31

 

Dear World, we are trapped in one of those moments that seems to stretch out forever.  Leon, one foot on the landing, one foot on the last stair.  Joe, frozen next to the toilet, so still, so silent, he looks like a dummy, like a waxwork image of himself.  I watch the colour drain from his face.  I watch his eyes widen into impossibly huge pools of horror.  When I turn my head it feels like it is in slow motion.  Leon is frozen too.  His jaw juts out.  His mouth disappears.  It only takes him a second, a moment, to see Joe, to see me, and to see what is happening.  And then he moves.  He moves fast.  He comes at us, he comes at us like a bear, like a bulldozer, like something impossibly fast and big and angry, and I find myself shrinking back against the wall.  I feel him whoosh past me and I hear him snarling; “what the fuck are you doing?”

Joe does not get time to speak.  Leon stares once, turning his head quickly, seeing the toilet, and seeing what is already lost.  And then he roars again, but the words are not decipherable.  He is on top of Joe. He is like a building falling down.  I see Joe hurled across the room. I hear the dull thud as he hits the wall.  I see his face screwed up in shock and pain as he doubles up on himself.  I think he looks like a rag doll.

Leon snatches the broken, empty bags up from the floor.  I am flattening myself against the landing wall.  I watch him staring at them in utter horror.  “What the fuck?” he is screaming.  “What the fuck?  What the fuck have you done?”  It all seems to hit him then.  The enormity of what he has lost, of what Joe has taken from him, of what it all means.  I watch his face cave in on itself.  It is like his forehead crashing into his eyes, and his eyes explode, and pure evil rage erupts from them, and his mouth spreads across his face, showing all of his teeth, as he spins around to see Joe.  “You fucking idiot!” he is screaming.  “You stupid fucking idiot what the fuck have you done!” These words, and others, collide into each other as he screams, spittle flying from his twisted mouth, they become one jumbled stream of obscenity and fury.

He steps over the toilet and reaches down to grab Joe by the front of his shirt and then he just starts punching him.  It is horrible.  I can see his fist, he pulls it back, then shoves it in, pulls it back, thrusts it in.  I can hear the sound and the sound is almost wet.  Before I know it I have moved, somehow I have got behind Leon, and I try to pull him away by his shirt, and when I can’t move him an inch, I grab at his hand, the one he is punching with.  I find it and hold it, but it gets away from me and goes in again, and the next few disgusting minutes become all about me trying to chase that fist.  I grab for it, I miss it, I grab for it, I can’t hold onto it.  I do all I can to get that fist away from Joe.

At one point I nearly succeed, I hang onto the fist so tightly, that when he pulls it back to strike again, I am still on the end of it and I go with it.  I end up toppling onto Joe, who is covering his face, trying to twist away, trying to protect himself.  Then I feel Leon wrenching me away by my arm, and suddenly I am flying, I am being propelled, and I cannot stop myself, I cannot slow myself down.  I land outside the bathroom, shaking and sobbing and screaming.  I turn around and I see Leon is sitting on Joe.  Joe has no chance of escape.  Leon is holding onto him with one hand, and punishing him with the other.  I see that awful fist flying in again and again.  “Stop it!” I hear myself screaming this out, so loud it hurts my lungs.  I scramble to my feet, desperate to beat that fist.  I fling myself back at Leon.  I am clinging to his back, scratching at him, pulling his hair, tearing at his shirt.

He ignores me for as long as he can.  I am screaming and sobbing.  I can see Joe’s face is covered in blood.  There is blood sprayed up the wall behind him.  There is blood on Leon’s fist, but still he does not stop.  “You’re killing him!  You’re killing him!” I am screeching into his ear.  I rake my nails into his head, plunging them in.  I can see that Joe has gone all floppy.  That Leon is holding him up to punch him.

Leon cries out in rage and frustration, and stops punching Joe.  He grabs hold of my hands and pulls them violently out of his head.  I feel something smack me in the side of the face, and I am flying again.  When I hit the bathroom floor I am momentarily stunned into shock.  I am just blinking.  Blinking at the pale green lino.  Blinking at the stained carpet on the landing.  The little row of cars that Tommy has lined up right next to the wall.  I try to lift my head and feel rockets taking off in my brain.  I can hear myself grunting and groaning, as I try to get myself up.  I plant my hands firmly on the floor and try to push myself up onto my knees.  I hold onto my face.  It is pulsing with sharp pain.

There is no more screaming now.  No one is screaming.  The only sound I can hear is the noise Leon makes as he beats Joe.  It is like an ‘oompff’.  I sit back on my feet; I hold my face and turn around.

Leon is standing now.  Standing over Joe and kicking the shit out of him.

“No!” I am screaming again now.  My throat stretches and yawns as the wails rip from me.  “No, you’re killing him!  You’re fucking killing him!  Leon stop! Stop!  Stop!”

I find myself back on my feet.  I hold my head with both hands while I steady myself, and the room dips and rocks under my feet.  A hand pressed to each side of my face I stumble forward bellowing; “Leon please stop! Stop! Stop!”

Jesus Christ, Joe is just lying there.  He does not even flinch, or move, or cry when Leon kicks him.  Leon’s foot is flying in and out like his fist did.  I think, he’s killed him, he’s fucking killed him! I scream out, something feral and wordless and I land on his back, tearing at his hair, and digging into his face.  I get him away from Joe, because he turns around and steps away, and in seconds I am slammed back into the floor.  I feel my spine crack against the lino.  I feel my bones jolted and jarred.

He is down and on top of me, and I see his face. His face is full of torment and rage and revenge and regret and violence, and I shrink away, I turn away, I try to roll away from him.  He pins me down and his face is just above mine.  “Fuckin little bitch,” he pants down onto me, his big chest heaving up and dropping down upon mine.  That is all he says, but I know what he means.  I know what he thinks I am.  His spit drops down onto my cheek.  His chest is crushing mine.

