People continued to drift away but not Django or Fleas. I couldn’t understand it. What the hell were they up to? The Front was dead. Most people had left. Anyone looking to buy a draw or any junkies on the hunt for crack had now moved on to other watering holes in the area. And yet Django and Fleas, and the handful of other dealers, were still milling about as if they had no homes to go. I was becoming frantic, my heart pounding, my breath now coming in short, erratic bursts. I needed a release, I needed something to happen and soon. And finally it did. At around a quarter to midnight, after a wait of almost three hours, I saw Django and Fleas touch fists and go off in opposite directions. Django took the first left into Amhurst Road but I couldn’t go after him. I had to hold my position because Fleas was walking directly towards me. I watched him cross the road and felt certain that he had seen me and that he and Django had devised a plan to circle me. I quickly glanced over my shoulder to try to see if Django was even then coming up behind me, but it was too dark. I gripped the gun and eased myself further into the alley, close enough to the mouth to see what Fleas was doing and but also looking behind me in case Django suddenly appeared. With my back against the wall and both hands on the gun, I was getting ready to blast whichever one of them got to me first.
I’d been panicking for nothing. Like those punters who had come out of the Lord Stanley earlier, Fleas walked straight past the alley into Montague Road and within seconds had rounded the bend out of sight. I was standing no more than ten feet from him but he hadn’t seen me. Once he was out of view, I sprinted out of the alley on to the Front and flew down towards Amhurst Road, the gun in my hand, the safety off again. There were still some people standing around on the Front but I ran past them in a blur, too quick for them to register it was me.
Django had had quite a head start on me and I knew I’d have to go some to catch up with him. By the time I turned into Amhurst Road he was nowhere to be seen. My heart sank. I carried on running, desperately looking left and right and peering ahead into the distance. And then I spotted him, about a hundred yards ahead. He was standing still, seemed to fishing around in his pocket for something. I slowed down, started walking, mindful not to get too close. The road was deserted except for the odd passing vehicle. I eased myself behind a parked car, crouched down and peeped out to see what he was doing. He found what he was looking for. The keys to his car. I’d forgotten he had one, a broken down Ford Fiesta. He was standing next to it, about to put the key in the driver’s door. To avoid missing my opportunity, I leapt to my feet and started jogging towards him, not caring now if he saw me, committed, with only one thing on my mind. At the last moment he sensed me approaching and was about to turn around but he was too late: I shot him once in the back of the head. He collapsed like a felled tree and didn’t move again or make a sound. I had a quick look around. I felt breathless, my heart was pounding, I was trembling so much I thought my legs would buckle. I stared down at Django, at his already vacant eyes, at the odd angle of his legs, at the blood oozing from the hole in his head. I felt nothing for him, no more than if I’d squashed a fly. Suddenly aware that the gun was still in my hand, I shoved it down my waist. The muzzle was so hot it burnt my skin. I had another look around. This time I saw a few curtains twitching, and several houses that were in darkness moments earlier now had lights on. And then, all at once, with a force that made me giddy, I was hit by the full horror of what I’d done. I turned and sprinted away.
When I got home, at around one thirty, Beverly had already gone to bed. To avoid disturbing her or Shereen, I crept to the bathroom, hid the gun under the bath, removed my clothes and dumped them in the wash basket. On impulse, I had a quick shower, put on my bathrobe that was hanging on the back of the door, then crept out to the kitchen. From the cupboard I pulled out a half bottle of Martell brandy and took several gulps. It had no effect so I went to the living room and rolled a spliff. The effects of the two, the weed and the brandy, soon kicked in, made me feel woozy, but didn’t stop me from thinking about what I’d just done. Short of a lobotomy, I couldn’t imagine a time when I’d ever stop thinking about it. I kept seeing Django’s eyes as the life drained out of him.
