When I Was Joe (30 page)

We run down the path, with the sound of sirens getting louder and louder. And we run through the trees and bushes to the bit of fence that backs straight on to his estate. Amazingly, no one sees us as we crash through the double doors leading to his block, and we call the lift.

Incredibly the lift arrives – it's usually broken – and we're all alone in the piss-stinking space. And it's there that Arron looks at me and says, ‘I never thought you'd do that. Don't worry, I'll never tell.'

There's respect in his eyes for the first time for years – at last he sees I'm as good as him. He doesn't despise me any more. But then I wonder what sort of respect I've earned, and, ever since, that confusion has tangled my brain. Because I needed that respect, I was desperate for it.

Sometimes I dream of that moment and I'm high with relief – I'm not a pretty boy, I'm a real man – and then the joy drains away when I remember why he's looking like that, and I'm just a shapeless blob of nothing again. It's the worst dream because sometimes humiliation is worse than fear. And then I wake up and despise my selfishness because nothing that's happened to me means anything compared to what happened to the boy with the iPod.

By the time the lift stops, Arron's breathing is more of a gasp, and he's collapsing into my arms and we stagger along the last bit of walkway and fall against his front door. His mum hears the thud and comes to the door. And as we fall into the flat she sees the blood pouring down. And she's screaming and falling to her knees. ‘He got stabbed,' I pant. ‘You gotta do something.'

And luckily her nursing instinct takes over, and she makes a tourniquet and calls an ambulance.

After they've gone, I change into some of Arron's clothes. I put my bloody clothes into a Tesco bag and
I wipe the knife clean on them.

I go home and I boil up the kettle and pour steaming water over the knife, and then I put it back in the cutlery drawer. The Tesco bag goes under my bed and then I have a shower. I don't need to tell Nicki anything because she's down at the Duke of York for karaoke night.

I curl up on the sofa and all I can think about is blood and death and Arron and the boy. The way he was singing. The dead stare on his face. I'm shaking and crying a bit. But then I hear a knock at the door and I creep along and open it, and Nathan bursts into the room. He's sweating and shaking too, and he says, ‘They've arrested him. The fu'in' hospital called de police to him. He's under arrest.'

And then he pushes his face next to mine and tells me to keep quiet. And I say, ‘Yeah, yeah, I'm not saying anything.' All these months I thought he was threatening me. But now I wonder if he was trying to protect me, to keep me out of it. Nathan's scary, but he did always seem to like me. And maybe he knew what Jukes's family were capable of.

The next day I say I'm ill and I can't go to school, and Nicki calls Gran and asks her to come and be with me. And Gran makes me toast and tea and puts her hand on my forehead and says, ‘Maybe you're running
a temperature, my darling. Go back to sleep.'

But then she reads the paper and listens to the radio. She calls my mum and asks her to come home from the office. When she does, Gran sits both of us down in front of the lunchtime news and we watch a press conference. It's about a murder which may have racist motives. A press conference given by Mr and Mrs Williams, the grieving parents of Rio Williams, aged fourteen.

They're appealing for help, for anyone who was in the park that day to come forward. In particular for the boy who stopped the bus. There's a pretty clear description of me – green eyes, brown hair, grey hoodie – and Gran just looks at me. Then she says her bit about the precious child. This poor family's precious child. And then we go to the police.

The police take my statement, which names Jukes and Mikey and Arron, and then they take us to the canteen where I eat crisps and custard creams. Then they take us home and, well, you know what happens next.

Another first day at another school. This time the school is stricter, more old-fashioned, more like St Saviour's in fact, minus religion but with the yes sir, no sir and the tons of homework. Mum will be over the moon.

It's only for boys. Doug and Maureen obviously decided that I need to be kept away from girls. I don't like it, it doesn't feel natural to me. You can't grow up among women and then easily flip over to everyone being male. Or I can't, anyway. I feel flat and gloomy. I'm worried it's going to be St Saviour's all over again.

They put a boy called Nigel in charge of showing me around and making sure I get to the right classroom at the right time, and he does it, but he's not really interested. At break he talks to his friends and I stand around until he's ready to take me to our History lesson. By lunchtime I'm so fed up that I tell him I'm OK by
myself and just wander around a bit. I'm not hungry, just waiting for the day to end. And then I see the sign saying Library.

I push the door cautiously and see a room with hundreds of books. It's twice the size of the library at St Saviour's and I don't think there was one at Parkview – they had a learning resource centre instead. What's most interesting here are the computers.

‘Hello,' says a woman who's got the most amazing ginger curls. ‘We don't usually see many people in here on the first day of term.'

‘Can I use the computers, please?' I ask. ‘Is there internet?'

And she says yes, and I sit down and I log on to the email address that Claire set up for me.

There are twenty messages. Twenty. All from Claire. She's been writing and writing for weeks, even though I haven't replied. I can't believe it. I'm happy and sad and excited and terrified all at the same time.

The first messages are just short:
Call me, write to me, where are you? We need to talk, what's happened? Are you OK? I'm worried about you
. That kind of thing.

She wrote:

I found out what Ashley said about you and I told the head teacher that she'd been bullying me, and that you
were only good and supportive to me. I know it's too late for you, but she's on full report now. I'm not going back until next term, and I think they'll move me to another class. I wish you were still here.

Then she wrote about a month ago:

At last I know what's happened to you. A nice lady called Maureen came to see me. Mum thought she was just a friend of your family, but she told me who she really was and how she knew you. She told me why you'd had to be moved away and that you were all right. I was getting really scared for you.

I'm going to keep writing and maybe one day you will reply. Surprise me! You know I'm not angry with you. I wish other people hadn't interfered with us. I know they were just trying to be protective but I wish they'd have left us alone. I love you. Claire.

