When I Was Joe (31 page)

‘Oh. I'm sorry. I never knew.' I feel guilty but cross as well, because I never asked her to hand me over to Gran. Stolen is a bit of a strong word. And then I ask, ‘Why did we live with her on and off? I thought we just lived with her.'

‘It's a long story,' she says. ‘We had a go at living with your dad, just the three of us. It didn't really work. I'll tell you properly one day. Look, it wasn't your fault. I let her do all the mothering. Thought she was better at it than me, and I was probably right, eh?'

‘You don't do so bad,' I say, reaching over and nicking a big handful of her chips.

‘You liar!' she laughs, and a seagull nips in and pinches the end of her fish.

‘I miss our flat in London,' I say. ‘I really liked living there.' And she takes that as a compliment and says thanks.

‘But it's OK here, isn't it?' she asks, and I don't know what to say because some things are good, like fish and chips on the beach, and doing Spanish is massive, but some things are rubbish, like not having any friends
and missing Claire so much that it hurts and not doing training with Ellie any more.

And there's the constant nagging worry about our safety, and the exhausting job of remembering to lie all day every day about the most basic things. But I suppose that's going to be the case for a long time wherever we are.

‘I suppose so,' I reply, and she says, ‘Missing Claire?' and I nod, and she says, ‘Well, it's much better not to get too serious at your age. At least you can concentrate on your homework,' which is just typical.

‘You can't help what you feel,' I point out, and she says, ‘I'm hardly one to preach, am I?' Then she sighs and says, ‘I'm sorry everything's so difficult for you. What a useless parent I am.'

‘You're about a million times better than my dad,' I say, and she says, ‘You're underestimating,' and then we walk along the sea front and back to our new home.

Jake's social life is crap. Watching
EastEnders
with Gran, that's about as good as it gets. He's a sad git, Jake. Good thing he's not really me. Funnily enough, when I was Ty, I was quite happy to spend an evening in front of the telly. But now I've been Joe, I expect more.

We're halfway through
EastEnders
when some guy starts beating up Ian, slapping him across the face and holding him by the throat. Nothing terrible. Normal stuff in Albert Square.

And then I look at my gran, and her eyes are full of tears and she's trembling and looking away from the television, so I quickly change channels. Gran will never talk about what happened to her and she gets upset if we ask, but she doesn't like loud noises, and she'll only open the door if I knock three times, and she asked Doug the other day if there was any chance we could
move to a bigger flat which would have room for all of us because she's nervous on her own. Which isn't like my gran.

Anyway. On Channel 4 there's a programme about knife crime. About all the killings and stabbings. About the crisis among Britain's youth. About what the government plans to do about it.

I grab the remote to zap on to something like sport or
The Simpsons
, but Gran shakes her head and says, ‘No, Ty darling, you need to watch this.'

So she goes to make tea and I watch. London, they say is the worst place for knives. In other British cities, things are more organised. Gangs have guns. In London, it's a free-for-all. We all have knives, gangs or no gangs.

The Mayor of London – the weirdo blond guy off the telly – goes on about kids not having enough to do . . . needing more facilities. Youth clubs. Boxing. Latin.
Latin?

Some woman says that kids should be taken into hospitals to see stabbing injuries being treated. That's totally random – I mean, you'd have to wait around for ages before someone with the right sort of injuries came in. And you'd get in the way of the doctors and nurses. She's obviously not thought it through. Which is a bit worrying because apparently she's the Home Secretary.

A police guy says it'll take a generation to change
things, that they can solve murders really easily, but it's another story trying to prevent them.

And then they show a slide show of the victims, the teenagers stabbed to death in London this year so far. It's only September but the pictures seem to go on forever. Face after face of boys – almost all boys – black and white, big and small. One guy has a silly moustache and I cringe for him – imagine having your life end when you've just started experimenting with facial hair and you look like a complete dickhead. One boy looks a bit like Arron. Another looks more like me.

And then there's Rio, filling up the screen, Rio with his big brown eyes and his black hoodie and a smile that I never saw. I'm curled up on the sofa now, rocking slowly back and forward, a fist against my mouth.

Gran sits next to me and says softly, ‘I know it's terrible, darling, but it's important to watch. This is why we're here. This is what we're fighting against.'

They're interviewing someone in a young offender institution now. A young guy, tall and dark, skin the colour of a frappuccino when you've stirred in the cream. For a moment I think it's Arron, but it can't be. He's not been to court yet. No one's found him guilty.

This guy is guilty. ‘I carried a knife because my brother gave it me,' he says. ‘He told me I needed
protection.' I sneak a little look at my gran. She's shaking her head.

‘The boy you stabbed – was he threatening you with a knife?' asks the interviewer. Slowly the prisoner shakes his head. ‘I was drunk, innit?' he says. ‘He disrespected me. I just shanked him.' He looks at his hand like he can't believe what it did.

He's serving four years for GBH. That could be me. That ought to be me. That might be me if the police ever find out the truth.

Here's another politician. A posh one. The one my mum likes – he talks a lot of sense, she says. You can tell from his smooth, certain face that he's had a pretty easy life. I bet he never worried about being attacked on his way home from school. He doesn't live in a world of fear.

He says that everyone who carries a knife should be locked up. I try to imagine how many prisons they'd need – hundreds and hundreds – and I laugh out loud. My gran gives me a look and I shut up.

The programme ends and she switches off the television. I hide my face in my cup of tea and she says, ‘They should bring back National Service.'

