You Don't Know Me

Once ‘dinner’ was over we realized that we couldn’t just leave. It was proper busy out there and too dangerous. So we stayed. It felt like a kind of lazy Christmas. We just hung back. Took off our shoes and lay on the sofa or on cushions on the floor as Mum brought us snacks and tea. It felt nice. It’s hard to explain. It felt like someone had pressed a pause button on our lives and we could escape it for a while. Be normal again. I didn’t want the day to end.

By the time we left early the next morning to go home, I was feeling better than I had in long. I think we all did. Bless saw us to the door and hugged me and Ki goodbye.

‘Bruv? Come on we better jet,’ I say.

‘Nah man. I’m cool here,’ says Curt looking sketchy. ‘Here. Take my keys, I get ’em laters. I think I will just hang back here for a while if that’s okay with your, erm, mum. I ain’t seen her in a while. You know.’

‘Sure,’ I say and then look over at Bless who quickly slips off to the kitchen where Mum for some reason is cooking again.

‘You going be able to get back okay?’

‘Yeah’ he says, ‘I’ll just get a cab.’

‘So,’ I say drawing Curt close, ‘you think we might be in the clear?’

‘Yeah it’s possible. Guilty don’t believe the rumours about me being there at the trap-house. Shit I think he partly wishes he had done the taxing. He hates Jamil like you wouldn’t believe.’

‘And what about if the Olders get heavy? What then?’

‘Nah man. Glockz is proper. I don’t think they going to back down from no Olders. Yeah there’s going to be a war, but I think we are sweet, as long as we keep our heads down,’ he says and turns to go back into the kitchen.

‘Swing by tomorrow if you can. We still got some details to tie up innit,’ I say to his back and then leave.

And I tell you what right now. I swear down at that moment I thought that was it. Over. We were in the clear. But I had not counted on what kind of mans Jamil was linked up to. It was that that changed everything I reckon. A man who people just knew as Face.

Break: 15:00

26

15:30

So the next day Curt comes by the flat so that we can sort out a few things. For one there was all this money in my yard we had to do something with. I didn’t really like the idea of it being there to be honest. I wanted it gone and as far as I was concerned it was Curt’s money to do what he wanted with.

I got the money all tied up in elastic bands while Ki made us all some breakfast. As I was laying it all out on the table I squeeze a look at her and she seems beautiful again. I mean she was always beautiful, just she seemed to have got her shine back. She wasn’t even wearing anything special, just some grey leggings and a silky purple top which left her arms bare. But I tell you her face in the window-light, for just one minute looked like an old painting. Beautiful I mean. Not old.

I let Curt in and he came and joined me at the table.

‘Shit. I almost forgot about that,’ he says nodding at the piles of money.

‘Yeah well you decided what you going to do with it? That’s enough paper right there. I can source you some phat wheels bruv if you’re interested. M3, RS4 whatever you like.’

‘Nah man. I got plans for that.’

‘Like?’ I say, intrigued.

‘I’m buying my freedom, blood. Get the fuck outta this life you get me.’

‘What the fuck you chatting about freedom for? You ain’t a slave are you?’ I say and grin at him.

‘Nah man. That’s the price. Sure I told you this. I told Guilty last year that I wanted out and he goes, “Sure nigger you are free to go. For fitty thou,” ’ he says and makes five lots of tens with his huge fingers.

‘I don’t get it,’ I say and truly I didn’t. ‘You got to pay to leave?’

‘Shit yes you got to pay,’ he says and levers himself up from the chair to get a beer from the fridge even though it’s like ten a.m.

Pay to leave? This was sounding more Mafia than Camden to me but he knew shit I didn’t. I leave him to his beer and I go and dig out an old rucksack I can put the cash in and then start loading it up. By the time I am finished I am surprised at how heavy it is. But the process of slowly loading the money into the bag starts me thinking.

‘Hey, one thing I never got,’ I say, walking back into the room, ‘is how you got mix up in this gang shit in the first place. I remember them days when you’d rather take a knife than get all ganged up.’

Curt takes a glug and then sighs all heavy. ‘It’s a long story man. Another time, maybe.’

At that exact minute, his phone rings and he answers it after a few rings and listens. As he nods and ‘yeahs’ into the phone, Ki comes to the table with a pile of toast on one plate and about a dozen fried eggs on another.