Another Life (3 page)

‘What the hell did they think they were doing,’ says Danny, ‘putting him in prison, for that . . . for nothing? For carrying a knife. Jesus.’

Nicki’s staring into her coffee. ‘Oh come on,’ she says. ‘Why wouldn’t they? We all know what happens when young lads run around with knives. People get killed.
Ty’s bright enough to know he was doing wrong. I’ve warned him, all his life I’ve warned him. “Don’t get into trouble,” I told him. “Don’t get in
with the bad boys. Keep your head down, keep out of trouble, work hard at school.” Don’t blame
me
for this. It’s not
my
fault.’

‘No one says it’s your fault,’ says Grandpa, ‘least of all Ty. I’m sure he knows very well that this is all his own mess. But to put him in prison – I mean,
what do they expect to achieve? The most likely thing is that it’ll set him off on a life of crime. Those Young Offender Institutions, they’re like academies of crime. Community
service, surely, would’ve been more appropriate.’

‘Thanks a lot, Dad,’ says Danny, glaring furiously across the table.

‘I’m going to ring your mother,’ says Grandpa, completely oblivious. ‘She’ll want to know what’s happened.’

He can’t get a signal on his mobile in the café, so he goes outside. Danny puts his arm around Nicki.

‘It’ll be OK,’ he murmurs into her hair. ‘Six weeks he’ll serve, just six weeks. It’ll be OK.’

Ty’s gran is shovelling mashed banana into the baby’s gaping mouth. Her face is candle-pale and little drops of sweat bead her forehead.

The baby spits and dribbles the banana, and in the end Ty’s gran gives up and hands her a biscuit.

‘How’s your mum, Archie love, how are the family?’ she asks – she used to be my mum’s nanny back in the olden days – but when I start telling her about
everyone, tears streak down her face again and she disappears into her tissue.

‘What’s going to become of him?’ she wails. ‘Poor Ty – he’s been doing so well . . . really settled down . . . running again . . . working hard for his GCSEs.
. .’

I look over the other side of the table for help, but Danny and Nicki are having a long, intense, whispered conversation, heads together, his arm round her. Grandpa’s still outside.
It’s my job to try and cheer her up.

‘Umm . . . I’m sure he’ll be OK,’ I say. ‘I read somewhere that Young Offender Institutions are actually really good places. You get PlayStation and everything
– television in your cell. It’s actually meant to be more like a holiday camp nowadays. That’s what this man said in my dad’s newspaper.’

‘Oh,’ she says faintly. Her breathing’s a bit rattly. ‘A holiday camp? Really?’

‘Actually it sounded better than my boarding school,’ I say, savouring another loaded forkful of egg and chips. ‘We only got television for two hours on a Saturday evening. And
we had to pray all the time. I bet they don’t make them pray at all in a Young Offender Institution.’

Oh-oh. I forgot Ty’s gran is a holy roller bible-thumper. She gasps and puts her hand on her chest like I’ve punched her.

‘A priest. . .’ she says, and then falls silent, apart from her noisy breathing. Maybe she’s asthmatic.

Nicki breaks off her heart-to-heart. I’m gazing at her. I can’t help it. So is every man there. She’s got shiny dark red hair and huge blue eyes, and you can quite clearly see
a hint of white lace bra under her silky blouse when she leans over towards me – as she’s doing now. Jesus.

Sometimes there are moments when you have to keep your mind off things . . . you know . . . and I find the London Underground very useful. The Bakerloo line is particularly calming. Elephant and
Castle. Lambeth North.

Nicki pokes me in the chest, quite painfully, and says, ‘Look, Archie, can’t you see she’s upset? Don’t make things worse, for heavens’ sake.’

‘I’m not making things worse at all,’ I say, thrilled that she’s touched me, and then Danny shrugs and says, ‘Hard to see how things could be worse. The lawyer said
Ty might be able to ring tonight. Let’s hope that’s soon.’

‘There you are,’ I say. ‘They didn’t let us phone home for two solid weeks when we got to school. Meant to be unsettling. It does sound like they have it easier than
us.’

Ty’s probably making friends and looking around, playing PlayStation or watching telly and can’t be bothered to phone home and get shouted at for something that wasn’t his
fault at all, i.e. getting sent to prison when he ought to have got community service instead.

