“Here.” Phil handed him his tea and Bully tasted it, then took a mouthful, a big rinser. It was how he liked it: not too hot and sweet. He heard himself mumbling, “Cheers.”
“Porr! You stink. Off that couch now and get and have a wash.”
Bully didn’t take it personally, it wasn’t something that bothered him, but he denied it all the same.
“I won’t say it again,” said Phil. And Bully knew he wouldn’t, so he went. “And take that dog with you,” Phil added as Jack followed him into the hall.
In the bathroom Bully ran the hot tap. He sat on the edge of the bath, watching the water creep up the side. He took his coat and top off and shoes and socks. The last time he’d got undressed was at Waterloo where he’d had a wash in the toilets, in the toilet for a bit of privacy – didn’t want to show his bits, did he? Flushed it first of course.
Jack was up at the door, trying to get at the cat. It reminded Bully of Declan wanting to play out. Phil shouted something about paintwork from the lounge.
“Stop scratching!” said Bully. He still had his mug of tea with him and every few sips he dipped his toes into the water, testing the temperature like he was thinking about going for a paddle but not for a swim. It was too boiling hot. His mum always ran the cold first – to be on the safe side, she said. But it was a long time since she’d run him a bath. He turned the cold tap on and knocked some tubes of make-up into the water. Her stuff.
“You in there?” Phil opened the door as he asked the question and Bully held his coat up to cover his top half.
He pointed at Bully’s hair. “That needs cutting. And they want binning,” he said, pointing at his jeans. “I’ll hook you out a pair of mine for now.” Bully didn’t ask where his stuff was. He could guess.
“What’s all that doin’ in there?” Phil’s voice hardened. He was looking at the make-up in the bath, the tubes bobbling about under the taps.
“Fell in…”
“Well, it’d better fall out then.” He expected Phil to go for him but he was just staring, still measuring him up. “You got taller?”
Bully nodded.
“Phil…” he said, though he hadn’t used his name for … years.
“Yeah, what?”
“You ever got lucky? You know, like, lucky lucky?”
“Took one for my country,” he said, looking down at his chest where the bullet had gone in. “That lucky, was it? Why? What you done? What you been up to?”
“Nothin’.”
Phil looked him up and down as if he was inspecting him, like in the army. “You had any trouble? Turn round,” he said and he looked Bully over until he was satisfied there was no sign of any visible wounds.
Jack started growling. “I’m all right, mate,” Bully said to his dog and put his coat back on.
“If that thing goes for me,” said Phil.
“I’m not stayin’.”
“So what you doing here for, then? What’s up? What’s going down?”
“Nothing. Just … came back… That’s all.” He paused for Phil to ask him where he’d come back from, what he’d been living off, but all he said was, “So you stayin’ for any of this takeout or what?” Bully shook his head then nodded. “Right, get and have that bath then. And clean this lot up. And while you’re here, keep that dog out of my way…”
Phil went into the hall and then turned back with his hand still on the door. “I know she’s not your mum, but Emma’s all right. She was worried about you, you know? I told her you were staying with my dad until we got settled. So you don’t say anything when you see ’er, right? She’s coming back tomorrow. Cortnie told you, did she?”
Bully nodded, looked down, showed his disappointment to the carpeted floor. So she had moved in then. Where was she? Out shopping, wasting money, he expected. On clothes.
“It’s been hard for us all, Bradley, all this… Not just you, you know – me and your sister as well. I know you were close to your mum but life goes on,” Phil said. “You can stay if you like but that thing’ll have to go sooner or later. You can’t have a dog like that around little ones.”
Bully said nothing, just waited for the door to close again. He didn’t feel anything when Phil had spoken about his mum. He thought he would get angry with him but there was nothing there. He didn’t understand it.
He didn’t get in the bath but sat on the side, thinking about whether he could trust Phil enough to tell him about the ticket before she got back. He didn’t particularly care about Phil saying Jack had to go sooner or later. It wasn’t in his plans to come back to the flat for good anyway. Now he could get his own place, with his own money, what did he need a crappy little flat for? But maybe he could stay tonight and see how it went and maybe tell Phil about his ticket when Cortnie went to bed. He still hated him for the bad thing that he’d done, but he might still be good for something.
He put his hand into the water and splashed it about. It was nearly right, nearly time to get in, and he looked around the bathroom for a towel. There weren’t any. He wouldn’t bother normally, just drip dry, but there was no lock on the door. He didn’t want Cortnie coming in and doing more screaming.
“Stay, stay…” he said to Jack and went to see if they still kept towels in the airing cupboard. Along the hall the smell of the paint became stronger. He looked in on Cortnie’s room. It was still pink but the posters were different on the walls, pop stars now instead of made-up things. He picked out a towel from the airing cupboard, one he remembered with the face of a washed-out train running through it. He walked along to his bedroom because that was where the smell was coming from. The door was shut. As he opened it he thought about why the roots of the paintbrush were blue.
The colour hit him like a back-hander. Everything was sky-blue, except for the ceiling. And there were pictures of cars and trains running around the top, and his bed was gone and in its place was a tiny, tiny white cot.
She was having a baby. She’d had the baby … someone special. And from the colour on the four walls surrounding him he could see it was a baby boy.
He went back to the bathroom. He put his clothes and trainers on and tiptoed to the front door with Jack whining, knowing something was up. He unplugged his mobile, took one of the tenners off the electric meter and just before he let himself out, he felt for his glasses in his pocket and threw them on the floor.
And back through the hallway he could still hear the cold tap running.
He could not trust Phil. He should have known he was way too far down his list. If he gave the ticket to Phil, he wouldn’t get his money back. He would waste it all on her, and it, the new boy.
There was no one left in his family now. Cortnie didn’t count. It was just him and Jack.
Less than a Scooby-Doo later, he was back on the next train to London. There was no guard and he sat with his feet on the seat, Jack there too, waiting for someone to say something. He could tell they wanted to but nobody did, not with Jack beside him, showing her shiny little teeth. And he liked that feeling of upsetting the passengers around him, knowing they were thinking about him, that they couldn’t ignore him. It made him feel better for a while.
It was nearly dark when the train began to slow down, looking for its platform, and he could see the lights squaring up the houses that ran along the track. He got straight off when the doors opened. He didn’t look for anyone to go through the gate with, just forced his way through the automatic ticket barrier, Jack slipping underneath.
He bought three burgers and loped around the station, feeding bits of them to Jack. He spent his time adding up how many hours he had left to claim: four days = 24 x 4 + 1½ left from tonight = around 100. He didn’t give it an exact number in case it was less.
With the last of his big money he bought a sausage roll that left him with nothing to top up his phone, just shrapnel.
He turned it on anyway. He got a message. Before he could open it, he got another and another and another … and another. They kept c
oming.
Phone or text me now! Riz xxxxxxxxx
He didn’t know any Riz but the name and the kisses made it sound like a girl.
Lend us a grand! Real deal for operation for me nan u no? Chaz.
No, he didn’t know Chaz or her nan.
The two Sammies must have passed his number round. And he hated them now, especially the other Sammy because she said mushy things about wanting to be his mum.
He read the rest of them: begging, pleading and even threatening him for money he didn’t have. Then his phone started ringing – numbers he didn’t know. He looked around as if it might be someone in the station – then he hit the red button and turned his phone off. He weaved through the late-night zombies and headed for the train drivers’ steps, changed his mind and left the station by the taxi-rank entrance.
He walked round the back of the building, past the end of Old Paradise Road, the dancing lady on the brick wall laughing her head off at him; at how stupid he’d been to think that he could trust Phil.
He kept licking his lips. He was thirsty from the burgers and tired, his feet dragging, his trainers paper thin at the toes. But in less than five minutes he would be dossing down in his usual spot. And tomorrow he would have to make a move and start heading for Camelot. His thinking now was that he would find someone on the way to help him, someone like the nice lady who gave him twenty quid. It was a pity he couldn’t find her again, he thought. But that was the problem with people who weren’t on the streets; you didn’t know where they lived.
Before he got to his place it started raining, and he went to McDonald’s to get a drink. He put Jack in her bag and struck lucky on the first table by the door: a hot chocolate, still warm. He picked up some sugars and took it downstairs to the toilets because he needed to wee. He filled his water bottle. The plastic crackled as he forced it to fit under the tap. His head and heart were calmer now he was back on his territory but his legs were heavy as if all that anger and upset had melted right down inside them. He couldn’t face even walking back up the stairs, let alone outside in the rain to get to his alleyway. He would take a short cut.
He went out into the corridor, past the crew room to the emergency exit and put Jack on her feet. The alarm would go off when he opened the door but the manager would just think it was rubbish being dumped. He pushed on the metal bar to break the fire door open and the alarm rang the way it always did, though louder right in his ears.
He looked out at his alleyway. He could see his step settling in the shadows. The rain touched his face. He pictured himself cozying up dry and warm in his sleeping bag, watching the weather drip and blow. Something, though, was different about his doorway. Perhaps it was just strange to see it from this angle, but it was like one of those stupid kids’ magazines where they had two pictures that were exactly the same, except for one thing. And you had to spot what it was to win a stupid prize. And he puzzled over it for a moment, the alarm still going, and then he got it, what was different about this picture compared to the one he’d left this morning. His wheelie bin was facing the wrong way.
He was still staring at his bin, wondering about it, when the green lid crept up a couple of centimetres. Something inside was trying to get out! There … a strip of brown fur! A rat! Getting at his stuff!
He moved out into the alleyway to find something to hit it with but then he looked again, his mouth opening up because what he was seeing wasn’t fur, it was hair.
The shock of it wiped his mind clean away. The lid flipped back on its hinges and he watched a joke of a man struggling to get out of the bin, whilst jabbing and pointing at him.
Still Bully couldn’t move. He had to reboot and that took a few seconds. And like most people caught up in a situation, he didn’t have much more than a few seconds…
“Give us a hand!” the man was shouting. And Bully saw two men peel away from the walls at the entrance to the alleyway and come running.
