by Mark Dawson
Fifty feet away, in the open desert, the plastic ball rolled with the wind.
* * *
27.
THE NIGHTMARE was as bad as Milton could remember it. When he awoke, the sheets were a bunched-up pile on the floor, soaked through with sweat. His brain was fogged and unclear. He rose and went for his usual run, the best thing he knew to chase it away. The streets were quiet and the park was empty. He ran two laps, following the line of trees, pushing himself harder on the second so that by the time he returned to the road he was sweating and breathing heavily. He chose a return route that took him past the boxing club. The door was open, the slapping of a skipping rope audible from inside. He didn’t stop, and returned to the house where he showered and dressed. He stood before the mirror again and checked that the outline of his pistol was not obvious against the cut of his jacket. He locked the door and went to the café for his breakfast. Elijah was already waiting for him. The boy was sitting in a booth.
“This better be good,” he said, a little surly.
“Get any sleep?”
“Nah, not much. I’m knackered.”
“Where’s your kit?”
Elijah nodded at the black Nike sports bag resting on the chair next to him.
“Good lad. You hungry?”
“A bit,” he conceded.
“Alright, then. You’ll need to eat. You’re going to be working hard this morning.”
“What are we doing?”
“You’ll see,” Milton said. The proprietor came over to take their order. Milton ordered two plates of scrambled eggs and bacon, a portion of chips and a two glasses of orange juice.
“Is your mother alright?”
“What you mean––about me getting nicked? Yeah, she’s alright.”
“She worries about you, you know.”
“I know,” Elijah said. “I don’t mean to upset her.”
“I know you don’t.” The boy seemed more disposed to speak this morning, and Milton decided to take advantage of the boy’s mood. “How are things at home?”
“How you mean?”
“How does your mum manage?”
“What you think it’s like? We got no Dad, Mum works three jobs and there’s still hardly enough money coming in to feed us, buy clothes. Me and my brother––you get into a situation like that and you do what you got to do, innit? My mum knows what I’ve been doing––she just don’t wanna ask.”
“Would you have listened to her?”
The food arrived before he could answer. The proprietor handed them each a plate of eggs and bacon and left the chips in the middle of the table. “You know about Jules?” Elijah said when he had left them. “My brother?”
“Not really.”
“He’s five years older than me. Me and him, we grew up with nothing. You go to school and you’re the ones with the uniform with the holes in it. I never got no new shirts or trousers or nothing like that––all I got was his hand-me-downs, mum would find the holes and just keep patching them up. There were patches on the patches eventually. You know how that makes you feel?”
Again, Milton shook his head.
“Makes you feel like a tramp, bruv. The other kids laugh at you like you’re some kind of special case.” Elijah took a chip, smeared it with ketchup and put it into his mouth. He chewed, a little nervously, still unsure whether he was doing the right thing in talking to Milton. “Then you see the brothers with their new clothes, parking their flash cars outside their mommas’ flats, you see them things and you know what’s possible. They ain’t got no patched-up uniforms. Their shoes don’t have holes in them. Jules saw it. He was in the LFB before me. He came back with new trainers one day and I knew. Then he bought himself new clothes for school, more trainers, a phone, nice jewellery. He started to make a name for himself. Kids at school who used to take the piss out of him didn’t do that no more. He got some respect. One day, he comes back and he tells me that I have to come down to the road with him. I do like he says and there it is, he shows me this car he’s bought. It ain’t nothing special, just this second-hand Nissan, beaten up to shit, but he’s bought it with his own money and it’s his. The way I see it, there ain’t nothing wrong with that. It don’t matter where he’s got it from, he’s entitled.”
“There are other ways to get the things you want,” Milton said.
“What? School?” He laughed at that. “You think I can get out of here by getting an education? How many kids in my ends you think get through school with an education?” He spat out the word disdainfully. Just for a moment, his eyes stopped flicking back and forth and he stared straight at Milton. “I ain’t gonna get the kind of education that can help me by sitting in the classroom listening to some teacher going on about history or geography. Teachers don’t give a shit about me. Let’s say I did pay attention, and I get good grades so I could can go to university. You have to pay thousands for that these days––so how do we afford that?” He shook his head with an expression of clear and total certainty. “Education ain’t for people like me, not round here. Let me make this simple for you: my … brother … was … my … education. All I saw was guys with their cars and their clothes. His Nissan taught me more than anything I ever learned in school. Exam grades ain’t gonna get me any of that. All they’ll get me is a job flipping burgers in Maccy D’s and that ain’t never going to happen. I know what you can get if you play the game.”
Milton detected a weak spot, and pressed. “Where’s Jules now?”
