by Jane Davis
After a while, Aimee’s mother started to clear the table and Aimee left the room, disappearing into the hall. Jim watched Mrs White load the dishwasher. She moved as if programmed to perform designated tasks, deliberately but without enthusiasm. All this time, Aimee’s father sat, staring at the table. Reading, Jim presumed. When Aimee’s mother brought him a drink he barely acknowledged her, but as soon as she left the room he stood, ear to the door leading to the hallway. Then, he turned and opened the French windows.
Minutes passed before Jim dared breathe. Aimee’s father had sat down on a garden chair. Raising the packet to his mouth, he took a cigarette between his lips and lit up, then closed his eyes. The cat approached him, mewing softly.
“Puss, puss.” He leaned forwards and lowered one hand, rubbing his fingers together. The cat - Tomsk was the name Aimee had used - arched its back and pressed against his trouser leg. Aimee’s father tapped his lap twice. Tomsk crouched on his haunches like a coiled spring and then leapt. He turned, tail brushing Aimee’s father’s chin, before settling like a mother hen, one paw either side of a knee for balance. Aimee’s father winced, shuffling in his seat. In terms of luck, Jim assessed, things could go either way. A cat on his lap reduced the odds of Aimee’s father venturing down the garden, but he wouldn’t be going anywhere fast. With no option but to remain crouched on the balls of his feet, pins and needles that had merely prickled now shot up towards his knees. At the very moment his discomfort was becoming unbearable, rescue came in the form of a shout: “Martin! Your programme’s starting!”
Mr White tensed, glancing over his shoulder. “Be with you in a minute, love,” he shouted back, took one last luxurious drag, dropped the cigarette and ground it into the patio. The cat was squeezed sideways off his lap as Aimee’s father bent down to retrieve the stub, removing the evidence. He extracted a mouth spray from an inside pocket, used the statutory three squirts and then breathed on his hand, smelling his reflected breath. One more for good measure, he stood. “Coming in, puss?”
Tomsk snubbed him.
“Suit yourself,” he shrugged, closing the door behind him.
Aimee’s bedroom was illuminated. Jim counted to twenty, and then stamped his feet until the pins and needles reduced to a slight tingling. Picking up a few stones, he weighed each one by hand, stowing them in his jacket pocket. Head up, knees bent, hands low, he edged towards the house, closing the gap in fits and starts; eyes trained all the time on the hallway.
He stopped just shy of the patio, where a shrub-filled border would provide cover if needed. Misjudging the distance, he launched the first stone. It clattered down the roof of the veranda. He froze and waited. Nothing. He selected a heavier stone. This time, it hit the edge of the glass, but there was no movement inside. He followed it in quick succession with a third and fourth. An outline appeared at the window. Aimee opened the window and, leaning out, looked about blindly.
“Is that you?” she hissed, her voice shaky.
Jim stood up. “Are you alright?” he spoke only as loudly as he thought was safe.
She located him via his voice. “Jim? You didn’t need to come!” Her mood seemed to change, her voice suggesting she was glad he had.
“Thought you’d seen the last of me, did you?”
She was grinning. “Bugger off before my dad catches you!”
“When are you coming out?”
“I’m grounded.”
“For how long?”
“Forever, I think!”
“Your parents must leave you on your own sometimes. Try to get out! You know where to find me.”
He turned to go.
“Jim!” she called out after him.
He turned back.
“I’m sorry,” she called out.
There were two things she might have meant. Dropping him in it by telling her father about his brother, or lying about the candles. She’d had no business taking it on herself to decide about the owl’s funeral. Jim had opened his mouth to tell her so when she said, “I know, I should have told you. But it was a spur of the moment thing.”
Floored by her honesty, her tone of voice, any anger he felt dissipated. It had been a grand gesture, risky too. Better than anything he might have planned, in fact. He just would have liked to have seen it. “How did it look?”
“You got your twenty-five pounds worth.”
“Did you do the words again like we agreed?”
“I did.”
He dismissed thoughts of the Game Boy that he had intended to save up for, using his birthday money. “Next time, don’t keep it to yourself!”
