When I Was Joe (23 page)

Assembly passes in a blur as I try and think of plausible excuses. As we leave, Claire casually takes her handkerchief out of her pocket and as she does a scrumpled piece of paper falls out. She glances at me, and I reach down and pick it up. I shove it in my pocket but I know what it's going to say. It's going to tell me that she wants nothing to do with me, and nor does Ellie.

Geography and Science pass me by. I know it all anyway. I'm trying to think what I can do, how I can make some sort of excuse. I can't think of anything.

As the bell goes for break I jump up to try and find a quiet place to face the worst and read Claire's angry words. But the science teacher says, ‘Joe, you're to go straight to Mr Henderson's office.' Carl is already there, looking a lot less mutilated than he did last time I saw him. Mr Henderson keeps us waiting outside for an awkward five minutes, then calls us in. He doesn't suggest that we sit down, so we don't.

‘Well,' he says. ‘I appear to have been left picking up the pieces.'

I study my shoes. Carl gazes at the ceiling.

‘The head teacher has some idea about you two
learning to work together. Some sort of joint project. Something that will help the school and also use your undoubted talents. He was thinking of . . . he suggested . . . something like helping with the annual five-a-side tournament that we run for local primary schools.'

That could be a laugh. Carl looks enthusiastic too.

‘But that's not the sort of thing I have in mind at all,' says Mr Henderson. He opens the door to the corridor and points out a large cupboard. ‘See this? Every piece of lost property we've acquired over the last three years is in here.' He opens the door to show us mounds of mouldering clothing. The stench is overwhelming. ‘Your job is to sort all this out, return every bit of labelled clothing to its owner, then wash the rest so that it can be used by those disorganised creatures who forget their kit.'

Oh, for God's sake. I can see that Carl's equally unimpressed. ‘You can do this while the rest of your class are having swimming lessons because I am not having either of you use the pool for the rest of the term. And when it's finished, you can tidy the equipment cupboard for me.'

That's it. I wonder if it's worth mentioning the access card, given that Ellie's never going to speak to me again.

‘Um, Mr Henderson?'

‘Joe?'

‘I was wondering,' – I glance nervously at Carl – ‘about my access card.'

‘Ah yes, the famous access card. The start of all this trouble.'

He goes to his desk drawer. ‘Joe, you are having your access card back, but you are specifically barred from the pool. Ellie has said that she will not continue working with you. . .'

Oh no.

‘. . .unless you have the card back. She wants you to enter for some more competitions during the summer – I think she's going to talk to you about it, and now that she's all but qualified for the Paralympics next year she needs you to be able to work intensively on your own. I hardly need tell you that if there is any breach of any school rule – and that includes the most minor uniform regulations – then you will have the card taken away.'

‘What about me?' asks Carl.

‘What about you?'

‘Can't I have one too?'

‘We've been through this, Carl. If I give one to the football team, then there are so many others that I will have to give them to that the whole system will become unworkable.'

‘Yes, but you don't have to give one to the rest
of the team. Just to me. And then Joe and I could train together.'

I'm quite impressed by Carl's cheek in making a case for himself.

‘So the two of you get rewarded for your appalling behaviour, is that it?'

‘No, we get to improve our sports performance. Joe, wouldn't you like to be on the football team?'

I nod. Actually I'd love to be on the football team. I've always wanted to be good at football. It was a real disappointment to me to find when I went to primary school that I was so crap compared to the boys who had dads and brothers to play with, and even though I nagged Nicki to let me join a football club it never really happened. I'm good at the stuff you can practise by yourself – keepie uppies, that sort of thing – and obviously I'm fast, but I go to pieces a bit when I play in a team.

‘Well, we can work together, get you skilled up, on the team.'

Mr Henderson looks extremely unconvinced but says, ‘We'll try it for a fortnight. If you two genuinely work together then we'll make it permanent – and we'll send you out to make peace in the Middle East.' Carl gawps. ‘It's a joke, boy. Joe, I'm going to give you a key to the lost property cupboard – guard it with your life.'

