Blast from the Past

33

Peter watched as the tail-lights of the police car disappeared around the corner at the end of the road, the spiteful red dots dragging great bloody streaks along behind them in the glistening reflection of the wet road.

Twice now Peter had been forced to retreat into the shadows as passing cars had disturbed his desperate efforts to recover his knife. Once it had been a carful of yobbos, drunken revellers shouting into the night. Their car had hurtled into the road at speed. Peter had been on all fours and had had to roll out of the gutter onto the pavement. The souped-up white Sierra had screeched past, sending up an arc of spray, further soaking Peter’s retreating body. Another second, a moment’s hesitation, a slower reaction, and all Polly’s problems with the Bug would have been over. But he survived, wetter, dirtier and angrier. The Sierra sped on, its reckless driver unaware of how close he had been to killing a man.

Peter retrieved his coathanger and returned to his task, but no sooner had he done so than a police car appeared, not screeching and hurtling but prowling. He sat on the kerb and waited for it to pass. It seemed to take for ever, slowing to a crawl as it drew parallel with him. He put his head in his hands and ignored it. The police officers inside the car repaid the compliment. A few years previously they might have investigated, but the night streets were now so full of people with nowhere to go that if the police looked into every sad-looking case they passed they would never get more than two hundred yards from their station.

When the coppers had gone and he had the street to himself again Peter knelt once more in the filthy gutter and resumed his delicate task. It was clear to him that if he dislodged the knife it would fall completely out of reach. He would have only one chance to touch it with his wire. Hook it, or knock it away for ever.

“Peter! What on earth do you think you’re doing!”

He spun around, dropping his piece of wire, which fell with a tiny clatter into the drain.

“Mum!”

“Get up out of the gutter!” Peter’s mother said. “You’re filthy and you’re soaking. What’re you doing? Are you drunk?”

Peter had been gone so long that his poor mother, unable to sleep, had come out searching for him. She had known where to look, of course. There was only one place he would have gone at that time of night. She felt so angry, even though she knew that he couldn’t help it. It was all starting again. Just when she had hoped that perhaps he was getting over his madness it was all starting again.

“I dropped my knife, Mum.”

“Good. You shouldn’t have had it, anyway. You know they’re illegal. What were you doing with it in the first place?”

“Just playing with it.”

“Playing with a knife? In her street? A knife, Peter! What if you were caught?”

Sometimes Peter’s mother just wanted to break down and weep. She really did not know how much more of it she could bear. If that woman thought she had it hard, she should try being his mother.

Peter refused to go home. His mother tried ordering him, reasoning with him, pleading with him, but he was adamant. She stepped forward into the flowing gutter and reached out to him. Her shoe filled instantly with filthy water. Peter merely drew away.

“Come home, Peter!” His mother pleaded one more time.

“I’ll come home when I’ve got my knife back,” was all he would say.

She gave up. There was nothing she could do. She cried all the way home, her tears mixing with rain, making her half blind.

Peter went back to the builder’s skip to root out another piece of wire.