at Byron. “Tell him, Byron.”

  “Virus never.” It’s all he says. But he’s right.

  “Virus is a freak,” says Newton. “In the real world, there’s sex everywhere. Don’t tell me you’ve not seen it. On the internet. Porn sites. Sex clubs—”

  “Not with kids,” I say. “Not with kids!”

  This is my dad. He takes a step forward. “Not you, Alfi.” He’d reach out towards us, but Obnob gives a warning snarl and he steps back. “I’d never have let any of them touch you.”

  I feel sick. “Just all the others,” I say. “Sniper and the rest of ’em.”

  Newton’s sweating. He dun’t look at us no more, glancing from side to side.

  “You’re my son,” he says to me. “I love you.”

  I can’t hardly stand to hear it. But I say, “I’m only your son because—” I have to swallow hard. I en’t sure I can get the words out, but I have to. I have to say it. “Because, when she was the same age I am now, you forced my mother. You raped her.”

  It hangs in the air. The shame. He says, feebly, “I am your father.”

  I think of Doug. How much I miss him. And all the time, I’ve got this man in front of us. He gave me nowt apart from his eyes, and this: this horrible knowledge.

  “You’re nobody’s father,” I say.

  Then the door crashes wide open, and Barry is there, and he’s got a great big baseball bat, and he’s swinging it right at me head.

  I reckon Barry’s been waiting for this moment for years. But he ain’t going to have satisfaction, because Obnob’s been waiting for his moment too.

  It’s uglification. Beast gets his gnashers into Barry’s wrist and I swear he’s going to bite his hand right off, shaking and snarfling worse than I ever heard before. Baseball bat drops to the ground and Barry starts screaming like the cowardyguts he really is. That ain’t enough for Obnob though, is it? He lets go of Barry’s wrist and leaps at his face.

  His ugly mug’s about to get a lot uglier. I turn away.

  Through the window I see the blue sirens of the first police car pulling up.

  “Obnob,” says Alfi.

  The dog heeds his master, stops short of removing Barry’s nose. Sits over him, lips curled, fangs glistening.

  I clock Newton doing a swift about-turn, towards the corridor leading to his Jimmy den. The back exit.

  Citizen Digit ain’t a one for violence himself, but I break the habit of a lifetime and orchestrate a physical intervention. That is, I stick out my foot.

  It’s a wonderful sight to behold, Governor Newton flying flat out, buffing his head against his desk as he falls, sending his ashtray flying, all the stubs and ash puffing up like it’s his own funeral pyre, his pack of Bourbons crunching to crumbs beneath him.

  Behind me, Obnob sits guard on Barry’s chest, growling and drooling.

  A gang of Sherlocks bursts in through the door.

  We’ve won.

  *

  What I’m really looking at, what’s really in front of us, is what I’ve been searching for, for as long as I can remember.

  Me mam.

  Her face. Her face in her picture, not really any older than me. That’s all that counts. There’s nowt else in the room.

  Me eyes are poring over her file. Her date o’ birth. I know her birthday. It has her height and her weight, and her face. I can’t stop looking at her face.

  The police pile in through the entrance, and I fold up me mam’s file, and I tuck it away, next to me birth certificate. No one’s taking this away from us.

  I look around for Citizen Digit, but he’s nowhere to be seen. He’s gone. First sign o’ the law, and he’s vanished.

  26. HOME

  Egg, bacon, sausage, mushroom and chips, wi’ beans on toast (done proper, as described previously). It’s the only meal that Danny knows how to cook, but if you can make this you don’t really need owt else, do you?

  Iggy has his own fried egg. I’ve never known a dog that only eats people food, whether it’s toast or vindaloo.

  This is me fifth week wi’ Scarlett and Danny. And I en’t an Emergency any more. I’d thought it were another good home I’d messed up. When I went back to ’em it were a right state. I used all me best woodworking skills to help wi’ fixing stuff, even if I weren’t much cop at it, but I needn’t have worried. Summat changed. Maybe it were ’cos of all the stuff on the TV about what happened, but they din’t want to let me go back either. Scarlett has had a million meetings wi’ Social Services, and they’ve sorted out having us stay here for good. Permanent. I’ve never been permanent before.

