The Secrets We Keep

by Jonathan Harvey

  And from realizing how easy it would’ve been to finish him off, I now felt how easy it was to make him feel better. And that’s all I wanted to do, right there, right then.

  Guinness, stop it. I’ll make it up to you, I swear. I’ll get you to London. By hook or by crook.

  I was starting to sound like a frigging nursery rhyme.

  He looked up at me. Them big daft Bambi eyes. Almost double their size from the tears.

  You wanna go to London? We’ll go. The pair of us. There’s nothing down here for me now. My dad’s a goner. My mum’s done a runner. Huge hates us coz I knocked him sparko. And now I’ve told him what Bishop gets up to and he’s fuming with me. My days are numbered here, kid, I swear. Sooner I get out of here the better. You in?

  Guinness nodded. He was in.

  Nothing keeping me here now, is there?

  And of course there was the possibility that Bishop might come looking for him.

  London, eh, Guin. You and me. Can’t wait.

  And for the first time since he’d come skidding into that dorm, Guinness smiled.

  And I will runaway (runaway) (runaway) with you

  Although the atmosphere could be quite lax at times at Hansbury, the knobs at the top weren’t idiots. Two lads couldn’t just walk out of the gates without anyone noticing, as the drive from the Hall to the main gates was about half a mile long, and by now of course they had those buggering security lights installed. You’d soon get noticed. Guinness started trusting me again after my promise to get him to London. Though God knows why he really needed me in the first place. He was the one with the bag full of dosh, not me. He started knocking about with me like he had in the old days, and our favourite pastime became planning the Great Escape.

  My suggestions were, on the whole, quite practical: climbing the fence round the back of the caravan, traversing the woods till we got down to the main road and then thumbing a lift. His smacked of the decidedly outrageous: disguise ourselves as milkmaids searching the fields for cows (don’t ask), dress up as scarecrows and run through the fields (too much Wizard of Oz) or steal a hot air balloon and fly away. Because hot air balloons are so easy to steal – no-brainer!

  In the end, I asked Spanner what he’d do if he was me and he wanted to run away.

  The good thing about Spanner was, he always took you seriously. He said he’d get back to me.

  He got back to me the next day. He said we were going for a walk. I thought he was going to do the paternal chitchat thing of saying, ‘What’s wrong? Why do you need to run away?’ before gently advising me to stop here and not get into any trouble. Especially when he walked me round the front of the Hall and to outside the entrance. There was a garden bench out front, and he motioned towards that. Here it came, I thought, the big chat.

  Instead, he sat there in silence. And then went, ‘We’re just gonna wait here a bit. And then all will become obvious.’

  So we did.

  And it did.

  And soon, me and Guinness had our plan.

  It wasn’t a foolproof plan, and there was some danger involved. But once I’d explained it all to Guinness, he was defo up for it. And no doubt with the naivety, bravery and downright foolhardery of youth – if there is such a word – we threw ourselves into it like rats down a sewer.

  This was the plan. Since the arrival of the cons at the Hall there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing of said prisoners from this, their overspill remand centre, either to prison or to court. Spanner reckoned there were on average two prison vans coming in and out each day. On Wednesday night there was going to be a van in the evening, after sunset – he actually used those words, which made it sound even more like we were in a movie – and it would be taking one of the prisoners to prison, as he was some sort of special case who’d then be going the following morning to court. Spanner reckoned the van would be outside the Hall for half an hour, tops. And that in the darkness, me and Guinness would be able to climb on top of the van, lie down and then drive away, out of the grounds and into Manchester, where we could, at some point, jump off. Initially I was worried, as was Guinness, about how we would manage to hang on, on top of the van. But Spanner said there were this duct sticking out the top of the van, slap bang in the middle, for air conditioning. If we lay either side of that we could hang onto it. No doubt for dear life.

