The Crew Read online

  One of the older lads that I was knocking around with a while back, David, started out in one of those older gangs. He’s the one who taught me how to break into cars and how to drive. Thing is, once he’d had enough of the cars he moved on to running errands for a local dealer and eventually he got so hooked up in all the heroin and speed he was dealing he didn’t even look like the same person. He ended up robbing grannies and school kids in broad daylight and made his girlfriend work out by the church. She got taken into care and David overdosed in the back of an abandoned car down by the front line. He was eighteen when he died but everyone round here had seen it coming for years before it actually happened. Life can be kind of tough round here to begin with, but people like David stack the chips against themselves from day one.

  As for me, I know that the easiest thing for me to do would be to just go with the flow and end up selling ‘t’ings’ or robbing and that. But I ain’t no sheep and no one round here is leading me. I’m going to lead myself. Straight out of here, if I have to. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I wouldn’t mind going back to college, only that costs money, something I ain’t got. Thing is, not knowing what I want to do doesn’t stop me from dreaming about escaping. I will, too, even though I don’t really like the idea that I will probably have to leave my home area one day. I won’t hesitate if it means I’m going to keep my freedom or my life. Like I keep saying: life around here is harsh, man.

  However, little rays of sunshine do light up the concrete jungles. They break through the gloom of grey skies and never-ending problems. One of the biggest rays of sunshine in my life has been Nanny. He’s been around since I was a little kid and he’s the actual father that my real father never was. Nanny is like a best mate and a teacher rolled into one. He’s about six feet tall and his dreadlocks reach halfway down his back. He’s slim, but strong as an ox. He lifts free weights at home and goes jogging every morning. My mum has even got him doing yoga, although I think he does it just to keep her quiet. He’s been with my mum since a few years after my old man left us, and she told me once that he was the reason she was able to stop being a working girl. Nanny shared all his money with her when she had it really hard after being arrested years back. We got evicted from our flat and he took us in, even though he only lived in a one-bedroom place in a high-rise. When my mum went through college and uni, it was Nanny who brought me up, making me breakfast and taking me to school and stuff. He used to make the dinner too, and do all the cleaning around the house, which is pretty much how things have stayed ever since. Nanny has never had what my teachers would call a ‘proper job’ ever, but he has his reasons.

  Nanny is a Rastafarian. Not like the ones that you see stereotyped in Hollywood films, all high on crack and shooting people and shit. Nanny is a true Rasta. He doesn’t eat meat or shellfish and never touches booze. The only tobacco he smokes is the hand-rolled stuff he uses to build spliffs, and you can’t even use the word ‘drugs’ around him. Drugs, for Nanny, means things like crack and heroin. Alcohol, even. But not weed. He calls his weed a spiritual tool – one that helps him to meditate and achieve peace with the world around him. It’s not like he smokes all day long either. Most times he smokes in the evenings, after he has done all his duties for the day.

  Weed is the thing that frees his mind from the mental slavery of Babylon and I don’t reckon it seriously harms him – or anyone else for that matter. I’ve seen men round here get beaten and cut up by drunks, but I’ve never seen anyone get angry after smoking a spliff.

  I respect Nanny’s beliefs. As a Rasta, he believes that Babylon is corrupt and he chooses not to participate in what he calls ‘wage slavery’ – having a job. Instead he sorts out a little weed for his mates, enough to get his own for free, and my mum shares her money with him. She calls it his ‘wages’ for the work he does around the house. Like housekeeping, I suppose. He’s an electrician too, doing little jobs for the people we know as and when they need him. Nothing regimented. It’s not like he is self-employed and that. He just fixes stuff for a small fee sometimes, or in exchange for things we need.

  It might sound like a weird notion but I reckon his beliefs are just as valid as other views and I love to sit and discuss things with him. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he believes in, like the idea of Haile Selassie as God but, at my age, I just want to be open to all sorts of ideas before I decide what I do and don’t believe. I do see the Babylon system that Nanny talks about. I see it every day. The rich control the poor and the poor just follow like sheep. ‘Mental slavery’ is what Nanny calls it.

