by Jane Davis
“Uh-uh. You got that back to front, man. Why d’you think she keeps on comin’ back? She likes to feel everything will fall apart without her. You should hear her go ‘Jim’s going to need this when they let him out.’ ‘I’m just recording a programme for Jim because he’ll be missing it.’ I’m warnin’ you, you got some majorly dull documentaries to watch. You’ll be wishin’ you was back in here. ‘I’ve made extra dinner and frozen it because Jim won’t be able to cook when he gets home.’”
“Stop it!”
Shamayal collected his things. ‘“Maybe I should redecorate my bedroom. Do you think Jim would prefer pea-green or ultra-violet?”’
Jim shook his head. As he closed his eyes and laughed, crow’s feet appeared at the corners of his eyes. That was better. Shamayal inserted his earphones, raising his voice over the top of Usher: Baby, let me. “You better start usin’ that wrinkle cream of yours again.” You make me wanna say, “Oh, oh, oh-oh, oh; oh, oh, oh-oh, oh; oh my gosh.”
Outside, the afternoon was bright, the paving slabs star-spangled with pigeon shit, dappled with shadows, the tarmac pock-marked. Shamayal couldn’t put it off any longer. His sense of being followed escalated as he walked towards Ralegh Grove, causing him to glance over his right shoulder.
“How you gonna protect me when you ‘fraida your own shadow?” his mamma used to ask, and, to prove her wrong - that he would always be her big brave man - he would stamp his foot as he came to a sudden halt and turn, threaten it with hands clasped into the gun of the Bond credits.
“You my hero,” she’d swoon.
He tried a zillion ways to catch his shadow out, but there it was with its shape-shifting trickery. Today it was behind him at a right angle, shortened, flat as roadkill. It wasn’t his own shadow that frightened him now. What happened to Christian, being hunted down: that’s what you’ve got to worry about.
Ayisha, he had been surprised to discover, liked to be frightened for fun. They were working their way through her back-catalogue of horror films, although she’d taken a lot of convincing to let him watch any 18s. She knew all the lines - “Oh, yes… there will be blood” - and she did this Count von Count vampire laugh - “Ah hah hah hah hah!” - whenever a baddy was on his way. She didn’t hide behind her fluffy cushions or bury her head in his shoulder, as he’d hoped. Matter a fact, she was well into her gore.
“Are you shocked?” she had asked, legs tucked up to one side. Posting popcorn into her mouth, her expression suggested she would have liked to shock him. And after one glass of wine, her face half-lit by the glow from the TV, she was hardly like a teacher at all. Definitely not like his mamma, nah-uh.
The image on the screen had made him nauseous. “Be-have! Trus’ me,” he lied. “Like I tol’ you, I’m about the most open-minded person you’ll ever meet.” Say it often enough, it might even become true.
A woman, whose hips were as wide as the double buggy she was steering, refused to swerve from a straight line down the centre of the pavement. Either he’s invisible or she must be one of those zombies. She was wearing what could be described kindly as a floaty top, unkindly as a tent. Her eyes were Shaun of the Dead dead. As she passed, she glanced a blow off his Adidas bag, packed with the clothes he wanted to exchange for fresh ones. Forced into the gutter, he couldn’t let it pass.
“Man! Are you for real?” He dipped his head, raising his right elbow and staring back through the triangle between bag and arm. A guy who was walking twenty yards behind him stopped, didn’t seem to know what to do with himself and then checked the sole of his shoe. That wasn’t in the instruction manual for following people. You were supposed to light a cigarette; duck behind a parked car. The man scraped his shoe on the kerb, and checked again. Did Christian see them coming for him? What you needed was eyes in the back of your head. A couple of minutes later Shamayal checked again. No sign of the guy. Looks like he may have genuinely stood in something. Don’t relax, you’re not there yet.
Immediately after Londis, Shamayal swung wide on a concrete bollard and passed a sign dictating, No Ball Games. Heinous crime, he thought, liking the comic-strip way the words sounded. His hands practised fists, clenching and unclenching like Iron Man. Red-brick fortresses rose on all sides, a city within a city. He tensed at the sound of a foot scraping. A scooter whizzed past - too close for comfort - powered by a pint-sized chariot-rider, all frilly ankle socks and sparkling sandals. Get me: scared witless of a five-year-old girlie!
