Common People

by Kit de Waal

  He’s really my half-brother on my dad’s side, and I only found out about him a few months ago, overhearing a conversation between Mam and her brother, my uncle Danny.

  ‘So I’ve got a brother, then?’

  Mam peered over her shoulder. ‘I was waiting for the right time to tell you, Shaun. It’s nothing, really. He’s only your half-brother. Your dad’s never had anything to do with him.’

  ‘What’s he in prison for?’

  ‘Drugs.’

  ‘He was all right at school,’ Danny said. ‘A respected lad. He just got in with the wrong crowd.’ Danny was a big influence on me, growing up. Cumbria’s longest-reigning squash champion, he was a thorn in the side of the national administration, with a reputation for goading referees and intimidating opponents.

  ‘Is he hard?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, he’ll be fairly hard, I reckon. He could pagger when I knew him.’

  ‘He’d be no good for you, Shaun,’ Mam said. ‘I think it’s best if you forget about him. He never stays out for long.’

  ‘What’s he called?’

  John Cross was reaching the end of his latest sentence, over five years for supplying heroin, and for biting a lump out of someone’s face over a debt.

  I’m six and I drive around with Dad sometimes when he visits his houses and building sites. We go into the estate agent’s and he talks to a lady called Idle Brenda. There are lots of photographs of houses, Dad’s as well, and before we go he covers some of the prices and I have to guess how much they are. When I get it wrong he shakes his head and asks me another. He gets mad as well when I put my shoes on the wrong feet. I feel proud in his Mazda sports car with pop-up headlights, and we listen to Dire Straits. ‘Brothers in Arms’ is my favourite song. It feels like something only we listen to. The baker’s is nice and warm and smells of bread in the ovens and the ladies all talk to me. I get embarrassed sometimes when I don’t know what to say. Dad knows what to say and how to make them laugh. At one house there’s a bull mastiff called Flora and she’s friendly and lazy and I don’t mind when Dad takes ages there, because I like stroking her and playing hide and seek. I like being with Dad because he’s hard and he went to borstal when he was little for fighting. I want to be hard like my dad one day. Dads like having a son so they can talk about fighting and cars and all the things that boys like, and it reminds them of when they were boys and going fishing with their dads. Girls don’t know about fighting and you shouldn’t tell them about it.

  One day we go to a house to see Dad’s old girlfriend. She looks nice, but I don’t talk to her much. If Dad didn’t fall out with his girlfriend he wouldn’t have married Mam and I wouldn’t be born. I play on the swing in the garden and throw sticks at the conkers. I could climb right up in the tree and get them all if I was allowed. An older boy walks past the garden. He looks at me for a long time and he asks if I have a brother. I tell him I only have a sister called Chloe, who’s three and cries a lot. He says brothers are better than sisters and I tell him I think they are as well.

  Last week my brother introduced himself. Fresh out of prison, he found me in the upstairs bar of Dad’s pub, the Kildare, rehearsing Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ with my band. He looked like Dad, same spaced incisors, intimidatingly confident, with a home-made tattoo of a tear on his cheek, and others on his hands that looked like dirty marks. I didn’t know what to say. I almost started crying. He took me away from my band so he could talk to me in private.

  ‘I’ve got you a present. It’s not for them lot in your band, though – I’m giving it to you.’ He gave me a cardboard box. Inside were two book-sized electronic units.

  ‘Fuckinell, I dunno what to say. What are they?’

  ‘Some kind of amplifiers,’ he said. ‘Don’t take them into any shops though – they might want them back.’ He had an endearing laugh, one that could’ve made anything funny. ‘Here.’ He handed me his fag packet. I took one out and went to give it back. ‘Keep them,’ he said. ‘I’ve got loads.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah. Listen, have you got any money?’

  ‘About two quid.’

  He took a wad of cash from his pocket. ‘Here.’ He pushed a £10 note into my hand. ‘Get yourself some drink.’

