When I Was Joe (4 page)

I've always loved running. Mr Patel thought it was great that I would volunteer to do the longest paper rounds. It wasn't just because of the money that I wanted them, it was because once I'd delivered the last
Daily Mail
I could run all the way home through the park. In those days I wasn't scared of the park. In those days I loved the park.

I come to a halt beside Ellie, blinking, sweating and feeling a bit dazed. She hands me a bottle of water and I gulp it down, wishing I'd brought a towel.

‘That was not bad at all,' she says, sounding pleased. ‘Really promising, actually. If you're prepared to work I think you could achieve something.'

Neither of us has noticed, but Mr Henderson has joined us. ‘I'm pleased to hear that, Joe,' he says, drily. ‘It's not every day someone announces that they've appointed themselves to the squad.'

‘I'm really sorry—' I begin, but he waves his hand dismissively. ‘I don't know any of the details but I gather you've had problems at your last school.'

I open my mouth to protest, then close it again. I wonder what story the school has been told. ‘I'm a great believer in new starts,' continues Mr Henderson, which is very nice of him considering he probably thinks I'm disruptive, violent and thick. ‘I'm interested that you chose the athletics squad to get out of a tight spot, and if Ellie agrees I'm going to make a suggestion.'

Ellie nods, and he continues. ‘Ellie here is a bit of a local celebrity. She's a very successful athlete and she's working for a place in the Paralympics. She's been given sponsorship by various local businesses and the council to back her training and she's also working towards a qualification in sports science. We're very proud of her.

‘Ellie needs a case study as part of her course-work, and she's happy to work with you. You may even be able to join the athletics squad for real one day. It's
a challenge for both of you, but if you work hard and do what you're told, then who knows what you can achieve. What do you think?'

What I'm mostly thinking is that PC Plod, aka Doug, isn't going to like this at all. ‘Keep your head down' is the advice he's given me, and special training from some local celebrity blonde paraplegic isn't exactly what he meant. On the other hand, how can I say no? Isn't that just going to get more attention? And Mr Henderson and Ellie obviously think I'm being given something very special, although I'm not altogether sure that competing in running races is actually my thing.

‘Well?' asks Mr Henderson and I nod and mutter my thanks. Ellie tells me to go and get a shower or I'll freeze, standing around all sweaty, and she'll see me here same time tomorrow. She's certainly bossy, but she says it all in a nice way and there's something quite soothing about obeying her orders. I don't think she's put off by sweat. She gives me a really nice smile.

I'll do the training, I decide, and then find a way out of competing if the problem arises. Sprain an ankle or something. It's certainly a good idea to be as fit as possible, just in case. Even Doug should see that. If I tell him.

After all, you never know when you might need to run away, and, right now, there's quite a lot I might need to run away from.

Walking home is the worst part of the day. I try to vary my route, partly in case I am being followed, mainly to make it last longer. My mum's no fun to be around right now, and I'm not used to her being home when I get there anyway.

She used to finish work hours later than me, and when she did come home she was either studying, chatting to her mates on the mobile, or getting ready to go to the pub for karaoke. She was singing and happy and laughing and I loved the way she buzzed around, doing five things at once.

But now she spends all her time sitting at the kitchen table, smoking. She never bothers to straighten her hair and her eyebrows look weirdly heavier. I haven't heard her have an argument for days, even with Doug, and she never switches the radio on. It's not so nice to see her like
this and sooner or later she's going to start calling her sisters and her friends and we'll be found by the wrong people. The petrol bomb guys.

I reach the High Street, dodge into WH Smith, just in case there is anyone following me, then out and on to a bus. No one gets on with me, so I feel reasonably safe. I get home, dump my bag and blazer and call out, ‘Mum . . . I'm home. . .'

It may not seem like a big deal to call your mother Mum but it is for us. She was only sixteen when I was born and she never seemed old enough to be called Mum somehow, and anyway Gran was more like my real mother. But since she became Michelle I can't call her that and I can't call her Nicki. So I'm calling her Mum, thinking of her as Mum and hoping like hell she'll be up to taking on the role. She hates it, says it makes her feel old and makes a little protesting face every time I say it.

