The Upper World

by Femi Fadugba

  Déjà vu, I said to myself, then faced what was in front of me.

  CHAPTER 27

  Rhia · 15 Years Later

  Peckham, like most towns in London, was split into four quadrants. In the first quadrant, the obviously wealthy families owned condos and semi-detached houses built for obviously wealthy families. The second quadrant was where the artsy kids pretended to rent flats their parents had already mortgaged for them. People like Tony and Poppy settled down in the third quadrant, the ‘grimy yet up-and-coming’ neighbourhoods, which always seemed to be upping and coming, but never quite arrived. Then you had the final quadrant, the end furthest from the river – the Ends. And the bit where Dr Esso lived was Ends HQ, especially after dark.

  In space, the 78 bus stop by his house was agonizingly close. In time, we were on an endless journey stopping every ten seconds. Assuming Dr Esso hadn’t moved from the address on the envelope, there was a chance we’d already triggered the proximity alert, starting the fifteen-minute countdown.

  As the bus slowed to a stop, I thought back to one other thing Dr Esso had told me that I’d not shared with Olivia. It was about my real father, and in hindsight it was something I should have told her a long time ago. Just as I was getting ready to confess, she yanked my sleeve, her impatience dragging us both off the bus a stop early.

  Out on the pavement, a cold wind slapped my face, pinching a cold tear from my eye.

  ‘Did you feel that?’ Olivia asked, both of us stopping to stare up at the sky. Before I could say no, a pair of tiny stones landed at my feet.

  Hail? Within seconds, the night sky was filled with white polka dots, a few of the missiles big enough to leave a bruise.

  Olivia pointed to the apex of a tower block in the distance. ‘It’s over there!’

  We burst into a sprint, and a siren scream nearby forced us to move even faster. I was quietly praying it was just paramedics, because one scan from a police car would abort our mission before it even started.

  As we entered the estate, a man covered in wrinkles and wrapped in a filthy patchwork blanket wolf-howled in our direction. To our left, by the fenced-off playground, were a group of boys against the wall each in that number-4 shaped stance: one foot down and the other raised against the brick. Each couldn’t have been more than thirteen, but they wore matching tattoos on their knuckles – Bloodshed insignia. The tallest one patted his pocket, letting us know it didn’t matter how harmless we looked – two strangers pulling up without a g-pass at this time of night was a situation he wouldn’t be caught slipping in.

  We reached the ground-floor entrance, which meant we’d be facing Dr Esso’s door in less than a minute. As we turned towards the stairs, a drone swept down in front of us. Olivia and I stopped dead in the hail, letting the drone slice a line a metre from our noses before flying out of sight again. It was a reminder anything could happen now.

  I grabbed her arm just before we reached the bottom step. ‘Listen, there’s one more thing I never told you. And I don’t want you to find out up there.’ The hail was forcing me to shout. ‘It’s about my dad. I didn’t know how to process it when Dr Esso told me.’

  ‘Listen, if you wanna do this another time,’ she said, looking up at the clouds, ‘when it’s not dark and hailing, I’ll get some cash off Poppy and come down the first weekend I can.’

  I followed Olivia’s gaze to another Bloodshed boy floating towards us on a hoverboard. Thunder and lightning clapped as we stared and I had to tuck my chin as another cold gust flew past.

  ‘But if we still wanna see him tonight,’ she continued, ‘we have to do it now.’

  She grimaced as another hailstone scraped her ear. Behind her, the leaves were shivering in the wind.

  We both turned to look up at the red door four floors above us. I didn’t need to squint at the number; I knew it was his. I could feel it. And I knew my plan was either insanely genius or just plain insane.

  ‘You’re right,’ I replied, facing the stairs. ‘Let’s fucking do this.’

  CHAPTER 28

  Esso · Now

  Lightning fired up the sky, followed by another sonic boom of thunder. What had begun as a couple small hailstones pelting us every few seconds had turned into a storm of jagged-edged missiles. The weakly lit trash-filled path wasn’t made for cars, but I couldn’t help wondering if an ambulance would be able to squeeze in if needed.

