Something Wicked

A little voice in my head said, go and join them. Get on the floor and make with the music. But it was no use; I just wasn’t in the mood. I was invisible – no one could see me. No boys looked my way. And then I noticed Mandy go up to Karen and say something to her, and Karen hugged her, and Mandy hugged her back, and they started dancing together. I knew what that meant. Bye bye, Anna.

The louder the music got, the more frenetic the dancing, the more detached I felt. Don’t think I wasn’t having a good time in my own way. I’ve said before you’re not to feel sorry for me as there’s nothing to be sorry for. I liked the way my thoughts were coming thick and fast, I liked watching people, I liked watching blokes. If you’re interested, I’ve had crushes on boys and the odd snog, but never a real boyfriend. I want one, one day. You wouldn’t credit this, but I have romantic fantasies too. Sometimes I watch old Hollywood musicals on the box, and wish I could be the girl in the long flowing dress tripping lightly down the staircase to the ball, my lover waiting in the hall. Or be the dame in one of those secret agent movies – the woman with a past who the detective falls for – walking into a sordid little office, aloof, sexy, full of passion. Or I’d be on top of the Empire State Building, up high, looking over Manhattan, the man of my dreams by my side and knowing only we two mattered.

How sad am I? I have all the wrong dreams. I know I should want to be Britney Spears or J.Lo, or have a kooky, loving family like in the sitcoms. Or get proposed to on telly or something, so the whole world knows. But when you think about it – when I think about it, I mean – today’s romance scenarios are crap. All those so-called role models – Britney, Madonna, Kylie – they’re just in love with themselves. You can see it on the videos. And everyone is completely into who they pull or have sex with – it’s that or soppy look-at-this-lovely-Valentine’s-card-he’s-sent-me! It’s either all crude or makes you want to throw up.

To prove my point to myself I looked again at the dance floor. Some lads had come up to my mates and were groping them. Hands on bums, on waists, and Paula had turned round and was draping herself all over this boy with spiky black hair. They were hoovering each other up with their mouths. His hands were everywhere. It was kind of disgusting and kind of sexy at the same time. I looked away.

Paula wasn’t a virgin. She liked chalking up her conquests much as boys do. One lad in our class – Darren – boasted he’d shagged Janette so Paula beat him up. It was the best scandal we’d had in school for ages. But it was all about point scoring, the relationships my friends had. I wished things were different. I thought when I fell in love – pow! – we’d make a new world, a world all of our own.

That crappy world of the Ritz with its bouncers and people gagging for sex they probably didn’t even enjoy, the deafening so-called music and the gallons of alcohol, was a pretty rubbishy sort of world. But it was about as good as it got in our town. It was clubbing or looking round the shops at things you couldn’t afford. It made me angry. I wanted things to be different, but how could they be? What could I do?

Perhaps I was thinking like that to cover up the fact no one had come up to me for ages. My mates were all pulling lads and I was ignored by everyone. I knew deep down if I’d made more of an effort I could be one of them, but it would mean not being me – it would mean compromise. I don’t do compromise.

I wondered if I just went home, would anyone notice? And then the idea of home suddenly became appealing. The club was hot and my shirt was sticking to me. My feet were hot in my trainers. Time was passing slowly. Outside it would be dark and cool and I would be free. Every single one of the girls I’d come with was with someone now, and I noticed a greasy old bloke staring at me. That did it. I pushed my way through the crowd of drinkers and left the club.

It was a relief. I hoped the girls would wonder where I was and maybe even worry about me. If they did worry, it would serve them right. I knew I was supposed to get a taxi home with them, but as I’d left early the buses were still running, so I’d be OK. Technically I wasn’t supposed to travel alone at night, but my mum worried needlessly a lot of the time. Most people were OK. It’s just the media that want you to believe the streets are full of paedophiles so they can whip up mass hysteria and sell more papers. Everybody’s on the make these days.

It was only a short walk to the bus station, down the High Street and then across King’s Gardens where the moshers hang out. Another place I wasn’t supposed to go at night. It was a square lined with bushes. Each street bordering it had a path that led to the middle, where there was a fountain that hadn’t had water in it for years.

