When I Was Joe (2 page)

‘What happened?' I ask, and my wobbly voice sounds like I'm ten, a scared little boy. ‘Was it a bomb?' Fire engines rush past us, and the quiet night is full of screaming sirens.

‘That's why we're getting you away from here,' says the policeman. ‘Some people will stop at nothing.'

I sit and think about all the stuff that's going to get destroyed by the fire. Everything we didn't pack. My laptop. All the things Nicki'd bought from the market to jazz up the flat – a fluffy sheepskin rug and pink silky cushions, and a stupid beaded curtain which divided the kitchen area from the living room. I used to moan about it looking too girly but right now I'm missing
that curtain and those pink cushions.

Nicki fumbles for her mobile, but the policeman says, ‘No calls.'

‘But I have to let my mum know we're OK. She'll go frantic when she hears about this. . .' and he says, ‘Let's make sure you are OK first, shall we?' And he drives on until we leave London behind and we're heading into nothingness.

Eventually he pulls in at a service station. I think we're going to have a pee and something to eat, but instead he walks over to a blue Ford Mondeo, and talks briefly to the driver.

‘This is Doug,' he says, ‘He'll take you from here.'

Doug's a big guy, looks a bit like Simon Cowell – bad hair, weird trousers, smug smile – and he's got a look on his face like he's decided that we haven't got much talent. Nicki's looking hopeful. ‘Can't we just get a coffee?' she asks, but Doug says, ‘No, love. Too risky,' and we have to get into his car.

We drive on for about an hour, and then he pulls in at a hotel. It's a Travel Lodgey sort of place but not quite as exciting – I'm surprised I can still make jokes, but it's as if the shocked and terrified part of my brain has got so much work to do that it's taken itself off somewhere
very remote. I'm left pretty much normal but completely numb, not feeling anything at all. I don't want to imagine what it'll be like when that bit comes back. Maybe it won't, and I'll spend the rest of my life feeling as though I'm standing behind some very thick glass.

He books us in as Jane and David Smith. It's not the sort of hotel you'd want to spend a holiday in. They show us to our room, which is tiny, just enough room for twin beds and a big TV. There's a chest of drawers with two drawers, so we can't even unpack properly. Not that we care right now. Nicki and I both fall asleep right away, with all our clothes on. I don't even brush my teeth.

It's about midday when I wake up and I can't quite think where I am. Or why I'm sharing a room with my mum. Everything that's happened feels like a film or a nightmare. She's already had a shower and she's getting dressed.

‘I'm going to sort all this out today,' she says, slapping on blusher and frowning at the mirror. ‘It's ridiculous. We're helping them. They can't keep us here. That fire, it must have been a coincidence. Just vandals, stupid kids messing around. Racists, something like that.'

We go downstairs and discover that there's no
breakfast on offer after 10 am, and after that, the hotel doesn't do any food at all until 7 am the next morning. I suggest finding a cafe for a fry up, and Nicki wrinkles her nose, and then two men walk in through the front door. Doug from last night and DI Morris from the police station.

‘We need to talk to you,' says DI Morris and I open my mouth to explain about no breakfast, but Nicki says, ‘OK,' and we end up going back to the tiny bedroom. They sit on Nicki's bed and we sit on mine. My stomach is making strange gurgling noises, but everyone pretends not to hear.

DI Morris goes into a long boring explanation of how he's in charge of the murder investigation and Doug is a Witness Protection Liaison Officer, someone who looks after people like me. Vulnerable witnesses. He drones on for a bit and then he gets to the point.

‘We're sure that the petrol bomb in the shop last night was designed to intimidate you.' he says. There's a silence. I'm thinking that someone wants me dead. He never actually said ‘dead', but that's what he means. I'm not stupid. It's lucky that I'm not doing feelings at the moment, because if I was I might be pretty scared.

‘Your only sensible decision now is to be taken into the witness protection programme,' he says. ‘Doug will look after you. You really have no choice.'

Nicki opens her mouth to argue, then closes it again. Doug says, ‘I'll have to take your phones because there's no easier way to trace someone than the mobile network,' and she puts up a bit of a fight, but you can see her heart isn't in it. My phone is pretty naff, so I don't care that much. Maybe they'll give me a cool new one.