  At one end of the alley – just metres behind D and his brother – was Peckham Hill Street, with crispy fried wind blowing in from Katie’s. The other end – that Nadia and I were getting backed into – opened into an abandoned estate, with all its gates and exits closed off.

  As D towered over me, with Bloodshed also closing in, I reminded myself to stay calm. D was wearing the same white shirt from school, a few specks of blood still staining the collar. He had a bandage on his cheek, but his blown-out eye and top lip were on naked display. The denting and bruising only made him look harder, and I wondered if anything could calm him down … or bring him down if that was what this might come to. He didn’t say a word, but his chest was heaving up and down and might as well have been screaming, I am going to kill you.

  Bloodshed licked his lips as his running mate finally entered the alley. And Vex’s first move after checking in was to hold his knees and wait for breath.

  My jaw clenched, the rest of my body already on maximum tense. The plan I’d come up with in the pub was our only escape, and I still believed in it. But I knew it had enough cracks that one bad breeze could bring the whole ting down.

  ‘Don’t hurt him, D.’ Nadia forced me out the way with surprising strength. ‘Please, it’s not –’ She stared at the ground, eyes closed, shaking her head. Never in my life had I seen Nadia stuck for words, and of all times, while giving what should have been a simple speech on why D shouldn’t murder me.

  ‘You’re the last person I want to hear from right now,’ D shot back. ‘This is between me and the bredda here. So fuck off.’ He was talking to Nadia, but kept his eyes on me throughout, meaning I caught the spit flying from his mouth.

  ‘You ain’t gotta talk to her like that, D.’ I stretched my spine an inch to better match him and the height of my own words. ‘This is between you and me.’

  Bloodshed, who looked like he was done waiting, ordered: ‘Move her out the way, Vex.’

  An instant later Vex swept in, lifting Nadia off her feet, then dumping her back-first on the concrete a few metres to the side. She fought to get up, emptying a rubbish-lorry of swear words on Vex in the process. I couldn’t make out what Vex whispered to her next, but I gathered, by the way she went quiet and sat back down, that it must have been dark.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, facing D and ready with my speech. ‘What I’m about to say is gonna sound crazy –’

  ‘Why you even letting man speak right now?’ Bloodshed butted in, his face scrunched like a paper bag.

  D replied by reaching for his pouch. Bloodshed and Vex already had their hands on theirs. Everything was moving way too fast for my plan.

  Think, think, think! I had no choice but to get to the point, the thing that had created the mess in the first place.

  ‘I can time-travel!’ I screamed.

  D stopped mid-zip, while everyone else froze up. The statement was so mental that, even though they’d already run out of patience and pity, they had to pause to manage the confusion.

  ‘Even this moment, the one we’re all standing in right now … I lived it already today. Twice.’ I counted a total of four baffled faces glaring back at me. At least they were all listening. ‘I figured out how to travel through time with my mind. I can see the future.’ I’d only seen and understood a fraction of what the Upper World could do, so my next sentence rested entirely on faith. ‘And I’m pretty sure I can go back to the past as well.’

  D shook his head and this time got his pouch three-quarters open, the flat edge of his weapon handle already peeking through.

  ‘No, no, no, pl
ease!’ I rushed out. ‘Listen, man – I’m being serious!’ I was bent at the knees, reaching out with both hands – my body’s way of making me look too small and out of reach to bother with.

  I thought back to the future I’d seen and what it might mean not just for me, but for him. ‘D, I know for a fact that deep down you don’t want to be doing this right now. I know the shit that’s happened to you, to put you in this situation. I know what happened that night between your brother and your stepdad.’ His trigger hand slowly fell to his side, but I resisted the temptation to let up. ‘Bro, there’s so much shit that’s happened to all of us, that we’ve had to live with. And what I’m telling you is that I’ve figured out how to go back and make sure it never happens. We can use this power to change our pasts. Choose our futures.’

  Vex was first to dent the silence. ‘So what you’re tellin us, yeah, is that we can take today’s lottery numbers, travel back in our minds to last week and use the numbers to become millionaires?’

