In Loco Parentis (19 page)

Something kicks back in. I'm back on the surface. Remember where I am. Shit.

I curl into a ball. It doesn't seem to put them off.

There's a flash of blue light coming from under the bridge, the one that says We're Backing Brixton.

“Cops,” someone says and everything stops.

I can still move. Look up and Wolf's on the ground too, spitting blood from his mouth and rubbing his balls like a fast-bowler.

“You all right?”

He doesn't answer. Instead he takes something from his pocket and shows me it's the lump of blow. Pops it into his mouth and swallows and the evidence is gone just in time to avoid the “Hello, hello, hello,” introductions of the coppers.

Home

Don't remember getting home. Must have though, because I'm in bed.

Wish I couldn't remember the kicking. No way my body will let me forget.

I move my head by a degree, to test things out. The balance is wrong like there's a lump of concrete strapped to the front of my face. The dull ache inside turns into a sharp pain, like I'm being skewered by hot knitting needles.

Try my body instead. Leg hurts, stomach, arms, hands.

Reach for my balls. Still there, my beauties.

The bedroom door opens. In hobbles Wolf, pissing himself with laughter and doing his best to balance a couple of steaming drinks.

“To put some hairs on your chest,” he says and comes to sit on the end of the bed.

I force myself up, fall back against the headboard and hope it's worth it.

Sipping my tea, I reckon it just about is, the sugar sweetening my mood and refreshing my body with an instant hit.

Someone bangs at the door.

Wolf gets up. “I'll get it.”

He hobbles over to the door like he's ninety years old.

Door still bangs though.

I guess this is it. The end. Roger comes in now he might as well be kicking a baby in a pram. And I don't give a shit. At least it'll take me from the pain and I'll never be able to let Jenny down again.

Worry evaporates. Tranquillity takes its place.

Raised voices. I can't even be bothered to listen.

Door swings open and I can see the fury in those hinges.

“I hope you're proud of yourself.” It's Andrew from upstairs. Placid, kind Andrew who wouldn't hurt a fly, only he's foaming at the corners of his mouth. “Enough's enough. I put up with the music and the banging about at all hours, but the car. You fucking animal.”

Still can't move much, not even when I know I should lower my head to demonstrate shame or bewilderment. What the hell's he on about?

Wolf's tittering in the background.

Andrew turns to him like he's picked it up on his radar. “You think it's funny, eh? I only got it last week. Brand bloody new.”

Something happens outside. A cloud shifts, I guess. In through the blind pour strips of light.

“So you thugs better get it clean today. The shaving foam, the washing-up liquid and whatever the red stuff is. One single scratch and you're paying for a re-spray and a weekend away.”

He turns. Storms off. Slams the front door behind him.

Wolf and I, we both laugh. Laugh our heads off until I feel the burn of those knitting needles again.

––––––––

meeting

“F
ootball injury.” It's what I've told everyone all day. Might have been better to stay at home, but that would just give Alistair and the others an easy ride, the opportunity to sweep more shit under the carpet.

Something's not right. I'm thinking it's the hangover from Saturday's E or maybe that stamp on the head, but deep down I know that's an excuse. I was feeling this last week and the week before that and, well, maybe for a good while now.

It's not an easy thing, walking this rope. Feels like the slightest breeze could knock me off, down and down without ever hitting the bottom. Just like my dreams.

Alistair sits at the table, one leg crossed over the other as if he's hoping he looks casual. Nobody wants to say anything. It's as if the elephant in the room just farted.

Sal walks in bent in apology, chewing the nicotine gum that will get her through the next hour and holding tight to her bag.

My shoulders tense. Hard like stones. I unwind my leg so my heel taps up and down and lets off some of the steam.

“Before I start,” Alistair announces, “I wanted to clear the air about the other night.”

“Thursday night,” I say like I live on his shoulder.

