Another Life (11 page)

The drug-dealing him. The secret him.

‘The rest of the money, I want it – ready for when I come out, in cash. You can give it to me when I get out of here.’

‘I don’t think. . .’

Ty narrows his eyes. ‘I told you. I done all the thinking.’

‘Finkin’.’ If I listen hard enough, then I’m sure I can do this voice too.

‘You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘Ty, stop it. You’re only just sixteen, for God’s sake.’

‘I’m all grown-up.’

‘Ty,’ I say, ‘I talked to Claire.’

I’m kind of hoping he’ll have come to the same conclusion as her, i.e. they have no future, no chance, no hope and he’s not right for her, anyway.

He drops his eyes to the table. ‘What did she say?’

‘She was . . . she was upset . . . she wasn’t sure. . .’

‘Yeah.’ His voice roughens. ‘Thanks for telling her. She’s better off without me.’

Danny says, ‘You’ll be out of here soon. We’ll sort everything out. You’ll be fine.’

Ty shrugs. ‘I can look after myself.’

‘Oh yeah,’ says Danny. He’s got this talent for keeping his voice really smooth and even, although I can see he’s upset. His hand is trembling. ‘You can look after
yourself with my money. Just like you did when you got your picture in the paper? Jesus, Ty.’

‘I can look after myself whatever.’

Wha’eva
. I so could do this voice. I almost open my mouth and join in.

‘Where are you going to go? They’ll want to keep an eye on you when you come out, you know? Make sure you don’t do anything that means you have to come back and serve the rest
of your sentence. That’s assuming you manage to behave yourself for six weeks. Think you can do that? You’ve not got a great track record, have you, Ty?’

‘Better than yours.’

I’m getting a bit embarrassed now. It seems to me they’d be better doing this in private. Ty seems to be enjoying slagging his dad off in front of me. There’s a dangerous smile
on his face.

‘Whatever I’ve done, that’s gotta be better than abandoning your kid and spending a fortune on coke,’ he says.

Danny winces.

‘I’ve told you, tried to explain – addiction is an illness, not a lifestyle choice.’

‘Yeah, right.’ Ty’s voice is thick with bitterness. ‘My gran said you were a waste of space, said you were no good.’

Danny’s calm voice wavers just a little bit. ‘Yeah, well, maybe your gran didn’t always know what was best.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Ty’s voice is taunting now, twisting, setting traps, laying mines. I’m amazed that Danny can’t see it. But he goes blundering in.

‘She could have made sure that I was part of your life, Ty – not just me, my parents, Archie here, your whole family. But no, she didn’t do that. She told lies, she hid you
away. She wasn’t perfect, any more than I am.’

Ty’s lip curls. ‘She didn’t take drugs.’

She didn’t sell drugs, either
, I think. I don’t say it, though. The atmosphere is explosive enough.

‘I’m sorry. I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have done. But I wasn’t the only one at fault.’

‘You saying it was all my gran’s fault?’

‘No, obviously not.’

‘You saying she was a bad person?’

‘No, Ty, that’s not what I was saying.’

‘Sounds like it to me. What about you, Archie? Doesn’t it sound like he was disrespecting my gran?’

Oh shit. What do I say now?

‘Err . . . not really completely. . .’

They contemplate me with identically hostile faces.

Danny takes a deep breath. ‘Look, Ty, you’re obviously angry. It’s fair enough. Try not to blame people, though. We just want to help you.

‘You can help me by doing what I told you – my money, in cash. And then leave me alone.’

‘I’m not going to do that.’

‘Fine.’ He stands up. ‘Don’t bother coming back. I’ll manage on my own. Bye, Archie, nice knowing you.’

‘Come on, Ty, sit down again,’ says Danny, but the prison guard guy (he’s the spitting image of that gardening bloke on the telly – you know, Alan Titchmarch) says,
‘Time’s up,’ and Ty walks towards the door without looking back.

‘Ty,’ I say, as he’s about to walk out, ‘what shall I say to Claire?’

He glances back. There’s no warmth in his face.

‘Tell her what you want,’ he says. ‘Tell her goodbye, good luck with the rest of her life.’

D
anny doesn’t really want to talk on the way back to London but I go for it, anyway.

‘He didn’t mean it,’ I say. ‘He’s just angry, you know, generally angry, and he let it out at you.’

Danny is furiously chewing gum. ‘I know that,’ he says.

