A Funeral for an Owl Page 11

  “How could I not?” Oblivious, Jim was repeating her original question, as if examining it from a different angle. “If he was a few years younger, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Listen: this is a bright kid with a good school record, who’s managed to keep his nose clean. I couldn’t guarantee how kindly Shamayal’s father would have taken to that sort of help. And, say Shamayal was taken into care? What then?”

  Unacceptably, he was using his ‘voice of reason’ with her. “If what you say is true, he’d be better off!”

  “You know as well as I do, that’s where sixty-five per cent of the prison population comes from.”

  This sobering statistic brought them to an impasse. Searching for the source of an irritating clicking, Ayisha’s gaze fell on a slump-shouldered teenager wearing earphones, nodding her head miserably. It was only when she felt Jim’s hand stilling hers that she realised she was making the noise with her fingernails. “So what is he to you?” she demanded, no longer caring if Jim thought she was unreasonable. “A project?”

  After a moment, he spoke. “I’m sorry you feel as if I’ve let you down.” No excuses, he didn’t try to secure a promise of silence from her. “But, Ayisha, he has no one. Do you understand? No one.”

  Why this boy? What made Shamayal so special? She shot back: “That’s exactly why there’s a system -”

  “One that demands I betray any kid who puts his trust in me! Look, I’m not saying it was a smart thing to do. But, really, what is the situation? I’ve offered him my sofa for the night. Cooked him a few meals -”

  Ayisha was agape: “You took him home with you?”

  “I could hardly leave him. It was the middle of the night. The boy was soaking wet. What would you have done?”

  “I wouldn’t have stopped to give him a lift in the first place!” As soon as she had spoken, it struck Ayisha that the truth made her sound uncaring. And it was the system she put so much store in that demanded this.

  “No.” Was the look he gave her pity or disappointment? “You’re probably not daft enough to go driving round at two in the morning! But say you took him to his front door to find a man staggering out with a bloody lip, his father throwing bottles after him. Just for a minute, pretend you were in my position.” Jim’s eyes searched hers.

  She ignored the hope she saw in them. “That would involve pretending I’m not a teacher! These aren’t rules you can take or leave!” Heart pounding, Ayisha looked at the floor, shaking her head. The man lying next to her in the hospital bed clearly wasn’t a bad person. The fact that he’d ended up in this mess suggested he was more caring than she was. If naivety was his only failing, then wasn’t that something she too could be accused of? Relenting slightly, she offered, “It’s not the way we had to grow up, thank God.”

  “Actually -” The television no longer a distraction, Jim was staring intently at the foot of the bed. “In my case, it’s almost too close to home. Not only the same estate, would you believe, but I actually lived in the flat next door!” He paused for her to absorb this information. “When we went for a drink you asked me why I chose teaching as a career.”

  Ayisha recalled the conversation. Competing with the pounding of the jukebox, she had narrowed her eyes - a look designed to unnerve. “I’m interested in you, Jim Stevens,” she had said. “You fight authority at every opportunity.” It surprised her to recall she had recognised this in him then.

  “Do I?” He had sought innocent refuge in his pint.

  “Come off it, you know you do. So,” Ayisha shivered as the pub door opened for a new arrival. “Why become part of it?”

  He recited the stock answer - “The holidays” - but she hadn’t let him off the hook.

  “If you must know, it’s the kick of knowing I’ve infiltrated the system.”

  “I’m not buying that - although I rather enjoyed Jeanette’s expression when you suggested bringing a gangster in to give a talk about knife crime.” Members of gangs, gangsters: Ayisha reflected she hadn’t made the distinction. “Come on. Between you and me.” She had leant forwards hoping to appear invitingly conspiratorial.

  He shuffled, unsettling his stool. “Kids walk into my class saying, (adopt bored tone), ‘His-tor-y!’ I challenge myself to change the way they say the word by the end of the autumn term.”