‘Why? Then you're just teaching people to fight.'

‘Give these kids a bit of discipline,' she says. ‘Give them a trade. Teach them some responsibility.'
She pats me on the shoulder. ‘I'm so glad you're not like them, Ty darling.' I disappear into my mug again.

‘Do you like it here, Gran?' I ask after a bit. I have to change the subject.

She shakes her head. ‘I'm a Londoner, darling, I'll never adapt to living somewhere this quiet. Please God they'll find a way that we can go back home one day. This is fine for a holiday, but it's not real life.'

Then she smiles and says, ‘But I popped into the church around the corner and introduced myself to the priest – very nice man, comes from Walthamstow, looks a bit like what's-his-name . . . George Clooney . . . and he says they've got a nice congregation on a Sunday. I don't suppose you'll come with me, will you? I do think it'd be good for you.'

‘Umm . . . probably not. I've got a lot of homework,' I say. ‘Actually, I'd better go and do some now.'

I go back upstairs to our empty flat – Mum's got a part-time job three evenings a week behind the bar at the local pub – and then I realise I actually have got quite a lot of homework, and some of it needs research, so I decide to go to the internet cafe. By thinking very hard about Jake's geography project I manage to shut out the thoughts of knives and prison and Rio and all those other faces – at least I shut them out of the front of my mind,
but I know they're hiding in the back.

On the way I pass Gran's church and I wonder why you'd become a priest if you look like George Clooney. For one crazy minute I think about going inside and sitting in the confession box and telling the whole story to a dark iron grid. And finding out what Father Clooney would suggest for penance and contrition, and whether it's really true that priests keep the darkest of secrets.

But I'd be there for hours because it's so long since I last confessed. And I'd have to tell him all about Ashley and that. I think not. Just the idea makes me shiver and hurry on past the boxy grey building. Confession isn't meant for me. It's for people like my gran who only do good things.

But a memory is nagging me: assembly at St Saviour's and Father Murray telling us that confession was about the future as much as the past. ‘It's Jesus's way of giving your soul an insurance policy,' he said, and everyone laughed because we imagined Jesus popping up on telly selling us a no-claims bonus.

Anyway, no one'd give my soul insurance now because I'm like a driver who's had too many accidents and I never really knew how to drive in the first place.

I go on into the cafe and get myself a Coke and log on. I spend fifteen minutes researching the Zuiderzee
dam and printing out pages. And then I switch over to hotmail to see if Claire's sent me any messages. She has. Just a short one. Enough to take me through another few days.

Is it fair to lean on Claire when she doesn't know my whole story? Is it right? I'm already wondering if the Claire I'm relying on is real or a kind of made-up Claire that I've magicked up in my head. She's my best friend and I love her, but really I hardly know her. And she certainly doesn't know me.

And I know it's not fair to dump it all on Claire, but I have to tell someone and she's better than George Clooney hiding in a box or Jesus with his fully comp cover. She won't mess around with prayers. She'll either go to the police or she'll trust me. My fate is in her hands. It's a better place than anywhere else I can think of.

Hey Claire, my Claire.

I've been thinking a lot about why we got so close so quickly, and it's still a mystery. One minute I was being mean to you – and I am so sorry, you know, don't you – and we were fighting, and the next I just felt this incredible closeness and trust. I always will, even if you never want to speak to me again when I've told you this. I have to be honest with you. It's what we're about.

I'm a liar, Claire. I'm lying to the police and if I get into
court as a witness I'm going to lie there too. I'm not just a liar, I'm someone who did something terrible. I hurt someone. I've never admitted it to anyone before.

It's up to you what you want to do. You could ask me lots of questions, and I will answer them all. I'll tell you anything. Maybe you will understand why I did it and forgive me.

You could never contact me again and I will understand. Or you could pretend you never got this email. It's your choice. Whatever you do, take care of yourself. I'm trusting in your strength. I love you. I always will. You are my best friend.

I know you think of me as Joe, but it was Tyler who did this and that's who I want you to love or hate or forget.

Ty x

 

 

The End

 

 

Read on for an exclusive preview of the
first chapter of the continuation of Ty's story in

They come to kill me early in the morning. At 6 am when the sky is pink and misty grey, the seagulls are crying overhead and the beach is empty.

I'm not at home when they arrive. I'm the only person on the beach, loving my early morning run – the sound of the waves and the smell of seaweed. It all reminds me that my new name is Jake and Jake lives by the seaside.

Jake's normally a bit of a sad person – no friends, poor sod – but here right now, working on my speed and strength, I'm happy that wherever we are and whatever my name is, I can always run, my body is my own.

For a bit I even forget that I'm supposed to be Jake and I run myself back into my last identity, which was Joe, cool popular Joe. I miss Joe. It's good that I can be him when I run. I never want to be Ty again, my real name, the basic me, but I still dream of being Joe.

Joe never feels lonely, running on his own. It's Jake who's miserable at school, where no one talks to him.

Jake never thinks about Claire –
my
Claire, my lovely Claire – because just her name throws him into a dark pit of despair, but when I'm Joe I pretend I'm running to see her and I let myself feel just a little bit of joy . . . excitement . . . hope.

So it's a good morning, and even when I get near home and have to readjust to being Jake again, there's still a kind of afterglow that clings to me. A Joe glow for Jake the fake. I'm hot and sweaty and that's as good as Jake's life ever gets, but then, when I turn our corner, there are police cars everywhere and ambulances and a small crowd of staring people, and they're putting up tape to stop anyone getting through.