What Came Before He Shot Her

Chapter

13 When Ness deserted her brothers on that day in Paddington, she didn’t leave the railway station at once. Instead, she paused behind a sandwich kiosk, using the excuse of lighting up a cigarette that she’d nicked from Kendra. As she dug in her bag for matches, though, she also eased her way around the kiosk so that she had a view of the WH Smith. Although it was crowded within the shop, she had no trouble picking out Joel. He was dutifully heading for the magazines, his shoulders slumped as they generally were and Toby in his wake as he always was.

Ness waited until Joel was in the queue at the till, his purchases in hand, before she went on her way. She couldn’t see what his choice was from among the various magazines on offer, but she knew he’d get something appropriate for their mother because she also knew that was just who Joel was: dependable and dutiful to a fault. He was also capable of pretending whatever he needed to pretend in order to get through the day. But as for herself, she was through with pretending. Pretending had got her exactly where she was at that moment, which was nowhere. Pretending changed nothing, and it especially did not change how she felt inside, which was full to bursting, as if her blood might seep through her skin.

Had she been asked to do so, Ness couldn’t have put another name to that feeling of being full. She couldn’t have named it simply as a child might: full of mad, bad, sad, or glad. She couldn’t have named it more complexly: full of the milk of human kindness, full of compassion, full of the love one might have for a helpless baby or an innocent kitten, full of righteous anger at an injustice, full of rage at life’s inequities. All she knew was that she felt so full that she had to do something to relieve the pressure building up within her. This pressure was a constant in her life, but it was one that had been increasing dangerously since the moment she’d sat in the audience of that ballet with the environment assaulting her and no way of explaining why she could not remain and watch those dancers bourrée across the stage.

She needed to do something. That was all she knew. She needed to run, she needed to push over a rubbish bin, she needed to snatch an infant out of its pram and trip its mother, she needed to push an old lady into the Grand Union Canal and watch her sink, she needed a way to get rid of the full. She began by leaving the environs of the sandwich kiosk and making her way to the ladies’ toilet.

Twenty pence was required to get inside. This fact made Ness so unaccountably angry that she kicked the turnstile and then crawled beneath it, not because she didn’t have the money but because the railway station’s demanding it of someone wanting to have a simple wee, for God’s sake, seemed suddenly outrageous to her, a final straw and she the camel. She didn’t even look around to make sure no one was watching her on hands and knees effecting her marginally illegal entry. She wanted to be seen doing it, in fact, so that she could allow her indignation a physical manifestation. But no one was there to see her, so she went inside and used the toilet.

An inspection of herself in the mirror came next, and this told her adjustments in her appearance were called for. She attended first to the top she was wearing, pulling it down and tucking it more deeply into her jeans so as to reveal the swell of her breasts dangerously close to the nipple. She scrutinised her makeup and decided that her skin was dark enough but more lipstick was called for. From her bag she brought out a tube long ago pinched from Boots, and this action—just the tube of lipstick coming to rest in her hand—reminded her of Six and Natasha. But the thought of her erstwhile friends produced a renewed surge of that damnable fullness. This time, the pressure was such that her hands shook. When she tried to apply the lipstick, she broke it and then felt the horror of certain tears.

Tears meant a release of pressure and an end to the fullness, but Ness didn’t know that. Instead, she knew tears only as a sign of defeat, as the last resort and potentially the last gasp of the terminally weak and the decidedly conquered. So instead of weeping, she flung the ruined lipstick into the bin, and she left the ladies’ toilet.

Outside the station, she made her way to the bus stop, where the vicissitudes of London Transport forced her into fifteen minutes of waiting for a number 23 bus. When one finally came along, she elbowed past two women with pushchairs who were struggling to get onto the vehicle and she told them to fuck themselves when they asked her to stand aside and let them on first. It was crowded within and overly hot, but she didn’t climb to the upper deck as she would have done with Joel and Toby. Instead, she moved towards the back of the lower deck and placed herself near the exit doors, from which position she would at least get a breath of fresh air when the doors swung open at each stop. She clung on to a pole as the bus lurched back into the traffic and found herself eye to eye with an old-age pensioner, hairs bursting from his nose and his ears like minuscule antennae.

