Magnificent Joe (25 page)

I stayed because I wanted to see Barry convicted. It took a couple of months to go to trial, but I got my day in court and he got sent down. Then I stayed because I didn't know what else to do. It was Laura's letter – the last thing I ever heard from her – that made up my
mind.

I'm sorry I left without saying anything. You must have realized that I went to Geoff. He got in touch just after Joe died. I needed to get away, and he had a plan. I've explained everything to him, and he understands the truth now. I couldn't stay in that place any longer. It's horrible. There's nothing left there for you or me, but I couldn't wait around for you to work that out. You should leave too. Please. Go and do something new. You deserve
it.

Love,

Laura

—

I arrive in London in the spring, get a room in a doss house, and walk into a job agency. The venetian blinds are dusty, and the plants are fake. They find me a job me then and there.

‘Flats,' the man says. ‘New ones are going up all over the place. We've more work than we know what to do with.'

I don't like him. He keeps clicking the top of his biro and I want to take it off him and jam it up his nostril. I take the job, though. I fill in the forms but leave out my criminal record because it's obvious to me that these people will never check.

The job is easy: some huge old building, once a factory and now becoming apartments. There are so many men crawling all over the place that you could just lose yourself in a quiet corner and do nothing all day. Of course, I don't do that. I want the work; it keeps Laura out of my head, just about.

I pal up with a Polish guy called Adam. He's new too and we're both as skint as each other. For the first two weeks, until we get our pay packets, we pool our money and share lunch: one half of a pre-packaged sandwich
each.

He picks a chunk of pickle out of his beard and puts it in his mouth, looks at me with serious eyes. ‘Tastes like fucking shit,' he
says.

‘So what's the food in Poland like?'

He shrugs. ‘Tastes like fucking shit.'

‘What did you do for a job back there?'

‘Psychiatric nurse.'

‘Nice.'

When the money finally arrives, his is well short, so I help him nick a carton of new smoke alarms. We take them out of the boxes and tape them to his body under his clothes. He walks off the site, stiffly but without arousing suspicion, and the next day, he turns up with a loaf of fresh bread and a full pound of deli ham. We feast, sat on top of a stack of plasterboard. A couple of weeks later, he stops coming to work. He must have found something
else.

It's late summer by the time I've saved enough to put a deposit on a flat. A studio, they call it. I call it the rabbit hutch. It's above a shop in Acton. There are rats in the walls, but at least it's not damp. It gets so hot some days that I have to take all my clothes off in order to stay indoors, but I know it won't stay this way; come winter, I'll be freezing. I make the most of the weather and spend the weekends in the park or walking around the city, letting the people flow all around me. It's exciting.

One night about three weeks after I move in, I hear someone hammering at the outside door. I open the window and look down. Adam is standing on the pavement. He reaches into a carrier bag, pulls out a bottle of vodka, and waggles it at
me.

‘It's my birthday!' he shouts
up.

‘Where've you been?'

‘Scotland. Raspberry season. Then strawberries. Then blackcurrants. Fucking shit.'

I go down and let him in. He tells me my flat stinks. I ask him how he found me. ‘Just asked around,' he says with a shrug.

We drink hard, then go to the pub and carry on. Adam talks about all the women he's fucked. I talk about all the women I haven't fucked. We stumble back late with kebabs and sit cross-legged on the floor, stuffing our faces. When we're finished, he licks his fingers, then spies a pile of library books and pokes at
them.

‘Ha. You're an educated
man.'

‘I'm bloody
not.'

‘Good books, though.'

‘You know them?'

‘Some. I read them at college.'

‘You went to college?'

‘Of course. I
am
an educated
man.'

‘And you've ended up fruit-picking and hod-carrying? It doesn't seem worth
it.'

He sits up straight and looks me in the eye. ‘Listen, that's just something idiots say. Education, it sets your brain free. And when your brain is free, there is always hope.'

‘Always?'

‘Almost always.' He laughs and lights a cigarette. I hand him an empty can for an ashtray, and he sits for a couple of minutes. ‘It's worth it, man. It's worth it,' he says eventually.

‘Aye. I could do with some hope.'

‘Well, you did not come to London for this, did
you?'

‘I'm too drunk for this conversation. Let's put some music
on.'

—

I wake up the morning after with a filthy hangover. Work is not going to happen. I take a shower and brave a cup of coffee. I keep it down, but only just. The room stinks. I can't remember Adam leaving, but he left a note for me. Some of it might be Polish, but all of it is in unreadable, drunken handwriting. The only bit I understand is scrawled in block capitals: ‘DON'T FORGET THE HOPE!' Daft bastard.

I take some painkillers and listen to the radio until I feel able to move again. Then I go to my sock drawer and take out the thing I didn't show him last night: a blank Open University application form. It has been there for weeks, waiting for me. I spread it out on my tiny desk. It's long, and the type is small, but the first box only wants my name. That's simple enough. I write it in, slow and careful.

Well, it's a kind of hope, isn't
it?

My family. Jane Rogers for her support and advice throughout the writing of this novel. Juliet Mabey and all at Oneworld for publishing it. Euan Thorneycroft, my agent, for taking the chance on me. The writing group in Sheffield for feedback and comradeship. Ellen Cartsonis and family for everything.

Thanks also to Marko Hautala, Sophie Hoskins, Elisabeth Garton, David Harsent, Sara Quin and anyone else who ever read a draft, in part or in whole, and offered constructive criticism or simple encouragement.