Heartland (34 page)

What do you mean, all Woodies? Do you mean Wood-house?

Nah, I mean, well, we'm all Woodies, Michael, Rhys, me, loads. Like a gang, yer know, called the Woodies. We write it up on the walls sometimes. He said this with a kind of sad pride.

We look after one another. That kid, Andre, whoever, he wudnt be a Woody. He's joined now anyway. If yer doh wanna become one, yer have to pay yer tax, but he wudnt
pay that either, so we took his bike. Somebody else had got a knife. We was scared.

Rhys Woodhouse made a sighing sound and started to tell Mohammed to shut up.

Yeah, yer was, Rhys, we was all scared. Yow run off. We was pretending it was funny an that.

This gang, then, the Woodies. Can anyone join? Is anyone not allowed to join?

Anyone can join, if yome from round here.

Why do you need a gang, though, Mohammed? Who do you need protecting from? Daniel Bell asked. Mohammed looked at him in the way that the new Deputy looked at everyone else. Rob quite enjoyed that.

To look after one another. Thass what yome always gooin on abaht in yer assemblies an that, look after one another. To get things as well. Other kids, other areas, whites, Asians, blacks, whoever. If they come dahn we'll stick together.

The Woodies. I'll tell me Uncle Tony, it'll mek him smile, Karen said now.

Where's Rhys gone?

They'd been told to go home and stay there while the Head talked to some other witnesses. They'd be excluded from school for a while, let back in after a few weeks when things had died down.

Karen shrugged. I doh know. He did a runner when we got out the school. He's a nasty piece o work, to be honest. He's gooin the way of Alan an some o the others if yer ask me.

What dyer try and get him out o trouble for then?

Yow'll never understand, Rob, will yer?

They smiled in mutual incomprehension, like they used to at each other, a light in her eyes. All that mattered was staying out of trouble and grabbing what you could. It was the only thing anyone believed in, perhaps it always was.

Looking forward to the football? she asked.

He nodded. Course. How's Hardeep?

He could see some supplies on the back seat, boxes of fake tan and skin products.

He's all right. Wim opening a new place in Bromsgrove. Wim thinking o moving house again. We looked at a place in Blakedown the other day.

Thass good, he said. Thass good.

Yeah, yer gotta keep pressin on, cor stand still.

With that she was getting into the car. She looked at him through the open window before starting the engine.

Take care, love, eh.

Look after yerself, he said as she reversed and pulled the giant car around to the school gates. He could see a couple of kids looking at it admiringly as she waited for the traffic. He stood for a while in the empty parking spot, weighing up what to do, thought he might walk up the hill into Dudley to have a pint on his own.

They sat finishing their drinks while people left the clubhouse.
Glenn was the first to jump up, had to get back home because Anne was picking the kids up from her mother's. The screen was showing the news with the sound off, people celebrating in bars and squares in London and Birmingham and Japan, then pictures of mountains somewhere, a man walking through a bright market, a blanket with a pile of AK-47s laid out on it.

Right, I'm off. Glenn clapped Lee on the shoulder, shook hands with Jim, who was leaning across the table speaking to Mark Stanley. Glenn turned and held his hand out to Rob.

I'll seeya, Rob.

Rob paused for a second. This was how things worked, he supposed. No mention of anything. If things died down they might go for the next twenty, thirty years, for ever,
with never saying anything about the election, about the way things were. They would just bury everything, settle for silence, so that they could nod hello to each other, share a pint every now and then, moan about the Wolves. That was if things did settle down, of course. What was it Glenn had said to him? A change is gonna come. Rob thought he might ignore Glenn's hand, then reached out, shook it, looked at him.

See yer for the Nigeria game, then?

I doh know abaht that one cos o work. The second rahnd game ull be the Saturday woh it, probly. I'll be here for that.

Stacey sat down heavily in the chair Glenn had left, fanned herself with a beer-mat.

I'm glad that's over.

