‘Is it loaded?’
‘No. I’ll show you how to do that in a bit but for now I just want you to get a feel for it.’
I took the gun from him and, following his earlier example, weighed it in my hand. It was heavier than I’d expected. I gripped the worn handle and put my finger in the trigger holder. What happened next took me completely by surprise. The gun might not have been loaded but the mere idea of it made me feel powerful, fearless, invincible.
Lee said, ‘Feels good, right?’
I didn’t respond, too busy fantasising about what I was going to do Django.
Lee allowed me to indulge the feeling for a while then gently took the gun out of my hand and said, ‘This, my friend, is a Browning 9mm semi-automatic. A classic of its kind.’
For the next half-hour or so, he gave me a lesson in its use and maintenance. He taught me how to operate the safety catch, how to open and close the chamber, how to remove and load the magazine, how to disassemble and reassemble the parts and how best to clean and lubricate them. He even gave me advice on how to store the gun, suggesting that I keep it in a cool dry place. That tickled me.
‘You make it sound like a bag of rice.’
He laughed and said, ‘So, you ready to test this baby or what?’
I broke out in a cold sweat. The big moment had arrived. I was about to fire a gun for the first time and, like a boy about to lose his virginity, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. As part of his instructions, Lee had loaded the magazine and had been very careful not to hand it back to me after that. I was a novice and he was being extra careful. When he did hand me the gun, he made sure to positon himself behind me. He actually put his arms around me and fastened both his hands onto both of mine. He said it was to help me with my aim but I got the feeling it was part of his safety precautions. At such close quarters, his aftershave was almost suffocating.
‘Now, then. You see that box, the one marked Dunlopillo? Aim for the D. Use your sights if necessary.’
I closed one eye and squinted through the sights along the barrel.
‘When you’re ready, just squeeze the trigger. It’s as simple as that.’
I waited a moment, trying desperately to steady my nerves, embarrassed at the idea that Lee could feel my hands shaking. The box was about ten feet away. I couldn’t miss it but I wanted to hit the target. When I had it in my sights, I took a deep breath and squeezed. The noise almost deafened me, the recoil sent a shudder through my entire body and I actually jumped when I saw the empty shell fly out of the barrel to my right.
Even Lee rocked backwards but he held on to me and said, ‘Again.’
With my ears still ringing, I planted my feet a little more firmly and fired off another round. The same deafening report, the same bone-juddering recoil, the empty shell flew out at the same height and speed, but this time I had anticipated them. I had blown two neat holes into the box, about ten inches apart, but only edged the target. I thought about the holes I was going to put into Django and my heart started pumping, a mixture of excitement and fear. The act itself, firing the gun, was a bit of an anti-climax. It was actually quite easy, but I got goosebumps from seeing the damage I’d caused to that box. Of course the real test was still to come. It was all very well firing bullets into an inanimate object: could I do the same thing to a human being, who might be firing back?
‘Not bad,’ said Lee. ‘You’ve a good arm on you, steady. You need that with a beast like this.’
Carefully, and still standing behind me, he took the gun out of my hand, removed the magazine from the handle and took out the remaining bullets. He carefully slotted the bullets back into their box and then dropped the box, and the gun, into the bingo bag and tightened the string around the neck. ‘By rights you should get some more practise in, but bullets cost a few bob and are hard to come by, so go easy.’ He handed me the bag.
‘Like I said, get it back to me when you’re done.’ And that was it. Not once had he mentioned what I was planning to do, or when. He didn’t want to know, which suited me fine.
We climbed out of the shelter, hardly speaking. Lee closed the trapdoor and used his foot to re-cover it with sawdust. The horse stall felt luxurious compared to the dark dismal dungeon we’d just left. Back in the yard, Fancy was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if Lee’s sister had come to get her and taken her for a ride somewhere. I almost asked Lee, but didn’t because he had become pre-occupied with getting back to Dagenham to ‘see a bloke about a bit of business’. When we got to his car, I suddenly realised that I would have to bring the gun back to London on public transport. In my panic I mentioned this to Lee and he told me not to worry. He said if I didn’t mind waiting while he had his meeting, which he said wouldn’t last more than an hour, he’d be happy to give me a lift back to Hackney. I didn’t need to think twice about his offer.
