by Bali Rai
Della waited a moment and then spun round and followed me. She was mumbling under her breath about wanting to ‘lick’ me in the back of the head with her fist. Man, she was one dangerous sister when she was hungry. I had a feeling she was going to forget all about her chips once we got to Will’s house though. Missing one bag of chips wouldn’t be important once she’d heard what Will and Jas had to say. Believe me.
Will showed us up to his room in complete silence, his finger to his lips. No ‘hello’ or ‘how are you?’ Not even the offer of a glass of council pop, which was what Will liked to call tap water. We walked into his room, shutting the door behind us, then locking it from the inside. Jas was sitting on Will’s bed, waiting for us. Della sat down next to him and I stood in the narrow gap that ran between the bed and a self-built shelving unit that was fixed to the wall. It held Will’s turntable, mixer, stereo and fast-growing selection of tunes. The room was covered in floral wallpaper, nasty green flowers on an even nastier light beige background. In turn, the eyeball-damaging excuse for wall decoration was almost completely covered in posters and photos and flyers promoting club nights that Will had never been to, as well as one or two that he had.
Will stayed at the foot of his bed and between him and Jas sat a black canvas bag with a zip across the top of it. Della was looking at Jas and then Will and back again, asking with her fiery eyes and her flared nostrils for them to explain exactly why they had dragged her away from her chips. No one said a word. From Jas’s message, I knew what was in the bag and my heart really felt like it was in my mouth.
‘Well?’ asked Della. ‘Is one of you tossers gonna tell me why I’m still hungry or is this one of those boy things?’
I looked at Will, who looked at Jas, and then Jas returned the ball to my court.
‘Not me, dread,’ I said. ‘I didn’t find it.’
‘Find what, you gimps?’ Della glared at me.
I tried not to smile and pointed at Jas, who mouthed the words, ‘Thanks, you wanker,’ and then picked up the bag. ‘It’s in there,’ he offered, pointing at the bag and looking at Della.
She just blinked at him. You could almost see the sarcasm about to explode out of her head. ‘What is in de bag, lickle bwoi? Me dinner?’ She kissed her teeth.
‘No, there’s—’ he began, only to be cut off by me.
‘We should call Ellie – this is a Crew thing. She should be here.’
Jas shut up, let go a big smile and winked at Della, who just kissed her teeth at him too.
‘You boys carry on playin’ with yourselves – is what you ah do best anyways – I’ll go round and get Ellie. This . . . this . . . sweaty lickle room could use a bit of feminine balance anyway.’
Will just grinned back at her before picking up a piece of pool chalk from a shelf behind him and throwing it at her head. Della moved out of the line of fire and the blue square bounced off Jas’s head, leaving a smudge. Everyone started laughing and suddenly Della made a grab for the bag.
‘Before I go waste my lickle sister’s time, lemme see what you got in deh,’ she said.
Instantly me, Jas and Will tried to stop her. She was pulling the bag one way and we were all trying to pull it another.
‘What . . . you got . . . in here?’ she said between tugs. ‘Best not be no dutty nasty . . .’
‘It’s not porn,’ I said as I tried to separate Jas and Della.
‘Oh, for . . .’ I could tell she was about to explode.
‘It’s . . .’
As I spoke the contents of the bag cascaded out and landed on Will’s bed, on the floor, everywhere. Della’s jaw dropped.
‘. . . money.’
Ellie looked at me in disbelief. I reckon she was sitting there thinking about how many pairs of trainers she could get with all the money that Jas and Will had found. ‘How much is there?’ she asked as Della finished counting it all.
‘About fifteen grand, man,’ replied Della, dropping the money back into the bag.
‘Bwoi, I could get a whole heap of trainers with fifteen big ones, man.’
I got up from Will’s bed and shook my head. ‘And a whole heap of grief too – from whoever this dough belongs to.’
‘No one seen us find the bag, man.’ Jas was eyeing it as he spoke. ‘Thing was hidden behind a bin in our alley. Way I see things, Billy, that money is ours, man. Tax free an’ not a cent of VAT.’
‘How do you know that no one saw you?’ I asked.
