The list of suspicious t.., p.16
The List of Suspicious Things, page 16
We all watched the news together in silence.
Later the same week of Barbara Leach’s murder, the sun returned briefly, as if it was teasing us, like a cruel reminder that the summer had passed and we were back at school. It also didn’t feel right that the sun could be shining when another woman was dead – it felt as though the skies should be dark and sombre, to match the mood of the town.
Mrs Andrews was behind the desk at the library, fanning her face with a newspaper, and she waved at us as we passed her, and we waved back. We had decided to use the library reading room – which had back copies of all the main and local papers available for free – to conduct our review of the police’s investigations so far, but regretted it as soon as we walked in. The smell of unwashed bodies and stale cigarette smoke was at its ripest in the small, stuffy room, and we did our best to breathe through our mouths as we gathered up copies of the Yorkshire Chronicle , past and present. There was a growing sense of frustration in every recent article about the lack of progress in finding the Ripper since the tape recording had been released. We too were frustrated as we hunted for holes in the police investigation.
Then I spotted a headline that read: Who Are the Women in the Ripper’s Life?
I looked up from the paper and showed it to Sharon.
‘Maybe he’s married after all,’ I whispered.
‘Maybe, instead of looking for a man, we need to look for a woman who’s hiding something. She might be hiding the Ripper,’ she whispered back.
We left the library early. Ruby had started asking Sharon where she was going and what time she would be home. We presumed it was for the same reason I had been told to keep my wits about me, but Ruby hadn’t said. When I left Sharon to walk the rest of the way home alone, I remembered Aunty Jean’s words and looked in every direction carefully as I walked down the street and listened for footsteps when I turned into dark ginnels.
I considered all the women in our lives. Apart from Hazel Ware, they all seemed to be the same shape and size of drudgery, a kind of wallpaper to our lives with nothing that stood out as being of interest to our investigations. It was almost as if they were a different species from us. I couldn’t imagine them having the kind of secret, inner life that I had, and that the wife of the Ripper must have. I was surprised to find that I felt strangely sad about this. Was that what we had to look forward to when we grew up?
I wondered if, from the outside, the women in my own family might look suspicious. No one else’s mum was silent. And no one else’s Aunty Jean lived with them. I shook my head to dislodge the thought before it got stuck, not willing to follow it to its logical conclusion. I had no interest in turning my gaze to my family. I was more interested in the strangeness of others.
The next day we went back to the library after school. It was much cooler, and Mrs Andrews was frosty with it. As we headed to the reading room, she barely acknowledged us, and her pale face and darkened eyes looked as though she had not slept since we’d seen her the day before. One eye looked almost purple. There was no waving. As we sat down in our usual spot, Sharon’s eyes kept flitting back to the desk and Mrs Andrews’ drawn expression. There was nothing new for the list that day, so we left shortly afterwards, but as we did so Sharon stopped at the desk.
‘Hello, Mrs Andrews,’ she said, as I turned back, surprised. I hadn’t planned on speaking to her, sensing she wanted to be left alone. It was as if inside her head she was in a completely different time and place, and though I wanted to reach in and draw her out of wherever she was, I somehow knew it was better to stay quiet.
‘Mrs Andrews?’ Sharon repeated, having had no response.
Mrs Andrews stood with her back to us, gazing at an unfixed point on the wall. She seemed to rouse herself at the second greeting and turned to look at us.
‘Hello, girls,’ she said faintly.
‘Are you all right?’ Sharon asked. ‘It’s just we noticed you don’t seem yourself.’ She looked over at me as she said this and I nodded vigorously, going along with the pretence. At this, colour rose in Mrs Andrews’ cheeks and she shook her head and said, ‘No, no, I’m fine,’ though the emotion now clearly visible on her face said the opposite.
‘OK,’ said Sharon, giving me a meaningful glance, and we left. As soon as we got outside, Sharon began making her case for Mrs Andrews to go on the list.
