The Norway Room (11 page)

Ashley was confused. He didn't know what to say.

‘Will you? Tyr won't. Will you?'

‘Shouldn't your mom be with you or something?'

Sophie squealed with laughter. ‘Not when it's born. Div. Now. This week.' The laughter went. ‘I just want to have a look at the hospital. I have all my appointments at the Mendy Clinic. I just want to go up the hospital. Queen Elizabeth. So I know what it's like. I won't be scared then. Mel won't come. She says it's unlucky. Wait till the right time.' She mimicked her mother's voice. ‘You'll be there soon enough. I wish you couldn't see it from our window. Well the new parts they're building. Cranes and steel and stuff. I look out and it's always there. Growing.'

Ashley recalled the view from Sophie's kitchen window. A massive building site. You could hardly see the old hospital behind it. He thought about his visit to Selly Oak with Kieran. That had been mental. He knew hospitals scared people, especially girls having babies.

‘So will you come with me?' Sophie asked.

‘All right then,' he replied. ‘We can go and have a look sometime.'

Sophie's hand lay flat on the table beside the ashtray. Ashley wanted to reach out and take it, tell her everything would be all right – but he didn't.

19

‘All right,' Ashley yelled. Knighton was banging the door down. ‘You're early.' It was only just two, and Knighton had said two-thirty. He was holding a proper cat-carrier, pink nylon, a bit like a rucksack, but with a grille at one side. Ashley had expected a sack.

Knighton followed Ashley through to the kitchen. ‘D'you want a cup of tea?' Knighton looked around the kitchen. He seemed amused. ‘No, you're all right, kid. Where is it?'

‘In the shed.' Ashley unbolted the back door and Knighton followed him out into the garden. ‘Are you living here on your own?'

‘Not really. My uncle looks after me.'

‘Oh yeah, your uncle.'

Ashley recognised the tone and grinned. ‘He's not here today though. Away.'

‘I thought he might be. How long's it been in the shed?'

‘Since I texted you. A couple of hours.'

‘Fed it?'

‘Done nothing to it. Just shut the door.' And now he opened it – just a touch. The cat was there. Ashley hissed, nudged it away with his foot, squeezed into the shed. Knighton followed pulling the door behind him. Cracks in the rotten timber provided sufficient light to see the cat, backed into a corner.

Once the cat was in the carrier Knighton reached into his back pocket. ‘Fiver we said, wasn't it?'

‘A tenner. You said …'

‘Okay.' The tenner was already in his hand. ‘Just testing. Business you know. Let's keep it at one a week if you can for now. That should do.'

‘Terry's All Gold. Ooh you little love. I love dark chocolates.'

‘You love anything dark.' This was Jackie, standing beside Alma. Both women enjoying a cigarette. A saucer on the counter served as an ashtray. ‘The darker the better.' The women laughed.

Ashley had given Alma a card and a box of chocolates for her birthday. She was delighted. ‘Come here.' And she gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘How did you know?'

‘I heard you saying, last week. About going for a curry. Sorry there's no wrapping paper on the chocolates. I'm no good at wrapping things up.'

‘Ooh what a lovely card.' The card showed a bouquet of flowers in a glass vase; above an arch of gold letters said
Happy Birthday to a True Friend.
Ashley got it from the Funny Shop. ‘Look at this, Jack. Isn't it lovely?'

When the thank yous were over Ashley went across to a machine. He hoped this was going to work. Maybe he should wait for a few days, so it wasn't so obvious. No. Best try while she was in a good mood. He saw her put his card with three others on a shelf above the counter. His first six pounds went immediately and he thought his plan was dead, but gradually he began to creep towards the ten-pound max. When he got there his luck was in. Three bells and HOLD flashing. ‘Bloody hell!' he said loudly. ‘Just my luck.'

Alma looked across. ‘What you moaning for? That looks all right to me.'

‘I'm at ten.'

Alma laughed. ‘Oh go on then. But if you reach twenty-five, stop. Okay?'

He stopped at eighteen pounds and left two on the counter for Alma. ‘Buy yourself a cake.'

‘Here is something you should know – I is evil.' Geezbo curled the fingers of his right hand inwards and touched the centre of his chest. ‘Bad anyway. It true. My mom's gran whood never seed me. She write. When I was born. To my mom. You 'as to treat him 'ard, she sayd. Treat 'im 'ard. He got the gleam of the dollar and the dime all over 'is soul. I know 'e 'as. I dreamed it. 'E like the other one. Our relative that I told you about. The last man to hang in Winson Green Prison, who didn't string hissel up. You get me? An she right. There's something in me. Like a fist I was born wiv. It run all the way through. Grow wit me. Inside. Nuttin I can do. She said my brother, Carlton, would bring credit. And she right there too. He a good upright man. Nation of Islam and all. Principles.' He breathed the word out. Carefully and thoughtfully. Then stopped.

