War Bird

4. Missed the Quickest Way.

We spend the afternoon listening to music and helping Asher design his next tattoo. After tea and KitKats Ed announces he’s ready to hit the pubs, so we make our way out. The courtyard is gloomy now as nighttime approaches, the tower blocks around us peppered with little blocks of golden light. I smell chips and butter and spices, the perfume of all the dinners being eaten on the estate right now. My tummy rumbles. I look up to my flat and think of the most definitely blackened oven pizza Bev will dish up. So rank.

There’s commotion from our right. Bridget, Mr. Pelham's daughter, is trying to pull her dad inside, but he's having none of it. He's pointing at me again, his finger waving wildly. He opens his mouth where I can see quivering strands of saliva criss-crossing the gap between his teeth. Ed makes really loud gagging sounds, and Asher burst out laughing. I hang back ‘cos I don’t want a repeat of this afternoon.

"Come on Dad," Bridget says. "It's chilly out here. I've got all the bars on in the living room."

"He needs to be locked up that one!" Ed says and Bridget glares up at him, her warty face all cross.

"How dare you!" Bridget snaps. The evening breeze whips her long grey hair around her face and she keeps a protective hand on her dad's shoulder. "He means no harm!"

"Yeah well, he should watch it." Ed is full of himself, strutting around like he’s king of the estate.

"Come on, let's jog." Asher, ever the peacemaker, jerks his head at Ed. "We need to make the ten past train."

"You're sounding like them toff lawyers you run around after." Ed tuts at Asher, who just smiles, dry as toast. Asher never talks much about his courier job for the massive law firm in the city. Suits me, it sounds dull as.

"Naw, I'm sounding like a man in desperate need of some females." Asher says.

"Yeah, yeah," Ed replies half-heartedly. He turns back to the Pelhams and makes a gun shape with his thumb and fore-finger. Asher and I look at each other uncertainly. That’s kind of sick, even for Ed.

"You're not the only one who likes to cause trouble," Ed’s saying to the old man, running his tongue along his teeth. “Watch yourself." Bridget crouches over her dad, holding his wrinkly little head close.

"Just go." Her voice is wobbly now. "Or I'll call the police."

Ed just laughs and the high pitched sound echoes around the now-dark courtyard. "As if." He turns to me and Asher, eyebrows raised. "Let's bust." He tilts his head back to the Pelhams and hocks. Bridget flinches as a fat ball of phlegm lands inches from her feet. "This place stinks."

I catch Bridget’s eye and she looks so wounded I want to apologise, but I don’t want to look stupid in front of the boys. "I'll see you tomorrow or something yeah?" I say as they slope off towards the tube. They wave goodbye and jog off, Ed saying something to make Asher holler with laughter.

I turn to go. Bridget is staring at me and there’s something about her expression that turns me cold. She’s dressed in her usual librarian-style cords and cardigan, glasses on a chain and frizzy hair tucked behind her ears; but there’s something about her normally uptight face that’s different. She looks like she’d quite happily snap me into pieces and feed me to the pigeons.

"What?" I say, wishing the boys hadn't gone. I clear my throat. "You heard them. Get him to stop bothering me or you'll be sorry."

"Why can't you leave an old man be?" She spits.

"You really weren't listening to Ed, were you? Your old man pretty much attacked me today." 

"He's old, gets confused. Maybe you look like someone he used to know," she says. Mr. Pelham nods quickly, his eyes wide and awake. 

“Yeah right. I’m sure he knew loads of mixed-race teenagers in his day.”

“You’d be amazed about what he saw in his day.” Her eyes narrow. “In fact, you wouldn’t believe it.”

"Wow, yeah, sure it was so amazing." I turn to leave.

"Do you even care what he did for this country?” She points at her father, who smiles up at me. “What his generation did?"

"Oh wow, yeah, the war. Big whup." I roll my eyes and walk off. Using the World Wars as an excuse is seriously weak. She thinks it’s fine for her old man to act however he likes because he put on a uniform a million years ago. Will she still feel the same if he ends up really hurting me? I bet he didn’t even fight in the war. I bet he just did something boring like, mending uniforms or cooking or something. Asher’s cousins are in Afghanistan right now, and I get it, wars are scary stuff, but I’m not at war and neither is Mr. P. He can’t act like that around me. I hurry back to the flat, starving now. Sure enough, as I get in, the flat smells of burnt pizza.

"Dinner's in the oven!" Bev calls from the sitting room where she's glued to Corrie. I don't reply, but pull out the plate with two hard, cooling slices of Hawaiian pizza out from the oven. There’s a bowl of limp-looking salad on the side. Yuck. I eat one slice standing by the kitchen sink, looking out over the rooftops of East London. I see a long tube train wind snake-like through the city and I wonder if one of the dark blobs I can see inside it is Asher. The mozzarella tastes like cold rubber in my mouth so I bin the second slice of pizza. I find a can of soup- it's one of Mum's Weight Watcher ones but I don't think she'll mind- I zap it in a mug and then go to the sitting room.

"How was your boyfriend?" Bev is curled up on the couch and I don't want to sit that close to her so I take the ugly, saggy armchair. It was my Dad's. If it were up to me I'd have chucked it ages ago, but Mum likes it, so it stays.

"Told you, he's not my boyfriend."

"If you say so." She picks up a can of Diet Coke and sips. "That Smith boy, now he's trouble."

"Ed? Nah. He's a nutter, but he's alright."

"That uncle of his lets him run wild." Bev tuts. "No control."

"You don't even know him," I say. 

"At least the black lad has a job."

"The black lad has a name." I don’t know why she thinks it’s okay to talk like this.

"You know what I mean." 

"Asher is actually really clever," I say. "He got all his GCSE's. Good grades, too."

"Yeah, so why's he not in college or something?" Bev demands, rolling her eyes. "Can't be that clever if the best he can manage is bike-couriering."

I look back at the TV. I don't really like soaps, but anything is better than listening to Bev witter on about stuff she knows sod all about. Like, she doesn't know how Asher's Dad is cracking under the stress of not working and that they need every penny of Asher’s shitty minimum wage. She treats the troubles of other people like juicy treats purely for her entertainment, like they aren’t real lives and real hearts breaking. I have a nasty taste in my mouth just looking at her. I down the last of my soup and tell her I'm having an early night.