‘Remember that the article said we had to look out for changes in behaviour?’ she said. ‘And what that policeman said about him being someone’s family? I just think Mrs Andrews is suspicious. One day she’s all happy and chatty, the next day it’s like she doesn’t know us, and she looks all sad and just, well, beaten down. And did you notice her eye? What if it’s her husband? She’s definitely hiding something.’
I couldn’t deny the truth of this. I wrote Mrs Andrews down on the list.
6. The Librarian
Mood changes
Acts suspiciously
Possible black eye/bruising
Is she hiding something?
22
Omar
Omar propped the door open and stood on the doorstep. He closed his eyes, letting the sun beat down on his face, and for a moment let himself believe he could be anywhere.
The latest murder had leached all the hope from the town. They had barely got over the last one, Josephine Whitaker, and all the worry and wondering that had happened after her death, all the chatter and speculation in the shop about them all being in danger now, before he had struck again. The horror was becoming commonplace. Part of the landscape. After the initial shock of the news, Valerie and her friends had been back, talking with each other about the number of stab wounds on Barbara’s body as though they were discussing the state of Marjorie Pearson’s unwashed net curtains.
He had just turned to go back in and restock the shelves when his neck stiffened in response to a different, more ominous set of voices. He knew, if he looked, he would see the short-haired boys at the other end of the street, where they sometimes liked to meet and smoke and stare. Never close enough to speak to, or do any damage in plain sight, but just close enough to make him aware of their presence, putting him on edge.
Except this time they were coming closer, the sound of their boots thudding rhythmically on the pavement, pounding out their aggression. He turned back to see where they were and inhaled sharply when he realised Brian was sandwiched between two of them, his yellow hat giving him away, still perched on his head despite the warm September day. They were heading down the street, on the opposite side to the shop. Omar immediately recognised one of them as the tall, rangy boy who had knocked the bucket of water a month or so ago. Ishtiaq had said he was called Reece and was in his class. The other was clearly older but had almost identical features to Reece – an older brother, perhaps?
Omar watched in silence. Every protective instinct was on high alert, almost as if Brian were Ishtiaq, not a 23-year-old. He stared at Brian closely, trying to work out if he was with them by choice or coercion. His eyes were on the ground as he walked, his face intent on the paving stones in front of him – which wasn’t unusual for him – but something about the scene wasn’t right. It was almost as though they were pulling him along with invisible chains, Brian shuffling slightly behind their exaggerated swagger. When the older of the two boys pushed Brian so hard that he stumbled, the word was out of Omar’s mouth before he even had time to think it through.
‘Oi!’ he shouted.
They stopped in their tracks, clearly surprised. The tall one recovered first.
‘Fuck off,’ he said, laughing, and looked at Reece, who seemed to sense his cue and began laughing too. Brian kept his eyes on the ground.
‘You leave him alone.’
Brian looked up at him, and for the first time ever their eyes met fleetingly. Then he looked down again, as doors on the street began to open, people peering out to see what the commotion was.
‘See you later, Brian,’ the taller boy said, and the two left him standing there while they sauntered off down the street, pausing only to spit in the road.
Omar felt himself begin to shake. ‘Come on in here,’ he said to Brian, trying to sound as calm and normal as possible, sensing that was what he needed. ‘I’ve got your order ready.’ Brian followed him into the shop, his hand in his pocket to count out the money when Omar turned back, putting his hand on the man’s arm to stop him.
‘Them two,’ he said, ‘what were they after you for?’
Brian’s voice was quiet. Faltering. Omar had to strain to hear him.
‘They want me to. To. Join them,’ he said. ‘To. Do. Things for them.’
‘They’re not good people, Brian.’ Omar tried to keep his voice steady and not let his rage spill out. ‘So you keep away from them if you can.’