He had a seat on the aisle. He smiled at her, what appeared to be a grandfatherly smile until he dropped his gaze to her chest. He kept it there long enough to telegraph what he was looking at, and then raised his glance once again to capture hers. His tongue came out and made the circuit of his lips: the first, white with some kind of unappealing coating, and the second, colourless and cracked. He winked.

“Fuck off. ” Ness made no attempt to keep her voice down. She wanted to turn away from him, but she didn’t dare, as that would have left her unprotected. No, she needed her eyes on him, so she kept them there. If he made a move, she would be ready.

But nothing more happened. The old man gave her breasts one more look, said, “My goodness,” and shook out a folded tabloid. He adjusted it in such a way that the Page Three girl was well on view. Ness thought, Fucking bugger, and as soon as the bus lumbered to the stop nearest Queensway, she got off.

She didn’t have far to go, and she attracted a fair amount of attention on her way. Queensway was bustling with shoppers, but even so, Ness was something different. Her revealing clothing—some of it skimpy and some of it tight—demanded notice. Her expression and her gait, the first haughty and the second confident, succeeded in creating the impression of a female set on seduction. In combination, these elements allowed her to project such an air of danger that she was safe from approach, which was what she wanted. If any approaching was to be done, she would be the person to do it.

When she came to a chemist’s shop, she ducked inside. Like the pavement outside, it was crowded. The cosmetics were as far from the door as possible, but that provided a challenge that Ness had no difficulty in taking up. She went directly to the display of lipstick and made a brief study of the colours. She chose a deep burgundy, and without bothering to glance around to make certain she was not being watched, she slid the lipstick into her bag at the same moment as she reached to inspect another colour. She spent a few more minutes in the shop with her heart pounding loudly in her ears before she made her way to the door. In a moment, she was outside on the pavement and moving down the street in the direction of Whiteley’s, her mission accomplished.

It was a simple thing, really: the pinching of a lipstick on a day when the rest of the world was shopping and creating a diversion by their sheer numbers. By all rights, Ness shouldn’t have felt particularly triumphant. But she did feel that way. She felt like singing. She felt like stamping her feet and crowing. She felt, in short, completely different from the way she’d felt when she’d entered the shop. The rush of delight that washed through her seemed to alter her very substance, as if she’d taken a drug instead of merely breaking the law. Finally, she felt released from the pressure that had been filling her.

She strutted. She giggled. She laughed aloud. She would, she decided, do it again. She’d head towards Whiteley’s, where the pickings were better. She had hours before Joel and Toby would return to Paddington station.

That was when she saw Six and Natasha, just as she crossed over the road. They were tripping along with their heads together and their arms entwined. There was a little stumble to their gait that suggested they’d been drinking or drugging.

High with the success of her venture, Ness decided the time had come to bury whatever hatchet the past few weeks had produced among them. She called out to them good-naturedly, “Six! Tash!

Where you been?”

The two girls stopped. Their faces altered from expectant to wary when they saw who’d hailed them. They gave each other a look, but they maintained their ground as Ness approached.

“Happenin?” Six said with a nod at Ness. “You ain’t been round f ’r a while, Moonbeam.”

Ness read this slight rewriting of their mutual history as a peace offering. She made no attempt to correct it. She accepted it instead as given and sought her cigarettes. Custom suggested she offer one to each of the girls, but she hadn’t taken enough of her aunt’s Benson & Hedges to make this possible, so instead of lighting up and offending them when it seemed she had an opening with them, she brought out her newly pinched lipstick instead. She took it from its packaging and twisted the base till the cylinder of colour was fully extended and looking vaguely obscene. She played with it a bit, in and out and in and out, and gave her former friends a grin before she turned to the window of the nearest shop and used it as a mirror. She applied the colour and inspected her lips. She said, “Well, shit. Dat looks like I been eating roadkill, innit,” and she tossed the new lipstick into the street. It was a more-where-that-came-from kind of gesture.

“Got dat shit off th’ chemist up near Westbourne Grove. I should’ve nicked ’bout five of ’em, it so easy, you know wha’ I mean? So. Wha’ you two doing?”

“Not pinchin shit from Boots, an’ dat’s for sure,” Six said. It was a warning sign, but it was not sufficient to deflate Ness entirely. She said with a grin, “Why? You changed your lyin and thievin ways, den, Six? Or you got a man providin for you now?”

