Gun Dog (4 page)

I kick off and start to run and Andy is only half a stride behind me. Adrenaline's cool like that; it can pulse into your system in half a heartbeat. Neither me nor Andy say anything. Can't talk, all energy needed for flight. I can see through the gloom like it's daylight and all I can hear is the
pounding of our feet on the path, and the pounding of the feet of the boys following us in the distance. No shouting, no foul insults from the gang behind us – they're as intent on catching us as we are on getting away. Christ, this is serious. This is scary. We're running parallel with the trees that line the inside of the railings, the boundary of The Gardens. This is thick privet so that we can only see flickering lights from the cars on the main road beyond. The gate is about three hundred metres away and I'm wondering if we can get out before they catch us.

One thing I do know is that we just have to get out onto the streets, where it's lighter, where there is traffic, where there might be people. Not that I think that any of that would bother this lot if they caught us out there. But they might be inclined to be more restrained and to back off earlier in front of witnesses. In the safe anonymity of the darkness here in The Gardens, who knows what they might be capable of. Roddy Thompson bled to death earlier today. Roddy Thompson. Big Roddy. And this is just me and Andy.

I glance behind, just to see if they're gaining on us, but all I see is Andy still that half a stride behind.

‘Just run!'

Andy is right. If you're being pursued, you should never look back. Never. Just keep looking forward, concentrate on escape. Even so, I glance to my left and through the trees and beyond the railings, I can just about see that there is a bus coming up. Suddenly I veer to the left and Andy doesn't question, he just turns to follow me. I throw my hands out in front of me and I'm ripping at thick prickly branches that scratch across my face as I burst through a slight gap in the privet trees uncaring. I grab the railings and haul myself up, and all the while the branches contrive to hold me back. I'm too strong for them though. I can hear them crackle and break and splinter as I swing a foot up to gain purchase on the horizontal wrought-iron top beam, while I grab the spikes to pull myself up. I'm over and dropping to the pavement on the other side in one fluid movement, hearing a tear
as a jacket pocket snags on one of those spikes and rips. I hear a heavy thump as Andy lands beside me, rolling involuntarily like a paratrooper.

Fifty metres down the road, the bus is at a stop. One elderly woman is stepping onto it and I'm flying down the pavement, waving my hands in the hope that the driver will see me in his mirrors and wait, even as I hear a thump at the railings behind me, and foul threatening curses burning my ears. I don't turn to look for Andy; I don't turn to see if any of that crew is climbing over after me. I have just one focus. Get to the bus.

My lungs are burning and I can see that the old woman has just waved a bus pass at the driver. Why the bloody hell can't she have paid with a note and needed change? Anything to hold the bus up for a second. I could just about cry, expecting to see the bus doors close with that hydraulic hissing sound. But I'm halfway along the side of the bus now, waving like crazy.

‘Wait, wait!'

The scream is mine, and this must be a kind driver because the doors stay open. I almost tumble onto the step and reach into my pocket to fish out my travel card. I flash it at the driver and pile on up to the back of the bus, with Andy panting fit to spew right behind me.

Even before we reach the back seat, we hear the hydraulic hiss as the doors slide shut, and the jerk as the bus pulls into the traffic nearly spills us onto the deck. But we catch the backs of some seats and steady ourselves. We throw ourselves down on the back seat of the bus, panting and unable to speak. But we look at each other and just grin. It's not a grin of happiness though; more of relief.

I'm sweating as I turn to look out of the rear window. I don't know what I'm expecting to see, or even what I want to see. I'm relieved to see nothing. They haven't followed us over the railings. One thing's for sure. I won't be taking any short cuts through The Gardens again.

Jason Bourne does not carry a Ruger. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t have a particular gun at all. He uses whatever happens to come to hand. I realise that it’s ridiculous that I should feel somehow disappointed. But the fact is that I do. It’s like a little bit of my identity has been sucked into that Ruger and now lies wrapped in a plastic bag shoved far under my bed.