  I stared at it. ‘I can pay you back next week?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  All of a sudden I had fags and drink, and a brother as well. The first lesson he taught me was one of principle, after the payphone in the main bar swallowed his fifty-pence piece. He held the receiver to his ear and rattled the hookswitch with his other hand before banging down the receiver.

  The barmaid looked over. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘It swallowed his fifty pence,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t give a fuck about the fifty pence,’ he said. ‘If it was someone else’s pub I’d take it off the wall and smash it over their fucking head. It’s not the money. It’s the principle.’

  A Mondeo estate brakes hard and grazes the kerb. The passenger window’s down.

  ‘Jump in,’ says the passenger, a weasel-faced man of around twenty.

  I crouch and see the tattooed bulk of John Cross, stacked in the driver’s seat in the shadows and slivers of half-light. I get in the back next to a heap of household lamps and hi-fi separates and the car screeches off. He didn’t mention anyone else being here. I’ve been looking forward to seeing him again, imagining things we’ll talk about, the lost years we spent apart, and I’m pissed off that some lackey’s taking up the passenger seat.

  ‘How’s it goin?’ I ask.

  ‘All right,’ John says, flatly.

  Disheartened, I try to match his tone. ‘I’ve been waiting half an hour.’

  ‘Had some business to sort out. Here, give him two of them.’

  The lackey rustles about and passes me two small pills.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Valium,’ John says. ‘Tens. They’ll chill you out.’

  ‘How much do you want?’

  ‘You don’t need money with me.’

  ‘Nice one.’ My mood lifts and I swallow them both.

  We hit the overlit bypass and John opens up the car. I think about putting on my seat belt, but I don’t want to be a pussy. I want to meet the experience head-on.

  ‘Where we going?’ I ask.

  ‘Carlisle,’ John says.

  ‘Is there a party?’

  He doesn’t answer and neither does the lackey. After a period of silence the lackey grabs the wheel and wrestles against the road as the car fishtails. I grip the seat in front until we stabilise.

  ‘Fuckinell, John,’ the lackey says. ‘Watch where you’re going!’

  ‘Who you talking to? You little fucking divvy.’

  ‘You were falling asleep, John.’

  I fasten my seat belt.

  The lackey’s on high alert now, studying John, ready to take the wheel as soon as his eyes close, which is happening frequently. I’m grateful for his vigilance, and quietly chuffed that I’m keeping my nerve while he’s flapping like a shithouse.

  ‘What’s he been taking?’ I ask.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Why’s he falling asleep?’

  ‘He’s tired.’

  I smile and shake my head.

  It’s a relief to see the glow of Carlisle as we approach its speed limit. A crash at thirty would be relatively harmless. The wash of sodium light and the demands of the traffic systems appear to stimulate John, and he stays awake. We pass the terraced houses of Wigton Road, a floodlit service station, and corner at Dixon’s chimney, past the Royal Mail depot and up towards the city pool. The traffic lights are red and we stop.

  Across the intersection, waiting at the traffic light opposite, is a police car.

  ‘Fuck – it’s the pigs,’ the lackey says.

  Their headlights feel watchful, as if awaiting our move.

  ‘Are they after you?’ I ask.

  ‘They need an appointme
nt to see me,’ John says.

  For some reason I find this reassuring.

  Even the engine sounds quiet. I realise there’s been no music throughout the journey. The lights turn green and we drive towards the police car. As we draw alongside, its blue lights flash on and John puts his foot down. We accelerate down the slope and I’m overtaken by adrenaline, a reluctant fugitive, resigned to the will of the car. Through the rear window I see the police car mount the pavement in a U-turn that seems more pompously ceremonial than rushed. Now I know I’m in a dangerous and unfamiliar world.