  I looked over D’s shoulder to respond. ‘What I’m saying, is that once I figure out how to control this thing, we can win every lottery ever run from the start to the end of our lives.’

  D’s eyes were shifting about in every direction but mine, but he seemed to be thinking about it. They all were. I bit my lip, getting fidgetier and fidgetier about the promises I’d made, wondering how on earth I would deliver. I’d effectively just written a trillion-pound cheque, hoping my day-old account had the cash and no one would ask for proof of funds. My only insurance, my only hope, was that with a bit more time alive I’d figure out how to get back to the Upper World and keep everyone sweet.

  I was dying to say sorry to D for getting him expelled and for setting him on a darker course than he’d started on. I was ready to tell him that I still remembered the ten-year-old D, the one whose portrait still lit up his mum’s front room. And, after going to the Upper World, I needed him to know that I’d seen, with my own eyes, the string that separated the holy from the hurt, and that every choice wove together into a single garment of destiny connecting all of us. Because I’d been through so much in the past twenty-four hours, these truths had become obvious to me. And I’d assumed that, by saying a few heartfelt sentences, I could make this obvious to them as well.

  But the moment I heard Vex’s acidic laughs slash through the air I realized just how naive I’d been.

  Still cackling, he asked Bloodshed, ‘What you think, bruv? We go back in time and mash it up?’

  Bloodshed stopped to stare at his tatted knuckles before replying, ‘Nah, fam.’ Then he turned to me with a sober face and said: ‘This is who I am.’

  That was when I realized he was right: none of our futures would budge, and these might be the final seconds of my life. The jaws of fate had closed in on me. And, even if I’d had time to explain every one of my thoughts on hope and love and second chances, it wouldn’t have changed a goddamn thing.

  D pulled the stick from his pouch, raising it so I could stare into the barrel’s abyss. I’d seen a Baikal once before because Spark had one. They were cheap crap dodgy guns that feds used in Russia to fire tear gas at protesters. And apparently, with a few tweaks, you could upgrade them to fire bullets at kids like me in London.

  ‘D, I’m begging you.’ I was banking on nothing but adrenaline and optimism now – substances not known for surviving contact with reality. The hail was crashing down hard. I wished I’d had more time to figure out how the Upper World worked. All I wanted was one more day to find them proof that it existed, instead of expecting them to trust my crazy claims.

  I knew I couldn’t give up. I had to make something happen – figure out one final trick, even if it was just a regular earthly one – to make sure we all left that alley without a scratch.

  ‘Listen – I’m on your side.’

  ‘Is that right, bruv?’ With his free hand, D pulled a sheet of paper out his jacket and whisked it open. Then he dropped Mr Crutchley’s snitch sheet to the ground, letting it melt into the wet concrete.

  ‘I didn’t snitch, man. I promise. You have to believe me.’ My hands were closed in prayer; I was shaking, stunned at how quickly things had gone from tit for tat to life or death. Meanwhile, D’s breathing seemed to get louder and shorter with each word that came out of my mouth.

  Then the front doors of Peckham Library flung open and I peaked round to see Kato and Rob flying out.

  D stood thinking. Stalling maybe. Or maybe he was just taking a few final seconds to psych himself up for his execution shot. I had no choice but to cling to the slight possibility that he was considering alternatives.

  Bloodshed turned to his brother in frustration. ‘Slap that corn, fam. Or give man the stick and I’ll do it myself!’

  D clicked the gun off safety, tilted his head to the side – his way, I guess, of giving me a moment to say my last words.

  Desperation filled the tears racing down my face. I felt like I was drowning, like I had an anchor strapped to my ankle and no matter how much I kicked out it kept dragging me down.

  Where was the Upper World now that I actually fucking needed it? I considered sprinting to the brick wall and banging my head on it in case another concussion would take me there. But, if I made one flinch too many, D would shoot. Plus there was the risk I’d just knock myself out … then get shot, leaving everyone behind to deal with my mess.

