Sour

by Tracey Miller

  David, the boy I’d tried to love, the boy who treated me right, took me for dinners and paid for the hairdresser, the first boy who ever treated me like someone who’d got out of the ghetto, was lying in a ball, bleeding on the pavement.

  His face was crumpled with confusion. He just kept staring at me in disbelief.

  The blood was spreading over his clothes.

  “Oh shit.”

  I ran to the phone. I didn’t care about the consequences this time.

  “Send someone quick,” I pleaded. “Man’s been stabbed.” I gave the address. I didn’t say who stabbed him.

  Then and there, for the first time, as I watched David being stretchered into the back of an ambulance, I realised the badness I was truly capable of. This was no faceless Peckham Boy, or Ghetto Boy, or Junction Boy, making threats or causing harm. This was my boy.

  Overdose

  David decided to drop the charges in the end.

  The police came to my door a few days later to tell me there would be no further action. He had been discharged from hospital. He was going to be OK. Even had he died, I don’t think I could have felt much lower than I already did.

  Truth be told, when boydem said I could walk free, I didn’t feel relief. I felt disappointment. It would have been an escape to get caught. Looking back, prison was the last time I’d felt happy. It was the only time I’d felt happy. I wanted to have that time-out again, that break from reality.

  I’d had enough. I didn’t want to be demonic no more. And if I couldn’t do that, I didn’t want to be here at all.

  Yeah, waking up to the same story every day becomes annoying after a while.

  Nobody came to knock at the door after that. Steaming, shanking, shotting, tiefing. It makes you feel at the top of the tree for a while, but it’s a lonely girl’s world, you know. Postcode celebrity or not.

  I shut myself away, locked the world out, and dared not take another step outside, for fear of what I would do, or who I would harm. Daughter of Darkness indeed.

  My life wasn’t worth shit. Where exactly had it gone wrong? This was not what being 18 was meant to be like. There were other lives out there I would have liked, but this one wasn’t one of them.

  The phone rang, but the people on the other end of the line only ever asked one question: “Can you fix me up?”

  I didn’t just withdraw from the road; I withdrew from the world.

  Every so often, Mum would come up to air my room, and pull open the curtains, ranting something from the Qur’an. In his letters, Yusuf would urge me to rediscover Islam from his prison cell.

  But so much for Allah. I kept asking God questions but he wasn’t responding. I asked him why he made the path I was living available to me? Why didn’t I have a normal life?

  No answer. So I had to come up with my own answers, which frustrated me even further.

  My life was no longer anything that I recognised. I’d sold myself a lie. I was not happy with myself, my life or anything I’d accomplished. But there was no one I could tell. They were all dead or in prison. One form makes many. Now I had no one.

  Anyone I’d ever trusted was gone. I’d never really thought about anything as grand as a “future”. That’s what other kids did. The ones who are expected to go on to university, the ones who get certificates and plan nice holidays.

  I felt suffocated. I needed to breathe. Inhale, exhale. Why was it so hard to do?

  Had I not arrived when I did, maybe my dad wouldn’t have made Mum jump through those windows. Had I been a better daughter, maybe she wouldn’t be as ill as she was. Maybe, had I been a normal female, a nice girl like all the rest, maybe I could have set a better example to my little brother.

  I took each day as it arrived, just wishing for it to pass quickly and then disappear, moving on to the next. In retrospect, being cooped up in a bedroom full of disappointing thoughts probably ain’t good for a girl’s mental health, but them days I wasn’t thinking straight.

  All I knew was that I’d had enough. I didn’t want to be Sour no more.

  For hours on end I sat in my room, staring at that beautiful chrome gun and toyed with all the thoughts racing through my mind. I wanted to cause harm, and if I’d lost heart to do it to other people, I might as well do it to myself.

  One night, I left my mum in the front room, came upstairs and locked my door. The TV was still blaring. Fort Boyard.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, pointed the ting to my temple, and looked at myself in the long wardrobe mirror. Could I do it here? I thought about the mess, imagining all the JFK gunk all over the duvet. Nah, too messy. Not the ting. Sure, it would be quick, but I just couldn’t stomach it.

