Gun Dog (9 page)

Friday morning and I’m walking to school. To be honest, I’m happy to be going back to some kind of normality. Yesterday was pretty freaky. Especially that business in front of my mirror.

So it’s good to be walking through the school gates with Andy, who I’ve just caught up with, and seeing the usual clowning yelling sullen faces around and about as we pass on through.

‘So what happened to you yesterday?’

‘I didn’t feel well.’

Andy is looking at me like already he doesn’t believe me. After all, I never usually miss a day.

‘Look, I could have come in for the afternoon, but in the end I just couldn’t be arsed, OK?’

Andy smiles and nods.

‘I thought you’d sneaked off with Rebecca Wardle to be honest. Home alone for the day, and the chance of getting jiggy together…’

‘So what makes you think we didn’t?’

Andy looks at me like he’s a lawyer from a TV show about to play his trump card.

‘Because Rebecca was here yesterday with an armful of books, and looking for you.’

‘Well, I was at home with the runs. Happy now?’

The books must have been the French stuff that I’d left at her place on Wednesday night. I hadn’t expected her to bring them in until today because we didn’t have French until today. Perhaps she brought them in as an excuse to see me. What? You never know. As if she needs an excuse after Wednesday night anyway. We’re going to go out somewhere this weekend. We’re going to decide what we’re doing after French class.

‘You should have texted me. I would have sent her round to wipe your arse.’

Andy likes toilet humour.

‘You can be very funny at times. Pity this isn’t one of them.’

It’s crappy banter, but it’s always good natured stuff between me and Andy.

I’m becoming aware of some of the kids stopping and giving me long hard looks as we walk past. Not all of them, not by a long shot. But some of the younger kids, definitely.

I’m remembering what Sean said, about the word going out. I don’t think I like that at all, the idea of the word going out about me having a gun and using it to go out on the rob. It’s not as if I’m like that old gangster, what was his name? John Dillinger. I’m wishing that I’d been more careful and less cocky and that I hadn’t used the gun at all. I don’t like being the centre of attention, and the last thing I want is to get a reputation as someone who carries a gun and likes to flash it about. That’s a quick way to ending up dead. I suddenly feel cold and pale and genuinely sick.

‘Hey, Stevie! Stevie, wait!’

Andy and me both turn and it’s Rebecca and she’s hurrying after us. We wait for her to catch up.

‘Where were you yesterday? I was looking for you. I had your books.’

She’s a little out of breath from hurrying to catch up with us as she hands my books to me. She’s looking so cute that I’ve forgotten all about being the centre of attention.

‘I wasn’t feeling well so I stayed home.’

We’re walking along together now, but slowly. Rebecca has linked her arm through mine, and I have to say, it makes me feel good.

‘I thought you’d decided to avoid me.’

She’s smiling when she says this, so I know she’s not serious.

‘You should have called. I had my mobile with me.’

‘I don’t even have your number yet.’

That’s true. We haven’t swapped numbers.

‘You might have heard some interesting sounds if you
had
called.’

Trust Andy to lower the tone.

‘Very funny.’

Rebecca looks puzzled.

‘I had an upset stomach yesterday.’

I feel that I have to explain, but I give Andy a sharp look just the same. Actually, I’m thinking that Rebecca
might
have heard some interesting sounds indeed. Like the automatic reload mechanism of a Ruger P95 echoing through the woods.

And then the bell goes. We’re walking through the herd of kids, all heading for the main doors. Just another school workday then. But at least it’s Friday. I have plans to make with Rebecca. And Catherine is coming home tonight. Plenty of things to smile about.

At last the school day is over and there’s a weekend to look forward to, and not much homework either. A cold mist has come down as I walk towards the school gates among the gangs of noisy kids. I’m looking out for Andy. And Rebecca, truth be told.
They’ve got to pass through the gates, so I’ll wait for them there. Neither of them will have come out before me because I got out just before the bell today.

Leaning against one of the brick pillars that support the school gates, I see Sammy Williams. He’s already seen me, and he’s looking right at me. He’s beckoning me over, so I have no choice. My hands are in my pockets and I’m trying to appear cool and unruffled as I approach him.

‘Hey, Sammy…’

It’s another, younger kid, but Sammy doesn’t even look at him; just waves him away with a couple of sweeps of his hand. Before you know it, I’m standing there, right in front of him.

‘Saw you over at the Concrete Canyon yesterday.’

I can’t see Sammy’s eyes – the peak of his Burberry cap is pulled way down – until he lifts his head slowly and he’s fixing me with
them. They’re totally empty of any emotion.

‘Yeah. I was just taking a short cut home.’

This is true; I was.

Sammy nods slowly, like he’s pondering this.