  ‘Dem brainwash de yout’, dem man. The yout’ kill each other jus’ ta wear the criss trainers but dem don’ realize is the trut’ dem disconnect from. The trut’, man.’

  That’s a typical piece of what Nanny calls his ‘reasoning’. He knows loads of facts and figures which he uses to argue his point – stuff he has bothered to go and research down the library or on the Internet, although he’s not the biggest fan of the Web. Says that it’s too sinister when the government can see exactly what you are downloading. He thinks that they compile files on everyone or something – just from what they look at on the Net. He’s like the ghetto professor and everyone knows him. Sometimes me and the rest of the Crew listen to him for hours.

  three:

  friday

  ‘THAT BLOKE WAS down the end of the alley again tonight.’ I was telling Billy and Della, but they both looked at me in the same way. As if to say ‘What’s Ellie on about now . . .?’ I looked straight at Billy and then, feeling myself starting to blush, I looked away again. Sometimes I hate being the youngest member of the Crew. I feel like I have to prove myself all the time and I don’t like that. So instead of continuing my story I started to sulk – pouting, because I knew it wound the other two up. It worked too. It always does.

  ‘Ellie, look, it’s not like we don’t believe you . . .’ started Billy.

  ‘But there are loads of other gardens that back onto that alley and—’ That was Della.

  ‘—and maybe the bloke you keep seeing is just some new neighbour,’ Billy finished the sentence off. I mean, what were they? Twins?

  I looked at them both in turn, pouting some more, but eventually I relented – I could always put it on again later. If I had to.

  I wasn’t lying to them. I don’t do lies. Well, all right, maybe tiny little white ones now and then. But not serious ones. I mean, why would I lie to Billy or Della? They’re my best friends. Especially Billy. I ain’t never told him how much I love him for rescuing me back when we met and introducing me to the rest of the Crew. I can’t tell him. It’s like whenever I think about it, I get all choked up and want to cry. And I’m not crying in front of him. Besides, he’s a typical bloke – never says the right thing. Anyway, I’m telling them all about the weirdo, and Billy thinks I’m gonna cry ’cos he’s upset me! I mean, how stupid is that?

  What happened was this.

  I was walking Zeus, which is a major thing for me because I really don’t like animals. I especially don’t like stupid, fat ones that moan at me when I get forced to walk them. It was my turn though and Zeus was in my garden. I took him up and down the street a few times, pulling him along behind me. He moaned and whined all the way too.

  I had to dodge a couple of boys who were running full pelt down the street, being chased by an older guy, an ugly bloke who I’d seen around. He had these dirty, matted dreads and two gold teeth and he was always sweating, like drug addicts do. The lads he was after got clean away and he decided to give me a load of grief, which was all I needed on top of having to walk the laziest beast in the world.

  He came right up to me and started giving it the large one. ‘Yow! You, gal. Wha’ yuh a seh?’ which I think meant, ‘Hi, how are you?’

  ‘Why don’t you get lost, you smelly bast—’ I shouted at the top of my voice, only I was cut short by Nanny, who appeared out of thin air almost, and stood between me and Mr Butt Ugly.

&n
bsp; ‘Yes, mi bredda? Somethin’ I can help the I wid?’ Nanny was calm as you like. Polite even.

  The bloke looked at Nanny, confused. Then he looked back at me. Funnily enough, he stopped smiling at that point too.

  ‘Wha’?’ he said. ‘She wit’ you, my dread?’ He looked at Nanny again.

  ‘Not with me, bwoi. She’s my daughter.’

  I could see the disbelief in his eyes. He was just standing there on the pavement like a bloated boil on a nasty arse, looking between me and Nanny. Not surprising really. I mean, I couldn’t look more different to Nanny if I tried.

  ‘What’s up, man?’ said Nanny, his tone of voice becoming suddenly harsh. ‘I can’t have a white daughter? Yuh have two white sisters of yuh own.’ He smiled. ‘Yah father called Dennis, true?’ he said. Mr Ugly couldn’t speak. He just nodded lamely, like a toddler being told off. ‘Tell yuh father that Nanny said hello.’

  I started to giggle at the way the youth had suddenly lost all the air in his chest. He couldn’t even look at Nanny by then. All he did was look down at his dirty, baggy jeans, which looked to me like a parachute wrapped around a couple of bamboo shoots.

  Nanny spoke up again. ‘And, bwoi, get yuh skinny backside out of here before I kick a whole heap a dirty gold toot’ down yuh t’roat.’

  The guy just skulked off up the road, taking his pea brain and his rancid breath with him.

  ‘Thank you, Nanny,’ I said, trying not to cry.

  Nanny smiled his big, fat friendly smile. ‘It’s cool, Ellie,’ he said. ‘You is a princess but let me tell you – that bwoi deh ain’t no prince.’

  As Nanny headed off to the shops, I dragged Zeus back towards home, turning into a side street, heading for the entrance to the alley. The ugly bloke had frightened me and I needed to get back nearer home to feel safe now.

  The alley runs parallel to our street and it is our Crew’s territory, silly as that sounds. We are the only gang who use it. As we walked along it towards my back gate, we had to dodge dustbins and rubbish bags, cardboard boxes and even an old, rusting pram. A ginger tom cat flashed past us, not even getting a second look out of Zeus but making me jump. The alley has a chain of high walls that run along the back of the gardens on our street, each house linked by a back gate. The walls are charcoal-coloured brick covered in moss and other funny-looking fungal stuff. On the opposite side is the wall of a house which runs about fifty metres down the alley, followed by a tall, dark brown fence which is overhung with even taller trees. Even in the summer the alley is always dark and it gets really gloomy the further down you go. It ends about fifty or a hundred metres on from Billy’s back gate. An old brick outhouse blocks the end off, with a door that must have opened onto the alleyway once. I’ve never seen it open but about three years ago Billy accidentally smashed the glass panel in it with a ball, although he told me that he’s never tried to get into it, or the empty house to which it is attached. I’ve never seen anyone going in or coming out of the place, that’s for sure. I wanted to explore the house once, and I did my pouting thing at Della and everyone for about a week when they told me it might be a crack den and was too dangerous. I even tried to play Billy by calling him ‘chicken’. Most boys will do anything if you challenge their manhood. But then again, most boys are stupid. Not Billy. He just laughed at me and said, ‘Try again, kid,’ which led to yet more pouting.

  Anyway, as I walked Zeus up to our gate I saw a figure hiding in the shadows at the end of the alley. I could have imagined it, but I know I didn’t. It was a tall man, wearing a long black raincoat – the kind of thing businessmen wear over their suits. He had on a hat too, only it didn’t match the coat at all. It was a baseball cap. I looked back towards the street, and relaxed a little. It wasn’t that far away and I could run quite fast if I really had to. Or I could be in my own back yard within seconds. It was only a metre or two away. I turned and looked for the man again but he had vanished. Or so I thought. I opened the gate to my yard and let Zeus in, before turning to have one last quick look down the alley. The man was now hiding behind a large bin and all I could really see of his face was his eyes. They were this amazing colour – electric blue almost – and he was looking right at me. I shuddered and stifled a scream, noticing a strange, musty smell. It reminded me of rotting rubbish bags mixed with air freshener – you know, the kind that is supposed to smell of roses but ends up making you gag. I’d smelled it before – only last week – so I didn’t wait any longer. I turned and slammed the gate shut behind me, locking it, and ran into my house. I was up in my room by the time I took my next breath.

  Now I glowered at Billy. ‘Why would I just make it up? All the way down to what he was wearing and that nasty smell and everything? And it’s the second time I’ve noticed him. He was there last week as well.’

  ‘Look, Ellie, I’m not saying you are lyin’. I’m not.’

  ‘Yes you are. I mean, I might have been paranoid the first time, yeah. But twice?’ I was in full sulk mode.

  ‘Look, you were probably scared and you thought that you . . .’

  ‘Oh, go away, you old man . . .’

  I hadn’t meant it. But he left anyway. See, men know nothing.

  four:

  saturday

  ‘BILLY, IS THAT your phone bleeping at you?’ My mum looked amused. ‘Why doesn’t it just ring like a normal phone?’ She looked up from some work she was doing at the kitchen table.

  ‘It does ring when someone calls, Mum.’

  ‘So that’s not someone calling you? What’s that noise for then? To tell you that it’s hungry?’

  I smiled. ‘You old fart. That noise tells me I’ve got a text message.’

  My mum made a big show of smelling herself and then the air around her. She grinned and threw her pen at me. She was beautiful, my mum. Long brown hair and a figure that Ellie and Della told me would look wicked on a woman half her age. ‘Don’t be so rude, Sleepy. Or the next time I see Ellie I’ll show her all those lovely baby photos that I’ve got of you – you know, like the one that I took of you standing naked in the yard wearing only my sunglasses?’ She grinned wider.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. You is so funny. For a wrinkly anyways.’

  ‘So, Mr Text Message Man, why haven’t you replied to it?’

  I looked at my phone. It was Jas. I didn’t read the message though. Couldn’t be arsed. And anyway I was reading a book about Bob Marley that Nanny had given to me. It was wicked. I looked over at my mum and noticed how tired she was looking. There were frown lines around her eyes and her forehead was all creased. She looked as if she was concentrating on something really complicated. ‘What’s up, Mum?’

  ‘Usual stuff. Work. More work,’ she said through a deep yawn.

  ‘What sort of stuff?’

  ‘Well, you know that I rely on public funding to run the centre and to get paid?’

  ‘Yeah, Babylon money,’ I said, joking. Only she wasn’t up for a joke.

  ‘It isn’t funny, kid. The city council are on this slash and burn cycle where they keep on cutting their spending and they’ve told us to try and encourage investment from the private sector – businesses and things.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Some chance.’

  ‘Exactly. All those lovely money men who want to see profits coming out of every nook and cranny. Blood from stones . . . that kind of thing.’

  ‘But you don’t make . . .’

  ‘Exactly,’ she replied, sighing and looking sadder than I had seen her look for a long time. ‘Providing refuges for victims of domestic violence is a non-profit service, as is trying to look after all those poor girls who suffer while working the street, drug-counselling and all the other services we need round here.’ I’d heard Mum say this kind of thing many times before – it was like a lecture-thing she went off on sometimes – but she carried on regardless. ‘Anyway, we all had this meeting earlier with the little Hitlers at the council, and I went mad. Told them we could always start selling booze and drugs to pay for counsell
ing the victims. Only they didn’t get the joke.’

  ‘They probably thought it was a good idea.’ I tried to smile at her. Thought it might cheer her up.

  She just shrugged her shoulders at me. ‘Yeah, like firemen starting all the fires before they put them out.’

  As she sighed again the kitchen door opened and Della came in with her mum, Sue. Almost before you could blink, the two of them were in the middle of a work debate, one that me and Della had heard different versions of for years. Della gave me a ‘let’s get out of here before we get roped in’ look and yawned dead loud. Right in her mum’s direction. Then she got up and walked out of the kitchen, down the hall and out of the front door. I grabbed my phone and followed.

  Outside, Della was sitting on the front wall and kicking her feet. She yawned again, then started to play with the braids in her hair.

  ‘I’m so hungry. Your mum making any of that curry?’

  ‘Nah. She’s only just got in and Nanny is playing footie on the park.’

  ‘Raas – I’m starvin’!’

  It was always a good idea to let Della eat when she was hungry. Otherwise she would get more and more irritable and before you knew it you’d end up nursing a bloody lip just for being there. I moved away from her a little and suggested chips. She nodded and without saying another word headed off up the road to the chippie. I followed again. As I caught her up my phone bleeped at me again. Jas. I was tempted to leave it like I had before but something made me read his message this time. I looked at it and my heart nearly jumped out of my mouth. And then I read it again. And again.

  ‘Dell, forget the chips,’ I said, risking a beating but not caring. ‘We need to go round Will’s and see him and Jas.’

  ‘But I’m—’

  ‘Dell, trust me. It’s important,’ I replied, turning in the opposite direction and heading off to Will’s house, a few streets from mine.