The Baby and Fly Pie

  ‘Where are they?’ yelled one of the other men. There was a smash of crockery.

  ‘You stay away …’ began Scousie. Then, a violent thud. I heard Scousie gasp. He’d been hit.

  ‘Sammy,’ said Scousie. ‘Sammy …’

  Jane was half out trying to hold a hand over the baby’s mouth, but Sy struggled free and screamed – a quick loud scream. The men were battering at the door. Sham made a dive for us but he lunged as if he didn’t really care and I knocked him down. The door splintered. I jumped out of the window after Jane. Sham was crawling out after me. I heard the door burst open and we were running, running, the two of us skidding and running in the mud and the dark wind with Sy screaming like a witch.

  Scousie was shouting. ‘Those three men! Help! Stop those three men!’ They must have clobbered him then because he shut up. But there were people in the dark with us, crawling from tents, opening doors.

  A man loomed up in front of us, his long hair beating his face in the wind. ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.

  ‘They’re getting Scousie,’ gasped Jane. He dashed behind us. Other men were running to help Scousie. We were running away, we were free in the sudden crowd. But Jane grabbed my hand and dragged me to a standstill.

  ‘Where’s Sham?’ she gasped.

  I jerked my hand over my shoulder and made off again. Everyone was running back to Scousie’s. We were safe! But Jane held my hand and stared back at the gathering crowd.

  ‘Jane, come on!’ I screamed. But she’d made up her mind. She thrust the baby into my arms. I pulled her but she shook me off. ‘Jane!’ I bellowed. I was furious! I stared for a second and then ran after her.

  Scousie’s house was a blaze of light. There was a crowd around it and from inside came shouting and thumps and thuds. Everyone knew Scousie – everyone helped. Those three men didn’t stand a chance. Once there was a gunshot and the crowd froze into silence. Then Scousie, bellowing like a bull: ‘Typical bloody gangland! Couldn’t organise beer out of a bottle!’ They all laughed and began shouting again.

  Jane ran round the edges of the crowd. I stuck to her heels. I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d found him first. He was hanging at the back of the crowd, edging to and fro, watching the wreckage of his great plan.

  Jane ran up behind him and grabbed his arm. He turned and I think he nearly died of fright.

  ‘I told you I wouldn’t let you go, didn’t I?’ she yelled triumphantly. ‘I told you. I keep my word.’ She took hold of his hand and pulled. ‘Now run,’ she ordered.

  Sham stood stock still. His face was like a mask, so white and motionless. ‘Three hundred thousand!’ Jane screamed at him. ‘Three hundred thousand quid!’ People were watching when she said that, but it turned Sham back to life. Woodenly he began to shamble after her and then to run. The baby was screaming and so were other people. There was shouting back there, crashes, violence.

  We ran and we ran. People were still passing and a couple of times we lost one another but whenever we did we stopped and called and found each other again. Even Sham.

  We carried on running until we left everything behind – the people, the fighting, the shacks and sheds. We came to a field with broken buildings in. We were frightened of going into the buildings and we dived under a hedge instead.

  We could hear shouting a way off, gusting in the wind. There were a couple more shots. We dug ourselves into the damp leaves under the hedge. Sy had stopped yelling but whimpered and whined. Jane kept sticking a dummy into her mouth but she sucked nervously a few times and spat it back out.

  We were safe. But for how long?

  ‘He did it,’ said Sham. I could hardly see him in the dark. ‘The old man. He gave us away to his son.’

  ‘You liar,’ I hissed furiously. ‘He didn’t tell, he saved us. You told on us.’

  ‘It weren’t me,’ said Sham, his voice high.

  ‘You liar,’ I said. He couldn’t even be honest then. ‘You couldn’t find the gun, that’s all!’ I yelled. I jumped at him. I wanted to hurt him. Jane didn’t stop me. I punched and kicked and he didn’t try and stop me at first. But when I hurt him he began to fight back, crying in a thin voice, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me …’

  ‘Leave him,’ said Jane after a bit.

