Almost True (29 page)

But when I've spent five minutes frozen inside the shirt, not moving, hoping he won't notice, I feel him sit down next to me.

‘Hey,' he says, ‘It's OK. It's good news. You're getting out of here.'

He pulls the T-shirt gently over my head, and he drapes my pyjama jacket over my shoulders and helps me stick my arms in one by one and carefully does up the buttons. As though I'm a baby.

He puts his arm on my back, and I want to push him away but I don't seem to have the strength. Then his arms go around me and he pulls me towards him and I'm so tired, so exhausted that I just lie there. I can hear his heart thumping like a drum. He holds me close and there's a moment when it feels, I don't know, normal. Familiar.

And after a bit he says, ‘What was the worst thing, Ty?' and I hear the buzzing of that word –
worthless
– but I can't say it, and I shake my head, and he says, ‘It will work out. I promise.'

He shouldn't really make promises as big as that. But I'm glad he did.

I don't know why people say that playing games on the PlayStation or the computer can make you violent. I saw it when I was on my paper round: ‘Killer video games fuel teen violence' in the
Daily Mail
. I don't know why they call them video games, either. Who has a video any more?

Anyway, they're wrong, because gaming is the opposite of violent. When you play, you're completely safe, because no one can hurt you. You're busy and using your brain, so you're not bored. You can't hurt anyone else. So how does that fuel teen violence?

There's a huge difference between these games and real life. When real people get killed, there's no music booming in the background. Killers aren't always pig-ugly and dressed in black. Life would be better if it
was more like games. You'd always get another chance.

In fact, if everyone played a lot more of these games I bet crime levels would fall. Newspapers like the
Daily Mail
ought to promote them.

I know all this because when I came out of hospital, Archie's mum gave me his old PlayStation and loads of games and an old telly to plug it into. And since I moved into the high-rise in Birmingham – which is just as minging as you'd expect – that's what I've done. All day, every day. For a whole month. Working up the levels and moving on. It's fantastic.

My mum moans a bit that I ought to be catching up with school work before I start at some Brummie sink school in January, but when I think about being plunged into the middle of year ten with no friends and no idea what they've learned for the last six months, I get breathless and my scar starts hurting and I have to lean forward into the screen to block her out.

My gran tried to talk to me about the whole stabbing thing – ‘Why, Tyler? What did we do wrong? How could you do such a thing?' – but I'd just reached level fifteen of
Wolverine
and I muttered, ‘Another time, right, Gran, OK?' She hasn't tried again. The way she looks at me – disappointed, upset, confused – just makes me want to run back to my console.

It's Christmas Day and they make me stop playing
for dinner even though I'm not really hungry, and I gobble down some turkey and potatoes as quickly as possible, then turn down Christmas pudding to get back to
Grand Theft Auto
. Man, I wish I'd played this game before Arron got involved with Jukes and them. I'd have had way more idea about how things work. They should teach this stuff in schools. It'd be a hell of a lot more useful than learning about Shakespeare or Vikings.

My dad arrives about 6 pm. It's the first time I've seen him since we moved here, because he's been working in New York. He rang a few times but it wasn't easy to talk to him on the phone. I'm not used to having him around enough to know what to say when he disappears again.

He leans up against the door frame of my room and looks around. ‘It's not so bad,' he says. ‘Nice and light. Perhaps a lick of paint. . .'

Not so bad? There's a yellow stain running from the draughty window to the floor. The carpet is full of holes and brown stains and it peels at the edges. It smells of damp, and there's a constant thudding bass line booming from the ceiling. There are needles in the stairwell and dried vomit and dog shit in the lift. I think about my dad's American fridge and leather sofas. I don't bother to reply.

‘Why are there two beds?' he asks.

‘There was a copper living here with them before,' I say. ‘Gone now.

Emma's going soon. And Louise.'
Emma's going back to Spain to hook up with some guy she met when the police moved her and Lou and Gran there in the summer. He's called Carlos and he has a boutique in Marbella and Em says he looks like Enrique Iglesias. Yuk. Lou's got a job as head of English at the British School of Tashkent. That's in Uzbekistan. I suspect she's trying to get as far away as possible, because things are a bit brittle between her and my mum.