A defiant football skittered. Shamayal trapped it under his right foot, scanned the car park and located a boy with one hand in the air. No danger there. They exchanged friendly nods.
“Yo! Chuck it over!”
Shamayal scooped the ball up; grinning. “Can’t you read, man?”
“Don’t give me all that.” The boy ambled across, extracting a spray can from the depths of a pocket and blasted it at the No. “Happy now?”
“Static.” Shamayal launched the ball overarm, then consulted his watch. His father would be sitting at the kitchen table, a fat silver chain hanging over his vest, necking one final sober-me-up Nescafe before the evening shift. Ten minutes and he would be gone. With time to kill, Shamayal decided to pay Bins a visit. Got to keep your options open, in case you need to move fast. Besides, he could give him an update on Jim; maybe convince him to pay a visit. Christ knows, Shamayal’s jaw was achin’ from playin’ the fool. He could do with some help. But he wasn’t sure Bins ever left his manor. An outcast who has convinced himself he belongs so completely, he thinks there’s no place for him on the outside. Perhaps he’s right. The world would chuck him right back, overarm.
Safe side, he rounded the corner of the block, waited. Last thing he wanted was for anyone to know where the old man lived. Shoe-scraper guy hadn’t followed. People with dogs really should clean up.
Bins opened the door inwards, eyes lighting up the way Shamayal knew his mamma’s would. “Stands for no crap!” He held up one hand with the palm flat. “Gimme five.”
“Yo, blood.” The boy obliged with an improvised five-point handshake, ending in a clenched fist. “You bin lookin’ after yourself?”
“Oh, yes.” The old man shuffled down the hall, shoulders hunched, the soles of his shoes flapping. “I’ve been taking care of business.”
The hall was lined with plastic bags full to overflowing, some tied with string.
Business! “If they don’t come round and collect your recycling, we should have us a likkle car boot sale.”
“I told you, it’s all -”
“I know, I know!” Shamayal held his hands up. “Hee-hee-hee. This is the stuff we agreed you need to keep.” He expelled air, then ran his tongue over his teeth. What was that taste?
Shamayal hesitated at the threshold of the first door he came to and, on instinct, opened it. It hit him: slap bang. What the -? No single smell was identifiable. It was all there: the baked-bean-digestive-biscuit-sour-milk-bile-piss-puke rotting stench. “Whoa!” He pulled the door to and breathed. “When was your living room claimed for landfill? I fought we cleaned up in there so you had space to sit down and watch telly.”
“I watched telly,” Bins blinked. “A pretty lady did the weather. She said it wouldn’t rain and then it did.”
Shamayal counted to three and pushed the door open again to assess the damage. The down-trodden brown carpet pile that had started life patterned with orange swirls was littered with crud: empty pizza boxes, polystyrene burger cartons, egg boxes, toilet roll innards, a chicken carcass, a half-eaten Pot Noodle and - Jesus, no! - was that a nappy bag? Here and there, items were grouped together as if mingling at a litter convention. Others were stashed on the floral cushions of the threadbare three-seater. The greater portion looked as if it had been tipped out of black bin-liners and left to lie. It was hard to take in. He couldn’t hold his breath any longer. Circumferencing his neck, Shamayal said, “We could use a likkle air.”
“Are you too hot?” Bins arrived behind him, eyes concerned
, senses immune. He was layered for outdoors in his uniform Fair Aisle cardigan with toggles for buttons, a tweed sports jacket and his once-beige raincoat. Standing with his hands in the small of his back, stomach pressed forward like a child’s, he gave no hint of self-consciousness.
“Swelterin’.” Shamayal picked a crooked path through the detritus, careful where he planted his feet. “Mind if I open a window?”
“Be my guest. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
The bellybutton-fluff lining the sill was studded with bluebottles reclining stiff-legged on their backs, like they had just keeled over. Shamayal had to force the yellowed glass with his palm, gulping down the fresh air before it could blend with the stale and putrid.
