This was hardly the response Ness expected to get from the man. Her expression fixed itself into place. She drew in on her cigarette and barked a harsh laugh. She said, “Yeah. Make a proper little mummy, wouldn’t I?” She pushed away from the table and sauntered from the room, up the stairs and out of sight.
Ivan said to Joel, “Did I say—”
“Dat’s just Ness,” Joel said.
“Bruised soul,” Ivan murmured.
Joel looked at him sharply. Ivan met his gaze. His own was open and too difficult to look at, so Joel glanced away.
Ivan sat at the table. He carefully screwed the top back onto Ness’s abandoned nail varnish. He nodded at a chair, meaning Joel was to sit as well. When Joel had done so, moments ticked by. Rap music continued to blare from the radio. Joel got up from the table and snapped it off. They were left with the sound of explosions upstairs: a cartoon character meeting his fate, Toby crowing with laughter as he watched.
In keeping with his determination that firmness, fairness, and honesty were called for, Ivan brought up the topic of Wield Words Not Weapons. More specifically, he brought up the topic of Joel’s use of the poetry event to serve his own interests. Ivan began by saying, “I’d thought we were friends, Joel. But I must say that your aunt’s phone call has forced me to reevaluate.”
Joel—having taken the opportunity presented by turning off the radio to remain standing—leaned against the work top but said nothing. He wasn’t sure what Ivan was talking about anyway, although at this point he knew adults well enough to understand that clarification was not far off.
Ivan said, “I don’t like being used. Even less do I like Wield Words being used. This is because using Wield Words for a purpose other than the creation of poetry runs in the face of what I’ve created the event to be. Do you understand?”
Joel didn’t. He knew he was supposed to, however. That knowledge and the knowledge of his failure acted in concert to encourage his silence.
Ivan read this silence as indifference, and he was affronted. He tried not to go in the direction of after all I’ve done and, in this, he was fairly successful. He knew enough about boys like Joel to understand that their behaviour was not about him. Still, he’d thought Joel different, more sensitive to nuance, and Ivan didn’t like considering he might have been wrong.
He clarified. “You came to Wield Words, but you left. During Walk the Word. You thought I didn’t see, and I might not have done but for the phone call from your aunt. Oh, not the one asking about the money, not the one you heard. There was another.”
Joel’s eyebrows rose in spite of himself. He drew his lip in between his teeth.
“Yes. That very night, she phoned. In the midst of Walk the Word, so that was how I knew you weren’t there. But I couldn’t be certain, could I? You might’ve gone to the lavatory at the very moment when my mobile went off, so I couldn’t tell her you weren’t there, could I? I said of course he’s here. He’s even read to us a rather abysmal poem, Mrs. Osborne. Not to worry, I said. I’ll see he goes home straightaway, when we’re finished here.”
Joel looked down. What he saw were his trainers, one of them untied. He bent and redid the laces.
Ivan repeated his theme. “I don’t like being used.”
“You di’n’t have to tell her—”
“That you were there? I realise that. But you were there, weren’t you? You were careful that way. You were there, you made sure I knew it, and then you left. Would you like to tell me about it?”
“Nuffink to tell, mon.”
“Where did you go?”
Joel said nothing.
“Joel, don’t you see? If I’m to help you, there has to be an element of trust between us. I thought we had that. Now to see that I’ve been mistaken…What is it you don’t want to talk about? Has it do with Neal Wyatt?”
It had and it hadn’t, but how was Joel to explain this to Ivan? To Ivan the solution to everything was to write a poem, to read it to strangers, to listen to them and pretend that what they said made a difference in life when it made no difference at all save in that moment of sitting in front of them on the dais and engaging them in conversation. It was playacting, really, just a useless bit of salve on a sore that would not heal.
He said, “It’s nuffink, innit. I jus’ di’n’t want to be there. You c’n see I ain’t writin, not like I was. It ain’t workin for me, Ivan. Dat’s all there is.”
