People Person, page 27
“No, thank you.” Dimple shook her head as Danny sat back down and ripped the packet open.
“So we’re in this van, and he starts driving. And after a while—and, like, when I say a while, I mean an hour—I’m, like, ‘Where we goin’, man?’ and he says nothing. And ’cause he’s my guy and I trust him, I just fall asleep. ’Cause I’m not really a person who can just fall asleep around anyone, is the thing. So that shows you how I thought, ‘Yeah, my boy has got me.’ A few hours later, I wake up, and we’re in, like, deep country. Jerome is pulling up outside some little house and I’m thinking, ‘Is this guy taking me for a minibreak or something?’ He hops out the van, I follow him, and he goes into this little house. He’s not saying anything, so I ask him why we’re there and whose house it is, but he just keeps saying nothing. It’s still dark, ’cause it’s early, early morning, and this little house doesn’t have lights that work or anything, so I’m just feeling my way around and falling over bits of wood on the floor and shit. And he had a flashlight, yeah. Jerome had a flashlight.”
“Actually, Danny, can I have some water, please?” Dimple asked, her mouth dry. Where this story might go was making her nervous.
“Course.” Danny jumped up and went over to the sink. He picked up a glass off the drying rack and turned the tap on.
“I installed a filter in here.” He pointed to the cupboard under the sink as he let water fill the glass. ’Cause of my job, I can’t drink tap water after the pipes I’ve seen.”
“Thanks.” Dimple took the full glass of water from him and gulped down a big sip.
“So where was I?” Danny sat back down and threw a whole biscuit into his mouth.
“Jerome had a flashlight.”
“That’s it,” Danny said as he chewed. “Jerome had a flashlight. And I’m following him through this mad cottage, like one of them haunted houses you get at the carnival, and we get to this room in the back. And Jerome turns the flashlight off and I hear him shuffling around when he gets in the room. And I hear this flicking, ’cause he’s got a lighter. So he’s lighting these candles, and I see that he’s got a mask on, like a bally, face all covered apart from eyes and mouth, and I say, ‘Bro, what’s going on?’ and he says, ‘Say nothing,’ and I’m, like, ‘Okay.’ So I look around the room, and I see my man in the corner! The one who came to the estate saying Jerome was a bowcat and all that.”
“What’s he doing in the corner?”
“He’s all tied up, and his face is bloody, eye swollen, and he’s got a sock in his mouth, and he doesn’t even look scared or anything, he just looks pissed. If anything, I was the one who was scared,” Danny told Dimple. “So Jerome says to me that he’s got some things to do, and I need to watch this guy for him, and obviously I wouldn’t have chosen to do that, but he’s my boy, so obviously I do it. I asked him for how long, and he says just a couple of hours, and he’ll be back by the morning and he’ll bring me breakfast and that.”
Danny ate another biscuit.
“So, morning comes and goes. And all I have is my phone, but I don’t have reception, so I can’t call him and see where he is. And I’m hungry but I can’t even use the map to find a shop. And even if I knew where the shop was, I didn’t wanna walk through fields and that to get to it, ’cause Jerome had the vehicle init.”
“And are you and this guy saying anything to each other?” Dimple asked. “Or are you just sitting opposite each other in silence?”
“I’m not even in the same room as him, mate, I felt so bad,” Danny said. “And he smelled really bad, ’cause I dunno how long Jerome had had him there for, but he’d pissed himself, and I didn’t want to be in the room with that.”
“And how long were you there for?”
“So, the whole day passes,” Danny said. “And I can’t lie, I’m vex ’cause I’m in the middle of nowhere with this guy, there’s no food, no water or electric, I had to take a shit outside and wipe my arse with leaves, my phone has died by this point, and I’m really hungry. I walk around outside a bit, and the only person I see is some guy and his dog, and the man is eyeing me like he’s all suspicious ’cause obviously he probably hasn’t seen many people my shade bowling round, but I just wave and say something like I’m on a nice walk. But he doesn’t say anything so I just don’t think about him again. Anyway, night comes, so I go in that room and light the candles again ’cause even I’m a bit scared of the dark and I’m thinking this guy must be even more scared than me ’cause he’s probably scared for his life as well by this point.”
Danny threw another biscuit into his mouth and chewed it slowly before washing it down with a gulp of tea.
“Right, so. I go back to the room next to the one the guy is in, and all there is for me to do is look out the window at the moon. So I’m doing that for a while, and I can start to smell, like, a bonfire? And I hadn’t ever really fucked with bonfires before, but I remember one bonfire night my school did once, and the smell was the same. But after a bit, it smells like it’s really close and I’m, like, that’s not right. And I look at the door of the room I’m in and I see smoke coming up from under it, so I jump up and open it, and I see that the room next door, the one the guy is in, is on fire.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dimple whispered.
“But he’s all right! One of the candles on the other side of the room has fallen and the flame is going up the wall over there, so the fire hasn’t got to him yet. But I run over and I untie him, and as soon as he’s untied, he’s up and he’s off. I turn to go after him, but, like, this bit of wood that’s on fire falls down on me from the ceiling.”
Danny held his arm up and showed Dimple the burn mark she’d seen that ran across his forearm. “I saw you look at the burn that night.”
Dimple touched it gently while Danny continued. Like Danny, the scar was softer than it looked.