Ty’s gran gasps again, and now the sweat is trickling down her forehead. It’s a bit embarrassing. Nicki sniffs and looks away and Danny rolls his eyes. I don’t know why.
I’ve just been reassuring them.

Grandpa comes striding back into the café, and straight away he says, ‘Good God! Are you all right? Someone call an ambulance!’

And I’m just wondering who the hell he’s talking to, when Ty’s gran groans and slumps forward, face down, splat into the mashed banana.

I
try to talk to the people at the court, but no one listens to me. They put me in a cell – white-walled, smelling of bleach and piss –
and say, ‘Tell it to the officers when you get there.’

I try to talk to the security guards who put me in the van. ‘I’m in witness protection,’ I say, ‘and the thing is—’

They don’t want to know either. ‘Shut up,’ says one, ‘and put your hands out in front of you.’ He pulls out some cuffs, locks me into them. The metal bites my
wrists and makes me feel – I don’t know – like a slave, subhuman, expelled from normal life.

In the back of the van there are compartments – long, tall, thin compartments, like a cross between a coffin and a Portaloo. There’s a little shelf to sit on, and that’s it.
There’s no seatbelt or anything, and it’s incredibly hot and I can feel my breath bunching in my throat.

‘What if I need to pee?’ I ask the guy, and he laughs and says, ‘That’s your problem.’

And then we drive and drive and drive, and I can hear one guy retching, which makes me feel sick, and I’m boiling hot and sweating in floods and hurting all over and just trying to focus
on breathing – breathing and enduring – as though I was running, except with none of the joy and freedom.

And I try not to think about who might be waiting for me at this prison.

Arron, who I put away for murder.

Or Jukes, who’s already tried to kill me once.

Or even Mikey, because my evidence got him put away as well.

I told the truth. It’s nearly killed me four times already. It’s put me in constant danger.

Was it worth it?

I don’t know how many Young Offender Institutions there are in London. I’ve only heard of one or two. I’m trying to remember which one Arron was in – I can’t
– but what if there are only two or three in the whole country? What will I do if they’re all there waiting for me?

That can’t be true. It can’t be. Politicians are always banging on about locking people up. They’ve got to have loads of places to put them. It’s probably really
incredibly unlikely that anyone ever ends up with anyone they know.

Probably.

I’ve known this could happen ever since they charged me. I’ve done really well at blocking it, all these months. I’ve been running and studying and babysitting. But I
can’t block it any more.

The only good thing is that worrying about what might happen when I get there stops me thinking about Mum and Gran and Alyssa and everything else I left behind.

The van stops, and I wonder if it’s a service station or whether we’ve arrived. Then the guard comes round and opens the doors and tells me to get out. I’m a bit dizzy and I
stumble as I hit the ground. He shoves me back into place.

‘No funny business,’ he growls.

And then they take me inside and take off the cuffs and hand me over to a uniformed officer.

‘Luke Smith,’ he says.

‘Yes, but, you see I’m. . . ’

He glances at me. ‘You’re what?’

‘I’m . . . errr. . .’

What if the gangsters have got their own guys on the staff of this prison? It’s possible, isn’t it? After all, that’s how they found out where we were living before. They paid
some girl who was working in the witness protection office. What if they’re paying this man?

‘I need to pee,’ I say, and he says, ‘That’ll have to wait.’

The room they take me into is quite large, and there are a few other guys there. They’re mostly older than me – eighteen, nineteen, maybe. Some look nervous. Some look bored.

‘You new?’ says one, in a Liverpool accent, and I nod warily, because obviously I’m new, and he says, ‘I mean, this is your first time?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How’d you like the sweatbox?’

‘The what?’

‘Sweatbox. Van.’ He glances at my wet hair and shirt. ‘Hot, eh? Even in November.’

‘Yeah, it was.’

‘What’re you in for?’

‘Carrying a knife,’ I say and he whistles and says, ‘Unlucky. You’d normally get off with a bit of community service for that. I did six months of cleaning graffiti last
year. Mind you, it was a right pain, had to get up when it was still dark. And I don’t like them electronic tags, they bring out my eczema.’

‘What’re you in for?’ I ask. He seems OK. Friendly, even.

‘Burglary,’ he says. ‘Cops caught me climbing out of a bathroom window.’