‘Heck of a place to be taking a short cut. A lot of bad people over there at the Canyon. You know what happened to Roddy.’

I look away because his eyes are unnerving.

‘Yeah. It was even on the telly. To be honest, I think that’s why I went that way. To see where it happened.’

I’m hoping that this sounds plausible. Sammy nods his head slowly again.

‘Well the same thing could happen to you. You should bear that in mind.’

‘I will. It was bloody scary just being there.’

There’s absolutely no way whatsoever that Sammy Williams gives a shit whether I live or die, so there’s more coming. And I have a good idea what this little talk is really about.

‘There’s been some talk going around.’

This is it; this is what I’ve been expecting.

‘Word is that you were out the other night. Carrying a rod and threatening to smoke some kid while you were robbing him.’

I must look as pale and frightened as I feel because Sammy shakes his head and smiles, almost laughs.

‘Don’t worry. I’ve been telling people that it couldn’t have been you, that there’s been some mistake.’

I can feel my legs starting to shake. Sammy puts a hand on my shoulder.

‘Thing is, we both know that it
could
have been you. That thing you were holding for Big Roddy, right? You
are
keeping it safe, right?’

That thing
is my Ruger P95. Christ, this moron doesn’t know the first thing about it, calling it a thing. I just nod though.

‘Yeah. It’s safe.’

Sammy nods again, slowly, like he’s thinking something over.

‘Well, you’ve done a good job. I owe you one. Time that you handed it back, though, I think.’

I almost blurt out that there’s no way, but sanity prevails. Just.

‘In the alleyway behind the shopping precinct tomorrow afternoon at about half past two. Bring it there. The thing
is, Roddy had only ever borrowed it. And now the guys who own it are asking for it back. OK?’

I’m nodding agreement. What else can I do? I know the shopping precinct. Sammy is talking about the shops where the kids confronted me the other night.

‘Like I say, I owe you one. I’ll score you some good blow tomorrow if you like. I won’t forget what you’ve done.’

And he goes and pats me on the cheek, like he’s my dad or something, just as he turns to walk away. I feel sick right then, but I notice Andy and Rebecca standing over on the far side of the road, watching. I cross to join them.

‘What were you doing with him?’

I can hear the disapproval in Rebecca’s voice, and I can’t blame her for it. The last thing she needs is a boyfriend mixed up with Sammy Williams and all of his trouble.

‘It’s nothing. He was just asking me if I’d seen Dwayne Riley. You know, that retard who hangs out with Sammy and that lot sometimes. I told him, I haven’t seen him in ages. It’s pushing it to think that freak will turn up at school.’

I think that that’s a pretty good lie, and it seems to please Rebecca and Andy. We start walking towards home. I’ve snapped out of the shock of Sammy Williams wanting the Ruger back. I’m not even going to think about it.

‘You fancy coming around tonight to watch a DVD or something? Mum’s going out, so if you feel like it…’

Catherine’s coming home tonight; but she won’t be here until late. And of course I’d love to spend time with Rebecca. Who wouldn’t? I look over at Andy; we usually get together on Friday nights. Rebecca sees me looking.

‘You can come too, if you want…’

It sounds a half-hearted invitation and only a half wit wouldn’t pick up on it.

‘Really? That would be fantastic. Do you want me to bring anything?’

Rebecca is fighting to find the right thing to say but I know when Andy is joking and it’s all he can do to stop himself laughing right now. I send him a look and now he
is
laughing.

‘OK, OK! I wouldn’t want to spend a night watching you two playing twister together anyway.’

Rebecca gives him a playful thump. I slip my hand into hers and she curls her fingers around mine as we walk. I’m almost not thinking about my Ruger at all.

I wake up and I look at the clock sitting on my bedside table. It’s ten o’clock, and that’s very late for me. I can hear activity in the house below me. From Sean’s room next door, I can hear the sound of Saturday morning television, muted only by the wall and not by any consideration on Sean’s part.

The reason I’ve slept in is easy enough to work out; I was very late getting to sleep. I mean, I’d been to Rebecca’s place until about ten, and you know, that was really cool. She’s more amazing than even I had thought and she knows so much about films and stuff. I was telling her about
Taxi Driver
– obviously without mentioning
that I had a gun and sometimes fancied myself as Travis Bickle – and she knew the writer’s name, and that it starred Robert de Niro and that it was directed by Martin Scorcese. And I found out that she wants to go to university to study film making. How cool is that? I’m already wondering if we could work it out so that we go to the same university, even though I know that’s stupid. Anyway, it wasn’t all highbrow film talk; we did fool around a little too and that was great, except that I was constantly scared that her mum would just walk in on us. Rebecca wasn’t scared though.

