Gun Dog (10 page)

I’m still holding the sodding Ruger, wrapped in its plastic bag as I get home. Only Sean is there. I pretty much ignore him even though he tries to say something to me. I just rush upstairs and hide the Ruger under my bed.

I’m slow coming back down the stairs, and Sean is still there, like he’s been waiting for me.

‘Where’s Catherine? And Mum?’

‘That’s what I was trying to tell you.
They’re over at Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret’s.’

Suddenly I feel cold, even though it’s warm in the house.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Somebody’s been having a go at them. Messed the house up. I saw it when I went past this morning. Mum and Catherine have gone over to help them clean it up.’

Somebody. Well I have a bloody good idea who
somebody
is, and there’s an itch at the back of my mind that can be scratched by fetching the Ruger from under my bed. I don’t do that of course.

‘Come on, let’s go over.’

Sean doesn’t need any encouragement, and pretty soon we’re walking at some pace through the breeze towards Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret’s house.

I can pretty much guess what’s
happened, but I still get Sean to give me the details as we walk. Sometime in the night, grey gloss paint has been thrown over the walls and windows of Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret’s house. Everything in the garden has been pulled up and thrown about, and there’s even paint on the lawn. And someone has been pissing in through their letter-box and they’ve also been shoving paper bags full of human shit through the letter-box too. And there’s shit smeared all over the front door.

Now I’m guessing that unless you actually live on an estate like ours you’re pretty shocked by that. But let me tell you, it doesn’t shock any of us. It sickens us, but it doesn’t surprise us. That’s just the sort of behaviour we’ve come to expect from the feral brutish louts that live among us. And there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. Not in the short term. Every now and then, you read in the papers about how a community has come together to gather evidence against a problem family, and eventually that family has been evicted and forced to move on. But the fact that these
stories make the papers at all just shows how uncommon these little victories are. And the fact that you don’t hear about them often shows how difficult it is to get that to happen. The worst thing is that when you really read these stories, it strikes you that the community has had to gather evidence for months and months. But in the meantime, decent people still have to suffer. People like Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret.

When we get to the house, I see that Catherine is standing on some steps, scraping grey paint off the front windows. The paint seems to be coming away easily enough, but that does not make me feel better. In the garden, Mum is helping Uncle Jack gather up the torn-out plants and shrubs and sweep loose soil from the lawn and back into the trampled borders. I no longer feel like crying, not even when I see Uncle Jack looking so utterly broken. I just feel cold. And angry.

‘Where’s Aunty Margaret?’

I guess I’m worried because I don’t see her.

Mum looks up from where she’s crouched down, gathering together some undamaged green plants.

‘She’s inside, making some tea.’

Mum looks bewildered, like she can’t believe anyone would behave like this. She should know better; she’s lived on this estate all of her life. She’s seen what it’s become.

I take a moment to gather my thoughts. Right now I would gladly see the entire Rogers family killed.

‘Has anyone called the police?’

Sean is right. The police should be here.

‘As soon as we got here, about half an hour ago.’

Catherine will have called them herself. It’s good that she’s here.

‘So where are they?’

I can hear the anger in Sean’s voice and I know that it won’t help.

‘You know what it’s like. They’ll get here when they can be bothered and not before. Go and make sure Aunty Margaret’s alright will you?’

Shit, but we shouldn’t have to live like this, in fear of scum like the Rogers family. But it’s just the way things are and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Down the street I see two kids in hooded sweatshirts riding BMX bikes. It makes me think of the kid who had shot me with the air pistol earlier. That kid had gone into the fortified house on that rough street before he’d shot at me. A lot of kids like that are used to distribute drugs and crap. They are at the bottom of the food chain sure enough, but some of them will be looking to move up that career ladder. I wonder how many of them aspire to be squalid drug lords, controlling territories like the Concrete 
Canyon, or estates like this one. I’d rather be dead than have nothing more than that to look forward to. I watch the kids on the bikes for a moment, long enough to see them approach a group of kids who are hanging out on a street corner. I can’t see from this distance whether or not any trivial business is transacted, but I’m guessing that it is. It’s the way things happen around here.