When I got home that afternoon, Beverly said, ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘Round the squat?’
‘Till now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Just kicking it.’
‘I thought you hated it round there now.’
‘Please, Bev. I ain’t in the mood.’
She was sitting in her usual spot, on the black, two-seater, fake-leather settee she’d bought from a second-hand furniture shop in Lower Clapton. She had the black-and-white TV on with the volume down to avoid disturbing Shereen, who was asleep on her lap, sucking her thumb. She was always complaining about bills but had the heating on full blast in early September.
I walked over to the window, stepping over Shereen’s dolls along the way, noticing that the thin grey carpet had a stain that hadn’t been there when I left that morning. The wind up on the twelfth floor was murder, so noisy and so strong it actually swayed the block, but I had to crack the window a little bit as it was just too hot and stuffy in the room. It wasn’t possible to open it any wider because the windows had been installed to deter the tenants from jumping to their deaths. The flats used to be known for suicides and the council had been forced by the residents to do something. Many a child, and not a few adults, had been traumatised over the years by the sight of bodies lying splattered in the courtyard.
When I opened the window, Beverly silently mouthed for me to shut it, but I ignored her. I knew she couldn’t get up without waking Shereen so I stood there looking out across the city, admiring the incredible view while thinking over what I had been doing that morning. It all seemed so disconnected from my life in Hackney: the Essex countryside, the horse-stalls, Fancy, Jim and his dog Lottie, the air-raid shelter, and, of course, Lee and his lessons on how to use a gun. I was trying to process it all when I remembered that I was standing by the window with the bingo bag still in my hand. I immediately closed the window and, to stop any bad feeling from developing between us, went over and kissed Beverly then went out to the bathroom to find a place to hide the gun.
I hit it behind the panel at the side of the bathtub, a flimsy piece of plywood that fell in if you so much as blew on it. To make sure Beverly didn’t find the bag by accident I got down on my belly and shoved it as far back against the wall as possible, inhaling a load of dust in the process. And even then I wasn’t happy. The thought of what she would say or do if she discovered that I’d brought a gun into the house where she lived with her baby didn’t bear thinking about. It was wrong of me and I felt guilty but I had to store the thing somewhere. I decided to take a bath. It might have been my imagination but I thought I could smell the air-raid shelter on my clothes.
While I soaked, I thought some more about the time I had just spent with Lee. He was a funny one. He didn’t want me asking a lot of questions but had put me in a position where it was only natural for me to do so. For instance, what was the nature of his relationship with Jim? The man was obviously some kind of farmer, he obviously lived close to the land but was he also a villain? He had brought the gun out to Lee so was probably an armourer for hire. Had he
met Theodore? Had Theodore been to the stables for shooting practise? Had Theodore met Fancy or Lee’s sister? So many questions; a lot of them to do with my brother’s former life, the one he had before he became a crack-head. Had Lee and the other gang members tried to do anything to stop him from taking drugs? He was like a brother to them, according to Lee, so they must have been saddened to see how he turned out, the way he had almost destroyed himself with drugs. Had they tried to intervene in any way, offered to pay for him to have treatment or anything like that? I should have asked Lee about it and I kicked myself for not doing so. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but it felt like a missed opportunity of some kind.
With the bath running cold, I added some more hot water and continued to soak, half thinking, half-sleeping. At one point Beverly came to the door and tried to come in but I had locked it. ‘You gonna be in there all day?’ She didn’t sound annoyed, more concerned, as if she thought I was trying to drown myself. ‘I’ll be out in a while.’ She went silent and then I heard her footfalls as she loped back along the lino to the living room.
