When I Was Joe (8 page)

‘Yeah. . . Do you want to come with us?' asks Brian, half nervous, half hopeful. ‘Well, yeah, but the thing is that my mum, it's her birthday, see, and she wants me to
go shopping with her, but I'm not sure how it's going to look. . .' I trail off. It strikes me that I'm a lot clearer about knives and fights than I am about shopping etiquette.

‘
You
can probably get away with it,' says Brian decisively, ‘although I'd never live it down. Of course it all depends on your mum. Is she cool?'

The unsaid words ‘like you' hang in the air, and suddenly I feel better about the whole shopping thing. Six months ago, when Mum was a lot cooler and I was not cool at all, this would not even have been an issue.

‘She's OK. And maybe I can send her off somewhere and hang out with you guys.' I say, and Brian is obviously delighted. I can't help comparing his eager friendliness to Arron. Arron, who never seemed to have time for me any more. Arron, with his scary new friends. Arron, with his little jokey digs and put-downs that made me wonder if he really didn't want to be my friend . . . but then there was the iPod. . . I think back to Ty, patient and anxious, examining all the mixed messages that his friend was handing out and I just despise the poor sod – I mean me. It's getting harder to remember that I was Ty, that he really was the same person that I am now.

We go and play kick-about in the playground with Brian's friends and all is well until Carl and his cronies decide to join in. They smash the ball here and there, and then Carl launches himself at my shin in an assault
dressed up as a tackle. ‘Ow!' I crash to the ground. Carl and his mates are shouting with laughter. Good thing he wasn't wearing studs or I'd have a pulverised leg.

‘Watch it,' I shout as I hobble off, wondering if I'll even be able to train with Ellie today. During the afternoon a huge bruise emerges, and it's quite painful as I jog to meet her on the running track. ‘What's the matter?' she asks instantly, and I show her. ‘Ouch, that looks bad. What happened there?'

‘Oh, nothing. Just playing football in the playground and some ape crashed into me.'

‘I can guess which one.'

‘Yeah, yeah. It'll be OK.'

‘What happened yesterday? Is your mum better now?'

‘Yes, I think so,' I answer, then wonder how Mum has been today. What happened with Doug this morning? Has it set her off again? What will I find when I go home? I remember the packet of cigarettes retrieved from the rubbish bin.

‘Ellie,' I say, ‘sometimes my mum talks about, you know, moving on from here.'

‘Going back to London?'

‘Maybe,' I say, wondering how everyone seems to know that we even come from London. Did I say
something? I don't think so. Maybe I just have an air of city sophistication. Maybe not. ‘If I, you know, just leave all of a sudden, then don't worry about me. It'll be OK.'

She gives me a strange look. ‘If you say so, Joe, but it'd be nice if you kept in touch though.'

I find myself making a promise I'll never be able to keep. Then we start warming up on the track and running races against the stopwatch. She seems pretty happy with the results, and there's something satisfying about running through the pain in my leg. I can cope. I can endure. It's got to be a useful skill.

We're nearly done when Mr Henderson comes out to join us. He looks a bit ticked off, and doesn't really cheer up when Ellie shows him her clipboard of times. ‘Very good, well done,' he says, then, ‘Joe, when you're done I need a serious word with you.'

‘We should be finished in ten minutes. Is that OK?' asks Ellie.

‘I'll be in my office,' he replies.

As I cool down and stretch I scan my brains for reasons why he might be cross with me. As far as I can see there's nothing that I've done, but who knows? Ellie seems puzzled too and says, ‘It's probably nothing, don't worry about it. I had a chat with him yesterday and told him you were doing very well.'

Mr Henderson's office is a smelly muddle of sports equipment and sweaty kit. It's quite cosy though. There's a squashy armchair in the corner and he nods at it as I come in. I sit on the edge, feeling a bit nervous.

‘Joe, why were you out on the running track when Mr Hunt tells me you had detention this afternoon?'

‘Oh. I totally forgot.'

