The Survival Game (5 page)

‘Well, what then? Something decent, I hope.’

‘I hope so, too,’ he mumbled from beneath his pillow. He removed it from his face and stared at his wife. At her bloated belly. Then up at her halo, which was shining brilliantly as if her head was some kind of light bulb.
Christ, what
skata
have I got myself into now? And why am I seeing that crap everywhere?

It was just all too much to think about right then. Instead, he closed his eyes. Behind them, all he could see were masked hyenas standing over him, armed to the teeth.

They were all laughing. Laughing at the poor mug lying on the ground at their feet.

A few hours after Aziz left, John was discharged from hospital. Even though his head was still killing him, the doctors gave him the all clear, advising him not to drive. They prescribed him some painkillers, which he gratefully snatched up before getting his stuff together and leaving ASAP. He was more than happy to be out of there, just so he could drop Alisha off at home and then get to work finding the
malakes
who put him there in the first place. Besides that, the hallucinations were getting stronger, and seeing corridors full of patients, doctors, and nurses sporting either horns or haloes was just way too much; he just wanted to get away from all the madness.

They entered the car park and just as Aziz said, there sat his fourth-hand Ford Sierra. That was a lucky stroke; the last thing he wanted was to get cabs from south to north, ’cos that would just be throwing precious
lires
straight down the drain. They got in. John started the baby up, she choked into life, and soon they were on the road.

‘God, I’m glad I’m out of there,’ he told Alisha as he sped past a dawdling Mini. It was nearly 6 am and the roads were starting to fill with people driving to work.

‘I’m just glad that you’re alive,’ Alisha replied, stroking her belly. ‘When
will
this shit end with you?’

Oh Jesus,
thought John, agitated.
I don’t need this now,
gamota
!

‘How can I help it if people are attacking me?’ he responded. ‘Huh? Answer me. How is
that
my fucking fault?’

‘Well it always seems to happen to you, doesn’t it?’ Alisha snapped. ‘These things hang around you like a bad smell.’

Her voice was rising, and in John’s ears it sounded like violins played by deranged lunatics. ‘The only thing hanging around me right now is the sound of your voice ringing in my head,’ he told her. ‘And I seriously don’t need that right now.’ His blood was starting to boil; his concentration on the road dwindled. He failed to notice the old granny with horns on her head—who was halfway across a nearby zebra crossing—until the last second. Alisha’s bulging eyes and wide-awake mouth told him that something was wrong. His head flicked round and he finally clocked the granny wheeling her trolley across the white painted blocks on the road. His heart lurched.

He instantly slammed down the brakes.

The pair of them jumped forward in their seats as the car skidded to a halt, tyres screeching. It came to a stop inches from the granny, who didn’t even break stride. She just continued to plod across the road, probably not even hearing or seeing John’s car.

John and Alisha remained in shocked silence for a few seconds afterwards. John took a quick glance in his rear view to check on the cars behind them. The moment he did, his jaw dropped. Wrapped around his head was a bright glow—a halo—just like Alisha’s. He looked away from it and stared at the granny as she passed by. At
her
horns. He rubbed his eyes slowly, wondering what the hell was going on.

He then turned to his wife. ‘See?’ he said sharply. ‘It’s other people that bring trouble into my life. If
you
hadn’t been nagging,
I
would’ve seen her earlier.’

Alisha huffed. ‘Yeah, it’s
aalllll
my fault. Everything!’

John took in a deep breath. ‘Look. I know—’

An impatient car horn from behind cut him of mid-sentence.

‘
All right!
’ he said to his rear view in an agitated voice.

He pulled away, and then turned back to Alisha. ‘Look, I know you’re upset about what happened last night—’

‘Upset? Me?’ she interjected. ‘
Nooo,
I’m perfectly fine with finding my husband unconscious in a hospital bed. I mean who wouldn’t be?’

John sighed. ‘I know, I know. I got lucky. God was watching over me. But, what happened happened, there’s nothing that can be done to change that now. And it won’t happen again ’cos the delivery job’s on hold…’

‘
That’s nice,
’ Alisha said with a fake smile. ‘And what was it exactly you were delivering, darling?’