“What next time?”
“Next time you fancy setting fire to things.” He looked around him. “The shed?” he suggested, grinning.
Before slipping between the plywood boards, Jim paused. Aimee was still standing at the window. Her silhouette had two raised hands. She was resting her forehead against the pane. Thinking she was waving, he waved back.
CHAPTER 29: SHAMAYAL - AUGUST 2010 - RALEGH GROVE
“Oi! Schmail!”
Shamayal heard his name deliberately mispronounced. Rhymes with snail. An annoyance at primary school, now it made his legs go cold. Heart banging, he ambled slowly through 180 degrees, hands dug deep in pockets. He looked at the older boy - no one he knew - and threw his head back. “Bro,” he said, standard issue greeting.
The boy standing there could have been a ghost-maker, someone who gets paid for doing dirty work, in which case he couldn’t be there unless the Ralegh Boyz said it was OK. Shamayal thought of all the times they’d offered him protection - “You got to ask yourself, when the shit hits the fan, who’s gonna cover your back?” - and he had turned the Ralegh Boyz down.
“You had us worryin’ ‘bout you.” Shamayal didn’t like the familiarity. He liked the plural even less. Us has implications. “You ain’t bin around.”
“Got myself a holiday job, haven’t I?” He hoped his paint-streaked jeans would fill in the gaps, provide a distraction from his trembling voice.
“Yeah?” The boy shook his head dubiously. “Your old man din’t say nuffin ‘bout no job.”
Oh, he means business. “My ol’ man? You can’t take him too serious, f’you know what I mean. Spends half his time off of his face.” Now that he was talking, it seemed he couldn’t stop.
Another boy jumped down from a wall. Shamayal’s mouth dried up, as quick as that. Light on those feet, Shamayal assessed number two guy’s build, light and fast. Maybe the first was only the messenger. That’s it. Number one will probably be off now...
A single drop escaped from one armpit, trickled down his torso. Any minute.
The tip of a trainer arrived around the side of the block. Just a trainer, but aggressively yellow. Shamayal felt a dredging in his bowels. Number three boy only had to pivot into view. Taller, broader, he stood feet wide apart, arms crossed.
Three against one. Shamayal didn’t fancy his odds. Evolution demanded he made a choice: fight or flight. Adrenalin encouraged, Get the fuck outta here. But running tends to give the unfortunate impression of guilt. Unlike Christian, who must have known exactly what rules he was breaking, Shamayal’s sense of justice insisted, You have nothing to feel guilty about, man.
“What’s up?” He hoped that the hammering of heart against ribcage was concealed inside his jacket. Looking at the American-footballer build of the geezer (those weren’t no shoulder-pads) Shamayal had to ask himself if rules were going to apply. He tried to swallow but his mouth had issued a drought warning. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time could get you mashed up. Looking like the guilty guy could get you shot.
“We bin hearin’ things we don’t like the sound of.”
“‘Bout me? I don’t know what you can of heard.” Shamayal focused every ounce of attention on keeping his voice even and low, forcing it out through this narrow tube that used to be his throat. “I bin keepin’ myself to myself.”
Boy two consulted his burly mate. “
That’s not wot we woz told, izzit?”
One of American footballer’s eyebrows was razor cut. He scrolled up his top lip to show off gold incisors. “That ain’t the story that reached me.”
They all had their hands thrust forwards into the pockets of their hoodies. Pockets that could have had anything hiding in them.
“No?” It was the squeak of his voice breaking that Shamayal hoped he had left behind. The sweat he could smell was his own. Trying to calm himself, he visualised them breaking into some mean MTV dance move - Old School, like Jay Z. They would make one bad-ass boy band. Truth was, the best he could hope for was someone appearing at the end of the gap between the two buildings. Maybe a mother pushing a pram. Maybe Bins. Fuck knows, he could do with a guardian angel.
“Our people heard you’ve bin talkin’ to the wrong kinda people.”