‘Mr Hunt is none too happy with you. Says you were “bordering on the insolent” this morning and came into the classroom late and half dressed.'

To my surprise, I feel myself getting a bit upset. ‘The thing is, he thinks I'm being rude when I say ‘sir', but it's what I'm used to and I don't mean to be, and actually I'm really trying to be very polite and I didn't mean to be late and half dressed but when I finished training this morning the whole changing room was full of people and it wasn't really my fault, but he isn't interested and it isn't really very fair what he says. . .' I wind down. I sound like a whinging toddler.

‘Two days ago I gave you the very big privilege of getting an access card to use the facilities out of hours. I don't have to tell you what an advantage this gives you and how many other people would like to have that card. I was somewhat surprised not to see you making use of it yesterday, and even more surprised when my wife told me that she'd seen a Parkview schoolboy down
at Morrison's mid-morning. It wasn't hard to work out who it was from her description.'

Blimey. This little town has spies everywhere. I put my head in my hands. ‘Mr Henderson, my mum was not very well yesterday. She . . . we . . . didn't have any food in the house at all. I needed to look after her. I really wanted to be at school and training and everything but I just couldn't. It's just Mum and me. We don't have anyone else to help us.

‘I really do appreciate getting the access card and I did get up really early this morning and did a lot of training and I really like it and please don't take it away.' I plead.

I can see Mr Henderson is gagging to ask what was the matter with my mum, and I am desperate to spill it and say, 'She got drunk and nearly set the house on fire,' but we both hold back, which is good because the last thing I need is a visit from social services.

‘Ellie tells me that you seem to be under some emotional stress, and she's worried that training is putting too much pressure on you.'

‘No, no, no it's not. She never said that to me.'

‘No, she likes working with you and she wants to continue. But she is only a student and she is being supervised and she was right to tell me of her concerns.'

She likes working with me! I have a warm, glowing,
happy feeling inside. But I also have an uncomfortable warm, glowing, embarrassed feeling turning my face red as I wonder what exactly she did tell Mr Henderson.

‘I think you'd better go and apologise to Mr Hunt in the morning. Explain that you're new to the school and sometimes things are a bit difficult. ‘

‘He knows that. . . What will happen about the detention?'

‘You'll probably end up doing it tomorrow. Maybe he might hand out a double detention. You're already on full report, so he can't add that sanction.'

‘What do you mean?'

He looks a bit sheepish. ‘I think it's probably something you're not meant to know if you haven't been told. My mistake.'

‘But you just told me. And I don't even know what it is.' It sounds bad though.

‘It just means that the head teacher has requested regular reports on your behaviour and progress. It's what we do with people who are persistent troublemakers. When there's a full report request for a new pupil we usually find that it's someone who has had trouble in their old school, maybe an excluded pupil, something like that.'

I've never even met the head teacher. Could this be Doug's way of spying on me at school? Does my head
teacher know the whole story? Mr Henderson says, ‘This doesn't seem to be a big surprise, Joe.'

‘No, I know why,' I say. ‘I can't exactly explain but I'm not a troublemaker and I do want to make the best of this opportunity.'

He realises he's not going to get any more out of me and asks, ‘Did you not have the chance to train at your last school? Did they not spot that you could run? Didn't your parents realise that you had a talent there?'

Athletics didn't really exist at St Saviour's. It was a voluntary option and you had to sign up for it and spend half an hour getting to a sports centre after school. I was quite interested but Arron said no way, and I wasn't going to go with all the posh boys and not him.

I did once go along to the local running club but when I got there everyone else was black, and although they were friendly enough, I felt a bit strange and never went back. Does that make me racist? I really hope not.

‘I've never seen anything like this school,' I say. ‘We didn't have these facilities. And my mum was more bothered about stuff like Maths.'

‘Hmm,' he says. ‘Look, on Sunday we're hosting the inter-schools athletics competition. You'll be able to have a go at racing. Maybe bring your mum with you, show her what you can do. I'm sure Ellie will think it's a good idea.'