  ‘I told you, I told you what he was like!’ I cried.

  ‘I don’t care.’

  Sham rolled over onto his stomach, all curled up. ‘You see, you think I did it, too,’ he gasped.

  I couldn’t see her in the dark but she was furious. She bent down over his back that he had turned to us. ‘You gave us away. You went to the Monroes and you gave us away. Scousie took that gun. He saved us and you try to blame him for what he did. And I’ll tell you something else – I’m still going to trust you. What do you think of that, Sly Sham?’

  Sham didn’t reply.

  Jane turned to me. She was panting. ‘We’ll separate,’ she said. ‘They’ll be looking for us three and a baby. The Monroes. I’ll take the baby, she might be mine. You two make your own way. Listen – I’ll meet you – not tomorrow, the morning after. Where?’

  ‘Not in Santy,’ I said.

  ‘Luke’s,’ she said. ‘The baker, your friend, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, although it was a bad place.

  Jane bent down and kissed me fiercely. ‘Here.’ She rummaged in her pockets and gave me a handful of money. ‘Look after yourself. Make sure you get there. And look after him, okay?’ She gestured towards Sham lying in the dirt.

  I stared at him. I didn’t promise anything.

  ‘Sham – you look after my brother like I looked after you.’

  Sham sniffed. He nodded into the mud. Jane crawled out of the hedge. He started crying as she ran away from us across the wet grass.

  I sat listening to the wind in the branches and Sham weeping. He stayed toppled over in the dirt under the hedge. It was cold and damp. ‘I’m going over there,’ I said, pointing to one of the broken buildings. Sham didn’t look at me. I left him. I found a dry corner out of the wind and some old paper sacks and I tried to make what bed I could. I was wearing my thick jumper but it wasn’t enough for the night. I hoped Sham would crawl off even if it was back to the Monroes. But he turned up in a little while. He came round the side of the wall and sat down a few metres away.

  He said, ‘You should have just run.’

  ‘I would have,’ I said.

  He didn’t reply. He fidgeted around for a bit and then he said, ‘It wasn’t dangerous, though. Those men were getting beat up, they couldn’t do anything.’

  ‘She didn’t have to go back,’ I said.

  I felt sorry for him. I mean, he had everything going for him. He was clever and quick, he could keep on thinking when things were getting hot. He didn’t trust anyone and he didn’t let anyone trust him. He was streetwise. And Jane – she didn’t have anything except this crazy idea she didn’t even know how to pull off properly. All she could do was trust him but she used it like a weapon and Sham didn’t know how to cope with that.

  A bit later he said, ‘I didn’t do it.’ That made me mad.

  I just said, ‘Go to sleep.’ He did as I said. He crawled up into a ball and tried to go to sleep where he was. I put some of my litter over him and he stirred slightly. Then I tried to sleep, too.

  10

  I WOKE UP freezing cold. Sham was sitting against the wall and the dawn had just begun. I hadn’t thought what to do, but now I was getting frightened again. We were still in Monroe land. They’d be out looking for us. Cautiously I got up and peered over the broken walls and rubble. I thought I might see the shapes of men coming across the fields towards us but there was only the long wet grass, the hedgerows, an abandoned car at the edge of the field.

  ‘I’m going,’ I said. I glanced at Sham. He watched me as I climbed a heap of rubble and looked out the other way, away from Santy. There was no one there.

  ‘Take me with you,’ he said.

  ‘Onl
y because she said.’

  Sham nodded and followed me out of the building. We found a plastic barrel half full of dark water and we washed in it. We were covered in mud. Sham dabbed feebly at himself and it made me hate him more because he was so weak. Then we set off across the fields. We walked a long time and it slowly began to get light.

  We didn’t talk. After the fright and the gunfire, after the chase and the violence, the early morning was as still and quiet as if nothing had ever happened. Everything had stopped and only we were moving on the earth. I’d never been in the country before. The birds began to sing, just a few at first, but then more and more and I thought the noise would never stop it got so loud. All the birds in the world were singing but nothing moved. It was another world. I forgot about Sham. I forgot about the baby, the kidnap, Jane. It seemed they were singing just for me but I couldn’t see them all – just a black bird flicking past between the hedgerows, just a brown bird peeping at us from a branch. It was magic. I thought that nothing could happen to us while it was like that.

