‘Do you have any kids?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. Two girls. One’s your age, and one’s a bit younger. They’re out now. So tell me, Jackson, what school do you go to?’
‘Marston Hall.’
‘Oh, you go to Marston, do you?’ she said, dragging her words. ‘They’re in the news a lot lately.’
I played ignorant. ‘You mean about the government calling us useless?’
‘No, you know, the murder. Terrible thing. Those two boys, you know, the papers call them A and B, but down here we know who they are. One of them lives on this road, Lionel his name is. Strange one, him.’
I nodded my head slowly to give the impression that I was thinking.
‘Oh yes. Yes. I know what you’re talking about. So what’s so strange about him?’ It was as if she was waiting for me to ask.
‘Well, he acts like he’s on another planet. He’s fifteen years old and still sucking his thumb, he’s in and out of that house at all times of the night, he’s always got his head down in the gutter, and when he raises his chin he looks like death warmed up. I mean, he’s so miserable. He grew up around here all his life but he’s never played with the local boys, he never speaks to the girls, he just never mixes with anyone. And he smells funny, and he’s always in the same clothes, and if you say hello to him all he says back is, hello.’
She left a space for me to speak.
‘What do you want him to say?’
‘I don’t know, he should say something. Not just hello. What? Don’t they teach you conversational skills at that school?’
Jason appeared at the door with a large screwdriver in his hand.
‘Why don’t you go and teach them some of your so-called conversational skills. You could speak for England, you, no, Europe, you could speak for Europe.’
‘I’m just telling him about that killer boy Lionel.’
‘You should mind your own business,’ he said, pointing the screwdriver towards her and continuing his rant. ‘Just leave people’s business. He’ll get his comeuppance, the dirty little lowlife scum. Fancy taking a knife to school and killing a teacher. I know what I’d do if he was my son. They wouldn’t need to lock him up; I’d deal with the little toe rag myself. But he hasn’t got a father, has he? No, he’s got an absentee father, that’s what he’s got. Lowlife scum, that’s what he is. And his mother, they should lock her up too. Any chance of a bite to eat, love?’
Carla stood up and threw the cushion back on to the seat. ‘Do you want something to eat, son?’
She was talking to me more and more like an adopted son. A bit worrying, I thought.
‘No,’ I said, standing up. ‘I have to go now. Thanks for everything, and thanks for saving me from the mob. I’ve had to face two mobs today. Will I be all right out there now?’
‘Yes. Just turn right and keep walking. Come back sometime. You’re always welcome. Best tea on the street.’
Just as I was leaving the house her two daughters turned up. They walked past me in the doorway as if I wasn’t there.
Carla noticed. ‘Rachel, Pauline, this is Jackson. Say hello.’
They stopped, turned, and said, ‘Hello, Jackson’ in unison, and then they continued to head towards the kitchen.
‘Goodbye, Jackson,’ said Carla, shaking her head. ‘They’re in a bad mood, they always come home in a bad mood after they visit their father.’
Chapter 8
A Trip to Trinidad
Carla said I would be all right when I left the house, that I should turn right and keep walking. I turned right and I had to run for my life. But I didn’t hold it against her; she wasn’t to know that the local kids were waiting for me to finish my tea.
In the school assembly on Monday morning Mrs Martel gave us a lecture on the virtues of forgiveness. Using quotes from Jesus, the Buddha, Mahatma Ghandi and John Lennon, she told us that the inability to forgive would corrupt our humanity and twist our souls. She also said she was a little disappointed with the low numbers of people registering for counselling.
‘If this is pride,’ she said, ‘pride comes before a fall. Don’t be afraid to talk.’ Then she made an offer that I at least couldn’t refuse. ‘Tomorrow, after lunch, Mrs Joseph has agreed to give up some of her time to come and speak to you. This will not be an assembly address, this will not be a lecture or a lesson, this will be an informal session for you to speak to her, ask her any questions, within reason, and get to know her. This was her idea – Mrs Joseph has made it clear that she wishes to keep strong ties to the school, and I think it could be an alternative to counselling for many of you. So that’s tomorrow after lunch. Those of you that want to go should let your head of year know today.’
