by Peter Cocks
“Not bad,” I said. “Not so many dreams. I’ve been outside quite a bit.”
I had not even stepped out of the hospital doors for the first six weeks, but since my last session I’d ventured into the grounds. There were daffodils dotted around the grass and a positive vibe in the air. My mum had visited and was relieved to see me looking better. One day I had sat on a bench in the sun and started reading a book from the library called The Catcher in the Rye. It was about an American kid in the 1950s; about him getting expelled from school, being depressed and confused and ending up in a mental home. It probably wasn’t the kind of thing I should have been reading, but it made me laugh out loud.
“Apparently they’re nearly ready to discharge you,” Reeta said.
My positive feelings shrank in my gut. I suddenly felt scared, not ready.
“How do you feel about that?”
“Not sure,” I admitted. “A bit scared, if I’m honest.”
“You need to take the first step. But I’m going to recommend that you go to group therapy once a week, just so you can meet other people who have been through similar experiences.”
I pulled a face. Sitting in a group talking about myself wasn’t really my thing. Not to mention that there wasn’t much I could talk about. Most of my memories were classified.
Reeta laughed at my reaction. “It’ll be a safety net,” she said. “And I’ll always be at the end of a phone.”
“Will you?” I found myself staring at her bare knees, smooth beneath her white coat. She was wearing strappy sandals and I noticed her toenails had been painted dark purple. For a second I thought about touching her knee, then checked myself.
Reeta seemed to clock it. She gave me a bit of a schoolmarm look and adjusted her skirt across her legs. “I think you’re feeling a lot better,” she commented.
“Will I still be able to see you?” I asked, suddenly panicky. I realized that I was beginning to sound needy. That I had thought about little else but Reeta for days. “I just … really like you,” I blurted out.
“It’s quite usual for patients to … well, bond with their therapists,” Reeta said kindly. “I make you feel better, but that’s because you are feeling better. You’re just associating those feelings with me.”
I could have been forgiven for being confused. She looked great that morning.
“I think you’re substituting me for someone you really love,” Reeta added. “Don’t you?”
She was right. I was searching for something, or someone, that might fill the yawning gap Sophie Kelly had left in my life. I had not seen her since Tommy had been collared.
“Maybe,” I admitted.
Reeta got up and brushed herself down. I stood up too. She held out her hand and I shook it. “Good luck,” she said.
“Thanks for helping me,” I said. “So, I suppose a date is out of the question?”
She laughed, hugged me briskly and kissed my cheek. “Let me know how you get on.”
“I will,” I said, amazed at my brass neck and lack of inhibition – me, an eighteen-year-old, trying it on with a doctor in her thirties.
I guessed I must have been feeling a great deal better. Or maybe I had just lost all sense of what was appropriate. Maybe my experiences had skewed my behaviour.
Maybe I’d become a loose cannon.
THREE
It didn’t take long for Stoke-on-Trent to bring me back down to earth again.
I left the Royal London Hospital on a sunny morning. Tony Morris had turned up to see if I wanted driving to my mum’s in Stoke. I declined his offer, said I was happy to take the train. He seemed disappointed. I think he wanted to talk, get something off his chest, but I wasn’t in the mood to let him feel any better about himself. As far as I knew, he’d got what he wanted with half the Kelly family banged up in Belmarsh and I was the one still suffering for it.
I was feeling the loss of Sophie more strongly than ever. The thought of not seeing her ever again left a sick-feeling emotional hole in my stomach. I would have killed to see her again.
“I’ll give you a lift up to Euston then,” Tony said. He opened the door of his bashed-up silver Beemer for me.
I thought it would be childish to turn down a lift across town, plus I had a heavy bag I didn’t fancy dragging on and off the Tube.
“OK,” I muttered. “Thanks.”
We drove in silence as far as London Bridge. Tony put on Heart FM to dilute the atmosphere. I looked across at the reclaimed power station on the South Bank.
