The Norway Room (3 page)

Ashley looked at the keys. ‘It's like that story.'

‘You what?'

‘For kids. Princess. I think. Couldn't go into any of the rooms in the castle.'

Kieran just looked at him, like he was sorry for him. ‘You've got a number for me in your phone from the text?' Ashley nodded. ‘You notice anything? Anyone snooping round? Cars you don't know parked outside? Anything? Call me.'

‘I've got no credits.'

Kieran sighed, and gave him twenty pounds. ‘For calls to me only.' But you could tell from the way he said it, he knew he was wasting his breath. ‘This is serious, Ash. Do as you're told and you'll be okay. But.' And the finger was working again. ‘Screw things up for Crawford and you'll really be in the shit – buried in it. Understand? This isn't school now.'

Ashley nodded, then grinned. He liked Kieran.

3

She was there every time he went into the arcade. The cancer woman. Sitting feeding coins into a fruit machine. Always the same one – the third from the door in a row of eight. She was bald. Completely. Shiny. The lights from the machine reflected on her head. He knew that baldness – cancer. It reminded him of his nan. Chemo. It had got to be. Her proper name was Jackie, he heard the manageress call her that. The manageress's name was Alma.

A week after his dad got sent down he started going in every day. It was warm and there was a hot drinks machine. One day Alma said to him, ‘You're becoming a regular. Shouldn't you be in school?'

‘I'm sick.'

The cancer woman laughed. ‘Aren't we all, kid?'

‘Now, Jack. Stay positive.' Alma turned to Ashley. ‘How old are you?'

‘Old enough.' He moved towards a machine.

‘Cheeky young sod. If anyone checks, you told me you're sixteen. Right? Jackie heard you.' Jackie nodded her head without looking towards them and the huge gold hoops hanging from her ears waved.

‘Mind you, they'll probably tell me to get my eyes tested. I only let you in 'cause you come early,' Alma told him.

‘Okay.' He fished a quid out of his pocket.

‘And ten pound max.'

That took him less than ten minutes. He left a pound on the counter when he cashed in his tokens. ‘Ooh style. Ta, love.' Alma dropped the coin into her overall pocket. This was an investment, Ashley told himself; if he did this every time he reached the max, he knew she would increase it. Probably to twenty. And if he upped it to two then, it wouldn't be long before she lifted the max altogether. Let him on the big jackpots. An investment. He looked towards the cancer woman to say goodbye, but her head was down, red and blue light dancing on it.

‘Keep warm,' Alma called to him. ‘Brass monkeys out there.'

There was a girl at the park bus stop wearing a pink anorak.
Copacabana
was written in blue sequins on the back. Ashley recognised her: Sophie Lyons from school. Obviously wagging it. She was wearing jeans, but Ashley knew a lot of the girls changed straight out of school uniform in Kinny Park. It was probably in the bag she carried.

Ashley crossed the road and moved up behind her. He tapped her left shoulder and stepped to the right as she turned. He tapped the right shoulder and she turned back to face his pointing finger.

‘Caught ya.' He wagged his finger. ‘You're a naughty girl.'

‘Ashley Loop. Ya wanker. You scared the shit out of me.'

She was wearing lipstick, pink. And eye make-up, pale blue. She pouted. Made a pissed-off noise. Twisted her head so that her hair unfurled like a banner and swung around her head. Like hair in shampoo ads.

‘Caught ya. Waggin' it.'

‘Not,' she said through the returning hair.

‘Y'are. You should be in school.'

‘Listen to who's talking. I'm on home teaching.'

‘Yeah.'

‘I am. Three mornings a week. Asian lady, Mrs Syed.'

‘Why?'

She tutted. ‘I'm pregnant, stupid. Look.' She pulled her anorak up and let her hand trace the curve of her small bump. ‘Nearly twenty weeks,' she announced proudly.

Sophie sat on one of the small green seats inside the bus shelter. The ones that looked as if you should be able to move them, tip them back and forth, but you couldn't; rock solid; vandal-proof. Ashley sat next to her.

‘Got a spare?' Sophie asked. ‘I'm gaspin'. It's the only thing stops me feelin' sick till I've had me dinner.' Ashley took his cigarettes from his jacket pocket. Opened the pack so Sophie could see there were only two left. Pulled them out. Dropped the pack. Gave one cigarette to Sophie and stuck the other in his mouth. Fished his lighter from his trackies.

‘You got some money for some more?' she asked.

‘Yeah. I just won some at the arcade.'

‘How much?'

‘A tenner.'

‘Where you going now?'

‘Home s'pose. It's too cold to hang around here.'

