The Norway Room

by Mick Scully

  Ashley watched Geezbo insert the roach, a perfect fit. He was thinking about what he had heard. Making up his mind. He flicked his lighter and took the flame to the spliff. Inhaled. Deep. Deep. His eyes rolled to white. Another hard pull. Long. Ashley knew the way that burn must be feeling and wished it were in his own chest. Now Geezbo was giving Ashley the hard eye. Hard eye. Dead eye. Looking across through the smoke. It was supposed to make him scared. Did it fuck! Ashley thought of the gun. In his hand. That’s what he saw in the smoke. He could feel it. If he had it now he would blow Geez’s head apart, like Humpty Dumpty. He knew he would.

  He had to get out of these clothes. Rolling back into the settee Ashley lifted his legs and pushed them hard into the chair sending Geezbo tumbling backwards, the chair on top of him. For a moment there was the instinct to run – a quick getaway, like he always had in situations like this – but it didn’t last. He stood and looked down into the surprised eyes of Geezbo still clutching his spliff, holding it aloft. Unhurriedly Ashley went upstairs.

  But as he climbed the stairs the strength he had felt just a minute ago as he toppled Geezbo started to ebb away, fear and confusion taking its place. He caught sight of the boy in the mirror. Gun-boy – well, that was a laugh. He pushed his hair back. He examined his nose. The cut was on his forehead, just above the bridge. Dribbles of blood on his nose and cheeks. He spat on his fingers and rubbed them away. He could hear Geezbo on the stairs. Ashley thought of the window, but he wanted to be free of these clothes before he went anywhere. He touched his nose carefully: sore, kind of numb but not as bad as before when Benjy had had a go at him. Perhaps it had been damaged so much recently he was losing the feeling in it. He inhaled through his nose, held the breath, then let it go. The breath moved freely, no blockage. Geezbo was standing behind him.

  ‘D’you mind?’ Ashley addressed Geezbo’s reflection. ‘I’m changing my clothes. I’m not gay. I’m not doing it with you in here.’

  Geezbo accepted this. ‘I’ll be behind the door.’

  Ashley put on jeans, a T-shirt, a woolly jumper and his hoodie. His trainers. He took his money from beneath the mattress, some more from under the cupboard. More from the bottom of the lamp.

  ‘What you doin’ in there?’

  Ashley pocketed his cash. ‘You can come in now.’

  Geezbo watched Ashley take some T-shirts and a couple of pairs of tracky bottoms from a chair, some pants and socks from a drawer in a cupboard beside the bed. He rolled the clothes.

  ‘Wha ya doin?’

  ‘Going on my holidays. I told ya. I’m clearing out of here. Before he gets back and finds me.’

  ‘Who? Ya uncle?’

  ‘Yeah. I need a bag for these.’

  ‘Tere some downstairs.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the front room. With all that gear in tere. Cigarettes. Booze. All sorts of stuff.’

  ‘You bin in there? No way. There’s no way you should ’ave bin in there. You’re gonna get me into all kinds of shit, man.’

  Ashley tried to push past Geezbo, but the older boy held him. ‘Tell me man. Tell me. Waz goin’ on? All that stuff down there. Like a fuckin’ warehouse innit.’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s my uncle’s. I’ve never been in there. I can’t go in. That’s why he keeps it locked, dummy.’

  ‘Waz locked. Not locked no more, dummy. One shove now, and door will fall right down.’ Geez laughed. ‘Stay ’ere. I’ll get a bag for you.’ Ashley’s phone rang startling both boys. Ashley looked round for it. Geezbo unzipped a pocket in his shorts and took it out.’

  ‘Don’t. Don’t answer it. No.’ Ashley pushed forward with such panic that Geezbo lifting the phone away from him dropped it. Both boys scrambled, but Geezbo was there first.

  ‘No. Let it go to answer. Please Geez. Or I’m dead. Please.’

  Ashley was crying. Geezbo pressed connect and the ringing stopped. He lifted the phone to his ear. Ashley stopped crying and watched. Geezbo said nothing. He was listening. Ashley could hear Kieran’s voice, tiny and tinny, heard him say his name, repeat it, but couldn’t make out what else he was saying. He watched Geezbo, grinning as he listened to Kieran. The call finished. The two boys looked at each other.

  ‘You nicked my fuckin’ phone,’ Ashley said.

  ‘That waz you uncle. Kieran, ain’t it? Didn’t sound so Irish now innit though. Sounds upset. Very upset. Sez he’s on iz way. Wants to know what you done wizis strap.’