  To prepare for the Great Escape, I made Guinness sit with me on the bench and watch as the vans came in and out a few times. The biggest challenge was going to be scaling the side of the van to get on top of it without the aid of a ladder. And doing it deftly enough so as not to raise suspicion from the driver or anyone else inside. The way I saw it, we had two choices – we both scaled the side of the van at the same time, or one at a time – but I was worried that even with our slight builds, we’d still draw attention to ourselves with a clattering of feet. The other option would be that Guinness gave me a leg up, and then I pulled him up. I didn’t trust us to do it the other way round; I couldn’t see him dragging me up, somehow.

  We practised on the caravan. We got it down to a slick twelve seconds. Guinness holds out his hands. I step on. Bounce up. Drag myself onto the top. Lower my hands, pull him up. Twelve seconds. We were proud of ourselves. We were invincible.

  Wednesday came, and with it a storm. That gave us good news and bad news. The good news was that the rain was pelting so heavily on the metal roof of the van that it made it less likely that the people inside would be as aware of us climbing up. The bad news was that that rain was heavy, man. As we crept round the side of the Hall in our puffa jackets, we were pretty soon soaked to the skin. This was going to make staying on top of the van challenging at best. Also, I was worried about Guinness’s tenners, which were currently stuffed down his front in a plastic bag. What if that let the rain in and they got soaked, and we ended up with no money?

  As we turned the corner we saw the van coming up the drive. Its stark yellow headlights looked like they were pumping smoke out as they battled through the rain, finally parking up some twenty feet or so from us. We heard the slam of metal doors swinging back. The tread of Doc Martens on gravel. We ran lightly. As rehearsed, Guinness faced me, his hands cupped towards me. I held his shoulders and jumped up. We were fucking poetry in motion as he yanked his hands high like a volleyball player and I grabbed the roof of the van before scrambling on. The roof was cold and hard and very very wet, like lying in a metal paddling pool. I swivelled round and held my hands over the side, then pulled Guinness up. We were on.

  Now for the bit we’d not been able to rehearse. I located the air-con vent in the middle and drew Guinness’s hands to it. We swivelled round on opposite sides. This didn’t feel good. The vent was circular, wet and hard to grip. So I grabbed Guinness’s hands and tried to interlock his fingers with mine, like a cat’s cradle. I didn’t dare look at him in case he was freaking out. Instead I crooked my head to the left, looking at the Hall, a black cube against the pitch sky. Gashes of bright yellow light where curtains hung open at the windows.

  Footsteps. Voices. I tried to block it all out and just grip. Eventually a slam and the van shook. I felt Guinness tighten his grip. And then, slowly, we were off. I didn’t dare look up. Head down. Eyes tight shut. Focus. Stay calm. Stay fucking on. Under that radar.

  The van drove slowly down the drive and picked up speed as it turned out of the gates.

  My feet found a wedge somewhere. I could only imagine it was a ridge at the front of the van above the windscreen. It gave me a bit more security. I jammed both feet against it and suddenly felt more confident. As long as I kept hold of Guinness’s hands, we were going to do this. After five minutes I looked up. We’d agreed that we couldn’t stay on the roof for too long in case we drew attention to ourselves. Even with our dark clothes it would only take one bright spark at some traffic lights to clock us and beep their horn and tell the driver. Even under the cloak of darkness. Street lights were bound to reflect off our clothes, our skin.

  It w
as my job to decide when to jump. When I tapped Guinness’s hand three times, it would be time.

  What felt like hours later, though it could only have been about five or so minutes in reality, we were driving through a council estate. I cricked my neck and saw some traffic lights ahead. They were changing to red. I tapped Guinness three times. As we slowed down, approaching the lights, we let go of each other and gently slid to the side and then down the sides of the van. And then ran. Ran as fast as our legs could carry us.

  A promise on the bus

  Eventually we came to a chippy. Got fish and chips, which gave us change from a tenner (all dry). With the change, we got a bus into Manchester (didn’t want to risk a taxi as it might’ve looked odd, two young lads hailing a cab in the dark) and then we bunked onto a train. On the bus we hardly spoke, convinced that everyone else on the bus was going to turn round at any point, rip off their mask like in Scooby Doo and reveal they’d been following us and we had to go back. I saw Guinness was shaking. I had to make him feel better. I couldn’t risk him freaking out and making a show and drawing attention to us. I nudged him, he looked at me.