“Don’t need a man to get wha’ I want,” Six replied, and to demonstrate her point, she brought out a mobile phone and examined it, as if a pressing text message had just come in.

Ness knew she was meant to admire the mobile. It was part of the ritual. Cooperatively, she said, “Nice, dat. Where’d you get it, den?”

Six cocked her head and looked smug. Tash was less cool. She said with evident pride, “Got dat off a white girl over Kensington Square. Six go up to her, says, ‘Hand dat over, cunt,’ an’ I get behind her case she t’ink ’bout runnin off. She start to cry, an’ she say, ‘Oh please. My mummy going to be so cheesed off I got her phone nicked,’ and Six jus’ grab it and we push her down. Time she get up, we halfway to the high street. Easy as anyt’ing, wa’n’t it, Six?”

Six punched in a few numbers. She said to Tash, “Got a fag?” Tash obediently fished around in her bag and handed over a packet of Dunhills. Six took one, lit up, and handed the cigarettes back. When Tash began to extend them to Ness, Six said, “Tash,” in a way that told her what she was meant to do. Tash looked from Six to Ness, then back to Six. Knowing on which side her metaphorical bread was buttered, she stowed the Dunhills.

Six said into the mobile, “Hey, baby. Wha’s happenin, den? You got summick for your mummy or wha’? . . . Hell no. I ain’t going dat far. Wha’ you ’spectin to get off me I come all dat way? . . . In Queensway wiv Tash . . . Yeah, me and Tash c’n do dat, you got substance to make it worthwhile for us, y’unnerstan. Otherwise . . .” Six listened for a longer moment. She shifted her weight to one hip and tapped her foot. She finally said, “No way, mon. Me and Tash come all dat way, we too damn knackered to . . . Hey, don’t talk nasty or I sort you, baby. Me and Tash both set on you, and den you be sorry, innit.” She laughed and gave Nastasha a wink. For her part, Natasha merely looked confused. Six listened a moment longer and said, “Okay, but you be ready for us, mon,” before she punched the mobile off and looked at Ness with a satisfi ed smiled.

The smile was unnecessary as Ness, unlike Natasha, was far from dim. The constant me and Tash of the conversation had had its desired effect. Lines had been drawn. There was no crossing over. There was also no way of going back to how things had been before. For a hundred and one female adolescent reasons, Ness was anathema and she would remain that way.

She could have demanded an explanation for this. She could have accused or analysed. She was able to do none of this in the pressure of the moment, though. She was only able to make a stab at saving face for having crossed over the road to talk to the two girls in the first place. Saving face meant not caring. It meant not dignifying a slight by acknowledging it. It meant ignoring the fullness inside. Ness locked eyes with Six and gave her a curt nod. She said, “Whatever.”

Six said, “Yeah.”

Tash looked as confused as she’d looked during all the me and Tash of Six’s mobile conversation, with their implications of an equality that clearly did not exist between her and the other girl. Six said to Tash, “Le’s go, den. We got someone waiting.” And to Ness as she stepped aside to let the other girl pass, “You watch yourself, gash,” which put a full stop to the interaction.

Ness watched them go. She told herself they were two bloody stupid bitches and she didn’t want their friendship, let alone did she need it. But even as she assured herself of this fact—which was true enough— she felt driven once again. As a result, she moved towards Whiteley’s. There was lipstick waiting to be pinched by someone. Ness knew she was just the girl to do it.

KENDRA WAS LOADING her massage table into the Punto when Fabia Bender arrived on Edenham Estate in the company of two enormous and well-cared-for dogs: a gleaming Doberman and a giant schnauzer. Although Kendra, with a limited knowledge of canine breeds, would have been hard-pressed to identify the latter animal, she was impressed and intimidated by his size since his head reached above Fabia Bender’s waist. Kendra stopped what she was doing. Any move—precipitate or otherwise—didn’t seem wise.

Fabia Bender said, “No worries, Mrs. Osborne. They’re lambs, actually. The Doberman’s Castor. The schnauzer’s Pollux. No relation, of course, but I rashly decided that having two puppies at once would be easier than going through puppyhood twice, so I thought, Well, why not. I intended from the first to have two dogs. Two large dogs. I like them big. But it took four times longer to train them, and both breeds are supposed to be easy. Pollux quite likes you, I can see. He’s hoping for a pat on the head.”