‘Is there anything you need right away?' asks DI Morris. ‘Because it'll be about three weeks before we can rehouse you and provide you with your new identities. Until then you'll be staying here with your heads down.'

‘Breakfast,' I say very quickly before Nicki can say anything else first, and they all laugh and then Doug takes us in his car to a Little Chef where I eat a massive plate of sausage and egg and Nicki drinks black coffee and pretends she's not crying.

We have three long weeks in the sodding hotel, spending most of the time at the launderette as neither of us packed enough clothes. That's quite useful though, because one day I manage to send Nicki off to the chemist and I tell her I'll start doing the washing by myself. I've smuggled the secret Tesco bag with me and I take the contents and dump them in the machine with three packets of stain remover. And, when they come out, everything's gone and now I have an extra grey hoodie and another pair of jeans.

We buy sandwiches every day but it's never enough for me and I'm permanently starving and cross with her for not noticing. The lack of food doesn't bother her because she's always preferred coffee and cigarettes to actually eating. And she's forever nagging me about keeping up with my schoolwork, which is impossible when there's no school to go to. She snaps at me all the time when she falls over my feet or my bag, so after about two days we're hardly speaking.

There's Sky Sports on the hotel television and I watch it most of the time. Football, basketball, handball, whatever. When Nicki tries to talk to me I turn the volume up. And I get friendly with Marek who works as a cleaner at the hotel and try to get him to teach me Polish, but when Doug finds out – Nicki tells him, thanks a lot Nic – he tells me not to talk to anyone, not even someone who only knows ten words of English.

It's so boring that we're even quite pleased to see Doug when he arrives at the hotel one day. He announces that he's taking us to McDonald's which he seems to think is a treat, although if he'd bothered to ask he'd have found out that we both hate the food there.

‘What do you want?' he asks. Nicki goes for a salad and a coffee, and I order two portions of fries, two quarter-pounders and two milkshakes on the basis that at least it's not sandwiches. I don't care if I feel sick for
hours afterwards. Doug raises his eyebrows and I can see he thinks I'm a greedy pig.

He takes us to sit upstairs where we're all on our own and he hands Nicki a cheque-book and some bank statements. The name on the account is Ms M Andrews.

‘Michelle,' says Doug. ‘And Joe. Recently moved from Redbridge. Michelle, you're looking for a job. Joe's changing schools.'

‘Why Joe?' I ask through a mouthful of fries. It's as good a name as any I suppose, but I'm curious.

‘If you forget when you're writing, then it's easy to turn a T into a J,' he says.

‘Oh, right,' I say, slurping the chocolate milkshake, although I think it's much more likely that I'd forget when I was talking. Or listening. . . How am I ever going to remember that my name's meant to be Joe?

He lectures us about staying as anonymous as possible, not making too many friends, never phoning anyone in London, never giving out our address. ‘Best not to invite anyone home,' he adds. We'll be allowed the occasional phone call or letter to Gran and my aunties every six weeks or so. ‘We'd have more rights if we were in prison,' says Nicki.

‘What about our mobiles?' I ask – I've moved on to the strawberry milkshake now and I'm not feeling all that great – and he says he'll be giving us new ones,
‘but I'll be checking your statements. No phoning London, no phoning family or friends. You're just getting them to be able to communicate with each other really.' He's obviously not planning for us to actually have a life. It's going to be hard to know what I can tell people and what I have to hide. How do you lie about everything?

He lets us write letters to Gran. I chew my pen and can't think what to write. ‘I'm missing you a lot. Love, Ty,' is what I put in the end. ‘Can I write to Mr Patel to say sorry about the shop?' I ask, and Doug says, ‘No, I think that might complicate matters.' I would argue about it but I'm trying to stop myself throwing up mixed milkshake all over the table.

‘So,' says Nicki, ‘when does this end? I mean presumably after the trial we'll be going home again.'