  Scarlett and Danny play loads o’ weird music and you have to yell when you’re chatting. It’s noisier than I’m used to, but Iggy sleeps on me lap any chance he gets. We’re always having a laugh.

  We went to a print shop and we got the old photo o’ me mam blown up into giant size, and then we got it laminated, so it’ll never get torn or stained, and I’ve got it pinned up on the wall o’ me room.

  Scarlett and Danny even bought us a laptop, and we’ve been using it to try and find out if me mam is still alive or not. She might be. Which means she could be out there, anywhere. With a laptop you can find owt, anyone – just like Citizen Digit allus reckoned.

  Plus, I’ve got Grand Theft Auto.

  Course, I know where me father is. He’s in prison, along wi’ all them others. The copper and the MP and all the rest o’ that mob. It kept coming up on the news all the time, until Scarlett and Danny stopped us watching any more. I could visit him anytime I like. But why would I?

  Danny makes a much better dad than Norman Newton. And Scarlett is a pretty good mam. If we ever find me real mam, I reckon I’ll be dead lucky because then I’ll have two mams. After all this time.

  Grace comes and visits every week as well. She were in hospital for a while, but she’s all right now. She’s started making dresses, to sell on the market – Scarlett bought one, says it’s just her style.

  Grace is sitting across the table from us right now, waiting for Danny to dish up that perfect scran. She’s showing us how you can balance a spoon off the end of your nose. She’s got all sorts o’ tricks up her sleeve, has Grace.

  I even miss Mr Virus, a little bit. I’m sorry that he were killed. He’d have made a horrible dad though. Can you imagine, worrying about getting zapped all the time? I reckon he needed a pet dog, to help bring out his nicer side.

  Obnob gets looked after by Grace, but he dun’t come to visit with her, ’cos of what he did to Patti. Grace says he goes to doggie training class. He’s getting rehabilitated.

  Grace tells me that Social Services have been doing their best to try and farm out all t’other Tenderness lads and lasses to good homes too, like Scarlett and Danny’s.

  But I en’t seen or heard a whisper o’ Citizen Digit, not from the moment the cops turned up at Tenderness House. Course, the footage of him doing the Digit Dance across the sevice station forecourt has gone viral. When the Jimmys got broken up, he was the hero of the hour, on all the news reports.

  Who Is This Mystery Boy?

  But no one knew. Or no one ’ud say. Of them that did know him, Virus were dead, Banks were dead, me father weren’t in any position to go talking, locked up as an evil Jimmy ringleader, and Grace were as solid as a rock. As for me? I kept me mouth shut.

  Only Barry blabbed about Digit really being Byron. So Social Services checked the Tenderness House records, and all they found were

  Blank Space.

  Turns
out you can’t find Byron Blank Space anywhere online either. Mr Virus helped wi’ that, I reckon.

  So the Citizen achieved his Total Disappearing Act, exactly as he’d always planned.

  Even so, I keep checking me Facebook page ’cos I’m sure that when he’s ready, one way or another, he’ll be in touch. No doubt bringing all kinds o’ trouble with him.

  It’s funny, in’t it? It turned out that Citizen Digit – Byron – was me best mate after all.

  And so the Good Citizen must take his final bow-wow, and leave you with clap-happy memories of the villainous getting force-fed their just desserts and the pure of heart getting their beans on toast.

  Not a search engine in the world can find Byron now. All you’ll get is YouTube footage of Visible Digit dancing on a service station forecourt, before vanishing into the ether.

  It was a wrench, naturellement, leaving behind the gorgeous Grace, but as the good books say: things to do, places to go. It may well be satisfaction for Alfi Kasparek to get his clod-hoppers under the table, and the family he always yearned for. But such a life ain’t for Lone Strangers such as myself. Not for Citizen Digit enforced schooldays five times a week, evening curfews, followed by student loans and a suit and tie-me-up desk job.

  After all, ain’t there new scams to be pulled and fresh purses to be lifted?

  And is it not the case that the Great Manager Virus kept his treasure trove of savings in a safebox of genuine inflammability? And when the evil monsterosity Jackson Banks met his Guy Fawkes on the road, that said life-savings remained unsinged on the flaming passenger seat next to him? And that, wrapping himself in his well-worn cloak of invisibility, the Master Storyteller and Rescuer of Young Awfuns returned to the cordoned off crime scene, and with all media eyes and Sherlock noses pointed in the direction of Tenderness House, his heart a-pounding to its own drumbeat, performed his Greatest, Most Stealthy Feat of Derring-Do since lifting that TV in Oxford Street’s broad, busy daylight?