I'd be pretty excited, I suppose, if there was any chance that I might be able to go and visit. But there isn't. Even though I've got a passport now, there's no way the police will let me leave the country. So I'm keeping focussed on working my way through as much of GTA as I can before I get shipped off to prison.

I'm assuming there's no PlayStation in Young Offender Institutions. The thought makes me a bit shaky, so I don't think it very often.

‘I've got a copper protecting me,' says my dad, ‘just until Jukes White goes on trial. Even though they think the threat's very small now because they've got most of his associates inside. Tess and Lucy have protection too. It's a pain in the arse. I'm going to be spending quite a lot of time abroad in the next few months.'

‘Yeah, right,' I say, leaping, running and – wham bam! – blowing away a rival, ‘Sorry 'bout that.'

‘Lucy asked me to thank you for what you did for
her,' he says. ‘She thinks you're very brave.'

‘Yeah . . . right. . .'

‘Ty, can you switch that off for a minute? Just pause it or something?'

‘Umm . . . not right now. . .'

‘I've got your Christmas present.'

Oh, for God's sake. Can't he see I'm busy? Why doesn't he just leave it for me to open later? This present had better be good. He's making up for fourteen years of no present at all. Reluctantly I freeze the game.

He hands it over. A phone. A mobile. Great. Brilliant present. Something I should have as a basic necessity. I mean, who gets a phone as a present when they're fifteen? That's your big exciting gift when you're about eleven. Anyway, it's completely useless to me now because I have no friends and no one to call. It's about as pointless as the running gear my mum gave me. Does she really think I'm going running in a strange city where anything could be out there waiting for me? I don't think so.

I must admit that he's chosen a particularly cool handset, with lots of features.

But my fingers are itching to start the game again.

‘Ta,' I say.

‘It's pay as you go,' he says, ‘I've given you quite a bit of credit. And I've put some numbers in. The battery's charged up. It's ready to use. I've written your number
down for you, here you are. . .'

‘Ta,' I say again, and I hit play. The engine roars, I'm speeding along the mean streets. . . Jesus. He's still here. What does he want from me?

‘Ty,' he says, gesturing at the pulled curtains, the clothes on the floor, the bowl of ancient, half-eaten cereal mouldering by my side. ‘Do you think maybe you should cut down a bit on the gaming? Nicki says you've been spending all your time in here.'

‘Yeah, right, no,' I say.

‘Ty. . .' he says, but I'm off, I'm into the game, I've got no time to listen to him or think about anything other than survival and killing and building up my criminal reputation and it's fine, it's safe because it's not real. Thank God it's not real.

I don't think I ever want to do anything much that's real again.

But later, when he's gone and my mum's insisted that I switch off and go to bed, and I'm lying in the dark waiting for everyone to go to sleep so I can switch it on again, I reach for my phone. And I look at the numbers he's programmed in – his own, Patrick and Helen's, Archie. Patrick's called me a few times since I've been living here but I haven't talked to him. I've been too busy, too concentrated. And I don't know what he'll say about the police stuff, and I'm not sure I want to know.

Perhaps I should ring them. Wish them a happy Christmas. Maybe arrange to go over to see them, take Meg for a walk. . .

But maybe they don't want to know me any more. Maybe that's what Patrick was calling to say. And anyway, they don't have a PlayStation. I don't call them. Instead I call the 118 people. I get Claire's number. And I punch in the numbers.

Claire's mum answers. I can't cope with her. ‘Can I speak to Ellie, please,' I say, trying to disguise my voice with a Brummie accent, although that's got to be the first language I've had no interest in learning. ‘It's . . . ummm . . . tell her it's Brian.' I can hear Ellie's voice in the background. ‘Brian who?' she's saying. ‘Who's calling at 11 o' clock on Christmas day?'

Then she picks up the phone. Her voice is clear and breezy and strong. I get a whoosh of nostalgia for the days when Ellie was my trainer, and all I had to do was obey her orders, and everything was going really well. When I was Joe. A lifetime ago.

