by Jason Beech
“Not now.” She grabbed at him, as she once did when he was thigh-high and wandered from her reach to that ice-cream van. He shrugged her off and clasped her own body for something to hold. “Earlier. I saw them, in a red car. I lost it, son, I lost it and just marched up to them. Told them to leave us alone, that you had been forced by the coppers into describing them. I said we'd say nothing more, and that's an end to it. They needn't worry.”
Dean grasped the front door’s handle. Its cool permeated into his sweaty palms. “Did they say anything? I'm guessing they didn't nod and leave with a smile?”
“Son, there's no need for sarcasm.”
“I'm not being sarcastic, mum, it’s just that if they did that to poor Mr Craig, I don't think they're going to just agree with you on your say-so.”
“They stared at me. Their eyes – you know when you look at dead fish in the market? – just like those. And then … then … he swiped his finger across his neck.”
The cool door handle couldn't dampen his temperature. He pumped heat until it overloaded his system, released a leak of cold sweat which would react to his suit and render it useless. He swung open the door to PC Roberts, whose hips opened to allow her a better view of the young man.
“Dean …”
“PC Roberts … I’m going out.”
“Son, no, you must stay here.”
“I wouldn't advise leaving right now.”
“I'm sixteen. I'm good to go.”
“Dean, these men are serious. You have no idea what they are capable of.”
He’d seen Mr Craig wriggle on the chippy’s hard, greasy surface, and knew exactly their capabilities. “I'll be fine. My phone’s on.”
His mum pushed herself between her son and the gate at the path’s end. “I'm still your mother. You're still my child. What has got into you? What happened to my boy?”
“I'm myself now.” He hurried a kiss and hopped beside and beyond.
***
He couldn't sit in the house and wait for events to force a conclusion, like he once might. He dragged off his coat and flung it over a shoulder. Pulled the t-shirt from his skin. It flapped heavy and suckered back to his chest. He willed himself to dry so he could disappear into his suit. Fear had him by the stomach, a sharp point like that finger-knife the man had showed mum. It made him see details – that red vine which worked its way up the pebble-dashed council house, that crow in the distance sat on the street sign to survey its territory, and that grey Subaru which drove way too slow and turned every corner Dean swerved round. Had the men switched cars?
A gennel knifed between flat-roofed rows of houses. If he took that route he'd escape the car, but they might isolate him in such a no-man’s land. Scraggy bushes might not conceal any violence they marked him with, but he doubted anybody would rush to his help. He changed speed as he reached the gennel’s mouth and burst down the track.
His breath smoked the fire from his lungs. His fists splintered the air, his shoulder joints creaked as his arms pumped. Wet yellow leaves, fallen from the giant oak ahead, formed a carpet he hoped led to freedom. He thrust a look over his shoulder. A figure, darkened by distance and the grey clouds, charged behind. His chest stuck out, his pace steady – in it for the long haul. The slick grass tempered his speed. A dry patch might lie beneath the arms of the oak, around that football someone had hoofed over their garden privet. Beyond that he could see cracked Tarmac. Ridges might turn his ankles – unseen wet patches might send his firm grip into a slide. Twigs cracked thunderclaps. He expected a strike any moment – he hoped not across his head. The sick sensation which comes from a skull rattle would end him. He checked his shoulder as if a defender prepared himself for a slide tackle. The man had about ten meters to make up before he crumpled Dean into the earth and mingled his blood with dirt. The man’s white forehead slashed into his hair line, a milky plain bordered by wild, horned tufts of grassy hair. It wrinkled with strain, and each extra foot of this chase must add another line.
Dean stepped on the football, let go, jumped over, and dragged it with the other foot to the side. The man did well to keep his balance, stopped still, eyes like goosebumps in surprise at this act of football. Dean, a taught string, stared at him, ready to ping to his slightest movement. The steam from their breath billowed out and met in the space between. He could imagine little snaps of electricity in those clouds as they mixed.
