Forest Gate (10 page)

James thought he was just showing off at first. But then he watched the movements of the man's body, his anxious eyes; the way he would hesitate and begin again; seeming scared, like he knew he was one false move away from the street. James didn't want to live like that. But he didn't say any of this to Trevor.

Trevor closed his notebook dramatically. 'There, that's it. We're all done,' he said.

He sounded like every doctor who had ever stuck a needle in James's arm. Trevor reopened his black pad and then looked at James.

'You will be pleased to know that I won't recommend you being sectioned. You'll most likely be advised to see a therapist and to take some anti-anxiety medication. Nobody can force you to do anything you don't want to, but please leave the option open. Some people believe they can simply use willpower to control their suicidal feelings. The problem with that is there is probably a chemical imbalance in the brain. And that needs to be treated with medicine. So let me ask you this, James: if you had a broken leg, would you get treatment or would you just keep walking on it, writhing in pain, trying to convince yourself that you just needed willpower to overcome the pain? No,' he said after a teacher-like pause, 'you would get treatment, and you would do so immediately. You wouldn't even think twice about it. Your situation is similar. If you are diagnosed with clinical depression, or something, then there is a physical cause for your condition. And you need to get it sorted out. It is not just emotion. The brain, after all, is an organ. And sometimes it needs treatment.' Trevor stood, zipped up his bag and then placed a business card near the fruit bowl and put his hand on James's shoulder. James shrugged it off.

'You know, sometimes you sound like a robot. You do this a lot, right?'

Trevor smiled. This time James thought it might be genuine. 'I'll bear that in mind. Remember, I'm here for you. You can talk to me any time. But you have to meet me halfway. I can only do so much and I think accepting my limits is an important aspect of what I do. I want you to do something for me that's very, very important. Make a commitment to staying alive. Can you promise me that?'

'I promise.' James said just to speed up Trevor's departure.

Trevor patted James arm lightly. 'You see, you are more connected than you realise. One final thing. Relax. That's right. Take some deep breaths and do something that you enjoy. Take a candlelit bath, burn an effigy of P. Diddy. I don't know. Go for a walk in the park with a beautiful friend. Listen to some nice music.'

Trevor, with his peevish tone and his
GQ
manner, suddenly repulsed James.

'You know what I mean?' Trevor said. 'Just take it easy. And engage in these activities that relax you on a regular basis. And let me tell you, James, today is the first day of the rest of your life. You are on your way. On your way to a better life.'

He slung his bag over his shoulder and left. James watched him for as long as he could see him and he mulled over everything that had gone wrong in his life. He looked at Trevor's business card. He had not been handed a real business card before, from a white man. Then James reached over and picked up the letter.

A
FTER READING HER LETTER
James expected Meina to visit at some point. But he had not expected that she would look so like her brother. When she walked into the room he was standing with his back to the door, looking out of the window, watching out for her. He was still attached to an IV and wore what looked like an oversized blue bib. The sound of her footsteps at the door startled him and he swivelled round too quickly, almost collapsing to the ground. Her eyes were tawny, like her brother's but set wider apart, giving her face an almost feline appearance – the look he saw was fleeting, it was gone from her face as soon as she smiled but it was a look that would stick in his memory. There was no mistaking the pain.

James had seen her from his window the day before, sitting on a bench in the hospital gardens, under a row of oak trees and a cloud-filled sky. She wore a long raincoat and a wig she had bought for ten pounds at Afroworld on Kingsland High Street in Dalston. It was the type of Afro idealised in the sixties, natural, light and never subdued. Meina wore it defiantly; that day she had been dreaming of being someone else, a strong rebellious sister, out of the reach of pain. Her hands were dug deep into her pockets and she sat with head bent low, staring at her shoes. Around her fellow visitors, doctors, nurses, paramedics and auxiliary workers bustled through the gardens. But as Meina sat facing the building, nervously trying to steel herself in preparation for her imminent meeting with James, she felt alone, far removed from the people passing her.

She remembered her brother's visits to the homes of her ex-husbands. Ashvin was the reason she had kept on being divorced. Once, pretending to be a blind beggar, he had sat in the white heat outside one house for almost a week. That was the longest it ever took for any of the husbands to return her to her aunt's house.
Waddaddo
, blind beggars, were believed to have the power of deflecting misfortune by conjuring protective spells or by adding the Qur'an
baraka
(blessings) to a family's personal amulets. Their predictions were always costly. Meina looked out from the confines of a gloomy room that smelled of unwashed laundry, early one Sunday morning. She could not believe her eyes when she saw Ashvin walking towards her new home. He wore metal cuffs on his wrists, and a silver wrapper that had belonged to their father which he had covered with banana leaves, yam vines and what looked like oil.