  We howl past a bus stop, skipping over a mini-roundabout as oncoming cars pull over to make way. I drag myself forward, wrenching at the front seats, as if through sheer determination I can steer us to safety. We corner. It feels like two wheels have left the road. The lackey swears and the stuff on the back seat tumbles against the far door. I thank God the road was clear as we drift back into our lane and accelerate. The lights are red at the end of the road and we accelerate towards them. I prepare for an impact. We brake as we run the lights and turn screeching out of the blind junction. Botchergate is temporarily clear and we make the corner, mounting the kerb with a crash that sounds like the tyre is blown. But we’re back on the road and accelerating. The police are no longer in sight, and this gives me no comfort.

  We screech to a near halt, turn into a housing estate, and overtake a line of parked cars. The speedo clears 60 mph. I think I’m gonna die. The roads are strange and I don’t know what’s ahead, but we slow down, and corner onto a wider street. Relief washes over me, and I hope for a minor collision. I envisage police surrounding the car. My secret gratitude after my coward’s wish is granted. But we soon reach a speed where one blink could kill us all. It smells like something’s burning. I pray for survival, for the chance to tell Mam I’m sorry. We overtake a car as if it’s parked and the blare of its horn fades into the red mist of our wake. Boys on the pavement press up against a garden wall as we scream past. Up ahead an oncoming car’s in our lane and John hits the horn but doesn’t brake. The other car’s in the middle of the road. I brace myself for a crash. I’m too flait to scream. We swerve onto the pavement and I don’t think there’s enough room to pass and there’s a crisp thud as our wing mirror shatters. Then we’re back on the road, straightening up and accelerating.

  ‘Fuckinell, John,’ is all I can say.

  We enter another estate and John kills the headlights. We pull up outside a semi-detached house with backlit curtains and I take off my seat belt.

  ‘Where are we?’ I ask.

  ‘Get the stuff,’ John says, gathering the hi-fi separates off the back seat.

  I grab some lamps and we run to the house. In the living room are two men and three women in their twenties drinking lager. One of the men, with pale blue eyes and collapsing cheeks, is smoking heroin off a rectangle of tinfoil. They go quiet. John tells them we just outran the police and no one seems surprised. I’m getting eyeballed until John introduces me as his little brother and tells them to look after me. I feel unspeakably proud, and brave. Blue lights flash in from the street and pulse on the wall. Through a crack in the curtains I see three police cars and a number of officers surrounding the smoking Mondeo, and I remember I’m being chased. Someone tells me to get away from the window.

  ‘What if they come in?’

  ‘They’re not getting in here,’ says a sturdy woman in a pink velour tracksuit.

  ‘Thank fuck I’m outta that car. I thought we were gonna die.’

  Everyone laughs.

  I look around but can’t see John. ‘Where’s me brother?’

  ‘Upstairs,’ a man in a baseball cap says. ‘He’s gone for a lie-down.’

  The lackey comes back from the kitchen with a can of Foster’s. Tracksuit stares at him like he’s dog shit on her carpet. ‘Ey, radgie, you not getting the boy one?’

  ‘Eh?’

  She turns to me. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Shaun.’

  ‘Get la’al Shaun a can, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Who you talking to?’ he mutters, plodding back into the kitchen.

  One of the women says something about me to her friend and they start giggling. They’re both smiling. One of them’s tidy but has a tooth missing.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘She wants to know if you’re gonna sit on her knee,’ the tidy one says.

  ‘Just ignore them two,’ Tracksuit says. ‘Get yourself on the sofa.’

  I nod at the man in the baseball cap and take a seat at the other side. The pale-eyed man opposite heats his blackened sheet of foil from underneath, liquefying a beetle of heroin that comes to life and crawls down a furrow, giving off fumes he chases with a foil tube held in his mouth. He looks bored but very serious about catching it all and holding it in. It smells sweet, like caramel, not like something harmful. I’ve found the Holy Grail of rock-and-roll accessories. I’m dying for a go, but I’m too flait to ask. The lackey comes back and hands me a cold can of Foster’s.

  ‘Cheers,’ I say. ‘What’s your name again?’

  ‘Flipper.’

  ‘Flipper?’

  ‘Yeah, what you trying to say, like?’

  ‘Nowt.’

  He assesses me with amusement. ‘You don’t look like John. You really his boyo?’