Ivan attempted to use this, as he saw no other way to proceed. “So you’ve hit a dry patch. That happens to everyone. What’s best is to divert your attention on to another area of creative endeavour, related to the written word or not.” He was silent as he looked for an anodyne for what he saw as the boy’s situation: a not unreasonable creative blockage rising from his home circumstances. Ludicrous to suggest he take up painting, sculpture, dance, music, or anything else requiring his presence some place where his aunt was entirely unlikely to let him go. But there was one outlet…
“Join us on the film,” he said. “You went to that one meeting. You saw what we’re about. We need input on the script, and yours would be most welcome. If your aunt will agree to your coming to our meetings…perhaps once a week at first?…then chances are the act of working with words once again will stimulate your ideas and get them rolling.”
Joel could see this playing out, and how it played out wasn’t helpful. He would go to the meetings if his aunt agreed, and she would ring up Ivan in the midst of them to make certain he was where he said he’d be. He would have nothing to offer the scriptwriting team because he could no longer think about anything as unimportant as a dream of film that would never come true.
Ivan waited and read Joel’s hesitation as despair, which in part it was. He merely applied Joel’s sense of desolation to the wrong source. He said, “You’re struggling now, but it won’t be that way forever, Joel. Sometimes you have to grasp on to a lifeline that’s being offered, even if that lifeline doesn’t look like something that will pull you out of the troubles you have.”
Joel went back to looking at his feet. Above them, calliope music played. Joel recognised it as the theme song to yet another cartoon show. He couldn’t have known how otherwise appropriate it was to the conversation they were having.
Ivan did and he smiled. “Ah. The Muse,” he said. And then because the very sound of a calliope told him things were truly meant to be as they were in this moment—the two of them in the neat little kitchen with Ivan proposing a cure for what ailed his much younger friend—he said, “Know that I’m not the enemy, Joel. I never have been and I never will be.”
But what Joel thought upon hearing this was that everyone in his world was the enemy. That being the case, there was danger everywhere. Danger to himself and danger to anyone who, against all odds, decided to be his friend.
JOEL WAS ON his way to fetch Toby from the learning centre when Cal Hancock appeared. He seemed to come from out of nowhere, materialising at Joel’s side as he passed a William Hill betting shop. Joel smelled him first as Cal fell into step beside him: The odour of weed clung to his clothing.
Cal said to him, “Nex’ week, blood.”
Joel said, startled, “What?”
Cal said, “Wha’ you mean what? There is no what, mon. There’s nuffink but wha’ you got arranged.”
“I don’t got nuffink—”
“You clear on wha’ happens, you don’t do like the Blade wants you to do? He got you out. Jus’ as easy he can put you back in. A word from him an’ the cops gonna move. On you, y’unnerstan. You got dat now?”
It would have been impossible not to have got it. But Joel stopped walking and made no reply. More and more, words had no meaning for him. Mostly he heard them but they did not compute. They were background noise while in the foreground was a symphony playing the notes of his fear.
Cal said, “You owe him, and he a man dat collects. You cock dis up like dat Asian cow over Portobello Road, you got more trouble ’n anyone c’n help you
wiv.”
Joel looked over at a schoolyard that they were passing. He found he wasn’t sure where they were. He felt like someone caught in a maze: too far in, too many turns, no way to the centre, and no way out. But still there was something he didn’t understand. He said, “How’s he do all dis, Cal?”
“Do all wha’, mon?”
“Make t’ings happen like he does. Gettin me out. Puttin me back in. He bribin the cops? He got dat much cash?”
Cal blew out a breath that hovered like fog in the frigid air. He’d come to Joel wearing the uniform of the streets—grey sweatshirt with the hood drawn up over a baseball cap, black windbreaker, black jeans, white trainers. It wasn’t Cal’s usual garb, and Joel wondered about this, just as he wondered how the graffiti artist was managing to stay warm without a heavier anorak.
“Shit, mon.” Cal kept his voice low and he looked around as if searching for eavesdroppers. “T’ings more important to cops ’an money. Don’t you know dat yet? Ain’t you figgered out how t’ings happen round here? Why no one ever bust into dat squat waving submachine guns?” He dug into a pocket of his windbreaker, and Joel thought he meant to bring out a pertinent piece of evidence that would show him once and for all who the Blade was and what Joel was dealing with. But he brought forth a spliff. He lit up without even a glance around, which should have illuminated for Joel what he’d been saying, but it did not.