Brian nodded, and Omar sensed the futility of trying to warn this otherwise friendless man off some of the only people who had taken an interest in him. He handed Brian his paper and cigarettes, waving away his offer of payment, and watched him as he left the shop and wandered back down the street to home. Maybe he should talk to Valerie. Let her know about the boys if she didn’t know about them already. Make sure she knew they were targeting Brian. But would she think he was interfering? While Yorkshire people could gossip as well as the best of them, they were tight-lipped about their own lives, full of pride and misplaced determination not to show any feelings. For a moment he smiled, imagining what the aunties would do with this. Maybe they were right. Maybe what he’d once seen as interference was actually a way to keep people safe. Maybe that’s what being part of a community was. He would talk to Valerie.
23
Miv
I caught my next glimpse of Paul Ware during the following day at school, a day when, much to my dismay, I had forgotten to borrow any of Sharon’s rollerball lip gloss. He was in the distance, at the other end of the corridor to me. I stood and watched as his long brown fringe flopped into his eyes and he gently blew it away. He was leaning on the wall outside a classroom, presumably waiting to go in, his lanky limbs betraying the anxiety I could somehow sense behind his attempts to look casual. He was alone, others bustling around him, paying him no attention as though he were an inanimate object. I couldn’t stop looking at him. It felt like I was in one of the Jackie photostories that Sharon loved, except instead of ‘swooning’ at the sight of him, I felt something inside me pull at the thought of him having no friends yet. Even I had one – more if you included Ishtiaq, Mr Bashir and Arthur.
In fact, I’d been spending more and more time with Ishtiaq at school. On our first day back, Miss Stacey had announced that this year we were going to be streamed according to ability. She had told us to look at the sheets on the wall to find out which classes we were going to be in for English, Maths and Science. I had been horrified to see that I would no longer be sharing those classes with Sharon, as I was in the top sets.
‘Of course you are,’ she’d said, laughing at my downcast expression. ‘You’re much cleverer than me.’
‘Am I?’ I’d said, uncomfortable with the thought. She’d shaken her head at me, her puzzlement evident.
‘Yes, you daft apeth. And I’ll see you at break and in art class and that.’
I’d almost crept towards my new classroom that first day, peering around the door to see Ishtiaq ahead of me, walking confidently to a seat in the front row and sitting down, keeping his face to the front, not looking around to see what anyone else was doing. I followed, and sat down next to him, feeling a curious mix of pride and fear that I hadn’t waited to see what anyone might think. We sat together and shared our books, and at the end of the lesson Ishtiaq said, ‘Want to come over to mine to do our homework together?’
The two of us had sat at his kitchen table while Mr Bashir cooked our tea and sang ‘Benny and the Jets’ at full volume, until Ishtiaq told him we had to work, and the singing turned into humming, which was just as distracting.
Ishtiaq seemed to be entirely at ease in our new classes. He didn’t seem to mind people knowing he was clever, and never showed off about it. I noticed he would often read at breaktimes but was just as comfortable playing cricket if the offer was there. He talked to boys and girls alike and it didn’t bother him whether they included him or not, somehow making him more attractive to others, even the ones who had called him names.
I felt as if I was seeing him for the first time.
I decided to try and copy aspects of his behaviour; to believe that you didn’t have to be the same as everyone else to make people like you. I was working hard at becoming less concerned with whether the small number of girls in the top set wanted to be my friend. This was helpful, as there wasn’t exactly a queue forming and I always sat with Ishtiaq anyway.
‘Lucky you,’ Sharon said wistfully, when I mentioned it to her. ‘I’m still putting up with Neil and Reece in my classes.’ She paused. ‘Reece keeps on pestering me an’ all.’
‘What do you mean, pesters you?’
‘Oh, you know. One minute he’s laughing at me, calling me names, and the next he’s asking me if I want to hang out at breaktime. I always say no though.’
I nodded wisely, as though fending off boys was a daily occurrence for me. I noticed that Sharon’s expression had grown graver.
‘They frighten me a bit, those lads,’ she said. ‘They’re just … hard … you know?’
