‘Long enough to know he’s the one,’ Mary said dreamily. ‘Honest to God, babes, no one’s ever treated me like this man does. And he’s handsome like you wouldn’t believe. My dreamboat Spaneesh lov-
er
.’
Chantelle grimaced as her mum’s voice took on a supposedly Spanish accent. But a cold shiver ran down her spine when, in the background, she heard a man with the real accent order Mary to hurry up.
‘Don’t go!’ Chantelle blurted out. ‘
Please
… I need to talk to you.’
‘Aw, soz, babes, but it’s his mate’s phone so I can’t stay on too long. I’ll ring again soon, though.’
‘I don’t want you to ring, I want to
see
you,’ Chantelle sobbed, swiping at a tear she could feel rolling down her cheek.
‘Aw, me an’ all,’ said Mary. ‘Here, where’s our Leon? Put him on for a minute.’
‘He’s out,’ Chantelle told her. ‘But never mind him. I need to know when you’re coming back, ’cos I’ve got no money.’
‘I told Trace to give you some. Don’t tell me the stupid bitch forgot?’
‘No, she gave me twenty quid, but that Ricky came looking for you and took it.’
‘Bastard!’ Mary spat indignantly. ‘You wait till we get home and Miggy gets hold of him!’
‘That doesn’t help me right now, does it?’ said Chantelle. ‘I’m scared our Leon’s going to get taken away if you don’t come back soon.’
‘Don’t you
dare
let anyone take him,’ Mary said fiercely. ‘I mean it, Chan. If I lose my boy, I’ll never forgive you.’
‘It won’t be
my
fault,’ Chantelle protested. ‘I’m the one who’s here looking after him – or
trying
to.’
‘Oh, that’s right, make me feel guilty, why don’t you?’ Mary tutted. ‘God, anyone’d think I was never coming back, the way you’re going on.’
‘Well, are you?’
‘Yeah, course. In a few weeks.’
‘A few
weeks
?’ Chantelle repeated incredulously. ‘Haven’t you been listening? I haven’t got any money. How am I supposed to feed Leon for a few more weeks?’
‘I told Trace to tell you to find Glenroy,’ Mary said irritably. ‘It’s about time he started doing his bit.’
‘I already tried, this morning,’ Chantelle told her. ‘But his girlfriend doesn’t know where he is.’
‘No change there, then,’ Mary snorted. ‘Bastard never could keep it in his pants. What was she like, then – the girlfriend? Bet she wasn’t as pretty as me!’
‘Never mind her,’ Chantelle snapped. ‘What about me and Leon? You’re either going to have to come back, or you’ll have to send some money. And don’t say you haven’t got any, ’cos I know the dole sorted out that mistake. They sent a letter saying they were backdating it and paying it into your account.’
‘What you doing reading my letters?’ Mary demanded. ‘You’ve got no right.’
‘Are you serious?’ Chantelle was shouting now. ‘Don’t you think I’ve got a right to know what’s going on, seeing as I’m the one who’s trying to keep a roof over your son’s head? I need money, and I need it
now
!’
‘God, you’re such a drama queen,’ Mary said scornfully. Then, sighing, she said, ‘Right, I’ll see what I can do. But I can’t promise it’ll be much, ’cos I’ve got the wedding to pay for.’
‘You’re having a laugh,’ Chantelle gasped. ‘What’s more important, a stupid wedding or your kids?’
‘Oh, will you get off my fuckin’ back,’ Mary yelled, losing patience. ‘I’ve just told you I’ll be coming home soon – what more do you want?’
‘
Money!
’ Chantelle bellowed.
‘Get it off your dad,’ said Mary. ‘He’s another one who’s had it easy for too long.’
‘Oh, yeah, ’cos it’s that easy to get to Jamaica, isn’t it?’
‘Who said he was in Jamaica?’
‘
You.
’
‘Did I?’ Mary sounded confused. ‘I don’t remember saying that.’
‘Well, you should, ’cos it’s what you’ve been telling me for as long as I can remember,’ said Chantelle. ‘So, what are you saying now? Is he, or isn’t he?’
‘Not as far as I know,’ Mary said. ‘Last I heard he was in Moss Side.’
‘
What?
’ Chantelle felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. ‘You said he went home before I was born.’
‘Yeah, to his own
house
,’ said Mary. ‘Well, I wasn’t having him living with me. He did my bleedin’ head in, boring bastard.’
