The Last Taboo
Page 19
‘Two lads got badly beaten up – Raji Mann and Pally Johal,’ Dean told me. ‘An’ they think we did it.’
‘No we don’t,’ said the woman. ‘We’re just following a line of inquiry.’
‘You’ve had some trouble with them though, haven’t you? We spoke to the youth workers—’ added the man.
‘To Kevin, you mean,’ replied David. ‘Fuckin’ grass—’
‘David!’ shouted my mum.
‘What would he grass you up over?’ asked the woman. ‘If you’ve done nothing wrong, then—’
‘I was talking about the fight we had with Raji and them,’ cut in David. ‘But that don’t mean shit.’
‘We was over Clarendon Park way,’ said Dean. ‘Went to check some girls … ask them …’
The policeman looked at his colleague.
‘Do you have names and addresses for them?’ asked the woman.
‘Course,’ replied Dean, telling her.
The police officers asked a few more questions and then left, saying that they might need to talk to the lads again. When they had gone my dad turned to David and Dean.
‘Was it you?’ he asked.
‘No!’ protested David. ‘We didn’t touch them …’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Uncle Mikey.
‘We was with them girls,’ said Dean. ‘Man – you two are worse than them coppers.’
‘If I find out it was you,’ warned Dean’s dad, ‘both of you are in some deep shit.’
‘It wasn’t us,’ repeated David. ‘They probably mouthed off to the wrong people – they’re always gettin’ into shit.’
‘OK,’ said Dean’s dad.
The lads left the room and I followed them up the stairs.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ I said to David.
‘No – I told you,’ he replied, although he couldn’t look me in the face.
‘How bad are they?’ I asked.
‘Dunno,’ said Dean. ‘I heard someone today say that they’re in intensive care – ’bout as bad as what they did to Tyrone, I hope.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Now their mates are gonna think you had something to do with it.’
‘Why?’ asked David.
‘Think about it,’ I told them. ‘Tyrone gets beat up after having beef with the DP and then two of them get battered just under two weeks later—’
‘Let ’em think what they like,’ said Dean. ‘I ain’t scared of them, man.’
I shook my head and went into my bedroom, where Lisa wanted to know what had happened. I told her as I pulled on the fitted white shirt I’d bought a few months earlier. I hadn’t worn it yet.
‘Wow!’ said Lisa. ‘That’s lovely. Those flowers are great.’
‘Should I wear it?’ I asked.
‘Yeah! It really suits your skin colour.’
‘That’s what the girl in the shop said,’ I told her.
‘She was right,’ replied Lisa.
It happened as we were crossing London Road to go to The Horse for last orders. I was holding Tyrone’s free hand and talking to Paula about something – I can’t remember what now, but then again I don’t remember too much about that night. Lisa was chatting up my brother and Dean was teasing them. Paula ran across to avoid a passing car, leaving me and Tyrone standing just off the pavement. He let go of my hand and grabbed me around the waist. Then he kissed me and told me that he loved me. I kissed him back and smiled. I remember Paula shouting at us, telling us to hurry up because she wanted a drink. Then I remember David, Dean and Lisa running across too. There were about three cars coming so me and Tyrone waited a bit longer and he kissed me again …
I turned to look both ways before crossing, and although there was a car about thirty metres away, it was crawling along. I remember that it didn’t have its lights on – I was thinking the driver was stupid. Then Tyrone grabbed my hand and we began to walk across. But I dropped my bag and stopped to pick it up. Tyrone stopped with me; only he was standing a couple of metres away.
‘Come on, Sim,’ he said to me, grinning.
As I grabbed my bag, I was thinking how beautiful he was. Then I heard tyres squeal and turned to see the car with no lights heading straight for Tyrone. Everything seemed to slow right down. I could see it coming and I ran forward and pushed Tyrone out of the way. In my head now, when my attempts at forgetting fail, I think that I turned round and saw the face of the driver, but I can’t have …
The car hit me full on in the side. I heard myself scream just before it hit me and then everything went quiet …
DAVID
MY DAD DROVE my grandad to Uncle Malkit’s house, where they picked him and Uncle Rajbir up and brought them back to the hospital. I was sitting in a waiting area, with Mum, Lisa and Tyrone. Dean was outside with his parents and his sister. Lisa was crying so I held onto her and told her that it would be OK. But I didn’t know it would be. My sister was broken like a china cup that had fallen to the floor. The car had thrown her into the air and almost to the other side of the road. I ran to help her, and saw that her legs were at weird angles to her body and one of the bones in her right arm had broken through the skin. Her head was deeply gashed and she was unconscious.
My mum was sitting with Tyrone and he had his arms around her, like a little boy. He was still crying. He hadn’t stopped. My mum was the same and both of them just sat there and held each other.
The driver had lost control of the car after it hit Simran and ploughed into a parked BMW. Dean had been the first one to the hit-and-run car. He told me that he’d got to the car and then stopped in shock. The driver was my cousin Satnam, Uncle Rajbir’s younger son. My own cousin and Ruby’s brother. The passenger, who’d been thrown through the windscreen and onto the bonnet, was Suky Mann.
When my dad arrived he stood at the entrance to the waiting room with his two brothers. Simran was still in surgery. I looked up at my dad and he wiped away tears. Then he turned to his brothers and spoke in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.
‘Look at him,’ he said, gesturing towards Tyrone. ‘What’s so bad about him that you hate him so much? He’s just like you and me – just like my son … a human being …’
My uncles looked away in shame as my grandad came to join me.
‘Are you happy now?’ asked my dad. ‘Now that my daughter is lying in a hospital – more dead than alive. And for what? Because you can’t see past the colour of a man’s skin …’
‘We didn’t know—’ began Uncle Malkit.
