When I left at ten, Rebecca’s mum still wasn’t home. To tell the truth, I didn’t want to leave, but Catherine was due home at any time, and I wanted to be there to talk to her. And when I did get home, Catherine was already there. So we were all of us sitting around and eating and talking with the TV on in the background for a couple of hours. And then Mum and Dad went to bed. And it was gone one o’clock before Sean went to bed, and then me and Catherine stayed up until about three.
In many ways, it was just like old times with me grilling her about university life in general and about life in Brighton more specifically. I can’t get enough of Brighton and I love hearing her talk about the cafes and bars she goes to with her friends. I wonder sometimes whether she makes it sound more exotic and bohemian than it actually is, because she knows how much it thrills me to think of it being like that.
Some things we didn’t speak about though. We didn’t talk about Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret. And we sure as hell didn’t talk about the Ruger P95 lying hidden in a plastic bag under my bed.
Shit, the Ruger. I feel quite heavy with sadness at the thought of it as everything rushes back to me. Damn, and I was feeling so good, too. I’ve got to meet up with Sammy Williams and hand the Ruger over to him this afternoon. And I don’t want to do it. I really don’t want to hand it over. For a few stupid moments all kinds of ridiculous thoughts come to mind. Thankfully, I’m smart enough to throw them into the mental rubbish bin where they belong. I mean, do you see me pulling the Ruger on Sammy and telling him that it’s mine now and that he can’t have it back? No, me neither. How long would it be before I’m stabbed in the street, or shot dead or something like that? And it’s not even Sammy’s gun, is it? It belongs to someone even more dangerous than Sammy. Shit, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Of course I’m going to give it back. Fact is, I’m not Travis Bickle. What the fuck do I want with a gun? The reminder of what I really want is downstairs with Mum. Catherine. University. A way out of here. A way, if I’m honest, out of a life where guns and crime and lawless behaviour feature at all. What have I been thinking? What has that fucking gun been doing to me? And when I think of it like that, all I can say is that getting rid of the stupid thing can’t come soon enough. I feel better already. Time for a shower and time to get dressed.
Downstairs, Mum already has breakfast waiting for me. She’s heard me in the shower. I’m the last one up, of course. Even Sean has been up and has eaten before retiring to his room like the anti-social troll that he is. Dad has gone to work; it’s only half a day and he’ll be back by three o’clock, but his firm is so busy that overtime like this has almost become compulsory. He moans about it, but I know that in a way he’s pleased to have the money coming in.
I sit in the living room to eat my breakfast, served on a tray on my knee. Catherine and Mum are there too, and the telly is on in the background as ever.
‘So, are we going out tonight then?’
As it happens, I’m free on Saturday; Rebecca and I are getting together on Sunday night. But I can’t answer right away – I have to hastily chew and swallow before I can reply and I swear that Catherine has waited until I have a mouthful before she’s asked me this. The way she’s grinning at me as I try to force the bacon down my throat pretty much confirms it.
‘Sure. I’m not doing anything.’
I try to make it sound pretty casual, but we both know that I love going out with Catherine.
‘What, not seeing your little girlfriend on a Saturday night?’
Well no, I’m not actually. Rebecca already has plans. It will take a little while for our schedules to synchronise I guess. I don’t say all this of course; I just shake my head to say no.
‘OK, so where shall we go?’
I know that she’s teasing – she knows that I don’t go out bar-hopping all the time, like some my age.
‘Why don’t you decide?’
‘I’ll have a think. We’ll decide later.’
And so we sit there talking and reading the papers and stuff, and it’s really nice and I almost feel like this is a perfect world. Until I look at the clock and I have to remember the Ruger. No point delaying things; I have to get this sorted and the sooner the better.
I tell Mum and Catherine that I have to pop around to Andy’s to return some books that I’ve borrowed from him and that he needs for a homework assignment. I don’t even think they’re still listening by the time I’ve finished explaining, which is good. I’m not going to be long.
Out on the streets, there’s quite a breeze, and it’s dark and grey with low cloud, but it’s dry. There are people about, some in driveways washing their cars almost to spite the cold, others looking like they are going to or coming from some shopping expedition or other. Typical Saturday stuff and no mistake. There are also kids out playing; skateboards, bikes, doing whatever it is they are doing. I don’t take much interest.
I have my black cotton jacket on, zipped up against the breeze. Under my arm I have a plastic bag and wrapped in it is the Ruger P95. I’ve wiped it very carefully all over so that I won’t have left a trace of my having ever been in contact with it. Well, you can’t be too careful, and I’ve watched enough CSI to know what to do.
As I walk through the streets of this familiar estate towards the line of shops on the perimeter, I’m feeling reluctant to hand over the gun again. Why can’t I keep it? I keep getting the stupid scenarios running through my head again; me pulling the gun on Sammy, challenging him to take it from me if he wants it. Stuff like that. I have to try to remember where my real future lies. University. Brighton. Out of here. Best all round if the gun is just gone. I know only too well that if ever I was to use it, I would lose everything. It’s that simple. So of course I’m just going to hand it over. It’s a no-brainer. All the same, I feel like I’m being forced to do something I’d rather not do. It nags at me.