“I don’t get—”
“You don’t need to get. You jus’ need to do. It happens nex’ week and you be ready. You carrying?”
“What?”
“Don’ what me no more. You got dat gun wiv you?”
“Course not. I get caught wiv dat—”
“You carry it ever’day, now. Y’unnerstan? I give you th’ word ’bout dis goin down and you ain’t carryin, consider dat’s it. Cops get the word. You go back for a visit.”
“Wha’s he gonna make me—”
“Mon, you know when you know.” Cal took a hit from his joint and studied Joel. He shook his head as he let the smoke ease its way from his lungs. “Tried,” he said. He sounded defeated.
That said, Cal left him. Joel was free to go on his way. But he knew that was the extent of his freedom.
What Joel didn’t know as he fetched his brother was that he’d been seen. Dix D’Court, in transit from the Rainbow Café to the Jubilee Sports Centre, had caught sight of Joel in conversation with Cal. While he was not aware of the name of Joel’s companion, he recognised the signature garments. He read them as gang and his thoughts moved in a logical direction. He knew he could not let this go. He had a duty, both to the kids and to Kendra.
His mind was on this as he completed his workout, a rushed and abbreviated affair. He arrived home having planned an approach, but also rather feverish in his anticipation of the conversation he intended to have. Kendra wasn’t there—a massage in progress somewhere in Holland Park, according to a note she’d left on the fridge, with suitable exclamation marks to illustrate her happiness about the destination—but, to Dix, this was just as well. If he was to be a father figure to the Campbells, there were times when he’d have to be that father figure alone.
No one was on the ground floor of the house. Television noise—that perennial background motif to every waking moment—drifted down from above. That meant Toby was at home, which meant Joel was at home. Ness’s shoulder bag dangled over a kitchen chair, but there was no other evidence of her.
Dix strode to the stairs at the back of the house and yelled Joel’s name. Doing it, he heard the sound of his own father’s voice issuing forth, and he recalled how both he and his sister had jumped to at the bellow. He added, “Get down here, mon,” when Joel replied with, “What?” from somewhere above. To that he went on with, “We got to talk,” and when Joel said, “’Bout what?” he replied, “Hey! Get your arse down the stairs.”
Joel came, but he did it without haste. On his tail came Toby, ever Joel’s shadow. To Dix, Joel seemed to slouch down the stairs and into the kitchen and when Dix told him to sit at the table, he did so but without the alacrity that might otherwise have telegraphed respect.
Joel was in another world, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. He’d tipped up the chest of drawers in his room. He’d found the gun where he’d left it. He’d buried it in his rucksack. After that, he’d sat on his bed, feeling sick at heart and sick in stomach. He tried to tell himself he could do as the Blade had ordered him. He added that, after he did it, he could go back to being who he was.
Dix said, “What’re you doin wiv dat lout, Joel?”
Joel blinked. “Huh?”
“Don’t huh me, blood. I seen you wiv him in the street. Him tokin up an’ you standin there waitin for a hit yourself. What’re you doin wiv him? You sellin now or you just smokin? How your aunt goin to react to dis, I tell her what I see you up to.”
“What?” Joel said. “Wiv Cal, you mean? We were talkin, mon. Dat’s it.”
“How you come to be talkin to some candyman, Joel?”
“I jus’ know him, okay? An’ he don’t—”
“Wha’? Sell? Use? Offer it round? You t’ink I’m stupid?”
“I tol’ you, it was Cal. Dat’s all.”
“An’ wha’ you talkin about, if it ain’t dope?”
Joel didn’t reply.
“Asked you a question. I mean to have it answered.”
Joel’s back went up at Dix’s tone. “None of your business,” he replied. “Bugger off. I don’t got to tell you nuffink.”
Dix crossed the kitchen in one long bound and jerked Joel out of his chair like an unstrung marionette. “Watch your mouf,” he ordered.