She had them on extendable leads and when she told them to “Sit, boys,” they did so obediently, and she dropped the leads to the ground. Castor remained at attention, in keeping with his breed. Pollux huffed gustily and sank down so that his great head lay upon his enormous paws. A literary person would have thought at once of the Baskervilles. Kendra thought of all the reasons why Fabia Bender was putting in an unexpected appearance at her house.

She said, “Ness’s been doing her community service, hasn’t she?

She’s been leaving the house right on time, but I’ve not followed her there to make sure she’s showing up. It seemed to me that I needed to. . . demonstrate trust in her?”

“And a good idea as well,” Fabia Bender said. “Mrs. Ghafoor gives us only positive reports about Ness so far. I wouldn’t say she’s enjoying the experience—this is Ness, not Mrs. Ghafoor—but she is being consistent. High marks in her favour.”

Kendra nodded and waited for elucidation. She had an appointment in a tony neighbourhood of Maida Vale, with a middle-aged white American lady who intended becoming a regular client and who also had a great deal of time and money on her hands. Kendra didn’t want to be late for it. She glanced at her watch and put her container of oils and lotions into the back of the car, tucked alongside the massage table.

“It’s actually Ness’s brother that I’ve come to talk to you about,”

Fabia said. “Could we have this conversation inside rather than in the street, Mrs. Osborne?”

Kendra hesitated. She didn’t ask which brother because it seemed to her that it had to be Joel. She couldn’t imagine a social worker from Youth Offending having a reason to talk to her about Toby, which meant that—as difficult as it was to believe considering his personality—Joel was now in trouble. She said, “What’s he done?,” and tried to sound concerned instead of what she was, which was panicked.

“If we could go inside? The boys will stay out here, of course.” She smiled. “You needn’t worry about your belongings. If I ask them to guard the car, they’ll do it very nicely.” She tilted her head expectantly in the direction of the front door. “This shouldn’t take long,” she added and went on to say to the dogs, “Guard, boys.”

These final remarks were a way of saying there was no getting around her intention of going inside the house, and Kendra recognised them as such. She lowered the boot lid and stepped past the dogs, neither of which moved. Fabia Bender followed her.

Once within, the social worker didn’t reveal her mission at once. Instead she asked if Mrs. Osborne would be willing to show her around. She’d never been in one of the terrace houses on Edenham Estate, she said pleasantly, and she confessed to an interest in how all buildings were laid out or converted to accommodate families.

Kendra believed this as much as she believed the moon was made of green cheese, but she saw no alternative to cooperation considering the trouble Fabia Bender could cause if the social worker decided to do so. So while there was little enough to see, Kendra showed it to Fabia anyway, playing along with the game at the same time as knowing how unlikely was the scenario that the white woman had come calling in order to further her knowledge of interior design.

Fabia asked questions as they went: How long had Kendra lived in this house? Was she a lucky owner or was this rented housing? How many people lived here? What were the sleeping arrangements?

Kendra couldn’t see what the questions had to do with Joel or any trouble Joel might have been in, so she was suspicious. She didn’t want to entrap herself should that be the social worker’s intention, and because of this she kept her answers as brief as possible and vague when vagueness appeared to be called for. Thus on the first floor, she gave no reason for the screen that leaned against the wall near the sofa like a languishing debutante without a dance partner, and on the second floor, she made no explanation for having camp beds and sleeping bags for the boys instead of normal beds and linens.

Above all, she didn’t mention Dix. No matter that all over the city— not to mention all over the country—people lived in conditions far more irregular than this one, with the partners of parents coming and going with dizzying regularity as women searched for men and men searched for women, all in terror of having to be alone for more than five minutes. Kendra decided that the less said about Dix the better. She went so far as to mention sharing her own bedroom with Ness, a decision she regretted when Fabia Bender glanced inside the bathroom and noticed the man-size vests that were drying on hangers above the bath. Above the basin there was further evidence of a man’s occupation of the house. Dix’s shaving gear was laid out neatly: safety razor, shaving soap, and brush.