The movie is over and we’ve spilled out of the multiplex with a load of other people and we’re standing just outside, beneath the bright lights. There’s a lot of noise – people talking to each other, people jabbering loudly into their mobile phones, the sounds of the
adjacent video arcades and cars. Always, there is the sound of cars on the retail park. This is where the dreamers congregate – the lads who spend every penny and every minute on their pitiful little hatchbacks with loud after-market exhausts and
under-sill
LED lights that glow green and purple and orange and red and blue on the asphalt. Then they come here and park next to each other, to show off in-car entertainment systems that are worth more than the vehicles themselves. Slide-out televisions and boom-boxes and amplifiers and sat-nav and DVD players and speakers that would grace any home entertainment system. These are the sort of kids who watch movies like
Tokyo Drift
and imagine that there is a link between themselves and the movie guys with their tricked-out Skylines and Scooby-Doos and Evos. Delusional. And they know it. They’ll never have a Skyline with a fifty-grand engine job and nitrous oxide injectors and stuff. Not coming from around here they won’t. But they can spend less money and have exactly the same
tricked-out
entertainment systems, so that’s what they do. And that’s their link.

Who’s deluded though? Didn’t I just say that I’ve been to see the latest Jason Bourne movie and I’m looking to see what gun he carries? Like I think that because I have a gun under my bed I’m in some way part of the world that Jason Bourne inhabits. At least with that lot and the hot hatchbacks, they dream about emulating a world that actually exists. I’m associating myself with a world of spies and assassins that I’m sure is merely a fantasy. And yet I just called
them
delusional. I should just get rid of that gun.

Actually, it’s quite cold this evening. I stick my hands in my pockets as we walk out of the bright lights of the multiplex and the arcades and cross the huge car park that surrounds the complex like an
oversized
moat. The car park itself is well lit with pools of orange light cascading down from high grey metal lamps.

‘You not going to wave?’

Andy has stopped and is craning his head as though he is scanning the heavens.
I know exactly what he’s referring to as I watch him pull stupid faces and wave in grand flourishing gestures. He’s making a show for the CCTV cameras. On tall metal poles at regular intervals are the plastic globes containing cameras that can spy on every square inch of the retail park. Andy is right to remind me; it’s part of our ritual when we come here. So I wave
half-heartedly
, even though I’m not really in the mood, before sticking my hands back into my pockets against the cold of the evening.

‘Do you think anyone is ever actually watching?’

Andy is hurrying after me now. I stop and wait for him.

‘I wouldn’t know.’

How can any of us know? In England we’re watched by CCTV cameras more than any other people in the supposedly free world. There are more than four million CCTV cameras in Britain, and there’s been stuff in the papers that lots of them
have zoom lenses and listening devices. They say that during a typical day, you probably turn up on a CCTV camera as many as three hundred times. But I don’t know anyone who feels safer or less scared because of this.

‘Do you know who actually runs these cameras?’

I shake my head and shrug.

‘Could be the people who own the retail park.’

I’m just guessing. It could also be a private security company hired out to monitor the area. It could be the local authority. It could even be the police.

‘Do you think they actually work?’

‘Depends on what you think they’re meant to do.’

‘What do you mean?’

I’m surprised that Andy has to ask. He’s pretty bright – smarter than me I’d say.

‘Well, do you think they’re here to keep an eye on what’s going on, so that they can spot any criminal activity?’

‘You’d think so wouldn’t you?’

Andy says that in a way that tells me he doesn’t actually think that at all; he’s just being provocative. I won’t disappoint him.

‘What about that girl who was raped behind the carpet place three weeks ago?’

I point at the giant modern
warehouse-showroom
a couple of car parks away but still looming large and grey through the orange glow of the lighting.

‘Right behind there, at about this time of night when there were people about. How come that wasn’t spotted?’

‘It was. They’ve got film of the three guys dragging her behind the warehouse.’

I turn to look at Andy, shaking my head. He can’t be serious about this.

‘Yeah and I bet that’s a comfort to the girl. She was only fifteen.’