Well done, Stace, Jim said. Lovely job. He'd pulled his wallet out and from that he took a brown envelope and pushed it across the table. All right for Thursday, love? Great. If that second rahnd game is on the Saturday, I'll get yer some extra help on, we said we'd try and book that bouncy castle, do the face painting again, mek it a family day thing.

Am yow two talking to one another? Jim said. Glenn turned, thinking he was speaking to him. Stacey nodded.

Thass good news, love. Good news.

Rob nipped upstairs to the dressing rooms. It was quiet in here, and light. They'd painted the wooden walls since he'd last been in and had an end of season clear-out. There were usually odd bits of kit or clothing hanging on the pegs, training bibs, socks, single boots, bandages, crumpled newspaper, pieces of dried mud even after it had been swept out. The smell of linament still lingered with the smell of the paint. Rob went to his old hook automatically, the one in front of the mirror, sat for a while on the bench, looked at the mirror, then around the bare room, then out of the
window. There was a plume of smoke again, away past the flats. It rose thickly into the air, past Great Bridge somewhere, and then drifted in the wind where it smudged slowly against the clouds and became nothing at all. The flags fluttered across the flats and allotments. There was a siren going somewhere. Rob thought his headache had finally gone. He thought about Beckham's penalty, thought that it was actually a terrible penalty, the way he hit it, giggled to himself and realized he'd had more to drink than he'd promised, then shook his head and wondered how Beckham had even been able to run up and take it, thought for a second he was going to cry.

Instead, he stood up and pulled off his England shirt, took his good shirt from the bag. He'd got his deodorant, aftershave, hair stuff, toothbrush and paste in there as well. He wasn't stupid. The best bit of planning was the little flask of coffee that he unscrewed now and poured scalding into the lid, that he'd prepared to sober himself up. He raised the cup to himself in the mirror in a toast. That same feeling like after the penalty went in welled up in his chest, that feeling of victory, that everything could be made good.

His phone began to ring. His Uncle Jim from downstairs, no doubt to tell him they were ready to make a move. He took his time, though, methodically finished his coffee, brushed his teeth, did his hair.

They were at the doors when he got down there. They'd left the tables and chairs as they were. There was beer all over the floor. Jim told him he was coming back afterwards, that he'd mop the floor and do the pipes, he'd sent Stacey home.

Jim locked up and did the alarm while Rob and his dad stood to one side in the car park.

Think they'll do it, Dad?

His dad paused, weighing things up, almost a smile.
They've got a better chance now than they did have this morning. I doh know, son. Yer never know woss gonna happen, really, do yer. They'll just atta keep at it. Why not, though, why not?

I think they can do it, Jim said, jangling the keys. I do. He started walking across the car park. Rob wanted to tell his uncle he was going too fast for his dad, but he seemed OK.

I've phoned yer mother. Everything's all right dahn there. We'll pop in, Tom, eh, say hello.

His old man nodded.

I tell yer what, though, Pauline onny wants me to goo up in the loft this afternoon. I said I've had half a dozen pints, how'm I gonna get up the ladder without breaking me neck. Her said her day care.

Rob left them when they got to the road. They turned to walk down to the shops and into the estate; Rob would walk down the hill to school. He waited though, watched them up the road, his uncle carrying too much weight, waddling at a pace, his hands waving as he talked to his dad, his old man, next to him, smaller, his limp really obvious from behind, nodding occasionally at the other man's monologue, the same position they'd adopted for the past forty years. Rob watched them all the way to the shop, imagined he could hear the greetings as they pulled the door open.

There were thirty, maybe forty of them, in an upstairs room.
The wall flickered into life, the film starting, stopping, starting. The projector was like one of those Neil Twigg had nicked from the school and sold in the pub. The filming was jerky, like it was being done in secret. It was a street that looked familiar: a row of council houses, grey cladding, green doors, some decorated to show they'd been bought, tall trees. A car was pulled up at the side of
the road, two black men inside. When the picture showed the open window on the driver's side and a close-up of the driver's face, there were boos, cat calls through the room, like when the baddie appears at the wrestling. Glenn realized some of them had seen this before. The face of the car's driver looked somehow familiar as well, a light-skinned black man in his late twenties, early thirties, a diamond earring.