If there was still any doubt about who they represented, that cleared it up. Course they were hired hands. You don’t go showin’ your own face. Enforcers have a reputation for enjoying their work. The fact that they get paid, that’s a bonus.
“Our people heard you’ve been helpin’ certain people with their enquiries.”
This was the point where disagreeing wouldn’t do. Teacher-Jim talked about choice of language, adapting to your surroundings. Here, nothing less than the right words would hit it. “I fink I see what your people might of heard.” They came in a rush. He couldn’t slow them down; he could only make them sound surly. “The pigs aksed me, same as they aksed everyone else who was there, but I din’t say nuffin. There was nuffin to say because I din’t see nuffin. And you can’t say nuffin if you don’t see nuffin.” Jesus! Think what you’re saying, boy!
“You expect us to believe that crock?”
They were still, too still, like a pack of lions before the kill. You didn’t have to have seen too many wildlife documentaries to have a good idea how this was going to end.
“Like I told ‘em, time I arrived, he was jus’ lyin’ there.”
“That’s wot you told ‘em?” There was nodding, as if the possibility of him telling them just this, and only this, was plausible. Shamayal wondered for one glorious moment if he might actually convince them, but there was one problem: he knew Mr American Football didn’t give a shit what he had or hadn’t said. He’d get his money either way.
“If I had said something -”
“So you did see somefink.” Fact.
Bo-boom. Shamayal had slipped up. “N-not if they aks me -”
“See, from what you’re turnin’ round and sayin’, I’m not sure you can be relied on to get your story straight.”
“I’m wonderin’ if you need to be tutored, see?”
You can still turn it around. “I’m just tryin’ to show you, man: I got your peoples’ backs covered. All a them.”
“Well, that’s very reassurin’.”
“But they’d be more reassured if you hadn’t bin visitin’ your teacher-friend in hospital. Because, word is, he’s still talkin’.”
Shamayal nodded, seriously. “Is he, is he? Now that I din’t know.” Could he be held responsible for what someone else said?
“And if you’ve been talkin’ to him… well, it makes it very hard for us.”
It seemed he could. “True, true. But I haven’t -”
“I knew you’d understand.” Wide-stance-boy turned to his those-ain’t-no-shoulder-pads friend. “I told you he’d understand, din’t I?”
Shamayal understood. He understood only too well. He should have ran while he had the chance.
CHAPTER 30: JIM - AUGUST 1992 - RALEGH GROVE
Jim’s twelfth birthday arrived without fanfare. He padded into the kitchen scratching his neck, finding the table laid with an unwelcoming mug of cold tea and a plate of toast with a scraping of Marmite, an envelope tucked underneath the rim of the plate. The message was clear: brown for business. Ripping it open, Jim leafed through the three notes inside: twenty-five pounds. The lack of a card and other niceties reminded him he wasn’t off the hook. Nothing appeared to have arrived in the mail. “Cheers, Dad.”
He stirred the tea to break the wrinkled skin and slammed the mug in the microwave.
“No card! Birthday money I have to give away!” Waiting for the ping, he stared out of the window into the grey: the first rain for days. “Great! Not even the chance of a game of footie.”
When Jim was little and it rained on a Saturday, his granddad would take him swimming, winking, “We can’t get any wetter.” Jim wasn’t a good swimmer. You could spot him a mile off. Follow the trail of white foam and he’d be splashing away at the front. “You put the ‘dog’ into doggy paddle,” was the old man’s assessment. He let Jim put his arms around his neck and hang off his back. He’d been in good shape for a man in his sixties, a lifetime of labouring etched into his muscles. It was the closest Jim came to flying. If Granddad had still been alive there would have been a card and a present, and he would have made sure that a rainy birthday wasn’t a complete write-off.
Jim imagined the inverted pyramid of kisses Aimee would have written under her name in a card. He decided to get the business of the day over and done with. Who knows? Once Mr White had his money, there was a slim chance he’d let Aimee off the hook. Because money was the issue, wasn’t it? They might be able to go somewhere. Of course, Jim wouldn’t actually tell Aimee it was his birthday. She’d think he was turning thirteen, when, really, he was a good two years younger than her. But who doesn’t imagine being made a fuss of?