I thought about the last time I’d seen Neil and Reece, their foreheads permanently set in an aggressive furrow. Their expressions were almost as much of a uniform as the ones we wore every day to school. I wondered what had happened to make them change from the funny, mischievous boys they used to be. What had turned Reece’s shyness into brooding silence?
They frightened me a bit too.
The fear became intensified that Saturday. We had gone to Arthur’s and were sat in the garden, telling him all about Jim Jameson and how we were planning to visit him later. I was surprised to see how much the story seemed to affect him. Tears began to form in his eyes, which I hastily rushed to prevent. ‘It’s OK, Arthur,’ I said. ‘He’s been cleared and everything. He’s got a letter.’
‘Aye, love, I know. It’s not that,’ he said, not meeting my eyes.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ said Sharon as the tears threatened to spill onto his cheeks.
‘It’s just … It’s just him living in his lorry like that,’ Arthur tried to explain while looking at our confused faces ‘I don’t expect you two to understand. I know I’m a soft old thing. But no one should have to be that lonely.’
Actually I did understand that.
‘I might walk down there with you when you pop along and see him, if he’s still parked up on t’lane,’ Arthur said. ‘Offer him a bath when he needs one.’
The three of us left not long afterwards and walked down the street more slowly than usual, due to Arthur’s insistence on pointing out who lived where and identifying various flowers and birds. Sharon and I were pretending to admire a neighbour’s garden when I felt a shift in Arthur, a sort of freezing, and a sharp intake of breath.
‘What’s the matter, Arthur?’ Sharon had clearly felt it too, and we both looked at him, his face intent on a distant point. We turned to look where he was staring and immediately recognised Reece and Neil along with two other older boys we didn’t know, both of whom looked so like Reece, they were clearly related.
‘Don’t worry about them, Arthur,’ I said, more confidently than I felt. ‘We know them. They’re just some boys from school, like.’
‘It’s the same ones as came into t’scrapyard,’ he said, his voice unsteady.
‘Are you sure?’ said Sharon, looking at me with alarm on her face. ‘They’re quite far away.’
‘I, I think so. I mean, I can’t be sure but …’ I heard his breath quicken. ‘I want to go home,’ he said, so we turned and escorted him back. I noticed Sharon kept turning to stare at the gang of boys in the distance. Maybe we were right to be afraid of them if Arthur, a grown-up, was too.
The next day, we decided to head to Wilberforce Street after church to check on Arthur and make sure he was all right. To our surprise, he was on fine form and actually inside the house for once, clearing space in the kitchen.
‘I’ve got Jim Jameson moving in next weekend,’ he said to our evident amazement. ‘I ended up going back to see him and we had a chat,’ he added, by way of explanation. ‘And I want him to feel at home an’ that. You two can give me a hand if you don’t mind?’
When I looked at Sharon, I saw her eyes were shining as brightly as mine.
I had never seen Arthur in such a good mood. I stayed downstairs, dusting around the numerous faded lace doilies that adorned every inch of furniture, while Sharon went upstairs to the spare room, packing things away into boxes to be stored in the shed. The room was dainty and pink, with everything matching, in direct contrast to the rest of the house, and Arthur himself.
‘It was our Helen’s room,’ he said, misty-eyed. ‘She was t’youngest and last to move out,’ as if we hadn’t heard this fact a hundred times already. Helen was clearly his favourite, and her husband his least favourite of all the additions to the family.
‘He never wants to be wi’ family,’ Arthur would often say, ‘and I wouldn’t care if he’d let Helen come and go as she pleases, but he doesn’t like it if she’s wi’ family either. When our Doreen passed, he didn’t even let her come and say goodbye in the hospital.’ At this, his eyes would glaze with a mixture of tears and fury.
I was just about to join Arthur in the kitchen to make tea, when I heard Sharon calling me from upstairs. I couldn’t quite read her tone of voice, but she sounded excited about something. When I got to the top of the stairs, she was stood in the doorway to the bedroom, beckoning me over to look at the photo in an ornate brass frame she was holding out.