  30

  Ashley was crouched in the darkness, listening hard. Kieran was still down there; he was certain of it, although there had been no sound for ages, or at least no sound that was definitely him. He wondered what Geez was doing. He had given Ashley a leg-up into the loft, and then left through the back door. He would watch the house, come back when Kieran left. But that was hours ago; must have been.

  There was so much fucking dust up here, it was like fur. And he didn’t dare to smoke. It could send the whole fucking house up.

  Ashley tried to see things from Kieran’s point of view. Even if everything else had gone off okay, a missing gun, a murder weapon – that was bad news, however Ashley looked at it. He realised now that he should have told Kieran straight away. Immediately. But how could he? The Asian kids took the phone. But he should have used his own phone as soon as he was back here. Then he would have told Kieran as soon as he could. They would understand that. Kieran. Crawford. When things go wrong it’s how you act that’s important. But fucking Geezbo had been here, hadn’t he? And now he knew everything. They would see him as a grass and that would be it. But he had no choice, not once Geez knew about the gun.

  That had really got Geez. Shit, man, he had said. Like a whistle, a long low whistle of shock. Geez had never thought of Ashley in this way before. A player. Ashley could almost hear Geezbo’s brain trying to work it all out. ‘Tell me man. What sorta strap? Iz make?’

  ‘A pistol. A small one. An MK9. A Khar.’

  Geezbo had eyeballed Ashley, trying to be hard. But things had changed. Too quickly really. ‘You twistin’ me man? Twistin’? Turnin’? Iz that what you doin’? A storytella innit. A fucking storytella.’ But the challenge wasn’t real. Ashley could tell that Geezbo knew he was telling the truth. It fitted. What he had been trying to work out all afternoon.

  Now there was music. From next door. Not loud but enough to prevent him hearing any movement below him. Ashley sneezed. Suddenly and violently. He grabbed the end of his nose. Swallowed. Tasted blood. From Geezbo’s nut.

  In the darkness he recalled the magic boots. The story his dad told him when he was still a baby, two or three. A little bloke goes into a pub, where there are all these big hard blokes boozing, and they take the piss out of the little fellow because he’s small and they say he’s got to stand them a round. He does, but instead of being his mate, they want more. He buys another round, and they still want more. So when they’re shouting at him to get the third round in, calling him a tight little fucker, the little bloke moves away from the bar, a good bit away. He’s sort of mumbling to himself. They think he’s scared and going to do a runner. They call him a nutter. But he takes a gobful of beer, swills it round in his mouth and then lets it dribble on to his boots, really slowly. His dad used to do the action with spit, let it dribble. All the big blokes are looking at him like he’s mad, and they’re all laughing. But as the beer hits the boots they start to grow, really quick, like fast-forward, and soon they’re enormous, with bloody great toecaps. And as soon as they stop growing the little bloke moves round the bar kicking fuck out of all the big blokes who had tormented him. He recalled his dad doing the sounds of breaking bones and blokes shrieking in pain. Sometimes he’d do the actions as well, holding his ribs or grabbing his belly, going aarh and shouting, Mercy. Mercy. Ashley used to love that story, and he’d try to get his dad to tell it over and over.

  Usually he could stop himself thinking about his dad, but it was more difficult now. Stories. He loved it when his dad told
him stories, or they watched a film together. Cartoons. Disney.

  Ashley wished he had something to swill round his mouth now. Just a cup of water to get rid of the taste of blood and dust. Remembering the story of the magic boots made him think of his mom. When they had all been together. He couldn’t remember her telling him stories, it was always his dad. Or his nan. But he remembered them all watching the cartoons together. He didn’t want to remember these things, but he couldn’t help it.

  His mind latched on again to the day she went. He was six. All day they had known it was going to happen. He’d never seen his dad cry before. And his nan came round and spent ages with his mom in the bedroom. Then she came down and said she was taking Ashley back to her flat for the night. She cooked him proper chips in a pan for his tea, with egg and sausage, and brown sauce. The next morning his dad came round and told them that she had gone. His nan acted like she didn’t already know, but Ashley had heard her on the phone to his dad last night. He could tell by the sound of her voice that his mom had gone.

  Ashley heard a noise at the front of the house. He crawled through the darkness, feeling for a beam with his hand then moving his knee on to it. Dust rising. As he reached for the next beam his head touched something. He raised his hand and felt tiles, traced the pitch of the roof.