‘You can come back to ours if you like, for a bit. Have a coffee.'

‘Where d'you live?'

‘The Mendy. Walton Tower. The thirteenth. Lucky for some.'

‘Is your mom in?'

‘She's at work. Greggs. Over there. The cake shop. That's where I've bin.' She tapped her bag. ‘To get me dinner. Sausage rolls. I love 'em. Can't get enough. Got four here. And an éclair. For the cream.'

‘All right then.'

They sat together at the back of the bus, which was occupied by only a few old ladies returning from shopping. It made its way along Pershore Road and at the big island disappeared into a tunnel of trees and bushes that led it over the canal bridge and on to the Mendelssohn Estate. Here the bus started its long journey across the estate, weaving its way through chains of maisonettes and between the standing stones of tall tower blocks.

‘Whose kid is it?'

Sophie lifted her left hand. A letter was scarred into each of the three middle fingers. Ashley peered in. ‘Tyr Hyde,' she announced. Ashley was glad she didn't mind the question. He hadn't known if you were supposed to ask. ‘D'you know who I mean? He left last year.'

‘Think so.'

Hyde was a big kid, not really trouble at school, but a big kid, strong, looked more like a man than a kid, people were wary of him. Ashley knew he belonged to Mendy West, one of the Mendy gangs, black kids only. But he seemed all right.

‘He's made Paige Crutchley pregnant too. She's due at Easter. But he doesn't have anything to do with her any more.'

‘Are you goin' out with him?'

‘Course.'

‘So, you love him?' Ashley said it in a funny voice. It was meant to embarrass Sophie but it didn't.

‘Course I do. D'you ever wash your trackies? Look at the state of them.'

The bus dropped them right outside Walton Tower. An Alsatian stood beside the grilled door to the shop at the foot of the tower. Sophie called to the animal. ‘Here, Sabre.' She snapped her finger. ‘Here, boy.' But the dog wasn't interested. ‘It's too cold,' she explained.

‘I'll get some fags.'

‘You can't here. She won't serve you. She's really strict like that. Nor booze neither.'

Sophie pressed some numbers on the security pad beside the double doors of the tower block. They buzzed and she pushed the doors open. A girl was coming out of the lift with a child in a buggy. ‘They've been pissin' in the lift again,' she said. ‘Is it very cold out?'

‘Freezing.'

The girl was right, the lift stank of piss. Sophie pressed 13. ‘Lucky for some,' she said again. ‘We might be leaving here. I don't want to. But Mel says—'

‘Who's Mel?'

‘My mom. She thinks it's a good chance for us to get a house. Me being pregnant and under sixteen. She says I shouldn't be in a place like this, pregnant, 'cause of when this thing breaks down.' The lift came to an unsteady halt and the doors opened. ‘They've offered us a place on the ground floor of Elgar, but a woman killed herself in there and Mel's funny about stuff like that.'

Ashley laughed when he saw the mirror that hung above the settee. ‘Is that lipstick?' Sophie had written
So 4 Ty
inside a heart, a little flower like a daisy with a long stalk curving beneath it.

‘I can't stop myself. Mel went stark when I did this.' She pushed a plant pot across the table revealing another heart scratched deep into its surface.

Ashley traced it with his finger. ‘What d'you do this with?'

‘Compass. From school. Same one I used for this.' She raised her hand.

‘A compass. On your skin. You'll get AIDS.'

‘Course I will.' She pouted at his stupidity. ‘I put it in disinfectant first.'

In the kitchen there were more hearts on the white tiles above the sink. ‘Mel wipes them off, but I just do 'em again.'

‘You're a nutter.'

‘I can't stop myself. You should see my bedroom.'

Sophie opened the fridge. ‘Do you want coffee or hot milk? I've got to drink lots of milk because I'm pregnant. But I hate it cold. Or we've got plenty of Coke.'

‘I'll have hot milk.'

Sophie took a carton of skimmed milk from the fridge and filled two mugs and put them in the microwave. She took the sausage rolls from her bag, cut each in half and arranged them in a circle on a plate. She filled the centre with tomato ketchup. She cut the éclair in half and put that on another, smaller plate. When the microwave pinged she replaced the mugs with the plate of sausage rolls.

The milk had boiled over leaving flaky fawn trails down the sides of the mugs.

‘I love that smell.' Sophie heaped spoonfuls of sugar into each cup and stirred vigorously. The sausage rolls were ready. ‘I'm havin' some whiskey in mine. D'you want some?'

‘Ta.'

They sat in the lounge, the plates between them. Sophie carefully lifted a piece of sausage roll, blew at it and dipped it into the ketchup. ‘Help yourself, but be careful, they're hot.'

