by Jane Davis
“No sense of community round here anymore.” Something cellophane-wrapped was extracted from an inside pocket, conveyed in a closed fist. “Brixton’s finest.”
Ben held his cigarette packet open. “That’ll do nicely.”
“I said I’d never set foot here again, didn’t I?” Nick’s appearance was ruffled, a nocturnal creature out of its comfort zone. His baseball cap was pulled low, his eyes just visible enough for Jim to note that the wild look had retreated.
“So, what are you doing back?” the younger boy asked.
“You cocky bastard! I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the old man.”
The cogs turned slowly. The family business. Jim backed off, the childhood myth that featured brother as hero trampled. “You were in it together!”
“Keep it down, will you!” Nick grabbed his elbow, steering him round the corner of the block. “What do they know?” he demanded, halting sharply.
Jim shook the hand off his arm. “No one’s been around. I got home. Dad was gone. End of.”
“You sure?”
“I haven’t seen anyone. Unless you count Mrs O’Keefe.”
“How come?” Nick’s face was close. Several days’ growth littered his chin.
“Mum was taken bad, wasn’t she?” Jim then realised that his mother must have reached the same conclusion before him. Little wonder she’d spent two days on hunger strike.
“So, what will you say if you’re asked when you last saw me?”
Jim squared up to his brother, keen to hear what Nick had to say for himself. “I’ll say I haven’t seen you since that night down by the tracks.”
A couple of girls’ giggling faces appeared around the corner but, on seeing the pair of them lock-eyed, decided better of it.
His brother’s eyebrows travelled down and up, then he reached inside his pocket. “I didn’t think I’d have to pay you to keep your gob shut, you little shite.” He peeled a tenner from a wad of limp notes.
“That’s only what you already owe me.” Wanting distance, Jim put two hands up at chest height. “To think I used to look up to you.” Then he turned on his heels, his brother hurling a stream of abuse after him. Sticks and stones. He could play at that game. “Mum didn’t have any choice when she chucked you out. You’re bang out of order!”
Striding over a speed bump, Jim almost tripped over Stef.
“Jim!” the boy called out, sounding elated. “Got my danger money sorted.”
“Yeah?” Jim said without stopping, trainers kicking up loose tarmac. “Who’s going to give a shit when you’re dead?”
Hearing bass vibrations, Jim glanced back in time to see a Ford Fiesta screech around the corner, the shadowy peaks of five baseball caps nodding.
“Stef!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Car!”
Music thumped closer. His eardrums vibrated boom, boom boom-boom to Rhythm is a Dancer, the summer’s big hit spinning the air with positive messages. Two stiff armed girls bent at the waist, lifting their hands in a robotic dance. A third snaked her arms overhead, singing the melody.
The boy didn’t react. “Get up, you eejit!” Using his foot as a brake, Jim changed direction and broke into a sprint. He threw himself into the path of the vehicle. Five heads fell forwards, arms flying to soften the blow, hands leaving fingerprints on glass. When Jim dared open his eyes, he was bent over the bonnet. The driver had stuck his head out of the open window and was yelling: “If you’ve dented my motor, you’re fucking dead, Bird-boy!”
Backing off, Jim kept one hand raised. He hauled Stef up, speaking through gritted teeth. “Trying to get us both killed?”
Seeing this, the driver threw open the car door. “Christ’s sake, man!” He thrust one foot out. “What d’you think you’re playing at, bro’?”
Breaking free, Stef turned to jab the index fingers of both hands sharply upwards. “Fuck you both sideways!”
“Oi, wash your mouth out! Where’s your bleeding manners?”
“And you, Stevens!” Stef ran backwards. “You owe me my danger money!”
“Little fucker!” The driver spat, acting shocked at the boy’s nerve. “Should’ve left him where he was.”
Jim wanted nothing more than to go home. He slammed the door of his flat on the world outside.
“That you already?” Jean called out from the living room, “I thought footie was forty-five minutes each way.”
He flopped down next to her on the sofa. “Nothing much doing. What’s on?”
She tapped his knee distractedly. “A film: Beaches.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s a weepy. This woman’s dying of cancer, only her friend doesn’t know it yet.”