‘Look,’ she said, her voice filled with anticipation. ‘Who does this remind you of?’
Later the same week of Barbara Leach’s murder, the sun returned briefly, as if it was teasing us, like a cruel reminder that the summer had passed and we were back at school. It also didn’t feel right that the sun could be shining when another woman was dead – it felt as though the skies should be dark and sombre, to match the mood of the town.
Mrs Andrews was behind the desk at the library, fanning her face with a newspaper, and she waved at us as we passed her, and we waved back. We had decided to use the library reading room – which had back copies of all the main and local papers available for free – to conduct our review of the police’s investigations so far, but regretted it as soon as we walked in. The smell of unwashed bodies and stale cigarette smoke was at its ripest in the small, stuffy room, and we did our best to breathe through our mouths as we gathered up copies of the Yorkshire Chronicle , past and present. There was a growing sense of frustration in every recent article about the lack of progress in finding the Ripper since the tape recording had been released. We too were frustrated as we hunted for holes in the police investigation.
Then I spotted a headline that read: Who Are the Women in the Ripper’s Life?
I looked up from the paper and showed it to Sharon.
‘Maybe he’s married after all,’ I whispered.
‘Maybe, instead of looking for a man, we need to look for a woman who’s hiding something. She might be hiding the Ripper,’ she whispered back.
We left the library early. Ruby had started asking Sharon where she was going and what time she would be home. We presumed it was for the same reason I had been told to keep my wits about me, but Ruby hadn’t said. When I left Sharon to walk the rest of the way home alone, I remembered Aunty Jean’s words and looked in every direction carefully as I walked down the street and listened for footsteps when I turned into dark ginnels.
I considered all the women in our lives. Apart from Hazel Ware, they all seemed to be the same shape and size of drudgery, a kind of wallpaper to our lives with nothing that stood out as being of interest to our investigations. It was almost as if they were a different species from us. I couldn’t imagine them having the kind of secret, inner life that I had, and that the wife of the Ripper must have. I was surprised to find that I felt strangely sad about this. Was that what we had to look forward to when we grew up?
I wondered if, from the outside, the women in my own family might look suspicious. No one else’s mum was silent. And no one else’s Aunty Jean lived with them. I shook my head to dislodge the thought before it got stuck, not willing to follow it to its logical conclusion. I had no interest in turning my gaze to my family. I was more interested in the strangeness of others.
The next day we went back to the library after school. It was much cooler, and Mrs Andrews was frosty with it. As we headed to the reading room, she barely acknowledged us, and her pale face and darkened eyes looked as though she had not slept since we’d seen her the day before. One eye looked almost purple. There was no waving. As we sat down in our usual spot, Sharon’s eyes kept flitting back to the desk and Mrs Andrews’ drawn expression. There was nothing new for the list that day, so we left shortly afterwards, but as we did so Sharon stopped at the desk.
‘Hello, Mrs Andrews,’ she said, as I turned back, surprised. I hadn’t planned on speaking to her, sensing she wanted to be left alone. It was as if inside her head she was in a completely different time and place, and though I wanted to reach in and draw her out of wherever she was, I somehow knew it was better to stay quiet.
‘Mrs Andrews?’ Sharon repeated, having had no response.
Mrs Andrews stood with her back to us, gazing at an unfixed point on the wall. She seemed to rouse herself at the second greeting and turned to look at us.
‘Hello, girls,’ she said faintly.
‘Are you all right?’ Sharon asked. ‘It’s just we noticed you don’t seem yourself.’ She looked over at me as she said this and I nodded vigorously, going along with the pretence. At this, colour rose in Mrs Andrews’ cheeks and she shook her head and said, ‘No, no, I’m fine,’ though the emotion now clearly visible on her face said the opposite.
‘OK,’ said Sharon, giving me a meaningful glance, and we left. As soon as we got outside, Sharon began making her case for Mrs Andrews to go on the list.