Even I know that her age shouldn’t matter but actually it does. She’s only young and this has probably ruined her entire life. But I’m on a roll, so I continue.

‘It’s not like it was spotted as it actually happened. They only looked at those tapes after the crime had been reported. And you know what? The pictures are too dark and grainy to identify anyone properly. Christ, how often do you hear that?’

‘They can’t be watching every camera all the time. It was just unlucky.’

‘I can see how that will cheer her up. Perhaps you should write and tell her that.’

Andy doesn’t answer. We carry on walking, across the huge expanse of car park and between the parked cars towards the
bus shelter. But all the time I’m thinking of that girl. And I feel sure that the cameras focused on the businesses on this retail park are the ones that are watched the most.

We are supposed to feel safe having these cameras all over the place. Like the knowledge that there is supposedly someone watching will deter potential wrongdoers from doing wrong. I don’t buy that. Most people don’t. And I’m sure that the girl who was raped doesn’t feel safe any more. If you ask me what
might
deter people from behaving badly, I’d have to say that you couldn’t do better than have the physical presence of someone big, wearing a uniform, carrying a heavy stick and backed by some kind of authority. Someone actually there, patrolling. And the mass of cameras in every town centre don’t seem to have any effect on the drunken, brawling, puking, pissing crowds that gather to get wasted on Friday and Saturday nights. Not that it’s totally restricted to weekends.

We’re getting to the far side of the car park now, and the parked cars have started
to thin out. From some of these cars we hear the persistent rhythm of techno-trance music from the entertainment systems.

Gathered around the cars in places are groups and gangs I don’t know or recognise. They all look the same though and dress the same. And talk the same. Actually, it’s like a totally separate language. There’s nothing new in this. These lot use street talk that I think is based on the language used by American hip-hop stars – not that I’ve analysed it or anything, but that’s how it sounds to me. My brother Sean talks like this all the time. Others – like Andy and me, for example – don’t speak like this. But we understand it readily enough. We’re immersed in it and surrounded by it. To the chavs who wear the Burberry and the hooded sweatshirts, it’s their language of choice. And because I’m thinking of this right now, I’m stretching my ears to listen to what’s being said in the group we’re now passing.

‘Bo bredrin, wa g’wan?’

‘Skeen Kelly Richards init?

‘She a right sket, init.’

‘She’s right blinged up and with Stewart Macca.’

‘Macca’s solid man, so don’t be dissin Kelly.’

‘Nah, he a pimp, init.’

‘Skeen ’is wheels? Fuckin’ wack init?’

And so it goes on, but we’re out of earshot already. I know instinctively what they’re saying; it translates as something like this:

‘I say there, friends, what’s going on?’

‘Have you seen Kelly Richards?’

‘She’s an utter slut isn’t she?’

‘Well, she’s dressed to the nines and adorned with a great deal of jewellery, and she is currently escorting Stewart MacCartney.’

‘MacCartney is something of a tough fellow, so it would be a good idea
not
to say anything disrespectful about Kelly.’

‘I disagree –he’s actually nothing better than a common male prostitute.’

‘Have you seen the car he currently drives? It’s absolutely awful, wouldn’t you say?’

OK, I shouldn’t make fun like that. But I do get a kick out of doing these little translations when I’m listening in on conversations. And by the way, just so that you know; Kelly Richards
is
a slut.

Going home, we stay on the bus for an extra stop. It means we’ll have further to walk to get to our houses, but we don’t really want to get off anywhere near The Gardens. Even though we don’t speak about it in these terms, it’s fair to say that our lives have been changed by that little incident earlier. We’ll never use The Gardens as a short cut again. So we’ll be having to walk further. We’ll be having
to walk a route that wouldn’t be our first choice. It’s little things like this that make life more and more restrictive and more and more uncomfortable and more and more stressful on estates like ours. And nobody seems to want to do anything about it.

