Lottery Boy (6 page)

All night he spent making plans, dozing off then waking up with a jolt whenever the burger boys dumped rubbish. A couple of times he got up and swore loudly enough to make it echo in the alleyway. Eventually, like a lesson at school with a strict teacher, he settled down to doing what he was supposed to, which was working out how to get his money. There was no name on the ticket. Nothing on it but his numbers and the date he’d bought it – like a receipt;
proof of purchase
but no proof of
who
purchased. If he couldn’t claim his prize because he was too young to play then he would have to find someone who was old enough to claim it for him.

By the time the sun found the alleyway he’d drawn up a list in his head of people he could trust. It was a short list because at the top of it had to be someone he could trust to take his money and then give it back to him. There had only ever been one person at the top of the list but she couldn’t help him out. Chris was second from the top and Tiggs maybe further down but neither of them were about, so the two Sammies said. And suddenly he didn’t trust either of the Sammies. Third on his list was Kevin, but he’d gone back to live with his mum on the Isle of Dogs (wherever that was). So, fourth on the list was Stan. He was old enough, Bully was sure he was, and he was always around across the river. He went to text him but remembered he still didn’t have any credit. He thought about begging for a few quid but he wanted to get started, get across the river and think about it then. And someone would know where Stan was anyway, it was like that on the pavement. Someone knew someone who knew the someone you were after, and you could find anyone that way without any credit on your phone.

He walked down Old Paradise Street, towards the river, every so often Jack rolling in the sunshine, scratching at a fresh batch of fleas. Bully stopped at the dual carriageway with the crash barriers and railings that ran alongside the river. There was an old tunnel that ran parallel with the road. He’d followed it over ground and it came out near the station further downstream. It used to be for cars but now it was just for the zombies.

He never went down there though, even when it was raining. Even in the day with the strip lighting and the sun digging away at the edges of the darkness, he didn’t like being
under
the ground if he could help it. It made him think about his mum and where he’d left her.

After she’d died, Phil had brought her back to the flat in a big plastic sweetie jar. What the fire left behind when they burnt you up. He knew you were supposed to scatter the ashes but when they went missing without any ceremony Bully had his
suspicions
that they had not been scattered but
thrown away
, which was not the same thing at all.

He’d found them in one of the big bins at the bottom of the rubbish chute that served their landing. He didn’t say anything to Phil but kept them under his bed in the sweetie jar for two days. And then when he left the flat, he took them with him. He’d planned to do the job himself, scatter them into the river on the way to the train station because his mum had always wanted to go on a boat on a cruise. But when it came to it, he couldn’t bear to get rid of her like that, seeing her for the last time, shaking her out in the cold, in the winter time, and watching her sink to the bottom of the river. So, just with his hands, he’d buried the jar for safekeeping in a bit of dirt the council never got round to filling in with flowers. He’d marked the spot with a piece of broken paving-stone. When he got his money, he would go back and dig her up and take her on a cruise to the Caribbean and scatter her somewhere nice and warm.

When he got down to his own river he went over the footbridge. When they were nearly across Jack squatted down, shivered, doing a big one. A woman on her own coming towards him stopped when she saw what Jack was doing and screwed up her make-up face like she couldn’t understand what it was coming out of Jack’s rear end.

“Are you going to pick that up?” she said, a safe distance away.

Bully flicked the Vs at her, told her his dog had to go somewhere, didn’t she? And then he told her where to go and how to get there. And when Jack was done, he didn’t pick it up – that
was
disgusting – and they carried on across to the other side of the water.

He had a good look round for Stan in Trafalgar Square and along the Strand. It was still early though, shops just pulling their shutters up and a few men still sleeping in one or two of the doorways, their heads hiding from the light. Most of the doorways were empty and wet. It hadn’t rained. They’d been washed last night. The washermen only did it on the Strand and a few of the other big streets where the zombies spent most of their time walking up and down. He’d heard the Daveys complaining about it –
hot washing
they called it; get you up and start you talking first, they did, with a nice hot cup of tea and filling in forms, while a washerman hoses your doorway down behind your back, soaking your cardboard for the night. And Bully walked on through Covent Garden, feeling lucky that he had the luxury of a dry step every night. He traipsed around the bumpy streets looking for something to eat, yawning and scratching his head because the morning sun made it itch. He didn’t give the meal in the morning a name any more. It was just time to eat when he was hungry and that was most of the time.