John huffed, his head was starting to hurt again and
she
wasn’t helping. ‘I was bringing money home wasn’t I?’ he replied.

‘Well, you
almost
didn’t come home last time…’

‘That’s not gonna happen again,’ he said, hitting the steering wheel firmly with his palm. ‘It’s gonna be different from now on…’

Alisha began nodding her head. ‘
Yeah yeah yeah,
I’ve heard it all before—
it’ll be different, I’m gonna change, blah blah blah.
’

John subconsciously put his foot down. ‘Look. You know I can’t just go and get a
normal
job. What exactly do what you want me to do? Go back to what I was doing before? Huh? Would you prefer that?’

‘Do you mean dealing drugs, or losing everything we own making the kind of bets even the thickest premier league footballer would shy away from?’

John rubbed his head. ‘We’ve been through this shit a million times already…’

‘I-I just can’t get my head around it,’ Alisha said, touching her temples. ‘Still, to this day, I can’t. I mean, what would make you do such a thing?’

John braked sharply at a red light and turned to face his wife. ‘I was off my nut when I was making those crazy bets,’ he said. ‘Remember? That nasty little habit I picked up inside? The one you helped me off, but never really went away? Remember now?’ he repeated, getting tetchy. ‘Throw in booze and guilt as well, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. I didn’t know what I was doing.’ He huffed. ‘Besides, gambling’s another addiction, you wouldn’t understand. And when you lose, you gotta chase that money back, and that’s when you end up even deeper in the shit. One day you’re up, the next you’re badly down, that’s the way it goes…’

John remembered it all too painfully well. He wasn’t one to go for these pussy tenner-each-way bets here and there. His idea of betting started at a grand. Five grand on a game of snooker seemed crazy in a sane person’s world, but in John’s twisted, addicted world, it seemed more than reasonable. He recalled at one point heavily backing a favourite to try and recoup some lost money, only to see it fall at the first and the 150/1 long shot come striding home. And when he subsequently backed the long shot, it did as it was supposed to and came in last, while the favourite romped home. But his first few wins were always playing on his mind like a bad dream, and he found he couldn’t give it up. The habit was too tough to break. And by then, he was totally sucked in.

‘Besides, I was skint as well,’ he continued as he pulled away from the traffic lights, ‘you know that. I gave up the dealing didn’t I? That’s all I knew. Without that, I had no clue what else to do. And no jobs were turning up, no one wanted to take me on ’cos of my record, so gambling started to look like a good idea.

If I could’ve just got that one big win…
’

Alisha rolled her eyes. ‘You’ve never
won
anything in your life, what made you think you’d suddenly start?’

John tutted. ‘Why do you always have to put me down? Huh? Why can’t you just be more supportive?’

‘Supportive?’ Alisha exclaimed. ‘Haven’t I been anything but? Most other women would’ve walked out on you a long time ago and don’t you forget that! You must be stupid if you can’t see that!’

John’s face scrunched up in anger. ‘Yeah, stupid. That’s what my gran used to call me—
oi, Stupid
, she used to say.
Where are you, Stupid?
’

‘Well,
she
ain’t here now. But,
I
am. I stick around. I don’t know why. It’s
me
who’s the real stupid one!’

‘Where would you go?’ John quickly countered. ‘Huh? Who would you go to? Besides, I ain’t got anything for you to take half of, have I? It’s not worth your while divorcing me!’

Alisha’s face turned grave and her eyes changed colour slightly; they became darker. ‘That’s a really shitty thing to say about me, John,’ she told him.

A prang of guilt tweaked at his innards. Yeah, it
was
a proper
skata
thing to say. But right then, everything was proper
skata
.

‘All right, I didn’t mean that, Leesh…’ He sighed. ‘It’s just not
all
my fault, okay?’

Alisha’s jaw abruptly dropped, her facial expression screaming incredulity. ‘Who told you to go and take out all those loans and credit cards in the first place?’ she asked. ‘
Hmm?
Me?’

‘Who told the banks to approve ’em?’

‘You were the one who lied on the forms. What was it you said your annual income was? Remind me, I need a good laugh. Was it eighty grand?’

