by Steve Tasane
Maybe I’ll be able to get rid of Alfi Spar for good. That boy were nowt but a loser. But me mam named us Alfi, so I better stick wi’ that. I could be Alfi X. Dun’t sound as good as Fred X. Wait on – Citizen Digit’s still got me birth certificate, han’t he? I’ll have to find him, get it back. Nobody gets away wi’ taking me birth certificate.
“…must be pretty hungry, hey, Fred?”
Grub!
Scarlett is smiling down at us. She’s got silver-plated teeth. In’t it illegal to let people with silver-plated teeth foster kids? I reckon the Welfare Team have placed me wi’ these two ’cos they think I’m a villain, ’cos I won’t give ’em me proper name. Still, got to be better than Tenderness.
Grub. I realize I’m nodding like one o’ them nodding dogs folk put in the back o’ cars, and they’re all laughing at us. But it’s friendly laughter, and I smile back, and we’re walking out the cop shop into the night air. Danny’s got his hand on me back. It’s physical contact, that is, which is against regulations. But I don’t mind. Funny, in’t it, how you can tell the difference? Between bad hands and good, I mean.
Scarlett drives us to their house in Finsbury Park. She drives fast, like she’s in a bumper car at a fair, and keeps saying “Oops” and “Go! Go! Go!” The Digit ’ud like her. They should foster him. They’re just his type.
Danny keeps asking questions, like, “Have you been in North London long?” and “What do you make of Finsbury Park, then? It can be a bit scabby, but we like it”, and “Have you ever been to Hampstead Heath? It’s like the countryside, only in the middle of London.”
I en’t really answering, just hmming and ahhing and nodding me head, and Scarlett says, “Don’t mind Danny Boy. He’s a right nosy sod.”
Swearing’s against the rules too. Then she says, “Hold tight: sharp left!” and almost crashes us into a wall. Then she’s tooting her horn like a psycho and saying, “They all drive like lunatics round here, Fred. You’ll get used to it.”
Get used to it. Maybe, once I’ve settled in, I’ll let ’em know I’m really called Alfi.
We get to their house. “It’s no palace,” says Danny, “but it’s got to be better than Tottenham Nick.”
They push open the door and there’s a yipyipyip and Scarlett switches on the light, and there’s what looks like a wig zooming across the floor. It skids to a halt against Scarlett’s boots, and starts to jump up and down, scrambling at her knees, a big pink tongue licking at her kneecaps.
“Iggy!” she says. “Hello, darling, did you miss us then? Did you miss us?”
“I hope you don’t mind dogs,” says Danny.
Iggy starts jumping up around us, and I bend down to pet him and he’s licking me fingers like I’m his oldest pal from years back.
“Shall we show him round then, Scar?”
They lead us into the kitchen. It’s got an old wooden dining table and in the middle of it is perched a black cat, on a place mat, totally still, like a catty vase.
“Evening, Patti.” Danny ruffles the cat’s head. Patti narrows her eyes and smiles at us, purring like a phone set on vibrate.
“Go on, Fred,” says Scarlett. “Have a poke around. It’s a free country.”
So I do. First up, I look in the fridge, which is a bit of a letdown, if I’m honest. It’s got a couple o’ cans of beer, a tub o’ margarine, some crusty-looking cheese and an onion. Where’s the scran they were going on about?
I look in the cupboards. Only one of ’em has any food in, and that’s a tin o’ kidney beans, a packet o’ lentils and a bag o’ flour.
“Oh, yeah,” says Danny, “we’re not much cop at cooking.”
What?
He tosses us a takeaway menu.
“It’s a late-night one. Indian grub. Is that all right? We can do a chips and kebab shop if you like?”
“No. No, that’s great. I love curry.”
“Go on then,” says Scarlett. “Pick what you like, and we’ll make the order.”
Just hold it right there, Alfi. Don’t let ’em think you’re greedy. You mustn’t mess this one up, on top of all t’others. “Err,” I say, “I’ll just have whatever you two are having. I don’t mind.”
But I’ve got me fingers crossed that they’ll order plenty of good stuff.
And they do. Scarlett orders three pilau rices, a stuffed naan, chicken tikka, lamb curry, aloo ghobi, channa masala, two dhals and four samosas.
