by Mosby, Steve
I trailed slightly behind the pair of them, walking with Jemima. It was never entirely clear what my place in the gang was. I was smart without being sly, and I could fight, but I was scrappy rather than tough. I was at least as confident as Sylvie, but in a different sort of way. Maybe that was why she kept me around: not because I fitted in, but because she couldn’t work me out, and in the meantime I seemed happy enough not to challenge her.
Jem’s position was much clearer. She was sweet-natured and pretty, and a natural athlete, but shy and timid. In another school she’d probably have coasted through quietly and anonymously enough, but her family had downsized to Thornton the year before, and she’d made few friends since arriving. I guessed we were better than nothing, but it couldn’t have been by much: Sylvie didn’t quite keep Jem around as a comedy mascot, but it sometimes seemed to fly close. Already that evening she’d been bawled out twice. Once for her ridiculously bright green coat, and then for questioning our little expedition. There’d be boys joining us later, and Sylvie wanted alcohol, but Jem had wondered why they couldn’t bring it themselves. Sylvie had rolled her eyes like she couldn’t believe the stupid shit she was hearing. Jem was still in the doghouse, and I walked with her more out of solidarity than anything else.
We reached the car park about eight, which meant we could steal some alcohol then hook up with the boys in the park, with plenty of time to get drunk and fool around into the early hours. Play the night by ear. At the open gate, bathed in the orange light from the street light above, we clustered together.
‘Four’s too many,’ Sylvie said. ‘And that fucking coat’s visible from space. Me and Nat’ll go in. You two wait here, keep watch. Okay?’
I nodded, because now that we were here, that suited me fine. Jem, who I’d imagined would feel the same, apparently didn’t.
‘Keep watch? What are we supposed to do?’
It earned her a flash of outright disgust.
‘What the fuck do you think? Duh. Keep an eye out. If it looks like anyone’s coming, then shout. It’s not hard.’
Jem nodded, looking stung. For what it was worth, I wasn’t entirely sure what we were supposed to look out for or shout either, but it didn’t make any sense to piss Sylvie off. But she was still staring lasers at Jem, and I felt the need to take some of the heat off her.
‘Synchronise watches?’ I suggested.
It was cheek, and Sylvie’s glare flicked to me, but I’d gauged it right and a second later she grinned.
‘Won’t be long. Stay tuned.’
And with that, she and Nat ducked into the car park, then moved around the corner out of sight.
I sniffed and moved closer to Jem, who still looked as though she’d been slapped.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘Just concentrate on keeping watch. Very serious business.’
That got me a smile, albeit a miserable one.
‘I suppose at least we don’t have to do anything.’
‘There is that,’ I said. ‘Hang on to it.’
About twenty seconds passed, and then I was aware of two figures bolting out past me, only resolving into my friends once they were across the street and disappearing off into the distance.
‘Shit,’ I said.
Jem – the natural athlete – started running after them, leaving me standing alone beneath the street light. That was lucky. I was about to take off myself when a number of men came pelting out of the car park entrance. Four of them, dressed in black trousers and white shirts, chasing my friends down the street. And very clearly not just chasing them off; they were scissoring their arms and pounding down the middle of the street like sprinters racing for the line. They meant to catch them.
I stood there for a second, fighting my body’s stupid instinct to run in the same direction, then turned my back on the chase and walked slowly up the hill towards the main road. Lucky, lucky, lucky. They’d been so intent on chasing the others, they hadn’t noticed me standing there.
Once I was on the main road, I began walking steadily along it, sticking my hands in my pockets and pulling my coat tighter, trying to do my best impression of a girl out for a walk. When I reached the ornate front of the Paladin itself, I stood for a moment perusing the menu on the wall outside, and breathing in the heady aroma from the open door, before moving off again. A little further down, after passing a shuttered-up bank, I came to a stop and considered what to do.
The chase had been intense enough that it was likely over now, one way or the other. Either the waiters would have burned out and given up, or they would have got someone. Even though she’d set off last, it wouldn’t be Jem. Sylvie was quick. I wasn’t too sure about Nat. Fingers crossed everybody would be okay. Even if someone had been caught, none of us was going to give up the others, not to the police. In Thornton, that was practically religion.
Despite the adrenalin still blaring in my chest, I was golden.
I looked up at the sky. Even though I couldn’t see any clouds, I remember that it had begun to snow slightly – just a speckling, drifting in the air around me, almost an afterthought. The safest thing to do, I decided, was just keep walking; find a convenient side street to disappear into, then work my way back around to the estate. See who turned up at the park.
And I was about to do that when the van screeched up beside me, the side door already open, and the bastards pulled me inside.
‘I know my rights,’ I said, two hours later.
‘Do you.’
The policeman sitting opposite me didn’t even bother to phrase it as a question. It was more a weary rhetorical statement. Obviously you do; you all do. He was old, with a ruddy complexion and a stippling of shaved silver hair that didn’t quite cover the top of his head. His neck was wrinkled and thin. Coupled with the starched straightness of his uniform, it gave him the air of a tortoise, its aged head poking out of a smooth shell that was slowly becoming too large for the creature inside.