‘’Cos there weren’t no other man in the alley. Jus’ me an’ Willy over there. It was early, man. No one else was around that early this morning.’
‘Hey, bhangra queen – me name ain’t Willy.’
‘Come along now, boys,’ said Ellie, smiling. ‘Let’s not be catty – it’s so Graham Norton, don’t you think?’
Will and Jas told her to shut up in unison. Ellie just laughed. One–nil to the blonde girl.
Della didn’t join in with Ellie’s fun, eyeing us all instead. I knew what she was thinking. It was exactly what I was thinking too. Sure, all that money was tempting. I had already had a daydream about starring in my own hip-hop lifestyle video. But then reality had slipped in uninvited, and three letters lit up in front of my eyes in a big, bright neon glow: N-A-H. I was wondering if Della could see the same images that were playing themselves out in my mind when she spoke up.
‘Right, let’s all forget the dreams about buyin’ new clothes and shit that I know we all been having and think about this like intelligent people and not greedy lickle Babylon.’
Will and Jas groaned together, as Della continued. ‘See, that money,’ she said, pointing at the bag, ‘ain’t just fallen out the sky. Somebody left it there, hidden in the alley, most probably for a good reason.’
‘Is what good reason could a man have to leave fifteen grand in an alleyway, man?’ Will kissed his teeth as he finished.
‘Hush yuh mout’, William, an’ listen. If it weren’t left for a reason then it was a mistake. Either way . . .’ Della held up the bag for us all to see. As if we weren’t looking at it anyway. ‘This money in this bag is dirty money. Come on, guys, it’s obvious. It’s got to be connected to a drug gang or to a robbery or even one of them slave-traders.’
When she said slave-trader, Della meant pimp, but she had never used that word. Not in all the time I had known her. Even hearing it on other people’s lips made her flinch and her eyes well up with angry tears.
‘So if we keep the money – then whoever it belongs to is gonna come looking for us. We’re the only gang that use that alley. It’s our alley. No one else goes in there if they can help it. Man, Zeus thinks it’s dirty an’ he’s a dog.’
‘Dell, ain’t no one gonna find out ’cos no one seen us take the bag,’ countered Jas.
‘Is how yuh know that?’ replied Della, but in a noticeably lighter tone of voice to Jas than to Will. Thing was, I’d already denied her food and I wasn’t about to push my luck by pointing out her soft spot for my mate.
‘So what are we going to do?’ added Ellie. ‘And can we decide soon because I’m hungry.’
‘Yeah, so am I,’ agreed Della, ‘and I’m about ready fe kill a bwoi an’ eat him.’
I took the lead and the bag from Della. Looking round at the rest of the crew, I waited a few moments and then handed the bag back to Will. ‘We ain’t doing nothing with it tonight. We’ll take a vote on it and whatever we decide to do with it, for tonight at least, we’ll leave it with Will. Agreed?’
Everyone nodded.
‘So all in favour of keeping the money?’
Jas and Will looked at each other and then nodded.
‘Puttin’ it back . . .?’
‘Nah,’ said Della. ‘It’s our alley. If we put it back, someone else could nick it and we’d still get all the shit.’
‘OK, then, handin’ it in . . .?’
Ellie and Della nodded without any hesitation.
‘Looks like you got the casting vote, my dan,’ laughed Jas. ‘A
s always.’
‘I dunno,’ I said. I really wasn’t that sure what we should do.
‘Well then, what’s the point of—?’ began Della and Jas together.
‘Let’s leave it for a few days,’ I said. ‘That way we can think about it properly. Everyone up for that?’
Slowly they all nodded.
‘Cool. Now we can go get some food.’ I looked at Della.
‘About time too,’ she said.
We all left Will’s house together and headed for the chippie. Jas and Della went on ahead. Jas whispered something in her ear and she giggled, prompting Will to give me a look that said, ‘What’s going on there then?’
I shrugged as Ellie just did her usual mocking and moaning routine. ‘. . . but Will, I don’t want chips. I want pizza. Can I have pizza . . . please, Dad,’ she said, smiling.
