House of Lads

by Roland Lloyd Parry

  29

  It was ten to eleven when we got to the baths. Ali’s class would finish on the hour. Raz had me pull into the pool car park. He licked the chicken grease off his fingers.

  “Alright, la’,” he said. “When we see the kid, you go get him. I leave the Astra here with the engine running.”

  “You what? You bailing?”

  “Have to keep my head down, me, la’. Got a lot of plates spinning.”

  The sly twat. Course he did. He wasn’t that mad. He’d see how far I could go. Then he’d let them pin it on me. He’d be on a plane to the Middle East.

  We sat there, not speaking. Twenty-five minutes. Then the pool door opened and kids started coming out.

  Two more minutes. Three. Then there they were. Frank in his cap. Ali with wet hair, a bag of Nik Naks in one hand, orange armbands in the other hand. He was always running off with them. Frank hadn’t spotted it. He could be a handful, little Ali.

  “Who’s this?” said Raz.

  “It’s Frank. I can handle him.”

  “Off you go, then.”

  He sunk down in his seat. I got out the car and looked around me. Spotted three bizzies across the street. Two fellers and a young woman, listening to her walkie-talkie. Raz couldn’t see them from where he was sitting.

  I walked over to the path near the gate.

  “Alright Frank, mate.”

  “Leanne’s inside,” he said.

  “I’d best be quick then.”

  I grabbed Ali, hugged and kissed him.

  “How are you, lad?” I said.

  “Crap!” he said, beaming at me. “Where you been?”

  I turned back to Frank.

  “Do me a favour?”

  Frank lit a Benson. “She’ll be out in a sec.”

  “Need my favour quick then.”

  He ruffled Ali’s hair and pinched his cheek. Looked me in the eye.

  “You’re the boss.”

  “Hit me,” I said.

  “You kinky sod.”

  “Then this big bloke in the car’s going to come at you. You’re going to hit him an’ all.”

  “There’s a crew of bizzies across the road.”

  “Good.”

  He scratched his head and smoothed his hand over it. That daft way he did, like he still had hair.

  “It’s almost over, Frank. I need your help to finish it.”

  He looked at his fist and flexed it.

  He was ready. No quezzies asked.

  Frank bent down to Ali and put his arm round him. Told him to go inside and give the armbands back to Mrs Rimmer. Ali ran whooping and whistling through the swing-doors.

  I glanced back at the car. Raz had watched Ali go. I saw his lips moving as he swore and punched the dashboard.

  Frank put his right hand round the back of my head and leaned in like he was whispering in my ear. He dropped his hand to my shoulder and straightened his arm again, pushing me away. Cracked me on the jaw with his left.

  Wicked hook it was. Wind and lightening. Spun me right round before I hit the paving.

  I lay there for ten seconds before I could peel my head up off the ground.

  Raz held back a bit. He must have been thrown by that. Then at last he was out of the Astra, striding across the car park in his shorts and para boots.

  Frank didn’t budge. He clicked his shoulders back, rolling and slackening them. Watching Raz come.

  I should have been out cold after that punch, but the dreno cut through it. I rolled over. Crossed the paving and the grass on my hands and knees and scrambled to my feet. Bashed through the swing doors into the building.

  I met Ali coming back from the poolside. Bent down and kissed him.

  “Hold my hand, lad,” I told him. To keep myself steady, as much as anything.

  He put his hand in mine. Great it felt. He put his face to my thigh, hugging my legs. I covered the silky ball of his head with my palm. I stood by the door, looking out through the glass at Frank and Raz.

  Raz was on the ground, Frank on top of him. Raz thrashing about. He couldn’t struggle free. The bizzies were running across the road.

  The policewoman came through the front gate. She looked at Raz and Frank as they got hustled to the pig cars. Then she looked towards the swinging doors, right at me.

  I picked up Ali in my arms. God, he’d got heavy. I’d used to hold him by linking my hands under his bum. Now he slipped down. I hoiked him up high as I could, squeezed my arms round his chest, and ran.