“Tate Modern,” I said, for lack of anything else to say. Maybe I was trying to show Tony how cultured I was. How much I had learned under the wing of Tommy Kelly.
“Full of shit, isn’t it?” Tony laughed. “Haven’t they got a load of bricks they spent a million quid on or something? And an unmade bed? A kid could do most of the stuff in there.”
I remembered the museum’s Rothko room, which I had visited with Tommy, and the pictures he had collected – OK, nicked. How it had been the villain who had helped me see the point of modern art, to see things on a bigger, more abstract scale.
Tommy Kelly had broadened my world view; Tony Morris’s idea of culture was Barbra Streisand at The O2.
We drove along the Embankment. Everywhere we passed brought back memories of nights out with Sophie, or places I had visited with her or her dad. Everything reminded me of them; they felt like the good times. Tony turned up towards Euston.
“Let me know if you need anything, mate, won’t you?” he said.
“Yeah,” I grunted. He pulled into a parking bay in a street near the station and took a brown envelope from his jacket.
“Oh no,” I said. What was he trying to get me to do now?
He handed me the envelope. “You’ve got a new set of IDs there.”
I drew out a passport, driving licence and bank card, all with a new name on them: Daniel Reeves. The name looked odd and unfamiliar. My real name had almost been forgotten. I felt as if I was building up layers of personality, like the skins of an onion.
“Danny Reeves,” Tony said. “Just to keep you safe. You’re still Eddie Savage to us, but Danny to everyone else, OK?”
“I’m not working…” I began to panic again.
“No,” he assured me. “It’s nothing to do with … you know, work. It’s for your security.”
I pulled out a smaller envelope full of cash. “What’s this for then?” I asked bitterly. “Blood money?”
“It’s just some wedge, mate. A bit extra to tide you over.”
I looked inside the envelope. There must have been a grand or three in twenties.
“Treat your mum to something nice,” he suggested.
“Cheers,” I said. I made to get out of the car, but Tony grabbed my elbow and held me back for a moment.
“Eddie,” he said. “I’m sorry. We let you down. You were never meant to end up in that mess. Something went wrong.”
“Yeah, too right,” I said. “I got shot.”
“No, mate,” he said. “I know that, but something else went tits up. We had you tracked all the way, but we think someone else inside the gang stitched Tommy up.”
“What?” Tony had my attention now.
“We heard they were heading for Long Reach before we got your tip-off. Someone else wanted them out of the way.”
What did that mean? That all my efforts had been a waste of time? I felt enough of a patsy already: worked, manipulated and turned over without knowing the whole truth.
“Does Tommy know?”
“Hard to say,” Tony answered. “You beat him half to death, which he probably took as a sign that you weren’t exactly batting for his team. I’m not sure he’ll be looking for another suspect.”
“Whatever,” I said. I realized I didn’t actually care. My part of that job was over. All I wanted to do was forget about it and live a normal life.
Tony was about to say something else, but the look on my face made him think again.
“I wouldn’t hurt you for all the tea in China, mate,” he said finally.
Tea’s cheap, I thought.
“Go back to your mum’s. Have a good rest. Clear your mind.”
“Sure, Tony,” I said. I shook his hand and got out of the car, lugging my bag towards the 1.00 p.m. Manchester train.
“Take care,” he said. I glanced back at him. Could have sworn he mouthed “Love ya” as I slammed the car door.
The train pulled in to Stoke-on-Trent an hour and forty later. The adverts for art exhibitions and expensive underwear, featuring glossy girls with heart-breaking figures, had disappeared on the outskirts of London. All the station at Stoke had to proclaim, apart from its name, was an advert for Wright’s Pies. At least I won’t starve, I thought.
I got a mini cab outside the station. It was hot and smelt of sickly air freshener, and the driver had the heat whacked up. He asked me if I’d seen the football, his strong Midlands accent foreign to my ears. I said I hadn’t and the conversation soon ground to a halt, which suited me. We drove under Victorian railway bridges and around a grey, anonymous tangle of ring roads. The names on the road signs looked strange and almost biblical to me: Etruria, Alsager, Burslem. Others just plain “oop north” stupid: Tittensor, Knutsford, Sneyd.
