Another Life (6 page)

‘Julie’s whole life was her family,’ says the priest. ‘She would do anything for them. She’ll be watching over them from heaven.’

Ty’s head is bowed and his auntie Emma has her arm around him. This must be horrible for him, although, on the other hand, it’s a day out of prison and a chance to see his aunts,
which doesn’t happen often, as one lives in Spain and the other’s in wherever Tashkent is – Turkey? Iran? Azerbaijan?

I wonder what Ty’s funeral will be like. I imagine myself getting up to give a speech.

‘Ty didn’t mean to be a criminal,’ I’d say. ‘He just made a few mistakes and that set him off on a life of violence and dishonesty.’

I shiver. That wasn’t funny, even said privately to myself. Ty isn’t going to be a criminal all his life. I try and rethink the speech.

My cousin Tyler was a great athlete,
I think
, and he learned to speak eighty-three languages fluently. He was married to Claire for seventy years and they have thirty-five
great-grandchildren.

I’m not really concentrating, and Dad has to prod me to get up. We’ve got to drive to the cemetery. I look for Ty – maybe he can come in our car – but I can’t see
him, and I guess he’s with the prison guys, anyway.

Dad ducks into the car and lets out a sigh.

‘Get me out of here,’ he says.

Mum’s adjusting the satnav.

‘Why don’t you ever come back, Dad? Don’t you still have relatives here?’

He laughs. ‘Your nana Bertha once a year at Christmas is all the relatives I need, thanks a lot, Archie. It’s been my life’s mission to escape from this place.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve got nothing in common with them,’ he says, ‘and that’s enough questions. Penny, forget the satnav, I’m following the cortege.’

It’s raining when we get to the cemetery, and I’m glad it’s not me that has to shoulder the coffin – all closed up now – and carry it to the hole in the ground.
Ty’s got that job, and although I don’t envy him, still . . . it’s a real sign of being a man, isn’t it? Ty seems to be the only male relative, but there are guys there from
the undertakers to help him. His knuckles are white where they’re gripping the coffin. It’s a good thing he did all that weight-training this summer.

As we watch, my grandpa Patrick leans over to me.

‘You’ll be doing that for me, one of these days,’ he says, quite cheerfully, ‘you and Ty. We’ll try and wait for the twins to grow up a bit, eh?’

I have a sudden flashforward of me and Ty, proper grown-up men (pinstripe suits, designer stubble) and our twin cousins Ludo and Atticus, who are now only about seven. We’re carrying a
really, really long coffin (our grandpa’s pretty tall).

How can he be smiling?

I nod and say, ‘OK, I suppose so,’ and he says, ‘Excellent. It’s good to have these things arranged.’

Then the coffin’s in the ground and the priest is saying some stuff about punishment and sins and mercy and resurrection. They’re shovelling earth on top of it and I’m thinking
about Ty’s gran’s face when she heard he was going to prison. It’s a shame that she couldn’t die happy, it really is, and I feel a little bit sad.

There’s a quick meet-up afterwards. Emma kisses my mum and introduces her boyfriend, Carlos, the shiny-toothed Tango man.

‘We can’t do a wake, we’re so sorry,’ she says, and my grandma pats her on the shoulder and says, ‘Everyone understands, Emma. We’re all so sorry.’

It’s 7 am and we’re all yawning. Ty nods goodbye to everyone, glances over to me. He hugs his aunts, Grandpa slaps him on the back and Danny and Nicki walk with him to the prison
van. They don’t hug, I notice. Ty turns away and gets into the van without looking back, as though he can’t wait to get back to his cell, his mates and his radio.

In the car, going home, no one talks except the satnav. I sit and wonder whether Ty’s gran really is in heaven, and if so, whether she’s feeling better. Maybe they have a whole
stress-reduction package for new arrivals – like the yoga retreat Mum went to last year on Lesbos. She had to ban Dad and me from making inappropriate jokes.

I watch the streets of Hackney turn into Islington, and then the Euston Road – now crawling with traffic – and I wonder what I would be like if I’d grown up where Ty did, where
my dad did.

Would I be like Ty, getting into trouble from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or like my dad, getting everything right and escaping to fame and fortune (in the
Financial
Times
)?

I don’t know, and it bothers me. How can I find out?