  Ayisha approved of personal challenges and this one seemed noble. “So what’s your success rate?”

  “Seventy-five per cent.”

  Her empty glass had thudded to the table. “You’re delusional!”

  “It might just be that I’m very good.”

  “The minute I switch to algebra, I lose the majority. That’s my seventy-five per cent!”

  Now, lying in a hospital bed, Jim added to his explanation. “It doesn’t take many people to believe in you for you to believe in yourself, but it does take one person. Occasionally I’m asked to be that person. And, in case I forgot to mention it, I like Shamayal.”

  “You like him?” Ayisha found herself repeating stupidly.

  “He makes me laugh - at myself mostly, I admit.”

  “Well!” She exhaled loudly. “Why didn’t you say so? At least I haven’t put my career on the line for a pupil you didn’t like!” Sarcasm, the trait she most despised. Wisely, she acknowledged, Jim didn’t rise to the bait. Opportunity for escape presented itself almost immediately. A nurse approached with a trolley-wheeling waddle. “I need time to think,” she said in a low voice.

  “You have to do whatever you think’s right.” Ayisha saw how Jim lifted his chin, smiled and checked the nurse’s name badge before issuing a greeting. “Hello, Martha.”

  “How are we today, Mr Jim?”

  “I’ve still got the pain in my shoulder and back.”

  She pushed herself to standing, hooking the strap of her bag onto her shoulder. “You know, I should be off.”

  “You alright, darlin’.” The nurse expressed surprise. “Just step outside a few minutes for me.”

  “No. I’ve already tired him out.”

  “Suit yourself, but I won’t be long doing Mr Jim’s dressings.”

  Thinking there was something more she should say, Ayisha turned back. “Is there anything you need?”

  “Actually, there is something you could do for me.”

  She bridled, feeling that she had already done enough. “OK.”

  “My keys are in the top drawer. Would you mind going to my flat to see if I’ve got any post?” Jim’s eyes were pleading. “If I have, perhaps you could bring it in?”

  Ayisha pulsed with resistance. Jim seemed to be assuming her silence, adding weight to her instinct that it was too late for anything else. Going through the motions, she jotted down the address he dictated and dropped the keys into the depths of her handbag among the crumpled receipts and the skeletons of Bic biros.

  “And if you could bring me a couple of books. They’re in the living room.”

  “You’ll want your own jim-jams and a dressing gown,” Martha pointed out. “For when you’re back on your feet.”

  “I don’t own any. Tracky bottoms and a t-shirt will have to do. My dressing gown’s hanging on the back of the bedroom door.”

  Ayisha didn’t particularly care if the nurse detected sarcasm of the What-did-your-last-slave-die-of variety. “Anything else?”

  “No, that’s it, I think.”

  “Well.” Her smile was tight. “I’ll see what I can find. No promises.”

  CHAPTER 14: JIM - APRIL 2010 - THE BRIDGE

  “You’re not gonna bail on me, are you, Sir?” Shamayal asked.

  Hesitating at the bridge, Jim had adopted the stance he used when stretching his hamstrings at the beginning of a run. Head down, his binoculars dangled from their strap. “It’s not that easy, knowing where to start.” But it wasn’t just a case of where to start: he wanted to do the people in his story justice.

  “Hey, you know what? People say you should start at the beginnin’ for a reason.”

  Shamayal was
n’t yet old enough to understand that memory doesn’t work like that. The original memory is replaced by the memory of the memory. Fine-tuned as a result of later discoveries. Re-defined.

  Bypassing the barrier, Jim began to run down the concrete steps to the side of the cuttings.

  “Oi! What you doin’? You can’t go down there! That’s private property. Man!”

  He looked over his shoulder to see the boy slashing through air with his forearms. “Coming or not?”

  “If I get arrested, I’m holdin’ you responsible!” Shamayal’s feet were quick-fire, dancing on coals. He looked about him, unimpressed, with the expression of someone who has a bad taste in his mouth. “This is where the junkies hang out, you know.”