Since the attack on Theodore she had become almost motherly towards me, constantly worried that I was going to do something foolish. She had consistently urged me to let the police deal with the matter and thought I’d be mad to show my face on the Front again. The truth was, Theodore getting stabbed had shaken her up in a way that she hadn’t expected. When she heard what had happened, she cried for hours. When she first saw him in hospital, I had to escort her out of the ward. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Theodore had become a part of her, he had touched her in a way that she hadn’t thought possible when he first moved in looking and smelling like an animal. She had lived with him for over six months, had shared things with him, intimate things, she had been a sister to him, a mother, a friend. She had grown to love him. The fact that he had come so close to death had left her half out of her mind with fear, too afraid even to leave the flat. Always a homebody, she had now become a virtual recluse. It was rare for her to be out after dark and she could never relax until she heard me putting my key in the door. And once I was in, she would do everything to make sure I stayed in. If we ran out of anything and I offered to go down and get it from our local corner shop, she’d plead with me to leave it till the morning. She would sooner wrap Shereen in a tea towel than send me out at night to get nappies. She began to see dangers and threats everywhere and was now talking about making a change.
It hadn’t been two days since Theodore’s attack when she announced that if she could wrangle it somehow, she’d move out of Hackney. ‘And go where?’ I asked. She paused for a moment then said, ‘Somewhere out of London. Somewhere a person can breathe. The countryside maybe.’ I laughed and said, ‘The countryside? Yeah, right.’ I dismissed the idea, and kept slapping it down every time she brought it up, but in truth I could see where she was coming from, especially since she had a child to raise. The problem for her was that she had so few options. She could dream, but to make that dream a reality, for someone in her position, was next to impossible.
* * *
I wouldn’t say I no longer feared Django but having that gun had definitely lessened my fear. The odds had been evened up considerably. I had given myself a chance to come out of the thing on top. But one questioned remained: five days after he had been stabbed, was I still as committed to avenging Theodore? The answer, when it came right down to it, was no. The intensity of the feeling had decreased, aided by my conversations with Beverly. But if she was the voice of my conscience, Mitch was my avenging angel.
The day after my trip to Dagenham he and Benjy came by to see me at home. He told me that Django had been bragging on the Front about stabbing Theodore and had sworn to do the same to me if and when he saw me. I had no reason to disbelieve Mitch but still I made Benjy confirm it.
‘It’s true, Si. He’s been beating his gums about what he’s gonna do to you.’
‘Yeah,’ said Mitch. ‘He’s taking you for a pussy.’
We’d been talking outside on the landing, to avoid being overheard by Beverly, but she was no fool. She knew what we were discussing and came out to speak her mind. Directing her comments at Mitch, she said, ‘Why won’t you stop? Eh? You trying to get him killed? Is that it? He’s too damn weak to tell you, so I’m telling you. Go away. Leave us alone. Simon ain’t got nothing to prove. Theodore’s alive. End of.’
Mitch tried to say something but Beverly put her hand in his face and said, ‘No, Mitch! I don’t wanna hear no more of your shit. Go away. Right now. You too Benjy. And I beg you, don’t come back.’
Mitch looked at me, pleadingly, but I couldn’t do anything for him. He said, ‘Come, Benj. Let’s dust. We know who wears the trousers round here.’
Benjy said, ‘Mitch, man, why you gotta talk shegries all the time.’
Mitch kissed his teeth and walked off. Benjy watched him go then turned to me and said, ‘Si, look. Don’t feel no way, I ain’t trying to tell you what to do. If you wanna let this t’ing slide, that’s all good with me. Man and man is bredren, no matter what.’
He put up his fist, I punched it and he said, ‘Catch you on the reverb.’
After a quick nod at Beverly, he bounced off down the narrow, strip-lit landing towards the lift. Beverly pulled me inside. We went and sat in the living room and for the next hour or so, I listened while she made quite a convincing case as to why I should cut Mitch and Benjy out of my life. I say I listened but in fact my mind was on Django. The old heat was rising again. Beverly went on and on until eventually she realised I was daydreaming, ‘Are you even listening to me?’ I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to talk to her. I sat and stared at Shereen, who was in her playpen, gurgling and trying to bite one of her plastic toys. Her features were starting to form, the resemblance to her father was starting to show.