When I left at ten, Rebecca’s mum still wasn’t home. To tell the truth, I didn’t want to leave, but Catherine was due home at any time, and I wanted to be there to talk to her. And when I did get home, Catherine was already there. So we were all of us sitting around and eating and talking with the TV on in the background for a couple of hours. And then Mum and Dad went to bed. And it was gone one o’clock before Sean went to bed, and then me and Catherine stayed up until about three.

In many ways, it was just like old times with me grilling her about university life in general and about life in Brighton more specifically. I can’t get enough of Brighton and I love hearing her talk about the cafes and bars she goes to with her friends. I wonder sometimes whether she makes it sound more exotic and bohemian than it actually is, because she knows how much it thrills me to think of it being like that.

Some things we didn’t speak about though. We didn’t talk about Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret. And we sure as hell didn’t talk about the Ruger P95 lying hidden in a plastic bag under my bed.

Shit, the Ruger. I feel quite heavy with sadness at the thought of it as everything rushes back to me. Damn, and I was feeling so good, too. I’ve got to meet up with Sammy Williams and hand the Ruger over to him this afternoon. And I don’t want to do it. I really don’t want to hand it over. For a few stupid moments all kinds of ridiculous thoughts come to mind. Thankfully, I’m smart enough to throw them into the mental
rubbish bin where they belong. I mean, do you see me pulling the Ruger on Sammy and telling him that it’s mine now and that he can’t have it back? No, me neither. How long would it be before I’m stabbed in the street, or shot dead or something like that? And it’s not even Sammy’s gun, is it? It belongs to someone even more dangerous than Sammy. Shit, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Of course I’m going to give it back. Fact is, I’m
not
Travis Bickle. What the fuck do I want with a gun? The reminder of what I really want is downstairs with Mum. Catherine. University. A way out of here. A way, if I’m honest, out of a life where guns and crime and lawless behaviour feature at all. What have I been thinking? What has that fucking gun been doing to me? And when I think of it like that, all I can say is that getting rid of the stupid thing can’t come soon enough. I feel better already. Time for a shower and time to get dressed.

Downstairs, Mum already has breakfast waiting for me. She’s heard me in the shower. I’m the last one up, of course. Even Sean has been up and has eaten before retiring
to his room like the anti-social troll that he is. Dad has gone to work; it’s only half a day and he’ll be back by three o’clock, but his firm is so busy that overtime like this has almost become compulsory. He moans about it, but I know that in a way he’s pleased to have the money coming in.

I sit in the living room to eat my breakfast, served on a tray on my knee. Catherine and Mum are there too, and the telly is on in the background as ever.

‘So, are we going out tonight then?’

As it happens, I’m free on Saturday; Rebecca and I are getting together on Sunday night. But I can’t answer right away – I have to hastily chew and swallow before I can reply and I swear that Catherine has waited until I have a mouthful before she’s asked me this. The way she’s grinning at me as I try to force the bacon down my throat pretty much confirms it.

‘Sure. I’m not doing anything.’

I try to make it sound pretty casual, but we both know that I love going out with Catherine.

‘What, not seeing your little girlfriend on a Saturday night?’

Well no, I’m not actually. Rebecca already has plans. It will take a little while for our schedules to synchronise I guess. I don’t say all this of course; I just shake my head to say no.

‘OK, so where shall we go?’

I know that she’s teasing – she knows that I don’t go out bar-hopping all the time, like some my age.

‘Why don’t you decide?’

‘I’ll have a think. We’ll decide later.’

And so we sit there talking and reading the papers and stuff, and it’s really nice and I almost feel like this is a perfect world. Until I look at the clock and I have
to remember the Ruger. No point delaying things; I have to get this sorted and the sooner the better.

I tell Mum and Catherine that I have to pop around to Andy’s to return some books that I’ve borrowed from him and that he needs for a homework assignment. I don’t even think they’re still listening by the time I’ve finished explaining, which is good. I’m not going to be long.

Out on the streets, there’s quite a breeze, and it’s dark and grey with low cloud, but it’s dry. There are people about, some in driveways washing their cars almost to spite the cold, others looking like they are going to or coming from some shopping expedition or other. Typical Saturday stuff and no mistake. There are also kids out playing; skateboards, bikes, doing whatever it is they are doing. I don’t take much interest.

I have my black cotton jacket on, zipped up against the breeze. Under my arm I have a plastic bag and wrapped in it is the Ruger P95. I’ve wiped it very carefully all over so
that I won’t have left a trace of my having ever been in contact with it. Well, you can’t be too careful, and I’ve watched enough
CSI
to know what to do.