Crash! The bin toppled over. The man inside groaned and swore for help but Bully knew they weren’t running to help him, they weren’t helping anybody but themselves. He didn’t know who they were. He didn’t recognize them but he instinctively knew they were that breed of men that would take what they wanted from him, without begging for it. And they wanted his ticket.
And now he was back online, his system up and running, and he stumbled inside. He grabbed the bar of the fire door to slam it in their faces.
But where was Jack?
“Here! Jacky! Jacky!” he said in a hard whisper like he might still hide from these men. And then he yelled it, louder, in case she thought it was a game.
Bully forced himself to look up, to gauge the distance left between them and him. The men were still the other side of the bins but no more than a long spit away from the door, and he frantically slapped his knees like Jack was a puppy. And there she was! Belly on the tarmac coming out from under the bin with a rat between her fangy teeth.
“Here, girl!” he yelled, pulling on the metal bar of the door. And he snatched a last look at the men he’d never seen before, sharpening up in the shadows without him having to squint, getting bigger, much bigger than him, with Jack just coming through the door ahead of them.
“Come on, girl, come on!” And Jack knew it was no game they were playing and she was through the gap and Bully was pulling as hard as he could with both hands on that metal bar.
The split second before the fire door locked, a body on the other side ran into it – bam! – doing the job for him. And then Bully was taking the stairs two at time, a different boy to the one with shot legs a few minutes ago. And he flew past a burger boy, back the way he’d come, dirty looks swelling up with horror on all the eating faces because Jack still had that rat in her mouth.
Outside he ran blind, straight across Old Paradise Road without looking, heard the car braking afterwards, voices shouting, then in the distance his name chasing after him. “Bully…”
At the main road on the way to the river he looked down into the mouth of the old tunnel. He could lose them if he went down there and they ran on, thinking he’d crossed over, making straight for the river.
He hesitated then took a chance, went down the concrete slip, skidding, his legs nearly overtaking him like he was running away from a smack. He ran as hard as he could, keeping away from the strip lighting, the graffiti bubbling away on the walls. Back on the estate he’d had his own tag: a B with a squiggle on the end. The B had been for Bradley then. What the squiggle was for he never really knew.
Up ahead a bright flash, then another, stopped him for a second: what was that? A torch? A bike? No sound to it, just light. And then behind him he heard a man shout. He looked round and saw two shadows slipping along the walls, the echo of their feet already catching up with him; they had followed him down.
He swore at himself for getting things wrong again. He was always doing that at school and getting caught out.
He saw faces in the flashes of light up ahead. And he ran towards them. There were people inside the tunnel taking photos on their phones, just standing still, waiting … queuing, that’s what they were doing. He saw the sign then, glowing red, set into the wall. @ it said. And there was a door! Two men in black and white were guarding it, one tall, one small, and both as wide as each other. Bully ran straight in behind the taller one. He didn’t see Bully until he was almost through the door, didn’t make a move until the last second, but when he did it was quick and his hand shot out and grabbed Bully’s shoulder. The big guy’s fingers jabbed into his collarbone but couldn’t grip the greasy coat and Bully was away. Not for one single second did it occur to him to stop and ask either man for help.
“Look! There’s a boy!” People laughed and then “Oh! What the – what is that thing!” they gasped when they saw the funny-looking dog galloping at his feet. Bully kept going, in between the red and black tables, across the dance floor, knocking women off their heels, one, two, three … and into the kitchens: staff in their whites f
reeze-framing in the bright light, too slow to stop him because he knew where he was going now – full pelt towards the little green man on the exit sign, already off and running…
He came out underneath a railway arch. He hid behind one of the cars parked in the street, catching his breath, watching the door to the kitchens to see what came out of it.
Through the car windows he saw both of the bouncers having a look round and then going back inside. A taxi went past, rumbling on the stones. He was near the river, but he had to cross it to go north to Watford to get to Camelot. He couldn’t face that journey now, not tonight, not in the dark, with those men behind him, catching up with him out in the open, running across the bridge. So he headed away from the river, looking for somewhere out of the rain, somewhere safe to last the night. But away from the river, every road they went down was just another he didn’t recognize, rows of houses crowding in, all looking the same, TVs warm and bright with advertisements. He thought about knocking on a door but what would they do? See him off or call the police. And then where would he be? Stuck answering questions, all his chances of winning lost.
The rain started to hit hard, like it was trying to make him wet, staining his jeans a new temporary dark blue. He looked down at Jack, with her waterproof fur. Rain never got her soaking wet. He poked his head as far down into his jacket as he could get it, and when he next took a look he was on Kennington Road. And there across the road, on the other side of the railings, was a big white house lit up inside a park. What drew him to it were two big, big guns, as big as buses, parked side by side on the lawn, pointing towards the river. Any place with guns was a safe place. And maybe he could hide out round the back of the house in a doorway and go back down to the river tomorrow, and cross further downstream.
Lottery Boy Page 6