What Came Before He Shot Her (39 page)

When these small tasks were completed, he remained by the door, prolonging the sensation of having actually been part of something for the first time in his life. He watched Ivan Weatherall and several other hangers-on like himself making sure the basement was put back in order.

When it seemed that everything was in its proper place, someone switched off the lights and it was time to leave.

Ivan came to him then, whistling softly and looking what he was, which was extremely pleased at the end of a successful evening. He called out good nights to those who were leaving and he turned down an offer of a post-event coffee, saying, “Another time perhaps? I’d like to speak to our poet of promise,” and offering Joel a friendly smile.

Joel smiled back in reflex. He felt charged up with a kind of energy he could not identify. This was the energy of a creator, the rush of renewal and sheer aliveness experienced by the artist, but he did not know that yet.

Ivan locked the basement door. Together he and Joel climbed to the street. He said, “So. You’ve had a triumph at your very first Wield. Well worth stopping in to try your hand, I’d say. This lot don’t give out that title often, by the way, should you be thinking of dismissing it. And they’ve never given it to someone your age. I was . . . Well, to be honest, I was quite astonished although I assure you that’s no refl ection on you. Still and all, it should give you something to consider, and I hope you do that. But forgive me for preaching. Shall we walk home together? We’re going in the same direction.”

“Consider what?” Joel asked.

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Well, writing. Poetry. The written word in any form. You’ve been given the power to wield, and I suggest you wield it.

At your age, to be able to put words together in such a way as to move a reader naturally . . . no manipulative devices, no clever traps . . . Just emotion that’s raw and real . . . But I
am
running on. Let’s get you home safely before we map out your future, shall we?”

Ivan headed them in the general direction of Portobello Road, and he chatted amiably as they walked. What Joel had, he explained, was a facility for language, and this was a gift from God. It meant that he possessed a rare but inherent talent for using words in such a way as to demonstrate their metric power.

To a boy whose knowledge of poetry was limited to what was written on the inside of sentimental birthday cards, all of this was Greek.

But that didn’t present a problem to Ivan, who simply went on.

By fostering this facility, he explained, Joel would have myriad options as his life unfolded. For being able to use language was a critical skill that could carry one far. One could use it professionally, as a crafter of everything from political speeches to modern novels. One could use it personally, as a tool of discovery or a means of staying connected to others. One could use it as an outlet that would feed the artistic spirit of the creator, which existed in everyone.

Joel trotted along at Ivan’s side, and he tried to digest all of this.

Himself as a writer. Poet, playwright, novelist, lyricist, speechwriter, journalist, giant of the biro. Most of it felt like a very large suit of clothes handed down to Joel by someone who had no idea of his proper size. The rest of it felt like forgetting the single and most important fact directly related to his responsibility to his family. He was thus silent.

He was very glad that he’d been called a poet of promise, but the truth was that it didn’t change anything.

“I want to help people,” he finally said, not so much because he actually did want this but because his entire life to this moment indicated to Joel that helping people was what he was intended to do. He could hardly have been given the mother he had and the brother he had if there was another calling to which he was supposed to be drawn.

“Ah, yes. The plan. Psychiatry.” Ivan turned them up Golborne Road, where shops were closed for the night and unwashed cars crouched along the kerb. “Even if you settle upon that permanently, you must still find a creative outlet for yourself. You see, where people go wrong when they set out in life is in not exploring that part of themselves that feeds their spirit. Without that food, the spirit dies, and it’s a large part of our responsibility to ourselves not to allow that to happen.

In fact, consider how few psychiatric problems there might be if every individual actually knew what to do to keep alive in himself something that could affi rm the very essence of who he is. That’s what the creative act does, Joel. Blessed is the man or woman who knows this at a young age like yours.”

Joel thought about this, attaching the thought quite naturally to his mother. He wondered if this was the answer for her, beyond the hospital, the doctor, and the drugs. Something to do with herself to take her away from herself, something to make her spirit whole, something to make her psyche heal. It seemed unlikely.

Still, he said, “Maybe . . . ,” and without realising what he was admitting to or to whom he was speaking, he mused aloud, “I got to help my mum, though. She’s in hospital.”