  The sun came up slowly and it got brighter and warmer. Movement began in the hedges and grass. You got the feeling that the world was beginning and that it was getting dangerous again. I began to look around and notice things – spiders hanging in their webs, berries going black, leaves and stems and flowers. I think people who live in the countryside are lucky and I can’t understand why so many of them come to live in London where it’s dirty and exhausting and full of people.

  There was a footpath running along behind the hedge but it began to double back towards Santy. We had a problem because two boys wandering around out here beyond the camps would attract attention. In Santy we would be less obvious but if anyone spotted us we were dead.

  ‘What shall we do?’ I asked. Sham shook his head. I was confused. I was used to leaving decisions to Jane or to Sham. I couldn’t make up my mind and I began to wander backwards and forwards, trying to think.

  Sham said, ‘We could walk around Santy for a few miles while it’s still quiet. Then we’ll be out of Monroe land and we can go back in and hide. Monroe land only goes a few miles west of here.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Someone told me,’ he muttered, looking away. And I thought, yes, they told you yesterday when you were talking with the Monroes.

  That cleared my mind. We carried on skirting around. I had no intention of going back into Santy now. I thought we’d carry on walking for a while, because he was probably right about where Monroe land ended. Then we’d find somewhere to hide. We could catch a bus right through Santy at night into town and hide out there until we had to meet Jane. The city was full of kids. We’d just have to take our chance with them and the Squads. There was no way I was going with Sham into Santy in daylight but I didn’t tell him that. The less he knew, the better.

  When we came to a little village we went in to buy food. It was probably a mistake. People don’t welcome Santy kids. Their village was right on the edge of the camps and in a few years it’d be swallowed up and turned from a pretty little place with gardens and trees into a muddy desert. The shopkeeper treated us like dirt but he let us buy bread and a jar of jam when we showed him our money. Then we beat it. We found a wood and crept under the wire. The trees were small and close together and inside we found some little shelters, just open huts with a bench inside.

  ‘We’ll stay here,’ I told Sham. ‘After dark we can catch a bus into town. We can hide overnight until it’s time to meet Jane.’

  Sham nodded okay. Then we ate our bread.

  That wood was a good place to hide. It was dense and there were twigs on the ground. We’d have heard someone coming before they saw us.

  After a while we left the shelters and went into the thickets. We were lucky, no one came. It didn’t rain, either – just a few spots in the afternoon, and they hardly got through the thick trees.

  It was a time of waiting again. Nothing to do but think. I wondered if Jane was still alive. Then I remembered that tonight she was supposed to be meeting Diana Tallus and I thought, ‘Tonight, she’ll be dead or rich.’ I wanted to say that, but there was only Sham and I wouldn’t talk with him.

  A couple of times Sham got up and went away and I hoped he wouldn’t come back but he did. Although I promised myself not to talk to him, it got so boring that when he asked me what I was going to do with my share of the money, I couldn’t resist it. I said, ‘You first.’

  Sham said, ‘I’d like a big house with lots of people working for me. I want to have lots of good rackets going and make money and pay people to do things for me. Everything for me. But I don’t think the reward will be enough for that so I’ll have to work for a while at it.’

  ‘Perhaps Tallus’ll give you a job,’ I said.

  Sham shook his head. ‘I don’t want a job.’ He said that since John Tallus was so rich, he must have a lot of rackets going and maybe he’d put Sham in charge of one. ‘Then I could work my way up and get more and more rackets until I was as rich as he was,’ he finished. He smiled at his own greed. To be as rich as John Tallus! He wanted so much. Then he asked me what I was going to do.

  ‘I want to buy a big baker’s shop,’ I told him. ‘A big shop in the centre of town that sells fancy cakes and pastries to rich people. I’d give Luke a job making bread for me, because he makes the best bread, and I’d make the pastries. Maybe Tallus’ll get the gangs to leave me alone so I could just get on with it.’