‘He’s probably feeling really guilty about his gran dying.’

‘Yes, I’m aware of that.’ He pulls out into the fast lane, cutting up a Mazda6.

‘He’s scared that someone might see him in the paper. But he wasn’t definitely in the paper. And he’s a bit worried about Alyssa.’

‘No, you don’t say?’

He swerves in front of a Ford Mondeo. The driver honks him.

‘He’s probably missing his mum,’ I say, and Danny says, ‘You remind me of
your
mum, Archie – always dissecting other people’s lives. Can you leave it
out right now?’

I don’t say another word all the way back to Islington.

When he drops me off, the house is quiet and empty. Ludo and Atticus are still at school, their parents are out. I think about ringing Paige, seeing what I missed in English, but I can’t
be bothered. I text Oscar and Lily, but they don’t reply.

I’m like a spare part, an intruder. I don’t belong in London like they do. I don’t really belong anywhere.

I feel like a smoke, but I left my weed in Fulham. I’m running out, anyway. Oscar passed some on to me and I gave him money for more, but I really need to get my own supply.

I’m wandering around the house, like a burglar, picking up books which I might read one day, switching the television on and then off again. I can’t really concentrate.

I get out my phone and I google the name of the Young Offender Institution, along with 1500 metres record. And there he is – Luke Smith. The amazing story of the prisoner who beat the
country’s leading young athletes, exclusive to the
Daily Mirror
.

I don’t even hear my uncle George come back into the house.

‘Woah!’ I say, when he coughs and says, ‘Hey Archie. Hard at work? How was your visit?’

‘Rubbish,’ I say, and I fill him in. I show him the screen. ‘Look. He was right. He’s in a national paper.’

George whistles. ‘That’s bad. Grounds to move him immediately, I’d say. What a screw-up.’

‘I thought they were all in prison, the people out to get him.’

‘The main ones are – Tommy White and his henchmen – but they’ve got people working for them all over the place. Come and have a look. I’ve been doing some
research.’

‘Have you? Why?’

‘Well, it’s a good story, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘That’s what I do, find good stories, dig around a bit, write them up. I thought, with the family connection and
everything, that this might even make a book.’

Uncle George is a freelance journalist who does a lot for the BBC and for papers like the
Guardian
and the
Observer
. He’s not a tabloid hack or anything like that. But even
so.

‘Ty would hate that,’ I point out.

‘Hmmm. Well. It’s a bigger story than just Ty. Tommy White’s going to come to trial next year sometime and the BBC have already said they’re interested in a backgrounder.
Could make a
Panorama
. And maybe one day I can tell Ty’s story for him.’

Ty would never want that. So it’d only be possible if he were dead. I’m tempted to ask if Uncle George thinks that’s likely. I don’t.

‘Here you go,’ he says, handing over a file. ‘You two are good friends, aren’t you? Tell me if you think there’s stuff I’ve left out.’

What the hell? I’m not going to be anyone’s spy. If anyone’s writing Ty’s story, it’s going to be me.

‘Thanks,’ I say, but his phone rings. ‘Ah. Yes. We’d better go through his statement,’ he says. ‘Just put it all back when you’ve had a look, Archie. I
might be some time.’ And he heads off to his study.

I sift though the file.

There are cuttings from newspapers – the
Mail
, the
Sun
, the
Telegraph
– of the trial where Ty had to give evidence. Some bits are underlined. There’s a
police mugshot photo of a young guy with angry eyes and dark hair. There’s a page where Uncle George has drawn a diagram – like a family tree, but instead of births, marriages and
deaths, it’s linking weird names and numbers together. Hacknee Boyz. Ruby’s, The Nitebox, Roy’s Boxing Club, E5.

Roy’s Boxing Club. I’m sure Ty mentioned a boxing club once. I was impressed. It sounded dead hard and kind of Hollywood.

That’s the first bit. Then there’s a rubber-banded wodge of paper that’s all about Ty. Photocopied school reports from St Saviour’s (‘Quiet in class . . . needs to
speak up more.’ ‘More effort needed.’ ‘Tyler has a natural flair for languages, and has worked well in French this year’).

There’s a photo of Ty and the boy in the other picture – the police picture. They’re in school uniform, and they’re just walking down a road – I mean, it
doesn’t look like a posed picture, they’re not grinning for the camera or anything. Ty’s slightly behind the boy, head down. They look happy enough. You can see they’re
friends.