Fabia Bender said nothing until they were back downstairs. There, she suggested that Kendra and she sit at the kitchen table for a moment. She explained that throughout the time that she had spent with Ness— at the police station, at the magistrate’s court, and at the Youth Offending Team’s office in Oxford Gardens—no mention had ever been made that there were two other Campbell children living with Mrs. Osborne. This knowledge had come to her via the Westminster Learning Centre, where a woman called Luce Chinaka had become concerned when some paperwork requiring a parental signature—or the signature of a guardian, for that matter—had not been returned as requested. The request had been made of one Joel Campbell in reference to his brother, Toby.

It was no coincidence that Fabia Bender had received the phone call from Luce Chinaka. Overburdened with work, as all of the employees of the Youth Offending Team were, the secretary who routed phone calls to the social workers recognised Campbell as being the surname of one of Fabia’s clients and she passed the phone call to her. Trouble historically ran in families. When Luce Chinaka expressed her concern about one Joel Campbell, it seemed likely to the secretary that a sibling of Ness had surfaced.

“What sort of paperwork?” Kendra asked. “Why’d he not give it to me?”

It had to do with advanced testing for Toby, with a possible placement in a situation better designed to meet his needs than was Middle Row School, Fabia told her.

“Testing?” Kendra asked cautiously. This rang bells and set off sirens. Toby was forbidden territory. Testing Toby, assessing Toby, evaluating Toby . . . It was all completely unthinkable. Nonetheless, because she had to know the exact nature of the enemy she faced, she said, “What kind of testing? Testing done by who?”

“We’re not certain yet,” Fabia Bender said. “But that’s not actually why I’ve come.” Because there were three children and not one occupying Mrs. Osborne’s dwelling, she explained, she was there to assess the living situation. She was also there to talk about establishing permanent, official, and formal guardianship over the children.

Kendra wanted to know why this was necessary. They had a mother, they had a grandmother—although she didn’t mention Glory’s removal to Jamaica—and they had an aunt. One of their relations would always look out for them. Why did this need to be official? And what did offi-cial mean anyway?

Paperwork, as things turned out. Signatures. Carole either signing her children over or being declared incompetent so that someone else could manage their lives. Decisions had to be made about the future, and at present there was apparently no one designated to make them. Should no one be willing to take on that responsibility, then the government—

Kendra told her there would be no going into care for these children, if that was what Fabia Bender was alluding to. They were trouble; there was no denying it. Especially Ness, and there was virtually no reward in having to put up with the girl. But the children represented Kendra’s last blood relatives in England, and while she would never have thought that detail an important one, with Fabia Bender sitting at her kitchen table mentioning the government and mentioning testing for Toby, for her it became a detail writ very large.

Fabia hastened to reassure her. When there was a willing family member, the government was always on the side of leaving children with their relations. Providing, of course, that the relations were suitable and could provide a stable environment in the children’s best interests. That appeared to be the case—Kendra did not miss the emphasis on the predicate in that sentence—and Fabia would certainly make note of that in her report. In the meantime, Kendra needed to read and sign the paperwork given to Joel by Luce Chinaka at the learning centre. She also needed to speak to the children’s mother about establishing permanent guardianship. As long as there was—

It was at this point that the dogs began barking. Since she knew what this meant, Fabia got to her feet at the same moment as Dix D’Court shouted from outside.

“Ken, baby! Wha’s goin on? I come home to love my woman, and dis is my greeting?”

Fabia strode to the door and opened it. She said, “Boys, enough. Let him pass,” and then she added to Dix, “I do beg your pardon. They thought you meant to touch the car and they’d been told to guard it. Do come in. They won’t bother you now.”

A white woman in the house told Dix that something was going on, so he didn’t continue in the vein he’d been employing outside. He entered, carrying two shopping bags. He put them on the work top, where they spilled out vegetables, fruit, nuts, brown rice, beans, and yoghurt. He remained there, leaning against it, his arms crossed and his expression expectant. He was wearing a vest, just like those hanging above the bath, along with running shorts and trainers. The ensemble did much to emphasise his body. What he’d said outside before being admitted to the house did much to emphasise the way things stood between Kendra and him.

Both he and Fabia Bender waited for Kendra to introduce them. There was no getting around it, so she made as brief a piece of work of the matter as possible. “Dix D’Court, Fabia Bender from Youth Offending,” was how she put it. Fabia jotted down his name.