A groan escaped from Jim.
“Don’t ruin it! If you don’t want to watch you can go and make me a cuppa.”
For some reason even Jim couldn’t understand, that sent him storming out of the room, too stubborn to emerge from his bedroom even when the smell of bacon wafted through the keyhole.
CHAPTER 18: JIM - AUGUST 2010 - ST HELIER HOSPITAL
A West African orderly whose plastic nametag identified her as Imelda had Jim’s bicep trapped in an armband of pressurised air. A vein throbbed its protest as yet more air pushed it to capacity. Just when he thought it would burst, the pillow began to deflate.
“How’s it looking?” he asked as the air hissed slowly, forcing itself out.
“Hang on,” Imelda said, dipping her head at the digital numbers. “Hang on… there! Not so bad.” She recorded the result on a digital keypad. “If you didn’t keep yourself fit, you’d be feelin’ a whole lot worse.”
“We’ll go running together once I’m out.”
Her scornful look said I don’t know about that! Jim wasn’t convinced he would be up to it either. For someone entered in the Wimbledon half-marathon in just two weeks’ time, he should have been planning his final training runs. He wasn’t used to inactivity but already, muscles wasting away, Jim could understand its appeal. He would have to dig deep for the motivation to start from scratch again. Those painful walk-jog-sprint-jog-walk-jog-sprint sessions.
Joyce from next door was yelping for help again. Imelda sighed knowingly. “Poor, lonely old soul just after a bit of attention. How you feelin’ otherwise? Is there much pain?”
He attempted to shrug.
“Think you can handle it, Mister Have-a-go Hero? Look at that!” She mused, picking up his newspaper. “Nice picture of you on the front cover today.”
It was a graduation photograph that had appeared in the local paper. The Comet must have kept it on file. “They captured my good side.”
“And who have we here?” She raised her voice, addressing someone in the corridor. “You there! You lost?”
Shamayal’s head appeared over Imelda’s shoulder, twisting from side to side. “I’m lookin’ for Jim Stevens.”
“Congratulations. You just found him.”
“Come to see you, din’t I?” The boy’s stance was awkward, his face saying Barely recognised you; his feet saying Not sure I want to be here. “It’s thirsty work trackin’ you down. All them corridors look the same. And man, the noise! Have they stuck you in a lunatic asylum or somethink?”
Jim identified the kitbag slung over Shamayal’s shoulder as his own. There were two white envelopes in the boy’s hand. “Imelda, this is Shamayal. He’s the one who saved my life.”
“I like to think it’s been a team effort,” Imelda said curtly, sniffing. “How’s your bowel movements?”
Jim accepted he’d asked for that. Here, everything was reduced to basics. His roommates got considerable mileage out of discussing the side-effects of codeine - with each other, with visiting family members, in fact, with anyone who was prepared to listen. “Fine,” he said.
“Those laxatives must be doing the trick.” She dispensed meds in a small paper cup. “I’ll leave you and your friend to it.”
“Bit personal, innit?” Shamayal approached th
e bed after Imelda had moved on to her next victim.
Jim strained to look around the dividing curtain towards the door. “Are you here by yourself?”
“Ayisha’s down in the shop, in’t she?”
He was appreciative of his colleague’s tact, the opportunity for a few moments alone with the boy.
“She said they don’t give visitors no drinks here. Man, this place is like an oven! I need some air.” Fingering his collar, Shamayal ambled towards the open window. Rather than address the relatively mild-mannered Imelda, he picked on Sophia. “Whoa! These radiators are on full blast. Haven’t you lot heard of global warming?”
Thankfully, he appeared to have caught her in a docile mood. “We have.” Clipboard in hand, Sophia sighed a bored sigh. “We just don’t give two hoots.”
Jim noticed that Shamayal’s accent was more pronounced. “All them superbugs will be busy breedin’ in the heat.”
“Oh, they’ll be up to no good alright - if you marched them in with you.” She waddled past, her hip grazing Shamayal - deliberately, Jim suspected. Seeing the boy recoil, the nurse paused to inflict further torment. “Hey, why don’t you take off your jacket and your hat, Mr Know-it-all? I wouldn’t want you to pass out.”