As I walk through the streets of this familiar estate towards the line of shops on the perimeter, I’m feeling reluctant to hand over the gun again. Why can’t I keep it? I keep getting the stupid scenarios running through my head again; me pulling the gun on Sammy, challenging him to take it from me if he wants it. Stuff like that. I have to try to remember where my real future lies. University. Brighton. Out of here. Best all round if the gun is just gone. I know only too well that if ever I was to use it, I would lose everything. It’s that simple. So of course I’m just going to hand it over. It’s a no-brainer. All the same, I feel like I’m being forced to do something I’d rather not do. It nags at me.

I’m walking along one of the rougher streets of the estate, the quickest way to where I’m headed. There’s nobody on this street out washing cars on the driveway. No
children out playing. A couple of the houses that I pass are boarded up. One of them is charred from a fire that ran through it. About a third of the houses in this street are empty and decaying. One house over on the far side of the street from where I’m walking has all the windows covered with wire mesh and a steel plate covering the front door. But this is not an abandoned house. Rumour has it that this is a house where a nasty criminal element runs its business. And that business is drug related of course. How true that is I can’t honestly say, but rumours like that on an estate like ours are ones that you can pretty much believe. Certainly, I believe. I’m going to walk on by pretty quickly. This is not a place to dwell, not even when you’re carrying a Ruger P95.

As I approach this locked up house, a kid looking a little too big for the BMX he’s riding comes around the corner of an adjacent street. I can’t see who this kid is because he’s wearing a dark blue hoodie with the hood pulled right up. He looks up briefly and sees me though. And he stops
and he points his hand right at me, and imitates a gun with his fingers and mimics firing a shot.

This chills and sickens me all at the same time. I’m scared, I don’t mind saying. This kid then wheels his bike into the overgrown garden of the
crime-house
I’ve just been describing. I’m scared like I haven’t been since before I started carrying the Ruger. I’m sure as hell not Travis Bickle right now and I’m cursing that Roddy Thompson ever forced me to look after his damned gun.

I’m past that house and around the corner onto a different street, quicker than you can imagine. I walk as fast as I can without running. But I’m not going faster than a bike. And it’s a bike that whizzes past me, the same bike that I’d seen on the street I’ve just come from. And it’s the same kid riding the bike. The kid passes me on the other side of the road and he reaches out his arm without looking and he’s pointing something at me. Shit it’s a gun!

I cry out and force myself back into the privet hedge that bounds the garden of the house I’m walking past. I hear a loud crack and I cry out again as I feel something hit my chest. It stings even through my cotton jacket and I look down fearing the worst and I’m almost weeping. But all I see is a silvery metal blob on the ground by my feet. I pick it up and inspect it. An air gun pellet. It was just an air gun. Well, yes, of course I’m relieved, but I’m also shaking with fear. And I can’t help thinking what Sean told me and what Sammy told me; that word was going around that I was carrying a gun.

The kid on the bike has stopped at the end of the road. He’s still sitting on his bike, arms folded and facing me as I approach on the opposite pavement. I can’t help but look over as I pass, and I see the face beneath the hood now, grinning at me. It’s the kid who had tried to mug me the other night. The kid I’d robbed at gun point. Oh fuck, what have I got myself into?

I hurry on by. The sooner I get to the shops and hand the sodding gun back to
Sammy Williams the better. I’m promising myself I’ll work hard at school, that I’ll get myself out, like it’s a bloody mantra or something. I’m still saying this when I round a final corner and I see the police cars. Both exits to the alley behind the shops are blocked with police cars, blue lights flashing, the whole works. Well this is just great, isn’t it? This is just what I need.

There are a few people – kids mostly – milling around trying to see what’s going on, but Community Support Officers, those part-time ass-wipe pretend cops in their day-glo jackets, are keeping them back. I get as near as I can, conscious of what I’m carrying in the bag under my arm, but I’m trying to see if I can spot Sammy anywhere. Needless to say, I can’t. Damn damn damn!

Then there’s a bit of activity. I can see some cops coming out of the alley, quite a few of them. And they’re escorting three kids and I know who these kids are; it’s Sammy Williams and the two older boys I’d seen him with outside the school and at
the Concrete Canyon. They’ve all got their hands behind their backs so they’ve been cuffed. Just before they push him into the car, Sammy Williams looks up and he sees me, and it’s like I can see something click inside his head.

‘You’re dead, Davies. Dead. Fucking dead, you grass!’

It’s all he can manage to shout before the cops shove him roughly into the back of one of their cars. Those two other boys from over on the Canyon say nothing as they are pushed into the backs of other cars. They don’t have to. The way they’re looking at me says enough. That’s when I nearly faint, when I realise that Sammy was aiming his invective at me. Oh shit no, he can’t believe that, he can’t! I haven’t grassed him up, I haven’t. I wouldn’t dare! But that’s what he thinks. And that’s what everyone will think now. Word’s going to spread like wildfire. Oh God I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead.