A Funeral for an Owl Read online

  “Offering you a lift. Get in before I change my mind.”

  Shamayal didn’t appreciate the presumption that teachers’ authority extended beyond the wire-fenced perimeter of the school. “Nu-uh. I ain’t getting in no Corsa, see?”

  Mr Stevens’s friendliness turned to exasperation. “Only you can worry how you look in the dead of night!”

  “Do I have to, Sir?” But, seeing he had reached Situation Unavoidable, Shamayal loped around the bonnet, the slant of driving rain picked out in the headlights, wipers cranking back and forth. The passenger door dropped inexpensively as he opened it. Two Door Cinema Club was playing on the stereo, not his scene but definitely not the Dad-rock he had expected. A bag of chocolate limes lay open on the dash. Shamayal got in. He felt every inch of wet denim where it adhered mercilessly to his skin.

  “Help yourself.” His teacher nodded to the overspill of sweets, then, just as the boy took the cellophane wrapper in his teeth, he turned. “Do your parents know where you are?”

  Look busy: use your shivering as an excuse. “Know somethink, Sir? It was w-warmer outside.”

  “You need to get out of those wet clothes.” Mr Stevens twisted the control of the heater to red, the second dial to four. Waiting for the blast of Arctic air to turn tepid Shamayal rubbed his hands together then held them in front of a round vent.

  His teacher looked in the rear-view mirror before pulling away from the kerb. “You’d better tell me where you live.”

  “You won’t know it.” The rain changed direction, drops forcing themselves in the spaces between each other, aiming for a setting beyond torrential. “Ralegh Grove.”

  Shamayal didn’t expect an explosion of laughter as a response. Boiled sweet clashed with teeth as he moved it to his other cheek, chocolate cutting through the sharpness of the lime. “You got somethink against Council?”

  “God, no! I know it well.”

  “How come, Sir? You get dragged out to see some pupil?”

  “I grew up there.”

  Now it was the boy’s turn to hoot. “For REAL?”

  “I haven’t been back in a long, long time.” Taking one hand from the steering wheel, Mr Stevens scratched the side of his nose. “Not since my mother died.”

  “That’s harsh, man.”

  The word, “Yup,” was virtually inhaled.

  Counting a moment’s silence out of respect, timing himself with the windscreen wipers, Shamayal got to forty-nine. “Then how come you’re always actin’ like you’re some big teacher-guy?”

  “Haven’t you noticed? I am a big teacher-guy.”

  “Nah! I meant you talk all posh, Sir.”

  “I had to adapt. You will, too, once you have a job.”

  The boy’s eyes flashed. These teachers, they think nothing of disrespectin’ you. “This here’s my voice, man.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your voice: I’m talking about your language.”

  “You think this is how I talk all the time? I’m adaptin’ right now, as it happens.” In protest, Shamayal cleared a porthole so that he could stare into the night-time gloom. The boy had to admit that Jim’s knowledge of the back streets was a match for his father’s. He had ridden up front in the minicab many a night before he was old enough to be left alone. Opening a heavy eyelid, half asleep, he might register a signpost for Gatwick’s North Terminal or the upside down table legs of Battersea Power Station, all floodlit. He always preferred the night.

  The front wheels skimmed the edges of a speed bump; the car barely rocked. He had almost forgotten he was supposed to be sulking when his teacher said, “We’re not so different.”

  This definitely called for an answer. Shamayal regretted folding his arms as cold wet t-shirt pressed into his chest. “Oh, we’re different, Sir, if there’s one thing I can assure you of, it’s that.”

  Jim - teachers’ names were the worst kept secrets - upped the speed of the windscreen wipers from loud screech to manic. “Let’s change the subject, then. How’s life on the estate these days?”

  “If you grew up there you’d know how it is, wouldn’t you?”

  “Fair enough.”

  Each fresh semicircle etched onto the windscreen was violently erased in a smattering of rain.

  Shamayal thought that maybe he’d been too quick to jump down Jim’s throat. The guy was only trying to do him a favour. “I remember once,” he conceded, “we was aksed to draw pictures of our homes in Art. Most people drew square boxes with triangles for roofs and smoke coming out of chimneys, even though most houses wouldn’t have had real fires, yeah? Outside, they drew two big stick people and two likkle stick people. Some drew cats or dogs. I drew this rectangle.” He pronounced the word with a harsh ‘k’ he thought suited the ninety-degree angle of the shape. “With rows of square windows and satellite dishes - actually the satellite dishes looked more like them old metal dustbin lids you used to have - and the head of a stick person in each. Apart from my own flat, where I drew two faces, givin’ them each eyes and a mouth. I left the others blank because I’m no good at drawin’, not faces anyway. Then I drew a cross on each window to show that the people was on the inside. Some smart arse aks if I live in a prison, but my teacher says, ‘That’s very emotive,’ noddin’ her head, all serious. ‘And what does this represent?’ ‘It represents where I live,’ I says. ‘Hundreds of people stacked on top of each other -’”

  Jim nodded. “Like Lego bricks.”

  Shamayal’s mouth fell open: he had bin goin’ to say that.

  “Whose was the other face at the window?”

  “That’ll be my dad, innit?”

  “Just the two of you?”

  The headlights of an oncoming car blinded, prisms of light reflected through each coursing raindrop. Shamayal shielded his eyes. This was close to being none of his teacher’s business, but you have to let some things pass. “Since my mamma left, yeah.”

  Jim swung the car into the entrance of the estate, past the scattering of For Sale signs. “It looks different,” he mused.

  “That’s the Residents’ Association. They got security buzzers, working lifts the high-rises would have wet dreams about, even double glazing. Under the second arch, turn left, yeah? You can -”

  A dark shadow shot in front of the car.

  “Shit, man!” The boy’s arms reacted automatically as Jim stamped on the brakes. Lurching forwards, his head came close to hitting the dashboard. They were both jolted back, seatbelts tightening across their chests. Challenging, the whites of eyes glared through the windscreen: a cyclist - bike unlit, dressed in black. “Don’t think he likes you, Sir.”

  Shamayal was relieved to hear the locking mechanism click all about him. His heart pounded slightly less wildly now that he knew his teacher wasn’t up for some big confrontation.

  A fist slammed down on the bonnet of the car. Shamayal saw Jim reach for the door handle. “Ain’t no point tryin’ to lay down no law,” he warned. “Round here, the Ralegh Boyz are the law.”

  Beside him, Jim rocked back in his seat, mouth tight. Crisis averted. There were shadows on both sides now; guys in hoodies and cycle masks standing up on the pedals of too-small bikes and circling, or huddled about, round-shouldered. The paranoid view was that they were surrounded. Shamayal chose to believe that the gatekeepers were simply making their presence known. They protected their own - that’s what they’d told him; what they’d offered him, too. But, from the hints they’ve dropped, their protection comes at too high a price, so, while he can, he’ll stick to his promise to make his mamma proud.

  “Think they own the bloody place.” Dispatching gritted words, Jim cranked the gears.

  Go slow, slow, Shamayal willed his teacher, sensing he might still drop them both in it. “They got competition from the Waddon Warriors, as it happens.”

  “Which side are you on?”

  The speed of the car was controlled. No one was made to lose face by having to back off. And although the Ralegh Boyz peered th
rough the glass - although one of them pointed straight at Shamayal and then at his own chest - You: Me - they were allowed to pass.

  “I don’t roll with nobody. You don’t make no trouble, but you don’t wanna get too pally either, f’you know what I mean.” His mouth was running away with him like it did when he was nervous. “Course, both sides tryin’ to talk me round, upping their offers, like phone companies with their tariffs.” Moments later, he pointed out a marked space under a streetlight. “You can drop me here.”

  “I’ll see you to your door.”

  “Oh, Si-ir!” This wasn’t how he’d planned it.

  “I didn’t realise things would be so lively at this time of night.”

  Second thoughts, might be just as well. Who knows what You:Me boy had in mind?

  “I should have guessed!” Jim said, cranking on the handbrake; looking up at the flickering electric lights. “What number are you?”

  “Sixty-eight.”

  “No kidding? We lived next door.”

  “You never!”

  “I bet yours is the small bedroom.”

  “Yeah, man. That’s my hang-out.”

  “Mine was on the other side of your wall.”

  “That’s the thing, yeah? You can be sleepin’ inches away from someone you’d go out your way to avoid, only this thin w-” Shamayal checked himself. “You know? I’ll just stop talkin’.”

  They threw the car doors open, and Jim unfolded himself, narrowing his eyes against the lashing rain to inspect the fist-shaped dent in the bonnet. Shamayal felt guilty even though it din’t have nuffin to do with him. “Is it bad, Sir?”

  Jim let out an exasperated sigh. “I hate them thinking they can get away with it! Anyway…” The boy thought his teacher was looking for distraction as he glanced up in the direction of Shamayal’s front door, raising his collar. “Mr Anscombe: he used to be the other side of the wall from me.”

  “Never heard of ‘im.”

  “Perhaps they gave him the ground floor flat he applied for.” Jim shoved his hands deep in his pockets and started across the car park, the purposeful walk of after-dark. His head shrank inside his jacket, tortoise-like. “Perhaps he’s dead. Good riddance!”

  Shamayal, who had never heard his teacher speak carelessly about anyone, jogged a few paces, kicking up spray. Each step squeezed water out of his socks, soaking the insoles of his trainers. “Who was this guy, anyhow?”

  “An ex-boxer who took too many punches.” A crisp packet flapped like the tail of a dying fish in an overflow from a drain. “The last one broke his neck, leaving his legs useless, but my other neighbour said not to feel any sympathy: he was a bastard before he ended up in the chair. She wasn’t wrong either.” This wasn’t no classroom lecture. Shamayal, whose trainers had developed a squelch, detected anger doing the talking. “There was this time when I was… I don’t know: about eight, I suppose. I heard banging coming from the other side of my bedroom wall.”

  Reaching the refuge of the porch, it was as if someone flicked an off-switch. Jim lowered his collar. The reek of ammonia and Dettol was inescapable, but Shamayal’s teacher was either immune or too polite to mention it.

  “Turned out Mr Anscombe had fallen out of his wheelchair and was wedged across the hall.” Their ascent was accompanied by the slap-slap of hands and the scrape of trainers. “I yelled through the letterbox not to worry; I’d fetch my brother.”

  Shamayal frowned. “What’s your bruvver’s name?”

  “Nick.” Jim laughed. A single syllable: reluctant. “The lock expert. Once we had Mr Anscombe back in his chair, I thought I’d do the neighbourly thing. Stick around, make a cup of coffee! The layout of the flat - your flat -” breaking off, Jim snorted air through his nostrils. “I’ve just realised this isn’t exactly the most appropriate story to be telling a pupil.”

  “Is it rated 18 or somethink?”

  An electric light buzzed with the fury of a trapped bluebottle.

  “Or something.”

  “If you don’t finish it, Sir, I’ll only dream up an endin’ that’s far worser.” The slip was deliberate.

  “Be my guest!” Jim shot the grinning boy a sideways glance.

  “What I think happened was -”

  “If you must know, the old man made a pass at me. But that’s all you’re getting.”

  “Shit, man!”

  Pausing at the top of the stairs, Shamayal could hear Jim’s laboured breathing.

  “Look: your lights are still on. Someone’s waited up.”

  A fresh wave of apprehension. “That’ll be my Dad and his drinking buddies. This is his first night back.”

  “Works away, does he?”

  “Sometimes, yeah.”

  Jim sniffed. “Who looks after you?”

  Shamayal licked his lips. Stupid, stupid, he’d said too much.

  “Christ, Shamayal. You’re - what - fourteen? Couldn’t you stay with your mother?”

  You have so many secrets floating round, one’s bound to slip out occasionally. “She din’t exactly leave no forwardin’ address, f’you know what I mean.”

  “I should have a word -”

  “I thought you was off-duty, Sir!”

  “Teachers are never off-duty.”

  Can’t take nobody’s word for nothing. Minute you trust them, they betray you. One thing was guaranteed: his dad was going to kill him.

  Rounding the corner, Shamayal recognised the man who was hanging onto the doorframe, holding his mouth. “Seamus,” he nodded.

  “Alright, boy!” Staggering forwards, Seamus raised his hand to high five him, displaying a bloodied lip. “Word of advice: watch your mouth.” As Seamus tapped the side of his broken-veined nose, a bottle came flying out into the darkness and over the top of the clothes line that was strung between the pillars of the balcony. “Your father’s on form tonight.”

  “And don’t come back, you Irish bastard!”

  Seamus leaned out over the railings. “Hah! Missed, you black bastard!”

  The boy executed a handbrake turn. No way was he walkin’ into that!

  “Wait a minute!”

  Defensive, Shamayal shrugged the hand that gripped his shoulder aside. “Hey! Don’t touch me, man!”

  “Alright, alright! I was only going to ask who that was.”

  The person he should be angry with was himself. He should have refused to get in the car. Now, in the space of ten minutes, he had gone and ruined everything. One call to Social Services was all it would take. Damage limitation. Shamayal had to contain this and that meant his temper had to stay under control. “Seamus? That’s my dad’s boss, innit?”

  “And what is it your father does?”

  Somewhere close by there were raised voices, followed by distorted echoes: a door slamming, footsteps running. Shamayal waited until he was sure it was nothing to worry about. “Driving, mostly.”

  “Not in that state, I hope!”

  With a new rage he barely understood, Shamayal pointed an index finger at his history teacher’s face. “Back off! You shouldn’t go turnin’ round and sayin’ things you don’t know nuffin about.”

  “You’re right.” Jim’s hands were up at shoulder level, fingers splayed.

  “It’s not like he’s a complete idiot, is it?” Fury subsiding, Shamayal performed small shoulder rolls and realigned his head.

  Jim glanced at his watch, his expression reluctant. “Where are you planning on sleeping?”

  Good question. “The stairwell, the arches, the bin sheds... they all lookin’ like good options.”

  “You’ll catch pneumonia!”

  “If the Ralegh Boyz don’t get me first.”

  His teacher seemed to be weighing possibilities, none of which he liked the sound of.

  Shamayal was able to laugh at the situation. They were both in what you might call a predicament. “You regret offerin’ me that lift, Sir?”

  His teacher covered the face of his watch with one hand. When he made his m
ind up, he made it up fast. “What about my sofa?”

  “I din’t think that was allowed, Sir.”

  “One thing at a time. Right now, you need a change of clothes.” Jim’s damp hair was skewiff from where he’d been rubbing his brow. He seemed angry to be put out. “How long has this been going on?”

  There wasn’t a fat lot of point in holding back. “My mamma said he never touched a drop before he came to this country. Trus’ me: he’s been makin’ up for it since.”

  Few words accompanied their rectangular descent. Shamayal was shocked to feel the heat of his teacher’s rage and to realise it wasn’t aimed at him. Outside, the rain seemed to be letting up, or had at least reduced to a heavy downpour. Shamayal eased himself onto the uninviting dark patch of the Corsa’s passenger seat.

  Driving back towards the arch, Jim jammed on the brakes a second time. Having kept a keen eye out and seen nothing to concern him, Shamayal’s forehead grazed the dash before the belt jerked him backwards. “Man, what’s with all the emergency stops? You tryin’ to kill me?”

  Jim flung the driver’s door wide. “It can’t be!” His voice was pure disbelief.

  “Now you forget about the fact I’m soakin’ wet!” Shamayal lectured the dashboard. “Sayin’ nuffin of who might be lurkin’ in them shadows.”

  As Jim jogged over to an old man who was loitering by the bin sheds, Shamayal unwrapped another chocolate lime, confused to see his teacher greeting the estate’s resident Johnny-no-stars like a long-lost uncle, shaping his hands into spy holes and raising them to his eyes, then clasping the old geezer’s elbows. This I got to hear. The boy got out of the car and moved closer, in time to catch Jim asking, “Still fishing?”

  “The council took away my license, didn’t they?” the old man lisped.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Really.”

  “What can you do?” The tramp hooked his thumbs under the piece of string that was strung through the belt loops of a once-beige raincoat. “I’m into recycling these days.” Like an estate agent, he gave Jim the grand tour of the bin shed: its flat roof pooling with rain; one door hanging from its hinges to reveal metal drums overflowing with plastic bags and takeaway cartons. “The electric’s out, see?”