  Past the slots. Cash desk, toilets, changing rooms. Through to the poolside. They were stashing the armbands and hauling in the floating lane markers. Ali was staring at me up close with big eyes. Wondering what on earth his dad was up to.

  I looked all round me. To my right, this bunch of mums picking up their bags and floats. Ali twisted round in my arms, shouted and waved. And there she was, right in the middle of them. Leanne.

  I looked back through the glass of the poolside doors. Saw the rozzer in her yellow vest, getting closer.

  I put Ali down and he ran to his mum. She lifted him and held him against her, kissing his cheek. Tired, she looked. Her arms had got stockier in the six months since I’d seen her. Her neck had got thicker and started gobbling up her chin. No sign of that cocky bird I’d known at the ring.

  I thought of how she’d farted me about that last Sunday evening I saw her. Hadn’t told me where Frank was. So I’d ended up at The Grace.

  She stared at me and opened her mouth to speak. The doors swished open behind me. The bizzie’s walkie-talkie crackled.

  I wondered how long it’d be before I’d get to see Ali again. Hours? If Raz went down and Paterson kept his word.

  “Dad!” Ali shouted.

  I looked at him there, hugged against his mum’s waist. His red trainies. Black trackies riding up his legs. Beautiful little smile on him. His stumpy front teeth and glossy black mop. The shape of his face had changed. His nose had got bigger and flat at the top like mine.

  “Dad!” He thought I was staying. Thought I was playing a game. “Dad! We gonnew ’ave beans?”

  I bit my lip. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t bear to look at him too long.

  The bizzie yelled at me, but she was too late. Down the poolside there was a fire door. I pushed the bar and legged out into the car park.

  A fleet of bizzies had boxed the Astra in.

  I couldn’t feel my jaw. Good old fear and dreno, drowning the pain, driving me on.

  I fixed my eyes on the side wall of the car park. Ten feet high. Took a running leap and scrambled up it. The bizzie slammed out through the fire door and came yelling after me. I stood on the wall and looked at her. Dropped down the other side and pelted off through the jiggers.

  30

  Maya was gone. Her room was the same mess as before. Raz’s was locked like always. And the cellar. I went to the kitchen, took a pint glass out of the cupboard, filled it from the tap and glugged the lot down. I went up to check the other rooms.

  The lads were all gone. Their bags and coats too.

  I thought about Rodney. Would the other lads be headed that way too? They’d have missed the afternoon flight to Spain by now. They’d be going another way. Manchester? All sorts of flights from there. They could fly straight to Turkey.

  Maya too? How long would her pills last? She’d never make it. They’d be burying her in the desert in a month.

  I could call Paterson. If the plods had Raz, Paterson could get hold of him. He could find out which way Maya and the lads were headed.

  I stood on the doorstep while I called Paterson’s number. Looked about. No sign of Mossie’s Honda.

  “Azo?” he said when he answered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Raz is nicked. Looks like Maya’s gone off with Mossie.”

  “So you can stop them?”

  “We’re going to tail them a bit. Rodney too. See where they lead us.”

  “If they find out Maya’s with you, she’s dead.”<
br />
  “She’s quite a girl. She’s sent me Raz’s email login and a load of his bank data. We’ll see what else she can dig up from Jihadiland.”

  “She’s not safe.”

  “She’s a big girl.”

  I growled. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Sit tight. We’re sending someone round for Raz’s fridge.”

  He rang off.

  I went out the front again. Walked down the path and crossed the road. Looked up and down the street. No one around. I headed back to the house. Stepped towards the kerb behind this white van. Something blocked my view.

  Bang.

  I was face-up in the gutter. My nose was bleeding. The back door of the van was open. Someone was hoisting me up by the armpits. I opened my mouth to yell but something clipped the back of my head and took my voice away. My brain dropped into the black.