As soon as the rain eased, he headed out. In need of a friendly face, Jim scanned the part of the estate known as ‘out the back’. Even Bins, who always dressed for bad weather, was nowhere to be seen. Puddle-filled craters reflected the small amount of sunlight that had managed to filter through the clouds. Imagining his granddad’s, “It’s trying,” Jim said out loud, “Yeah? Not hard enough!”
The swish of wet tyres accompanied Jim across the bridge as he trudged, head down, towards Durnsford. He considered posting the envelope and making a quick getaway, but part of him saw the opportunity to show Aimee’s father he was someone who could be trusted. Perhaps Aimee would answer the front door and he could at least say hello. Jim reached up to knock and then stepped back, straightening his shirt. He heard the quick approach of footsteps: chin up, sarcasm at the ready. But it was Cyborg woman who opened the door. She looked beyond his shoulder, as if expecting to see someone else.
“I’ve come to give this to your husband.” Jim showed her the envelope, no intention of letting it out of his grip.
Her voice was impatient. “I’m sorry, do we know you?”
“I’m Jim,” he announced as importantly as he could. “Friend of Aimee’s.”
“You’d better come in. Martin!” She shouted up the stairs. “Someone called Jim here to see you!” Loud enough for Aimee to hear, he expected her head to appear over the banisters. But, with Mrs White staring at him intently, Jim realised he’d been mistaken thinking of her as uncaring. Something was wrong. “Have you seen my daughter?” she softened.
“Isn’t she grounded?” he asked.
Face crumpling, she raised the back of one hand to her mouth, dropping onto the bottom step. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?” He heard his own stupid-sounding question, as if there could be any other meaning.
She nodded, hand still in place. “We’ve phoned around all her friends. Most of them haven’t heard from her for weeks. Martin says she’s been out all day, every day. He thinks she’s joined a -” A look of bewilderment clouded her face. “- a bird-watching club.”
“That’s how we met,” Jim nodded, although he had little reassurance to offer. “But she hasn’t been around these last few days.”
A heavy hand slapped the banister, lifting and falling ahead of each laboured step. Jim was struck by the same claustrophobic feeling he had experienced at the time of his last visit. Did you tell your mother it was your brother who shot the owl? Brown leather brogues
paused, then walked slowly down the remainder of the flight. With one hand squeezing her shoulder, Mr White edged around his wife. “I see you’ve told him,” he said gently, and she responded with the briefest of nods.
Neither seemed prepared or able to volunteer more. “When did you say you found she was missing?” he asked, knowing full well Mrs White hadn’t said.
Aimee’s mother pushed herself to her feet, her hair falling forwards and covering her face in the same way that her daughter’s did. “When I went to wake her this morning. Her bed hasn’t been slept in.”
“She’s run away?” he asked.
Aimee’s mother made a choking noise in her throat and leaned against her husband. “She hasn’t taken anything with her.”
As Jim tried to absorb this information, her father said firmly, “We’re giving her time to calm down and come home. Chances are she just needs some space.”
Mrs White bit down on her bottom lip.
“Did she leave a note?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Just a couple of books on top of her bed. Poems and a notebook of some sort.”
Jim tensed. They were what Aimee always kept with her. He asked himself why she wouldn’t have taken them with her if she’d run away. Maybe - just maybe - it was a message. Aimee was out there looking for him!
Reading his face, Aimee’s mother clutched Jim’s arm. “Do you know where she might be? If there’s anything you can think of…” she wavered. “Anything!”
“This is for you.” Jim pressed the envelope firmly into Mr White’s hand. “It’s the money I owe you.” He watched it disappear, disappointed that, even with his daughter missing and wife distraught, the man wasn’t prepared to forget his so-called principles. What was twenty-five pounds to someone like him?
“Let us know as soon as you hear from her,” he said, and Jim felt guilty. Perhaps the money wasn’t worthy of mention because it was so insignificant compared with his wife and daughter. “Let us know she’s safe.”