He patted his top pocket with the lottery ticket in as he walked, keeping an eye out for delivery trucks that pulled up outside the little supermarkets. Sometimes if they left the back open you could fish out a packet or a tin. Once he had got hold of a
fish
with a tail and silvery scales and frozen eyes but he couldn’t sell it or cook it so he’d carried it back as far as the river and then lobbed it off the bridge. It made a splash like a real live one going back into the water.

When Bully got as far up as Shaftesbury Avenue he stopped. And though it was OK to cross, buses and taxis just toddling along in the early morning emptiness of a Saturday, he just stood and stared at the road. He didn’t normally go any further than this. It was like a river to him, in his head anyway, like there was dirty, dark water running between the kerbs. The problem was, Stan liked to hang out around Soho on the other side. And though he needed Stan’s help, Bully turned back towards Covent Garden to wait a while on his own side.

He spotted a Davey looking for fresh cardboard in the rubbish the shops put out. He kept pulling at bits, testing them for quality, seeing how thick they were. Bully approached him warily, as if he were a breed of dog he wasn’t sure how to deal with.

“All right, mate. You seen Stan?”

“Keep that dog off me! Keep it away.”

“She won’t hurt you.” The Davey twitched his nose, wasn’t so sure. And the man’s fear made Bully feel more confident about his questions. “So you seen him or what?”

“You got a loosey, pal?” he asked, as if pricing up what he had to say.

“Nah, mate.” Bully patted his pockets to show that he didn’t have anything to smoke and the old man crouched down and began scouring the pavement and gutters for ciggy butts. Bully watched him tear a Subway wrapper into strips, then open up all the ends of the butts he’d found with the edge of his fingernail and sprinkle the tobacco onto the paper, conjuring a fag from nothing. Bully’s mum never smoked, not in the flat, but Phil did, and there were little brown patches on the ceilings above the end of the sofa and the kettle in the kitchen. Bully had tried ciggies, real ones out of a packet. He didn’t like them – the feeling of the smoke cramping his lungs. And Bully didn’t do much he didn’t like.

“So you seen him then or not, mate?”

“Stan? No… I seen Mick though.” Bully nodded. Mick was an old, old Davey. For a few years he’d had a flat all to himself in Hammersmith but couldn’t get used to it – complained there were too many walls. So he’d started back on the pavement and that’s when Mick had palled up with Stan. It was like him and Jack, keeping an eye out for each other, though Bully didn’t trust Mick; he wasn’t anywhere on his list.

“So where is he then?” Bully said, getting to the end of his patience, not so afraid of this Davey now because he was keeping still, sitting on the kerb.

“He’s kipping round the back of Hanways.”

“What? Where’s that?”

“You boys get lost turning round. Off Oxford Street.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know it,” he said, though it wasn’t near his territory.

“You got a light?” asked the Davey.

“No,” said Bully reflexively but then pulled out one of his lighters. He wouldn’t be needing it. He could buy a billion lighters now and millions and millions of fags and maybe he’d give them all to Phil to smoke himself to death.

“Have it.” He chucked the lighter and the old man caught it but carried on staring at him.

“You the boy with the ticket?”

“What?” Bully froze.

“You ’im? That’s your dog, innit?”

The shock of his own news coming out of the old man’s mouth made him feel sick.

“Not me, mate,” he said. Jack sensed the change in Bully’s voice and growled at the man, gave him the front teeth stare.

“Lend us a few quid,” the old man pleaded, holding out both his hands, dropping the lighter. He started shouting, swearing at Bully’s back as he ran away.