Ivan’s steps slowed. He said, “I see. How long has she been . . .

Where is she, exactly?”

The question served to bring Joel around, depositing him in a more wakened state. He felt marked by the immensity of the betrayal he’d committed. Certainly, he could not say more about his mother: nothing about the locked doors and barred windows and the myriad failed attempts to make Carole Campbell better.

Up the street from them, then, a small group came from the direction of Portobello Bridge. They comprised three people, and Joel recognised them at once. He took a sharp breath and looked at Ivan, knowing that it would be wise for them to cross the road and hope not to be seen. For to be seen by the Blade in daylight was bad enough. To be seen by him at night was pure danger. He was accompanied by Arissa—whom he appeared to be holding by the back of her neck—

with Cal Hancock trailing them like an officer from the royal protection squad.

Joel said, “Ivan, le’s cross over.”

Ivan, who’d been waiting for Joel to answer his question, took this remark as avoidance on Joel’s part. He said, “I’m being disrespectful? I do apologise for treading where I oughtn’t. But if you ever wish to talk—”

“No. I mean le’s cross over the street. You know.”

But it was actually too late, for the Blade had seen them. He stopped beneath a streetlamp, where the light above cast long shadows on his face. He said, “Eye-van. Eye-van the man. Wha’ you doin out on y’r own? Picking up another ack-o-lite, innit?”

Ivan stopped walking as well, while Joel attempted to digest this information. He would never have considered the Blade to be someone Ivan Weatherall knew. His body went tense with anticipation as his mind sought an answer to the question of what he would do if the Blade decided to get nasty with them. The odds were even, but that didn’t make them good.

“Good evening, Stanley,” Ivan said affably. He sounded like a man who’d just run into an acquaintance for whom he had high regard.

“Good gracious, my man. How long has it been?”

Stanley? Joel thought. He looked from Ivan to the Blade. The Blade’s nostrils widened, but he said nothing.

“Stanley Hynds, Joel Campbell,” Ivan went on. “I’d make further introductions, Stanley, but I’ve not had the honour . . .” He gave a little antique bow towards Arissa and Calvin.

“Full of it like always, Eye-van,” the Blade said.

“Indeed. It appears to be my calling. Have you finished the Ni-etzsche, by the way? That was intended as a loan, not a gift.”

The Blade snorted. “You been sorted yet, mon?”

Ivan smiled. “Stanley, I continue to walk these streets unscathed.

Unarmed and unscathed as ever I was. Am I correct in assuming that’s something of your doing?”

“I ain’t tired of you yet.”

“Long may I continue to entertain. Should I not . . . Well, the Harrow Road gentlemen in blue always know where to find you, I assume.”

This was apparently the limit of what the Blade’s companions were willing to endure. Arissa said, “Le’s go, baby,” as Calvin stepped forward, saying, “You makin threats, mon?” in a distinctly unCalvin-like voice.

Ivan smiled at this and tipped a mock hat in the Blade’s direction.

“By the company he keeps, Stanley,” he said.

“Soon now, Eye-van,” the Blade returned. “Fast losing your power to amuse me, mon.”

“I shall work on the quality of my repartee. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m seeing my young friend to his doorstep. May we pass with your blessing?”

The request was designed to appease and it did so. A smile flicked around the Blade’s lips and he jerked his head at Calvin, who stepped aside. “Watch your back, Eye-van,” the Blade said as they passed him.

“Never know who’s coming up on you.”

“Words I shall take to my heart and my grave,” was Ivan’s reply.

All of this had left Joel astonished. Every moment he’d expected disaster, and he did not know what to do with the fact that nothing resembling disaster had struck. When he looked at Ivan once they were again on their way, it was with new eyes. He didn’t know what first to wonder about the man because there was simply so much to wonder about.

All Joel managed to say was, “Stanley?” That served to embody all the questions that he wanted to ask but for which he could not find the words.

Ivan glanced at him. He guided him onto Portobello Bridge.

“The Blade,” Joel said. “I never heard someone talk to him like that.