I feel his hand down on the waistband of my shorts, and then I hear another voice, crying out.  It is Travis.  “What the fuck?  What the fuck?”  I feel Leon moving away from me, but he does not get very far before he is sent flying backwards.  I hear him crash into the toilet and then he is up again, and I scramble out of his way.  I press myself up against the door, and watch Leon shoving his way past Travis, who is staring at the huddled shape of Joe.

“He flushed it all!” Leon cries, as he gets past Travis.  “He fucking flushed it all!”  He tears down the landing.  We hear his feet pounding the stairs.  Travis looks at me, eyes and mouth wide open.

“Joe,” I say to him, crawling forward.  “Joe!”

Travis snaps into action.  He kneels down and pushes Joe’s shoulder.  Joe plops onto his back, one arm flung across his chest.  Travis slides one hand under his head, and his eyes move rapidly over Joe’s still body. “Joe?  Joe?”

“Call an ambulance!” I scream, pushing him out my way.  He scrabbles across the floor, uses the door to pull himself up, and dashes away with his phone in one hand.  I am left alone with Joe.  I put my hands on his chest.  I try to feel him breathing.

“Joe?  Joe?  Joe wake up!  Wake up!”  I shake him gently.  He looks dead.  His face is awash with blood.  His mouth is open and I can see his teeth and they are stained red, strung with stretchy trails of pink saliva.  His nose is clogged with blood.  And his head.  His head.

“They’re on the way!” Travis bundles back into the bathroom, skidding down onto his knees.  I take Joe’s hand and hold it tightly between mine. “Is he breathing!”

“I don’t know!”

“Shit,” Travis lays his head down upon Joe’s chest, and his face tightens in concentration.  I look at him in desperation, but his brow just furrows into lines of frustration.  “I don’t know!” he cries at me.  “I don’t know!”

“His pulse,” I remember, and place his wrist between my finger and thumb.  I hold my breath and pray for there to be something, anything in there, but I can’t, I can’t find anything.  I wait and wait and listen and count, and there is nothing, nothing, no beat, no throb, no sign.  “He’s not breathing!” I hear my voice screaming at Travis.  Travis stares at me.  He does not know what to do. “He’s not breathing!”

I don’t really know what happens next.  I feel like I am outside of my body and looking in.  At some point I seem to be pressing my lips down upon Joe’s, begging him to wake up. And then, out of nowhere, the room is suddenly full of people, of strangers.  I am gently pulled away, and neon coats surround Joe, so that I cannot see him anymore.  I am pulled out of the room.  I am crying.  I want my mum.

I find myself leaning against the landing wall, my knees too weak to hold me up.  One of the paramedics is speaking to me softly, and touching my face and asking if it hurts.  It does not hurt.  It feels numb. I can hear Travis talking behind me, to somebody else.  I can’t see Joe.  They are lifting him up and carrying him out.  I try to speak to him as he is bundled past me, but they are all in the way, and they are moving with a terrifying sense of urgency, and they are shouting and calling to each other, using the kind of terms I remember hearing in ‘Casualty’ and ‘ER’.  “I want to go with him,” I say to the woman who is with me.

“They’ve got to go quick,” she tells me, and I just stare at her, not understanding.  I understand when I hear the ambulance screaming out of the street.  I imagine the neighbours, at their windows, wondering who is ill, what has happened.

I am led out of the house.  I think Travis is coming too.  But then he seems to change his mind, and he goes back, back up the stairs.  When I step out of the house, the day is impossibly bright; it is almost white, the sun burns down on us all.  There is a police car parked out there.  They say they will drive Travis and me to the hospital.  I am numb, in shock, unable to speak.  All I can hear is my own voice, screaming at Leon to stop.  It fills my head completely.  All I can see is the blood.  The blood that Leon has punched out of his brother’s body.  The blood that has erupted from Joe’s face, from his head, and I shake my head, and I say to him, please don’t die, please don’t die, please don’t die…….

 

The waiting room is full of bleeding people.  Moaning people.  Swearing, complaining people.  Drunk people.  Little kids whining and wailing.  Old people swaying in and out of life.  I sit in a hard plastic chair next to Travis, who is as white as a sheet.  We do not look at each other, or speak to each other.  The police have asked me twice who attacked Joe, and I have not said.  The doctors have told the police I am probably in shock and they need to give me time.  “We don’t have time,” I hear the older policeman answer quietly, as he gives up and walks away.  “The git could be anywhere by now…”

I am snapped back into imagining Leon.  His fists smeared in Joe’s blood.  Where would he go?  Who would he run to like that?  I am sat on a plastic chair, the kind of chairs that are linked together by metal, so that people cannot pick them up and throw them at each other.  This is a horrible place, I think, staring down at the floor, trying not to meet anyone’s eye.  This is a horrible place full of horrible people, and Joe should not be here.  Please don’t die, please please please, don’t you die.

“I want my mum,” I say to no one.  Travis shifts next to me.  He coughs, clearing his throat.

“Didn’t anyone call her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to call her?”

“Yes.”

He gets up slowly, unsurely, sliding his trainers out across the slippery floor, and gripping the handrails of the chair to push himself up.  As he walks past me, I look up, and I see the artwork of Joe’s blood all over his t-shirt.  I look down at mine, and see that I have been daubed as well.  I drop my hands into my lap, and I twist my hands into my stained clothes.  Tears fall from my eyes as I stare down into the redness.  My tears mix with his blood and I rub it into my fingers.  His lifeblood, I think, and I feel the unbelievable swell of fear and grief trying to take me down.  I am holding onto myself.  Just. Just don’t die, don’t you dare die, just please don’t you dare die.

 

Dear World, time does strange things when you are waiting like that.  I try not to look at the clock on the wall.  I try not to look up, every time a name is called, and a broken person gets up and shuffles off to be fixed.  I try not to stare when another emergency is rushed in on a stretcher.  The sound of the paramedic’s shoes slapping against the tiles echoes around the waiting room.  Travis takes up his lonely post next to me.  I can feel his questions, but he does not speak.  I can feel his misery, and most of all I can feel his guilt. Believe me, I can fucking smell his guilt.  I watch him twisting and wringing his hands together.  Most of the time he just stares down at the floor, his head hanging low.