  Sham laughed. ‘But that’s work,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to work if you have money!’

  ‘Rackets is work,’ I pointed out.

  Sham shook his head. ‘Rackets aren’t work,’ he insisted. ‘I don’t want to work – not me.’ He smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Are you going to have children?’ I asked.

  Sham pulled a face. ‘Kids are trouble,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll have kids,’ I said, ‘and I’ll send them to school and feed ’em up till they’re big and fat!’

  He laughed and shook his head again. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said. ‘You’ve spent too much time with your sister, Fly.’

  We smiled at each other. Neither of us could understand how someone like my sister had managed to hijack this whole operation. Then I remembered what she’d said about how it meant something that he loved the baby.

  I asked him, ‘What’s it like having a family?’

  Sham looked at the trees and said, ‘It’s no better than anything else. I only had a mum and a baby brother, anyway. My mum was so busy so I had to look after our baby. It was a lot of work.’ He grinned. ‘I told you – I don’t like work.’

  I grinned back.

  ‘She used to get cross,’ he went on, digging in the dirt with his finger. ‘She used to hit me – and the baby …’ He glanced up at me. ‘I used to go on the street with him – you know?’ I nodded. We’d all seen boys and girls with their baby brothers and sisters on their hips in the street. ‘But one day I went back and my mother didn’t turn up again.’

  ‘What happened to the baby?’ I asked.

  ‘He got ill,’ said Sham. ‘I took him to the hospital but they said it wasn’t any good. He died, anyway. It’s not much different from anything else,’ he repeated.

  I was disappointed. Whenever I hear someone talk about families I want them to be happy and love one another, even though I know that some street kids have parents and no one loves them. But I couldn’t imagine Sham looking after his little baby brother like Jane had looked after me, and hiding him from his mother who got cross.

  A bit after that Sham got up and moved away.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I demanded.

  ‘Where do you think?’ he said. I stared at him for a minute, then he farted. We grinned at one another and he went off into the woods.

  I didn’t like it. As soon as he said it, I didn’t like it, but I could hardly go with him, could I? So I sat there feeling like an idiot, because he knew I couldn’t go with him and he could do whate
ver he wanted.

  After ten minutes I started pacing around. I called him – not too loud in case someone was near – ‘Sham? Sham?’ But there was no answer. My heart started going then. It was so typical. I went off the way he’d gone to look for him but there was nothing. I called again and when he didn’t answer, I was positive. I began running around. I was scared silly. I knew it would happen, I knew it! One minute we were talking about how to split up the reward money and the next he was off to give us up. He could be anywhere by now. Tomorrow morning the Monroes would be at Luke’s place and they’d have the baby. I was so sick and so scared and so furious I just started screaming, ‘Sham! Sham!’ I started crying then because I was so helpless and I was screaming for him when there was a noise right near me.

  And there he was.

  He looked me right in the eye and said, ‘You want to keep your gob shut, do you want us to get caught?’

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Told you.’

  ‘It don’t take that long to have a crap,’ I hissed. ‘Did you find your friends? Or are you going to leave it till later?’

  ‘I don’t need to do that,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yeah. What’s the plan, then? They’re going to be there tomorrow, aren’t they? What are they going to pay you? Made it worth their while, did they? How much? How much?’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Fly. I’ve only been gone fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you answer me, then?’

  He scratched his head and didn’t answer. He just said, ‘I’ve been thinking. I’ve been thinking maybe she can pull it off after all.’

  ‘Sure!’ I sneered. ‘She’s going to walk up to them and they’re going to give her whatever she asks for because they like her. Don’t give me that, you only came when I started shouting so loud. Figured you’d have a better chance later on, didn’t you? Didn’t you?’ I yelled.

  Sham glanced around. He picked up a stick. I took a step back but he just stood there tapping a tree with it and chewing his lip.

  ‘So you don’t think she can, then?’ he said. ‘But I do.’