  Surfing the heart-stomp. Wotta buzz.

  Yes, indeedly. For my story – spectacular marvellosity as it was – does not end here. Citizen Digit is back on the road. Where? That’s for you to guesstimate. To do what? You’re just going to have to wait and see.

  But believe this: when I do reappear, dearest reader, you will not see me coming.

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks are due – overdue – to my agent, James Catchpole. I feel like the luckiest writer in the land to have him as a creative partner and Man of Great Wisdom. I’m additionally lucky to have such a great team at Walker Books, in particular my editors Lucy Earley and Emily Lamm.

  Nobody Saw No One was inspired by my time as writer-in-residence for Dickens 2012, and I’d like to thank the Dickens 2012 team, especially Portsmouth’s then Head of Literature, Dom Kippin.

  I would like to warmly thank Arts Council South East and the National Lottery for a generous Grant for the Arts, which enabled me to complete this book, and get it right.

  STEVE TASANE is a writer and performance poet. He has been writer-in-residence at the V&A Museum of Childhood, the Dickens Bicentennial Celebrations and Maidstone United Football Club, as well as performing at Glastonbury, and on TV and radio.

  His debut novel for young adults, Blood Donors, was included in Seven Stories’ Diverse Voices list of the best children’s books celebrating cultural diversity from 1950 to the present day.

  Steve’s poetry and stories have been widely published in anthologies, including How To Be A Boy and the solo collection Bleeding Heart. He says, “Everything I’ve learnt in life – about People and Animals and Love and Hate – goes into what I write.”

  For more about Steve’s writing, including links to poems on YouTube, visit stevetasane.wordpress.com

  Other books by this author:

  Blood Donors

  PEOPLES KEEP DYIN’ IN THE FINGER, the scuzzie old tower block where they put us antisociable families. Authorities say it dirty smack goin’ round, but them bodies ain’t all users … an’ they look like they die screamin’.

  Marshall O’Connor the First lives in the Finger with his mum and li’l bro. His dad’s in prison, school kicked him out, and the bedbugs are drivin’ him crazy.

  True, Marsh got himself some issues. But it ain’t the drugs that peoples should be worryin’ about, ’cos them bloodsuckin’ bugs have grown some, and they ready for a bigger feed…

  “DISTINCTIVE, FRESH AND DECIDEDLY CREEPY”

  – GUARDIAN

  “NIGHTMARISH AND UTTERLY CONVINCING”

  – ANTHONY McGOWAN

  WINNER OF THE BRANFORD BOASE AWARD

  In a newspaper office, Paul Faustino, South America’s top sports journalist, sits opposite the man they call El Gato – the Cat – the world’s greatest goalkeeper. On the table between them stands the World Cup…

  In the hours that follow, El Gato tells his incredible life story – how he, a poor logger’s son, learns to become a World Cup-winning goalkeeper. And the most remarkable part of this story is the man who teaches him – the mysterious Keeper, who haunts a football pitch at the heart of the claustrophobic forest.

  “Mal Peet [takes] the football novel into a new league.”

  Guardian

  “A remarkable and absorbing story with football at its heart, but superb storytelling in its soul.”

  Branford Boase Award panel

  A boy drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments. He dies.

  Then he wakes, naked and bruised and thirsty, but alive.

  How can this be? And what is this strange, deserted place?

  As he struggles to understand what is happening, the boy dares to hope. Might this not be the end? Might there be more to this life, or perhaps this afterlife?

  From the multi-award-winning Patrick Ness comes one of the most provocative and moving novels of our time.

  “Patrick Ness is an insanely beautiful writer”

  John Green

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

  First published in Great Britain 2015 by Walker Books Ltd

  87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

  Text © 2015 Steve Tasane

  Cover image of male figure reflected in puddle © 2015 Karina Simonsen / Arcangel Images

  The right of Steve Tasane to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-4063-6459-0 (ePub)

  www.walker.co.uk