When my mum arrives, I am not aware of her until she is on top of me.  Travis gets up quickly to give up his seat, and she plops into it, simultaneously enveloping me in her arms.  I curl into them like a tiny child and I just sob and shake, and she strokes my hair, and kisses my head, and my face, and she says over and over again; “he’ll be all right, he’ll be all right, I promise you.”

“He wasn’t breathing,” I whisper this into her hair.  I feel her heart stop, and then start again.

“I’ll try to find out what’s happening,” she tells me, and pats me firmly on the back, letting me know I can do this.  “Has anyone spoken to you?”

“Nothing,” says Travis.  Mum looks up at him, standing there awkwardly, suddenly looking much younger than normal.  She gives him a brave smile, but her eyes say something else.  She pulls away from me, clutches my shoulder and squeezes it tight.

“I’ll be right back,” she says.  “I’ll see what I can find out.  Don’t move.”

Don’t die.

When she has gone, Travis sits back down, but he just perches on the edge this time, ready to spring back up on her return.  He rests his elbows on his knees, and

clasps his hands together in front of him.  His hair is darker than Joe’s and tumbles down over his forehead.  I watch him.  I say nothing.  Eventually he coughs again and he says; “I got rid of it all.”

“What?”  My voice is a whisper.  A croak.  My throat raw from screaming.

“The stuff,” he whispers back, not looking at me.  “All of it.  I finished off what Joe started.  It’s gone.”

I stare at him.  At the back of his head.  At his neck.  I can see the top of the tattoo he has curling up from under his t-shirt.  He had it done when he turned eighteen.  Barbed wire and roses.  He looks back at me then.  I see his eyes for the first time.  He rubs at his chin with one hand.  “Good,” I tell him.

“Did Leon hurt you?” he asks me then, his eyes dipping once, and then rising to meet mine.  I see him bite his lip with his teeth and then let go.  “Before I got there?”

“I tried to stop him,” I say, staring back at him.  “I couldn’t.  I couldn’t stop him.”

We both look up as my mother returns.  She slips in beside me as Travis rears up again.  There is a lost, desolate look to her, that I just cannot bear.  “Mum?”

She takes my hand and holds it between hers.  “They’re working on him,” she tells me, her voice quivering.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, that he has a lot of bleeding coming from his brain, and they are working on him, to stop the bleeding.  He also has some internal bleeding they are trying to control.”

I glance at Travis long enough to see him dropping his face into his hands.  I look back at my mum.  “That doesn’t sound good.”

“They deal with this every day love,” she tells me, as if that somehow makes it less bad.  “They know what they are doing.  He is in good hands.”

“That’s what they say on TV.”

“What?”

“On TV.”

“Love,” she says, squeezing my hand.  “I’ve called his mum and Mick.  They’re on their way.  The policeman wants to talk to you again.  Are you up to it?”

“It was Leon,” I say then, and I look at Travis as he reappears from his hands.  He looks white.  I expect to see him shake his head at me or something, but he does not.  He just looks resigned, and his shoulders drop.  I look back at mum and she is staring at me very intently.

“Darling,” she says to me.  “You have to tell that to the policeman.  You have to tell him exactly what happened.”

“Leon beat him up,” I say to her.  “I thought he was going to kill him.”  I collapse into her then.  It all gets too much.  Bleeding from his brain?  His brain?  Bleeding internally?  From where?  What does that mean?  Something inside him must be broken for blood to come out, is that what it means?  Like what?  I bury my head in her shoulder.  Like his heart?  Can his heart bleed?  His lungs?  Was that why he stopped breathing?  I cry so hard I cannot breathe.  I feel her arms around me, so tightly, and her kisses and her voice, and I know what she is thinking, I know what she is feeling, like she has told me a thousand times before, ‘if I could take the hurt away for you, I would.’ I used to think that was stupid. I used to think it meant nothing. Like saying ‘do one for me’ when someone says they are going to do a wee.  But now I get it.  She would take all the hurt from me, and absorb it into her, soak it up and take it, and make it hers, because that is how much she loves me.  And if I could, I would take all the hurt from Joe, all the leaking blood, all the damaged parts, everything they are trying to fix, I would take it from him, I would take it if I could.

“I don’t want him to die,” I moan into my mother’s shoulder, and it feels like it is just us, and the hospital around us does not exist, and neither does Travis, because it is just us, entwined and holding on tight.  Holding onto life.  “I don’t want him to die,” I tell her over and over, “please, please, don’t let him die, please don’t let him die….I love him, I love him..”

30

 

Dear World, we stay in all day.  Joe sleeps for hours.  When he finally emerges, he looks even worse, if that is possible.  My mum sees him shuffle into the kitchen, and she can’t help herself, the first thing she does is wrap her arms around him.  I get up and make him tea and toast, which he barely touches.  The whole time he can’t stop shivering, even though it is a gorgeous summer day.  I try to talk to him.  I try to get him talking, but he just sits in silence all day, with his head in his hand.  My mum asks him when he has to go to court and he says he doesn’t know.  He sits there all day, with shiny eyes, but does not cry again.  Eventually my mum gets up with a sigh and announces that she is going to speak to Lorraine.  Joe barely looks at her.

When she is gone my phone rings so I answer it.  “Hiya!” Marianne yells down the phone at me, hurting my ear.  I roll my eyes at Joe, still sat in the kitchen. I am not in the right mood to talk to her or deal with her.  She must be calling on her landline, I think.  If her mobile had come up, I would not have answered it.

“Hi Marianne, you okay?”

“Yes, more than okay, I am great!  My parents have buggered off again, so got the place to myself!  I was thinking about another party!”

I can’t believe what I am hearing, so I sort of slump against the wall and groan inwardly.  “Oh I don’t know,” I tell her.  “I’m not sure about that.”