We're just leaving the PE block and I'm wondering whether I can ask Carl if his offer was genuine, when I hear someone calling me. ‘Joe! Come over here a minute!'

It's Ellie. She's heading for the running track, clipboard in hand, and Magda, her Polish helper, is standing by her side looking a bit gloomy. Ellie hands the clipboard to Magda and says, ‘Can you just go and tell them that I'll be five minutes?'

Magda looks blank. ‘I . . . tell?'

Ellie rolls her eyes. ‘The girls' group – over there. I'll . . . be . . . five . . . minutes.'

I can just about do this in Polish. ‘Girls must wait a little,' I say, and Magda flashes me a grateful smile. She walks off in the direction of a clutch of girls who must be the young sportswomen that Ellie mentors. Zoe from 8P is among them and she gives me a wave. She won the girls year eight race at the inter-schools competition, and she actually looks great in shorts. But I've got other things on my mind.

‘God, that girl is annoying,' says Ellie, eyes still on Magda.

‘Ellie, I'm really sorry,'

‘Sorry? It's not your fault that yet again I have a useless helper. In fact, it's really helpful that you can speak her language.'

‘I never wished you luck . . . or asked how you did. . .'

She grins: ‘Too busy with your love life, eh? I hope it was because you were too busy training.'

I wonder what she'd say if she knew the truth. ‘I have done my best with the training.'

‘Anyway, I won, which is great, so I forgive you,' she says airily. ‘Start training again with me tomorrow? We're celebrating at home tonight. You can come if you want.'

‘Oh, great, thanks, I'd like that.' Then I remember. ‘But I might not be able to. My mum's a bit . . . not very well. . .'

‘Oh well, if she's feeling better then bring her along. Anyone can come. Just a little party to celebrate.'

‘Thanks, Ellie.' Her shining happiness is the sort that swallows up all your worries and concerns. She's like a kind of superperson, a celebrity. Everything about her is
more,
somehow, than ordinary people. It's strange that Claire isn't like that – in fact, Claire is the opposite, somehow smaller, quieter and less of a person than everyone else.

‘Oh, but one thing, Joe,' says Ellie. ‘I'm going to ask you because no one else will. What on earth were you doing locked in my little sister's room for three hours?'

‘I . . . er. . .'

‘Claire won't tell us, and my mum is completely confused about what you might have been up to, and she's all worried that you've got bad intentions. I said I thought you had plenty of girls to choose from so it'd be pretty unlikely you'd be after Claire like that, but Mum seems to think different. Says you were in the dark.'

‘We were just talking and then I was feeling a bit tired so I had a lie down on the floor. . .'

Ellie looks pretty unconvinced. ‘I can't think what you were talking about. She never speaks. Or are you saying she bored you to sleep?'

‘No, we were talking about school and that. She's OK to talk to. Maybe you should try talking to her a bit more often.'

I'm feeling a bit annoyed on Claire's behalf. After all, Claire seems to care so much about Ellie's feelings that she won't even speak to me, even though Ellie doesn't seem bothered at all that I forgot her race.

Ellie shrugs. ‘Whatever. See you later. . .' And I have to run all the way to Maths while she goes off to the running track.

It's only as I walk home that I'm able to pull out Claire's note. There's an email address and a password, and that's it. She's kept her promise and made me an account. We can communicate wherever I am, whatever
happens, whatever my name is. With Mum crumbling and Gran ill and my aunties disappeared abroad – where in the world are they? – it's a promise of continuity, of support, of friendship. I decide I am definitely going to Ellie's party tonight.

Nicki's in the kitchen when I get home. Maureen doesn't seem to be there and I wonder nervously if she's left already. But Nic certainly seems a lot better. I can even cope with calling her Mum again. She's put on some make-up, and the radio's on for the first time since we moved into this house.

‘Come and have a cup of tea,' she calls. I sit down at the kitchen table: ‘Are you feeling OK?' I ask.

‘Ty, darling, I'm so sorry. Did I scare you?'