The few people watching in Covent Garden might have thought it was an act; this boy punching himself in the arm and the neck, like he was trying to beat himself up. No one threw any money at him though. He stopped and got his breath back. Should have kept his mouth shut yesterday. He needed to think about this now, what he would say if anyone else came up to him asking questions. He would deny he was the boy but he couldn’t say Jack wasn’t
that
dog. There wasn’t another like her, with that head full of teeth and those funny front legs that reminded Bully of a little kid he’d once seen trying to carry a ten pin bowling ball. In truth they both stuck out; they didn’t fit in. He would have to do something about that but in the meantime he got his bag out and told Jack to jump in and be quiet.

He sucked his bottom lip and calmed down and found he was still hungry. He needed something to
eat
. He went looking in the bins. He dug down tentatively into the free papers. Didn’t want to catch AIDS. Some of the stuff was all right if it wasn’t too far down – from the night before – clean and all that, because he didn’t just eat
anything
, wasn’t a bin boy. He found a milkshake. He sipped on it but spat it out, twisted his face to get away from the taste because it was strawberry.

“You hungry, boy?” He turned round, instinctively backing away from the voice. A man from an eating place was talking to him. He was skinny and dark and talked funny and was wearing an apron thing like a girl.

“Wait. Stay there and I get you something
hot
.” The man walked back into his eating shop.
Pâtisserie
it said. Bully watched him carefully. The man came back out with some cakes and a paper cup.

“From yesterday. But I warm them up, so it’s still pretty good.”

Bully bit into one hesitantly. It was crumbly like a pasty with chocolate inside. He’d had them before. The man saw the bag move. “What you got in there?”

“Me dog.” The man peered into the bag and frowned like he didn’t believe him and then stepped back.

“What’s that dog doing in there?”

“Restin’,” he said, and because Jack was being quiet and good he fed her one of the little pasties as a reward, even though chocolate was bad for dogs.

Bully took the drink, sipped it, poked his tongue out. Coffee.

“You want sugar?” Bully nodded. “What do you think this is, a café?” The man laughed and gave him three packets out of his apron and Bully emptied them into his cup and threw them away.

“Heh, mind my pavement!”

“What?”

The man pointed to one of the empty sugar packets floating about. Bully put his foot on it.

“You going to pick it up?”

They looked at each other for a few seconds and then the man looked at the bag.

“You want tea instead?”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Bully.

“OK… You pick up the paper and I make you tea. Deal?”

Bully nodded but when the man went back inside, he took his foot off the packet and kicked it with his toe into the gutter.

Swish, swish, swish
… He heard Jack’s Monkey Dog tail wagging inside the bag. She was smelling something … someone. All human beings smelled different to dogs. It was like a fingerprint – no two were the same – and Jack knew everyone Bully knew but by their smell more than anything, more than what they looked like. If the wind was in the right direction, Jack even knew who was coming before they showed up. And sometimes Bully could even tell
who
it was from just how many of those fangy little teeth were showing, because just like any human being, Jack liked some people more than others. A few moments later he saw Stan, wearing a big white shirt and work black trousers, crossing the road, coming to see
him
, chancing it between two cars.

“This … is good…” Stan was standing by the kerb drinking Bully’s coffee quickly like it was water. Bully gave Stan the last chocolate pasty. The man from the eating place was standing just inside his shop with the tea in his hand, watching them.

“Nice. Perfect after crash,” Stan said. He’d spent the night in a hostel. “Don’t like it, you know – all the questions, you know? You got this? You got that? Where you sleep every day – I just say: this is sleeping place? I want to
sleep
, OK. You know?”

“Yeah … yeah. Mick’s not around, is he?”

Bully wanted to make sure of this because he wanted to ask Stan for the favour on his own.

“No … still kipping… Bin kipping. You know Mick. No drinking in hostel. So he loves bin. I’m going to bin now and getting him up. You coming?”

“Stan… I won it.” He blurted it out, couldn’t help it. But Stan was all right. He was on his list.

“What?”

“I got the numbers. I got all of them. I won it!”

“Won what? What you win?”

“The lottery.”