‘W
ho d’you think you’re looking at? Fancy me, do you?’

He’s yelling in my face, spitting. His fist is waving near my head.

‘Stop looking at me, you poof. . .’

He’s swearing, getting louder and louder. A roomful of lads are watching us. Someone laughs. They’re waiting to see what I’ll do next.

We’re in a classroom – grey chairs, grey tables. We’re all wearing grey trackies. It’s hot and airless. We’re not allowed to open the windows. And his voice is
banging in my ears.

He’s about my height, sweating like a pig, pink-faced and flabby. Dion, his mates call him. He’s got quite a few mates. I’ve not got any. I don’t care. I can look after
myself.

I could take him out, no question – a punch to the head, chop to his neck, knee to the balls. I could push him over and run. I’m breathing hard, considering my options.

He pokes me in the chest.

‘What’re you looking at, pretty boy?’

I take a deep breath. I count . . . one, two, three.

I say, ‘Not looking at nothing, mate. Sorry.’

I put my hands up, show him there’s no weapon, step backwards.

He growls, ‘Keep outta my way,’ and I say, ‘Yeah, OK.’

I don’t like saying it. A sharp, sick taste burns my throat. But I stumble backwards, head down, no eye contact.

‘Well done, excellent,’ says Mr Thomas. ‘Very good. Who wants to have a go next?’

The group murmurs. I don’t care what they’re saying. I sit down quickly on my plastic chair. Then another victim is picked and Dion starts raving at him. I put my mind into neutral
and let the shouting wash over me.

Attending the anger management programme is compulsory if they think it will help you, and that applies to 100 per cent of people in here. Mr Wilde told me I had to do it.

‘I think you’ll find it very useful,’ he said. ‘You’ll learn to reflect on your behaviour, practise strategies for coping in conflict situations. The aim is to
minimise the risk of reoffending. Let’s see how you go on.’

And I shrugged and looked away and he said, ‘This needn’t be a totally negative experience for you if you put your mind to it.’

Of all the stuff we have to do in here, anger management is the worst. I hate it. It makes me feel weak and vulnerable. I want to tear my flesh afterwards, to get rid of the fury that’s
going nowhere. Instead I go to the gym, run on the machine – no one else dares to use it when I’m there – until I feel pain in my legs, my feet, my bursting heart.

No one else thinks I’m weak. I’m getting a reputation as a hard man.

Luke’s body tells its own story. People see the muscles, they see the scars and they work out something that frightens them.

It’s as though the more scared I am, the more I scare other people.

And I am pretty scared now, because any day, any second of the day, Mikey could work out who I am.

He was never that bright, Mikey, and he didn’t really know me. I was just Arron’s friend, the tag-along. Back then I was short and podgy and I had short hair and a school blazer.

I suppose I must look very different now.

There was not even a flicker in his eyes as he handed me my food that first night, and I must have managed to keep my face really blank, because he didn’t say anything to make me think he
knows who I am.

I’ve not said anything, either – not to anyone. I haven’t seen him again, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t here.

He’s never in the classroom and he’s never in the gym and he’s never come near my room again. Sometimes I even wonder if it was really him at all.

Every day I chuck my food down the toilet uneaten in case he’s done something to it. I only eat the sealed stuff – yoghurt, crisps, that kind of thing.

I’m getting thinner, which is good because when he knew me I was fat.

Watching for Mikey, feeling hungry all the time, well, it takes the edge off everything else. I’m choked inside, thinking about Gran, about how no one even told me she was ill. They
didn’t let me see her.

I could have saved her. Last year, when she was in a coma, I said a Hail Mary and she woke up and it was a miracle, like she always believed could happen.

Why couldn’t I try for another miracle this time?

I hate the people who kept it from me – the prison officers worse, but also Mum and my aunts and my dad. They all knew. They didn’t tell me.

I scare myself with how much I hate them.

So I’ve put Ty away in a box somewhere inside me, and when he starts hating, I slam the lid down and think cold, hard, blank Luke thoughts until Ty shuts up.

Which leaves Claire. I can’t need her without being Ty. I’ll just have to hope that Archie – shit, that fool Archie, of all people – can sort of put her on hold for a
bit, that she’ll understand.