“She didn’t know there were three,” Kendra added. “She’s dealt with Ness but she’s come because of Joel.”

“He in trouble?” Dix asked. “Don’t sound like Joel, innit.”

Kendra was gratified by the response. It suggested Dix’s positive involvement with the boy. “He was supposed to give me some paperwork from the learning centre and he didn’t.”

“Dat an offence or summick?”

“Just a point of interest,” Fabia Bender said. “Do you live here, Mr. D’Court? Or do you just visit?”

Dix looked to Kendra for an indication of how he was meant to answer, which was answer enough. When he said, “I come an’ go,”

Fabia Bender wrote something in her notebook, but it seemed clear by the way her lips adjusted that either lie or falsehood was part of the information she took down. Kendra knew she would probably consider Dix’s presence in the same house as a nubile fi fteen-year-old girl in whatever she might ultimately recommend. Fabia, after all, had seen Ness. She would likely conclude that a delectable twenty-three-year-old man and a seductive adolescent girl amounted to something that would be labelled Potential Trouble rather than Suitable Situation.

When she’d written what she needed to write, Fabia Bender closed her notebook. She told Kendra to ask Joel for the paperwork that Luce Chinaka had given him for signature and she instructed her further to tell Ness to phone her. She went through the motions of informing Dix of what a pleasure it had been to meet him, and she ended with stating her assumption that Ness had no private place for sleeping or dressing and was that the case, Mrs. Osborne?

Dix said, “I built her dat screen and—”

Kendra cut him off. “We give her the privacy and respect she needs.”

Fabia Bender nodded. “I see,” she said.

What she saw, however, was something upon which she did not expound.

WHEN KENDRA CONFRONTED Joel, she was both angry and worried. Despite her intention of doing nothing at all with the paperwork, she lectured the boy. If he’d only given her the documents in the first place, she told him, there would have been no need for Fabia Bender to turn up on Edenham Estate and consequently no report for her to have to fill out. Now there would likely be trouble in the form of hoops to jump through, explanations to give, investigations to endure, and offi cials to meet with. Joel’s reluctance to do his simple duty had put them all squarely in the jaws of the system, facing all of the system’s attendant time-eating activities.

So Kendra wanted to know what the hell he was thinking of, not giving her the papers that the learning centre woman—in her agitation she’d forgotten Luce Chinaka’s name—had wanted her to see. Did he understand that they were all under scrutiny now? Did he know what it meant when a family came to the attention of Social Services?

Of course Joel knew. It was his greatest fear. But he wouldn’t articulate it since to do so would give the fear a legitimacy that might make it a reality. So he told his aunt he’d forgotten because he’d been caught up in thinking about . . . He had to consider what the subject of his thoughts might be, and he settled upon telling her he’d been caught up in thinking about Wield Words Not Weapons since this was at least a wholesome subject. It wasn’t far from the truth anyway.

He didn’t anticipate Kendra’s encouraging him to go once she learned about it, but that was what she did. To her, it would be evidence of a positive influence invading Joel’s life, and she knew it was likely that positive influences would be required in all the children’s lives to offset the potential negative influence of their living with a forty-year-old aunt who was nightly and at considerable volume satisfying her baser urges with a twenty-three-year-old bodybuilder.

So Joel found himself going to Wield Words Not Weapons, leaving Toby with Dix, Kendra, pizza, and a video. He made his way over to Oxford Gardens, where a hand-lettered sign on the front door of a long, low, postwar building—home also of the Youth Offending Team’s office—directed participants to the Basement Activities Centre, which proved easy enough to find. In the entry, a young black woman sat at a card table filling out stick-on name tags as people came through the door. Joel hesitated before approaching her, until she said to him, “First timer? Cool. How you called, speck?” at which point he felt a rush of blood to his cheeks. She’d accepted him casually. She’d given him a welcome without the blink of an eye.

He said, “Joel,” and he watched her loop the four letters of his name across the tag.

She said, “Don’t have none of the custard creams,” as she put the tag on his shirt. “They stale as shoe soles. Go for the fig bars,” and she gave him a wink.

He nodded solemnly, this piece of information seeming to him like the key to success at the entire affair. Then he sidled over to a refreshment table at one side of the room. There, tin plates held biscuits, and cakes, and a coffee urn nearby bubbled fragrantly. He took a chocolate digestive and shot a hesitant glance around the people gathered for the event.