‘Remember that the article said we had to look out for changes in behaviour?’ she said. ‘And what that policeman said about him being someone’s family? I just think Mrs Andrews is suspicious. One day she’s all happy and chatty, the next day it’s like she doesn’t know us, and she looks all sad and just, well, beaten down. And did you notice her eye? What if it’s her husband? She’s definitely hiding something.’
I couldn’t deny the truth of this. I wrote Mrs Andrews down on the list.
6. The Librarian
Mood changes
Acts suspiciously
Possible black eye/bruising
Is she hiding something?
22
Omar
Omar propped the door open and stood on the doorstep. He closed his eyes, letting the sun beat down on his face, and for a moment let himself believe he could be anywhere.
The latest murder had leached all the hope from the town. They had barely got over the last one, Josephine Whitaker, and all the worry and wondering that had happened after her death, all the chatter and speculation in the shop about them all being in danger now, before he had struck again. The horror was becoming commonplace. Part of the landscape. After the initial shock of the news, Valerie and her friends had been back, talking with each other about the number of stab wounds on Barbara’s body as though they were discussing the state of Marjorie Pearson’s unwashed net curtains.
He had just turned to go back in and restock the shelves when his neck stiffened in response to a different, more ominous set of voices. He knew, if he looked, he would see the short-haired boys at the other end of the street, where they sometimes liked to meet and smoke and stare. Never close enough to speak to, or do any damage in plain sight, but just close enough to make him aware of their presence, putting him on edge.
Except this time they were coming closer, the sound of their boots thudding rhythmically on the pavement, pounding out their aggression. He turned back to see where they were and inhaled sharply when he realised Brian was sandwiched between two of them, his yellow hat giving him away, still perched on his head despite the warm September day. They were heading down the street, on the opposite side to the shop. Omar immediately recognised one of them as the tall, rangy boy who had knocked the bucket of water a month or so ago. Ishtiaq had said he was called Reece and was in his class. The other was clearly older but had almost identical features to Reece – an older brother, perhaps?
Omar watched in silence. Every protective instinct was on high alert, almost as if Brian were Ishtiaq, not a 23-year-old. He stared at Brian closely, trying to work out if he was with them by choice or coercion. His eyes were on the ground as he walked, his face intent on the paving stones in front of him – which wasn’t unusual for him – but something about the scene wasn’t right. It was almost as though they were pulling him along with invisible chains, Brian shuffling slightly behind their exaggerated swagger. When the older of the two boys pushed Brian so hard that he stumbled, the word was out of Omar’s mouth before he even had time to think it through.
‘Oi!’ he shouted.
They stopped in their tracks, clearly surprised. The tall one recovered first.
‘Fuck off,’ he said, laughing, and looked at Reece, who seemed to sense his cue and began laughing too. Brian kept his eyes on the ground.
‘You leave him alone.’
Brian looked up at him, and for the first time ever their eyes met fleetingly. Then he looked down again, as doors on the street began to open, people peering out to see what the commotion was.
‘See you later, Brian,’ the taller boy said, and the two left him standing there while they sauntered off down the street, pausing only to spit in the road.
Omar felt himself begin to shake. ‘Come on in here,’ he said to Brian, trying to sound as calm and normal as possible, sensing that was what he needed. ‘I’ve got your order ready.’ Brian followed him into the shop, his hand in his pocket to count out the money when Omar turned back, putting his hand on the man’s arm to stop him.
‘Them two,’ he said, ‘what were they after you for?’
Brian’s voice was quiet. Faltering. Omar had to strain to hear him.
‘They want me to. To. Join them,’ he said. ‘To. Do. Things for them.’
‘They’re not good people, Brian.’ Omar tried to keep his voice steady and not let his rage spill out. ‘So you keep away from them if you can.’