Stupid Ty’s stupid hope, his memories of what it felt like to be with Claire – that goes in the box as well.

It’s a week after the funeral and I’m just about OK, when the guy in charge of the gym, Mr Jones, he’s called, says he’s been watching me.

They’ve all been watching me. They know about Gran and they know about witness protection and they’re waiting for something to kick off. I’m not giving them the
satisfaction.

‘You what?’ I forget to be polite.

‘You. You can run, can’t you?’

‘Yeah, right,’ I say.

‘Ever been to a running club? Ever tried to make anything of yourself?’

He’s clearly expecting the answer to be no. He’s got the same look in his eye that the education guy got when he discovered I could do Maths.

Two kinds of people work in here – the ones who’ve written us off already, who just want to keep us quiet until we get out of here and become someone else’s problem.

That’s most of them.

Then there are the few who want to Make a Difference, put us on the Right Path, find something to transform us from feral criminals into pillars of the community.

There are only about three like that and they’re a pain.

‘I have been to a running club,’ I say. Big mistake. He wants all the details, all the races I’ve won. Times, dates, distances.

‘I could get you a community order, get you out of here to train once a week, maybe even compete.’

‘Nah,’ I say, although my whole body’s aching for a proper run, a run outside, and it’d feel so good if there were people to run against, people that I could crush and
humiliate and stomp all over just by running much faster than they do.

‘Are you sure?’ he says. ‘You’ve not got long here, have you? Wouldn’t it make the time go quicker if you could achieve something while you’re here? Get out
somehow?’

I’m shocked. I thought that prison meant prison. I thought that all I had to do was keep my head down, keep alive, survive for six weeks. Now he’s telling me I can have little trips
to the outside world. I can run races. He’s messing with my mind.

Is he the one? Is he working for them? Is he trying to get me out of here for a reason?

‘Nah,’ I say, again, but my voice is weak and wavery and he can see – anyone can see – that I don’t really mean it.

‘I’ll make enquiries,’ he says.

And that was a week ago and he’s sorted it so I can go and train twice a week at a running club, and he’s got a list of competitions too.

Driving out of the prison, it’s like my body’s been wrapped in chains, and someone opens the padlocks and they all drop off. My legs feel longer, looser, my arms swing free. My lungs
expand. The throbbing headache that I’ve had on and off for the last two weeks eases a little.

I must have made a noise, sighed or something, because Mr Jones asks me if I’m OK.

‘Yeah.’

‘Happy to be out?’

I’m not sure that happy is actually a word that will ever apply to me again.

‘Sorry about your gran. Getting on a bit, was she?’

I wish he’d just shut up. I don’t say anything and he turns the car into a side road and parks.

‘No tricks now,’ he says. ‘I’m trusting you to behave. No trying to give me the slip.’

I don’t bother to reply to that one.

‘You realise that if you do one thing wrong you’ll lose all your privileges?’

I nod. It’d actually kill me to lose that radio. Music helps to drown out the words in your head.

‘You’ll be serving the whole sentence.’

‘Yeah, all right.’

‘You can talk!’ he says. ‘I was wondering. Here we go.’

We go into the club and through to the track. I’m already changed, I just peel off my tracksuit. I’m not sure how well I can perform in these crap trainers.

Then I see the other runners – normal kids, free, kids who sleep in their own beds at night, kids who see their families every day.

I hate them. And from the way they’re staring, they’re not that keen on me, either.

‘This is Luke,’ says Mr Jones. ‘Why don’t you warm up, Luke?’ and he starts chatting to the trainer. Neither of them takes their eyes off me. The other kids are
warming up too. I jog, stretch, jog a bit more. Christ, it feels good. The headache’s gone. I’m drunk on fresh air.

The trainer lines us up for the 1500 metres – four of us. Two big, tall black guys. A redhead with a freckle-splattered face. Me.

Beating them is so easy that they might as well not have bothered to run.

‘Told you,’ says Mr Jones to the trainer. He shows me my time. ‘Outstanding.’

‘I can do better,’ I say, ‘if I get to train properly – every day.’

‘I’ll talk to the governor,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure what will be possible. I’ll do my best.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, and for one blessed minute the hate and rage inside me die down and I don’t feel less than human any more and I’m looking at him like we’re both
from the same species.