“Phil has been under an awful lot of strain lately and unfortunately Mr Words was the straw that broke the camel's back.” He looks us all in the eye in turn, something he's started doing since he went on the leadership course a month or so ago.

“He's not been well at all,” Carol says. Her chest rasps and it sounds like she needs her inhaler. “The doctor's signed him off till Christmas and he's taking medication.”

“The good news is that Mr Words isn't pressing charges...”

“I should think not,” Rose says over the crossed arms that prop up her ample, grandmotherly bosom. “If it hadn't been for him, then Phil would be here now. The man should be ashamed of himself.”

“Words should be ashamed?” I'm leaning forward now, and staring right at her. “Phil Carpenter hits a parent in front of kids and we're just going to send him a get-well card...”

“Joe, I'd like you to be careful.” Alistair's looking worried. I guess that's something. “It's more complicated than that. The event will be discussed by the governors and they'll decide how best to proceed.”

“Give him a warning perhaps, like when he....”

“They'll do whatever they see fit to do.”

“So it's acceptable for a man with a history of violence...”

“What history of violence, Joe?” Rose asks. “You sound like a fantasist and you look a mess.”

“It was a football injury,” I tell her.

Carol lets her eyes drop. I reckon she knows that if the news about him hitting Zlatan comes out, there's no way she'd be able to deny it.

“So earlier this term, when Phil...”

“Stop Joe.” Alistair stands. I wonder if that's something he learned at the course, too. “We're all professionals here and as such are bound by an unwritten code of ethics. I suggest you go outside for a walk while the rest of us work things through. It's clear you have an issue with Phil and I don't want it clouding the judgement of the remainder of the staff. Remember Joe, we have a school to run.”

“So it's OK for...”

It's one of those days when I don't seem able to finish a sentence.

“Take a walk Joe.”

It's all too much. Some kind of implosion is taking place, like a black-hole just entered my brain. There's no way I can make a big decision feeling like this.

I feel something. Someone's got my hand. Someone gentle and warm.

It's Sal.

She nods at me like she's giving me permission.

I leave the room trying to look dignified and controlled even though I feel my face contort.

Outside it's already dark even though there's not a cloud in the sky.

I look up. Track down Orion's belt. Wonder if the fact that I feel so small and insignificant is a blessing or a curse.

Only place I want to be is home. Preston home. With Mum and Dad and Jenny.

A night with Wolf at Hilldrop Road is just going to have to do.

––––––––

inconspicuous

P
erched on the edge of a bus seat, my legs bounce up and down like a jack-hammer, two or three times a second. That was the problem when I got home after the meeting. Tried sitting still, watching TV. Had a small whisky to stop the buzzing.

Nothing doing.

I couldn't say when I got the idea, it just came. Entered my head and wouldn't leave me alone.

“Kill the fucker,” I kept thinking. “Only way to get justice in this world is to do it yourself.” Course I tried to picture other things, remember stories from when I was a kid and focused upon what I might do with the class in the morning, but it was no good. “Kill the fucker.”

Wrapped the knife up in tissues and stuffed it in my boot, then went straight out to head for Camden Road. Crossed Hilldrop Crescent on the way and thought about Crippen. His house isn't there anymore. Was bombed in the war, but if feels like his spirit remains.

The bus arrived as soon as I got to the stop. Wondered if I was the first murderer in history to take the bus to the hit.

Course I'm supposed to be inconspicuous.

In a car, nobody would have recognised me from Adam. This way I'm getting stares from half the nutters on the top-deck – no way I'm travelling downstairs if I'm going to kill someone, that would be the icing on this ridiculous cake.

Might smell better down there, though. Up here it stinks like a wet dog who's been rolling in a latrine.

The old lady at the front is spying on me in the driver's mirror-ball. Thinks I haven't noticed, the silly old bag. She's got enough shopping with her to feed the five-thousand.