A flicker of discomfort passed across his face. “He was shotting drugs, right––the crack, selling it to the cats––then he started doing it himself. Couldn’t deal with it. He got into trouble, didn’t kick up the paper like he was supposed to do, he had some beef with the Elders and he ended up getting a proper beating. Nothing he didn’t deserve, mind––there are rules you got to follow, and if you don’t you get what you get. Anyway, one day he never came back home. My mums spoke to him on the phone and he said he had to get away. I’ve seen him a few times since––this one time, I was in town, going to buy some new trainers from JJB, and I see him there on Oxford Street, sitting against a shop with a cap on the floor in front of him begging for change. He’s an addict now. It’s disgusting. I just kept walking. Didn’t say nothing to him. We don’t see him no more.”
“And you look up to him?”
“Not any more, man, not how he is now. But before that? Yeah––course, he’s my brother, course I looked up to him. I seen how he got what he wanted and I seen how it works better than your schools and books. I just ain’t gonna make the same mistakes he did.”
Milton paid after they had finished their food and they set off. The club was a fifteen minute walk from the main road and Milton took the opportunity to continue the conversation. Milton sketched in the lines of a meagre, uninspiring life, and quickly came to understand how the excitement and the camaraderie of the street had proven to be so attractive to the boy. He inevitably thought of his own peripatetic childhood, dragged around the Embassies and Consulates of Europe and the Middle East as his father followed a string of different postings. Money had never been a problem for the Miltons, but there were still comparisons to be drawn between Elijah’s early years and his own. Loneliness, a lack of roots, no foundations to build on. The army had become Milton’s family, and then the Group. But even that had come to an end. Now, he thought, he was on his own again. Perhaps that was for the best. Some people, people like him; perhaps that was the natural way of things.
The doors of the church hall were thrown wide and the sound of activity was loud, spilling out into the tree-lined street. Milton led the way inside, Elijah trailing a little cautiously behind. There were two dozen boys at the club this morning, spread between the ring and the exercise equipment. Two pairs were squeezed into the ring together, sparring with one another. The heavy bag resounded with the pummelling blows of a big, muscled elder boy and the speed bag spat out a rat-tat-tat as a wiry, sharp-elbowed girl hit
it, her gloved fists rolling with the fast, repetitive rhythm. Others jumped rope or shadow-boxed, and two older boys were busy with rollers on the far side of the room, whitewashing the wall.
“Boxing?” Elijah exclaimed.
“That’s right.”
“I ain’t into this,” he said. “You’re having a laugh.”
Milton turned to him. “Give it a chance,” he said. “Just one morning, see how you get on. If you don’t like it, you don’t ever have to come back. But you might surprise yourself.”
Rutherford noticed them, and made his way across the room. “This your boy?” he said.
“I ain’t his boy,” Elijah said dismissively.
“He’s not sure this is for him,” Milton said, patiently ignoring his truculent attitude.
“Wouldn’t be the first lad to say that the first time he comes in here. How old are you, son?”
“Fifteen.”
“Big lad for your age. Reckon you might have something about you. I’m Rutherford. Who are you?”
“JaJa.”
“Alright then, JaJa. Have you got kit?” Elijah gave a sullen shrug. “I’ll take that as a yes. The changing room is out the back. Get yourself sorted out and get back out here. We’ll see what you can do.”
Milton was surprised to see that Elijah did as he was told.
“Leave him with me for a couple of hours,” Rutherford said. “I think he’s going to like this more than he thinks he is.”
* * *
28.
MILTON LOOKED at the jobs that needed doing. As Rutherford had suggested, the hall was in a bit of a state. The walls were peeling in places, large swathes of damp bubbling up beneath the paint and with patches of dark fungus spreading up from the floor. Some of the floorboards were rotting, one of the toilets had been smashed and the roof leaked in several places. Buckets had been placed to catch the falling water and, looking up to fix the position on the roof, Milton took the ladder that Rutherford offered, went outside, braced it against the wall and climbed up to take a better look. Several of the tiles were missing. He climbed back down, went to the small hardware store that served the Estate and bought a wide plastic sheet, a hammer and a handful of nails. He spent the next hour and a half securing the sheet so that it sheltered the missing tiles. It was only a temporary fix, but it would suffice until he could return with the materials to do the job properly.
When Milton returned to the church hall, he found Elijah sparring inside the ring. The boy was wearing a head guard, vest and shorts, his brand new Nikes gleaming against the dirty canvas. His opponent looked to be a year or two older and was a touch taller and heavier, yet Elijah was giving him all he could handle. He was light on his feet and skipped in and out of range, absorbing his opponent’s slow jabs on his gloves and retaliating with quick punches of his own. Milton had been a decent boxer in the Forces and was confident that he knew how to spot raw talent when he saw it. And Elijah had talent; he was sure about that.
