Rule of Night (24 page)

Kenny's hands trembled a little as he held the cards. Barry was right, it was dead easy. An afternoon's work and you could get away with, what – forty or fifty dabs each – enough to last a fortnight. He felt himself getting excited at the idea.

The following day he received a letter from Margaret saying that she hadn't yet been able to get in touch with Janice. Kenny had asked her to persuade Janice to visit him but he knew that if Mrs Singleton got to hear of it she wouldn't allow it. The problem was how to get to Jan without Vera finding out. He put the letter in his locker.

Skush said, ‘Cheer up, it may never happen.'

‘It's all right for you, you're getting out on Friday. Lucky twat.'

‘It comes to us all,' Skush said.

‘Hey,' Kenny said, thinking.

‘What?'

‘If you happen to see Jan when you get out tell her to come and see me. Will you?'

‘Yeh,' Skush said. ‘If I see her knocking around.'

‘What are you going to do when you leave?'

‘Get a job, I suppose. I'll have to; the old fella will be on at me.'

‘Have you got rid of the habit?'

‘I have now. Give me two weeks outside and I'll probably be on heroin.'

‘It's a fucking hard life,' Kenny said.

‘If you don't weaken.'

Kenny became good friends with Barry Keesig and they talked a lot about what they were going to do when they left Buckley Hall. Barry Keesig had three months to serve – two months longer than Kenny – but they promised to keep in touch and meet up when they were both outside. Kenny had forgotten, or so it seemed to him, what it was like to be a free agent. He watched Skush walking down the stairs with a brown paper parcel under his arm and it was as though this life, inside HM Borstal and Detention Centre, behind the high wire fence, was the only one he had ever known. Skush was walking off the edge of the planet, away from the real world and into the mysterious Outside. Of course he, Kenny, could remember what it had been like before, but in an odd way it seemed unreal, a distant dream filled with people who were like actors in a film he had seen a long time ago and only faintly remembered. The place inside – Inside – had a life of its own; even the sky looked different, and for the first time in his life Kenny noticed such things as trees and grass and even heard the birds singing. He came to know the buildings, the courtyards, the workshops, the sports field in such intimate detail that he found it hard to recall his own bedroom at 472, Ashfield Valley: this was reality, here and now, the other was a memory from a half-forgotten past life.

Sometimes he was shaken out of his dream-state as when, for instance, three Scousers went for him in the showers and nearly broke his wrist. There was no motive for their action – none that Kenny could fathom, anyway – unless it was simply that they had stared at him and he had stared back. They waited, with cunning calculation, until the others were clear of the shower, and then closed in with fists and heels, Kenny slipping on the wet tiles and attempting to save himself by the reflex action of his left arm. The next thing he knew it was as if someone had inserted a white-hot needle between his hand and the protruding ulna on the point of
his wrist, and he nearly fainted with the pain. Two of them held his arms flat against the streaming tiles while the other stood astride him and worked his heavy hanging cock into life, arriving quickly at a climax and masturbating into Kenny's face. The spray of water soon washed the sperm away but he didn't forget their faces in a hurry.

THE ROOM CONTAINED PERHAPS A DOZEN SMALL TABLES, AT
each table two straight-backed wooden chairs set facing each other. The boys were in their places and most of the other visitors had arrived and sat down when Margaret appeared and came through the tables to where Kenny was intent on the index fingernail of his right hand. It was bitten almost to the half-moon.

‘Well,' Margaret said, smiling in the way she had rehearsed. ‘You're looking all right, love' – spending longer than was necessary in sitting down, straightening her chair, brushing invisible specks off her coat while she thought what to say next – ‘how are they treating you?'

Kenny stared at her.

‘I've brought you some chocolate,' Margaret said as if suddenly remembering, and she put two half-pound bars on the table. ‘You're not allowed cigarettes, are you? I bet it's made you stop, has it? One good thing, I suppose. Kat sends her love.'

Kenny said, ‘Why have you not said owt?'

‘What?'

‘Why've you not said owt about Janice?'