The guilt and remorse I felt was almost suffocating. Unable to keep still, I paced up and down. The room was so small and cramped I couldn’t vary my movements; now to the window, now to the settee, now back to the window. I felt like a caged animal. It didn’t help that the curtains were drawn. I went over to the window and pulled them apart and stood there for a moment staring out at the views. They didn’t seem as impressive as the day before. I cracked the top pane of the window and, just for a minute, rued the fact that the main part had been sealed. Would I have jumped? Probably not but I definitely thought about it. I kept pacing, sucking on my spliff and swigging from the brandy bottle. Eventually I felt the adrenalin starting to wear off and then, in an instant, I crashed. I’d never felt as tired in my life, not even when I used to play football three times a week. I slumped on to the settee and within minutes was fast asleep. I don’t know how long I was out but when Beverly woke me up, the room was bright with sunlight.
Immediately I covered my eyes and begged Beverly to draw the curtains, but all she said was, ‘What the hell you gone and done?’ I sat up, my head as heavy as a bag of sand, then staggered out to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water and stood at the sinking gulping it down. I couldn’t remember water ever tasting so good. Beverly had followed me. Still wearing her nightgown, she stood in the doorway, her arms folded around her stomach, her eyes puffy with sleep. ‘Well?’ she said. There was fear in her voice. ‘Shereen still asleep?’ I asked, stalling for time. ‘Never mind her,’ said Beverly, ‘just answer my question.’ I told her. She let me get it all out then shook her head and said, ‘You just couldn’t leave it could you?’
Django didn’t die. He lost the use of an eye and an arm and his speech would never be the same again, but, incredibly, he’d survived. He spent over a month in hospital and then, when they thought he was fit enough to travel, the police deported him back to Jamaica to face charges of multiple homicide. It came out, in the Hackney Gazette, that his real name was Sonny Renton and that he’d been on the run from the Jamaican authorities for years, as was the case with a lot of the Yardies who arrived in London in the eighties, but whilst it was a slight comfort to know that he was no longer around, I still had to deal with his friends.
Fleas had made it his personal mission to put me down. I heard from Mitch that he was getting so impatient to have his revenge that he had promised to pay for information leading to my whereabouts. I may have been afraid for my life, but I was not so cowed into terror that I couldn’t recognise the humour in the situation. Behind his back, Fleas was called Ladbroke, with the emphasis very much on the ‘broke’. There were days when he would take such a hammering in the bookies he could barely feed himself, let alone finance a vendetta against me. But his gambling addiction did not in any way detract from the fact that he was a heartless sonofabitch with the blood of many dead people on his hands. I was under no illusions about him. He had declared me as his next victim and that was as close to being given a death sentence as I was ever likely to come.
I had no choice but to go into hiding. Fortunately, that was not so difficult to do as I had the advantage over the Yardies of being a native Londoner. I knew the city in a way they never could. I moved out of Beverly’s place and, through a friend of Ras Malachi’s, wound up living in a tiny council sub-let in Edmonton. Not long after that Beverly moved in with her cousin south of the river and that was pretty much the end of us as a couple. I saw her a few more times, I went to visit her in Peckham, but the situation was impossible and we knew it. The last time we saw each other, she told me she had met someone from the area and that they were planning on moving out to the suburbs, to Sutton, which apparently had very good schools. ‘I want to give Shereen a chance.’
While all this had been happening, Theodore had had a spiritual awakening. W
ithin a few weeks of leaving hospital he had become a born-again Christian. He started going to his local Pentecostal church every Sunday and became something of a poster boy for their ongoing work to rescue young black men from a life of drugs and crime. His transformation left me astonished. He had become a completely different person, recognisable to me in looks only. I tried to be understanding as I feared losing him again. It had happened once before, when he’d been running around with Lee and the rest of them, and now I was in danger of losing him to a different type of gang. The situation was becoming intolerable. The gap between us was just too wide and the day finally came when I decided to have it out with him.