  We’re in this together, Sam, you and me.

  He nodded.

  I’m never gonna let you down, you know. Leave your side. Whatever happens. I’ve got your back.

  He nodded.

  Wherever we end up. Whatever we end up doing. You have a problem? It’s me you turn to.

  Sam nodded. A few moments later, I noticed he’d stopped shaking and was looking calmer.

  Trains were different in them days. There weren’t all the computerized barriers – I mean, blimey, what was a computer back then? – and if you were as deft and nimble as we were, free train travel was your oyster. Once on the train, we set up camp in a toilet and settled down. On the journey to our new life.

  Seven Sisters Road

  I thought it was so apt that the area in London we had to get to was called the Seven Sisters Road. It put me in mind of the old movies Mum used to watch of a Sunday afternoon, or up the picture house. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Your singing nun with her seven punchworthy kids. The number seven loomed large in families in the olden days, clearly, and this road was no exception. All the way there in the taxi from Euston I kept seeing big ghostly women looming large over the top of the shops and flats, looking down on us, all mixed race like Guinness. His seven sisters, not sure what to make of us. Would we get a warm welcome? Would Linda still be living at the address that Guinness had for her? What if she’d done a runner like my mum?

  I remember ‘Baker Street’ was playing on the radio in the black cab. Even though it was years old and I’d heard it so many times before, it was like hearing it for the first time. Again it was like it was welcoming us to London as we sped jerkily through the hazy neon midnight streets. Now whenever I think of London, I see it accompanied with a saxophone solo, and it’s that. And whichever street I’m on – the Embankment, Piccadilly, an underpass – in my head it’s ‘Baker Street’ that’s the soundtrack. Cheesy, I know, but it’s stuck with me.

  At first when we got to the flats on Remington Road I was crushed. This boring old council block could’ve been anywhere in the country. I wanted something to make it distinctive, make it London. And then when this white woman opened the door on the second floor I thought we’d got the wrong place, or that Guinness’s sister had moved on.

  But this scrawny bird with the red hair and the dressing gown looked gobsmacked and gave Guinness such a hug and yes, this was Linda. Linda seemed genuinely thrown to have two young lads on her doorstep in the early hours, and who could blame her? She’d not seen Guinness for years, he’d given her no warning he was coming, and she said she no longer had any contact with anyone else in his family. We squeezed past towering piles of shopping bags in her hall – ‘’Scuse the mess, lads’ – and then she turned the couch in her living room into a double bed. I’d never seen a sofa bed, and it struck me as the height of sophistication. Now I really did feel like I was in That London. She made us tea and crumpets and said we could stay ‘till we worked out what to do.’

  I didn’t know what that meant either. But there was something that struck me as not quite right about her.

  Before too long, I’d learn what that was.

  Rolling, rolling, rolling

  Linda, it turned out, was a fence (that’s not the dodgy thing, that’ll come later) for a small gang of shoplifters in the West End. This turned out to be a bit of a touch.

  On our first night in Remington Road me and Guinness lay on that sofa bed like it was the comfiest thing in the world, full to the brim and bumper with buttery crumpets and hot tea and I made him laugh by pretending to be Huge discovering we’d gone missing. I did the big booming snooty voice and Guinness lay beside me pissing himself. I could hear Linda pottering in the kitchen. And then our door creaked open and she looked in.

  ‘Who’s doing that voice?’ she went.

  ‘He was,’ Guinness went.

  And I thought no more of it.

  The next day Linda said she might have a job for me. You see? That was the touch. If she’d worked in an office or a factory there’d’ve been nothing down for me. But she didn’t. And there was.

  Mid-morning, she pulled various garments of clothing out of the designer bags in the hall and told us to get togged up. Once we were in our new clothes – I didn’t then quite understand why she might have teenage lads’ clothes to hand, though I was soon to find out – there was a ring at the doorbell and a man in a peaked cap and smart suit said he was ready for us.