He looked very tired indeed. I smelled blood, and leaned forward, tapping the table with my finger.
‘Yes. What they did to me was totally unacceptable. And we both know it. Kidnap. False imprisonment.’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything could have happened to me. I’m in shock. I’m actually in shock. I’m … I want medical attention.’
He looked at me, figuring it for sarcasm, but it wasn’t entirely. I’d been dragged into the van by three men from the Paladin before I’d even had a chance to react. I’d managed to strike out at a couple of them, but it hadn’t achieved much, and they’d held me pressed to the metal floor as they drove the short distance back round the corner. From there, I’d been strong-armed – spitting and shouting by this point – in through the back of the restaurant and straight upstairs, where I’d been thrown down on to an old armchair.
What followed could, realistically, have been worse, although that had only started occurring to me afterwards. In the meantime, I’d been faced with several men pointing and shouting, demanding information from me about my friends and talking amongst themselves in a foreign language. I assumed they’d called the police, and that we were waiting for them, but it was well over an hour before an officer arrived at the restaurant.
Anything could have happened to me. The realisation of how vulnerable I’d been, coupled with guilt at being caught, was making me volatile now, and I wanted to lash out at the detective in front of me. Like most teenagers, and many adults, I was very adept at reflecting my own failings on to others.
‘What they did was against the law,’ I told him angrily. ‘Assault. Abduction. False imprisonment.’
‘You’ve said.’
‘It should be them in here, not me.’
‘They performed a citizen’s arrest, Zoe.’
‘No they didn’t.’ I managed to inject a pleasing amount of contempt into my voice. ‘They never said anything to me. And anyway, if they wanted to perform a citizen’s arrest and physically detain me, I would have had to be in the
course of committing a crime or fleeing the scene.’
He looked even more tired, but raised an eyebrow.
‘Is that so?’
‘You know it is. What are you doing? Impersonating a police officer?’
‘I’m thinking that most girls your age aren’t reading up on the law unless they’re intending to break it.’
‘I read a lot of things. And I have done nothing wrong. Whereas they have. And you know it. So what are you intending to do about it?’
The policeman considered that.
‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘They did entirely the wrong thing, I admit. So I suppose I’m intending to have a word with them about it.’
‘That’s not good enough. I want to press charges.’ I could feel him backing down, and was determined to push him harder until he did. ‘They shouldn’t get away with what they did.’
‘Maybe not. But this isn’t the first time they’ve had an attempted robbery. Put yourself in their position. They’re angry about people helping themselves to their stock, and I can understand that.’
‘Yeah, me too. So what?’
‘Well, that is what you were intending to do.’
‘No it’s not.’
‘You were just out for a walk, were you?’
‘That’s right. Free country, last time I checked.’
‘What if I said we had you on CCTV hanging around the entrance to that car park, waiting for your friends to come back out?’
I pictured the scene in my head. Although I’d been talking to Jem, I’d had enough chance to look around – keeping watch – and take in the sights.
‘I’d say that’s a lie. There aren’t any CCTV cameras there.’
He didn’t reply, but gave me a pointed look, and it took me a second to realise what I’d done.
Shit.
‘I imagine, anyway,’ I added.
But it was too late, and we both knew it. He stared at me for a few more seconds, not quite smiling, but almost. Then he leaned forward, looking weary again.
‘Zoe, let’s just cut all this out, okay? We both know you were there. I can probably guess a few of the others who were there too, not that you’d tell me, would you?’
‘No.’
‘And look – you just admitted it again, didn’t you? You’re not half as street-smart as you like to think. Maybe you should stick to reading.’
I didn’t reply. After a moment of silence, he sighed.
‘I don’t want to see you in here again, okay? What I’m suggesting – intending, in fact – is that we should all leave it at that. On both sides. What do you say?’
‘But those men—’
‘Were in the wrong, yes. And I’ll be having a word with them about that. A strong word, actually. But I also know they’re good people who are having their business disrupted, and who are understandably very angry about it. They have a hard enough time as it is. So. What do you say?’
At first I didn’t say anything.
Looking back on that night now, I realise that Detective Sergeant John Carlton was employing wisdom, rather than the letter of the law; that he was being compassionate and trying to make the best of the situation for everyone. Trying to do the right thing, not the legal thing. These days, I’m not sure I’d do the same. My instinct would probably be to caution me and have the waiters at the Paladin prosecuted within an inch of their lives. But back then, as a kid, I recognised an escape route when I saw one. And I wasn’t so cocky as to look a gift horse in the mouth.
‘All right,’ I said finally.
And that was supposed to be the end of it. John did his best to extract a promise that I’d behave myself in future, and warned me that people would drag you down if you let them. I half listened with a kid’s ear, my mind on the fact that it was still early enough to get back to the park and make something of the night. But I do remember thinking I’m already down, and that the real problem was a lack of people dragging me up. I didn’t realise that, in his own small way, that was what John was trying to do.