“We have to get enough for Iggy. He’s a complete curry hound.”
So am I.
Citizen Digit manages to stagger himself onto the street, out from Cash Counters, his legs warm and damp, head screeching. Traffic roars. Headlights like light-sabres. Tumbles off the kerb. Angry horns and squealing breaks. Keep it together, Didge.
Had a little accident, trouser department. Bladder storm.
Keep walking. Keep on walking. In big, mad London no one will offer botheration. Walk away, down the road to nowhere.
Somewhere. The Digit has to get somewhere. Away from Virus and his zap-happy teaching method. Away from this ache.
Oh, yeah, I know where. Safe house. Tender … ness. Not Reliance Plus. Not Call-Me and his Fixits. No. The tender touch, the soft hand: Grace.
To change me, wash and dry me, blanket me.
Blank it.
The Digit walks and he walks and he walks and he walks, cool damp strides, cold clammy socks. Squidgy Didge. Citizen Digit looks messtastic, his head abuzz. I’m a face ache. But on I walk, because if you stop moving, they catch you. You stand still and the game’s Kerplunk.
Grace lives and works in a one-bedroom flat – kindly installed there by one Jackson Banks – above a newsagents up the Arsenal. JB’s place is only a street or two away, so he can keep a close eye on her proceedings. She’ll be there now.
So that’s where the Digit goes, same as the other Joes, to see the sister who’ll tend the blisters, past the point of innocence, no more nonsense—
SHUT UP! SHUT IT, DIGIT! ENOUGH NOW!
On I walk, in silence.
To Grace.
*
I hardly remember floating up to bed. The pile o’ curry sent us dozy and full.
“This is your room,” said Scarlett, “for as long as you need it. Your space. Tomorrow, you can rearrange it however you like. And me and Danny will only come in if you ask us.”
I sink into the mattress. It dun’t stink all bleachy like at Tenderness; it smells all soft-like. Got Spider-Man duvet; keep the baddies at bay.
Luminous stars stuck to the ceiling.
Just think, Alfi, scrunched up in an open skip, staring up at frozen sky.
But this en’t any skip.
Patticat curls up at the end o’ the duvet. Purring us to sleep.
Hammering on the door. The code, the secret, safe rhythm. I hammer the pattern over and over. After for ever, Grace finally unlatches the door, lets me stumble in.
“Digit? You’re a late one.” She sees the state of me, tries not to look shocked. “Who ruffled your feathers, Didge?”
“I was a naughty boy, wasn’t I? Needed a bit of a reprimand.”
“Virus.”
“Gotta learn, don’t you? Don’t learn your lesson, keep makin’ the same mistakes, over and over.”
She hugs me to her. Holds me, in the hallway.
After a while, I say, “Jackson?”
“Workin’. Doin’ a house. With Obnob and the boy. Don’t stress, when he’s done he’ll go straight to his gaff with his pillage.”
As I hoped. “Can I borrow your washing machine?” I say, looking down at my mess.
“Long as you promise to give it back.”
She finds me a dressing gown, and puts the wash on for me, telling me to go take a shower. I have it hot as I can stand, steaming. I stand under it for ages, sweating the bad stuff out of me. I feel like I’m washing away all the poison that Citizen Digit has been so busy absorbing. I remember other showers, ages back, washing off the stench of Byron Bl
ank Space. Emerging clean, well-scrubbed, as Citizen Digit. Brand spanking new. Now, I see myself in the bathroom mirror, just a boy.
When I feel clean I come back out and Grace tells me she’s finished working for the night. She’s in a long, technicolor skirt, covers her flesh, flows with her soul. She already had her shower, she says, and she feels cleaner too. We sit on the sofa and she puts her arm round me, and we’re warm.
She says, “You’re riskin’ it, comin’ here.”
“I had nowhere else. Anyway, Jackson knows me.”
“Lucky for you, he doesn’t.” She pauses. “Byron.”
“Aww … how do you…?”
“Same way as Virus. Usin’ my ears. Alfi named you, the other night.”
“Blabber-Boy.”
Damn. It’s as if the more time I spend near Alfi Spar, the more Citizen Digit’s power of invisibility disappears. Like Alfi’s hi-vis glow sheds its own spotlight on me too.