They were in Sophie's flat. Tyr and Sophie were in the bedroom, Geezbo sitting on the floor, his back propped against the settee, his arms around his drawn-up knees. Ashley lay on the settee. Light was fading in the late afternoon. Soon it would be dark. Soon it would be time to go. The weed was done.

‘'Ere's somethin' else you should know. But it con-feeden-shal.'

‘You're talking that way again. Why don't you talk normal?'

‘Confidential. Okay?'

‘Okay.'

‘You 'eard of the Doberman Crew? Linton, the boss man?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Well. It can't be said I exactly one of tey. Yet. But I in with tey, innit. More all the time. Linton know me by name. I do jobs for dem. A little business on this estate. Know what I mean, man? Not big. Tey more active in de North. But tey movin all over the city. London too. An Manchester. Well, here, I do a little work for dem. A little runnin' around. Developin' the estate. Lookin' afta tings. Know what I mean, man? A few orders. A few deliveries.' Geezbo stopped. Silence. Well close. They could hear the lift moving up and down the centre of the building. A buzz from the heating.

‘I could get you a little work, man,' Geezbo said at last. ‘Pay good. Weed sometime. Cash sometime.' Ashley could hear a siren now, from somewhere outside on the estate. And inside Sophie's phone ringing in the bedroom.

‘You gotta bike, man?'

‘Nah. Not any more.'

‘Get one, man. It'd be jus the ting. For deliverin'.'

Another siren. Geezbo got up and looked out of the window. Then he turned on the light. Sophie came out of the bedroom with a can of air freshener that she sprayed around the room. ‘What time's your mom coming home?' Ashley asked.

‘About half an hour.'

Tyr followed her out. Moved to Geezbo at the window. ‘Anyting happenin'?'

‘Jus' passin'.'

‘You've all got to go now.' Sophie told them. She was on her way to the kitchen. ‘I've got to start doing Mel's dinner.'

Sometimes at night he went up to the Parade on Pershore Road. There was always a group of kids there hanging around outside the chip shop. Not Mendy kids usually. At least not Mendy boys. Sometimes a few from the Lea Hill gang turned up. This was about as close to the Mendy as they were able to get, unless a fight was arranged.

Ashley looked out of the window. There was frost already. Silvery white moss glittering in the dark. It was funny, sometimes you didn't feel so cold outside as you did in. He decided. He would finish his lager and go. At least it would be somebody to talk to.

He opened his eyes and Kieran was there, sitting in front of him, all suited and booted, reading text messages. Ashley blinked.

‘Hello. Enjoy your nap?'

‘Shit. What time is it?' He lifted his arm to look at his watch. ‘Nearly eleven. Bloody hell. I was going out.'

‘Too late now, mate. Unless it's a nightclub.'

‘Funny.'

‘Talking of which.' Kieran closed his phone and rose from the chair. ‘I'm due at the Hippo in half an hour.' Making for the door he suddenly turned. ‘By the way, Ash. Stay in tomorrow morning. I'm taking you somewhere.'

‘Where?'

‘You'll see.'

Ashley didn't like the sound of this. ‘Am I in trouble?'

Kieran laughed. ‘No. No you're not. Not with me, anyway.'

‘With Crawford. Is he kicking me out? Because of the Chinese. I'm sorry about that. But I couldn't stay there. I was scared. I'm sorry.'

Kieran sat down again, but on the edge of the chair; he wasn't going to stay long. ‘Don't worry, kid. You showed initiative. We're impressed if anything.' Ashley thought Kieran was probably being straight with him.

‘So where are you taking me?' Then a thought. ‘Not to see my dad. I don't want to go there. Not yet. I —'

‘It's not to see your dad.' Now, suddenly, as he rose again, he was impatient. ‘I'll explain tomorrow. Just be here.' And with that he was gone.

Morning – it was nearly three o'clock before Kieran arrived. ‘Okay, let's go.' He was driving a blue BM today. ‘Jump in.'

‘You going to tell me where we're going?' Ashley was nervous. You could never be sure with these blokes. And it was Crawford wasn't it? He was the boss. If he said something Kieran had to do it, just like his dad had to.

The car stopped. ‘What we come here for?'

‘You retarded or something?' Kieran pointed out of the window. ‘What's that?'

‘Barber's.'

‘Get out then.'

It was an old-fashioned barber's. Converted from the front room of an old terraced house. Like the one Ashley lived in. You could see from the old tin sign screwed to the brickwork above the door that the shop had been there for years.
Horace Bleed. Barber.
The window was misted over, distorting the figures that moved in the yellow gloom within.