  Think, Esso! Just because the Upper World couldn’t save us didn’t mean nothing could. But it was going to take something much, much more down to earth to convince D. Something he couldn’t afford to ignore.

  ‘Listen to me,’ I demanded. ‘Spark and all his guys are on their way here right now. If you kill me, none of you lot are getting out of here alive,’ I added even more urgently. ‘I promise you I’m telling the truth, D. Please. I don’t want you to die tonight. No one has to die tonight.’

  ‘You think I give a shit about my life? Or yours?’ he shouted back. Any warmth or control left in his voice was gone. He cocked the gun and pressed it hard between my eyebrows. ‘I don’t see one reason not to blow your brains out.’

  It was too late. I was too late. With my eyes shut, I waited for the bullet to arrive, hoping the end would be short and painless, but knowing death was probably more severe than I could even imagine.

  ‘Because I’m pregnant, D.’ The words came out gently. I snapped my eyes open and saw Nadia rising to her feet.

  D turned to her, his right eye twitching in shock or fear – spasming up and down like a broken camera shutter. And, in that instant, the puzzle snapped together in my mind. Odd-shaped fragments colliding neatly together and sending my head spinning.

  Nadia throwing D’s phone out the window in class.

  The nasty look she gave him on Monday when he made the joke about Gideon.

  The nasty looks she always gives him.

  That kiss he blew back.

  The reason she was always fighting D was that she actually gave a shit about him.

  She liked him. Maybe even loved him?

  And she’d held back at first when I’d kissed her, hadn’t she? She’d always held back.

  I looked over at Nadia, tears streaming from her eyes, which were locked with D’s.

  That rumour that had gone round a couple of years ago, the one about D being out with a ‘chick’ the night Bloodshed had shanked their stepdad … Had that been Nadia, then?

  Earlier at lunch, the way she’d rubbed her belly each time she laughed … every time D’s name came up. It was all so obvious now.

  I thought about how, for as long as I’d known her, Nadia had talked about her mum working two jobs to make sure Nadia and her siblings had better options than she’d had. I thought about how Nadia must have felt when she found out she was pregnant at sixteen, the same age her mum had given birth to her. It made sense that she wouldn’t have told D or me or anyone else.

  Vex didn’t bother stopping Nadia as she walked past him. Things had got too mad, even for him. Kato
and Rob were standing at the far end of the alley, probably wondering what kind of ghetto episode of EastEnders they’d just walked into.

  ‘The baby’s yours, D,’ Nadia said. ‘If you pull that trigger, they’ll lock you up. You won’t get to raise your own child.’

  D stumbled backwards, like Nadia’s words were a gale-force wind. He stared at his hands, a gun shaking in one, the other a trembling fist. It was like he didn’t recognize himself, like it had been someone else’s finger on that trigger, ready to change all our lives forever.

  D dropped the gun to the ground. And, just as I was letting out a sigh so deep it made me dizzy, Bloodshed came back into view.

  He pushed D out the way, reaching into his jacket to reveal the olive-green handle of a hunter’s knife.

  ‘Oi, Xavier, allow it,’ D said. But Bloodshed paid him no mind and kept walking towards me.

  Vex slid behind me, squeezing my arms tight behind my back, so I had nowhere to move.

  ‘I said, allow it!’ D shouted again.

  I wished I had a ‘get out of jail free’ card. What was the point of all those visions if I was gonna go out like this? I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to transcend and transport myself back to the Upper World, where maybe, just maybe, I’d find a way to break free from the chains of time and save myself.

  But when I opened my eyes I was still in the alley by Peckham Library and hail was still thrashing the pavement.

  And Bloodshed was in my face. Time was up.

  ‘I guess, sometimes, when you wanna get something done,’ he said, pulling the blade out the sheath to reveal its jagged teeth, ‘you have to do it yourself.’

  CHAPTER 29

  Rhia · 15 Years Later

  I chewed on my pinky nail as Olivia and I listened to the footsteps coming from inside Dr Esso’s flat. And as the door creaked open a torrent of emotions flooded in. The strongest one by far?