‘
Hundred…
’ John said softly.

Alisha fell back in her seat. ‘
Haha!
What a joke!’

‘Yeah, you’re right. It
was
a joke that they fell for it.’

Alisha shook her head. ‘Or more likely they knew you were bullshitting, and just gave you enough rope to hang yourself with…’

John sighed, recollecting the spiralling gambling debts and the subsequent threatening letters citing fraud, courts, and a return to
philaki
. ‘And it worked…’ he said.

Alisha fell back in her seat, a moody face on as she stared out of the windscreen. ‘
Didn’t it just…
’ she quietly replied.

*****

They reached London Bridge. The previous night he crossed it heading south; now he was heading north. The murky Thames stretched away into the distance. He stared down at it, wondering what secrets were buried deep beneath its oily surface. Like the guilt that lurked in his heart. Contemplating it made his head hurt, so he stopped.

Both he and Alisha had calmed down since south London, the
RnB HITS
CD John put on a bit earlier helping ’cos Alisha was into all that
skata
. Even though he couldn’t stand that crap, he felt it would be best if he took her feelings into consideration as well.

Maybe if you’d have done that from the first day you met her, you wouldn’t be in this
skata
,
re
boy,
a voice said to him. It was the voice of truth. And he agreed with it. He wished more than anything he had the power to turn back the clock and do things differently. Anytime would do; there were so many points in his life where he’d made the wrong decision…

They made it across the bridge, leaving the Thames behind them, while Shola Ama was telling them
You Might Need Somebody
. John was grateful he was now back in the north section of London. He didn’t like the south. Just didn’t feel like home at all. It had an alien vibe, like when first switching from terrestrial TV to satellite.

He looked across at his wife. He smiled at her as best he could through his headache in a crude attempt to ease her obvious anger. She just ignored the gesture with a turn of her glowing head and stared hardnosed out of her window. John sighed. He’d seen that look before—once he came clean about the loans and credit cards and the crazy gambling, she went mental nonstop for a whole week. And that same moody look she had on her face now in the car had been planted on her mug the whole time. He remembered with bitterness having to put
Yiayia
’s maisonette (which he inherited after she died, and was their home at the time) up for sale. In no time, it was gone. The credit cards and loans were paid off (which also killed the spectre of
philaki
), and they had spare cash (which covered the rent on a new flat).

But
that
only lasted so long. The cost of living in London was too high, and as John couldn’t get work and everything he touched turned to
skata
, things became desperate. He was suddenly hanging round Aziz’s snooker hall more and more, finding himself drawn into late-night whiskey-inspired poker games where cash was won and lost like it was
Monopoly
money. John slipped into freefall, haemorrhaging cash in a haze of booze, depression, and drug withdrawal.

In the end, he lost everything.

And not once did he think of his wife, and the consequences his actions would have on her.

*****

They made it back to Edmonton.

By then the RnB CD had finished, but John didn’t bother to put in a new one as they were so close to home. He stopped at a set of red traffic lights and glanced over at his wife, taking a second to reflect on things from her perspective. She’d stuck by a guy who had a chequered past and just the
odd
problem in the head (you talking about
me
?), had fallen out with her family for him ’cos she married a ‘bubble and squeak,’ and in return, when he seriously thought it through, what had he given her? Very little, if he was being honest. Very little.

His mind tripped back to around the time he first met her. He was fresh out of
philaki
, knocking out Es and weed to the heads at
Charlie Chan’s
, a long gone nightclub in the east end of London. He met a bloke called Yousif at a DnB rave there, who in turn introduced him to his sister, Alisha.

They got together.

They got married.

And that’s when everything turned proper
skata
.

But getting married was supposed to mature him, allow him to develop a sense of responsibility, to leave all the crap behind him once and for all. He was supposed to take care of her, give her all he could, finally get his life together. And he
had
gone into it with those intentions. Straight up, one hundred and ten percent,
gamota
. He loved her. He wanted her. No one else. She’d seen him through many a rough time, and he owed her. But instead of giving her a nice house to live in, a comfortable life, and security, he’d brought her just about more strife and misery than anyone could even mean to give another human being.