Regardless, that was supposed to be the end of it. I never expected to see him again.
I had no idea what a problem he’d become for me.
Nineteen
He seems so diminished.
That was my first thought when I saw John now.
The hospice was built on two storeys, centred around a reception area below and a communal sitting and eating area directly above. From each, a web of corridors led off to the residents’ rooms. After I signed in, a nurse led me to John’s, which was up on the first floor.
‘Mr Carlton had an unsettled night.’
She walked slightly ahead of me, her brown ponytail swinging.
‘He’s having problems with his liver and kidneys, and he required attention for his breathing on a couple of occasions. We’re doing our best to make him comfortable. But he’s settling in well overall.’
‘That’s … good. I guess.’
Good on the one hand, and yet it still brought a pang of sadness. The corridors were clean, but partially obstructed by wheelchairs, half folded up, as though hunching their shoulders to let us pass, and laundry trucks with faded yellow hazard stickers plastered to their sides. It brought it home to me that this was the last place John was ever going to live. That he was no longer in the end stages of his life, but the very last. I didn’t want to think of him settling in to that.
‘He’s been a joy,’ the nurse said. ‘He’s a lovely man.’
‘Yes.’ There was no need to be uncertain about that, at least. ‘Yes, he is.’
‘Are you a relative? I’m sorry, I can’t remember.’
‘A friend.’
‘You’re very lucky.’
Given the circumstances, that could easily have sounded glib or out of place, but her tone of voice assuaged that somehow. It’s amazing how different something can sound when it’s obvious the person saying it actually cares.
Dinner was being served in the open-plan space upstairs, and the smell of food cooking in a distant room permeated the area: an artificial but comforting aroma that reminded me of school dinners; the smell of being looked after, of having things prepared for you. Barely half the seats were taken. The nurse had explained to me that many patients had their meals in private, and that included John. Most of those who were there now were dressed in papery white gowns, and they ate slowly and in silence, accompanied only by the gentle clink of cutlery.
I glanced into some of the open doorways we passed. The bedrooms were utilitarian, but well decorated, and not as uncomfortable-looking or prison-like as I’d been expecting. It wasn’t even quite like a hospital. Each room had an adjustable single bed along one wall, an armchair, a desk, a television. There was a narrow wardrobe, and the kind of partitioned-off bathroom unit you find in cheap hotels – identikit blocks of plastic that are simply slotted into place and drilled in.
‘Here’s our boy.’
The nurse rapped once on the door, although it was slightly ajar, and pushed it carefully open. A doctor was sitting on the bed, making some notes on a clipboard resting on his knees. It took a moment for me to recognise that the man sitting beside him was John.
He seems so diminished.
He was dressed in a white gown with a V neck that partially exposed a wiry tangle of grey hair at the top of his emaciated chest. Through the fabric, his ribs looked oddly misshapen – tangled, almost, like the roots of a tree. His legs were bare below the knee, and the mottled, hairless skin there gleamed as though it had been shaved and polished. His forearms were painfully thin, and his hands fretted in his lap, knotty fingers rolling nervously over each other.
But it was in his face that the deterioration was the worst. Viewed side on, his head seemed too large for his neck to support, and the shape of his skull was clearly visible. When he turned to look at me, his eyes were small and set back in their sockets, almost lost in the dark skin surrounding them. It was only when he smiled – and the lines at the sides of those
eyes crinkled slightly – that he finally resembled the man I’d known for so long.
‘Hello, John.’ I said it too quietly, scared that my voice might somehow bruise him.
‘We’re nearly done,’ the doctor said.
The nurse headed off back down the corridor. I lingered by the doorway as the doctor felt John’s chest, his lower abdomen, unsure at first whether it was all right to watch, or even be here. He prodded his fingers gently beneath John’s ribs, quickly removing them when John cried out: a sound that cut through me. But I felt a responsibility to be here for him, the way he had been for me in the past. For his part, he didn’t seem remotely self-conscious about my presence.
A minute later, the doctor had made his notes and left. John remained on the bed, and I sat down in the armchair opposite him, leaning forward so as to be closer to him.
‘It’s good to see you,’ I said.
‘Is it?’ He seemed bemused by the idea. ‘I know how dreadful I look. I can’t imagine it is.’
‘You don’t look too bad to me.’
‘Considering.’
There was some relief: he sounded more lucid than I’d become accustomed to over the last few months. Perhaps fighting the physical decline had been taking up too much of his energy, and now that he had stopped, that energy could be concentrated elsewhere. All his remaining heat, burning in a single room.
‘I thought I was gone last night,’ he said.
‘Don’t be silly. You’re not going anywhere for a while yet.’
‘No, I mean it. I kept waking up because I couldn’t breathe properly. But then when I was awake, it was hard to do anything about it.’