“Well I mean a smaller one obviously,” she goes on breathlessly. “I wouldn’t have the time to contact everyone for a big one.  I was thinking you and Joe, Josh and Ryan, Leon and Travis, maybe a few more?  Anyone they want to bring!”

“It’s probably not the best time, that’s all,” I try to tell her.  I can tell by the look on Joe’s face that he does not want me to tell her about his arrest.

“Why not?  What else you doing?  What you up to then?”  She sounds sort of hyper, I think, like she is bouncing around the room while she speaks to me.

“Um,” I say, while I try to think fast, try to think of excuses.  “It’s just I got family stuff on, you know.  Stuff to do.  I think I’m busy all weekend really.”

There is silence from her end.  I wait for her to fill it but she does not.  I breathe out slowly and imagine her standing still, her eyes filling with rage towards me.  “Marianne?  You there?”

“Yes.  Yes. I am here.  Okay then fine.  I could come over to you?  Have a girly sleepover?”

Oh Christ, I think desperately.  Why does she have to call now?  Why does she have to be like this right now?  “I’m really sorry Marianne,” I say this firmly.  “I really can’t this weekend.  I’ll call you on Monday, okay?”

“Okay.  Fine then.”

“Don’t be like that…”

“Like what?  No, it’s fine.  Fine.  Bye.”  That’s it.  She hangs up.  I roll my eyes again look at Joe.

“Well that pissed her off,” I shrug at him in exasperation.  He nods very slightly.  “Shall I make us some lunch then?”  He looks down.  I lean against the doorframe and try to think of inspiring and encouraging things to say.  But there are none.  He has been arrested for suspected drug dealing.  I have no idea what is going to happen to him, but in the long run it does not look good, does it?

So I fiddle around making us cups of coffee, and looking through the cupboards to see what we can eat for lunch.  Not eating does not even enter my mind, though I am not sure why.  It does not seem quite so important, that’s all.  Joe does.  I am grilling some bacon for bacon sandwiches, when my mum hurries back in through the front door and slams her handbag down on the hall table.  Joe and I both look up at her with wide, expectant eyes.  “Well,” she says, placing her hands on her hips and taking us both in.  “I have good news and bad news.”

“Good first,” I say quickly.  “I think we need it.”

“Okay,” she nods. “Well the police were unable to track down the other guy on the bridge, so they have no real evidence to charge Joe with intent to supply.  Your mum spoke to them this morning,” she looks at Joe and says.  “They are charging you with possession.  You’ll still go to court, but at your age, with no previous convictions, you are more than likely to receive a fine, and maybe some community service.”

I look at Joe in amazement.  He looks confused.  He pulls at his sore bottom lip with his thumb and finger and frowns at my mum.  He has not brushed his hair and it is all over the place.  “That’s brilliant isn’t it Joe?” I prompt him eagerly. “That’s much less serious!”  He nods, considering it.

“I guess so.”

“What was the bad news?” I ask my mum.  She sighs and folds her arms, and then I see her sniff and peer around me to take in the bacon under the grill.  A confused look crosses her face and then she smiles ever so slightly.

“Oh,” she says, “the bad news comes from Mick.  He does not want you back.  Well, not yet.  Your mum is working on him.”

“Well that’s not bad news!” I laugh.  “That’s good news!  You wouldn’t go back there anyway, would you Joe?”

“Lou,” my mum says softly.  “It will be in Joe’s best interests to make things right again with his family.  But anyway, for now, he can stay here.  I am sure Mick will calm down and change his mind soon enough.”

I lean forward and punch Joe softly in the shoulder.  “Not so bad then?” I ask him.  He manages a small smile and nods at me.

“Are you making bacon sandwiches?” my mum enquires, trying to peer past me again.

“Yep.  Joe’s favourite.”

“Any spare for me?”

“I think we can stretch to it,” I say with a grin.

Five minutes later the three of us are gathered around the kitchen table, sinking our teeth into warm bacon sandwiches, smeared with tomato sauce.  I think, this is crazy, but nothing in my life has ever tasted as good as this does.  My mum tries not to look at me too much, and she certainly holds her tongue about me eating lunch, but I can feel it in the air around her, I can feel how happy she is, how relieved she is.  I tell myself in a new calm voice I had no idea existed within me, that I can go for a nice run later.  I’ve missed my runs.  I can go for a nice run, and as long as I do that regularly, I’ll never get as fat as I was, will I?  As long as I am sensible.  I wonder if I tell myself this enough, will I start to really believe it?

 

Joe and I return to my room after lunch.  He seems a bit brighter, but is still not exactly talkative.  He flicks through my CD collection, and tosses each one aside with increasing disgust.  “You are stuck in the sixties!” he tells me irately.  “You weren’t even born then, but you’re stuck in the sixties!”

“I like it.  I like all that stuff.”

“We could go back to mine and get my music.”

“Oh.  I don’t know.  Maybe not.”

Joe runs his fingers back through his hair.  “It’s okay,” he says, but his voice sounds unsure to me.  “Mum and Mick will be at work.”

“What about Leon and Travis?”

He shrugs at me.  “What about them?”

“Have you decided what to do?”

“Nothing.  I just want my music Lou.  I want to get my music and my money.  You know for the drums.  I can’t leave it there.”

I had forgotten about his money.  I had totally forgotten.  I make a growling noise and cover my mouth with my hands for a moment, while I look at his pleading eyes and try to work out what to do.  I don’t want to go over there, no fucking way.  But I can see his point.  “Okay,” I say eventually.  “I’ll come with you.  And we’ll tell mum what we’re doing.  I’m so impressed with her at the moment, I think she deserves my honesty.”

Joe frowns and smiles at me at the same time.  “How sweet.”

“Fuck off.”

“It is though.  I’m glad.  And you ate lunch!  You ate bacon.”

“I’ll say it again.  Fuck off.”

Joe snorts and I see a small amount of light return to his eyes.  “Wasn’t really much fun collapsing all over the place then?” he goads me.  I narrow my eyes and stand in front of him.