  31

  I went somewhere new in my dreams this time. God knows how I got there. I was a boy slave on a pirate ship. They had me running up the mast fixing sails and then going down under deck and there it turned into a steamship and they shut me in this sweaty engine room scraping the salt skeg off the boiler with a stick. It started as a kind of rake in my hand then it turned into a snooker cue. They called me up on deck to meet the skipper. And there he was at last. My dad. His eye sockets were sunken, dark and squishy like two scoops of chocolate ice cream. A daft pirate hat on his head. He yelled at me and raised a whip over his shoulder and some other twat behind me was tearing my shirt off so I’d take my lashes, and just then my mind swam up out of the syrup.

  A spot of light poked through one eyelid. I couldn’t move my mouth but I started to see. A bulb on the ceiling. The ceiling was red.

  I shut out the light. Rested my eyes. My brain. Drifted off again. The pirates never came back, but the spots of light did. My head lolled to one side.

  I was lying on the floor. My eyelids crackled open.

  Some pokey little broom cupboard I was in. There was a telly flickering in the corner. Someone was sat there gaming with his back to me. Just a blurry shape next to the flashing screen.

  My neck and back were stiff from lying on the floor. I wriggled and rolled onto my side. Then onto my belly. My cheek touched grains. Some kind of cheap thin matting.

  I couldn’t see the feller and the screen anymore. I was face down, my head pointing away from him. I saw the wall ahead. Red paint on steel. Twinkles of light on it from the telly and the yellow glow from the light bulb.

  My arms and legs started to wake up. I was still too groggy to push myself up sitting. I juddered back over onto my back and peered down to the corner. I made a scuffle as I moved but the feller stayed staring at his screen, clicking at the handset. What was he playing? Bit of Battlefield it sounded like.

  I slackened my neck and looked at the ceiling. The bulb there, rigged to a bracket. White lead running through hooks and out through some little gap in the metal side just behind his armchair.

  I twisted my neck sideways and peered at the feller. He sat there clicking away at his Xbox. Dark red hair and freckly neck he had. I couldn’t see his face.

  I rolled onto my side again. My ribs hurt. I sucked in air through my teeth. Got my hands under my chest and pushed myself up a few inches. My arms ached but I did it. Then onto my knees. Creaked to my feet. Turned and stepped towards him.

  I stopped to let my head settle. I was breathing heavily. I coughed and found my voice.

  “’Ey,” I said. “’Ey, lad.”

  He leaned forward and smegged at the handset with his thumbs for a couple more seconds. He sighed and paused it.

  He tossed it to the floor and turned to look at me. Youngish feller with a square jaw. His neck and back dead straight. He frowned. Then he raised his eyebrows and grinned.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said. “How’s it goin’?”

  Eh? Yank. I’d never met one in the flesh. Seen a lot on the telly, fighting and shagging and running up and down buildings. I’d always liked them that way. Tough, honest, randy. Now here was a real one.

  “Milk and two sugars,” I said.

  “Come again?”

  “In my tea. Or are you just going to sit there looking pretty?”

  He frowned again.

  “You feeling alright, buddy?”

  “Shite.”

  He narrowed his eyes a bit like he didn’t understand. Then he grinned again. “You mean ‘shit’? Yeah. That happens.”

  “What’s all this?”

  He frowned and said nothing.

  “I need a piss,” I said.

  “Bucket’s behind you, bro’.”

  I lurched to my feet and made a move for what I guessed was the door. The bit where wire from the bulb went through a crack. I’d got two steps towards it when his palm touched my chest.

  “Hold on, buddy. No bathroom trips. Not yet.”

  “Gerroff us, yer quiff.”

  I parried him and tried to keep going. His hand came back. Faster, higher. Clenched. Bang into my throat.

  I dropped to my knees spitting and choking.

  “First we talk,” he said.

  Took me a bit to stop gagging.

  “Where am I, then?” I whispered.

  “Where do you think?” he said. Not in a sarky way. More like he was trying to get inside my head.

  I coughed and looked around me, on my hands and knees. “Your granddad’s shed?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Where’s he keep his strimmer?”

  He looked lost for a sec, then smiled and cracked his knuckles. He stepped back a couple of paces. I sank back onto my arse on the floor. I was out of shape alright.