I’m walking along one of the rougher streets of the estate, the quickest way to where I’m headed. There’s nobody on this street out washing cars on the driveway. No children out playing. A couple of the houses that I pass are boarded up. One of them is charred from a fire that ran through it. About a third of the houses in this street are empty and decaying. One house over on the far side of the street from where I’m walking has all the windows covered with wire mesh and a steel plate covering the front door. But this is not an abandoned house. Rumour has it that this is a house where a nasty criminal element runs its business. And that business is drug related of course. How true that is I can’t honestly say, but rumours like that on an estate like ours are ones that you can pretty much believe. Certainly, I believe. I’m going to walk on by pretty quickly. This is not a place to dwell, not even when you’re carrying a Ruger P95.
As I approach this locked up house, a kid looking a little too big for the BMX he’s riding comes around the corner of an adjacent street. I can’t see who this kid is because he’s wearing a dark blue hoodie with the hood pulled right up. He looks up briefly and sees me though. And he stops and he points his hand right at me, and imitates a gun with his fingers and mimics firing a shot.
This chills and sickens me all at the same time. I’m scared, I don’t mind saying. This kid then wheels his bike into the overgrown garden of the crime-house I’ve just been describing. I’m scared like I haven’t been since before I started carrying the Ruger. I’m sure as hell not Travis Bickle right now and I’m cursing that Roddy Thompson ever forced me to look after his damned gun.
I’m past that house and around the corner onto a different street, quicker than you can imagine. I walk as fast as I can without running. But I’m not going faster than a bike. And it’s a bike that whizzes past me, the same bike that I’d seen on the street I’ve just come from. And it’s the same kid riding the bike. The kid passes me on the other side of the road and he reaches out his arm without looking and he’s pointing something at me. Shit it’s a gun!
I cry out and force myself back into the privet hedge that bounds the
garden of the house I’m walking past. I hear a loud crack and I cry out again as I feel something hit my chest. It stings even through my cotton jacket and I look down fearing the worst and I’m almost weeping. But all I see is a silvery metal blob on the ground by my feet. I pick it up and inspect it. An air gun pellet. It was just an air gun. Well, yes, of course I’m relieved, but I’m also shaking with fear. And I can’t help thinking what Sean told me and what Sammy told me; that word was going around that I was carrying a gun.
The kid on the bike has stopped at the end of the road. He’s still sitting on his bike, arms folded and facing me as I approach on the opposite pavement. I can’t help but look over as I pass, and I see the face beneath the hood now, grinning at me. It’s the kid who had tried to mug me the other night. The kid I’d robbed at gun point. Oh fuck, what have I got myself into?
I hurry on by. The sooner I get to the shops and hand the sodding gun back to Sammy Williams the better. I’m promising myself I’ll work hard at school, that I’ll get myself out, like it’s a bloody mantra or something. I’m still saying this when I round a final corner and I see the police cars. Both exits to the alley behind the shops are blocked with police cars, blue lights flashing, the whole works. Well this is just great, isn’t it? This is just what I need.
There are a few people – kids mostly – milling around trying to see what’s going on, but Community Support Officers, those part-time ass-wipe pretend cops in their day-glo jackets, are keeping them back. I get as near as I can, conscious of what I’m carrying in the bag under my arm, but I’m trying to see if I can spot Sammy anywhere. Needless to say, I can’t. Damn damn damn!
Then there’s a bit of activity. I can see some cops coming out of the alley, quite a few of them. And they’re escorting three kids and I know who these kids are; it’s Sammy Williams and the two older boys I’d seen him with outside the school and at the Concrete Canyon. They’ve all got their hands behind their backs so they’ve been cuffed. Just before they push him into the car, Sammy Williams looks up and he sees me, and it’s like I can see something click inside his head.
‘You’re dead, Davies. Dead. Fucking dead, you grass!’
It’s all he can manage to shout before the cops shove him roughly into the back of one of their cars. Those two other boys from over on the Canyon say nothing as they are pushed into the backs of other cars. They don’t have to. The way they’re looking at me says enough. That’s when I nearly faint, when I realise that Sammy was aiming his invective at me. Oh shit no, he can’t believe that, he can’t! I haven’t grassed him up, I haven’t. I wouldn’t dare! But that’s what he thinks. And that’s what everyone will think now. Word’s going to spread like wildfire. Oh God I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead.
CHAPTER 17
Paramilitary social workers
I’m still holding the sodding Ruger, wrapped in its plastic bag as I get home. Only Sean is there. I pretty much ignore him even though he tries to say something to me. I just rush upstairs and hide the Ruger under my bed.
I’m slow coming back down the stairs, and Sean is still there, like he’s been waiting for me.
‘Where’s Catherine? And Mum?’
‘That’s what I was trying to tell you. They’re over at Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret’s.’
Suddenly I feel cold, even though it’s warm in the house.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Somebody’s been having a go at them. Messed the house up. I saw it when I went past this morning. Mum and Catherine have gone over to help them clean it up.’