‘Give me time, love, I've only just got here; I told you in the letter I hadn't had chance to see her. She's—'

‘You said you'd get her to come and see me. Why didn't she come with you?' Kenny wasn't aware that he was speaking louder, though people at the other tables had paused a moment to listen.

‘I'll tell you if you'll give me time,' his mother said in a rushed whisper. ‘I tried to get in touch with her—'

‘You told me that in the letter,' Kenny said stolidly.

‘Listen'
She cleared her throat and went on hurriedly in a low voice. ‘I had to be careful, didn't I? You know very well what
Mrs Singleton would have said. I just couldn't go up there or send a letter, could I? Anyway…'

Kenny waited. ‘Anyway what?' he said.

‘Well,' Margaret said, fidgeting. ‘Janice couldn't have come up.'

‘Why not?'

‘She's gone away. Her mother's sent her away.'

‘Where to?'

‘Halifax.'

‘Halifax
?' Kenny said, his swollen eyes staring out of his head. ‘What the fuck's she doing in Halifax?'

‘All I know is she's gone to stay with relatives,' Margaret said, trying to keep from meeting the eyes of the other visitors.

It took Kenny a moment to assimilate this information and a further moment to realise its implications. He said slowly and with real hatred, ‘The cow. She's done it on purpose to stop Jan coming to see me.' He knew why. He shouldn't have plonked it. That was his big mistake. The cow was jealous. She couldn't stand the thought of him and Janice wanting to see each other, to be together. His first reaction was to hit back in some way, tell somebody what he had done, make the cow suffer. But that wouldn't do any good, and if Jan were to find out… He ripped the wrapping paper off the chocolate and broke off a huge piece in his mouth. A trickle of dark-brown saliva ran down his chin.

‘What's wrong with your wrist?' Margaret asked.

‘I fell on it.'

‘You ought to save that chocolate.'

‘What for, Christmas?' Kenny said savagely.

‘Never mind, love, only another four weeks and then—'

‘And then I'll sort
her
out.'

‘Now don't say that – you mustn't talk that way.' Margaret suddenly felt it necessary to become firm. ‘It's all through her and her mother that you're where you are now. You'll stay away, do you
hear? We had enough of Vera Singleton in the court. It's through them you got into trouble in the first place.'

Kenny gazed at her uncomprehendingly. ‘How do you work that out?'

‘Breaking into the flats,' Margaret said, as if explaining an obvious fact to a recalcitrant child. ‘If you'd never met Janice in the first place you'd never have thought of taking that money. She probably put the idea into your head. She was always quiet, that girl, I grant you, but nobody's that quiet; there's usually a bit of wickedness lurking somewhere. You haven't always been an angel but you never got into any real trouble till you started associating with her.'

Kenny's chest moved with suppressed feeling but he breathed out slowly and the emotion subsided.

‘Well,' Margaret said, ‘did you?'

‘No,' Kenny said.

‘There you are then,' she said for want of something better to say. She seemed at a loss for words. And then, abruptly, ‘I'd better tell you. You'll find out sooner or later. Janice is pregnant.'

Kenny bit off a hunk of chocolate. ‘Oh aye,' he said.

‘More reason to stay away.'

‘You reckon,' Kenny said.

‘We've enough on our plate without a bastard in the family. This year hasn't started well for us but let's not make it any worse.' She put her hand on his, the one that held the half-eaten bar of chocolate. ‘Love, you'll be out in four weeks. Your dad and me will help you. Forget her, all right?' He didn't respond. She tried to smile. ‘All right?'

Kenny didn't take his eyes off her as he crammed the rest of the chocolate into his mouth.

•    •    •

The boys filed past the officer on duty at the door of the dining-hall, collected their food at the serving-hatch and took their places; the officer scrutinised each boy as he went past, looked for a moment into their indifferent eyes as if to remind them of their position and keep them in check for a further few hours. Not that there was any danger of them rebelling: it was merely standard procedure based on official policy and institutional psychology.