  I wasn’t no good at tying knots, and didn’t much fancy hanging from my bedroom light.

  Eventually, I hit upon an idea. Mum’s anti-psychotic tablets. Amitriptyline. That was powerful shit. Anything else would be messy, but if I took the tablets it would look natural, innit. I could just lie there, like Sleeping Beauty.

  I unlocked the bedroom door, and hesitated. The gameshow was still blaring. Dirty Den and Melinda Messenger were still bounding about with some screaming contestants. Mum hadn’t moved. She was probably asleep on the sofa.

  Padding softly over the thick carpet, I snuck through into her room, where the tablets were easily located among the pillboxes on her dresser. There were so many bloody bottles, she’d hardly notice one was gone. I filled a glass of water in the bathroom and slipped back into my bedroom.

  Did I need to write a note? I wondered. Nah, the reasons were pretty obvious.

  I got under the covers, downed the bottle, lay back and waited.

  Shock

  “Can you hear me? You’re in the ambulance. Can you tell me what you took, sweetheart?”

  Lights were being flashed in my eyes. I was trembling violently, covered in sick. I felt a vague sensation of being wired up to things. Machines beeped in total darkness.

  The voices faded away. I drifted into blankness.

  So much for my fairytale. I ain’t never read the one where Sleeping Beauty wakes up in the hospital, feeling like shit, to be told she’s up the duff.

  “Pregnant? But I can’t, I don’t …”

  My arms felt like lead, and I could barely lift my head from the hospital bed.

  “Thirteen weeks. Or thereabouts.”

  There was a woman’s voice talking to me. The pink lips were moving, but I couldn’t compute.

  “But I can’t … I can’t have kids …”

  After Daggers, I had waited for the consequence, but nothing had happened, so I just assumed I couldn’t have kids. That’s what I thought would happen with David too. Bloody idiot.

  With all the stress with David and Yusuf, I hadn’t paid attention to missed periods. I barely paid attention even when I wasn’t stressed. The less they came, the better, if you ask me. Just an inconvenience. Police cells don’t have sanitary bins.

  It was like I’d woken up in someone else’s dream – after what felt like a very good sleep.

  When I came round, I had what felt like ten pairs of eyes staring and blinking at me. My bed was surrounded.

  Even worse, now all these hospital staff were treating me like I was vulnerable or something. I ain’t vulnerable, I wanted to shout at them all. I’m just fucking pissed off to be here. I’d decided to do a job, but the job didn’t get done.

  I felt like a failure. I couldn’t even kill myself properly! How dumb. Worse, I’d managed to wake up with an extra problem.

  Pregnant. I couldn’t take it in. My first thought was that there must be a way this can be put to an end. But Islam doesn’t look too kindly on such things. It was forbidden. Fuck’s sake. I had made my bed, and now I had to lie in it. I was 18. I wasn’t ready to be a mother.

  More than that, I didn’t know how to be a mother. I’d grown up, watching Mum struggle, unable to cope. Motherhood meant struggling. It meant unhappiness. It meant being alone.

  I spent the next
few days in hospital, answering questions from a revolving door of health professionals who introduced themselves one moment then disappeared the next. They put me in a room with a shrink! How embarrassing.

  Sleeping Beauty didn’t have to put up with this shit.

  The shrink was nice enough. Young woman, smart shoes. Looked like she shopped in Hobbs. But Lord have mercy, she was boring. Just kept asking the same questions over and over again. Why would such a young person want to die? Why did you take those tablets? What are you unhappy about?

  Where do you begin? Bless her, she was only doing her job, but I thought she would never shut up.

  Remorse is not an emotion I’m too fond of. But I learned quite quickly in that little box-room, at the end of the ward, that I had to act like I was OK or I would never be leaving that hospital. So I put on my best brave face and convinced this sweet woman in the sensible court shoes and beige tights that it was just my silly, one-off error.