I never ’spected—”

“One to do so and live to tell the tale?” Ivan chuckled. “Stanley and I go back a number of years, to his pre-Blade days. He’s as clever a man as ever was. He could have gone far. But his curse, poor soul, has always been the need for immediate gratification, which is also, let’s be frank, the curse of our times. And this is odd because the man’s quite an au-todidact, which is the least immediately gratifying course of education one might ever embrace. But Stanley doesn’t see it that way. What he sees is that
he
is the one in charge of his studies—whatever they might be at the moment—and that’s enough to make him happy.”

Joel was silent. They’d reached Elkstone Road, and Trellick Tower loomed over them, shining lights from its myriad flats into the dark night sky. Joel hadn’t the slightest idea what his companion was going on about.

Ivan said, “Are you familiar with the term, by the way? Autodidact?

It means someone who educates himself. Our Stanley—as difficult as it may be to believe—is the true embodiment of not being able to ascer-tain a book’s quality or its contents by examining only its cover. One would assume from his appearance—not to mention from his deliberate and rather charming mangling of our language—that he’s something of an ill-bred and uneducated lout. But that would be selling Mr.

Hynds for far less than he’s actually worth. When I met him—he must have been sixteen at the time—he was studying Latin, dabbling in Greek, and had recently turned his attention to the physical sciences and twentieth-century philosophers. Unfortunately, he’d also turned his attention to the various means of fast and easy money available to those who don’t mind shimmying along on the wrong side of the law.

And money is always a compelling mistress to boys who’ve never had it.”

“How’d you meet him, then?”

“In Kilburn Lane. I believe his intention was to mug me, but I noticed a suppurating sore in the corner of his mouth. Before he was able to make his demand for whatever he mistakenly thought I had on my person, I hustled him off to the chemist for medication. The poor boy never quite knew what was happening. One moment he’s poised to commit a crime and the next he’s facing the pharmacist with the man he’s just attempted to rob, listening to a recommendation for an unguent. But it all worked out, and he learned an important lesson from it.”

“What kind of lesson?”

“The obvious one: that you mustn’t ignore something strange and oozing upon your body. God only knows where it can lead if you do.”

Joel didn’t know what to make of this. There appeared to be only one logical question. “Why d’you do all this?” he asked.

“All . . . ?”

“The Wield Words t’ing. Talkin to people like you do. Walkin home wiv me, even.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Ivan enquired. They had made their way along the pavement and now they turned into Edenham Way. “But that’s not much of an answer, is it? Suffice it to say that every man needs to leave his mark upon the society into which he was born. This is mine.”

Joel wanted to ask more, but they’d come to Kendra’s house, and there was no time. At the steps, Ivan tipped his fantasy hat once again, just as he had done to the Blade. He said, “Let’s meet again soon, shall we? I want to see more poetry from you,” before he vanished between two buildings, in the direction of Meanwhile Gardens.

Joel heard him whistling as he walked.

AFTER HEREN COUNTER with Six and Natasha in Queensway, Ness felt the pressure inside again. The high of managing to walk out of the chemist’s with a lipstick in her bag and no one the wiser didn’t so much fade as it actually deflated, punctured by the scorn of her former friends.

She was left feeling worse than before, restless and experiencing a building sense of doom.

What she felt was heightened by what she heard. Her makeshift bed on the first-floor sofa was directly beneath Kendra’s second-fl oor bedroom. Worse, it was directly beneath Kendra’s bed, and the nightly rhythmic movement of that bed was anything but a soporific. And it
was
nightly. Sometimes it was thrice nightly, awakening Ness from whatever uneasy sleep she’d managed to fall into. Frequently, groans, moans, and throaty laughter accompanied the thumping of bed against wall and floor. Occasionally
oh baby
comprised the coupling’s full stop, punctuating orgasm on three rising notes after which a final crash of the bed indicated someone’s satiated collapse. These were not noises any adolescent girl would likely appreciate hearing from the adults in her life. For Ness, they comprised auditory torture: a blatant statement about love, desire, and acceptance, a form of imprimatur upon her aunt’s desirability and worthiness.