  Sitting in the darkness, crouched into the roof, he remembered Ethan Cambridge from up on the Mendy. Ashley didn’t know him, not properly, but he knew all about him. Everyone did now. He used to deal on the estate. He started off a delivery boy like Geezbo, but ended up dealing. On his bike till he got a car. He did other areas too. He started wearing suits. A real player. But. He must have cheated one of the gangs; he pissed somebody off, because his house was torched. Mom and two sisters dead. He got away, but not for long. They found him on a railway track a few months later.

  It was the fear. Bringing all these stories up. He knew it was and he tried to stop it but he couldn’t. He remembered the Weasel telling him about a bloke who got torched in his car. Nothing to do with Crawford as far as he remembered, just someone his dad knew about. They tied this bloke up, hand and foot, like a parcel, stuck him in the boot, covered him in petrol, swilled it about inside the car, locked the boot and threw a match. Ashley thought about that. Quicker for that bloke than Mrs Cambridge. But he knew it was coming. Even if he didn’t know when they were tying him up, once he saw that petrol, and smelt it, he would know. Inside the boot, hearing the petrol swill about. Maybe Mrs Cambridge never woke up, she might have just been asleep and the smoke killed her; she might not have known anything about it. But that wasn’t true. Ashley remembered everyone talking about how the girls were screaming from the bedroom window, but nobody could get close enough.

  Ashley had started to shake. He hated it up here in the dark. The fucking fucking dark. What was Kieran doing? He wouldn’t do anything like that, would he? He might. Just clear his gear out and torch the place? Course he wouldn’t, it was senseless. Crawford wouldn’t do something like that. Waste all that money. Then he thought about insurance. If they made it look like an accident, like it was his fault, they’d make a packet.

  A noise from below. Ashley held his breath, listened. Someone on the stairs.

  ‘Ash.’ Ashley breathed again. ‘Ash. Yus can come down now, man. I just sin the Irish git drive away, innit.’

  31

  Firth Street on the TV screen. Seen from the corner of Esssex Terrace: The Norway Room. Police cars. Tape stretching across the street, hovering in the breeze. Now a copper talking. In a suit. His name came up on the screen. A Detective. He wanted anyone who was in the area to ring a number. It came up on the screen then disappeared. Too quick, Ashley thought. You’d never write that down in time. A reporter was talking now. Suit and tie. The knot crooked. Microphone like a lollipop. Give it a lick, mate, go on. Murder weapon. The police searching for a murder weapon. Policemen on their hands and knees in the street. Blokes clad in white – head to foot – came and went behind the reporter. Slowly. Not easy to move in those things. Spacesuits. They looked like they worked in a food factory. Food factory spacemen. They looked like big white plastic bags. A strong wind and they’d just bounce along the road.

  Geezbo saw Ashley grinning. ‘You big fish now boy. You make the ten o’clock news.’

  Ashley’s grin disappeared. He couldn’t hear what the TV was saying. The music from next door had started again, louder. The item finished. Now a man was talking about smoking. Banning it. Ashley struggled to hear. The end of pubs. Then a woman. Posh. Passive smoking. Workers’ right to a smoke-free environment. Geezbo flicked it off. Ashley looked at the blank screen.

  ‘So. Wha’ ya doin’ man? You goin’ stay ’ere tonight?’

  Ashley said nothing. He didn’t know what to do.

  ‘I seed ’im take out de boxes. Six. Then a sportsbag. So ’e took what ’e wants. ’E wouldn’t ’ave screwed the lock back on if ’e waz comin’ back tonight. ’E’ll be busy finding a new ’ome for ’iz stuff.’

  Unless it’s a trick, Ashley thought. The night-time is Kieran’s time. He could easily come back. Geezbo pulled a chair across and started to roll a spliff.

  ‘Where do you get all that stuff from?’

  Geezbo tapped the side of his nose.

  Ashley didn’t like this. ‘Where d’you live anyway? You know everything about me. You don’t tell me nothing about you.’

  ‘That troofless. I tell you my relative the last man to hang in Winson Green Prison Birmingham who didn’t string hissel up. I tell you I in wiv the Dobermans. I tell you about my brother Carlton, and what my gran predict for me. I tell you I is evil. So. Not troof you know nothing ’bout me. I tell you. Trust you. Iz you who tell me lies, man. Schools and uncles. I ’ave to work it out for myself.’