“I’m going to smack you in your sore lip in a minute if you don’t shut up.”

He slaps my shoulder.  “Chill out Carling.  I’m just joking.”  I push him towards the bedroom door.

“Come on, if we’re doing this let’s get it over with.  I am all kinds of scared right now.”

“Me too.”

We find mum in the back garden.  She is on her knees, weeding her flowerbeds.  Gremlin is lying next to her, panting in the sun.  “Mum, is it okay if we go to Joe’s house to get more of his stuff?” I ask her, holding up a hand to shield my eyes from the glaring sun.  Mum sits back on her feet and looks at us worriedly.

“Oh I don’t know guys.”

“He needs his stuff,” I point out.  “His clothes and stuff.  Toothbrush. His breath stinks you know.”

Joe elbows me.  “Oi!”

“Sorry.  But it does.  We’ll be super quick mum.  In and out.  Mick and Lorraine will be at work, won’t they?”

“I think so,” she sighs.  “But if their cars are there, I want you to turn around and come straight back, do you hear?  I’ll go over there later for Joe’s stuff.”

“Okay, we will,” I promise.  “See you in a bit.”

We pile back into the house, and as we head down the hallway my phone rings again in my pocket.  “Fuck’s sake,” I curse under my breath and snatch it up.  “Hello?”

“Lou, it’s me again.”

I mouth ‘Marianne’ at Joe and he rolls his eyes in sympathy and shoves his hands into his pockets while he waits.  “Hi Marianne.”

“I was just wondering if you wanted to come over?”

“Um, I can’t, remember?  I said I was busy all weekend.”

“Busy with Joe?”

“No.  Well yes actually, but look, it’s a long story, loads has happened, and I can’t tell you over the phone so…”

“I see.”

“No, it’s not like that, it’s just actually he’s sort of staying with us at the moment,” I make apologetic faces at Joe as I see his expression darkening.  “I can’t go into it on the phone.  He’s got family problems.”

“So you lied earlier?”

“No, I said family stuff didn’t I?”

“You said your family.”

“Oh Marianne, what does it matter?” I snap at her.  “Look Joe needs me at the moment, and I’ll explain it all when I see you, so…”

“Doesn’t matter,” she snaps back at me, and hangs up the phone.

“Oh Jesus Christ, what is her problem?” I cry at Joe, who just shrugs carelessly in return.  “She’s all pissed off with me!”

“She’s a nutter, I told you.  Forget about it.”

“Why did she call back?  For God’s sake, I told her I was busy.”

“Nutter,” Joe says again.  “Come on let’s go.  I’m getting all jumpy.”

“Okay, okay.”

 

The August sun pounds down on us when we step outside.  It seems to bounce off the pavements, making them too bright to look straight at.  Every car we pass seems to fire spiky rays of startling sunlight into our brains.  We look down and walk on.  Joe falls silent again, and I suppose I cannot blame him.  His whole life has been turned upside down, one way or another.  Even if he escapes jail and is allowed home, I know things will never be the same for him again.  He looks increasingly sombre as we head towards his house.  We go the long way around without even discussing it.  Neither of us relishes the thought of passing the shop while Lorraine is at work.

We get to his road and look around.  There are no cars in front of the house.  It looks like no one is home.  “Wonder where the brats are?” I ask quietly.

“Neighbours have had them lately,” Joe shrugs.

“Have you got a key to get in?”

“No.  Mick took it off me.”

“So how do we get in then brainiac?”

“Around the back,” he says, and walks off.  I follow him around to the back alley and we walk down it, stepping over bags of rubbish and broken bikes and old TV sets.  The back gate is open.  He strides up to the back door and just walks in.

“Unlocked?” I ask, shaking my head.

“Broken,” he corrects me, and shows me the floppy door handle.  “It won’t lock.”

“Handy for us.”

“Yep.”

We stand in the kitchen for a few awkward moments, looking around us.  I feel like it is a strange and hostile place, all of a sudden, instead of one I have known since a baby.  I am guessing Joe feels sort of the same.  He certainly does not seem comfortable or at ease in the slightest.  He rubs one arm up and down, shivers, and then heads for the lounge.  “Come on then,” he says.  “We’ve got to be quick about it.”

We pound up the stairs and into his room.  It’s a complete wreck.  It looks like Mick has thrown a massive tantrum in here.  Joe swallows as he looks around at it all.  His posters have all been torn down and screwed up.  His clothes are out of the wardrobe and scattered across the floor.  It is creepy and shocking, and I want to get the hell out of there as fast as possible.  I find his school rucksack on the floor and start to fill it quickly with clothes.  Joe snaps himself out of his daze, grabs a holdall from the top of the wardrobe and kneels down on the floor, scooping up armfuls of his belongings and throwing them in.  “Your money?” I say to him at one point, and he looks up and yanks open the top drawer of his bedside table.  He grabs all the socks and boxers and hurls them into the holdall, and then holds up one bulging sock and smiles at me.

“It’s okay.  Look.”

“Good.  Come on, hurry up.”

We crawl around the floor, grabbing everything we can salvage.  His CD collection is half the size it used to be, as he hadn’t managed to replace any of the ones Mick smashed that day, but he packs them all in and zips up the holdall.  He is breathless and his forehead gleams with sweat.  I am still packing up, having found his schoolbooks under his bed, but he stand up suddenly and stares down at the floor, breathing quickly.  “What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Just want to check something,” he replies and walks out of the room.

“Joe!” I call after him impatiently, but I do not follow.  I carry on packing his rucksack until I cannot squeeze any more in.  I do the zip half the way up, and push my hair back out of my face.  I feel my heart drumming quickly in a kind of panic, but I don’t understand why.  Just then Joe marches back into the room, his hair hanging over his eyes, and his hands full.  I look at him in confusion.  And then I yelp.  “Joe!  What the fuck!”  He is holding two bags of cocaine.  Just like the bags we found that day in his brothers wardrobe. Christ how I wish we had never taken them.  Christ, how I wish I had never opened that wardrobe door…. He raises his head to stare at me, his mouth hanging open in awe.