We clean and tidy the house and garden as best we can, leaving thick cardboard over the soiled hall carpet just behind the front door. As soon as we can, we’ll get Dad to seal up that letter-box, and put a new and more secure one, with a tough spring-loaded flap, higher up in the door. Aunty Margaret just can’t seem to stop crying, and who can blame her? And Uncle Jack just goes from bewilderment to anger, to sorrow, around and around until it becomes predictable. It’s almost impossible to console them, but we all of us sit in that living room, as often as not in silence, until the police have come and gone. We have to wait more than two hours.

Well of course the police were all gushing
sympathy, but you could tell that right from the start they weren’t really interested in doing anything. We all knew that the Rogers kids had done the damage, and Uncle Jack had even seen one of them standing and laughing in the street as he had opened the front door first thing this morning. But the police couldn’t and wouldn’t do more than take statements. That’s all they can do, is what they told us. There isn’t any evidence. And the upshot of it is that they are not even going to talk to the Rogers family. They’re not going to make any attempt to warn those bastards off. But if it was to happen again and we were able to gather evidence, then they’d be more than happy to intervene. I like that word, intervene, don’t you? Makes the police sound like mediators between criminals and victims, and not taking sides. That makes you feel safe, doesn’t it? It makes me think about how the police are described by a journalist who writes for one of the Sunday papers; paramilitary social workers is what he calls them. I’ve never really understood what he meant by that. Until now. And do you know what their advice is? You couldn’t make this up. Their
best suggestion is for Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret to get CCTV installed, like that’s the answer to everything. Well I guess it does save them having to do their job.

When we finally come to leave Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret’s place, long after the police have gone, I am past being angry. I think that all of us are in shock. It’s late as we open the front door. Uncle Jack is seeing us out, but Aunty Margaret can’t face coming to the door. As we stand on the steps outside, saying our subdued goodbyes, I notice Derek Rogers and a couple of his goblins standing across the road, watching us. You can just see the smirking untouchable arrogance of the little bastard and I want to kill him right there where he stands.

‘We’re only going to come back and do it again.’

Laughing. Untouchable. And they know it. They can roam wild, commit any crime. No one dares come out as a witness. Just one family, and because of the unwilling
impotence of the police, these are their streets and they can do as they like in them.

‘Wanna bet?’

It’s all too much for Sean. He’s down the path and vaulting the gate even as I’m calling him back. The Rogers kid turns and runs but Sean is quite the athlete and catches him quickly, throwing him against a metal lamp post. I’m running after Sean, hoping that he doesn’t lay into the Rogers kid.

‘You’re gonna stay away, or I’ll kill you.’

Sean says something like that – I can’t hear properly over my own breathing and my running footsteps – then throws the disgusting brat to the ground, where he inadvertently rolls in dog shit.

I take hold of Sean and lead him away, back to where Mum and Catherine are waiting for us down the road. I don’t blame Sean, but I can’t help thinking that our house could well be next now. I can hear
all the foul language and threats but I’m beyond paying them any attention. What’s done is done and we’ll just have to live with it.

We catch up to Mum and Catherine – well actually, they’re waiting for us – and we head for home with heavy hearts. We’re walking mostly in silence and it feels like the grey clouds and even the twilight air are closing in on us. And then suddenly, Catherine cries out. Her hands go up to the back of her head and she drops to the ground. She’s been hit on the back of the head by a huge rock, and as she lies there, moaning, we see the blood flooding from between her fingers. Behind us, we can see Derek Rogers and his friends running away fast, and I catch hold of Sean’s arm to stop him from following them. There’s a massive gash on the back of Catherine’s head, and I tell Sean to use his phone to call an ambulance as Catherine slips into unconsciousness. It’s all starting to get out of hand and there’s no one who can or will help us.