Joel saw that they comprised a mixed group of every race and every age. Blacks, whites, Orientals, and Asians blended together: from ancients to babies in prams and pushchairs. Most of them appeared to know each other as, after enthusiastic greetings among them, conversations began and the noise level rose.

Ivan Weatherall moved in the midst of all the people. He saw Joel and raised a hand in salute, but he did not approach although Joel decided Ivan looked happy to see him. Instead Ivan worked his way to a dais at the front of the room where a microphone stood with a tall stool behind it. In front of the mike, yellow and orange plastic chairs fanned out, and Ivan’s progress to the dais acted as a signal for the event’s participants to begin filling in the rows. Ivan said, “A record crowd this evening,” and he sounded delighted. “Can it be the increase in prize money? Well, I always believed you lot were available for bribery.”

Laughter greeted this. It was obvious that Ivan was comfortable with the group. Joel wasn’t surprised.

“I see a few new faces, and I welcome you to Wield Words Not Weapons,” Ivan said. “I hope you’ll find a home here for your talents. So without further blather from me, then . . .” He was carrying a clipboard to which he referred. “You’re first, Adam Whitburn. May I encourage you to endeavour to overcome your natural shyness this evening?”

Everyone chuckled as a Rasta with his dreads tucked into a massive knitted cap leapt out of the audience and onto the dais with the attitude of a prizefighter entering the ring. He tugged at the brim of his cap and shot an affable grin at someone who’d cried out, “You go, bred.” He perched on the stool and began to read from a dog-eared spiral notebook. He announced the piece as “Stephen G’wan Home.”

“‘Got him on the street, they did,’” the writing began. “‘Blood poured red, hot like blaze, but knife go cool. Stuck like no one, Dad, not a man, not a goat. Stuck just cos the way of the street.’”

The room was hushed as Adam Whitburn read. Not even a baby mewled for attention. Joel dropped his gaze to his knees as the story was told: documenting the gathering crowd, the police, the investigation, the arrest, the trial, and the end. No justice and no way to put anything at rest. Ever. Merely dead in the street.

When Adam Whitburn finished, for a moment nothing happened. Then applause rose from the audience, accompanied by shouts and hoots. But what followed next came as a surprise to Joel. Members of the audience began to offer criticism about the writing, referring to it as a poem, which also surprised him as it hadn’t rhymed and the only thing he knew about poetry was that the words were supposed to rhyme. No one mentioned the facts of the piece at all: specifically the death and subsequent injustice that were at the centre of it. Instead, they talked about language and metre, intention and accomplishment. They talked about scanning and figurative language, and they asked Adam Whitburn questions about form. The Rasta listened intently, replied when necessary, and took notes. Then he thanked the audience, nodded, and stepped back to join them.

A girl called Sunny Drake followed him. The piece she wrote appeared to Joel to be about pregnancy and cocaine, about being born addicted to her mother’s addiction, about giving birth to a baby born the same. Again, a discussion followed: criticism with no judgement offered about the facts.

In this way, ninety minutes passed. Aside from Ivan calling out names from his clipboard, no one actually ran the event after his initial comments. Instead, it appeared to run itself, with the familiarity of a ritual that everyone understood. When the time for a break arrived, Ivan returned to the microphone. He announced that Walk the Word would be happening at the front of the room for those who were interested, while the rest of the audience partook of refreshments. Joel watched curiously as the group dispersed and twelve people from the audience moved eagerly towards the dais. There, Ivan was handing out sheets of paper, and from this and the murmurs of conversation which included the words fifty pounds, Joel understood that this was the part of the event that had at first attracted his attention: the part that included prize money.

While he knew he didn’t have much chance of winning—especially since he had no idea of what the event actually was—he moved forward with the rest of the people. He saw that Adam Whitburn was among them, and he almost considered leaving at that point. But Ivan called out, “Delighted to see you, Joel Campbell. Here you are. Join in the fray,” and soon enough Joel had a piece of paper in his hand upon which were written five words: havoc, forever, question, destruction, and forgiveness.