Ironically, it happened on a Sunday. I went to see him in his one-bedroom flat in a converted Victorian terrace in Stoke Newington, which his church had financed. He wasn’t working yet but was actively looking. The deal was that he’d pay the church back the deposit on the place and any rent he had accrued when eventually he found a job. They were looking after him, I had to give them that. The place was spacious and newly-decorated, but with just a bed, a dining table and two dining chairs, it was a long way from being homely and felt unfinished. There was sawdust on the window-frames and around the skirting boards and the smell of glue and varnish was everywhere. He had painted the place himself and not to a very high standard. The functional grey carpet, fitted in every room, was covered in spots of white paint. I couldn’t help but tease him about his decorating skills. ‘Remind me not to hire you to do my place.’
He had cooked. Chicken and rice and peas. He had always been a dab hand in the kitchen. Mum used to try and teach us but he had shown more attention, and aptitude, than me. I was about to start tucking in when he held his hand up and said, ‘In this house we say grace before we eat.’ With the fork poised in front of my mouth, I looked at him as if he was joking, but the expression in his eyes and the set of his mouth said otherwise. Angrily, I dropped the fork on to my plate and watched as he clasped his hands, bowed his head, closed his eyes and said, ‘The only sustenance that matters, Lord, comes from you. For all that you provide for us – the food on our table, the roof over our heads, the clothes on our backs, health, strength and vitality – we give thanks.’ I thought he’d never shut up. I had arrived at his place with the hunger of three men, but in the end I only managed half of what was on my plate. His condescending attitude had robbed me of my appetite.
Just this once I was determined not to be preached at and did everything I could to avoid it. I talked about football, which he loved as much as me. I went all nostalgic and recounted some of the happier moments from our childhood, such as the time when our aunt Viola gave us full cowboy outfits for Christmas presents, complete with Stetsons, gun belts and two six shooters apiece. I loved mine so much I wore it all the time, even in bed. I reminded him of the first girl he ever had a crush on, Samantha Braithwaite, who let him feel her up one day in our bedroom when she came by with her mother, a friend of dad’s from Jamaica. I mentioned the year he and I went to Butlins with our local boys club and how he loved it so much he cried when we had to go home. I knew that would get to him. For years afterwards he would talk about that holiday and he did on this occasion, too.
‘Remember the song they were playing when that girl came up to you in the disco and kissed you on the cheek?’
‘Dancing Queen,’ he replied. He stared down at his plate, turning the rice over with his fork, transported, momentarily, back to Bognor Regis, 1976. I had him right where I wanted him and was keen to keep him there.
‘Ever wonder what became of her?’ I asked.
He nodded and said, ‘Now and then. I remember she said she was from Sussex. Eastbourne in Sussex. I’ve never been there but the way she described it…’ he became thoughtful again, then went on, ‘…I wonder if she still lives there.’
And then he began to preach. I was naïve to think I’d escaped. It was a Sunday, after all, and he’d been at church all morning and most of the afternoon.
‘Why won’t you come to church, Simon?’
‘Damn, bruv! We were doing so well.’
‘Seriously, I wish you would.’
‘And I wish you wouldn’t.’
I stood up and started gathering up the empty dishes.
‘Sit down, Simon. Let’s talk. We used to be able to talk. I miss that.’
I sat down again, a frown on my face. I could feel him looking at me, but I didn’t want to meet his eyes. Instead I turned my head away and focussed on a spot on the bare white wall, thinking how it could use a picture of some kind, or a mirror. A space as big as that was just begging to be covered up.
‘I worry about you, Simon. I really do. You’re not a kid any more. You’re seventeen years old, soon to be eighteen. Don’t you think its time you grew up and faced a few facts.’
‘What you chatting about, ‘facts’?’
‘Well, number one, you have to change the way you’re living.’
‘Says who?’