Kenny sat with Barry Keesig and one or two other lads who formed their group, wolfing his food, as far removed from his surroundings as it was possible to be. He was counting the days. He was being very careful to keep his nose clean. He was also plotting revenge. He had, so to speak, clamped his mind shut so that nothing existed beyond certain set priorities: count the days, keep out of trouble, think and plan and scheme for the day of reckoning. There was Janice and Vera to sort out; that was Priority One. There was the future with Barry and the other lads to think about; that was Priority Two. And he hadn't forgotten about the three boys in the showers; that was another sort of Priority altogether, yes definitely another sort.

There was a commotion at the end of the table – nothing serious, just a few of them flicking spoonfuls of rice pudding at one another – and the officer walked along the line watching the faces for a clue as to what was going on, who was causing it, and why. Everyone was eating studiously, hiding their smirks behind spoons and dishes. As the officer turned back to his post a sticky gob of rice pudding landed on Kenny's forehead and bits of it splattered in his eye. He wiped the mess away and swore under his breath.

‘No talking,' said the officer coming up behind and pushed his face into the dish. There were snorts and muffled laughter along the table; Kenny again wiped his face and sat without moving; he refused to meet anyone's eye because he suspected that if he did there would be no telling what might happen. He had his Three
Priorities to think of and could allow nothing to get in the way of them. Count the days: keep your nose clean: plot and plan for sweet revenge.

Andy came to see him on the next visitors' day and it seemed to Kenny that, with two weeks to go, he could scent freedom. His guts ached with the desire to get out, to be Outside. Life somehow seemed to be waiting for him now – as though suddenly he had been given a purpose and had something to accomplish.

‘You look thinner,' Andy said.

‘Yeh, the screws have a joke about it,' Kenny said. ‘They say if the cops caught before you came in they won't catch you after you get out.'

‘Not long to go now.'

‘Thirteen days.'

‘Is that all?'

‘If I keep my nose clean and get full remission.'

‘What are you going to do when you get out?'

‘I got a few plans,' Kenny said, his eyes veiled and heavy-lidded. ‘Met some blokes in here I'm going to team up with.'

‘Doing what?'

‘Oh, different things.'

Andy went away, suitably impressed, Kenny felt. Of course they were in different leagues now. The old days had gone forever. No more of that childish pissing about selling blues and bombers at the Pendulum or taking a Paki for two or three dabs. He wouldn't waste his sweat on that now. And to think he'd been nabbed for just seventeen quid! He must have been simple.

Each day appeared to stretch out longer than the last so that it seemed he would never reach the end. Spring was coming too, and Kenny felt a strong physical urge to break free of this set, orderly, regulation existence. At times he was almost exploding with suppressed action, like an engine at full power chained to the track. He
began to sleep badly and went on sick-parade to ask for some tablets. The doctor gave him three which Kenny was on the point of taking and then decided to save. For twelve days he saved three a day, hiding them in a matchbox underneath his locker. He hadn't clearly decided what he was going to do with them; it was instinct that told him they might come in useful.

Three days before he was due to be released, Kenny received a letter from Margaret saying that she had seen Janice and her mother shopping in Yorkshire Street. Janice was looking well, Margaret said, although she hadn't spoken to her.

‘Don't do anything stupid when you get out,' Barry Keesig told him.

‘Such as?'

‘No bird's worth it. You'll be on a loser if you start something: they keep an eye on you for at least a year after.'

‘They'll have to sweat dustbin lids to pin anything on me,' Kenny said.

‘Just watch it, Seddon, that's all.'

‘Okay Keesig.'

Kenny walked out of Buckley Hall on a bright, cold March morning, a brown paper parcel under his arm and enough bus fare in his pocket to get home. The sky was a fresh, washed blue; it looked a lot different on the Outside. He had counted the days, kept his nose clean, had his revenge. In exchange for a small favour Desperate Dan had collared the boy who had masturbated in Kenny's face and between the two of them they had forced all thirty-six tablets down his throat. Kenny was there to see the boy lose consciousness but didn't stay around to discover what else Desperate Dan had in mind.