She's smoking in the kitchen as usual, ash speckled over the white Formica. In WH Smith I'd bought the local paper to encourage her to look for a job. I spread it open in front of her, hoping she'll get interested. ‘Look, several office administrator jobs and two for PAs. Can't you apply?'

She has a look, but shakes her head: ‘I don't think so. What would I say on my CV? What about references?'

Where is Doug when I need him? Surely this is something he ought to be helping with. I'm worried that the money the police have given us is going to run out sooner or later, and with no job for her or paper round for me, then what are we going to live on?

‘Mum, the police will give you fake references and stuff. I'm sure Doug said something about that. Look, save it to show him when he comes here.'

I slide out the jobs page and at least she takes it and puts it into a drawer. As I fold up the paper I spot the back page and can't believe my eyes. There's a big picture of Ellie, grinning away, and a headline – ‘Gold again for brave Ellie'.

Reading on, I discover that Ellie has just won a crucial qualifying race for the Paralympics – that's like the Olympic games but for disabled people, which sounds to me like a really complicated thing to organise – and that she lost the use of her legs when she broke her back in a gymnastics accident aged twelve.

She's now seventeen – only just three years older than me, but when the three years are between a fourteen-year-old boy and a seventeen-year-old girl, frankly, she might as well have been thirty. Particularly when the fourteen-year-old boy is pretending to be only thirteen. It's not fair, I think, considering girls like Ashley Jenkins can have their pick of anyone of any age.
Not, of course, that I fancy Ellie, it's just the principle which is sexist.

There's also the wheelchair, which is kind of intriguing because it's possible that it makes it hard for her to get a boyfriend, which might cancel out the age difference. . . I mean, she might be really interested in someone a tiny bit younger who's not prejudiced about disabilities, and who'd be happy to push the chair and carry stuff. I don't think I'm prejudiced about disabilities at all . . . it would depend on what other people would say . . . but in theory I'm not. Not when it's someone as pretty as Ellie.

OK, I admit it. I do sort of fancy Ellie. We could be a really unconventional couple, like . . . like . . . umm . . . Paul McCartney and Heather Mills McCartney if it was her who was massively older than him instead of the other way round and if they hadn't decided to hate each other and get divorced, obviously.

‘I suppose you want supper,' says my mum, who is really talented at interrupting my most interesting thoughts, and she starts poking about vaguely in the fridge as if she hopes some food might suddenly magically appear. Of course nothing does, so I take charge and find some ancient cheese and onions which are trying to turn into plants. I chop the onions and fry them and grate the cheese and make spaghetti.

We haven't got any kind of food shopping routine, which isn't surprising because we never did have, but we always used to have Gran to cook things for us and the kebab shop three doors away was really good, and sometimes we'd go on the bus to Tesco. Now I suspect that Mum hasn't left the house for days, but I don't want her to burst into tears so I haven't bullied her into going to the supermarket.

It's not even a very nice house to be stuck in. It's bigger than anywhere we've ever lived in before – three bedrooms, a proper bathroom, not just a shower, and a separate kitchen which is big enough for its own table. But compared to our cosy pink and blue flat, this house will never be home. Everything is beige or brown – carpets, furniture, curtains – the magnolia walls have no pictures and the kitchen is painfully white like a dentist's surgery.

At home our fridge was covered with photos and Capital Radio blared out and I could look out of the window and see people getting tattoos and manicures. Queuing for buses. Arguing, kissing, shouting at their kids. Buying plantain, coriander, kebabs, ice-cream, okra – you could buy anything on our street. I could smell meat and buses, curry and hairspray. Everything was interesting. Every day was different.

Here it's always quiet and all you see from the
window are grey houses and the biggest excitement is when the bloke across the road washes his car, which he does every Sunday. No wonder she's a bit down.