One by one the guys are being called to a desk. They have a short conversation with an officer there, and then they’re sent through a door. No one comes back.

‘What happens through there?’ I ask him.

He grins. ‘Don’t you know? You’re going to get a surprise.’

‘What?’

‘Nah, not telling. Wait and see.’ His smile isn’t so friendly. He’s laughing at me.

I can’t believe I’m here, can’t believe this is real. But I look at my wrists. They’re bleeding where the cuffs rubbed my skin. This is happening right now, and
it’s happening to me. And there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

They call my name – my Luke Smith false name – and I go forward to the desk. The guy consults his paperwork and asks if I’m OK.

‘You’re one of the youngest here,’ he says. ‘I should tell you that it’s a frightening experience at first, but there are people here to support you. It is not an
adult prison. We recognise that you are a minor.’

I almost tell him. I almost lean forward and tell him that I’m in witness protection and I’m shit scared that the prison will be packed with the people I’m hiding from. He
seems nice. He actually smiles at me.

But that’s just what he’d do if he was spying for the gangsters.

And then he says, ‘Go through that door and take off all your clothes. Put them in the box provided. Then walk through the second door and someone will meet you there.’

I think I’ve misheard. ‘You mean everything except underwear, yeah?’

He shakes his head. ‘We need to search you. You’ll be given everything you need afterwards.’

If the cuffs made me feel like a slave, then getting naked and having men looking at me – touching me – makes me feel like a piece of meat. Except that a piece of meat doesn’t
feel anything. And I do.

When the judge said I was being sentenced to twelve weeks in custody, she never said one word about having someone put on rubber gloves and stick a finger up my bum.

I swear, that’s what they do. They should tell you. They should say, ‘We’re going to lock you away, but first we’ll assault you.’ I bet there’d be an outcry.
I bet MPs would get up in parliament and talk about human rights and stuff.

Who am I kidding? They’d probably say it should happen more often.

I look around for my box of clothes afterwards, but they hand me a pile of stuff and say, ‘Get dressed.’ And that’s when I realise that I’m going to have to wear boxers
and socks that some other guy was in last week. It’s disgusting. I’m grateful to be covering myself up, but the thought of it makes me want to heave. I mean, I’m used to wearing
second-hand stuff – Mum got a lot of my clothes from Help the Aged – but never
underwear.

I retch when I’m putting it on, but nothing comes out, and I take a deep breath and try and think of something else. Nothing comes to mind, though. Normality doesn’t exist any
more.

The T-shirt is bright orange and the trackie bottoms are grey – not a great combination. There are jeans and a blue shirt as well, grey socks, white trainers, which smell new and cheap and
pinch my heels.

‘We’re going to take your photo now,’ says an officer, and he takes me into a corner, lines me up against a wall. I remember all those times I’d been told to smile for
the camera. Birthdays. School photos. First communion. Photos are for happy times, aren’t they? Photos are there to remind you that you’re growing and doing good and achieving stuff.
Who knew they’d want a photo when you’re hardly feeling human any more?

There’s only one way to deal with this. It’s not me that they’re looking at. It’s some stupid, stupid guy called Luke who didn’t have the brains to realise that
putting a knife in your pocket could lead to handcuffs and rubber gloves and having to wear minging boxers which must’ve been worn by hundreds of other people.

They let me use the loo, and then I have to talk to another person – a big guy, with a beard. Mr Wilde, he’s called.

‘I’m your key worker,’ he says. ‘I’ll be sorting out your education programme, and keeping an eye on you generally. If you’ve got a problem, you need to talk
to me about it.’

This is my moment. But I’m so tired that I don’t think I could get any words in the right order, even if I thought it was safe to talk about what’s bothering me.

‘Do you want to call home?’ he asks.

I suppose I’d better. I don’t really want to hear what my mum has to say. But when I call, the phone rings and rings and no one answers. Maybe she’s turned it off. Maybe she
doesn’t want to hear from me.

He’s reading through my file.

‘Ah. I see. We’ve got a problem, haven’t we?’

I freeze. What does it say?

‘You’ve been in witness protection. You must be nervous about coming in here.’

Someone knows! I’m half relieved, half terrified. I nod, watch his hands as they flick through the papers.