At lunchtime I went to register for the session with Mrs Joseph, and as I was leaving the classroom where the registration was taking place I met Warren Stanmore. Warren was a quiet kid and famous at school for being good at everything. There were rumours that he was only clever because he had private lessons after school, but he insisted that he didn’t, he said that he just paid attention in class and got his work done.
‘What are you doing in there?’ he asked me.
‘I’m going to that thing with Mrs Joseph. Why don’t you come?’
‘What’s the point?’
Good question I thought. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I just want to know more about her, man. She’s been through a lot, you know.’
‘I know. But she said she don’t want anyone feeling sorry for her. You heard her.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I heard her, but she wants to get to know us better, and we should know her better. Who knows, she may just talk about football tomorrow, or swimming. Someone told me she’s into swimming.’
Warren wasn’t convinced. ‘I can’t be doing all that workshop stuff. I think it’s sad what happened to Mr Joseph but I could see it coming.’
Then I remembered. For a short time Warren was quite close to Lionel and Ramzi. No one could understand why they had become friends, he was so different from them, but friends they were, and although the friendship didn’t last for long it surprised us all.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I said. ‘I remember now. You used to hang out with them.’
Warren got defensive. ‘I didn’t really hang out with them, they were trying to hang out with me. I would just mind my own business and they would come and ask me to do things with them.’
‘So what kind of things did you do?’ I asked.
‘Weird things.’
‘Weird things like what?’
Warren lowered his gaze as he began to recall.
‘One day the three of us took it in turns to stare at each other to see who could outstare who.’
‘I’ve done that,’ I said. ‘That’s not weird. People do that all the time.’
‘No, but if you were the first to look away you’d have to bite the fingernails of the others.’
‘That is a bit weird,’ I conceded.
‘And then one day,’ he continued, ‘one day we all had to write down which teachers we hated most, and then we had to suggest ways of torturing them.’
‘Now that’s weird,’ I said. ‘Who did you suggest?’
Warren got very defensive again. ‘I can’t remember. I wasn’t taking it all that seriously, you know. I don’t think they were that serious either, they were just weird people, man, couldn’t you see that?’
‘Yeah. I knew they were weird, but I just didn’t know how weird.’
‘Do you remember the way they would just stare at people? I saw Lionel do that to a copper once. The copper just stopped and searched us, said we looked suspicious. Ramzi even got stop-searched on the day of the killing.’
Now that surprised me.
‘How do you know?’ I asked.
‘Because I passed by when it was happening. They didn’t find anything on him, so nothing happened, but then I saw him ten minutes later staring at a dog.’
‘A dog?’ I yelled.
&nbs
p; ‘Yeah, a dog, almost nose to nose. That’s what I’m saying, he was weird, both of them were weird.’
Warren raised his eyes but then he looked past me down the corridor and then over his back as if he was going to pass on classified information to me.
‘If you want to see how weird meet me after school and I’ll show you something, I’ll show you weird.’
‘I’ll meet you.’
‘OK. Straight after last lesson, outside the main gate.’
I got on with the rest of the day and met Warren at the main gate and he began to walk. I just followed him.
‘So where are we going?’ I asked.
‘Just follow me.’
‘What’s this weird thing, then?’
‘You’ll see.’
Somehow we began talking about food. We were comparing the kind of food our parents cooked for us to the kind of food we liked and bought ourselves, when I realised that we were just two streets away from Fentham Road, the road where Lionel used to live, Carla and Jason’s road, the road with the gang that didn’t like me round their ends.
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘You ain’t taking me down that Fentham Road, are you? They’re some kids down there that just go for me every time they see me. And they’ve only seen me twice.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. I know who you’re talking about. No, we’re going down here.’