As we eat – or rather as I eat and she twirls spaghetti on her fork and then drops it again – I ask, ‘Mum, do you know who the police are hiding us from? Has Doug told you anything?'

I'm wondering whether Nathan is involved. Arron's brother is big and tough, he knows how to fight and he has some dodgy-looking friends. Arron really looked up to Nathan, so we spent a lot of time trying to hang out with him and his mates, down the bowling alley mostly. Sometimes they let us join in and sometimes they told us to buzz off. Not in precisely those words, obviously.

I can see that Nathan would be pretty scary if you didn't know him and you were stupid enough to get into a fight with him. And he definitely wants me to keep quiet, because he told me so, but I don't think he would actually want to kill me. Nathan always seemed to quite like me – at least, I thought he did. He sometimes told Arron to look out for me. And he used to do a paper round for Mr Patel. Surely he wouldn't attack his shop?

Mum's looking worried. I don't know whether that's because she has information she's not telling me or whether she's as clueless as I am. ‘I don't know much, Ty, and I don't think they're going to tell us. But it seems
to me that it's something very big and very organised. Don't you think?'

I do think. But I don't like to think any further.

Friday afternoon, walking home from school, the weekend stretches ahead. I suppose I could go down to the shopping centre tomorrow, meet up with some of the kids from school, but it seems a bit unfair to abandon my mum, even though we don't do anything together except occasionally bicker.

I suppose it's good to get a chance to stop pretending all the time, but sometimes I think it's only the pretending that keeps me going.

I come through our front door and hear male voices in the living room. I freeze, trying to overhear what's going on. I catch the phrase ‘only temporary,' then Doug emerges, saying cheerily, ‘Hello young man. How's life at your new school?'

I ignore him and walk into the room. Mum is sitting there drinking tea with DI Morris and one of his
sidekicks, youngish with red hair and freckles. I vaguely remember him as one of the less shouty ones at the police station. He introduces himself as Detective Constable Bettany.

Mum says, ‘He's just come in from school. Can I at least get him a snack?' like they're here to ship me off to prison, and rushes away. She brings me tea and some biscuits, then goes back to the kitchen with Doug. I hope she's going to discuss her job prospects.

‘So, Ty, how are you settling into your new life here?' says DI Morris. Unlike Doug he seems genuinely interested. ‘It can't be easy.'

I shrug. ‘It's OK.'

‘Good. Making friends?'

‘Suppose so.'

‘How about your schoolwork? What's your favourite subject?'

‘I suppose French.'

I find languages really easy. At home, as well as learning Urdu from Mr Patel, I'd picked up a lot of Turkish from the kebab shop guys and I'd just got a Saturday job cleaning up the tattoo parlour across the road and had persuaded Maria, the receptionist, to teach me Portuguese. I'm pretty upset to have lost these opportunities.

My ultimate ambition is to be fluent in about twenty
languages and be one of those interpreters who work for Premiership football teams. Scoring Portuguese lessons was a really big thing for me because obviously it's a key footballing language. I never talk much about it though. My mum has her heart set on me earning megabucks in the City and, according to Arron, languages are gay.

‘School's boring because I've done it all before. The sport is good though. Amazing facilities.'

DI Morris doesn't know it but he's discovered more about my life as Joe than Mum and Doug have. He asks a bit about sport, but he's more interested in football than athletics, so I don't feel the need to tell him about extra training with Ellie. Come to that, I'm more interested in football than athletics. We establish that he supports West Ham and I support Man Utd – I know it's wrong for a Londoner, but Manchester's where my dad went to university – and he moves on to the point of his visit.

‘Ty, we'd like to chat to you about the events leading up to the attack in the park. Just general background. Also I'm sure you've got some questions you'd like to ask us. It's nothing to worry about.'

Too right I've got some questions, I think, but I just nod. DC Bettany is taking notes, just like he did at the police station. They're making out it's all very friendly, but I'm not feeling too relaxed.