  The driver took us in a spotless car, all white leather interiors, to an address in somewhere called Little Venice, and although it sounded like we were going to Italy when we got there, finally I felt like we’d arrived in London. Tall white houses with pillars, trees, a canal. We climbed some steps and Linda rang one of many bells.

  The woman she’d brought us to see looked like Joan Collins or something. Even indoors she was wearing a power suit and a hat that half covered her face. She sat staring at us while sucking on the skinniest cigarette I’d ever seen, and every now and then taking a dainty sip of tea. She asked me to say something in my posh accent, so I said, ‘What d’you want me to say?’ and the poshness pleased her. She told me to tell her how we’d managed to get out of the home and down to London, so I explained, keeping the posh accent up.

  ‘D’you want me to say anything?’ Guinness interrupted eventually. ‘I can do funny voices. I was Little Nell in Her Benny.’

  The woman in the hat smiled politely and said ‘No. You won’t do.’ As if that explained something. Though we were none the wiser.

  The woman’s name was Gretchen Tate. A cockney by birth, she’d grown up to become one of the best female criminals in the East End, before taking up residence in the West End and becoming a dreaded nuisance to the balance sheets of the boutiques and department stores. She now ran a small gang of women and girls who stole only the best from the best and made a small fortune out of it. She disappeared into a bedroom and then returned with a school uniform for me. I’d never seen the likes before. Striped blazer, piping on the collar and cuffs – there was even a bleeding cap! Imagine! She invited me to try them on. Still a bit bewildered as to what was going on, I obliged. And she seemed to like what she saw.

  ‘You don’t think he looks a bit too Chinese-ified?’ Linda said, a note of caution in her voice.

  Gretchen just shook her head. ‘He looks perfect.’

  The next day I started working for her.

  I had to dress up in the school uniform and the driver drove me, Gretchen and two other women into the West End. He parked on double yellows and basically it was all about convincing the shopworkers you were posh, and therefore not going to arouse suspicion. This is why they weren’t interested in Guinness; God love him, but because he was black they didn’t want to risk some racist shopgirl thinking, ‘He looks dodgy, I’ll call security.’ Whereas I, with my posh accent and my p
ractically Eton schoolboy outfit, would impress them and slot right in.

  I worked with Gretchen for two weeks and those days were complete eye-openers. In more ways than one . . .

  I had never seen department stores so swanky in my life. The gleaming glass, the escalators, the chrome rails, the lobster bars, the champagne bars. It was 1983 and business was booming. And so was Gretchen Tate.

  Gretchen and her cohorts really did look like princesses when they went to work. They’d walk into those shops in their fancy coats and glide through the fashion sections like they were used to having, rather than having nowt.

  My job was to wander in with an empty holdall, which was identical to one being filled by one of these good-looking girls. When the time was right I’d idly pass said girl and quickly, deftly swap the bags. No drama.

  Gretchen liked me because not only did I look the part, I never drew attention to myself. And she was really impressed with how smooth my swaps were. And because she was happy, I was too. And on the odd occasion where I saw that a shop assistant might have thought something untoward was going on in that corner where the woman was holding the frock up as if asking her pal what she thought, I would slide over and – in my best plummy voice – ask a tricky question. And ask it so loud I alerted the others to my diversionary tactics, giving them the green light to get out of the shop as fast as they could.

  Whatever money was eventually made from the contents of the holdalls, I got 10% of it. Not bad at the age of fourteen.

  I liked my new job. Right then, I’d’ve been happy to think that was me for life. Or for the foreseeable.

  That is, till I realized how dodgy Linda was. And it had nothing to do with being a fence.

  The white one can stay

  It was the middle of the night. I woke and felt dead thirsty. Heading to the kitchen for a glass of water, I stopped in the hall, coz I could hear Gretchen talking in the kitchen. The door was ajar; they didn’t know I was there. Or listening in.

  ‘I can find Danny lodgings,’ Gretchen was saying.