Will raised his eyebrows. ‘Man, Ellie, I’ve told you before. Don’t keep calling me Dad. It’s sick.’
‘Oh, please let me have pizza. Please. I’ll stop calling you Dad, old man . . . please.’
five:
monday afternoon
I WAS WALKING back from town a couple of days later, getting soaked in a thunderstorm. Rainwater dripped from my face and hair and ran down my back, ice-cold needles of it that made me shiver. It was yet another typical English summer. Despite the rain, I still had the money on my mind. I had the casting vote and I didn’t want it. Whatever I decided, either way, I was going to upset someone. Part of me wanted to keep it. Big time. But the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that we had to get rid of it – hand it in. I had decided to ask Nanny for his advice and was on my way home to see him.
The walk from town took me past the back of the train station, an old Victorian building that had recently been put through a clean-up. It was a local hangout for all the junkies and sex-workers, male and female, as well as a gateway to the rest of the country. I walked through its car park, past turbaned taxi-drivers and their customers. A high-speed train was pulling in as I jumped the car-park fence onto the iron road bridge that linked the town centre to the ghetto. The bridge was black with grime and I wondered if anyone would ever clean it up like they had the station. It wasn’t very likely. After all, the train station was the first thing that visitors to the city would see. My area was the last thing the council wanted anyone new in town to see.
I walked on through the estate, letting my mind stray wherever it pleased. It was what I did. Think. Mostly too much. My mum told me once that I was born with a furrowed brow. She told me I even frowned in my sleep. I believed her too.
The money continued to bother my thoughts as I passed a line of cars parked up at the kerbside, people leaning in and drivers and passengers passing things out. Money, drugs, even a CD player. Twice, I saw police cars pass by and each time the occupants gave me the once-over, the drowned ghetto rat making his way home over dirty, rubbish-strewn streets. Pure suspicion passed across their faces, just like it always did. I walked into the community centre car park, cutting a corner. My mum was based in the centre and I wondered if she was about. Normally I’d stop to say hello but the rain was still battering down so I carried on, wanting to get home.
When I got there, Nanny was in the kitchen making some soup and listening to Black Uhuru, this old reggae band. I got a towel and dried my head with it as Nanny tried to sing along to one of the songs.
‘Man, that voice isn’t what it could be, is it?’ I said, grinning as I let my earlier thoughts disappear into the void at the back of my brain, my own personal recycle bin – a bin that never got emptied.
‘Wha’? And yours is, man?’ Nanny threw a slice of pepper at me and then carried on singing.
‘What’s the song called then?’ I asked, opening the fridge to get myself some juice.
‘“What Is Life”, man.’
‘I dunno. You tell me, dread,’ I said, pleased with my little joke.
‘Life is just a test, y’know. Just some man Jah a bless.’ Nanny ignored my attempt at humour.
I decided to ask him straight out about the money. ‘Talking of tests – I’ve got a problem, Nanny. I need your help with something.’
‘Man, I hope you haven’t got into trouble with the police again, Sleepy.’
‘Nah, man, nothing that serious.’
‘A good ting too, my yout’. Not even I would be able to stop yuh muddah from kill you this time.’
I looked away, remembering my brush with the police over the joyriding. I let it go. ‘I have more of a moral dilemma, Nanny.’
He smiled. ‘Moral dilemma is easy, man. Yuh have right and yuh have wrong and in da middle yuh have everyting else. The real world.’
‘What you on about, man?’
‘Well, is like this. What you think is wrong another man might think is right. People have different ways of looking at the world. Could be ’cos of dem religion or the politics they believe in. Could be down to any number of t’ings.’
‘Like how I don’t agree with racists, you mean.’
Nanny smiled again. ‘Yeah, man. Is one example. Now, why don’t yuh explain what yuh problem is.’
‘Money. It’s a problem with money, Nan.’
Nanny took a wooden spoon and stirred his soup, not answering me for a while. ‘Money is a problem for ninety per cent of the world, Sleepy,’ he replied thoughtfully.
‘Don’t call me that, Nan. It makes me feel like I’m five years old again.’
‘So, tell me.’ The wooden spoon he was holding and pointing in my direction let loose flecks of soup that splashed the table in front of me. I wiped a drop away with a finger.