Meina was with her fourth husband, a thin rodent-faced old man with spiky hair and quick hands – Asad or Ayad, she could no longer remember his name. Like most of the ex-husbands, he was brutal in his adherence to his beliefs and lived in a world of camel clops on desert sand and raised women's voices around the communal water well. This was Bargal, a remote village far in the south where villagers were known to threaten to behead those who did not pray five times a day. The husband had four maddening children – all girls with flashing eyes – who he instructed to bang on the floor with a broom whenever they wanted their father's new bride to fetch something. It was a
mundal
, an old mud house with crumbling walls and a small herd of camels in the dusty, termite-mound-studded yard. The room Meina was kept in was dirty with small windows that let in little light. Ashvin sat opposite the entrance on a low stool, sweating in the ninety-degree heat. The villagers murmured nervously as they passed by. No one dared approach; most just stared inquisitively from their front doors.

Meina had no idea how he had come up with the scheme. It was genius, but she was troubled – if he succeeded, it would only encourage their aunt and her husband to arrange more marriages, to make more money from selling her off. He was a clever, resourceful fourteen-year-old. Their father had told them that blind beggars were considered specialists who 'fought' jinns in ceremonies resembling exorcisms. Meina had seen Ashvin's 'ceremony' three times before. He would take the head of a dead snake from his pocket and a boiled egg. Passing the egg through the head of the snake, he would break open the shell, eat the egg and spread the bloodied remains around the entrance to the
mundal
. Sometimes he would light a fire and lightly touch the head or the eyelids of the snake, muttering all the while.

For the first few days Asad/Ayad hovered at the entrance to the house, his hands clasped behind his back. But by the Friday of that week he had lost his resolve. He was a man in total distress, stammering and stuttering. 'Oh, blind beggar,' he pleaded, 'I am the owner of this home. Why me?'

'The eggshells mean sickness,' said Ashvin, stretching his neck to look up so that his eyes bore into the old man.

Meina watched from the window as her brother crossed his eyes and spoke up in a raspy, strangled voice – as though he could not bear to confide his secret.

'Do you have a new woman in your house? A young girl?' The husband nodded nervously. Ashvin, looking down and crushing bloodied eggshells between his palms, shook his head, 'She is cursed. She will bring sickness to your camels. To the whole village. No doctor will have the cure.'

Meina was sure he would be discovered because of the sound of his voice. His accent was rough and throaty-sounding, easily identifiable as belonging to someone from the city, as opposed to the slower, more melodious voices of people who lived in remote villages. But he was never caught out, and when the news of his warning spread, a sense of panic buzzed around the sleepy village. The neighbours demanded the husband leave or send his new bride away.

The sight of Meina on the hospital bench had haunted James. She was eighteen, a grown woman. What did she want from him? But she too was nervous and did not say much that first day. She studied the stitches on his lip and the scar on his neck – a vivid, jagged, raw red ring. She stood at the door, wide-eyed, with dimples and half-f lips that looked as if they might burst if kissed. Although they had never spoken, James had seen her around Forest Gate, at the bus stop. She had always seemed reserved, unapproachable. In the past they had only nodded acknowledgement once or twice, and now, finding themselves alone, neither one knew what to do.

'My brother wrote a lot in his notebooks,' Meina said, finally, still standing. With a small gesture James offered her a seat. He made his way back to his bed but in his haste he stumbled, almost falling over. Each of his steps seemed to require all his effort. James slowly settled on his bed and Meina sat studying him. She realised at once that he had indeed meant to kill himself – Ashvin had not been part of some prank. She saw sadness in him, a melancholy that seemed familiar. 'He wrote a lot about you,' she said.

'Your voice is different,' James said.

'You mean from Ash? My brother is dead. Remember?'

Although Meina's English was almost flawless, unlike her brother's, she slurred her consonants as a French speaker would, not like someone from East Africa where the inflection was speedy, harsh and guttural. Their mother had been harder on her, the daughter, about the correct pronunciation of English words. She said it would act as a protective cloak wherever Meina went in her life.

James said nothing. He sat on the bed and let out a deep, anguished sigh, covering his mouth with his hands; a vein above the wide laceration on his neck stood out, livid and pulsating.

Meina felt her heart pounding and the anger she had been holding in threatened to explode. It was only as she studied the marks on his neck that she really believed that James had not tricked Ashvin into killing himself alone. She watched him ease himself up onto the bed, lying on his side on top of dishevelled bed sheets. The look in his eyes was so intense Meina almost forgot how young he was. He looked burdened and ill at ease; perhaps even afraid.

'You OK?'

'Yes. Thanks,' he replied.

'Ash wrote that you never lie. Is that true?'

James nodded, seeming confused. 'Yes. I mean, no. I don't lie.'

Meina ran a hand through her hair and pursed her lips to stop them trembling. 'I want to know about the boy he wrote about. The Ethiopian boy in the newspapers. Nalma. I need to know if you knew.'

'If I knew what?'

'Did you and Ashvin kill him?' It had sounded better when she practised in front of the mirror at home.

'Yes, we did.'

Meina folded her arms and took a long, hard look at James. He had closed his eyes, turning his head slightly away from her.

Tears welled up but she blinked them back. She moved to stand nearer the bed and tentatively held out her hand, as if seeking comfort.

'To have had a brother like mine was a blessing.' That was all she said. And then she left.