‘Hello?' she says.

‘Ellie,' I mutter, ‘It's me. It's Joe.' My voice is all croaky. I don't use it much at the moment.

‘Oh my God,' she says. ‘What's going on? Why did you want to speak to
me
? What about—'

I interrupt before she can say Claire's name.

‘I just wanted to tell you something,' I say. ‘I think Claire's cutting herself again.' And I cut off the phone. Just like that. I lie there in the dark and I know Claire's never ever going to speak to me again.

And after about half an hour I get up again and start playing GTA. Level sixteen. I only stop when my head's so full of cars and guns and pimps that I think it'll be safe to try to sleep.

When I wake up I'm scrunched under my duvet. My watch says 11.30 am. That's strange – normally they wouldn't let me sleep this long.

I swing my legs out of bed and then freeze. If I was in a cartoon my eyes would bulge from my head and there'd be a crash as my jaw hit the floor.

They've gone. My telly, my console, all my frigging games. Gone. Disappeared. We've been burgled in the night.

I haven't moved so fast for ages. I run out of my room, into the living room which doubles as a kitchen. Thank God my mum's there. Thank Christ she's all right. But where's Gran? Where are my aunties?

‘Mum . . . Mum, we've been burgled. . . Someone's got in. Is Gran OK? She might be . . . oh my God, she might be hurt.'

She's sitting there, drinking coffee, like nothing's wrong at all. She's even smiling. I try again, ‘Mum . . . Nic
. . . they've taken my stuff. They've taken the PlayStation and the telly and the games . . . all of them. . .'

‘Ty, love, you need to go and get dressed,' she says. ‘It's a bit cold to be running around in your boxers.'

It's beginning to dawn on me what's happened. There's been no burglary . . . no burglary as
such
. . . it's . . . they've. . . ‘It's you, isn't it?' I scream at her. ‘You've taken them. Where are they? Where are they?'

‘There's no need to overreact,' she says. ‘Calm down.'

Calm down? How am I meant to calm down with no games?

‘You've got no right. No right. They were mine. She gave them to me. It's . . . it's
stealing
.' I don't quite say it like that. I don't think my mum's ever heard me cuss like that.

‘Charming,' she says. ‘It's not stealing. Don't be silly. Danny and I had a chat with your gran and we all felt that you were spending too much time in your room on the PlayStation.'

Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
The three of them plotting against me.

‘
Jesus
. . .' Even I can hear that I sound shrill, hysterical and slightly deranged. I change tack, try and sound reasonable. ‘OK, maybe I have been overdoing it a bit. I'll cut down . . . just a few hours a day . . . please,
Nic, please. . .'

‘No,' she says. ‘Cold turkey. Just right for Boxing Day.' She snorts at her own lame joke. ‘Your gran's taken them to a charity shop.'

What???
‘But it's a bank holiday . . . nothing will be open. And how's she going to carry a telly?'

‘She's taken a taxi. Islamic Aid is open all day. Normally she wouldn't touch a non-Catholic charity but she's making an exception, just this once. For you, Ty. And listen, I've arranged a nice surprise for you. . .'

I interrupt. ‘Islamic Aid won't take it. You've got to be joking. They'll really disapprove of stuff like that. Plus I'm sure charity shops don't take electrical goods. Ring her. Tell her to come back.'

A flicker of doubt crosses her face. Then her phone pings with a text and she reads it and says, ‘Actually, the taxi driver's just offered her fifty quid for the lot, so she's taking that and going to meet Emma in town for the Boxing Day sales.'

Jesus!
‘But that's
stealing
. I hate you! I hate her too!' I kick out at the table leg, and a chair topples over. It hits her knee and she winces. ‘Ty! There's no need to start throwing furniture about!'

‘I'm not! It was an accident! You're so selfish! You never think about me at all!'

‘Ty, we're doing this for you. You can't shut
yourself away from everything. Look, I know things are hard for you. I know you're scared about being charged by the police—'