The man’s eyes narrowed at his rucksack, which weighed heavy with the loss he feared. Dean shimmied left, pushed the ball right, and stabbed it right into the man’s bollocks. The man made a vacuum sound at the air he sucked. Both hands clamped to his crotch, too late, and he fell to one knee. That long white stretch of scalp which tapered off at the back of his head shone red. Dean broke from his horrified glare and jumped a privet into somebody’s back garden and over the next into the weeds which fingered their way into an abandoned house. He garden-hopped all the way to an exit from this trail of broken homes.
10.
Dean knew he had to take the suit to Mr Breckin, but his feet carried him all the way to the nicely-weathered brick which wrapped around Sultana. He banged the medieval gargoyle door-knocker. His chest heaved a little slower, but his breath came out raspy like his windpipe had turned into a cheese-grater. The red door pumped its vibrancy into his retinas until he had to turn his attention down the green-planted side-yard. He squeezed on his lower lip to pinch away the tremble and mould his face into something Sultana would accept.
He lowered his hand at the sound of the chain’s slide behind the door. Bounced his heels up and down, scanned the gaps between bushes for the man who'd chased him. The two mobsters had turned to three. He shouldn't have sought Sultana. What if he'd brought his trouble to her doorstep? Her dad would blow steam from his ears. Dean readied himself to ride Mr Singh-Cheema’s exasperation.
“Dean?” Sultana grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside. She stuck her head out the doorway and swung her glance side-to-side before she ducked back in and eased the door shut, as if any rattle would kindle a shitstorm.
“Where's your dad?”
“Why? You obsessed with him? You're always looking for him, like you want his company and not mine. You fancy him?”
Dean’s what-the? eyes pulled a grin from her deadpan face.
“This suit …” He shrugged the rucksack from his back and shook his head.
“Is not as good a prospect as I thought.”
“Prospect?”
She took his bag and peered inside as she would at a pissed off rattlesnake. “It's not as good as I thought. I tried swiping some tops in the shop. I unzipped and shoved them inside, but the things showed through. It only likes skin. And hair. Organic stuff. You made a strange suit, Dean. It's not even warm. We probably can't play with this thing until next summer.”
“It could be your programming that's at fault?”
“I'm going to go with your design. I’m always on it. You’re the one who's a space cadet.” Her eyebrows morphed into butterflies. “At least you used to be.” She grabbed his arm again. He pulled away and enjoyed how she pulled that spoilt face. He'd heard her dad give way to her demands, putty in the face of a pretend meltdown from his daughter.
Dean wanted to tell her about the man who chased him, but her folded arms made him contrary. She expected him, like he always had, to step in line with her wishes. He cancelled her out with a fold of his own arms and a lean against the fancy counter top. He shifted to wrap his arms round her, paper to her rock, but halted in time at how she would misunderstand that idea.
He peered out her windows. Bobbed left, right, up, down. Nobody had followed him here. “Let's go to the shopping centre.”
“Mall.”
“Mall, shopping centre, indoor enclosure for a bunch of shitty fucking shops – whatever you wanna call ‘em, let's go.”
He could have thrown a penny into her open mouth. Her arms slacked to her side. She nodded and grabbed her coat.
***
“You tried to nick stuff from the shop?”
She put her arm through his. Like a girlfriend would. His strides stretched longer. She had to trot into a jog every few metres.
“Something to do. What you looking at?”
He scanned her up and down. The new trainers she'd replace next week, the skinny jeans, the bulge in her back pocket where her sixty-four gig iPhone rested for a minute or so, the tight coat which shone like she'd had it fashioned from a royal’s silk curtain – she could buy her way out of boredom. She probably had a horse stabled out in the countryside which whinnied in joy at the sight of her.
“When are you ever bored?”
“Until recently, I have been nothing but …” She arched an eye at his sly remark “You should have a dad who is always over your shoulder. Welcome to the life of a rich girl. He wants to know my maths score, my science score, my programming progress, how I'm getting on with the bloody flute, and … well, he wants to know who you are and why you're distracting me so much.”