The weather was much cooler the next time she showed up; it had rained heavily that morning. Meina waited in the cafe by the cardiology unit until she was sure all his other visitors had gone.

'So,' she asked, 'did you read my letter?'

'Yeah, I did.'

James searched her face for a sign that she was joking. He found none.

'And what do you say?'

'Yes.'

He was discharged from the hospital two days later. For hours he walked past her estate, up and down, looking behind him to see if there was anyone watching. He sat alone in the park until it began to rain, lightly at first, then heavily, then just a slow drizzle. Finally he made up his mind. As he approached her building he counted eight boys huddled together on a wall halfway down the street. It was dark and James could not make out who they were. As he drew closer the boys stopped speaking and turned to face him.

A tall boy in a black parka with fur around the collar slowly came forward, his hand in his coat pocket. James turned to his right and saw another half a dozen boys standing in the shadows with hats or hoods covering their eyes, faces dimly lit from the joints they passed each other. Three more of them sat on the bonnet of a car parked along the street and yet another stood by himself on a gravel path near the entrance to the estate, keeping a lookout. James knew they were all tooled up. The night was cold and still; a woman in a red crocheted hat clicked her heels as she walked by. She carried a red-and-white plastic bag, the air behind her heavy with the smell of KFC. James could just make out the glow of television screens in a few of the rows of identical arched windows. Another boy put a joint to his mouth and lit it, sucking twice until the flame on the tip extinguished and became a dizzying orange spot and then he blew out the match with a blast of smoke.

'Yo! Heads up.' He seemed to be speaking out to the dark.

'Didn't you see the wall tags, my yout'?' This time James couldn't tell who had spoken. He remembered the wall daubed with graffiti that he had passed at the entrance but he hadn't taken any notice.

'It's a fucking liberty,' came another voice, angry and threatening. James felt his pulse race. He jerked back as someone smashed glass, a bottle, behind him. And then more boys approached from out of the shadows. Two more came out of the back seat of a Ford with a broken windscreen, one of them wearing a ski mask. The car was clamped and had a local council removal sticker on the passenger window. James wondered how he had missed it. The driver stayed put, hunched over the steering wheel tapping a number into a phone. Wishing he had gone straight home, James looked up the blind street from where he had come and then ahead at the bright lights at Meina's window. Conscious of the many eyes watching his every move, he straightened and struggled to stand firm like a man. His legs trembled, there was a ringing in his ears and he could taste vomit at the back of his throat. He remembered 4 had told him to hit the biggest man if he was ever confronted by a gang. 'Strike fast. Strike first.' But James could never tell whether 4 was joking or not.

Hit the biggest.

His eyes burned and he clenched his fists. All the boys looked big and he had no interest in fighting even the smallest. James sighed, overwhelmed by the weight of the unwritten, unbreakable rules that his brothers had tried to teach him. This is how it was on the estates; you didn't get a second chance to flourish or to say sorry. This is how it would be forever – a life sentence. His breathing slowed. He stared at a slab of broken pavement and wondered why he could never measure up. It was like being in a dream – he couldn't fight and he couldn't run. He looked up at the sombre sky and then he conceded. I'm fucked, he thought.

'You took a wrong turn, bruv, you can't come dan here.' The boy with the parka looked at James with a quizzical expression. He took out a knife, unfolded it. The street light caught the long silver blade as he wiped it across the thigh of his jeans.

Just then a woman parted her curtains and leaned out into the street. She was white, ashen-faced, and James thought she looked pregnant. 'Terry? You out there? Your dinner's getting cold.' The voice was a notch louder than necessary.

'Fuck off, Mum,' said a mixed-race boy in a red-and-white pair of Adidas Top Tens. He shook his head slowly with his mouth open wide, dropped his arms to his sides and then looked at the floor.

'Oi, Slater, Mummy said dinner's getting cold,' mimicked a voice and there was soft laughter.

'You lot can fuck off 'n' all,' said Terry. He shook his head again, flipped open his phone, pushed at the buttons with his thumb. 'Fuck all this,' he said, 'I'm going over to my girl's house. Fucking hate coming round here.' He smashed the bottle he carried, turned his back on his friends. 'Hello, it's me. You got food in your house?' he said into the phone and walked up the street alone.

The woman did not look surprised when she closed her curtain.

James used the distraction to pick up his pace. He felt spreading waves of fear in his knees first and then all the way up his spine. His body reminded him he was still too weak to run so he prepared himself as best he could to take a beating or to get knifed. He used both his hands to wipe the sweat from his face and when he passed a phone box he raised his chin to the light so they could be sure to see his face. He kept turning to look as closely as he could at each of their faces but he couldn't see much because of the dim street lights. When he finally reached Meina's flat his hands were shaking. She had put her front-door key in the envelope with her letter but there was no way he was going to use it. He rang the bell and almost immediately changed his mind and was turning to walk away when she opened the door. For a long moment they stood looking at each other, then he stepped inside and Meina watched him lean his back against the wall, his hands shaking and his chest heaving. He jumped when he heard a sound. She tried to take his hand but he withdrew it.