House of Lads

by Roland Lloyd Parry

  “What for?”

  He shrugged. “Take you home.”

  “You took your time.”

  He took a phone out of his pocket. Black Nokia. He pressed a key and held it out to me.

  I didn’t take it. I looked at the clock above the Liver Bird mirror. Ten to nine. The front gate at Saint Rock’s would be rammed with kids.

  “Come on, Hami,” he said. “Show me whose side you’re on.”

  You’d have thought I’d have lots to say. Lots to ask. It was what I’d always wanted, eh. Meet my dad. But I didn’t know what I felt now. Didn’t feel much. Couldn’t even feel my arse and my wrist and ankle hurting any more.

  I peered at the screen on the phone. He had a number keyed in there, ready to dial. To set Maya off.

  I stood there in that gloomy pub, bleeding into the carpet.

  “Gibbsy,” I said. “Get us a lemon squash?”

  Beshat waved the phone under my nose. He brought the gun down from his shoulder to point at my chest. His finger switched off the safety.

  “Press the green button, Hami,” he said. “Then I’ll take you home.”

  I heard Gibbsy wheezing as he plodded up behind me with the squash. I kept my eyes on Beshat and reached back with my left hand. I couldn’t feel my wonky right wrist after that tumble.

  It was one of them chunky glass beer mugs like always. Good old Gibbsy. Old school. I felt my fingers slip through the handle as he held it out to me. I tightened them round it. I pumped my right elbow down and swivelled on my good left foot as I swung the glass.

  He was a tough bastard, my old dad, but he was slower than me. He knew how to fight in the desert, but I knew how to fight in Bootle. A wicked left hook with a pint tumbler of lemon squash on the end. It knocked through his gun-hand. The knobbly glass smashed into his jaw. He went down.

  The phone bounced away under a table.

  I knelt down next to him and picked the gun off the doormat.

  40

  The phone goes. I let it ring out on my pillow. I’ve got my hands under the bedsheet, skinning up the last of Maya’s skunk. My fingers are trembling but I reckon I’ll get there.

  Raz was wrong about the isolation wards. There’s another one they don’t tell us about in the news. One for Paterson’s boys. It’s in the posh jail where Paterson trained me.

  I asked the doc if she’d let Ali and Frank in here to see me, if they wear those lurgy spacesuits. I wouldn’t cuddle Ali yet. Just wave and say hello. It’d help me get better. I’m feeling weak, but the doc says I can beat it. She said she’d see about Ali and Frank. Won’t be long, I reckon. Paterson will have to let me see him. I’ve done my bit.

  I get the thing skinned up, sort of. Got no lighter though, have I.

  It rings again.

  My dad’s phone. What a joke. I wouldn’t have kept hold of it only I want to ring Frank. I look at it. Still ringing. Sod it.

  I press the green button.

  “Good morning, sunshine.”

  I raise my hand with the phone in. Want to get rid of it now, but there’s nowhere to chuck it, is there. I’m inside this lurgy tent so no one touches me.

  I never want to hear from this bell-end again. Can’t run from him though, eh. I’ve learned that much.

  “So your American friend gave me your dad’s phone number,” Paterson says. “He’s quite a chap.”

  “The Yank? He said he’d never heard of you.”

  “He just thought he hadn’t. He’s here with me now.”

  “That’s handy,” I say. “You can go and bum each other.”

  “There, there.”

  “I thought you’d have it in for me. You wanted him alive.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Paterson says. “Doing your old man, that took guts. We won’t forget it.”

  “What about the lurgy?” I say. “We didn’t stop that. How many people are going to die?”

  He clears his throat. “Well you’ll be alright, Azo, for one.”

  “And on the trains?”

  “Thanks to you, we snatched them before they could spread it around.”

  “Happy endings.”

  “Up to a point.”

  “Why?”

  “No one knows where Maya is.”

  “She was headed to Saint Rock’s.”

  “Well, she and Rodney vanished when her belt didn’t go off.”

  I grip the phone in my fist like I’m about to lash it away. Look up around me at the see-through curtains.

  “We think your dad’s lot have her,” Paterson says.

  “You’re meant to be battering them over there so they don’t come over here.”

  “We’re all fighting the good fight, Azo. You, me, Maya. We’ve got to fight it together.”

  “Well we’ve messed up here.”

  “Someone usually does. You did your bit though. Hanzi’s alive. We’ve sealed him off like you. We’ve some goodies we’ll be testing on you both.”

  I stare out through the curtain at the blurry white walls.

  “That lad, that first night,” I say. “What did they tell his folks? Why I never went down for it?”

  “Oh, Azo. Don’t worry. That lad from The Grace? He didn’t die.”

  I speak again. My voice comes from far away.

  “That morning in the cells,” I say. “You told me I killed him.”

  “I lied, Azo. I needed to make you sign my papers.”

  “I killed his mate though, didn’t I?” I say. “I killed Lee.”

  “You did your job, lad. You did well.”

  “And now I’m going to see my boy.”

  He clears his throat.

  “When I’m better,” I say. “He and Frank will be wondering where I am.”

  “Best if they don’t know.”

  I feel tears pricking up in my nose.

  “You said I could see him if I did the job,” I say.

  “Job’s not finished.”

  “I was a good lad before I met you,” I told him.

  “Forget who you were before, son,” he said. “You’re one of mine now.”

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks for your precious help and support:

  Sabine Beausseron, Jamie Coleman, D.J. Connell, Helen Corner-Bryant, The Curries, R Curtis Venture, Jennifer Donnelly, Mark Fitzpatrick, Pirate Irwin, Damon Jackman, Richard Lloyd Parry, The Lloyd Parrys, Kelly Macnamara, Sarah Morris, David O’Reilly, Ad Parkes, Dan Peck, Patrick Preston, Nat Segnit, Jonathan Sissons