  He went to his armchair and shifted it around to face away from the telly. He sat down and looked at me.

  “I’ve been waiting to talk to you, Azo.”

  “Want some cheats?” I pointed at the screen. He glanced at it, then looked back at me without smiling.

  “I got them already.”

  “You’re hard work, you, aren’t you? Go on then. Where am I?”

  “You’re everywhere and nowhere, Azo. You’re inside a dry goods container on board a Philippines-flagged, Lebanese-owned, Hong Kong-chartered cargo ship.”

  I’d been wondering about that wobbly feeling under my legs. I’d put it down to being out cold so long. How long had I been out?

  “Blimey,” I said. “You get all sorts docking in Liverpool.”

  “We’re not in Liverpool, Azo. You were brought here by airplane. We’re in the Indian Ocean.”

  It was me doing all the asking so far, but I had this feeling that was going to change. I clicked into Paterson-spy-scum training mode. Made sure I didn’t let my shock show.

  “You the skipper?” I said.

  “Huh? No. I’m a passenger. I’m CIA.”

  “You can’t do this to with me then,” I said. “Yanks and Brits. We’re on the same side.”

  “You’re not, though.”

  “Eh.”

  “A Brit.” He paused for a minute. “Where do you think you’re from, Azo?”

  I pushed myself away sliding on my arse. My back touched the wall at the far end from him. He still hadn’t let me have a seat. Or a piss. Or a glass of water.

  “Right where you snatched me from,” I said.

  “Liverpool? Wrong.”

  “You think I’m lying?”

  “No. If you were, I’d be hurting you right now. You can’t lie if you don’t know the truth.”

  “You know something I don’t?”

  “Many things.”

  “Go ’ead then, smartarse. Where am I from?”

  He licked his lips.

  “North of here,” he said. “Place called Iraq.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “For real.”

  “You’ve got me mixed up with the guy from the chippie.”

  He leaned over in his armchair and picked up something from the floor. He stood up and brought it over to m
e. This orange wallet file. He opened it and peeled out a sheet of paper. Thin and shiny like a chip wrapper. Old and yellow and covered in squiggly black print.

  He held it out to me and pointed to one of the squiggles.

  “Hami Beshat. Born: Umm Qasr, January 16, 1990.”

  I took the sheet from his hand.

  “Hami,” I said. “What’s that?”

  “That’s you, buddy.”

  I snorted. “You’re off your head.”

  He wasn’t though, was he. And something inside me knew it.

  I was back on Southport pier. I could see my dad there like always, his muzzy and daft grin. But now for once I could hear him talking as well. I knew his voice. Like it had been whispering away in the back of my mind all those years and someone had just turned the sound up. Or it had been calling from far off and had just got nearer.

  “Hami,” it said. “Cam on, Hami. Cam on. Big man, Hami. Good man.”

  It had been playing on a loop underwater in my head. Now they’d dredged it up.

  The Yank took the paper back and read from it. “Father: Ali Beshat. Interpreter. Mother: Karen Coke. Nurse.”

  I felt myself trembling. I wasn’t ready. But you never are. No matter how tough you think you are.

  “My dad?”

  He’d stopped his smartarse act. He was looking at me all soppy-eyed now, like he cared.

  “How’s the CIA know about my dad?”

  He got up, walked to a corner and fetched another chair. Plastic green garden kind. Somewhere to plonk my arse at last. He placed it facing his comfy one. I sat on it with my back hunched. I waited for him to speak.

  He let himself sink back into his armchair. He kept his eyes on mine.

  “You look like him,” he said.

  “How the… ”

  He shushed me with a frown and a raised finger.

  “We’re watching him,” he said. “We watch a lot of folks round here. Only he’s not like most folks. We looked into his background. That’s how we found out about you, Hami.”

  “Azo.”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s written on my driving licence,” I said. “What have you got? Some snotrag with foreign writing on?”

  “Paper trail, buddy.” He held up the folder. “We got docs here going way further back than your driving test. You. Your dad. Your mum. Iraq in ninety-one.”