“Doesn’t matter now,” I say. “Me and Squealer-Face are finished. We’re bad for each other.”
“You don’t mean that.”
She’s right, as ever.
We’re ’cosy, me and Grace, feeling the night draw by.
“You need a bed – you’re done in,” says Grace. “I can kip on the sofa. You use the bedroom.”
But the bedroom is where she works.
“You sure you’re finished for the night?” I ask.
She nods.
“Grace,” I say, “how come you do it? For Jackson? All these men.”
She shrugs. “’Ow come you’re always on the nick?” she asks.
“I ain’t got no choice, have I? What am I going to do – go ask for a job? They’d drag me back to Tenderness in no time.”
“Well,” she says, “same with me, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but that was years back. You’re an adult now, you can do what you want.”
She laughs at that. “Tell it to Jackson. I belong to ’im, don’t I?”
“No, you don’t. Just walk away.”
“’E’s a bit precious about his personal playthings. Gets ragin’, don’t he? I ran once before. ’E found me. Let’s just say, I won’t run again.”
Is that it then? Are we like this, for always?
“When I done a runner from Tenderness,” she goes on, “I thought the world was me oyster, yeah? But you’ve been on the streets, you know what it’s like. When Jackson found me, ’e was a proper charmer. I thought I’d scratched the winning card. Even when it turned out ’e used to be one of Newton’s boys ’imself – an’ ’e was still runnin’ favours for ’im – ’e never gave me up.”
“Favours?”
“Not for the Jimmys. He used to keep the other boys in check, yeah? Before Barry came along to do official discipline.”
“Humph. He must have been much more fun back then,” says me, snarkylike.
“We ’ad a laugh.”
“A laugh? With Jackson Banks? He ain’t exactly Mr Tickle, is he?”
She smiles. Her eyes take on a glaze, like she’s thinking about the distant past.
“Yer’d be surprised. So I put meself in ’is ’ands – like a barbie doll with a terrible two year old. You don’t wanna know ’im, in ’is tantrums.”
No, I don’t.
“Then, when I came of age, ’e started getting ideas, didn’t ’e? Ideas and Jackson Banks are a bad combination. I been workin’ for ’im since.”
“And the Authoritariacs? Tenderness House? They didn’t come digging for you?” I’m jaw-dropped.
“Less ’assle that way, weren’t it? Easier – and quieter – for them to let JB keep ’is little pet.”
“When you were at Tenderness,” I say, “was Governor Newton up to his tricks back then?”
“Call-Me Norman.”
My brain blinks a bit. “Then he was.”
“Course he was,” she says. “He always was. It ain’t just these days things are ’ow they are. Why d’yer think I ran?”
I’m sitting up straight in bed. “You know?”
“I know all about the Jim’llfixits. And their little parties.”
“Oh, Grace.”
The Digit’s all a-shudder. Got the terrible trembles, haven’t I? Sunk in her arms. She’s holding me tight.
“So what’s the plan, Didge?”
“Plan?”
“You’re comin’ undone.”
She’s spot on. It’s hard to keep up. Sometimes you don’t even want to think any more. She squeezes my hand. I’m squeezing back. Try and focus.
We’re holding each other and this time it’s my eyes that are leaking. All over my face. She’s right; I’m all undone. We both are.
“Oh, Grace,” I say again. The Digit’s lost his vocab.
“You know it ain’t even me real name, don’tcha? I let meself lose that a long time back, same as you lost Byron. Same as Virus lost whoever he used to be. You know the funniest thing, Didge?”
I shake my head.
“I ain’t even a bleedin’ Cockney, am I?”
The Digit smiles at that. Course she isn’t.
“We do what we need to, to fit in. No one wants to stand out, do they Didge?”
I feel so sad and happy at the same time. Sitting here, arms round each other. It reminds me of home. Citizen Digit’s doing his best to stop his peepers from leaking. In this single instance, his best isn’t quite up to it.
“Don’t you have no one else?” I ask. “No family?”
She snorts at that. Stupid question, Didge.