  Once I got home, what did I do?

  Well, I let time glide. I think it’s called denial. Though there was no denying those months of morning sickness, bent over the toilet, too ill to eat, too ill to sleep, too miserable to do anything.

  Nope, this chick didn’t like being pregnant at all. People speak about blooming and glowing and all that shit. When you’re on your own it’s a bloody horrible experience. An alien had invaded my body and there was fuck all I could do about it.

  I’d spent years struggling for control of my own chaotic life. Now I didn’t even have control over my own bloated body. Didn’t know what to expect for motherhood.

  So, I took every day as it came. Didn’t have much choice. No one came to visit.

  Eventually, the time came to call David.

  “Hope the kid’s mine.”

  “Just look at you, you ugly boy,” I snapped. “You were lucky to have ever had a girl like me.”

  “You nearly killed me, you vicious cow.”

  I had no response to that one. I hung up. The ball was in his court.

  My back ached, my fingers tingled, but despite all the aches and pains and loneliness, a realisation shot through my mind.

  I could be an OK mum, you know. Maybe this ain’t so bad.

  I got the bus home to Roupell Park that day, if not a new woman, then at least a re-energised one.

  I was going to have to reassess some things. First things first, you can’t push drugs with a pushchair. It doesn’t look good. I needed to cut all that shit out. I’d never been addicted to drugs, but I needed to wean myself off selling them. I’d miss the money. Where I come from, legitimacy means poverty.

  Fuck the phone. Fuck the guns. Fuck the lifestyle. The moment that phone rang, I knew I’d be caught in the same old rubbish. I snapped that gold aerial and threw it away. The cats could call someone else.

  Everything else I left for the elders to deal with. I went through my room that night like a woman possessed, chucking out trainers and the last bags of brown, sweeping the Moet bottles off the shelf into a bin liner. They smashed into the bag in a cloud of dust.

  Next came the clothes. Out went gangster chic, in stayed anything with an elasticated waist.

  That night, I collapsed on the bed. Under the duvet, I laid my hands on my belly and felt my baby kick. The somersaults continued till late in the night. I fell asleep quickly for the first time in a long time, with my hand on my tummy and a smile on my lips.

  Epilogue

  “Montana! Where’s my change?”

  A tall, slender young girl in a pressed, clean uniform hands me a £10 note.

  “Where’s your football kit?”

  “Washing machine.”

  “And your schoolbag?”

  “My room.”

  “Homework?”

  “Done.”

  I’m trying to think of another thing to catch her out, but I can’t.

  “Going to Letitia’s. Want me to bring back some food?”

  “No, there’s stuff in the fridge. Don’t be late.”

  “I won’t,” she sings, but she’s already out the door.

  When Montana was born, I couldn’t take it all in. It had been a difficult labour. I was glad the pain was over, but the rest I couldn’t compute. What was I meant to do? Who was going to tell me?

  I didn’t know how to be a mum. And I had no one to teach me. You can’t anticipate what you don’t know. Suddenly this little rugrat was depending on me. I had to step up.

  I won’t lie. They were dark days. I barely left the house. I lived like a zombie. I was scared. More than that, I felt lost. I didn’t feel like I was part of society. This was a whole new kinda isolation.

  The first few months passed in a fug. I used to wish the time away. Get her sleeping right through the night, good. Get her on solids, great.

  I wished away the days. I wished away the firsts that other, happier parents might celebrate. First footsteps, first words, first potty – these weren’t things to be savoured, they were stages of survival. I broke it down into little steps. OK, she’s one, I’d tell myself; now let’s get to two. Two, now let’s get to three. It was a big responsibility. Certain days I was fine. Certain days I was sinking. But I got through.

  David stepped up too. Thanks to his mum, mainly. She’s a good lady. He’s got a good job. He sees Montana a lot, and so does her nan. They go out on educational trips together, to museums, libraries, swimming pools. She gets to sample some fine dining.