  “It is, at night.” Jim tried to see their surroundings as the boy did: crushed beer cans; an empty Jack Daniels bottle; abandoned needles, foil squares, used condoms. But he also saw the dense shrubbery; berries; downtrodden routes that marked the regular passage of foxes. “It’s also one of the best places to see migrating birds.”

  “Yeah?” The boy’s darting eyes suggested he was dubious.

  “Swallows, house martins, swifts: they all navigate to South Africa using landmarks. Their route used to follow rivers and hedges, but now it takes in railway lines and roads. Birds follow the flow of traffic. They even change direction at motorway junctions.”

  “No way, they never!”

  “And,” Jim focused on the top of a bush, “It’s also where I met Aimee. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? She’s the girl Bins told you about.”

  Shamayal shrugged dismissively. “He might of said somethink ‘bout a girl, but Aimee weren’t the name he used.”

  Ignoring this, Jim flicked through the first few chapters:

  “Over there,” he said. “Top of the bush. Small brown bird, lighter underneath, stripe across the eye.” Having offered her the binoculars Jim allowed himself to focus on the bruising around her eye.

  “Got it! What’s that then?”

  “It’s a Chiff Chaff.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “It goes ‘Chiff Chaff’”

  “They put a lot of thought into that, didn’t they?” Laughing lightly, she passed the binoculars back. “What’s the Latin for this one?”

  “Phylloscopus.”

  “Sounds like a dinosaur.”

  “It means the leaf explorer.”

  “The Leaf Explorer. That would make a good title for a poem.”

  “You and your bloody poems! It’s all about lunch. It checks both sides for insects.”

  “So,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears to display ruptured blood vessels under the surface of her delicate skin. “Are you going to ask or aren’t you?”

  Jim was glad that the binoculars were masking his eyes. “None of my business.”

  Aimee’s hair fell forwards. “I wish my mum thought like you.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  Aimee sighed, “If you must know, I told her I asked for it.” And something in her voice said she believed that.

  “Unusual tactic.”

  “Yeah? What excuse would you have used?”

  Jim didn’t hesitate. “Ball in the eye playing cricket.”

  “I don’t play cricket.”

  “Then, whatever it is you girls do. Rounders?”

  “If you’re so smart, what should I say about this?” she asked, lifting up her top and twisting round.

  Jim only caught the briefest glimpse of what appeared to be a stamp mark, but that was enough to wake in him a rage so intense he had nothing to compare it with, one he had no way of expressing. “That’d have to be footie.” His hands gripped the barrels of the binoculars. “Bad tackle.”

  “Do I look like I play football?” she laughed bitterly. “But wait, I forgot. We’re only talking about pretend football.”

  “Was she your girlfriend or something?” Shamayal was asking.

  It was still a question that troubled him. Jim winced as he looked past the boy to the place they used to sit. “Or something,” he blinked.

  “I can’t wait for Thursday.” Aimee clutched her cardigan around her. “Dad goes back to days for two weeks.”

  Pleased with how his conversation was improving, Jim now thought of it like football. Someone passes you the ball and you can either run with it, pass it back or pass it to someone else. “What does he do?”

  “He’s a doctor. When he’s on nights, he just hangs round the house all day. What about yours?”

  “As little as possible!”

  She elbowed him sharply in the ribs. “For a living, Doughnut.”

  A moment passed. “He’s sort of in sales.” Supply and demand: what was the difference? “But he’s out of work at the moment.”

  “Something’ll turn up.”

  “Always does.” He needed a subject change, fast. “So, d’you live round here?”

  She hugged her knees to her chest, all face and legs. “Durnsford. Do you know it?”

  Everybody knew Durnsford. One of the best roads in what was already a very nice area. Dangerous when nice areas back onto the not-so-nice. Way too much temptation - even with a railway line in between. The irony of folks on the estate looking down on folks on the other side of the tracks was part of the local vernacular.