It’s late when we get home. The ambulance had come speedily enough, and thankfully, Catherine is OK. She regained consciousness quickly, but there was a huge flap of skin hanging off the back of her head and there was so much blood that all of us were scared. The paramedics managed to stem that and put a pressure pad over the wound, held in place by bandages. We arrived at the hospital Accident and Emergency unit within half an hour of the attack but we had to wait for two hours before anyone saw Catherine. The staff seemed overwhelmed but it didn’t stop us feeling helpless and concerned.

While we were waiting, the police came and took a statement from us. We identified Derek Rogers, but after they left, I can’t say I felt confident that anything would be done. Mum was crying a bit, and Catherine was pretty groggy and subdued and obviously in a great deal of pain. Eventually, she saw a doctor and her wound was stitched up and a huge bandage was wound around her head. Sean had called Dad, and he came to bring us all home.

As we are walking up the path to our front door, I am in front, and I see it first. The word ‘grass’ has been written in paint, in big letters over the door. My legs almost fail me when I see it. I feel sick. The words that Sammy Williams shouted at me as he was forced into the police car earlier in the day ring in my ears. I’d forgotten about all that. I’d forgotten all about the bloody Ruger. Oh fuck, what is happening to us? What have I done?

It’s early on Sunday morning and I’m the only one up and about. Actually, I haven’t been to bed at all. I’m thinking that we are all in trouble. Mum, Dad, Sean, me. Perhaps not Catherine; she already has a bolt-hole to run to. She has Brighton and university. But the rest of us – just where can we run?

Dad was going spare all night and he called the police about the paint on our door, but they are not sending anyone out. There’s nothing they can do anyway. And when they asked him if he’d like them to get someone from victim support to contact him, he nearly exploded with frustrated rage and slammed the phone down.

I find myself constantly looking out the front windows. I think that maybe I’m looking out for the next attack. I should have got rid of the gun earlier. I should have found Sammy and given it to him as soon as I’d known about Big Roddy being killed. At least we wouldn’t be targeted for being grasses. I keep thinking of the kind of people that run the Concrete Canyon, and even the fortified house in that street not so far from here on this very estate. There can be no reasoning with people like that and no protection from the police. No one can look out for us twenty-four hours a day. I’m really scared. And that’s before I think about what the feral Rogers family might have in store for us now.

Looking out of the window I see our neighbour, Alan, striding up his garden path, the two spaniels obediently following him. Gun dogs. I’m thinking about how I’d told myself that I was a gun dog when I was carrying the Ruger. Stupid to think that way, I reckon now. I hate that stupid gun now. I watch Alan usher the dogs into the back of his car, I watch him slide his
shotgun in beside them. I watch as he pulls out into the road and silently glides away without a care in the world. Well that’s OK; I feel that I have cares enough for all of us.

In the afternoon, we’re all sitting around with the television on, but I don’t think any of us are really watching it. We’ve been a quiet house, and Catherine has stayed in bed until really late. She slept in my room – which used to be her room. It makes me sick to see her head all wrapped up in that bandage. Even Dad is pretty subdued and I get the feeling that he’s staying quiet for the sake of Mum and Catherine and all of us really. But I know he feels like he ought to be out there knocking somebody’s head in. He’s talked about going round to the Rogers’ house, but we’ve managed to talk him out of it. I think he feels that he should be doing something for Catherine – and to a lesser degree, perhaps, Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret. But Dad is a true family man and he understands that his responsibility to us means that
he has to control his instinct for revenge. He probably doesn’t use those words to himself, but that is what’s happening. The way we’re all sitting here, none of us wanting to talk much, and none of us going out, I feel like we’re prisoners. Prisoners in our own home.