The back's full of big kids listening to some kind of garbage on their headphones. They've got them turned up so loud that the air's filled with the sound of ten different tinny beats going off like a pathetic artillery battery in the war. It's enough to drive a man insane.

Maybe that's what my leg's doing, trying to keep up with all the tunes at once.

I go through the plan again, at least what there is of it.

There's no way the meeting at school finished till 5. Carol never leaves before making a visit to her mother in the home across the road. That takes us till 6. She'll not be back in Stokey till 7 with the traffic like this. And that gives me plenty of time.

I'll get off the bus nice and early, walk to the High Street and see if I can remember how to get to the Carpenter's house. Went there a couple of years ago for a party, just to show my face. It was a bloody awful evening, but karma must have made me go so I'd know how to reach him when I needed to rip his guts out.

Best thing to do is probably to knock on the door and have the knife in my hand, ready. Soon as he opens it, I'll give it a push, stick the blade in him and push him back. Anyone sees us will think he's inviting me in.

That's all I need to do.

No point planning out a big speech like they do in the movies. Only gives the chance for the condemned to get out of the situation if you ask me.

I'll shove it in, maybe do it again, then give it a twist.

Not that I've stabbed anyone before, but I've seen the way they did bayonet training.

The bus comes to a stop just before the Stubbing Warf. The old lady who's been staring for most of the journey sorts out her bags. I see now that she's not got any shopping at all. The bags are filled with clothes, cardboard and blankets. Maybe she's just been getting warm.

She stops at the top of the stairs. Turns to me. “Give me a hand.”

Can't believe she's asked. Puts me in a difficult position. On the one hand, I can't stand going near old folk. It's like getting close to death or seeing yourself in the future of something. On the other, she's looking straight at me.

There's no pretending I haven't seen her.

I stand. See the lads at the back smiling and touching knuckles like they've just been presented with the punch-line and I'm it.

Might be a good time to take out the knife. Wave it about a bit. See who's laughing then. But I don't. I pick up a couple of bags and get close to the woman.

Soon as I'm close I can tell where the stink's been coming from all this time.

“Very kind of you son,” she says. Cheers me that she thinks I'm a youngster. “God'll pay you back in heaven.”

God paying me back is the last thing I need.

Worst thing about it all is that everyone's clocked me now. Soon as the news breaks that Carpenter's been hacked to pieces, they'll be looking for the man with the bruises on the bus. Not that they're likely to buy a murderer taking the bus – that would be too strange.

Close up to the woman I can see the way the dirt is ingrained in her skin. There are things crawling in her hair. Seen enough nits in the classroom to know what they are. I'm grateful she's wearing her scarf to hide the worst of it.

I thank the driver, a Preston habit of mine.

Me and the old lady just stand for a while, quiet like characters in a painting.

“Cross me palm with silver, son, I'll tell your fortune.”

Something about her, her pitying eyes or the way the long white hairs poke out from the wrinkles surrounding her mouth, makes me want to help.

I dig into my pockets and put a fifty pence piece into her hand. She keeps it there for me, waiting for me to put in more.

“That's the biggest silver coin there is,” I tell her.

“Inflation,” she smiles. She knows a sucker when she sees one.

I fish around again. Come out with a quid and pass it over.

It's her turn to reach out. She takes my palm.

Instead of saying anything she closes up my fingers and pushes my arm to my side.

“Well?” I have to know.

She shakes her head and picks up her bags.

I think of a book I read. A palm reader and a man with a murderer's thumb.

“Tell me.”

Before I can control the urge, I'm holding her shoulders. I'm not hurting her or anything, just need to understand.

“You boy,” she says, all mysterious like. “Carry on this way, you can kiss goodbye to your chances at the Pearly Gates. And they all seen you on the bus. Use your loaf, boy. That's why the Lord gave you one.”

She holds out the money I've given her, offering it me back.

“Go home, son,” she says, “Get on the next bus and go home.”

I'm freaking out on the inside. Hate to think what I look like.