We turned down the street that ran parallel with Fentham Road and when we got about halfway down we stopped and he knocked on a door. A woman in her late sixties opened the door; she looked very pleased to see Warren.
‘Hello, Warren, my love,’ she said happily. ‘It’s so wonderful to see you, do come in. Who’s your friend?’
‘This is Jackson,’ Warren said as we entered the house.
‘Hello, Jackson. Well, my name’s Norma, and this is my little house. I was born here. Not many people can say that about their house when they’re my age.’
That impressed me. ‘What, you were actually born here?’
‘That’s right,’ she said proudly. ‘In the room above where we are standing now, over half a century ago. Would you like some tea or a cold drink?’
‘No thanks, I’m OK,’ I replied.
‘I’m OK too, Norma,’ said Warren. ‘How’s your pain?’
‘Not too bad, as long as I keep moving. Arthritis doesn’t like the cold, the damp, or a lazy body.’
Warren began to look around. ‘Where’s Trinidad, Norma?’
Why is he asking her where a Caribbean island is? I wondered.
‘He’s outside,’ she replied. ‘He’s OK. Do you want to see him?’
‘If that’s all right,’ said Warren.
We went into the back garden, where a beautiful silver cat was lying down at the far end.
Norma began making kissing noises and hissing gently. The cat stood up and began to walk towards me.
‘This is Trinidad. What do you notice about him?’ asked Warren.
I watched the cat carefully. It staggered towards us, struggling to keep its balance.
‘It’s drunk,’ I said.
‘Look carefully,’ said Warren.
‘I’m looking. It’s drunk, or maybe it hasn’t woke up yet.’
Warren began to sound like a teacher. ‘Look even more carefully. Can’t you see?’
‘Can’t I see what?’
Warren gave in. ‘Look at his tail.’
I looked, and it didn’t have one. ‘Where’s his tail?’ I said loudly.
‘Lionel Ferrier cut it off,’ said Warren.
‘He what?’ I shouted.
‘He cut it off, man. Just for a laugh, just for a stupid laugh. That’s more than weird, that’s sick. This wasn’t the first cat either.’ He pointed over the back fence. ‘You see that house there, that’s Lionel’s house, that’s where he lives. One day we were in his back yard, all these cats were passing through, he gave us an axe and he dared me and Ramzi to get a cat and cut off its tail. Ramzi caught a cat and went to cut its tail off but he didn’t do it properly, he got a bit of its tail and he cut into one of its back legs. That cat screamed with pain and Lionel just laughed. Then he told me to have a go. I took the axe but I couldn’t do it. He went mad. He took the axe from me and started waving it at me. Just then Trinidad was passing and Lionel started going on about how he hated this cat, and that cats and women are bad, and how they both get on his nerves. So he started calling Trinidad and Trinidad just came to him, thinking he was going to stroke him or something. That Lionel’s got no feelings, he just got hold of Trinidad by the back of the neck, put his foot on his tail and cut it off.’
It was as if Trinidad knew we were talking about him. He came up to me and started rubbing himself on my leg. The story horrified me.
‘Oh, man, that’s evil,’ I said, looking down at the cat. Now I couldn’t miss the fact that he had no tail.
‘He’s evil,’ said Warren.
‘I’m just glad Trinidad’s alive,’ said Norma, coming up behind us. ‘Look at him. After what he’s been through you would have thought he would hate humans, but he’s such a loving cat, such a forgiving cat.’
Chapter 9
A Meeting of Minds
As Warren and I walked home he told me how he got to know where Trinidad lived and how he went round to confess and apologise to Norma. Since then they had become good friends. She had been moved by his willingness to face up to what he had been a part of and he had been moved by her willingness to forgive. He told me of other strange things that Lionel and Ramzi had done, things like throwing car battery acid at animals, making small explosives and setting them off on wastelands, and pretending to shoot passers-by with toy guns. I was beginning to feel like I was getting somewhere. It was not much, but I was beginning to know more about Lionel and Ramzi. This was just the start of my therapy.