‘How could you?’ Chantelle gasped. ‘All this time I’ve been thinking he was in a different country, and you never told me any different. You’re unbelievable.’
‘Oh, I’ve had enough of this,’ Mary said snappily. ‘I only rang to tell you my good news but you’re obviously not interested. You never are – unless it’s about
you
, you self-centred bitch.’
When the phone went dead in her hand Chantelle tried to ring her mum back, only to find that the number was withheld. She screamed in frustration, threw her phone down on the bed and pummelled the pillow with her fists. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard, although she didn’t know why she was so surprised, because this was just typical of her mother. She’d been lying to Chantelle her whole life, but now, just because it suited
her
, she’d landed a bombshell like this – and wondered why Chantelle was so pissed off.
Agitated, Chantelle jumped up and walked over to the window. If it was true, then her father had been living less than a mile away this whole time. So why had he never tried to contact her? They had always lived in this same flat, so he would have known exactly where to find her, but Chantelle had never seen him in her life. And that made him an even worse father than Glenroy, who had at least stayed in Leon’s life for the first few years.
As fresh tears began to sting her eyes, Chantelle rested her forehead against the cold glass. Was she really so unlovable that the people who had created her found it so easy to turn their backs on her? Leon was rude, disrespectful and downright defiant, but in their mum’s eyes he could do no wrong; whereas Chantelle, who always strived to be polite and helpful, just seemed to rub her up the wrong way. And now, despite everything that she had put Chantelle through, all the support that Chantelle had given her throughout her numerous failed relationships and drug-fuelled meltdowns, her mum claimed that
Chantelle
was the self-centred one.
But what was the use of letting it get her down? Her father obviously didn’t care if she was dead or alive, and her mum cared more about herself than she did about her kids. Maybe she should just give up and phone the social services now, before things got even worse.
Leon’s heart felt like it was on fire as, head thrown back, he belted along behind Damo and the gang who were running hell for leather across Alexandra Park. After walking around and around Moss Side for the last few hours, Acky had just spotted the lads they had been looking for going in through the side gates on mountain bikes, and they had to get to the fence that ran down the far side before the lads spotted them and made their getaway.
A narrow path separated the park perimeter from a school field, and it was hidden from the view of the park and the road beyond. Here the boys pulled their scarves up to cover their faces and hunkered down to wait.
‘Get over there and keep a lookout,’ Damo hissed at Leon. ‘Anyone comes, whistle.’
Head down, Leon shuffled off to hide at the side of the bush that Damo had pointed out, from where he could see both ends of the path and a bit of park through the fence. He was gasping hard, trying to catch his breath, but when he heard a squeak of brakes he inhaled deeply and held it in, then listened to the two boys talking quietly as they manoeuvred their bikes out onto the path.
The boys had barely had time to remount and get their feet back on the pedals when Damo and the others swarmed out from their hiding places, and Leon almost threw up with shock as he watched them drag the boys off their bikes and lay into them. He had heard the gang talk about fights they’d had, but this was the first time he’d seen them in action and it totally freaked him out. He’d had plenty of fights himself, at school and on the estate, but nothing as vicious as this. It was six against two, for starters, which didn’t seem fair. And they weren’t just using their fists and feet. Acky had found a thick branch and was lashing the lads’ bodies with it as they lay curled up on the floor, their arms wrapped around their heads to protect their faces. Everyone else was kicking and punching, and Leon buried his face in his arms when he saw the blood. He peered out for a second, and had to bite down on his sleeve to keep from crying out when he saw Damo pick up a rock and, after holding it high in the air with both hands, dash it down on one of their victims’ heads.
Leon saw a movement in the distance behind the lads and tried to whistle, but nothing happened because his throat seemed to have closed up. Unable to attract their attention any other way, he jumped up and started waving his arms.
It worked. Damo stopped what he was doing and looked around. When he saw the two men walking slowly towards them from the far end of the path, he hurled the rock as far as he could over the fence and then called his boys off. ‘Yo, leave it. Someone’s coming.’
As one, the lads started running the other way down the path, heading for the dual carriageway ahead. One of them grabbed Leon’s arm as he passed and hauled him along. As Damo sped past them all, Leon glanced back, wondering where Acky was, and was sickened all over again to see him sticking the boot into the side of one of the fallen lads’ heads before coming after them, even though both boys were clearly unconscious already.