Brian nodded, and Omar sensed the futility of trying to warn this otherwise friendless man off some of the only people who had taken an interest in him. He handed Brian his paper and cigarettes, waving away his offer of payment, and watched him as he left the shop and wandered back down the street to home. Maybe he should talk to Valerie. Let her know about the boys if she didn’t know about them already. Make sure she knew they were targeting Brian. But would she think he was interfering? While Yorkshire people could gossip as well as the best of them, they were tight-lipped about their own lives, full of pride and misplaced determination not to show any feelings. For a moment he smiled, imagining what the aunties would do with this. Maybe they were right. Maybe what he’d once seen as interference was actually a way to keep people safe. Maybe that’s what being part of a community was. He would talk to Valerie.
23
Miv
I caught my next glimpse of Paul Ware during the following day at school, a day when, much to my dismay, I had forgotten to borrow any of Sharon’s rollerball lip gloss. He was in the distance, at the other end of the corridor to me. I stood and watched as his long brown fringe flopped into his eyes and he gently blew it away. He was leaning on the wall outside a classroom, presumably waiting to go in, his lanky limbs betraying the anxiety I could somehow sense behind his attempts to look casual. He was alone, others bustling around him, paying him no attention as though he were an inanimate object. I couldn’t stop looking at him. It felt like I was in one of the Jackie photostories that Sharon loved, except instead of ‘swooning’ at the sight of him, I felt something inside me pull at the thought of him having no friends yet. Even I had one – more if you included Ishtiaq, Mr Bashir and Arthur.
In fact, I’d been spending more and more time with Ishtiaq at school. On our first day back, Miss Stacey had announced that this year we were going to be streamed according to ability. She had told us to look at the sheets on the wall to find out which classes we were going to be in for English, Maths and Science. I had been horrified to see that I would no longer be sharing those classes with Sharon, as I was in the top sets.
‘Of course you are,’ she’d said, laughing at my downcast expression. ‘You’re much cleverer than me.’
‘Am I?’ I’d said, uncomfortable with the thought. She’d shaken her head at me, her puzzlement evident.
‘Yes, you daft apeth. And I’ll see you at break and in art class and that.’
I’d almost crept towards my new classroom that first day, peering around the door to see Ishtiaq ahead of me, walking confidently to a seat in the front row and sitting down, keeping his face to the front, not looking around to see what anyone else was doing. I followed, and sat down next to him, feeling a curious mix of pride and fear that I hadn’t waited to see what anyone might think. We sat together and shared our books, and at the end of the lesson Ishtiaq said, ‘Want to come over to mine to do our homework together?’
The two of us had sat at his kitchen table while Mr Bashir cooked our tea and sang ‘Benny and the Jets’ at full volume, until Ishtiaq told him we had to work, and the singing turned into humming, which was just as distracting.
Ishtiaq seemed to be entirely at ease in our new classes. He didn’t seem to mind people knowing he was clever, and never showed off about it. I noticed he would often read at breaktimes but was just as comfortable playing cricket if the offer was there. He talked to boys and girls alike and it didn’t bother him whether they included him or not, somehow making him more attractive to others, even the ones who had called him names.
I felt as if I was seeing him for the first time.
I decided to try and copy aspects of his behaviour; to believe that you didn’t have to be the same as everyone else to make people like you. I was working hard at becoming less concerned with whether the small number of girls in the top set wanted to be my friend. This was helpful, as there wasn’t exactly a queue forming and I always sat with Ishtiaq anyway.
‘Lucky you,’ Sharon said wistfully, when I mentioned it to her. ‘I’m still putting up with Neil and Reece in my classes.’ She paused. ‘Reece keeps on pestering me an’ all.’
‘What do you mean, pesters you?’
‘Oh, you know. One minute he’s laughing at me, calling me names, and the next he’s asking me if I want to hang out at breaktime. I always say no though.’
I nodded wisely, as though fending off boys was a daily occurrence for me. I noticed that Sharon’s expression had grown graver.
‘They frighten me a bit, those lads,’ she said. ‘They’re just … hard … you know?’
I thought about the last time I’d seen Neil and Reece, their foreheads permanently set in an aggressive furrow. Their expressions were almost as much of a uniform as the ones we wore every day to school. I wondered what had happened to make them change from the funny, mischievous boys they used to be. What had turned Reece’s shyness into brooding silence?