Those hours of careful negotiation and hard graft: wasted. Is this what it would always be like if he befriended the old guy? Where was the home help? Putting in her time-sheet and claiming the money, no doubt. It was all very well Teacher-Jim turnin’ round and sayin’ that Bins has decided how to live his life, but there should be a system to stop him choosing to live like this. Who says he wouldn’t be better off in a home? Shamayal’s mamma always said a bit of sewing was therapeutic. She was into her cross-stitch; used to make these little pictures. Teddy bears and old red telephone boxes - like a proper English lady. He would organise her different coloured threads when she got them tangled up, making a cardboard spool with notches cut into the ends.
Shamayal composed himself before facing Bins across the dishevelment. The old man was humming, his face serene. What might have emerged as anger came out as scorn: “You sure you got enough double-sided sticky tape for this lot? What are they makin’ on Blue Peter at the moment, anyhow? I mean, it must be something you need to get planning permission for.”
Seeing fear flash across the old man’s face, Shamayal felt bad. “Chill, man! I’s only foolin’ with you.” He loped over and clapped Bins on the arms as if to prove it. “See?”
Bin’s recovery was swift and complete. “Oh, very funny.” He double-punched Shamayal’s chest affectionately. “Bo-boom.”
“So seriously, man, what’s all this you been doin’?”
Clearly expecting the boy to share his delight, Bins’s expression told of enterprise and accomplishment. “Like it, eh? That’s my stocktaking. I’m putting it all in order.”
“Right, right,” Shamayal nodded, detecting no evidence of order.
“Starting over there -”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh.” His nostrils protested at the assault.
Bins pointed to a cardboard box, “- with Alpen.”
“It’s in alphabetical?” Bewildered, the boy blinked at the picture of the cereal bowl in front of the mountain.
“Course, I’m only up to ‘O’.”
“As in Oh my gosh.” Scanning the room, Shamayal’s eyes settled on an Oddbins carrier bag and the packaging from an Orange phone. He censored himself, using one hand as a gag. Index finger and thumb clenched his nostrils, warm breath moistening his palm. Sucking in and then releasing flesh, he felt like he was breathing through mechanical apparatus.
Bins pursed his lips to one side and his dirt-encrusted fingernails scratched the side of his troubled face. “My dear old mum always told me, ‘O is for Owl.”’
“True, true. Tell me, what you plannin’ on doin’ with this lot when you finished?”
“This here’s my recycling plant.”
Shamayal saw movement in one corner of the room. No doubt it was visitors of the furry variety.
Bins turned, as if suddenly remembering something that being a host demanded. He rubbed his hands together. “Tea? I’ve got a packet of pink wafers open…”
The thought of eating was repulsive. “To be completely honest with you,” Shamayal concocted the whitest lie, “I’m just on my way home, aren’t I? I fought I’d stop in and tell you how Jim’s gettin’ on.” The boy made barrels out of his hands and raised them to his eyes, as he’d seen Bins do. It was sign language. He got the high five; Jim, binoculars.
“Bird-watcher Jim?”
“That’s my man! You remember how he’s in hospital, don’t you?”
Bins appeared to be thinking. Behind one hand, his face took on a squashed appearance.
All the time, Shamayal was making his way towards the exit. “You’re havin’ me on now! I gotta watch out for you!”
Releasing his serious mask with an “Ah-ha!” Bins celebrated his triumph with a broad yellow-toothed grin.
“Well, he’s feelin’ much better now. Fact, now I come to think about it, we should go and see him together.” But, come to think about it, looking at Bins’s infantile-aged face, Shamayal wondered what Sophia would make of the string and safety pins that held his clothes together. Would a hygienic hand-wipe be any match for a walking germ-factory?
“Oh, I don’t know,” Bins mumbled nervously. “I’m very busy with my work.”
“Tell you what.” Walking backwards on his heels, a quick glance to his left and his right, Shamayal pointed to the old man who was standing in the doorway of his castle. “You get back to me.”