Tonight it seemed empty. Maybe it was too early for the moshers – they were probably all at one of their clubs – Medusa’s or Hell’s Kitchen. I wondered if they also had to pay a fiver for entry. What annoyed me was the fact I’d wasted my money. Five quid entry, two fifty for a Coke, one fifty for the bus. Why was everything so expensive? Where did they expect people like me to get money from? I’m supposed to stay on at school to go to college and not earn money, but also go to clubs, buy the right gear, have a mobile, an MP3 player, a computer. ’Cause people know teenagers want to fit in they target us with all the consumer goods on the market. It just isn’t—

I would have said “fair”, but I didn’t have the opportunity. My conscious thoughts stopped there as in that split second someone ran at me and grabbed at my bag. Pure instinct took over. Not to run – you don’t run when someone is trying to take something from you. The instinct is to hold on tight. I did. I also filled with rage – how dare they? They? I looked at my attacker. A bloke. So I kneed him, as I’d been taught to do. Amazing! He let go of my bag and fell to the floor. I’d won.

I was still too full of adrenaline to realise properly what had happened to me. I should have run then, but in an odd kind of way I felt sorry for the bloke I’d just crippled. He was doubled up on the floor. He was wearing trackies, trainers and a hoodie. The hood had fallen over his face so I couldn’t see him.

But then he looked up at me.

“Ritchie?” I questioned.

“Anna,” he said.

Knowing it was Ritchie who’d attacked me made me feel better and a whole lot worse at the same time. I could feel myself trembling, and now the initial shock was over, anger replaced it.

“You tried to mug me!” I accused him.

I know this was stating the obvious, but give me a break – someone had just tried to snatch my bag.

“I didn’t know it was you,” he winced, clearly still in pain.

“So that makes it all right then?”

He didn’t reply. Now I began to feel sorry for him. Which was pretty crazy, really – I can be a bit pathetic at times.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

He swore, and told me he wasn’t. But slowly he got to his feet. Once he was on a level with me, the situation began to normalise. I was in King’s Gardens with Ritchie, late on Saturday night. Ritchie, the new boy in our English set. Never mind that he’d tried to rob me. It almost seemed natural that we should go and sit on a bench together, and he should take a crushed packet of cigarettes from his trackie bottoms pocket and light one, his fingers shaking. He offered me one too.

“I don’t smoke,” I said.

“I’m trying to give up,” Ritchie replied.

The few people who walked past us gave us superficial glances but then ignored us.

“Do you often do this?” I asked him. “Like bag snatching?”

“No. But I need the money. I owe twenty quid to a bloke I know, and if I don’t pay tomorrow there’ll be trouble. He’ll do me over.”

I was going to lay into him myself – verbally – for thinking the best way to get money was violent robbery, but something in his manner stopped me. The way he hung his head, the blankness in his eyes – he wasn’t mean, but desperate. Plus I was flattered that he’d confided in me. When you have someone’s confidence, you don’t want to lose it. I didn’t feel like criticising or judging him.

“Is there any other way you can get the money? Can someone lend it to you? Your mum?”

Ritchie shook his head. “No. She’s hard up at the moment, what with moving and everything.”

That was fair enough. Even though my mum was off work, we probably had more money than Ritchie and his mum. My mum would have lent me the money. She wouldn’t have been best pleased, but she’d have given it. Ritchie’s mum didn’t have the money. So if he didn’t have a job, and had no one to ask, and he was being threatened with violence, it was hardly surprising he had to resort to mugging. Or was it?

“Couldn’t you have just nicked some money without attacking someone?” I asked.

At that point Ritchie looked up at me, surprised. I understood why. I’d surprised myself. Here I was, suggesting he commit another crime – me, who’d never done anything illegal in my life. Except fare-dodging a couple of times, or noticing someone had given me too much change in a shop and not saying anything – oh, and keeping a twenty-pound note I found on a bus last year. But looking at Ritchie’s situation from his point of view, theft seemed the only logical answer. But it was wrong. Crime was wrong.

“I tell you what – I could lend you the twenty. It’s not a problem.”