“Any youngers come find me from Tenderness, any WhyPettes – I direct ’em well away, don’t I?” she says. “I know a gang of squatters south of the river. It ain’t ideal, but it ’as to be better than Newton and ’is pervert mates. I’d ’ave done the same with you, D, if you hadn’t of found Cash Counters first. Sorry you got a zappin’ tonight.”
“Me too,” says I.
She pulls me tighter into her arms.
Later. She’s got me all tucked up in bed, put clean sheets on and everything. She’s stroking my head.
She asks again. “What’s the plan, Didge?”
How can Citizen Digit hope to answer that? It’s a mess. All of a sud, I’m busting with bitterness at Alfi Spar.
“Plan? Plan was to get as far away from Norman Newton as possible, make a fresh start and live happily ever after. But Alfi Spar brought Call-Me straight to our door, didn’t he? Ruined it all.”
“Did he?” she asks.
“Yes.” I’m sulkiness itself.
“So it ain’t you, then,” she says, “what brought Norman Newton to my door?”
“No.” Double-sulk.
“It ain’t you, then, who started blabbin’ and squealin’ and upsettin’ Call-Me’s apple cart?”
She’s outraging me. “I warned Alfi, that was all. I gave him the evidentials. The Citizen was doing him a favour.”
She’s silent. I can hear her thinking. “Then maybe it’s time you finished what you started,” she says.
“Me?”
“Digit.”
I pull myself together. “I gave it all to Alfi, didn’t I? It’s Alfi who’s got the evidence.”
What’s it up to me for? Why’s it always up to me? Citizen Sort-It comes with full responsibilities, don’t he?
“Where?” she asks.
“He gave it up, to his Senior Case Worker.” I laugh and Grace joins in. Alfi Spar. What a doughnut. If he had a brain, it’d be made of jam.
“He actually reckons it’s safe though. He started to tell me, just before he got long-armed. I don’t know how. Even if he made a copy, he ain’t even got no friends to have left it with.”
“Everybody’s got friends.”
“Not Blabber-Boy. He’s the only sucker in the universe who don’t even have a single Facebook friend. Can you believe—”
I stop myself right there. Start again. Focus, Digit, focus. “He … wanted … me … to friend him on Facebook.”
&nbs
p; Grace gives me a so-what look, as I’m bouncing my knees from under the duvet. “Facebook, Facebook,” I chant. “Quick, Grace – laptop, Smartphone. We need Facebook!”
She goes into the living room, reappears with a laptop and we log in. “Go to your Facebook page,” I tell her.
“I ain’t got one. Go to yours.”
“Ain’t got one neither.” We’re invisible, ain’t we? Offline.
So we do the unheard-of, and set up our own Facebook page, pseudononymously of course. And we search Alfi Spar and there it is. But Alfi only shares some of his information with his friends…
“So –” Citizen Digit brainzaps this through “– if Alfi posted the video onto Facebook, it’s effectively as secure as it gets, because—”
“’Cos ’e ain’t got no friends.”
“So all we got to do is put in a friend request and we’ve got the evid-errr…” The Digit limps to a halt. Alfi-Boy ain’t in no position to be responding to friend requests, is he?
I squash my head. “Aaaaaagh… We’re going to have to hack into his account. To do that, we’ll need his password.”
Which could be any of a billion weirdies. Virus has the technical gadgetry to do this kind of hacking in a matter of minutes. But for the Good Citizen and Grace, we’re just going to have to guess. We’re going to have to use our brains.
So we sit and think. Me cosy and soft under the duvet, Grace resting on the edge of the bed like it’s bed-time storytime.
We think for a while.
And we keep on thinking. My eyes can hardly keep themselves open. I’m feeling myself nodding off. Then, from behind my lids, it comes to me, all a-flash.
Ah-hah! Digital thinking conquers the world.
So I grab the laptop, and type in the magic letters:
K – A – T – A – R – I – I – N – A
A round of applause and a gold medal, please, for the one and only world champion Mr Citizen Digit, code-breaker extraordinary.
We’re in. And it’s right here:
Call-Me Norman Newton and his Jim’llfixits in all their horror. It’s ugly, but it’s real.
Grace doesn’t watch. ”Don’t need to,” she says.
I’m forgetting. She’s seen it, first-hand. I switch it off.
“So,” I say, over-cheerily, “we have hope.”