Dean’s mouth yo-yo’d between smile and frown. He distracted her? As in populated her thoughts? As in – she fancied him? As in – she thought him a pet to pat on the head?
“Hey, slow down, Deano, I'm not as fit as my football boy.”
He glanced behind for the man whose nuts he'd conkered. Dean reckoned they ought to have stayed inside and locked the doors. Agggghh, what did she care about him? She'd not asked him about his day. Never asked what his mum was up to – not that he ever talked about her dad. What did he really know about Sultana, except their mutual love for science and excitement at a new batch of Bunsen burners Mr Breckin ordered? They'd rubbed elbows many times while they cleaned test tubes and beakers in the lab’s sink. Hadn’t every friction their elbows made against the other been an accident?
He slowed. They lifted their linked arms over the bollard and closed in together again.
“You never asked me out.” Her sudden stop almost sent him into a trip and tumble that would have made shards of his new-found cool. She thrust herself into his body. He tucked a shiver away. He chose the end of her nose as a focal point, a place to hang to as she pulled at his inner life. “Why'd you never ask me out? Because we’re loaded? Is it my skin? My dad’s turban? You thought he'd do something to you?”
What about her mum? Did she have one? Sultana never mentioned her. Had she died? Long ago, or recent? Sultana lived life without a mum, like he without a dad. How did that feel? Would he have lived a different life with his dad than his mum? Taken more chances?
Her lips invited him in, though he knew what lied behind them were always primed to bite. He chanced it and leaned in for a kiss. He enjoyed the scent, the wet sensation on his own dry lips, and how she pushed into him. He stirred, pulled his waist away from hers in embarrassment. He'd not done this sort of thing before. She grabbed his waist and pulled him into her. She must have felt him. Her hands shifted to his hair. Her fingers combed it into a mess. He wanted to just fall into the moment and float – his view the sky, Sultana’s black treacle waterfall of hair, and those smoky eyes. He had to open his own and check his surrounds. How had they come to this gennel? Why did he keep entering them, like their narrow pathways funnelled him into their dangers? He pulled away from Sultana and dragged her behind him. The big man’s punch to his stomach cut her protest short. Dean slumped to the floor, his arms wrapped round his belly. He fought for air, but his pipes had shut shop and denied it entry.
“Dean?”
He rolled on his back and gritted his teeth at the boot from a second man denting his ribs. He groaned and vaguely hoped it carried to the end of the gennel’s barrel and shot out to the public for help. The pain ground a needle into his brain and he yelled like the man’s boots had wedged between a couple of ribs. He shifted to his side and made it to all fours. Retched like a dog that had feasted on grass. He listened to thumps, each ineffective against some sort of padded material – their coats – and scrapes across the Tarmac. The thump which hit like a gunshot forced Dean to snap his neck to the source. Sultana stumbled backwards, her ankles loose, each step vague as if they knew their search for balance had no chance. She collapsed into the privet with a hand over her cheek and landed on her shoulder. Old cans crumpled under her weight and the dull sound of broken glass forced the bile from his stomach. It splattered the ground and splashed his hands. The smell made him heave again. One of the men sat on his haunches beside him and slithered a blade inside one of Dean’s nostrils. It tickled as much as it scared. He controlled the cogs and steam inside. Feared a wrong move would cut him a new nostril. He could make the man out from his peripheral vision. Not the man who had chased him earlier.
“Remember the man from the chippy, lad?” The man sounded reasonable, like a teacher who wanted discipline – old school, the sort not afraid to thrash a ruler across your knuckles. “You tell the police you know nothing, you were mistaken in what you thought you saw, or … you get worse than a fried arm. Think of your head floating in a fryer.”
Dean breathed through his open mouth to avoid friction with the knife.
“You got me?”
“Yes.” Dean’s voice reduced to a croak, but the man heard him. Dean clocked his nod and stayed in position until the knife exited. He sneezed and the men left him with the crackle their feet made across gravel.
“Sultana.” He jumped to his feet and knelt beside her.