‘What we come here for? Are we collecting something?'

‘You've come to have your hair cut.'

‘Here? No way. He'll be about eighty. Anyway, I'm growing it.'

‘Shut up.'

The barber wasn't eighty but he was old. Walked with a limp, and wheezed. There were photographs of haircuts stuck up around the place. From the ark. Black and white. Faded. Curled. Men with Brylcreem haircuts and toothpaste smiles. Perfect perfect teeth. There was a bloke in the chair having his hair cut. Younger than Ashley would have expected in a place like this.

Ashley sat beside Kieran who picked up a copy of the
Sun
and started to read the back page. ‘You're going down,' he said to Ashley.

‘You what?'

‘You support the Blues don't you? All that stuff in your bedroom. You're going down. Another defeat last night. They're on their way. Good as in the lift.'

The men started to talk about the football. Ashley listened but didn't join in; he was trying to work out what was going on. Why was Kieran making him have a haircut? And why here? He remembered a film. Some blokes in America, having haircuts and shaves when suddenly the door bursts open and there's a gang with machine guns. No, he was being stupid.

‘So, what's he want?' the barber asked Kieran when Ashley was in the chair.

‘Just a nice respectable haircut, H. Make him look a bit tidier. Intelligent, if that's not asking for miracles.'

It wasn't a bad haircut. What Kieran asked for really. It made him look tidy, and wasn't old-fashioned. Not what he would have chosen though. He'd been thinking of having it cropped to Number 1, to make him look harder. This certainly didn't make him look hard. But it was good the way he'd cut the fringe. Over to one side. Floppy.

It was pissing down when they left and they had to make a run for the car. Kieran didn't say much. Just a smirk inside the car as Ashley ran his hands through his hair to remove the rain. ‘Very nice, Ash. You'll probably pull now. Pop your cherry.' He turned the ignition and the rock music Kieran always played in cars resumed. He nodded his head in time, the ringless ring finger of his right hand tapping the steering wheel.

Back at the house Kieran told Ashley to run ahead and open the door, he had to get something out of the boot. Ashley was uneasy. He still didn't know why he had been forced to have a haircut. ‘What's in there?'

‘You'll see. Open the door.'

When he followed Ashley into the hall Kieran was carrying a black bin bag. ‘Here,' he said, handing it to Ashley. ‘Go and put this on.'

‘What is it?'

‘School uniform.'

Ashley dropped the bag. Then he bolted into the back room. Kieran lifted the bag and followed.

‘You fucker,' Ashley yelled. ‘You bastard fucker.' Tears were welling up. He couldn't breathe properly. ‘You snot fucker. Bastard. Bastard snot fucker.' The tears were falling now. Kieran moved towards him, and Ashley bolted into the kitchen. ‘I'm not going to school. I'm not going anywhere.' Kieran followed him.

‘Piss off,' Ashley screamed. ‘Piss off you piss fucker. Snottin' piss fucker.' He lifted a cup and hurled it at Kieran. It glanced off his shoulder and smashed on the floor. He lifted another cup and hurled it at Kieran. It glanced off his shoulder and smashed against the wall. He lifted another cup. Kieran jumped him. Grabbed his shoulders, brought his knee up between Ashley's legs. The boy gasped and keeled, but Kieran had his collar. He dragged him into the living room, heading towards the door to the stairs. Ashley thought Kieran was going to ram his head into it. His feet weren't touching the floor. Then the door was open and Kieran threw him into the stairs. The bag followed.

Kieran stood above him in the doorway. ‘Get up those fucking stairs and put that fucking uniform on.' He booted Ashley in the arse. ‘If you're not down here in five minutes wearing it, the next thing you do wear will be a shroud. Got it. You'll be meat.'

He stopped. Waited. Ashley snuffled. A sob took him. Shook his body. All of it. Like a convulsion. ‘Key. Please. I —' Another boot in the arse. Harder than the first. ‘Bastard,' the boy wailed, and grabbing the bag he scuttled up the stairs.

‘Five minutes,' he heard Kieran shout. ‘Or I'm coming up.' Then the door to the stairs slammed.

Ashley dropped the bag on the bed and opened the bedroom window. He had shinned down the drainpipe before, times when his dad was after him. But Kieran had opened the back door before Ashley could get more than one leg out of the window. There was nothing he could do. He withdrew his leg. He closed the window and waited. He looked down again. Kieran wasn't going anywhere. He was leaning against the doorpost, looking up at him. There was nothing for it: he'd have to put the poxy uniform on.

Shoes, trousers, a shirt; there was everything in the bag. He was surprised when he removed the blazer. The badge wasn't from anywhere round here. Oh shit! Where were they sending him? He couldn't get his breathing right. He moved to the window again. Kieran was still in the doorway.