Doug just looks at her like she's the most stupid person he's ever met. The bit of my brain that does emotions, the bit that's gone missing for the last few weeks, suddenly reappears, and I feel such hate boiling up inside me –
how dare he disrespect my mum?
– that I choke on my burger. By the time I've stopped coughing and she's stopped slapping me on my back and a little bit of quarter-pounder has flown across the table and been brushed off Doug's sleeve, we've all realised that she's asked the wrong question. ‘It's not going to end, is it?'
she says, and her voice is flat and empty and there's no argument left in it.

And he's still wiping his sleeve and looking completely revolted and says, ‘We'll have to see.'

One day it's pouring with rain and I'm lying on my bed watching some football match from prehistoric times. Nicki's reading a set book from her Open University law course and telling me to turn the sound off.

‘I don't know why you're bothering with that,' I say. ‘You've missed so many assignments now that you'll fail anyway.'

She makes a face at me.

‘And I bet you'll lose all your credits for the last three years too, because you'll be called Michelle Andrews and have a new address and everything.'

I don't know why I'm being so mean. That course means the world to her. She lifts her head up and says in a dangerous voice, ‘Why don't you just shut up now, Ty?'

‘I'm just trying to save you from wasting your time,'

And the next thing the book is flying through the air towards me, and I dodge it, totally lose my balance, fall off the bed and crash into the bedside table, breaking a glass and cutting my hand.

‘Ow!' I screech. ‘What was that for?'

‘It wasn't going to hit you anyway,' she hisses.

There's a knock at the door and Doug walks in.

‘What's going on?' he asks, and we both mumble, ‘Nothing. . .' and I get up off the floor, push the table back into place, shove the broken glass under the bed and grab a tissue to mop up the blood. It really stings. Doug looks suspicious, but stands aside to let someone else into the room.

‘This is Maureen,' he says, and she's smiling at us, an older woman with a big black suitcase.

‘It's Extreme Makeover day,' she says. ‘We've got to change the way you look,' she explains, adding, ‘I hope you've been growing your hair, young man.' I have – one of the things I hated most about St Saviour's was the army-type haircut – and my fringe is already falling over my eyes.

Maureen nods her approval and then looks me up and down. ‘There's not much I can do really. You've already got very anonymous clothes. Wear your hood up as much as possible – there, you don't expect the police to tell you that. I've got some more clothes for you in my bag and I think Doug's already sorted your school uniform.'

School uniform? I didn't even know I had a school.

‘He's a nice-looking lad,' she adds, as if I'm not there. ‘His eyes are very striking, aren't they? An unusual
colour, that light green; we'll have to do something about that. And I think we'll have to darken the hair . . . although you'll have to keep it going, because we don't want his roots showing.' She and Nicki start giggling at what must be a look of complete horror on my face. I'm praying none of the boys from school will ever hear about this.

She turns the tiny hotel bathroom into a salon, and tackles Nicki first. Nicki's raging from the moment she sees Maureen's scissors. ‘These extensions cost me a fortune,' she says, as they hit the tiles. ‘I can't believe you have to do this. Isn't it enough to drag us away from our home?'

But I remember the flames eating up everything from
TV Quick
to
Playboy
and I doubt our home even exists any more, so I don't complain when Maureen slaps some foul-smelling muck on to my hair and then smears something which prickles and burns on to my eyebrows too.

She washes my hair and wraps it up in a towel, which looks completely stupid, and then makes me sit down on the bed. ‘Eyes wide open,' she says, then jabs her finger at them. I slam backwards, yelling out loud with pain. Who said the police could torture me? ‘It's only a contact lens,' says Maureen, but I won't let her near me again. Eventually, after a huge amount of agony,
I master putting them in myself.

Maureen dries my hair, and scrubs my eyebrows with a flannel, Nicki clucking strangely in the background. Then I'm allowed to look in the big mirror. Somehow I'm still expecting to see green eyes and light brown hair looking back at me. But instead I see a white face, black shaggy hair, amazing black eyebrows and dark brown eyes – very bloodshot eyes. Only the pointed chin is recognisably mine, and it's a lot more pointy than it used to be because I seem to have lost any sign of chubbiness around the face. In fact my whole body is leaner than it ever was before.