‘Shut up!’ shouted my dad. ‘Do you think I care? All your poison, all your shit – was it worth it? If my daughter dies you’ll pay for the rest of your lives. No amount of money and cars and false pride will help you – I swear it on the Guru Granth …’
My uncles looked around at us all. If they were hoping to find any kind of sympathy in that room they were mistaken. Even when Uncle Malkit offered to take my grandad home to bed, he got no joy.
‘I’d rather sleep in the park,’ replied my gramps. ‘Get out of here if you’ve got any shame left.’
SIMRAN
IT’S TAKEN ME twelve months to even begin to try walking. I have to be held up between two poles that I use to try and haul myself along. It’s painful and it’s hard but Tyrone comes with me every time, which makes it a bit easier. And him being there makes me even more determined.
I’m trying to put the thought of the car out of my mind too but it’s really hard. The point just before it hit me, when I looked into the face of the driver and saw my own cousin. Satnam is in prison now, along with Suky Mann, and I really don’t feel any guilt for testifying against him. I still can’t believe what he did. It makes me angry because I was so happy and I wanted to do my exams and go to college and music festivals and have a normal life. He took all that away from me and he can rot.
I will go to college though, and I’ll go travelling and do all the things I’ve always dreamed of. And I won’t be doing them in a wheelchair either. For the first six m
onths the doctors said I wouldn’t feel my legs again and they were wrong. Then they said I wouldn’t walk again, and guess what, they’re going to be wrong about that too. Every day I do a bit more on my own – just a little bit more. It’s my only goal for the next twelve months or so – walking.
David and Lisa are going out with each other. That boy that Lisa had been upset over, a few weeks before what happened – that had been my brother! The dirty cow! They seem really good together too and they’ve been so supportive of me, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less from them. Gramps has moved in with my parents. He gave my dad a load of money and told him to convert the loft into a room. That’s David’s new room and Gramps is in his old one. I like having him around. He tells me funny stories and whenever he sees Tyrone he calls out ‘raas claas’, which he thinks is a greeting. Tyrone hasn’t got the heart to tell him it isn’t – that it’s actually quite a rude thing to say, calling someone an ‘arse cloth’. Instead he nods and replies, ‘Sat Sri Akaal,’ which is Punjabi for hello. David taught him how to say it.
Tyrone and my dad also sing me songs when they come visit me in hospital. I have to go in all the time for various little things. I’m always laughing at Tyrone because he can’t sing at all, and what’s worse is that he eggs the old man on. If Tyrone is bad, my dad is, like, super-bad – although I think he’d like it if I called him that. It drives my mum mad and she reckons that’s why her hair turned grey all over. But I don’t believe her. It was all the stress and the sorrow and the pain, and I want her to dye it back to brown but she won’t. She says she feels dignified – like a lady – until I point out that it isn’t dignified to eat ham, banana and ice-cream sandwiches, which she loves. Then she just swears at me.
We’re all OK, which is the main thing. All doing fine apart from me, and I’m getting there. It’s gonna take a while but it’s going to happen and then I’m gonna take Tyrone’s black hand and put it in my own brown hand and walk down the street with him. And we’re going to hold our heads up high. And you know what – if they don’t like it, who cares? It’s hardly like the last taboo, is it?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bali Rai is so busy writing and visiting schools that he didn’t have time to write his own author notes. From what we can tell, he still lives in Leicester, still goes on trips all over Europe and is much better at getting out of bed on time.
He’s still not married, either, although there were rumours about a dancer, Las Vegas, a chapel and a preacher dressed as Elvis, pretending to be Bob Marley. As yet these rumours are still that – and to be honest we think he made them up himself.
The Last Taboo is his fifth novel for Corgi and if he can actually get any writing done we may soon get another one. Until then you can always see what he gets up to at www.balirai.co.uk.
Also available by Bali Rai:
(un)arranged marriage
the crew
Rani and Sukh
The Whisper
Critical acclaim for Rani and Sukh:
‘This powerful read is unforgettable, 5 stars out of 5’
MIZZ
And for the crew:
‘Written in a streetwise dialect, this is a jewel of a book …’
Independent
And for The Whisper:
‘Exhilarating sequel to the crew … unflinching and authentic’
Publishing News
(UN)ARRANGED MARRIAGE
Manny is a Punjabi boy from Leicester and he doesn’t want to get married … Bali Rai’s stunning debut novel about generational gulfs and cultural differences within family and society.
‘Absorbing and engaging … a highly readable debut from Bali Rai that teenagers of any culture will identify with’ Observer
978 0 552 54734 5
RANI & SUKH
Rani and Sukh have just started going out together. But Rani is a Sandhu and Sukh is a Bains – and sometimes names can lead to serious trouble … A gripping novel that sweeps the reader from modern-day Britain to the Punjab in the 1960s and back again in a ceaseless cycle of tragedy and conflict.
‘Overwhelmingly powerful’ The Bookseller
978 0 552 54890 8
THE CREW
When you live in the concrete heart of a major UK city and someone leaves a bag full of cash in the alley behind your house you had best leave it alone. It’s got to be bad news – after all, what kind of people leave fifteen grand lying around?
‘A jewel of a book’ Independent
978 0 552 54739 0
THE WHISPER
The Crew didn’t think things could ever get that bad again. They were dead wrong. Someone’s grassing up the dealers and the whisper on the street says it’s Nanny and the Crew – they need to act fast before the situation explodes …
‘Exhilarating sequel to the crew … unflinching and authentic’ Publishing News
978 0 552 54891 5
THE LAST TABOO
AN RHCB DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 10027 9
Published in Great Britain by RHCB Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2011
Copyright © Bali Rai, 2006
Illustrations copyright © Bali Rai, 2006
First Published in Great Britain
Doubleday Childrens 9780385608954 2006
The right of Bali Rai to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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