“But you don’t know me,” he said. “I might just run off with it.”

“Because you’ve said that, I know you won’t.”

We both heard the urgent waah-waah of a police car – one followed by another. A typical Saturday night in town.

Ritchie spoke again. “You must think I’m a bleedin’ idiot.”

“I don’t, as a matter of fact.”

“Listen, let me tell you. My life stinks right now. First I get all the truant people on my back and my mum stressing about my education, and having to go back to school. I even thought I’d give it a try but it’s no bloody good. It’s pointless for me – I’m not going to get any GCSEs as I’ve missed too much. It’s all wasted effort. And then the guy I bought the weed from is on my back, and the crazy thing is, the weed wasn’t even for me – it was for Loz, my mate. And my other mates – the ones I used to hang out with – before going back to school – I don’t see them any more. But they were a load of nutters. Like, what’s the point?”

I was stunned. I’d never heard Ritchie utter so many words in all the few days I’d known him. I’d got him down as one of those inarticulate yobs you get (even in our school) but he wasn’t, exactly. I mean, how often do you meet a bloke who actually talks to you about his life, and not just the football?

“Look, I’ll lend you the twenty quid. I really don’t mind. And school’s not too bad.”

“You’re the only person who bothers to talk to me there. Other people just look straight through me. I don’t think I’m going to go back. What good is an education going to do me? I’ll end up working in some factory or behind a counter – like I said, it all stinks.”

“What do you want to be?” I asked him, intrigued. Even though in a lot of ways he was very different from me, I could see we thought in the same way. I felt things were pretty rotten most of the time too.

“What do I want to be? OK, then, how about Prime Minister for a start? Then I’d raze this town to the ground and start all over again, and I’d build houses that people wanted to live in, with gardens and that.”

I couldn’t help it – I laughed. I didn’t expect him to talk like that. But my laughter didn’t stop him. He seemed filled with a kind of fury and just carried on.

“Yeah – there’d be no more high-rise flats. You wouldn’t have to go to school unless you wanted to, and if you did, you could do what you wanted: paint, or play the guitar, or swim. Yeah, there’d be pools everywhere – free, of course, and free gigs every weekend. And free stuff for kids – shows, and that.”

I tried not to show my surprise at his words. I came over all cynical instead. “Yeah, right,” I said. “But first you’ve got to pay off your debts. I’ll lend you the money.”

“Yeah, but I have to meet this guy tomorrow, and I won’t see you till Monday.”

“Tell me where you live and I’ll meet you tomorrow.”

“Why are you doing this for me?” he asked.

I thought to myself, because I feel sorry for you, because I can relate to you, because by trying to mug me you’ve pulled me into the drama of your life, whether you wanted to or not. Because even though you sound crazy, I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. And because, in a funny sort of way, your life seems more exciting than mine. You take risks, you’re brave. And honest.

I said, “Why am I doing this for you? Because I want to. The end.”

“I’ll meet you outside the Fairfield community centre at one o’clock tomorrow?”

“Yeah – text me when you’re on your way there.”

His silence was eloquent. I understood immediately he didn’t have a mobile.

“I’ll be there at one,” I said.

He stood up then and our eyes met. “Thanks, Anna,” he said. “And sorry.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said.

I watched him go. He walked quickly, his shoulders slightly stooped, in the way blokes do, the ones who’ve shot up too quickly. I wondered what he was going home to, and what his life was like outside school. Normally the petty criminals, the kids who get into trouble, go around in gangs. What Ritchie did – mugging me – was well unusual. But then he was unusual too. Saying all that stuff about how he’d change the world. You wouldn’t think someone like him would think in that way. Have all those dreams.

You should never judge by appearances.

Fairfield looked better than I thought it would, but I guess that was because the sun was shining. It was still a bit chilly – I had my charcoal-grey fleece on. It’s sad, in a way, that I don’t even have to describe Fairfield to you. Not because it’s notorious, but because you’ve seen so many places like it. Assemble in your mind’s eye a few lines of maisonettes with women hanging around outside, two or three grey stone high-rises, and pubs with fat blokes sitting outside on wooden tables, supping beer. But funnily enough, there’s a kind of village atmosphere there, because Fairfield is a place a short distance from the centre of town, the nearest we have to a no-go area. So once you’re there, it encloses you. You feel part of it. I felt part of it, anyway. I didn’t even mind the women eyeing me.