They frightened me a bit too.
The fear became intensified that Saturday. We had gone to Arthur’s and were sat in the garden, telling him all about Jim Jameson and how we were planning to visit him later. I was surprised to see how much the story seemed to affect him. Tears began to form in his eyes, which I hastily rushed to prevent. ‘It’s OK, Arthur,’ I said. ‘He’s been cleared and everything. He’s got a letter.’
‘Aye, love, I know. It’s not that,’ he said, not meeting my eyes.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ said Sharon as the tears threatened to spill onto his cheeks.
‘It’s just … It’s just him living in his lorry like that,’ Arthur tried to explain while looking at our confused faces ‘I don’t expect you two to understand. I know I’m a soft old thing. But no one should have to be that lonely.’
Actually I did understand that.
‘I might walk down there with you when you pop along and see him, if he’s still parked up on t’lane,’ Arthur said. ‘Offer him a bath when he needs one.’
The three of us left not long afterwards and walked down the street more slowly than usual, due to Arthur’s insistence on pointing out who lived where and identifying various flowers and birds. Sharon and I were pretending to admire a neighbour’s garden when I felt a shift in Arthur, a sort of freezing, and a sharp intake of breath.
‘What’s the matter, Arthur?’ Sharon had clearly felt it too, and we both looked at him, his face intent on a distant point. We turned to look where he was staring and immediately recognised Reece and Neil along with two other older boys we didn’t know, both of whom looked so like Reece, they were clearly related.
‘Don’t worry about them, Arthur,’ I said, more confidently than I felt. ‘We know them. They’re just some boys from school, like.’
‘It’s the same ones as came into t’scrapyard,’ he said, his voice unsteady.
‘Are you sure?’ said Sharon, looking at me with alarm on her face. ‘They’re quite far away.’
‘I, I think so. I mean, I can’t be sure but …’ I heard his breath quicken. ‘I want to go home,’ he said, so we turned and escorted him back. I noticed Sharon kept turning to stare at the gang of boys in the distance. Maybe we were right to be afraid of them if Arthur, a grown-up, was too.
The next day, we decided to head to Wilberforce Street after church to check on Arthur and make sure he was all right. To our surprise, he was on fine form and actually inside the house for once, clearing space in the kitchen.
‘I’ve got Jim Jameson moving in next weekend,’ he said to our evident amazement. ‘I ended up going back to see him and we had a chat,’ he added, by way of explanation. ‘And I want him to feel at home an’ that. You two can give me a hand if you don’t mind?’
When I looked at Sharon, I saw her eyes were shining as brightly as mine.
I had never seen Arthur in such a good mood. I stayed downstairs, dusting around the numerous faded lace doilies that adorned every inch of furniture, while Sharon went upstairs to the spare room, packing things away into boxes to be stored in the shed. The room was dainty and pink, with everything matching, in direct contrast to the rest of the house, and Arthur himself.
‘It was our Helen’s room,’ he said, misty-eyed. ‘She was t’youngest and last to move out,’ as if we hadn’t heard this fact a hundred times already. Helen was clearly his favourite, and her husband his least favourite of all the additions to the family.
‘He never wants to be wi’ family,’ Arthur would often say, ‘and I wouldn’t care if he’d let Helen come and go as she pleases, but he doesn’t like it if she’s wi’ family either. When our Doreen passed, he didn’t even let her come and say goodbye in the hospital.’ At this, his eyes would glaze with a mixture of tears and fury.
I was just about to join Arthur in the kitchen to make tea, when I heard Sharon calling me from upstairs. I couldn’t quite read her tone of voice, but she sounded excited about something. When I got to the top of the stairs, she was stood in the doorway to the bedroom, beckoning me over to look at the photo in an ornate brass frame she was holding out.
‘Look,’ she said, her voice filled with anticipation. ‘Who does this remind you of?’