He stared at them with absolutely no comprehension. He knew what they meant, but other than that, he was without a clue. He looked around for an indication of what he was supposed to do next, and he saw that the other participants in Walk the Word were setting about creating something, writing furiously, pausing for thought, chewing on their pencils, clicking the cartridges of their biros in and out. It seemed to Joel that what they were creating had to be more of the curious poetry. He knew he could wander off or he could join them. Fifty pounds seemed reason enough for him to do the latter.

For the first five minutes, he gazed at the paper he’d been given as all around him people scribbled, rubbed out, muttered, scribbled, scratched out, rubbed out, and scribbled some more. He wrote havoc and he waited for something miraculous to happen, something lightninglike, rendering him a poetic St. Paul. He made the o in havoc into a wheel with spokes. He surrounded the word itself with shooting stars. He doodled and underlined. He sighed and crumpled the paper into a ball.

Next to him, a grandmotherly white woman in enormous spectacles was thoughtfully chewing on the end of her biro. She looked at Joel, then patted him on the knee. She whispered, “Start with one of the other words, pet. No need to go from top to bottom or take them in any particular order.”

“You sure?”

“Been doing it since the first, I have. Take up the word you can feel right here”—she pointed to her chest—“and go from there. Let go. Your subconscious will do the rest. Give it a try.”

Joel looked at her doubtfully, but decided to have a go at doing it her way. He smoothed out the paper and read each of the words again. He seemed to feel the most for the word forever, so he wrote it down and then something curious happened: Words began to pile on top of that first one— forever—and he merely acted as their scribe.

“‘Forever kind of place hold her close,’” he wrote. “‘She asks why and the question screams. No answer, girl. You been playing too long. Ain’t no forgiveness for the death inside you. What you did, how it ended with destruction. You die, slag, and havoc goes home.’”

Joel dropped his pencil and stared, slack jawed, at what he’d written. He felt as if steam were coming from his ears. He read his piece twice over, then four times more. He was about to shove it surreptitiously into the pocket of his jeans when someone flitted by and plucked the paper out of his hand. It went to a group who had volunteered to be the evening’s judges. They disappeared from the room with all the entries as Wield Words Not Weapons continued with more readings and more reactions from the audience.

Joel couldn’t attend to very much after that. Instead, he watched the door through which the judges for Walk the Word had passed. It seemed to him that the length of four more Wield Words Not Weapons events passed while he waited to hear the judges’ verdict on his first literary effort. When they finally emerged, they handed the entries to Ivan Weatherall, who looked them over and nodded happily as he read them.

When the time arrived to announce the winner of Walk the Word, recognition went in reverse order, with honourable mentions first. Their poems were read, and the poets identified themselves, were applauded, and were given certificates stamped in gold along with a coupon for a free video from Apollo Video. Third place went to the elderly lady who’d given Joel advice, and she got a certificate, five pounds, and a coupon for a takeaway curry from Spicy Joe’s. Second place went to an Asian girl in a headscarf—Joel checked to see if she was Hibah, but she was not—and then a hush fell over the group for the announcement of first place and fifty pounds.

Joel told himself that he couldn’t really win. He didn’t know poems, and he didn’t know words. Still, he couldn’t help thinking about the fifty pounds prize money, and what he could do with fifty pounds if a miracle happened and he turned out to be—

The winner was Adam Whitburn.

“Step up here, collect your prize, and accept the adulation of your peers, my man,” Ivan told him.

The Rasta bounded forward, all smiles. He swept off his cap and bowed, and his dreadlocks poured around his shoulders. When the applause died down, he took the mike for the second time that evening, and he read his poem. Joel tried to listen, but he couldn’t hear. He had the distinct feeling of floodwater rising around him.

He wished for a quick escape, but his seat was in the middle of the row and there was no route that did not involve stepping over people and pushchairs. Thus, he had to endure Adam Whitburn’s triumph, and he agonised for the moment when the evening would come to an end and he could go home. But as Adam returned to his seat, Ivan Weatherall went back to the mike. He had a last announcement, he said, because the judges had also made a selection of a Poet of Promise, and this was the first time such an honour had been bestowed upon anyone since Adam Whitburn had himself been so designated five years earlier. They wanted to give this individual a special nod, Ivan declared. Then he read the poem, and Joel heard his own words.

“Take a bow,” Ivan said, “whoever wrote this one.”