There was a very low turn-out at Mrs Joseph’s session. There were about twenty of us to start with but after about ten minutes five people walked out. But I was so interested in what she had to say that I had to stay and listen. She spent much of the time talking about her hobbies, and about her days in school. She had obviously made a decision not to dwell on the killing. Although she wasn’t very funny it was also very obvious that she was trying to make us laugh. I had come to the conclusion that this was her way of dealing with the empty space that was now in her life. As I stood trying to laugh at her jokes I looked around and thought that maybe what she was trying to do was create a new family for herself.
After the session I managed to speak with Mrs Joseph. This time it was much easier, Mrs Martel wasn’t watching over her. I thanked her for coming to talk to us.
‘Did you enjoy it?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. It was great, really interesting, and much better than history. Well, it was a kind of history lesson wasn’t it?’ I said, trying to sound intelligent.
‘History, yes, but a lesson, no.’
Trying to sound super-intelligent I put on my thinking face and muttered, ‘We’re always making history, and lessons must be learnt from history. History is always about to happen.’
Mrs Joseph smiled. ‘Did you read that somewhere?’
‘No, I just made it up, and it probably doesn’t really make sense, but that doesn’t make it a lie. My intentions are good.’
‘Very impressive.’
I wasn’t sure if she was really impressed or just trying not to make me look stupid.
‘All I’m trying to say is it was a good session. You were saying some cool things.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to know that I’m being appreciated.’
Now this was like one of those moments that happens in movies, we had to take the conversation somewhere else. If I were older I would be asking her out for dinner, but I wasn’t, so trying to be professional I asked, ‘You really are not bitter at all, are you, miss?’
She tilted her head as if I had asked her out for dinner and said, ‘First of all, you don’t have
to call me miss. It’s Mrs Joseph, or Mary. And second, I’m not bitter because I know that it’s not as simple as it seems, there’s a back story to all this. Those boys just didn’t turn up from nowhere as evil kids out to kill my husband. There’s more to it. I don’t know what it is, but I’m beginning to find out.’
On hearing this I was convinced that we were thinking along the same lines, so I thought it was a good moment to suggest something that I had been thinking about for some time.
‘Miss,’ I said. ‘Sorry, I mean, Mrs Joseph. Could I have a word with you privately?’
She pointed in the direction of the classroom. ‘Let’s go back in there.’
We sat on the desks facing each other. She looked around as if to make a final check that we were alone, and then she asked in a low voice. ‘OK. What’s the problem?’
‘You just said that those boys just didn’t turn up from nowhere as evil kids and that you were beginning to find out more about them. Well, I feel the same. I know they were a bit weird but I want to know how they got weird, and I want to know more. I have started my own little investigation and I think we should join forces. You know, share information.’
Her face became very stiff and there was a tremor in her voice as she replied.
‘This is not a game, young man. It is nice to know that you care but this is not like a game of hide-and-seek.’
‘I know, Mrs Joseph. I’m not treating it like a game, really, I’m not.’
She clenched her fist and her face grew hard.
‘The police have got involved because that’s their job. I’m involved because one half of my life has been taken away. Why do you want to get involved? What do you have to gain?’
I was now very nervous. I knew that if I said the wrong thing I would lose her trust for ever. It was the turn for my voice to tremble.
‘It’s not really about me gaining anything, although it could help. I know he was your husband but I was really shocked by what I saw. I just can’t stop thinking about it, it keeps replaying in my mind. I don’t want that counselling they offered but I just know that understanding it all will help me, and like you I think there’s more to it. Most people think it’s an open and shut case, Mr Joseph good guy, Ramzi Sanchin and Lionel Ferrier bad guys, bad guys get caught, go to jail, end of story, but I don’t think it’s as simple as that, and you don’t think it’s as simple as that either. I reckon me and you are the only people thinking like this, so let’s put our heads together.’
Teacher's Dead Page 3