Shamayal abandoned the kitbag on the floor, peeled his jacket off and sat, the plastic cushion emitting the sound of escaping air. “Is she always such a bitch?”
“I can still hear you! Mr Stevens, if you don’t ask your friends to be polite, I tell Cook to serve your chicken raw.”
The boy shot up, staring into the empty soup-bowl left over from lunch, lips parted in disbelief.
“Take it easy. She’s joking with you.”
“Well she shouldn’t, should she?” He rearranged his wounded shoulders, unaware that the nurse was only inches away.
“She’s a pussycat.”
“Yeah, but what kind of pussycat am I?” The question came from behind the curtain.
Jim raised his voice. “You’re a lioness, Sophia.”
Shamayal tightened his mouth as he acknowledged that a fast one had been pulled, then took advantage of his elevated position to examine his teacher’s face. “So, you’re… you know.”
There was only one hero as far as Jim was concerned. “I’m alive - thanks to you.”
“Hah!” Confusion darkened the boy’s eyes as he realised that Jim was absolutely sincere. “I just did what you told me.”
“And if you hadn’t - or if you’d listened to Miss Emmanuel! - I wouldn’t be here now.”
“What’s that?” Flushed and flustered, Ayisha appeared at the foot of the bed and Jim was struck by the sheen of her long silky hair. She was holding two red-capped water bottles and had a newspaper tucked under one arm. He wondered if she was there as a friend or a messenger - whether she had telephoned Mr Peel - but her deep brown eyes gave nothing away.
“I was just telling Shamayal that, if it wasn’t for the two of you, I’d be down in the basement,” he said.
Rather than react, Ayisha held one of the water bottles out to Shamayal. She used her free hand to remove the newspaper, looking angry to see that Jim already had a copy, as if he should have known she would bring him one.
“You look different, Jim.” Shamayal’s eyes darted towards Ayisha, as if he knew the Jim was a slip.
Glaring straight ahead towards the corridor, she leaned against the wall and folded her arms. Her hips were pushed forwards, her jeans tight all the way to her ankles where the denim gathered above towering heels. Of course she’d made the call. What choice would she have had? Jim’s eyes drifted to the door expecting to see Mr Peel, but no one was there.
“I don’t know about that. I managed to shave.” He jutted out his chin for inspection but Ayisha was still pre-occupied. Everything about her was petite and pert and disciplined. Completely unintentionally, he suspected, she had displayed her covered body to full advantage.
She must have felt his eyes on her. Ayisha started arranging fruit in a bowl on the bedside cabinet. Like most visitors, she seemed to have decided that the rule about not bringing food-parcels was there to be ignored. Strange that she was so confident about which rules to take and which to leave.
“What?” she asked, a tangerine suspended in her hand.
With sweet-smelling citrus invading his nostrils, Jim decided against embarrassing her by informing her of the purpose of the bowl. Plenty more where that one came from. “Nothing.”
Clearly, Ayisha thought she had detected criticism. Silver bracelets jangled as she extended one arm. “Pass me the bag, Shamayal. There’s room in the cabinet for Jim’s clothes.”
Bending down, the boy unzipped the kitbag. He groped around inside and pulled out several books, piling them on the table. Jim recognised his notebook, a pencil case, but the lined pad wasn’t his. “You brought my drawing things!”
“You’re lucky.” Ayisha’s arm dipped as she received the bag. “Shamayal knew his way around.”
Jim wondered how he should react - if at all - but the boy was speaking: “I’ve bin keepin’ track for you.”
“Oh?” Jim asked.
Embarrassed, the boy opened the lined pad at the first page to reveal several childlike drawings of a nondescript bird. Arrows pointed to various body parts, labelled: beak, yellow; head, black. The entry was dated and timed and the words out the kitchen window were underlined. “Hey, I tol’ you I ain’t no artist. I just worry that the RSPB’s gonna fall apart without you. Miss, I bet you never knew Jim’s a spy.”