Different shots of the same car, the same street. In one, a boy on a bike rode up slowly to the window, talked for a moment, took something from the driver and rode off quickly, zigzagging down the broad empty street. In another, two girls with dyed blond hair walked past, turned and laughed, called something towards the driver's window, doubled back to the car, smiling. Another shot of his face in close-up, sitting behind the wheel, shot through the open window as whoever was filming walked past, then darkness.

When the film started up again they were in something like an empty factory building, the light seemed filtered through dirty skylights. There was a pool of oil on the floor, a rusty chain hanging from the ceiling. The film flickered. The man from the car was sitting, tied in fact, with lengths of old seat-belt, into a punctured seat taken from a bus. There was a change in the room, men banging the arms of their seats, a low roar.

Two men wearing balaclavas came into shot. One carried a length of wood, the other a golf club. There was a conversation going on between the taller of the men wearing a balaclava, the one with the golf club, and the seated man. There was no sound on the film. It crackled every now and again. Glenn remembered watching the silent films they used to show on BBC2 when he was a kid. His grandad had loved them. He loved Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy and war films and cowboys.

The taller man pulled something like a postbag from his belt, pulled it quickly over the seated man's head. One moment you could see his face, the next thing it had gone, there was this grey bag, the corners sticking up like monstrous ears. This was the worst bit, in lots of ways, the way this flickered on the screen now, a hooded man, rocking slightly, the men in balaclavas, the taller one practising his golf swing for the camera, the rusty chain swinging in the background. The roar came again. It was the waiting for it that was the worst.

Glenn looked around. Everyone in the room sat in the chairs in orderly rows but leaning out of them now, towards the wobbly screen on the wall. There were men standing at the back of the room, blocking the door. When the hitting started the room went berserk, everyone shouting and roaring. Glenn looked up, then away, up again, just at the edge of the screen, down at his shoes. There was shouting, roaring. He didn't think it lasted long.

The screen went black. The men in the room calmed. A last shot appeared. It was the same street, a different time of day, late, the shadows were different. The same car was there. In the gutter, just behind it, lay the shape of the driver. His body looked still; then, in more of a close-up, you could see him twitching. One last shot of the street, empty this time, then the screen went black again.

There was more cheering, people getting up, chance to get out of the room. Glenn looked for Lee but couldn't see him, was struck suddenly by the beauty of the room they were in. Someone had pushed the shutters open when the film ended. They were like the ones on Casey's doll's house. Light came in, lit the pale blue walls, he could see hills outside beyond the garden, the shadows of the men loomed on the walls. Glenn pushed through the crush at the door, hurried down the grand staircase. He could hear shouting and cheering coming from elsewhere. There was music
playing, music from different rooms and from the marquee outside, merging.

He took the path down past the marquee. Through the garden, the rose bushes, where it was quieter and he thought he might get some air. He stopped, bent double for a moment with his hands on his knees, threw up. He heaved again, lost his balance on the edge of the path, put his hand out, grabbed a rose stem. Blood prickled the palm of his hand.

Someone walked past him, slapped him on the back.

Thass it, soldier. Get it up.

Footsteps staggered away from him down the path, stopped. He heard a long splatter of piss through the rose bushes.

Glenn threw up again and wiped his mouth, leaned over again with his hands on his knees, breathing a bit more easily.

They'd be going soon. He'd wait for them by the bus. He would go home to his wife and children.

She was going to meet Matt.
They'd exchanged a couple of emails, talked on the phone. He seemed OK. She'd gone into school that morning to finish off a bit of work, was driving to London to spend a few days there, visiting a couple of people, meeting Matt for a drink. She wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not. If it was fair.
Settling for half
. He said he missed her. She missed him as well. He said he'd been sorting things out. He'd been getting some counselling, sorting out his priorities, not hiding from things by putting school first. If she wanted to try again, maybe they could do things differently.