The gang burst out onto the pavement at the end of the path and, dodging the traffic, ran across the busy carriageway. On the other side they hurtled around corners and ducked through a maze of alleyways, running without stopping until they reached the broken section of fence at the rear of the derelict pub they used as a hideaway.
‘Block it,’ Damo ordered when they had all squeezed through the pub’s back door and piled into the old kitchen area.
As two of the lads hauled an old sink unit up against the door, Leon slid to the floor to catch his breath and watched as Damo peered out through a hole in the metal sheeting covering the window. After several tense minutes, during which Leon was convinced that the gang must all be able to hear his heart thudding as loudly as he himself could, Damo exhaled loudly, and said, ‘All clear.’
‘Man, that was close,’ Acky gasped, sitting on an upturned box and pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. ‘I
well
thought we’d been clocked.’
‘Yeah, well, we weren’t,’ Damo said, flopping down beside him and snatching a cigarette out of his hand. He lit up and took a deep drag, then laughed, and said, ‘That was
mint
! Did you see the way that rock bounced off the dude’s head? Like,
BOOM
!’ He slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘Out for the fuckin’ count!’
‘Hope he weren’t dead,’ Dubz, one of the two black lads in the gang, murmured worriedly. ‘I know his fam; they’ll be well gutted.’
‘Shame,’ Damo sneered.
‘He weren’t,’ Acky said, sucking loudly on his own smoke. ‘I give him the boot before I left, and he made a noise.’
‘
Shame
,’ Damo said again, grinning slyly. ‘Would have been a buzz seeing that on the news.’
‘Fuck off, you’d have been well brickin’ it if we’d done for ’em,’ Acky sneered. ‘Anyhow, Big T only told us to rough ’em up, so you’re lucky we didn’t do them in, or you’d be in the shit
big
time, bwoy.’
Leon was sitting across from them with his back against a damp, peeling wall. As his breathing began to settle, he drew his knees up to his chin and gazed at the floor. He was really struggling to get his head around what had just happened, and he listened in silence as Acky and Damo bantered about which of them had done what. The others were all laughing, which made it seem worse, somehow. All except Dubz, who was sitting beside Leon with his own eyes downcast and a troubled look on his face.
Leon wasn’t the only one who had noticed that Dubz wasn’t involving himself in the banter. Acky had stopped talking and was staring at him. ‘Yo, what’s up with you?’ he asked.
Dubz raised his eyes slowly. ‘Nowt.’
‘Don’t look like it,’ Acky persisted. ‘You’ve always got a slap-arse face on you lately. If you’ve got a problem, why don’t you just spit it out?’
Dubz pushed his lips out and nodded several times, as if he was chewing it over, then said, ‘All right. If you really wanna know, I’m sick of settling Big T’s beefs.’
Acky gave a scornful snort. ‘Knew you was turning pussy. Told you, didn’t I?’ He nudged Damo. ‘Every time it comes on top,
he
’s always first to bottle it.’
‘I’m not bottling nothing,’ Dubz said angrily. ‘I just don’t see why we’re always taking orders from T, all of a sudden. He’s got his own crew; let
them
deal with it.’
‘They got more important shit to take care of,’ Damo informed him. ‘Anyhow, what’s the prob with us helping them out now and then? It’s good for our cred.’
‘How?’ Dubz demanded. ‘Come on, man, I’m serious. This ain’t doing
shit
but get us caught up in their battles. Rate we’re going, we’re gonna have G’s from all over Manc gunnin’ for us.’
‘And?’ Damo gave an unconcerned grin. ‘Least they’ll be knowing about us. Nowt worse than being part of a crew no one’s heard of and got no respect for.’
‘But that’s just it, we
ain’t
a crew,’ Dubz said, gazing steadily back at him. ‘We’re just mates who hang out together. We ain’t got no business to take care of, like the real G’s. We ain’t defending a patch, or running drugs, or nothing.’
‘No, but we soon will be,’ said Damo with confidence. ‘Soon as Big T sees we’re loyal enough to trust us with the bigger shit, he’ll set us up proper.’
‘Told you that, did he?’ Dubz gave him a doubtful look.
‘Not in so many words,’ Damo admitted. ‘But it’s obvious, innit? Why would he call on us all the time if he ain’t planning on bringing us in?’
‘Let me think …’ Dubz drawled. ‘Mebbe ’cos he knows we’re stupid enough to do his dirty work without axing questions.’