We headed into Burslem, past a football stadium.
“Port Vale,” the cabbie said, as if the world was navigated around football grounds. A factoid popped into my mind: Robbie Williams was their famous fan.
My mum’s house was in a long, red-bricked terrace, every house the same as its neighbour except for individual door knockers and wacky house numbers or names.
The sun was still shining; it was a nice day. But to me the overall impression was as dull as ditchwater. Like the titles of “Coronation Street”.
I decided “EastEnders” was more my thing.
Some net curtains twitched as we slowed to 5 mph, peered at the numbers, then stopped. The house appeared well looked after, and after another twitch of the curtains, Mum opened the door and ran into the street. She threw her arms around me and hugged me so hard I couldn’t breathe. I’d seen her only a week before but I thought she might break my neck, or at the very least chew a lump out of my cheek.
I paid the driver with a twenty and didn’t ask for change. He looked like his lottery numbers had come up. I didn’t have any idea of the value of money any more. I had been in a different world. I was like someone who had just come back from the South Pole.
“Come on in,” Mum said. “The kettle’s on.”
FOUR
Within seconds I had a steaming mug of tea in one hand and a bacon sandwich in the other.
“You’re not eating properly,” my ma tutted. “You’re too thin.” She was standing over me, looking at me the way only mothers can – as if the eating of a bacon sarnie was an act of genius.
Mum’s sister Cath was grinning at us from her position on the sofa. She’d been living with mum for a couple of months while I’d been in hospital.
Cath is about ten years younger than the old girl. She spent a long time travelling and came back from India last year. She looks a bit like mum might have looked had she not had a violent, alcoholic husband, a dead eldest son and a shot-up younger one. Cath is skinny and tanned with scraped-back, blondish hair, wears faded denims and has a snake tattoo on her forearm. She smokes roll-ups, likes a beer and is more of a laugh than Mum, apart from when she’s had a glass of wine or two and starts spouting about star signs, spirits and all that New Age stuff.
The three of us sat and chatted all through that first afternoon. Of course I couldn’t tell them much about what had gone on, as most of it was classified. I was vague with the details. Said that I’d been caught in the crossfire but it was all behind me now. Mum looked relieved. She had never wanted me to follow in Steve’s footsteps, she said, and was glad I had seen sense. I assured her that I had; that all I wanted was a new start, a quiet life, and Mum believed me.
At the time, I believed it myself.
We had a balti that night and a few drinks. “This is nothing like the real thing,” Cath told us. “The vegetarian stuff in the South is fantastic. Light and delicious. Bhel puris, masala dosas…” She licked her lips at the memory and looked back at her plate with something like disappointment. “Baltis don’t even exist in India, they were invented in Birmingham.”
“And we all know Brummies have no taste,” I chipped in. It was an easy joke.
In truth, I was enjoying the balti. I just wished I could talk about some of the things I’d seen, places I’d been, stuff that had happened. But my training kicked in and I managed to keep it locked up in a box in my mind. It would have done nobody any good, particularly Mum, to know exactly what I’d been through.
They asked me if I had any plans. I said I wanted to start over. I didn’t want to go back to college or anything like that. I just wanted to get a job. For some reason I had my mind set on working in a big DIY store. I’d got an interview at the job centre the following day. Mum and Cath looked at each other and shrugged, a bit surprised, but then if it was what I wanted to do… I knew I just needed a structure, somewhere safe, not too demanding, somewhere I could just concentrate on practical things.
From now on, I was going to live an ordinary life.
The interview pulled me up sharpish.
My naive vision of what an ordinary life might be like revolved around a simple idea of routine and security. It left out the uncomfortable details of eight hours a day stacking shelves, humping compost around and drinking instant coffee out of cracked mugs while assembling this season’s barbecue offers. All for a fiver an hour.