And for people like us, for my mum and dad, for Andy’s mum and dad, there’s nowhere to go. People like us don’t have the financial clout to move. I mean, my mum and dad own our house. Although we live on a council estate, they bought the house through the ‘right to buy’ policy which came in before I was even born. They must have been so proud when they did that. Made them homeowners. They must have thought that it would secure our future and would be an investment for us all. They never speak about that now. And while the papers are full of wondrous stories telling of the house-price miracle that sees properties increasing in value each month by more than the homeowners actually earn, my mum and dad don’t talk about it. Nobody would ever want to buy a house on an estate like ours. And even if we could sell it, where
would we go? All the nicer places have seen their values rise so that we couldn’t even dream of buying there.

There are thousands like us. We’re trapped. And nobody wants to look after us on estates where there is just drip after drip after drip of anti-social behaviour so that you end up imprisoned within your own four walls. You end up too depressed to want to venture outside. You just don’t want to keep having to face up to it.

I dream of getting out. I dream of university. Nobody in our house ever needs to ask Catherine why she doesn’t come home as often as she could. We all of us want to avoid that discussion at all costs. Nobody cares about decent people like my mum and dad and Andy’s mum and dad. And Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret.

Walking back through the darkened streets of our estate, Andy and me are pretty quiet. We’re taking a route that doesn’t even go past The Gardens. But we don’t talk about it. There are streetlights
throwing down pools of pale yellow or orange light, but it’s not as bright here as it was on the retail park. Property is more important than people is a thought that goes through my head, even though I know it’s not as simple as that.

Some of the houses we pass are in darkness, the occupants already gone to bed. From others we get the tinted flicker of television calling us to turn and look. One house that we pass, the curtains haven’t been drawn and we can see a man and a woman asleep in each other’s arms on the sofa while the television bathes them in shimmering changing colours. I think that this is beautiful and poetic, but I don’t say that to Andy. And anyway, just then we hear the squealing and laughter of a couple of young kids who really shouldn’t be out on the streets so late, but whose parents just don’t give a shit.

And then we round the corner and suddenly it’s like we’ve turned up on a film set. We’ve heard it before we ever got to see it, of course – all the shouting and the
swearing and, as we got nearer and could make out the words, the threats. So as we round the corner, we stop to watch. And what we’re looking at is four police cars slung any old how in front of a house. The blue lights are spinning so that it all looks like a big deal and that they’ve cracked a Columbian drug den, or maybe raided an Al Qaeda bomb factory. Neighbours in various states of night-time attire are out in their gardens and on their doorsteps watching. There’s a small group of foul-mouthed yobs pointing and swearing, and being prevented from intruding upon the garden of the house by a couple of our uniformed finest. I’d find this entertaining too, as a rule, in the same way that the neighbours who are silently watching do. But this is all going on outside Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret’s house, and my heart sinks to the point where I feel like I want to be sick. Worse still, the baying yobs are all part of the Rogers clan.

I look beyond the Rogers scum and the blue-flashing police cars, to the patch of ground next to the house. And I have to turn away because I can’t bear to gaze
for long upon the little Nissan Micra that Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret had saved so long and so hard to get. You can see the dents all over it, and the front windshield is smashed to fuck. The dents are catastrophic too, like the little Micra has been repeatedly kicked and jumped upon. The lights are all smashed out too.

All of a sudden I get flashes in my mind of being in the back of that car with Uncle Jack driving and Aunty Margaret singing the stupid kid songs and me singing along with her. I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes and I don’t know where to turn now. I don’t want Andy to see.

All at once the commotion increases. Cops are having to physically restrain the Rogers scum as the front door of the house is opened. I see Uncle Jack step out and he looks old in a way I’ve never noticed before. This ramrod of a man who had once been a Grenadier Guardsman is stoop-shouldered and withdrawn as he shuffles onto his own immaculate garden path. The foul threats of the Rogers scum are blasting around him,
drowning the crackling words of the police car radios. I can’t turn away from this, no matter how much it’s hurting. And it
is
hurting. Uncle Jack has his head bowed, looking down at the path that I watched him weeding only a few days ago. His face looks grey and tired in the shadows. But not frightened. Uncle Jack is a real man and he does not frighten. But what he does seem is bewildered.