I’ve called Rebecca to call off our date for tonight. We need to stay together as a family and I just can’t go out and try to enjoy myself the way things are. Actually, Rebecca was really wonderful about it. She was mortified to hear what had happened to Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret and to Catherine. She was so understanding and she even offered to come around and spend an evening with us, but I told her that it would be best to do that another time. I feel like we are under siege.

It’s about seven o’clock when the knock comes at the door. I answer it and it’s the police, two of them, a man and a woman. I think that they’ve come to talk about what happened to Catherine, or about the vandalising of our front door. But when
they come into the living room, what they tell us rocks us all to the core. Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret have been found dead in their living room. It’s pretty obvious that they couldn’t come to terms with what had been happening to them over the last few days. And this lovely old couple, who had lived here their whole lives, found themselves unable to bear living with what this place had become. They’d swallowed a bottle of pills apiece and had found a final peace in each other’s arms. I’m not going to describe our reaction to this news; you can paint your own picture.

Now, in the early hours of the morning, I’m a gun dog once again and I’m out on the streets with the Ruger in my pocket and I’m feeling that enough is enough. I’m approaching the Rogers’ house.

I’m carrying a can of petrol, one we keep in the shed to fill the lawnmower. And I have some rags and a cigarette lighter. I’m pretty clear about what I’m going to
do. I’m going to burn that bloody house out. Then the stinking Rogers bastards will have to move out. I can only hope that they’re re-housed in the Concrete Canyon, where they belong. Enough is enough.

Up at the front door and it’s eerily quiet. I soak the rags I’m carrying in petrol and then I pour the rest of the petrol in through their letter-box. God but there’s a lot of it. Strangely, I don’t feel the least bit tense or worried. I’m carrying all the protection I need in my pocket. Ruger P95 9mm
semi-automatic
centre-fire with twelve rounds in the magazine.

I set fire to the petrol-soaked rags and hastily shove them in through the letter-box. It all goes up quicker than I’d expected. I retreat to the far side of the road and I watch for a while until I see the whole front door go up in yellow flames. It’s a lot fiercer and a lot quicker than I’d expected. I look up and I see one of the hated Rogers family looking down at me from an upstairs window and, for the first time, it occurs to me that they might all
be trapped upstairs. They might die. And honestly, I don’t feel a thing about that.

It turns out that the Rogers family survived the blaze. Some of them anyway. I’m at home, wishing like crazy that I hadn’t done what I did. Two of the Rogers clan are battering at our front door. A brick has come through our front window. There’s screaming and foul language.

Dad is shouting from upstairs, and Sean is yelling, asking what’s going on. Dad will be dressed soon, and coming downstairs. And there is Catherine and Mum to consider. This is a problem of my making so it’s up to me to sort it out.

I throw the front door open and there is the brutish Rogers father, ten feet away, contorted with rage and holding a huge piece of wood. The Ruger is out of my pocket faster than even I could imagine it. Fourteen pounds of pressure on the trigger cocks the hammer and fires the first round.
The big bastard goes down, a big hole blown in his thigh. And suddenly the whole street is quiet. There are neighbours all around, just staring, and this monster rolling on the floor and bleeding and his eldest son just staring at the gun in my hand. Not so tough now are you, you bottom-feeding mouth-breathing pig is all I’m thinking.

Behind me I can sense my dad and Sean, but I don’t turn to face them. The only thought that’s running through my mind is that I won’t be going to Brighton now and I almost laugh at the absurdity. That’s the least of my problems. I’m never going to escape this place the way that Catherine did. This place must have been too much a part of me all along. I am a product of this miserable environment and it’s only now, too late, that I realise it.

It must only be moments and the silence is broken, not with a bang, but with the gradually approaching sirens of police cars. I’m conscious of the gun still held loose in my right hand, and I can see the flashing of the blue lights down the road long before
I see the cars themselves. They’re here now though, quick enough. Nowhere to be seen when Uncle Jack and Aunty Margaret needed them, but they’ll go out of their way to deal with a mad dog. And that’s just what I am now, I suppose; a mad dog. A gun dog.