Ellie might. I don't.

‘Come along at 11 am,' he says, ‘and I'll speak to Mr Hunt in the morning and try and sort things out for you. Feel free to come and talk any time you need to.'

Walking home, the fears I've been holding back all day suddenly come crowding back. How can I have abandoned my mum to face Doug on her own? Has she put us in danger? Is Gran OK? Are we going to have to move on? Is Joe about to disappear altogether?

The house is very quiet and dark. I wonder if Mum is even here, but then she comes to the top of the stairs. ‘I'm in my bedroom,' she says, and I bound up the stairs and follow her into the room.

Her suitcase is on the bed. Her wardrobe is empty. I look from one to the other in despair. ‘They're moving us, then? They think it's too dangerous?'

‘No,' she says. ‘They want us to stay. They think it's still safe. But I've had enough. I've told them that you're not going to testify after all. We're going home.'

There's a danger here. The danger is that she's going to be the one who's cold and hard and determined and I'm going to be the one out of control, ranting and raving and shouting. I feel like shaking her. I feel like hitting something . . . someone. I can't. I mustn't.

I take a very deep breath and sit down on the bed. ‘What do you mean? We can't go home.' I'm trying to sound calm and reasonable.

‘Why not? You don't testify, no one's interested in us. We're not involved. They all know that. Why would they want to hurt us then?'

‘But what about the court case?'

‘None of our business. You did what you could at the time; nothing's going to change things now.' She's folding clothes furiously and adds, ‘Who are you doing it for
anyway? Arron? Too late, by a long time.'

‘But there are other people too.'

‘Yes. I know.' Her face is hard. ‘But we have to think of ourselves first.'

‘How can we go home? How can you think that we can just go back and everything be normal again? Our home got all burned up.'

‘Doug told me they managed to put out the fire before it did much damage to our place upstairs.'

Well, thank you for telling me. I am filling up with silent fury.

‘We can't go back,' I snarl, teeth clenched to prevent me shouting.

‘We can. Why not? No one will be interested in us any more.'

All her determination is back, the energy that I thought had gone. I feel overwhelmed by her strength. We're back to normal – she leads, I follow.

I imagine life in our old flat, seeing my aunties, doing the paper round again. I think about being back at St Saviour's, short hair, tons of homework, the boys, the playground. No Arron though. Then I remember the smell of the petrol and hear the explosion and the way the flames crackled as they ate up the shop. She's wrong. She's mad.

‘No they wouldn't.' I'm raising my voice now.
‘They'd want to make absolutely sure we didn't change our minds. We'd be always looking out for them. And the police wouldn't be too happy either. What if they tried to . . . to say that I'd been involved?'

‘They wouldn't do that.'

I feel about a hundred years older than my own mother.

‘Yes they would. Why wouldn't they? I was there, wasn't I? I could easily have been one of them. And what if they find out I had a knife?'

As soon as I say it, I try and take it back. My voice kind of gobbles the word – I sound like a clucking chicken – and I bite my tongue. But I've said it. She heard me.

‘You had a knife? What do you mean, Ty?' Her voice sounds a bit wobbly.

‘I had a knife with me in the park.'

She's looking at me like I'm holding a blade to her throat right now. ‘You had a knife? You carried a knife? You're lying to the police? You bloody stupid boy.' And she hits me, hard, on my cheek.

‘Ow! Don't do that!'

It really hurts. I turn away so she can't see the tears in my eyes.

‘What am I meant to do? You deserve it. Christ, Ty, I couldn't have done any more to help you get a better life, could I? I worked and worked to give us a home,
to feed you and clothe you, give you – I thought – some values, good behaviour. When you got into St Saviour's I was so proud. And you're running round London with a knife in your back pocket. I didn't put all that effort in for you to end up with a criminal record.'

She lifts her hand and I know she's itching to belt me again, but she lets it drop. I want to hit her back. I hate it when she makes me feel guilty for needing food and clothes.

‘I never used it,' I say, and remember how the blade felt heavy in my hand.