“They’ve got more!” he practically screams at me.  “They’ve got a fucking load more!”

I climb to my feet.  I grab both of the bags we have filled.  I want to cry.  “Joe,” I say in desperation.  “Just put it back, put it back now!”

“They’ve got more!” he says again, his eyes wide in wonder and disbelief.  “It was all gone, and now they’ve got more!”

“Joe,” I beg him, “it doesn’t matter, leave them to it, let’s just go!  Just put it back and we can go!”

He shakes his head at me.  I watch anger clouding his eyes.  He keeps shaking his head and staring at the bags.  “I can’t believe they got more.”

“Joe! Just put it back, I am begging you!  It doesn’t matter!”

“It does fucking matter!” he roars at me then, and his face is so dark, and his mouth twists in rage and grief.  “They lied to me the whole time!”

“What do you mean?”

“That they nicked it, that they found it in a car they robbed.  That the amount they had was it.  Just one load.  It was gone.” He shakes his head, utterly confused, yet filling steadily with rage.  “It was gone Lou!  So what the hell is this?  Where the fuck did this come from?  There’s loads in there!  They’ve got more!”

I walk forward and grip his arm with my hand.  “Joe,” I say to him.  “Just put it back.  Put it back right now.  We have to get out of here.  Just leave them to it.”

“No,” he says, pulling away from me and scraping back his hair.  “No fucking way.  They lied to me!”

“They’re always lying!”

“They lied to me about all of it!”

“Joe please, just put it back and lets go.  I’m going!”  I try to shock him by grabbing the bags and bundling past him.  I head for the stairs.  “Come on!” I call back at him.  He storms past the stairs and into the bathroom.  I am confused.  “Joe what are you doing?”

“Flushing it!” he yells back, kicking the bathroom door open.

“What?  Are you insane?”  I drop the bags again and run after him.  He is kneeling down in front of the toilet.  He is tearing a hole in one of the bags.  I am terrified and overwhelmed and desperate to be out of there.  “You can’t do that!” I hiss over his shoulder.  “Are you crazy?”

“I’m putting an end to it,” he says.  He starts to pour out the first bag.  I stare in horror as Leon’s drugs pour in a neat white stream into the toilet bowl.

“Oh my god Joe, they will kill you,” I say breathlessly.  I try to stop him.  I try to pull his arm back but he pulls away.

“I’m ending it,” he says again.  “I’m getting rid of it all.”

“Joe they’ll kill you.  They will fucking kill you!  You can’t do this!”

“You should be helping me!” he cries back at me, tossing back his hair long enough to glare angrily at me.  “You’ve had enough of them too!  Look what they’ve done to us!  They’ve lied to us and lied to us.  They’ve had us running all over the estate with this fucking shit and I’ve had enough.  So I’m ending it.  I’m getting rid of all of it.”

There is nothing I can do but stand and watch.  He flushes the toilet and the first bag is gone.  I have no idea how much money he has just flushed down the loo, but it is sort of horrifying and mesmerising at the same time.  My stomach feels sick to the core.  I can barely breathe.  “Hurry up,” I beg him, nearly in tears.  “Don’t do all of them Joe.  Let’s just go!”  He ignores me and tears open the next bag.  When that one is all gone, he gets up and stomps back into his brother’s room.  I stare down at the bubbling toilet.  I chew my nails.  He comes back and kneels down again and starts digging a hole into another bag.

“Drug dealers,” he is snarling to himself.  “They lied.  They never found it.  It was never a one off.  They’re drug dealers, and that’s it.  They lied, they lied, they lied to me.  They’ve ruined my fucking life. I can’t even live here anymore, because of them!”

I don’t know what to say, so I keep quiet.  I only know I have never been so terrified in my entire life.  But all that changes when I hear the front door opening.  My eyes grow wider and wider.  Joe does not hear.  He keeps flushing the drugs.  I listen again.  Was I imagining it?  Oh my shitting God.  The front door.  The front door.  The front door!

“Joe,” I put my hand on his shoulder.  My hand is shaking so much it looks like a blur.  Joe jerks to his feet when he hears the footsteps on the stairs.  He has half a bag of cocaine in one hand, and as he stands next to the toilet and stares in terror at the landing, the rest of the bag empties slowly into the toilet bowl, and that is how Leon finds us, when he arrives at the top of the stairs.

29

 

Dear World, I spend the rest of the evening sending frantic texts to Joe and to my mother, and neither of them get back to me. Later on, up in my room, I am dozing in and out of restless sleep, when I suddenly sit bolt upright in my bed, tangled in my duvet and sweating profusely.  My door has opened a creak, and there is a shadow peering in.  “Lou, are you asleep?”  It is my mother.  I throw back the duvet and leap out of bed, running to the door to tear it open.  Joe is standing just behind her.  He looks awful.  He is trying not to cry.  “Joe is going to stay with us for a few days,” my mum informs me in hushed tones.  “Until everything settles down again at home.  Can you make him up a bed on the floor if I grab the blankets?”

“Course,” I say.  I grab his arm and pull him in.  I have never been so glad to see anyone in my entire life.  My mum gives us a sort of withering, concerned look before hurrying off to get blankets from the airing cupboard.  Joe hovers in the middle of my room.  I want to throw my arms around him, but I don’t want my mum to catch me, so I don’t.  I just stare at him.  He is wearing the same Radiohead t-shirt he had on days ago, with a checked shirt on top.  Most of the buttons are undone, except for two in the middle.  The cuffs are undone as well.  There are mud and grass stains on the knees of his jeans, and a smear of dirt under his chin.  He folds his arms around himself and shivers, and stares at the floor.  He looks thoroughly beaten and disgusted with himself.  I search for the anger and the pride he had that morning he got into my bed with me, but can see no trace of it.  I look at his face as my mum goes back and forth dumping piles of blankets inside the door.  His bottom lip is cut and swollen, and there is another thin trail of blood coming from his ear.