‘You're as good as Jamie Oliver you are. This milk is nice.'

There was a tall column of catalogues in the corner of the room.
Littlewoods
. ‘Are those your mom's?'

Sometimes, quite unexpectedly, there was a sneer in Sophie's voice. ‘Well they're not mine, are they?' Ashley continued to munch his sausage roll. ‘She's an agent. Goes round every Sunday collecting.' Sophie's phone toned. She opened the text. ‘It's Tyr. He's coming round in a bit.' She saw the look on Ashley's face. ‘It's all right. You can stay.'

‘It sounds funny. As a name. Tyr. Car tyres.'

‘Short for Tyrone. I like it. It sounds better. Hard. Mel takes the piss, but she can talk. Every bloke she's had had a funny name.' Sophie laughed. ‘And she's had a few. She's a bit of a slag really. She works some nights at the Fir Tree, and she went out with a bloke from there called Ian Huntley.' Ashley had heard the name. ‘The murderer. Of those girls.'

‘Oh yeah.'

‘He hated it. Well, everyone took the piss. Always said he was going to change it. Officially. He just used to call himself E. Went mad if you called him Ian.' She giggled. ‘Threw a cup of tea at me once for that. So you've changed from a murderer to a drug, I said.' Ashley laughed with Sophie. ‘And she had a bloke called Linus. It's Irish. He wasn't. From Cannock. It's Gaelic. Mel used to call him Lingus. ‘Come on, Aer Lingus. Where you taking me?' When she said that he used to say, ‘I'm flying you to paradise with cunnilingus.' Sophie looked across the table at Ashley, a stare really. He rubbed pastry crumbs from around his mouth. ‘D'you know what that is?' She waited.

‘Course.'

‘What?'

‘Oral.'

‘That's right. Fanny kissing.' And she squealed with laughter. ‘You finished?'

Ashley lifted the remaining piece of sausage roll, wiped it through the ketchup and dropped it into his mouth. ‘Am now.'

Sophie removed the plate from the table, took it into the kitchen and returned with a cloth to clear the crumbs from the table. She cupped them carefully into her hand. ‘D'you want another drink with that éclair?'

‘Ta.'

‘There's not enough milk for us both to have a cup, so you'll have to have coffee, or tea.'

‘Tea. Two sugars.'

‘Whiskey in it?'

‘Ta.'

When she returned with the drinks Ashley was studying a photograph on the sideboard. ‘Is this your mom?'

Sophie came across to stand beside him. ‘Mel. Yeah. And that's the murderer. E.'

‘She looks young.' Mel's hair was pink and she wore big earrings like the cancer woman's. A stud in her chin and a bolt through her eyebrow.

‘It's a good photo. What's your mom like?'

He hesitated. ‘She's dead.'

‘Cancer?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Where?'

‘Dunno. My nan had it in the lung. But I don't know about my mom. Same probably.'

‘There's a woman on the fifteenth with breast. And one of Mel's mates, used to work at Greggs, she's got it. It's everywhere, breast.'

Sophie lifted a catalogue from the pile. ‘Look, let me show you what I am going to have.' She flicked through to the maternity clothes section and pointed out the outfits. Then she showed him the buggy and the cradle she wanted.

‘I like old names. Like Douglas. I really like that. For a boy.'

‘It's a last name. Michael Douglas. Kirk Douglas.'

‘And a first name. Like Thomas. Can be first or last. And Lazarus. That's from the Bible. I like that. You could have it for a girl too. And it sounds cool short. Laz.'

‘That's Polish.'

‘Course it is!'

‘It is. There's a bloke me dad knows. He's Polish, and he's called Laz.'

‘Where do you live?'

‘Cecil Road. Seventy-three.'

‘The old houses. By Stirchley.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Old Birmingham, Mel calls it. Says she likes Old Birmingham better than the estates. D'you get a lot of Asians round there?'

‘Not really. A lot of students.'

Tyr had a mate with him when he arrived. ‘What you brought him with you for?' Sophie moaned.

‘What you got him here for, man?' Tyr jabbed a finger at Ashley sitting on the settee, like he was throwing a dart. ‘He ain't from the Mendy, is he? And district.'

‘He's a friend.'

‘Well Geezbo my friend. Get used to it.'

‘Geezbo ain't from this manor neither,' Sophie countered.

Tyr was still pointing at Ashley. His finger held there. A hard look on his face. The words coming out of his mouth sideways. Ashley knew that look. Meant to be tough. Make him feel threatened. It didn't, and Tyr saw this. ‘Where he from?' He turned to Sophie so he could release himself from the pose with dignity.