  “My mum’s got a mind to move your way when she wins the pools.”

  “If I won, I’d get as far away from here as possible,” Aimee said bitterly.

  At the time, Jim had felt insulted: did ‘far away from here’ mean far away from him?

  “D’you know anyone else from up the hill?” he asked after a while.

  Eyes glinting, she shook her head. “Nope.”

  Jim found that his chest was deflating: the tail of a heavy sigh. Shamayal was looking at him intently. “Aimee was the first friend I had who lived on the other side of the tracks.”

  “Your side, you mean?”

  “Back then, it wasn’t. I had this stupid idea that everyone who lived there was ultra-privileged.”

  Jim stumbled on some pages that he would prefer not to re-read.

  She wrinkled up her face. “Sometimes, when I’m sitting here, the trains go by so fast it feels as if I could get sucked along behind. Or else I look at the track when they’re coming and think -”Aimee broke off, her unfinished sentence hanging.

  “How d’you mean?”

  “What if I was on the tracks somehow?”

  “Are you supposed to be some kind of damsel in distress?”

  “No, that’s not what I was thinking of...”

  If she wasn’t acting in a black and white film, tied to the tracks… He tried to back away from the conclusion he reached. “Is that what you’re thinking about while we’re sitting here?” Jim had been furious with her. “I mean, why would you want to go wandering onto the tracks in the first place?”

  “I didn’t say I was going to.” She sulked, in the way girls do. “It’s not like it’s an obsession.”

  “Don’t you dare try anything when I’m not looking!” Jim shot back, as he imagined a big brother should. “Anyway, you’d fry before you had to worry about a train hitting you.”And he did what he always did; turned it into a big joke with his best impression of a cartoon character frying: head jolting, everything else stiff, his hands clawed. And they laughed...

  Jim blew out his cheeks. You say these things, do these things, they’re not supposed to mean anything. He began to speak, somewhere; anywhere to get him away from there.

  “It was the summer holidays and things at home were going from bad to worse. My dad was around, which was unusual in itself. My parents did their best to keep up a pretence in front of me, but they were at each others’ throats as soon as I was out of the room.”

  “What about your bruvver?” Shamayal asked. “Where was he?”

  Jim sighed. “Long gone - or so I thought.”

  “He’d already left home?”

  “That was wha
t I was supposed to tell everyone. My mum had thrown him out.”

  “How come?”

  “He doesn’t set foot in this place!” Cowering in the hall, he heard his mother yell.

  “He’s my son and this is still my home!” Frank bellowed, matching her for volume.

  “You’re out all day. What difference does it make to you if I bring him back here?”

  “I want Nick kept away from Jim, do you understand?”

  “What about me? Should I be kept away from Jim for his protection too?”

  “As it happens, I never have to worry about that for too long!”

  “Bad influence.” Jim flinched as ancient loyalties tried to reassert themselves. “Part of me was scared I’d turn out like the two of them. But, the truth was, I didn’t like the sound of hard work and long hours either.”

  “I don’t want you hanging about the pub all day with your father.”

  “I haven’t been to the pub, have I? I’ve been out bird-watching.” Jim wanted an end to his mother’s questions. He reached into his rucksack for his notebook and opened a page, jabbing the day’s entry. “There’s one of these for every day of the holidays. Check up on me if you want to.”

  Abandoning her washing up, Jean wiped her hands on a checked tea towel as she joined him at the kitchen table. “I never knew you could draw!” She looked at him as if he were an imposter.

  “It’s copying, mostly.” Remembering what else was in the sketchbook, Jim was suddenly shy.

  “Give it time. I like this little fella.” She pointed to a picture of a wagtail before continuing to flick through the pages, letting a small amount of pride in with the relief as she checked the date of each entry, missing nothing. When she asked, “Who’s this?” Jim knew she had found his sketches of Aimee. “You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend.”