Somebody. Well I have a bloody good idea who somebody is, and there’s an itch at the back of my mind that can be scratched by fetching the Ruger from under my bed. I don’t do that of course.
‘Come on, let’s go over.’
Sean doesn’t need any encouragement, and pretty soon we’re walking at some pace through the breeze towards Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret’s house.
I can pretty much guess what’s happened, but I still get Sean to give me the details as we walk. Sometime in the night, grey gloss paint has been thrown over the walls and windows of Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret’s house. Everything in the garden has been pulled up and thrown about, and there’s even paint on the lawn. And someone has been pissing in through their letter-box and they’ve also been shoving paper bags full of human shit through the letter-box too. And there’s shit smeared all over the front door.
Now I’m guessing that unless you actually live on an estate like ours you’re pretty shocked by that. But let me tell you, it doesn’t shock any of us. It sickens us, but it doesn’t surprise us. That’s just the sort of behaviour we’ve come to expect from the feral brutish louts that live among us. And there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. Not in the short term. Every now and then, you read in the papers about how a community has come together to gather evidence against a problem family, and eventually that family has been evicted and forced to move on. But the fact that these stories make the papers at all just shows how uncommon these little victories are. And the fact that you don’t hear about them often shows how difficult it is to get that to happen. The worst thing is that when you really read these stories, it strikes you that the community has had to gather evidence for months and months. But in the meantime, decent people still have to suffer. People like Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret.
When we get to the house, I see that Catherine is standing on some steps, scraping grey paint off the front windows. The paint seems to be coming away easily enough, but that does not make me feel better. In the garden, Mum is helping Uncle Jack gather up the torn-out plants and shrubs and sweep loose soil from the lawn and back into the trampled borders. I no longer feel like crying, not even when I see Uncle Jack looking so utterly broken. I just feel cold. And angry.
‘Where’s Aunty Margaret?’
I guess I’m worried because I don’t see her.
Mum looks up from where she’s crouched down, gathering together some undamaged green plants.
‘She’s inside, making some tea.’
Mum looks bewildered, like she can’t believe anyone would behave like this. She should know better; she’s lived on this estate all of her life. She’s seen what it’s become.
I take a moment to gather my thoughts. Right now I would gladly see the entire Rogers family killed.
‘Has anyone called the police?’
Sean is right. The police should be here.
‘As soon as we got here, about half an hour ago.’
Catherine will have called them herself. It’s good that she’s here.
‘So where are they?’
I can hear the anger in Sean’s voice and I know that it won’t help.
‘You know what it’s like. They’ll get here when they can be bothered and not before. Go and make sure Aunty Margaret’s alright will you?’
Shit, but we shouldn’t have to live like this, in fear of scum like the Rogers family. But it’s just the way things are and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Down the street I see two kids in hooded sweatshirts riding BMX bikes. It makes me think of the kid who had shot me with the air pistol earlier. That kid had gone into the fortified house on that rough street before he’d shot at me. A lot of kids like that are used to distribute drugs and crap. They are at the bottom of the food chain sure enough, but some of them will be looking to move up that career ladder. I wonder how many of them aspire to be squalid drug lords, controlling territories like the Concrete Canyon, or estates like this one. I’d rather be dead than have nothing more than that to look forward to. I watch the kids on the bikes for a moment, long enough to see them approach a group of kids who are hanging out on a street corner. I can’t see from this distance whether or not any trivial business is transacted, but I’m guessing that it is. It’s the way things happen around here.
We clean and tidy the house and garden as best we can, leaving thick cardboard over the soiled hall carpet just behind the front door.
As soon as we can, we’ll get Dad to seal up that letter-box, and put a new and more secure one, with a tough spring-loaded flap, higher up in the door. Aunty Margaret just can’t seem to stop crying, and who can blame her? And Uncle Jack just goes from bewilderment to anger, to sorrow, around and around until it becomes predictable. It’s almost impossible to console them, but we all of us sit in that living room, as often as not in silence, until the police have come and gone. We have to wait more than two hours.
Well of course the police were all gushing sympathy, but you could tell that right from the start they weren’t really interested in doing anything. We all knew that the Rogers kids had done the damage, and Uncle Jack had even seen one of them standing and laughing in the street as he had opened the front door first thing this morning. But the police couldn’t and wouldn’t do more than take statements. That’s all they can do, is what they told us. There isn’t any evidence. And the upshot of it is that they are not even going to talk to the Rogers family. They’re not going to make any attempt to warn those bastards off. But if it was to happen again and we were able to gather evidence, then they’d be more than happy to intervene. I like that word, intervene, don’t you? Makes the police sound like mediators between criminals and victims, and not taking sides. That makes you feel safe, doesn’t it? It makes me think about how the police are described by a journalist who writes for one of the Sunday papers; paramilitary social workers is what he calls them. I’ve never really understood what he meant by that. Until now. And do you know what their advice is? You couldn’t make this up. Their best suggestion is for Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret to get CCTV installed, like that’s the answer to everything. Well I guess it does save them having to do their job.
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