  She’s 16 in March. I was well and truly battle-hardened by then. But ’Tana – I’d like to think she’s exactly how a 15 year old should be.

  Would you believe, she’s friends with some of Drex’s children? He’s got a few now. Funny how things work out. She knows about my past, most of it, anyway. There wasn’t much choice. We live in the same endz – of course it was going to be mentioned to her, at some point – “Your mum used to be this, she used to do that.” She would have found out sooner or later, so I’d prefer she heard it from me.

  Yeah, me and ’Tana, we’re cool. She gets provided for. She says I’m strict. Damn right. I operate a zero tolerance household, make no mistake. It works. She even likes school too. Sometimes I wonder if she really is my daughter.

  I would love for her to be a brain surgeon. She says she wants to be a vet. Or a lawyer. I just hope she can be whatever she wants to be, the best in her field. She wants to see the world. Unlike me at that age, she knows it’s out there, beyond prison and a postcode.

  It’s lonely. I ain’t gonna lie. There’s no reward for turning over a good leaf. There’s no medal for returning from the dark side.

  I’m not sure there should be. I don’t expect an invitation to Buckingham Palace. I’m just being the best mum I can be. Had Montana not come when she did, I know one thing for sure: I’d be either dead or in jail. Now there’s Molly too, my latest little rugrat. She’ll soon be three.

  She’s the spit of her dad, with pale, olive skin and the most unusual-coloured eyes. He’s another one that can’t figure me out; he’s not around, but it’s hard work. I know I’m not the easiest of characters. The three of us are a unit. We get by.

  What they don’t like to tell you is that giving up gangs makes you poor, that’s the truth. It’s not like there’s a choice between good squillah or bad. As a single mum with no qualifications, it was drug money or nothing. It’s a choice between thriving on ill-gotten gains, or surviving the endz with benefits.

  Do I have regrets? Put it like this: if I’d put as much energy into a business as I did into crime, I’d be on Dragon’s Den, darling. I’d be proud and loaded. If I’d studied as much as I steamed, I’d be an architect or a doctor by now.

  Instead, I got work at a bookies, took shifts at Greggs. I even tried out a job with some health insurance company, but I’m still searching for the right path.

  Funnily enough, the City headhunters didn’t beat a path to my doorstep, though I think that’s their big mistake – if they want whipsmart kids who can spot a busines
s opportunity when they see one, they could do worse than tap up the shotters on the sink estates. Dealing drugs sure as hell brings out your inner entrepreneur.

  Winston got someone else to look after his P’s. Brixton was changing. There were whole new tribes of young, white professionals to supply with pills and cocaine. And there was plenty fresh blood to fight over who got to get rich keeping them happy.

  Want to hear a coincidence?

  At secondary school, my niece became friends with a lovely mixed-race girl. Lovely kid. She was always coming round, and soon saw me as a big auntie.

  Turned out her uncle was called Brandon. He was Asian, but no longer a boy.

  Imagine that – our nieces became friends. How about that?

  She must have gone back home one day, talking about her Aunty Sour, when Brandon made the connection. Next thing I know, I’m getting a phone call from a number I don’t recognise.

  “Listen, yeah,” he said. “I just want to apologise. I know it’s a lot of years ago but I didn’t know you were part of that crew and I’d never have – Basically, yeah, I’m sorry.”

  I laughed. None of it mattered. Blood under the bridge.

  “It’s cool, innit.”

  “For real?”

  “For real. What you done to me was probably payback for something else. Karma, innit.”

  I found it weird that all these years later he still wanted to apologise.

  “Look, me and you, we’ve never had arguments. It’s done. No hard feelings, yeah?”

  He sounded stunned.

  “Look after yourself.”

  “You too.”

  I never heard from him again. Bless him. If I saw him today, I’d go and give him a hug.

  And the Man Dem? What happened to all those boys I was prepared to get knifed for? Good question.

  A couple made it through, with businesses and jobs of their own. A lot of them haven’t. But every now and then I’ll hear one of them has done well or found God, and be pleased. It is what it is.