  ‘It’s probably me long hair. And he looks more like Dad than me.’

  Convinced that John won’t be getting back up, I light a crumpled joint I was saving to share with him. It relaxes me and I buzz off the way it works with the Valium. I hand it to Flipper and he nods, takes it, and draws on it like it’s the last joint of his life. ‘Where’d you get this?’ he asks.

  ‘Someone in Wigton. It’s just soap bar.’

  ‘Why you smoking that shite?’

  ‘It’s all I can get.’

  ‘You might get some skunk tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah? Am I staying here, like?’

  ‘Where else you gonna go?’

  ‘I don’t mind. I’ll stay anywhere.’ I nod at the man with the heroin. ‘Do you smoke that?’

  He looks to see if Tracksuit heard. ‘Shhh.’

  I lean closer. ‘You think I can have a go?’

  He double-drags the joint and exhales a thin spire of smoke. ‘You’ll have to ask your brother.’

  ‘I won’t say owt if you don’t.’

  ‘Aye, but you will, though.’

  I shake my head. Really, I’m glad he cares what my brother thinks. It makes me feel looked after. I’m nice and mellow now, tuned in to some kind of astral frequency of empathy and forgiveness. Flipper turns to the other man on the sofa and starts telling him about John’s driving. I realise he probably doesn’t have a brother of his own, and that’s why he knocks about with mine.

  The blue lights stop flashing, and no one seems to notice. I think to myself, ‘It’s just another night for these lot,’ and relax into the cushy welcome of the sofa. I don’t even know where I am, which part of Carlisle, and I smile and prepare to ask someone, already half-distracted by the luxury of time.

  Dear Nobody

  Alex Wheatle

  3 A Better Place

  Self-Esteem

  Belief

  Dear Nobody,

  I hear your wailing every night. My heart senses your pain. My brain stores your memories. I have lived through your agonies. My old friend Loneliness never leaves you alone. The triplets Brutality, Contempt and Insignificance visit you too often. Trust has long ago abandoned you. She has gone to the place where Roots now resides. Hug has never shown her face. Love has never introduced herself. Unworthiness wants to take you out for the day. Low Esteem always wants to party. Empty birthdays of the past fill you. Christmas has always mocked you. Your brother, Rage, now sleeps with you. But I’m coming back, Nobody. So hold on to Hope. I know he’s tiny and fragile. I know he’s sick. I know you cannot see him in the dark – you have to concentrate hard to hear his voice. But he is there. Nurture him, nurse h
im. One day he might grow big.

  Yes, I’m coming back for you, Nobody. It’s been a long road full of wrong signs and deep holes – the odd mountain too. And I have been blind and one-eyed for so long. For many years I didn’t want to accept you. I tried to deny you. But you lived in my head. I don’t know how you got in. But you did. Yes you did, you and Hope. Most of the time you were both asleep, recovering from the wounds Trauma inflicted upon you. But then you both woke. I pretended I didn’t hear you. I tried to wish you away. I broke down when you and Hope were both screaming at me. I was exhausted, spent. You and Hope too. But I remember your words before the fall.

  Motherless children,

  If no one loves you in this world,

  Make a start and love yourself.

  Yes, I’m coming for you, Nobody. And when I finally bless my eyes on you, I’ll rename you. Yes, you’re going to be Somebody.

  Yours sincerely,

  Your older self

  Black Cat Dreaming

  Astra Bloom

  They asked us to write a story about a dream we’d had. The winner was going to be put on at Christmas. And in this leotard, I was like a girl called Darling.

  Snap back.

  I am eight, nearly nine. I’ve never owned a leotard in my life; I got it from our school jumble. In my privates it cuts like a knife, I know it’s too tight, but really it is just so blackly nice. And my nan’s heart stopped like my Timex in the navy month before Christmas, so I won’t be putting expensive black leotards on any present lists. And, anyway: leotard. I never heard such a wonderful word. I’m almost thinking it’s been made up.