Elijah allowed the bigger boy to come onto him, dropping his head so that it was shielded between his shoulders and forearms. The boy dived forward, Elijah turning at the last moment so that his jab bounced off his right shoulder, leaving his guard open and his chin exposed. Elijah fired in a straight right-hand of his own, his gloved fist crumpling into the boy’s headguard with enough force to propel his gumshield from his mouth. He was stood up by the sudden blow, dazed, and Elijah hit him with a left and another right.
The boy was staggering as Rutherford rang the bell to bring the sparring to an end.
Elijah turned to step through the ropes but Rutherford sent him back again with a stern word; he went back to his opponent and they touched gloves. “That’s better,” Rutherford said as he held the ropes open for the two of them. He sent them both to the changing rooms. He saw Milton and came across to him.
“Sorry about that,” Milton said.
“Boy’s keen. Needs to learn some discipline, though.”
“What do you think?”
“There’s potential. He’s got an attitude on him, no doubt, but we can work with that.”
“You’ll have him back, then?”
“For sure. Bring him on Tuesday night, we’ll get to setting him up a regular regime, start training him properly.”
o o o
MILTON OFFERED to buy Elijah dinner, wherever he liked. The boy chose the Nandos on the Bethnal Green Road and led the way there. They took a bus from Dalston Junction, sitting together on the top deck, Milton with his knees pressed tight against the seat in front and Elijah alongside. The restaurant was busy but they found a table towards the back. Milton gave Elijah a twenty pound note and told him to get food for both of them. He returned with a tray laden with chicken, fries and soft drinks. He put the tray on the table, shrugged off his puffer jacket and pushed a plate across the table.
“What is it?” Milton asked.
“You never eaten in Nandos before?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“You got peri peri chicken and fries,” he explained. “If you don’t like that, there’s something wrong with you, innit?”
Milton smiled at the boy’s enthusiasm and took a bite out of the chicken. He looked out around the restaurant: there were tables of youngsters, some with their parents, and groups of older adolescents. There was a raucous atmosphere, loud and vibrant. He noticed a young couple with two children, probably no older than six or seven and, for a moment, his mind started to wander. He caught himself. He had moments of wistfulness now and again but he had abandoned the thought of a family a long time ago. His line of work made that idea impossible, both practically and equitably. He was never in the same place for long enough to put down roots and, even if he did, the risks of his profession would have made it unfair to whoever might have chosen to make her life with him. The state of affairs had been settled for long enough that he had driven daydreams of domesticity from his mind. That kind of life was not for a man like him.
“So where did you learn to fight like that?” he asked him.
He shrugged. “Dunno. The street, I guess. My mums says I got a temper on me. She’s probably right. I get into fights all the time.”
“A temper’s not going to do you any favours. You’ll need to keep it under control.”
Elijah dismissed the advice with a wave of his drumstick. “I know what it was. When I was younger, primary school, I was out playing football in the park when this bigger boy, Malachi, he comes onto me with his screwface on after I scored a goal against his team. He punched me right in the face and I didn’t do nothing about it. I wasn’t crying or nothing, but when I got home my mum saw that I had a cut on my head and she was on at me about how I got it. I told her what happened and she sent me back out again.” He swallowed a mouthful and put on an exaggerated impression of his mother’s voice. “‘Listen good,’ she said, ‘I’m your mum, I protected you in my womb for nine months, I gave birth to you, I didn’t do none of that so other people could just beat on you. Go outside and don’t come back in until you’ve given that boy a good seeing to, and I’m going to be watching you from the balcony.’ So I did what she said and sorted him out. I never let anyone push me around after that.”
Milton couldn’t help laugh and, after a moment, the boy laughed along with him.
“I don’t know anything about you, do I?” he said when they had finished.
“What would you like to know?”
The boy was watching him curiously over his jumbo cup of coke. “What do you do? For a job, I mean?”
“This and that,” he said.
“Because we all knew you ain’t no journalist.”
“No, I’m not. We spoke about this. I’m not––”
“So what is it you do? Come on, man, I’ve told you plenty about me. Only fair. You want to get to know me properly, how you expect that if you got kinds of secrets and shit I don’t know about?”
He said, awkwardly, “It’s a little hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
“I’m a”––he fumbled for the right euphemism––“I’m a problem solver. Occasionally, there are situations that require solutions that are a little out of the ordinary. I’m the one who gets asks to sort them out.”
“This ain’t one of those situations?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Me, I mean. This ain’t work?”
“No. I told you, it’s nothing like that.”