I knew the community centre was a bit further down the road, a one-storey breeze-block building with bars over the windows. As I approached it, I was surprised to see stacks of withered Cellophane-wrapped bouquets of flowers and a couple of damp-looking teddy bears on the pavement outside it. I was trying to read the names on the cards inside the flowers when I heard Ritchie’s voice.

“Hi.”

I turned. “Hi. What happened here?”

“Some kids crashed a car last month. A couple of them snuffed it.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say.

Ritchie was dressed in an olive-green hooded fleece and jeans. Standing there by all the dead flowers made me feel very alive, spared from something. Almost invulnerable.

“Did you know those kids?” I asked Ritchie.

“No. They weren’t from round here.”

I put my hand in my jeans pocket then and gave him two ten-pound notes. He took them and muttered some thanks. I tried to make light of it.

“No sweat. I’m always borrowing money off my mum.”

“I’ll pay you back,” he said.

“Whenever.”

There was a moment of awkwardness. I thought I ought to go back home but I didn’t want to. Ritchie looked different in the sunshine. His shaved head made him look hard, accentuated his jawline and cheekbones. But his eyes – soft, brown eyes – almost seemed to belong to a different person – a shy, uncertain one.

Just at that moment two lads arrived on mountain bikes. One leapt off his bike and stood in front of Ritchie, as if he was barring his way. Ritchie thrust the two tenners at him and he grabbed them. In a second he was back on his bike – it was all over so quickly that if you’d asked me to pick him out from an identity parade, I couldn’t have done it.

“I feel shit about taking that money off you,” Ritchie murmured.

“Why should you? You were going to rob me of it last night.”

“Yeah – but that wasn’t personal. Now it is.”

For some reason, I liked the way he said the word “personal”. I smiled, and still put off saying goodbye. I noticed he wasn’t moving either. I wondered if I should suggest we do something. Though God knew what. He didn’t have any money and neither did I.

And then the guys on the bikes returned. This time, knowing who they were, I felt my stomach somersault. Wasn’t the money enough? Were they going to beat him up after all?

But I was wrong. These were different boys.

“Hiya, Ritch!”

The first one who screeched to a halt and got off his bike didn’t look like my idea of a dealer. He wore a local football shirt and had messy blond hair.

“Hi yourself,” Ritchie said, looking pleased to see him. The boy with him looked younger – but might just have been shorter. He had a black puffa jacket.

“We’re going to Woodsy’s place,” the football shirt said. “You coming?”

Ritchie hesitated for a moment. Then he said to me, “D’you wanna come?”

You bet.

We walked to a block of flats which looked about ten storeys high. Grey stone, white window frames: not in bad nick, but not the sort of place you’d want to live in. It was dull, uniform, prison-like. I don’t know if the lifts were working or not, as the lads made straight for the stairs and ran up them. Have you noticed when lads get together they behave differently from when they’re alone? Now that Ritchie was with his mates, he was larking about, competing with them – they were racing up the stairs, calling out good-natured abuse to each other. Luckily I’m quite fit and was able to keep up with them. They – we – ran all the way to the top. I was panting by then. I knew we’d reached the top as in front of us was just a red door and a corridor to our right where the doors to the flats were. But the lads didn’t turn right. Instead, the football shirt – Ritchie called him Loz – was messing around with the red door. I didn’t see what he was doing, but finally he heaved himself against the door and it gave. It opened to a few more steps, leading to a small room with brick walls and some tanks.

Loz opened another door, and then we walked out on to the middle of the roof.

I watched the lads as they made their way towards the edge. I stayed close to the door; I noticed the place we’d come from was a bricked-in, covered area you could walk all the way round, a self-contained block on top of the roof. Ritchie and the others were at the edge now. I didn’t want to follow them. There was no railing, just a sheer drop to the bottom. A CCTV camera peered down to the ground and a couple of aerials stood forlornly.