Finally my mother stops fussing, and stands in the doorway releasing a massive sigh.  “I hope you two understand how much trust I am putting in you by letting you stay in here,” she tells us sternly and we nod at her.  “I am putting trust in you when neither of you has done anything lately to deserve it.”

I want to tell her we are just bloody friends, and can everyone stop assuming that we want to get into each other’s knickers constantly, but I bite my tongue and just look at her apologetically.  “Things are too tense at home for Joe to stay there,” mum looks at me and says.  I wonder if I can detect something in her eyes.  Something she is trying to tell me.  She does not take her eyes off of me.  “So I intervened and brought him here.  Putting my friendship with Lorraine at risk in the process,” she adds angrily, as if this is somehow our fault.  I just nod again.

“Okay mum.”

She finally turns to go.  “Get some sleep,” she sighs.  “We’ll all talk in the morning.”

When the door is closed, I look at Joe.  “Sit down,” I tell him, nodding at my bed.  “I’ll make these up for you.”  He moves slowly, unsurely and sits on the edge of my bed, while I wrestle with the blankets on the floor.  “Are you okay?” I look up and ask him gently.  “Why are you bleeding?”

“Had a fight,” he croaks, staring at nothing.  “Me and Mick.”

“While my mum was there?”

“Yeah,” he nods.  “She stopped him.”

“Jesus Christ Joe.  What the hell happened tonight? I had a little visit from your brothers, once my mum had shot off to your house!”

“Oh.  What did they say?  I haven’t seen them yet.”

I stop making the bed up and frown at him.  “You haven’t seen them?  So much for them sorting things out for you!  That was what they said!  They made me promise to keep my mouth shut while they sorted things.  Fucking shitting scumbag liars.”

Joe says nothing.  He is sitting on the bed with his hands hanging limply between his knees.  He looks like he is maybe in shock or something, but how would I know?  I shuffle forward on my knees until I am right in front of him.  He is just breathing very fast.  He looks so pale.  His eyes are full of tears, and as I pick up one of his hands and hold it gently between mine, the tears line up and fall one by one.  I watch them skidding down his white cheeks, over his cheekbones, and down to his chin.  “What happened?” I ask him.  He sniffs loudly.

“Don’t know.  Police suddenly appeared when I was up on the bridge with the bloke.  They must have followed me.  They must have seen me before!”

My eyes grow huge.  “What?”

“Was so scary,” he whispers.  I hold his hand tighter and rub it between mine.

“Oh, Joe. How much did you have on you?”

“Just one of them little bags Leon makes up.  Twenty quid’s worth.”

“Shit. This is bad.”

He lifts his other hand and wipes the tears away, but fresh ones line up to take their place almost instantly.  He nods miserably.  “Was so horrible Lou,” he whispers croakily.  “They put handcuffs on me and everything.  I was so scared.”

“Oh fuckinghell mate.  What’s going to happen?”

“Got to go to court,” he shrugs and sniffs again.  “They questioned me for ages.  Wanted to know who I was running for.”

“Let me guess, you didn’t say?”

Joe just stares at me for a long, torturous moment.  Then he drops his head into both of his hands and I watch his shoulders shake as he sobs into them.  He shakes his head at me.  I get up and sit next to him on the bed and slide my arm around his trembling shoulders.  “Oh Joe,” I murmur, resting my head against his other shoulder for a moment.  “You idiot.  You are such an idiot.  Why didn’t you say?  You have to say.  You can’t take the rap for them, you just can’t!”

“I need to talk to them first,” he sobs.

“But why?  I told you what they said already.” I lift my head to stare at him.  I keep rubbing his other shoulder with my hand, pressing his body into mine.  “They said it was okay for you to take the rap, because they’ve both got previous and they’d get sent down, but you won’t.  That’s what they think Joe.  They’re quite happy to let you take all the blame.”

“I won’t go to jail will I?” he asks suddenly, turning his tear stained face to mine.  I swallow and fight the urge I have to wipe his tears away with my thumb.

“God knows Joe!  How would we know? I have no idea!  Did they get you a solicitor or something?”

He nods, frowning in confusion.  “The duty one.”

“And?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I can’t remember…” Joe covers his face with his hands again.  I hug him close.

“What happened with your mum and Mick?”  I ask quietly.  I feel his entire body shudder next to mine then.  I feel the tremor of pain and shock and disgust twist right through him as he relives the memory.

“Just…” he shakes his head very slowly, staring through his fingers.  “Just…really…fucking mental.”

“Well my mum must have thought so, to bring you back here.”

“They packed all my stuff,” he says through his fingers.  His voice sounds hollow, shocked to the core, devoid of emotion or belief.  “They packed it all up and chucked it out the door.”

“Oh my god! Joe!”  I put both my arms around him now. I wrap them right around and hold him so tight while he shudders and sobs.  I kiss the top of his head, and then the side of his face, and I taste his salty tears, as he must have tasted mine that night in his bed.  “Joe, oh Joe.  The bastards.  All of them.  Fuck them!  They don’t deserve you Joe.  They never have.  You can just live here with us then.  Mum will adopt you.  They don’t deserve you!”  I keep my arms around him and rock with him back and forth.  “Don’t you worry,” I tell him, and plant another firm kiss on the side of his head.  “Everything will be okay.  We’ll tell the truth Joe, that’s what we have to do.  We have to tell my mum the truth, about everything.  Fuck Leon and Travis.  Let them get arrested.  It’s their bloody mess.”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs then, lowering his hands and sniffing loudly.

“In the morning,” I tell him.  “Sleep on it.  You can’t take the rap for them Joe, you just can’t.”

“Why not?” he asks, looking into my eyes and lifting his shoulders in a tired shrug.  “I don’t even care.  I won’t have anything to do with any of them after this.  But I won’t be a grass.”

“Oh Joe, no.”