Eventually Beverly said, ‘Oh go to hell, then.’ She leapt up, grabbed Shereen from the playpen and stormed out. Moments later I heard the bedroom door slam. I didn’t move or react in any way. My mind was racing but I was showing no outward signs of agitation. There were no shakes and my breathing was even and quiet. A lot of words had been spoken in the last hour so. Beverly had said her piece, Benjy had gone out of his way to reassure me of his friendship, but as I sat there on the settee staring at my reflection in the TV screen, it was Mitch’s words that sounded the loudest. ‘He’s taking you for a pussy.’ Slowly, deliberately, I got up and went out to the bathroom.
It was a Tuesday night, just after nine. There was a slight chill in the air, made worse by a slight drizzle. The street lamps, those that worked, cast wide pools of amber light all along the road. The lamps were very bright, had been made that way to deter dealing, but most of that was taking place in the dark spaces between. As per usual for that time of night, the police presence had been scaled back to a couple of sentries, one at either end of the road, leaving the side roads unattended. I had used one of these roads – Montague – to creep up unseen.
In the entrance to the alley that ran behind the Lord Stanley pub, which stood on the corner of Sandringham and Montague, I had positioned myself to observe the goings on. This was supposed to be my patch and yet there I was skulking about in an alley like a rat. I felt sorry myself and desperately alone. My position gave me an angled view of the main drag, where most of the people were standing around in groups. There was quite a bit of noise, mostly shouted conversations as people competed with one another to be heard above the general din. Everything about the scene felt unfamiliar, strange, not quite as I had remembered it. In less than a week my view of the world seemed to have altered. Nothing made sense any more. I didn’t know where I was, who I was or what I was doing. I wanted to run away, far away, and never come back, but at the same time I knew I would never know any peace until I had settled my account with Django. The thought that he’d been bragging about stabbing my brother and threatening to do the same to me, made me want to punch the wall. The moment he popped into my head my heart
beat quickened. Instinctively I reached round and felt the gun in my waist. The cold steel pressed against my skin felt reassuring.
I couldn’t see him. Some of his crew were there, most of them in fact, but I couldn’t see him. I stared and stared, hoping to spot him, praying that I hadn’t shown up on the one night when he wasn’t around. And then, as it from nowhere, he suddenly appeared. He’d been there all along, but out of view, urinating behind a parked transit van. I knew this because when he emerged he was still doing up his flies. This time, instead of feeling for the gun, I pulled it out of my waist and eased off the safety catch. I still didn’t know exactly how I wanted to play the thing, but by removing the safety I felt as if I’d moved to the next stage, edged a little closer to the precipice.
I watched and waited, looking for a chink. Django and his boys stood around doing what they always did: chatting, drinking bottles of Dragon Stout, rolling and smoking spliffs. Occasionally, one of them would break off from the group to sell a bit of crack to a junkie but mostly they remained together, safety in numbers. An hour passed. It felt more like five. Finally, at around ten thirty, people started drifting away. The activity and noise levels fell noticeably. At eleven, from my position behind the Lord Stanley, I heard the bell for last orders. This made me move a little further down the alley, a little further into the darkness, to avoid the exiting punters. By eleven thirty the pub had emptied. Several people walked past the alley into Montague Road, but none saw me. The alley was too dark.
Once I saw the lights go off in the back of pub and heard the doors being bolted, I came back to the mouth of the alley and peered across the road to see what the Yardies were doing. Only two of them remained. Fleas (Django’s unacknowledged second) and Django himself. I continued to wait, pacing about and tapping the gun against my leg until I remembered that the safety was off. I put it back on but kept the gun in my hand. I was getting impatient and at one point I had an urge to run up on them and start blasting way but I composed myself. I had waited that long; a little longer wouldn’t doing any harm and would probably make all the difference. The element of surprise was crucial. I didn’t doubt for a minute that Django was armed and I knew I couldn’t afford to give him space and time to act.
No More Heroes Page 12