Looking at the newspaper cuttings, I can identify this boy. He’s called Arron Mackenzie and he’s the one who did the stabbing – the stabbing that Ty witnessed. According to the
newspapers, Arron Mackenzie ran a gang in Hackney. He was supplying drugs to boys at his school – St Saviour’s. He was mugging and stealing and dealing and all sorts.

And Ty was his best friend, had been forever.

I haven’t got a best friend like that. Oscar and Lily, they’re mates, but I always have this uneasy feeling that they’re more important to me than I am to them. I kind of
imagine it’d be great to have a close friend, someone to share stuff with, someone you can trust.

If your best friend was a drug-dealing mugger, then you’d be one too, wouldn’t you?

It’s three o’clock, so the twins will be home soon. They get picked up from school by a guy named Ferdy, who’s studying Taxidermy and funds it by babysitting. He’s OK,
Ferdy, actually very interesting on the subject of skinning weasels, but the twins are noisy and I can’t be bothered with them right now. And Uncle George is busy, so I can’t ask him
what it all means.

So I put everything back in the file, grab my jacket and my Oyster card and head out. It’s a five minute walk to Upper Street, which is like the main road through Islington. There are
loads of shops and cafes and things, including a massive Jack Wills (which, in case you’re not cool enough to know, is a shop which not only has really good clothes, but they all have JACK or
WILLS or JW on them so everyone knows they’re really good).

But I ignore all the interesting places. They make me feel soft and spoiled and ashamed. Ty didn’t grow up with a Jack Wills on every corner. Ty never had any money for this kind of stuff.
And then I see a bus coming along and it says Hackney on the front and without really thinking about it, I grab my Oyster card from my pocket and I swing onto the bus.

Islington isn’t really very far from Hackney (although it’s much, much nicer) so it only takes half an hour before I’m standing on the street where they had Ty’s
gran’s funeral.

There’s no Jack Wills here, no Next or Gap or Paperchase or Starbucks – nothing that you’d see in a normal shopping street. It’s African and Polish and Turkish and
Cypriot, all jumbled together – weird vegetables that I’ve never seen before, greasy shish kebab going round and round, Afro hair specialists, halal butchers.

I can smell spice and blood and rubbish bins. What am I doing? Why am I here?

And then I see it – Roy’s Boxing Club, a flyer on the church noticeboard. There’s an address – 43 Rodney Road – it can’t be far from here. How can I find out
where it is? Obviously in an area like this I can’t flash my iPhone around to use the GPS.

I spot a newsagent’s a few shops along the row. Patel’s, it’s called, like 90 per cent of corner shops in London. I push the jangling door open. The blood and rubbish smell
disappears. In its place is a strange mixture of old chocolate and bleach. There’s a rack of magazines, and then the rest of the shop is food – Pot Noodles, Custard Creams, cheese and
onion crisps. It’s like an oasis of Englishness in a multicultural world.

‘Can I help you?’ says the Asian man behind the counter. He’s looking at me very intently, almost staring.

‘Errr . . . no, I don’t think so.’ I feel a bit awkward. Maybe he thinks I’m a shoplifter. ‘I’m looking for Rodney Road. I think it’s around
here.’

He blinks. ‘It’s not far. . .’ He counts on his fingers. ‘Sixth on the left, other side of the road. Just past the Duke of York.’

‘Oh right, ‘ I say.

‘Why do you want Rodney Road?’

‘Oh, err . . . there’s a boxing club there. Thought I might check it out.’

He looks at me hard, one more time. What’s going on with this guy? Does he fancy me or something? Is he a raving paedo? I glance sideways and he says, ‘Watch out for yourself. There
can be trouble at that club.’

‘Oh right? Trouble?’

‘Yes . . . I knew a boy, about your age—’

And then his wife bustles out of the back of the shop with a question about someone’s
Women’s Weekly
and I seize my chance to escape.

The door jangles behind me, and I’m walking past the kebab shop, along to a big, dark pub (Happy Hour! Karaoke! Cocktail Nite!) and here we are. Rodney Road. And number 43 is a big box of
a building, metal shutters on the windows, a black side door and a buzzer marked ‘Ray’.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I hit the buzzer.

There’s a pause, then a woman’s voice crackles through. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s . . . my name’s . . . err . . . Kyle. I wanted to know about lessons.’ I make my voice as like Ty’s in the prison as I can. I sound ridiculous, sure, but she
lets me in, anyway.