I have a whole new concept of being scared. Things like horror films and getting told off at school, things that used to scare me a bit, wouldn't even register now. I'd hardly describe last night with Mum as scary compared to, say, being shot at. But the idea that I was going to be left alone with a zombie – that was pretty worrying.

‘No, but you were really out of it.'

‘They gave me a tablet and I hadn't eaten all day, and hospitals do my head in at the best of times. Ty, Maureen told me about what's been happening at school.'

‘It's all OK now. You don't have to worry about it.'

‘But I do worry about you, I do. . . I'm so sorry I've not been here for you.'

‘You had to be with Gran.'

‘That's not what I mean, and you know it. I've been useless since we left London.'

I'm not going to disagree. ‘So you're not angry about the swimming pool thing?' She shakes her head: ‘Don't make a habit of it. But Maureen explained it all to me and it does sound like these boys were being very nasty to you. Are they still? Are you being bullied?'

It's so ironic that she never asked me this when I was at St Saviour's, when I was bloody miserable every single day and she was so busy with work and everything and so happy that I was at a good school that we never talked properly at all unless it was about homework.

‘No, it's fine. Everyone likes me except these few boys and it's because they're jealous.'

‘And Maureen said you've been seeing a girl? But you split up?'

‘Ashley. The one you liked at Top Shop. We went out a few times, but her parents said she had to chuck
me because I punched Carl.'

‘Are you upset?'

‘No, she wasn't really my type.'

Mum looks like she's trying not to laugh. She pats my hand. ‘You don't want to get too serious, anyway.'

‘Not with her, anyway.'

‘Not with anyone – you're only fourteen, for heaven's sake. You're still my baby.'

Huh. Outrageous. I could point out what she and my dad were doing when they were fifteen. But I won't.

‘Mum, there's a party at Ellie's tonight, to celebrate because she won her big race. I'm going to go . . . you can come too if you want, and Maureen, I suppose.'

‘Maureen's gone to see her boss and talk about how we're coping,' says Mum, frowning. ‘I get the impression that she's worried about us.'

‘Maureen's really nice – she'd only be helpful.' Christ. Am I about to be taken into care? Would Maureen do that to us?

‘Sat me down and said I had to be more supportive of you, look after you better. Louise was saying the same thing, that you wouldn't have been running around the park getting involved in fights if I'd been more on the case, talked to you more, not left you so much to Gran.'

‘Oh well, Lou's always like that,' I say soothingly.
In our family no one ever holds back when it comes to telling people how they could be doing things better.

Her eyes fill with tears: ‘I just can't believe that there are people out there who want to kill you, Ty. You're a kid, not a gangster. What would I do without you? I love you so much.'

‘I'm not going anywhere,' I say uncomfortably. She's been really together so far but she's probably not up to talking about the shooting business. Also, I suspect she might not think it was so clever to kick someone who could have had a gun twice.

‘What about the party, then? Do you want to come with me?'

‘It's a school night. I don't know if you should be going,' she says, which is such an Auntie Lou thing to say that I don't take it seriously.

‘It won't be late. It's just a few friends round.'

‘Oh, well. OK. They are a lovely family. She's fantastic, isn't she, Ellie, really inspiring.'

‘She thinks you ought to get running again. Join a club or something,' I say.

‘Oh. Well. I do think about it sometimes.'

I get up. ‘I'm going to get changed.' And she decides she will come, and at 7.30 we're knocking on Ellie and Claire's door again.

Ellie's mum looks happy to see my mum and gives
her a hug and asks about Gran. She's obviously not so sure about me, although she asks about my ribs. I can't wait to see Claire in her dark little den again. But we're going to have to be clever about it.

When I get out into the garden I think it'll be possible to disappear in this crowd. There are tons of people here, and kids running around all over the place. People are drinking beer, the barbeque is sizzling and someone's set up a karaoke machine in the kitchen. It's a proper party. Mum looks a bit nervous, but Janet introduces her to some of Ellie's mates from the gym and I can see the old Nicki, the flirty, funny, have-a-laugh girl coming out again. Give her an hour and a few drinks and she'll be belting out ‘Dancing Queen'.