‘Jas and Will found some money a few days ago. In the alley. In a bag.’
Nanny frowned, returning his wooden spoon to the pot. ‘How much money, Billy?’ he asked before stirring the soup again.
‘A lot of money. In crumpled notes.’
‘An’ yuh nah know what to do wid it, yes?’ I knew that Nanny would know exactly what my dilemma would be. All he needed were the facts.
‘Yeah. The lads wanna keep it but Dell and Ellie wanna hand it in to the police.’
‘An’ because you run de Crew like democracy you get the final vote.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Somethin’ like that.’
‘Let me finish making this soup and I’ll come talk to you,’ he said, frowning some more.
I went up to my bedroom and waited for him. It wasn’t that Nanny had to have some huge debate with himself about my dilemma. He already had an answer. He just wanted me to go away and think about it for myself. Properly. He always did that. Once, a few years earlier, I got into trouble over a broken window and I had lied through my teeth to cover myself. Only Nanny knew straight away. He saw straight through my lie and let me know. And then he let me come to my own conclusion about what I had to do to make up for it. Nanny, the dreadlocked psychologist. Like Cracker on weed.
six:
monday, 9 p.m.
‘WE JUST SAW that bloke in the alley, Billy. The one Baby was on about.’
Jas was excited and out of breath, talking nineteen to the dozen as Will nodded in agreement. I had been sitting around, mooching, waiting for Nanny to get back to me, only he had gone out somewhere and forgotten about me. Or so I thought. Around nine that night Jas and Will had come round, breathless and sweaty.
‘How do you know it was the same man?’ I asked them. It could have been anyone.
‘Well . . . I suppose we don’t really,’ offered Will haltingly. ‘But he looked just like she said and he legged it when we turned up and had a go at him.’
‘So you two clowns just chased some innocent man out of the alley and halfway round the ghetto without knowing for sure that he had done anything?’
‘Er . . . yeah,’ replied Jas, grinning. ‘How cool is that, man. Playin’ like feds, man. Five-O.’
‘Feds is what you’re gonna have on your ass when that bloke reports you to the police. And what if that was his mo
ney we’ve got. He could have come back for it!’
‘Nah,’ replied Jas, dismissive. ‘He weren’t the kind of man to have any serious money wid him. The man’s just a nonce, Billy. He was hassling Ellie. Man, we couldn’t let that go.’
Mr Kick-boxer gave me a self-righteous look before grinning again but Will suddenly began to look worried. He scratched his head. ‘Boy, could be he was just some other bloke, y’know. Not the same one that Ellie saw.’
‘Could be,’ I began, trying not to laugh, ‘that you two are gonna be calling my ass from the police station, talking about bail.’
First Will started to laugh, then me, and finally Jas. I could just imagine Jas and Will on the phone from the cells, begging me to get them out. Little boys playing at big men.
‘Forget it anyway,’ said Will. ‘Mofo was that scared he ain’t gonna leave his house for a week.’
We all started laughing again. At the time it was funny. Will and Jas chasing some random man from the alley for no good reason and no proof that he had done anything wrong. Man, you wouldn’t believe how wrong we all were.
Nanny turned up at around ten with a big bag of weed and a smile on his face. The lads had gone and my mum was at the kitchen table, on the phone to a friend. Nanny waited for my mum to get off the phone and then gave her a kiss. She looked at the bag of weed and shook her head, smiling.
‘What happened to you earlier?’ I asked him, putting down my magazine.
‘I had to go out, Billy. Things to do.’
‘What, like buying herb?’ I pointed at the bag.
‘And checking out a little something for you and your friends.’
As he spoke my mum gave me a strange look. It was her ‘mother’s intuition’ and it was scary. She could sense trouble from a mile away, especially if it involved me. ‘What little something are you on about?’ she asked, frowning.
Nanny held up his hands and shrugged, as if to say, ‘Don’t ask me to explain.’
‘Well, Billy, what have you lot done this time?’ My mum gave me her look. If you could call a glare gentle, then that’s what it was. Gentle – yet deadly.