“You didn’t last long,” Cath said, smiling as I returned home from the job centre. Mum put the kettle on for yet another cup of tea.
“It wasn’t me,” I told them.
“Course it wasn’t, kid,” Cath said. She kissed my cheek and ruffled my hair. “Wouldn’t do for me, neither.” She looked into the kitchen at Mum, fussing with teacups and toast. “How about we take the boy down The Greyhound for a pint later?” Cath suggested. “Get fish and chips on the way back?”
There was a slight urgency in her voice, as if she would do anything rather than stay in with the two of us and the sense of things unsaid in the air.
Mum brightened. “Why not?” she said.
Mum looked better once she was in the pub. She’d put on a bit of lippy and was laughing with me and Cath over a gin and tonic. We were talking about how the two of them had become a pair of batty old sisters and should maybe adopt a tribe of feral cats or, Cath suggested, a pair of eighteen-year-old Filipino boys.
On impulse, Mum grabbed my hand across the table and smiled at me. I pulled away instinctively, not wanting the little boy treatment. Then I gave in and squeezed back.
“I’ve got my hands full with this eighteen-year-old,” she said.
Mum went and got some more drinks and started chatting to a neighbour at the bar. While she was away, Cath gave me some of the benefit of her experience.
“Don’t look back,” she said. “Try and live in the moment. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to live in the moment. The here and now. This is a great night, here with my sister and my nephew, having a drink.” She took another pull on her lager. “That’s it. Don’t dwell on the past, and tomorrow’s another day.”
I looked around the friendly local pub, the laughing faces, the twinkling fruit machine and the easy-listening records on the jukebox. It could be worse, I thought.
But something was still chewing away at me. I thought of my mum, of Cath and her string of failed relationships, her travels to India, Thailand and Australia in search of … well, whatever she was searching for. Peace of mind, maybe. She clearly hadn’t found it, and neither had I.
What I felt was like an itch, somewhere in my middle. One that needed scratching.
Cath started talking about karma; putting good stuff in so it will come back around. She’d
had a couple by this time, and I could detect a whiff of grass. I guessed she’d had a spliff before we’d left home and maybe another puff out in the pub garden. She was on a roll with the New Age stuff.
“Sow goodness and you will reap goodness,” she said, like some cut-price guru. “Sow bad stuff and you’ll only reap evil.”
I tried to think about what I’d been sowing. For anyone’s money, it didn’t look like I’d been spreading joy.
FIVE
My life settled into a dull routine, watching daytime telly and old DVDs back to back. I couldn’t handle action movies: they made me jumpy. I’d have a toasted sandwich for lunch, then maybe a walk round the grey, drizzly park, chatting with retired dog walkers or avoiding truant kids who smoked weed and carved their names into the skate park. In the evening, Mum would cook spag bol, or one of her few variations on the theme of mince, and Cath would come back from her part-time job and pour herself a glass of red. We’d chat for a bit, the details of dull days. Then Cath would nip out the back for a fag and come back smelling of grass and start the New Age chat again.
Of the almost non-existent family I had, I probably got on with Cath best. She was easy-going, not as buttoned up as her sister, and with her being that bit younger, we saw eye to eye on quite a few things. It was just her reliance on astrology to guide her life, her conspiracy theories and what she called her “submission to destiny” that sometimes got on my tits.
She was a bright woman and I was pretty sure destiny hadn’t decreed that she worked as a classroom assistant or that I worked in DIY. In my view you shape your own destiny, but I felt I was losing a grip on mine.
After the fourth day of waking up feeling like a sack of shit and going back to bed until mid-afternoon, I decided I had to do something. I put the SIM in my disused mobile and dialled.
“Dr Reeta Patel…” a voice said.
“Reeta, it’s Eddie.” She brightened on the other end of the line. I tried to as well, but I knew my voice sounded dull and flat.