Toby, lurking in the doorway to the stairs, where he’d been all along, cried, “Dix! Dat’s Joel! Don’t!”
“You shut up. Let me get on wiv my business, okay?” He tightened his grip on Joel.
Joel cried, “Lemme go! I don’t got to talk to you or anyone.”
Dix shook him, hard. “Oh yeah, you do. Start ’splainin yourself and do it now. And lemme tell you, mon, it better be good.”
“Fuck you!” Joel squirmed to get away. He kicked out and missed.
“Lemme go! Lemme go, you fuckin cocksucker.”
The slap came quickly: Dix’s open hand squarely meeting the flesh of Joel’s face. It sounded like wet meat coming down on a board, and it flipped Joel’s head backwards and upset his balance. Another slap followed it, harder this time. Then Dix began to drag him towards the sink.
He grunted, “So. Like dirty words? Like dem better’n answerin questions? Le’s see if dis makes you like dem words less.” He bent Joel back against the work top and stretched out to reach for the Fairy Liquid.
Toby shot across the kitchen to stop him. He grabbed Dix by the leg. He cried, “Get ’way from my bruvver! He ain’t done nuffink. Get ’way from my bruvver! Joel! Joel!”
Dix shoved him away, too hard. Toby weighed next to nothing and the force sent him crashing into the table, where he began to wail. Dix had the Fairy Liquid in his hand and he squirted the detergent into Joel’s face. He aimed for his mouth but got it everywhere else. He said, “Someone’s mouf needs dis’nfectin,” as he tried to drive the spout between Joel’s lips.
But a clatter from the stairs brought Ness into the room. She flung herself upon Dix and her brother. The force of her flying body threw Dix hard against Joel and Joel just as hard against the edge of the work top. His feet scrambled for purchase against the lino and he slipped in some of the Fairy Liquid. He went down. Dix went with him. Ness landed on top of them both.
She shrieked a string of curses as she clawed at Dix’s head. His grip loosened on Joel as he tried to protect his face from her nails. Joel rolled away and against the table, where he reached for a chair and staggered to his feet.
Ness was screaming, “Damn you! Fuck you! Don’t you never touch one of my brothers!” as she went after the bodybuilder with her hands, her feet, her elbows, her teeth.
Dix managed to catc
h her arms. He flipped her over and himself with her. He was on top now, and he pinned her to the floor. They writhed there in the Fairy Liquid, a desperate coupling that he tried to still by covering the length of her body with his.
She screamed then. She gave one long, horrifying cry, sounding like someone just entering hell.
It was into this scene that Kendra came: Toby in a ball under the table, Joel trying to pull Dix off his sister, Dix doing what he could to quell her, Ness far gone to another place.
“Get off her. Get off her!” Ness shrieked. She flung her head back and arched her spine with such strength that she managed to lift both of them off the floor. “You leave her be! No! Mummy…Mummy…” And on that final fruitless appeal to a woman not there, never there, and never to be there, she began to howl. It was like the sound of an animal shot, doomed to dying by degrees.
Kendra rushed forward. “Dix! Stop this!”
Dix rolled off the girl. He was bleeding from the face and panting like a runner. He shook his head, incapable of speech.
Which didn’t matter, because Ness was doing all the speaking: on the floor, spread-eagled, but kicking now and beating her fists against the air and then against her own body.
“You get off. You bloody get off. Get off!”
Kendra knelt at her side.
“He did it to me. He did it. He did.”
“Ness!” Kendra cried.
“An’ no one there.”
“Ness! Ness! What’s—”
“You go off to the fruit machines. You say watch ’em and he say fine. An’ you jus’ go and leave us wiv him. But it ain’t him. It’s all of dem. Pressin up ’gainst me an’ I c’n feel it’s hard. An’ he reaches up my top and squeezes…says I like ’em young. I like em like dis cos dey still firm mmm mmmm an’ I don’t know wha’ to do, innit, cos I don’t ’xpect—”
Kendra yanked her fiercely into her arms. She cried, “Jesus God.”