Then there was the thump of more footsteps and another lad joined us, carrying a stereo. While they were all greeting each other I tried to get over my vertigo. I looked out over Fairfield to the shopping precinct, the covered market and the main road. I turned and could see the park. From up here the whole of Fairfield and its people were insignificant. Being up high gives you a feeling of power. Maybe it was the feeling of power that was making me dizzy. I strained my eyes further to the horizon and saw the hills: tired, worn-out flat hills with the TV mast just a faint line on the horizon. I would have expected it to be windy up on the roof but it wasn’t. I could even feel the sun warming my face, making me feel it was all right to be where I was. Bit by bit I left the wall, no longer feeling afraid, but exhilarated. Even, if you like, on top of the world.

“Who’s your girlfriend?” one of the lads asked Ritchie.

“She’s my mate,” he said. “Anna.”

Yesss! I was his mate. Ritchie introduced me properly to the lads. The little one was called Tanner. Loz I’d already worked out, and the boy with the stereo was Woodsy. I hoped I was going to remember their names. You know how it is when you meet people for the first time – you’re so bothered about what they think of you, you don’t focus on who they are. I was wondering what they made of me, and hoped they’d think I was OK. I just wanted to be accepted by them.

I was. The boy called Loz handed me a can of Carling from an Asda carrier bag.

“Cheers,” I said, and tugged at the ring pull. I reckoned I could make as if I was drinking it – the last thing I wanted to do was to say in front of these lads that I don’t drink. They’d think I was such a square.

We all sat down together, the boys sprawling all over the place, jostling each other sometimes. Loz switched on the ghetto blaster and some R&B played – nothing mainstream, I didn’t recognise it. I decided not to talk much. It’s better when you join a new crowd just to take note, not to make a complete ass of yourself.

They shared out the Carling and Loz was trying to spray some of the others. They jumped up and ran all over the place. I got a bit nervous when Tanner was close to the edge but I was determined not to show it. Once they settled down, the lads just chatted. Loz was going on about being in town last night and the pub they were thrown out of.

“I thought you didn’t have any money?” Ritchie asked.

“I gave my brother a hand in the afternoon with some jobs he was doing,” Loz said.

“A hand job, was it?” Woodsy said. Everyone liked that and tried to follow it through with some more comments. I smiled.

“Nah,” Loz interrupted. “Stop messing. We did some cars.”

“Oh yeah?” Woodsy assumed only casual interest, but you could tell his ears had pricked up.

“Some radios and stuff. I just looked out. Dead easy.”

“Nice one,” Tanner said, looking impressed.

Loz burped, as loud as he could. The others all groaned. Tanner said, “Watch it, Loz. We got a visitor.” He grinned at me. It was a friendly grin.

“Sorry,” Loz said. “Where’d you meet Ritch?”

“School.”

“That new school you’re going to?” Loz asked Ritchie.

He agreed. I noticed he wasn’t saying a lot. Was he always quiet like this, or was he just being quiet with me? Even when the conversation moved on to football he didn’t join in, but smiled when someone was being funny. Woodsy was going on about someone they knew who’d got in a fight with what sounded like a neighbouring gang. I couldn’t quite follow.

But what I noticed was that they’d accepted me. I mean, whoever was talking sort of included me with his eyes. With some of the gory stuff about the fight – this guy lost four teeth – they specially looked at me to see my reaction. No one was playing any games. I thought of Karen and how she used me, and of all the girls at school and their allegiances and bitchiness. In contrast, these lads were dead straight. They weren’t clocking me to see what I was wearing, they weren’t ignoring me, nor were they putting me in the spotlight. I know you’ll have them down as a band of yobs, petty criminals and all that, and I’m not denying that they were, but they also had good manners. They put me at my ease. And it was great up there on the roof, in the sun, away from everything small and petty. I didn’t even need the Carling to feel drunk.

Tanner was explaining how to get to someone’s house when we could hear more footsteps. This time the lads looked bothered. They began to curse and we all leapt up, realising we’d been discovered. And there was only one way down.

“Where are you, you buggers?” came a gruff, angry voice.