I heard him sigh, shift about in his seat. ‘Answer me this,’ he said, ‘do you think it’s right that you haven’t been to see Mum and Dad in months? It’s not right, Simon. I know because I used to treat them the same way, remember? But I see now how wrong I was. No matter how badly I thought of them, they’re still my parents and I should have had the decency to honour them. I tell you, making things up with Dad is one of the best things I ever did.’
I turned and stared at him and was surprised to see that he had welled up a bit. Embarrassed, he suddenly stood up and went out to the kitchen. I heard him rattling around, heard the clink of glasses, the familiar suction sound of a fridge door opening and closing again. He was right about our parents. I had been avoiding them and for the same reasons I’d been avoiding him. They had used Theodore’s conversion to Christianity as a stick to beat me with.
‘Why you don’t do like yuh bredda and go to church?’
I detested their hypocrisy. For all their seeming devoutness, I couldn’t remember the last time either of them had set foot inside a church. It really galled me to have to take lectures from them on the matter of my salvation, but at the end of the day they were my parents and so I had to suck it up. In any case, their badgering was kind of reassuring. It meant they hadn’t completely written me off. I could have done without their lecturing, but I preferred that to them washing their hands of me.
Theodore came back in looking more composed, with two tall glasses filled with what I immediately recognised as Guinness punch. ‘There’s ice if you want it, but it should be cold enough. It’s been in the fridge since last night.’ He came over and put one of the glasses in front of me and went back to his chair. I took a sip. Not like Mum’s, a bit too much nutmeg and not sweet enough, but good.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I only say what I say to you out of love. I know you think I’m a joke, I know you don’t have any respect for me…’
I had to cut in there. ‘That ain’t true, Theodore. It ain’t true and it ain’t fair of you to say it. I do respect you.’
‘You do?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘You have a funny way of showing it. Is it respectful to show up here with a loaded gun bulging in your waist?
I stared at him, weighing my response carefully. I was prepared to concede the point but before that I had some truths of my own that needed airing.
‘You got a short memory, Theodore. Who looked after you when you were cracked out? Me. Who came to visit you three times a day in hospital when you were this close…’ I squeezed my forefinger and thumb together, ‘…to going out? Me. And I haven’t even mentioned Django yet. He puts more holes in you than a grater, leaves you for dead, then starts bragging about it. Who put it on that faggot? Was it God? No. I did that. So please, don’t talk to me about love and respect, bruv. We can all talk about that.’
After that we really got into it. He used his tried and trusted argument about God working in mysterious ways.
‘We don’t know. Ma
ybe it was part of his divine plan that I got stabbed. I certainly believe I’ve been given a second chance, a chance to do some good in the world.’
I wasn’t having any of it. ‘You can do good in the world without being a God freak.’
‘I’m not a freak. If you’re going to insult me you can leave right now.’
We got even deeper into it, to’ing and fro’ing, pulling and tugging at each other like we used to do as kids. Try as I did, I couldn’t make him see that he was being a fool, that he had been brainwashed by people who prey on the vulnerable for their own self-serving ends.
‘What you on about, Simon? I’m not part of some cult. Nobody brainwashed me. I told you, Christ visited me in hospital. In person. He sat down beside me and spoke to me. He brought me back to life. It’s down to Him that I’m sitting here with you today. No, bruv. If anyone’s been brainwashed, it’s you.’
At last we fell silent. We’d talked ourselves out, used up all our energy. I wasn’t sure how he felt, but I thought something good had happened, some obstacle that had been standing between us had now been removed or at least shifted to one side. That’s what I was thinking but I had second thoughts when Theodore said, ‘To go back to Django. Two wrongs don’t make a right. You have to repent. I can’t stress that enough. You have to accept that what you did was wicked and ask the Almighty to forgive you.’
I didn’t know what. After that the silence sat between us at the table like a wino; rude, uninvited, smelly. Eventually, for something to say, I praised the cooking and offered to do the washing up.
‘We can do it together,’ he said. ‘I’ll wash, you can dry.’
No More Heroes Page 13