  Geezbo lit the spliff and inhaled. ‘Weird man, this. You know what I mean, man? I would neva expected this. Uz knowin’ what we know. We ’ave to trust each other. We am on de same side, man.’ He turned to face Ashley. ‘You wanna know where I live? Well man, my mudda live in Ward End. Francis Road, Ward End. You know what I’m sayin’ ’ere, man? So technically that my address. When I in court, that my address. But where I sleep? Lots of places. Places on de Mendy. In Handsworth. Wiv Dobermans. Friends in Ward End. Nechells. So now you know even more. You know what I’m sayin’, man? Now you tell me somethin’.’ Geezbo inhaled again. Deep satisfaction. Let his head fall back on the settee, before he released the smoke. ‘I waitin’ for another secret, man.’

  ‘My mom —’ For a moment Ashley’s mouth held open.

  ‘Okay. Your mom?’

  ‘My mom is Kylie Monogue, but don’t tell anybody. Give us a blow on that spliff, will ya?’

  Ashley reached out, but Geezbo moved the spliff out of range. ‘No, not till yus tell me. Finish what you started. Your mom?’ He waited. He waited.

  Ashley looked at the smoke rising from the spliff. ‘She’s dead. Dead with cancer. Cremated. Now let me have a blow.’

  ‘That’s nothing. I knew that. I know your dad inside. I know your mom dead. That’s nothing.’

  ‘That’s everything there is. There ain’t nothing else to know.’

  Geezbo handed the spliff over and watched Ashley pull on it, pull on it. ‘Yez, dare iz. Must be. Tell.’

  And now it seemed possible to Ashley. To say it. After all this time. Might as well.

  ‘She’s dead. But she’s not dead.’

  Geezbo waited.

  ‘She’s dead to me. She cleared off when I was little. Years ago. Just went. With another bloke. My dad’s useless. In prison and stuff. So she went. Left us all. Her mom never spoke to her again. Never saw her. That was my nan. She looked after me, but she got cancer. My mom never even came to the funeral. Don’t know where she is. So she is dead. Really. For me.’ Ashley sucked at the spliff. A huge pull. He threw his head back, holding the smoke tight in his chest. Till it hurt. Then released it. Ashley looked across at Geezbo who he realised didn’t know what to say
. Then the room revolved.

  ‘Fuck this is strong stuff,’ Ashley said.

  ‘Some of it my wages.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The skunk. That’s ow I get it. Some of it my wages.’

  The next morning Geezbo was in the kitchen when Ashley came downstairs. ‘Why didn’t you wake me? I wanted to be out first thing.’

  ‘Only just awake meself, man. Making meself useful innit. Made a drink for yuz uncle too. In de front room, man.’

  ‘Kieran? In the front?’ Ashley froze.

  ‘Cleanin’ iz gun init. Ready to blow yez ed aways, man. Made im nice cup of tea wiv no sugar. For aftawood innit. When we cleans up de mess.’

  ‘Wanker! You wanker bastard.’ Ashley’s voice a squeak now. He snivelled. Squeezed his eyes against tears. ‘That’s not funny.’ But Geezbo thought it was and roared.

  Ashley had only just woken up, but already he was tired. ‘We need to get out of here.’

  ‘We ain’t had no wash yet. Yus don’t keep much food in yus kitchen do ya? No wonda you like a whippet. Gotta respect your body, man. You ’avin’ a drink?’

  ‘I’ll ’ave a drink at a caff. I just —’

  Firth Street. Essex Street. A voice from the television. Both boys looked towards it. Geezbo sat down. Shooting. Possible gangland connection. The same as last night, nothing new.

  ‘I’ll have a coffee. Then we’ll go.’

  ‘Ooze say anytins ’bout we?’

  ‘You can’t stay here.’ The top had been left off the coffee and it had gone hard, it looked like lava. Ashley chiselled at it. Poured in hot water. It tasted bitter. Geezbo had used the last of the milk but Ashley was glad he was still here, someone was here, someone who knew.

  ‘What do you think I should do, Geez? I thought about just trying to stay here at night, to sleep. Is that stupid? Should I just –’ But Geezbo’s attention had been caught by the television. Ashley looked. The Mendy. Pictures of the Mendy. A police car on the Bax Road. More fluttering tape. Like in Firth Street. A voice explained that the body of a newborn baby girl, possibly born prematurely, had been found behind some dustbins on the Mendelssohn Estate. Then a policewoman talking to camera. She was hard-faced and had a strong Brummie accent. ‘What we are most concerned about is the mother. She is probably in need of medical help, both physical and emotional. If she is watching, or anyone who knows her is watching, I would appeal to her to come forward.’