“I'm alright. The left side of my face feels numb, but I don't think he broke anything.”
He held her hand and she pulled on it to regain her feet. She leaned into him to get her balance and ran her fingers across his cheek. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. The sound of that punch he gave you – I thought he'd cracked your skull open.”
“You kiss me once and your acting like my lover.” She laughed and winced at the same time.
“You're all swollen up. You need a doctor.”
“I'm fine. I'm fine.” She patted his useless hands away.
“You're not, you're bulging out. Looks like a tumour.”
“No way. Oh God, really? It is starting to hurt. Not as sharp as the punch, but a dull ache across my skull. I …”
She collapsed herself onto the pavement, cross-legged, and held her head. “Those bastards … are they the ones?”
He sat beside her. “I thought the police would get them. I didn't think they'd ever come back for me. It’s movie-type stuff. Another one of them chased me earlier, but I got away from that one.”
“You didn't tell me that.”
“I … I was mad at you.”
“Did you lead them to my house? Oh God, they know where I live?”
“I left that man on the ground holding his gonads. He didn't follow me anywhere.”
“Then how did his mates catch us, then?”
Dean stood and stamped the cold from his feet. He rubbed at the pain in his ribs, but he knew it would keep him company for a week or so.
“Can you walk?”
Lashes hung low over her eyes as she peered at him. “Yes.”
He held out his hand. “Come on, then. Let's find these bastards.”
11.
Dean and Sultana leaned on each other as they wobbled down the gennel and almost fell out onto the main road like stunned cattle from a conveyor belt. Sultana said her head didn't hurt too much, but she kept her hand pressed to her temple and he noticed every wince. At least her pain made him forget his. The night crept over them. Should have felt like a blanket to hide them from curious eyes. Instead, they feared danger in every shadow, and shifted towards the kerb each time they approached the mouth of an alleyway.
Dean scanned Chesterfield Road, the street a throwback to his mum’s heyday. New signs hung garish from soot-stained brick shops. Some shops might not have changed their signs from the Victorian period. He checked on Sultana and shook himself from a stupor. A stare into the past pulled you into a vat of concrete.
“Excuse me, love.�
�� A big man, all stubble and slicked hair, barred their way forward. “Are you okay? Do you need help?”
“She's fine.” Dean winced and rubbed at his skinny arms. He shook off his doubts – he’d survived an attack from a bigger man than this, and he bristled that the man didn't look at him.
“I wasn't asking you, mate. I asked her. You okay?”
“Oh, God.”
Her moan made the man eye Dean, and the way he screwed his face had Dean shift all his weight to the balls of his feet, knees bent.
The man thrust a hand towards his chest to grasp at his coat. Dean feinted left, ducked, and dodged to the right.
“Oh, piss off, will you?” Sultana’s voice could have halted a stampede of bulls.
The man smirked until he realised she stabbed at him with those words. His eyebrows went “what?” until he replaced that surprise with disgust. He spat at Dean’s feet and attempted to peacock-walk by them, all shoulders and puffed chest.
“Idiot.”
Her growl set Dean forward. Plugged energy into his bones, sent a surge through his veins. Her walk steadied and she straightened from using him as a crutch, and as they reached London Road she reached the present stage of mankind again, as upright as always. Reds and blues glowed clearer here, on tidier shop fronts, despite the odd plastic bag’s wind-assisted wrap around a leg. The red which shone brightest, despite the dull coat, belonged to a car which pulled into the petrol station at the end of the street as London Road toed into the dual carriageway’s fast flow of traffic.
“We can get a taxi.” Dean squeezed her arm. “Or we can do something about those bastards.”
She tracked his gaze and hardened her brow, a job considering how it had already set hard enough with revenge.
***
They talked about football and which manager might get the chop next. Both had cropped hair. Little marks pocked their skin here and there, each an illustration of some scrape that didn't go to plan. The bigger man leaned his back against the car and faced the petrol pump. His eyes rolled with the litres. “Do you fancy a sandwich?”