He gets up then and rolls his head on his neck, then shakes out his arms and legs.  His jeans are getting too small I notice then.  Creeping up his ankles.  He drops down and gathers the blankets around him.  He looks exhausted.  He looks broken.  I want to kill them all.  I want to steal his perfect goodness away from them, and make it mine, keep it all for me.  They never saw it, never nurtured it.  They don’t deserve him.  That is all I keep thinking.  They don’t deserve him.  He is a good apple among a rotting bunch of fetid cancerous bad ones.  I watch him crawl in among the blankets, and I watch the sobs that still shake him as he tries to control himself.  Finally he lays his head on the pillow and stares nakedly up at me.  I want to cry.

“Thanks Lou,” he says hoarsely.

“I hope you got a few good ones in with Mick,” I reply with raised eyebrows.  He does not even smile.  He just closes his eyes.  I get back under my covers and let him go.  I seem to lie there for ages, just listening to him breathing.

At some point during what is left of the night, I hear him crying silently under his blankets, and I just cannot bear it.  I get out of bed and slip in beside him.  I pull his head into my chest and stroke his hair, and rub his back, while he just lets it all out.  Neither of us speaks.

 

In the morning, I untangle myself from Joe and get to my feet.  He just sleeps on.  I look at my bedroom door, slightly panicked, while memories of the last time we were caught together in bed career through my mind.  I lean down and cover him up and sneak quietly out of the room.  I know that my mother is going to be in the kitchen, sat at the table with her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of tea, and a tea towel lying on her lap, or maybe on the table next to her cup.  I know that she is going to look at me in that way, the way she always does lately.  Like she does not recognise me anymore.  I know that she is going to want to know what I know.  I know that Joe will not grass his brothers up, but I have not yet decided if I will or not.

I creep in, feeling sheepish and young.  She just looks at me, and I can’t decide if it is disappointment or pity that I see the most etched on her face.  Maybe a good deal of both?  I slip into a chair at the table.  “Joe’s still asleep,” I say, not looking at her.  She drums her fingers gently against the teacup.

“Do you want some breakfast?”

“Yes please.”

“Egg and soldiers?  Used to be your favourite once.  When you were a little girl.”  There is a note of terrible sadness in her voice that I can barely stand.  I force myself to look at her long enough to smile and nod in recognition, but that is all I can manage.  She slides out from the table and puts a small saucepan of water onto the hob to boil.

“How long can he stay?” I ask her back.  I watch her sigh.

“As long as he needs to, I suppose,” she replies.  “I’m just going to have to be careful not to get involved, if you know what I mean.  Not take sides.”

I am not sure what she means.  “Sides?”

“Yes.  His side or theirs, I mean.”

I still don’t know what she means.  I watch her turn the grill on, and slap a slice of wholemeal bread under it.  “Mum, what happened at their house?  I mean, why did you bring Joe back?”

She turns to face me, and folds her arms across her breasts. “Look,” she says slowly, and I can tell that she is thinking in her head, trying to work out the best way to say something.  “I don’t know what all this drug dealing business is about.  I didn’t ask Joe, and I don’t plan to right now.  I only know he has always been a lovely, decent boy, and I can only suppose the older two have roped him into something unsavoury?”  There is an undeniable question mark at the end of her sentence, but I pretend not to pick up on it, and just stare up at her expectantly.  “Anyway,” she goes on.  “That’s none of my business, because at the end of the day it’s for the police and the courts to decide what’s gone on.  But I cannot justify, or make excuses for the way I saw….” She breaks off now, swallows, coughs, and then turns her back to check the toast and the boiling water.

“Saw?” I question, prompting her.

“The way I saw the adults in that house treat him last night,” she finishes, and on the last word I hear her voice crack, and I see her lift one hand and drag it across her eyes.  I watch her trying to compose herself.

“You mean, like the stuff I tried to tell you?”

“I suppose so yes.  They just totally lost control.  They were wild.  Like animals.  I kept telling them to calm down, calm down, leave it till the morning, let him go to bed, that sort of thing.  They packed up all his stuff from his room and started throwing it out of the door.”

“They’ve got vicious tempers,” I say morosely.  Mum shakes back her hair and stands over the hob, watching my egg as it bounces around it the pan.

“Well, I just didn’t like what I saw,” she says.  “And I know Lorraine is my friend.  My very old friend.  And she has always been tough on her boys.  Lord knows, the older two needed it, but Joe…” she trails off again, shaking her head slightly, as if she just can’t fathom any of it.  “He was just so pale, and frightened and so sorry, he was so sorry.  He just kept saying sorry, sorry, over and over.  They wouldn’t even let him speak.  I found myself stood in front of him Lou.  I had to shield him.  I had to get him out of there.”

“You did the right thing mum,” I say then, and get up from the table.  “They don’t deserve him.  I know he’s in trouble, but it really isn’t all his fault you know.”

“Well if you know anything Lou….” She turns and looks me in the eye.

“I need to speak to Joe.”

“Then I have to trust you’ll do the right thing,” she says, her eyes burning into mine.  I feel such a wave of compassion and gratitude for her then, that it actually overwhelms me.  I sort of stumble into her arms, and slide mine around her body, and end up with my face pushed up against her breasts.

“I’ll do the right thing,” I tell her.  “Because you did.  Thanks mum.”

I feel her playing with my hair, like she used to do when I was small.  She wraps it around her fingers, and then unwinds it again.  She presses her head down onto mine and breathes in.  “You kids,” I hear her mumble. “It still takes my breath away you know, when I see how quickly you’ve grown. You know what parenthood is Lou?  It’s not enough time.  Not enough time to hold your children near.”  She kisses me twice on the head. “One minute it’s all changing nappies, and rocking you to sleep, and holding your little hand, and then, in a blink of an eye….”

I squeeze her tight.  In my head, I can just see her at Joe’s house, scared and confused, standing in front of him, trying to tell Mick to calm down.  I squeeze her again.  “I love you mum,” I say.  “I love you so much.”