CHAPTER 28: JIM - AUGUST 1992 - RAILWAY SIDINGS
After two more mornings of waiting for Aimee to appear, Jim was forced to face facts: her father hadn’t bought the story about the bird-watching club. As an expert on excuses, he had to admit he wouldn’t have done either. Even things with an element of truth can sound less believable than a good lie. Trying to cure himself of loneliness, Jim told himself it would be like the old days: “No one else to worry about; no need to make stupid conversation; no need to admit you don’t know a whole lot about anything.” But it wasn’t the same. Jim was changed. He had thought he liked being on his own, but there was no joy being down by the railway line. No buzz at the thought of trespassing. The whole thing had been tainted by the killing of the owl - and the fear that Nick now knew where to find him.
On the third day, a Sunday, workmen claimed the track, springing into action the week before the start of the new school year. No doubt, they’d insist that engineering works had overrun, when they’d had a good five weeks to make a head start. At home, the restless feeling in the pit of Jim’s stomach made it impossible to sit still.
“Ants in your pants?” his mother asked, slapping the leg that swung in a wide arc. She was reading an article on How to Discover the Real You! (which apparently involved several trips to the gym, a quick haircut and changing into a skirt) as she waited for the theme tune to the Eastenders Omnibus.
“Bored.”
“Only boring people get bored.” She licked the end of one finger and made two attempts at scooping up the corner of the page. “What about your other owl? Any sign of him?”
“Nothing since the night of the shooting.”
His mother smiled weakly. “I expect he’s been frightened off, poor thing.”
With nothing to keep him indoors, he planted his feet and launched himself up from the sofa.
Jean raised her eyebrows. “Where are you off to?”
To find answers, he thought to himself. “Out,” he told her, one hand already on the door handle.
“Not like that, you’re not! The whole world doesn’t want to see your underpants! Pull your jeans up.”
“But -”
“Don’t try telling me it’s fashion! They’re hardly Calvin Kleins. I can see the BHS logo from here.”
“Fine,” he sulked.
Jim held his face up to catch the early evening sun’s lazy warmth. Give it a couple of weeks and it would be dusk by this time. The younger lads were still out playing: weaving figures of eights with the wheels of their bikes; riding the kerbs on skateboards, Bill and Ted haircuts and matching vocabulary.
“How’s it going, Dude?”
Sounds of scraping gravel reached him.
“To me! To me!” one lad yelled at a couple with a ball.
A bounce. A ricochet.
“Unlucky!”
Girls sat in self-contained groups, treat
ing little sisters like dolls with hair to be plaited. That sly look was already creeping into their expressions. Glances were thrown towards the boys, some practising how to flirt, others mocking.
“You alright, Jim?” one asked from under the pink plastic peak of a baseball cap. He removed it to identify the speaker. Instead of jumping up and chasing him as she would have done a year ago, Kylie shook out her blonde hair and leaned back on her arms. The word babe was emblazoned in glitter across her silver top.
“Sound, Kylie. You?” He replaced the cap on her head.
“You tell me,” she said, pushing her tiny chest out even further, causing an eruption of giggles.
Jim found it unnerving. Why would she even think an eleven-year-old boy would be attracted to an eight-year-old? “Sorry ‘bout your top.” He threw her a casual glance over his shoulder as he ambled off. “You must be gutted it shrank.”
She stood up to shout, “What do you know about fashion, Bird-boy?” but she tugged at the hem self-consciously. “Freak!”
“Kylie!” A gruff voice hollered from a second floor window. Jim looked up to see a beer gut in string-vest cladding lean over the balcony. “Get your arse inside, young lady! NOW!”
Jim sauntered on. Leaning on the bridge, the railway snaking in front of him, he watched the sun creeping towards the trees and rooftops, edging the clouds in pink. “Pink sky at night, gas works alight,” his granddad would have said. Tomorrow was going to be another fine day. Shame he’d have no one to share it with.
His feet seemed to have decided on their route: down the bunny run to the back of Aimee’s house. He slid aside plywood panels slotted into the charred fence and stalked a path among leafy shrubs and blackened ruins, crouching down in a place where he would be safely out of sight until it grew dark. Curtains not yet drawn, the downstairs lights were already switched on. The full-length windows provided a doll’s house view. Through the binoculars, he observed the family. Seated around the dining room table, heads bowed, cutlery in motion. Since Jim’s view of Aimee was partly blocked by her mother, he trained his vision on Mrs White, noticing that she didn’t once lift her eyes to her husband’s face.