“He keeps a lot of things very quiet.” She raised her eyebrows - sarcasm.
Jim’s eyes fell away to the page that Shamayal was holding up for him. In the space of three attempts there was clear improvement. He found his throat constricted as he tried to say, “You did this for me?”
The boy’s face reshaped itself with pleasure. “Here. You have it.”
Jim felt a dip on the mattress next to him. “Well,” Ayisha said, her voice suggesting she was impressed. He received the point of one elbow and said nothing. “Even I know what that is: it’s a magpie.”
The two of them chatting over him, Jim experienced cold foreboding. One for sorrow, the old saying went. He had been here before.
CHAPTER 19: JIM - AUGUST 1992 - RALEGH GROVE
“Morning.” Jim caught a yawn in his fist as he shuffled into the kitchen, bare feet slapping on cold lino.
“So we’re talking again, are we?” His mother referred to the previous night’s performance, but she hummed as she cascaded cornflakes into a bowl and thumped it down on the table.
He was ninety-nine per cent sure she knew Nick was in on it with his father. The one per cent’s worth of doubt meant he couldn’t say anything. He wondered if she was thinking the same, except that her version would be: He worshipped his brother. It would kill him if he ever found out.
Mumbling what was intended to be an apology, Jim slumped into a chair and poured milk through a hole punched in the foil cap. He turned his focus to what he had to do today. Only yesterday he’d convinced himself that Aimee liked him. But really, what was there to like? His life could have provided the plot for an episode of Eastenders. They’d been mugged by his own brother; his father - not an unemployed salesman as he’d let her believe - had been arrested for robbery. And now, the latest: “Get this: my dad and my brother were in on it together.”
If Aimee hung around with him much longer, his luck would rub off on her. It didn’t take a boffin to spell it out. A girl like her should be taking piano lessons, going horse riding, or memorising her favourite lines from one of those dead authors she obsessed about. He would have to lay down the law: “Today’s the last day. After that, you’ve got to find yourself another hobby.”
“Did Ben say something that upset you, love?” Jean probed as she filed cereal packets in a head-height cupboard.
“No.” Spoon collided with front teeth as Jim shovelled. Why must parents ask these questions?
“Slow down! You
haven’t got a train to catch.”
He crunched exaggeratedly, moving his head from side to side in demonstration. One of his legs began to swing in protest at this show of obedience. Even if Ben had said something - his foot skimmed the floor - he couldn’t tell his mum because she would make things ten times worse by having it out with Ben’s mother, trying to cover up for Frank. And he would have to go along with whatever unlikely story Jean had spun, or call her a liar.
“If he did, you’re going to have to rise above it -”
“Nothing happened, Mum!” Jim insisted through a mouthful of masticated corn.
“So there’s nothing for me to worry about.” Her smile curt, Jean rinsed suds from the bowl she had been washing. “Off out today?”
“Bird-watching.”
“Where does that take you?”
“Oh, you know.” Deliberately vague, Jim glanced at his mother who appeared to be putting a lot of thought into drying the webbed skin between her fingers. Although Jean approved of his hobby, she had no inkling it required trespassing on British Rail’s property.
The seven fifteen rumbled past, rearranging the contents of the cutlery drawer.
“That’s me!” Jean retrieved her handbag, pausing to give Jim one of those looks where smiling is accompanied by quick-fire blinking. He was one step away from being smothered. “Back to normal. You won’t mind only having your mum for company, will you?”
Batting away the hand that was poised to ruffle his hair, Jim growled, “Gerroff.”
She sighed. “Lock up after yourself, won’t you?”
Finding himself alone in the flat was strange rather than liberating. All about him, the day was coming to life, sounds travelling at volumes unrelated to proximity: an argument, coming to its peak, was bouncing off the walls of the stairwell; a washing machine clattered into the spin cycle; in the gaps between a baby’s screams the muted blah-blah-blah of the news and weather seeped through the woodchip wallpaper; someone was expelling an extended Ahhhhh as they released a stream of piss, punctuated by several false endings. It was hardly Who will Buy? from Oliver his mother had made him watch for the millionth time last Christmas.