And then she writes message after message about her life, about how things have changed and how her mum's asking her all the time how she feels and is taking her shopping and stuff.

One message makes me stop and think for a bit.

I thought about what your Mum said about you hurting me and I want you to know that I didn't even mind at the time.
All the time I was thinking that you were actually touching me, someone like you had noticed me. Any pain came second to that. It's OK, you mustn't feel bad about it.

When I read this I
do
feel really bad, because I realise that Claire's quite screwed up about all sorts of things, and I see more what my mum was going on about. I wish Claire and I could have worked it out together though. She needs so much love and friendship and I have it here for her.

The last message was written yesterday when she went back to Parkview.

The first day is over and it wasn't as bad as I'd thought. Did you ever meet the school counsellor? They rushed me off to see her as soon as registration was over. She's a bit annoying to talk to – really nosy, assumed all sorts of things about you and me – but she had a good idea. She suggested that I pick about four girls in my new class, and then she got them to come to her room so I could talk to them about what had happened and they could sort of protect me in the classroom, tell other people to leave me alone, that kind of thing. I asked for Evie, Anna, Zoe and Jasmine from my PE group – did you ever meet them? They're OK, I think. They never teased me, just ignored me.

They were quite shy when they came in, and Miss Wilson
explained what she wanted them to do and I thought, this'll never work. But then she left us alone and I talked to them a bit about why I used to cut myself and how it felt and why it all went wrong and how I'm feeling now. I felt really sick and ashamed when I was talking, but they were all kind and nice and they said they were sorry they'd never talked to me and known what was going on. Zoe is a specially nice person and she asked me to go shopping with her at the weekend.

They all wanted to know about you. They wanted to know if you were cutting yourself too, and I said no, absolutely not, he was the one who saved my life and made me stop. And I have stopped, I really have. They wanted to know why you suddenly disappeared and I told them that your mum wanted to go back to London.

After that we went back into class, and at break and lunch I went round with them, and no one else has bothered me. Carl and Brian both asked about you and I told them I thought you were OK, and I told them the London story as well. Carl said in that case he forgave you for leaving him the rest of the lost property to sort out, which was nice of him.

Are you starting a new school too? Could you write and tell me about it? Are you OK? I love you so much, Claire x

I finish reading this and I hit reply and then I stare at the screen a bit and try and think about what to say. And I don't realise it but my eyes are a bit watery and
the screen is blurry when I try and type. I've taken my stupid glasses off. They give me a headache.

‘Are you OK?' asks the nice librarian lady. ‘Because the bell for the end of lunch went ten minutes ago.'

I rub my eyes. ‘Oh . . . I'm in trouble on my first day.'

‘Never mind, they'll understand,' she says. ‘Tell them you got lost. Where do you have to be?'

I pull out my new timetable. ‘Maths. A7.'

‘Shall I show you where that is?'

‘Yes, please, but I really have to write something first.'

I think any other teacher would have told me off and pointed to the timetable, but she waits patiently while I write:
I finally found a computer I can use. I'll write properly soon. Missing you, love you too, Jx.

‘I'm done,' I say and get up to go and she says, ‘Don't you need to put your glasses back on?' and looks at me as though she thinks I'm a bit strange.

She takes me along a corridor and points the way upstairs.

‘Through the double doors, turn left, second door on your right,' she says. Then she adds, ‘Welcome to Trenton Boys. I'm Miss Knight and you can always find me in the library.'

‘I'm Jo— Jake,' I say, and she says, ‘If you need any
help just come and ask.'

When I get home Doug's sitting at the table in our tiny living room and I don't mind him so much now, so I tell him and Mum all about how hard I'm going to have to work, and how I'll be doing Spanish which is obviously essential for a Premiership interpreter, and that someone mentioned that they might set up a Mandarin class after school. And I think there's an athletics club. So I can keep going with the running too.

Mum looks really pleased and says, ‘I'll get you into university yet,' and Doug says, 'We looked for a school which would keep you busy. Your Mum thought this one would be good because they specialise in languages.' He looks really smug, but that's just the way his face works. I grin at Mum because I recognise this as a peace offering.

And then Doug says, ‘I've got some news for you, young Ty,' and Mum looks a bit strange. Happy but also kind of stressed.

‘What news?' I ask and Doug says, ‘Your gran is coming back to England and so are your aunts. Your aunts are going to live in Manchester – we're getting them a flat there and you'll be able to visit because it's not so far away.'

‘What about Gran?'

‘Aha! She's going to come and live with you here.'

‘Yay!' I'm so happy I whoop out loud and I see Mum wipe away a tear.

‘But how can she live here? It's really small.'

‘There's a studio flat downstairs which is empty. We thought she could have that. It's not what she's used to but she'll be very happy to be with you both.'

‘You especially,' says Mum, and she goes off to make me a cup of tea.

Later, when Doug's gone and I've changed into jeans and a T-shirt, we decide to go and get fish and chips and eat them on the beach. It's a sunny evening and it's kind of relaxing to watch the waves crashing in. I've been wondering about trying surfing – I can see it's a big thing here and Mum says she thinks it's a great idea.

‘Are you OK?' I ask her. ‘Aren't you happy about Gran coming to live with us?'

‘Oh. Well. Of course I am.'

‘No you're not. Don't pretend with me.'

She sighs. ‘It's just that she's never really approved of me, you know, Ty. I was never the good Catholic daughter she wanted.'

‘Neither are the others,' I point out, but she says, ‘Pregnant at 15? Beat that.'

She goes on, ‘She adores you so much, and of course we lived with her on and off until you were five, and,
even when we had our own place, you spent so much time there. After school every day, in the holidays; I sometimes used to feel I didn't get a look in with either of you. Like my mother had stolen my son and my son had stolen my mother.'