“And so I’m screaming and for a second I’m thinking, like, should I try and put this fire out, and how do I do it? But then I’m, like, wait, why do I care about this house? So I run out, and obviously I can’t see any trace of the guy. And there’s no point in me trying to run through these fields of wheat or whatever looking for him, so while this cottage burns, I just wait outside it. Nowhere else for me to go, not in the dark, and not on foot. The fire engine comes to put the fire out, but when I hear it coming I hide in some bushes nearby ’cause I think it’s police. But when the fire’s out and they’ve gone, I go back to where it was and just sit next to all the burned wood and that on the floor, waiting for my boy to come back. A couple hours later, it’s morning now, I’m freezing cold, I could have died in a fire, and Jerome finally drives back when all the drama is over, and he asks, ‘What happened?’ Just like that. He sees me looking like I’ve gone through the wars, I’m standing in front of ash, and he asks me ‘What happened?’ And imagine, this guy didn’t even bring food for me.”
Dimple blinked back at Danny. His obsession with food was going to get him killed one day.
“So I jump in the van with him and explain what happened, and he drives us round looking for this guy, but we don’t find him. Bit like that night, actually. Driving around looking for Kyron really messed my head up.”
“I’m sorry––” Dimple said.
“It’s not your fault.” Danny smiled. “Anyway, by this point I’m, like, ‘Look, take me back to the ends, please, I need to eat, I need to shower, I need to sleep.’ And I think I’m probably in shock to be honest, because that fire was mad. It was so scary, Dimple. And I couldn’t really breathe and it was bare hot. So we drive back, and Jerome tells me not to worry about anything. He says the guy won’t make it back, and if he does, he won’t say anything. So I’m, like, ‘I dunno about that,’ and he’s, like, ‘The less we say about it for now the better,’ and he’s my boy innit, so I think he’s coming up with some kind of master plan or some alibi or something. But I’m so tired that I just fall asleep instead of telling him we need to get our stories straight, and when I wake up we’re back on the block, I’m in the van by myself ’cause I’m assuming he’s hopped out when we got back. I go in the flat, Mum isn’t here ’cause she’s at work, so I have a shower to wash the fire smell off me, and I eat something finally, and I go to sleep. I must have slept for so long cause I heard Mum come in and ask if I wanted dinner, but I was too tired to say yes. When I woke up again, it was morning and the police were knocking the door down. And when I say they were knocking down the door, I mean, like, knocked off the door you walked through off its hinges. When Mum got home she didn’t know what had happened, but she had no door and the flat was wrecked. Her neighbor told her that I’d been taken away, ’cause the whole estate had seen what had happened, basically. More than anything I felt bad for my mum. I was worried that everyone on the estate had seen that happen and they’d think she was a bad parent or whatever.”
“Wait, so, the guy made it back and went to the police?” Dimple asked Danny.
“Not even, you know. Basically, he’d got out of the burning cottage, and he’d run and run until he saw the same man walking his dog that had seen me the day before. And the man with the dog had called the police because he was obviously, like, ‘Why are all these Black boys running round my little village,’ or whatever. So the police had picked up the guy I was meant to be watching ’cause he was trying to make it back to London on foot, and eventually the police got it out of him that he’d been kidnapped and all of that. And the police must have assumed that whoever had kidnapped him had had a weapon, which is why they fucked up the flat like that. They probably would have done it anyway, though. They don’t usually need an excuse to treat us like animals.”
“So you and Jerome went to prison?” Dimple said. “I’m hoping he went for longer.”
“Well, the guy didn’t see Jerome’s face, ’cause Jerome always kept his mask on. He was the smarter one out of the two of us, and he didn’t even bring me a mask! But yeah, he obviously knew it was him, but he’s not gonna snitch. And the man with the dog saw my face outside the cottage and called me out in the lineup. And I wasn’t gonna snitch either, so. Yeah.”
“So you went to prison for six years,” Dimple said flatly, “because you wouldn’t actually say what happened?”
“It was meant to be twelve, but the sentence usually gets halved.”
“And what happened to Jerome?” Dimple asked. “You’re not friends with him now, are you?”
“Never heard from him again, Dimple. The last time I saw him was before I fell asleep in the van with him. Nobody knows where he went after that.” Danny laughed sadly, shaking his head. “Imagine. After all of that. But, you know, it is what it is.”
“What do you mean, ‘It is what it is’?” Dimple scoffed. “You didn’t technically do anything wrong.”
“That’s not how things in this life work, Dimple.” Danny shrugged. “Bad things happen to good people, and the other way around. And the thing is, I didn’t have to help Jerome. I coulda said no. Coulda let that guy go free. But I didn’t. I did somersaults off the cliff instead.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DIMPLE SAT UP AND blinked awake, her eyes finally focusing on the graying stone ceiling above her. The fluorescent bars of bright white light hurt her eyes, so she closed them again as she rolled onto her side. The scratchy fabric of her gray tracksuit irritated her skin. She cleared her throat and reached over to the small cupboard on the side for her plastic cup, draining it of the last dregs of water that were inside.
“You’re up, then.”
Her eyes followed the voice, and her gaze landed on Lizzie, who was lying on the bed opposite.
A loud bell made them both jump.
“Did you sleep okay?” Dimple asked her sister.
“Of course I didn’t fucking sleep okay,” Lizzie said. “How the fuck would I sleep okay?”
The bell kept chiming.
“It’s time for breakfast,” Lizzie said. “You better get up.”
“I’m sorry,” Dimple groaned. “I’m sorry, Lizzie.”
“Sorry isn’t going to cut it,” Nikisha said from the corner of the room, between the door and the small sink that sat in the corner.
“The same,” Prynce spat, suddenly appearing at the end of the bed. “My life is ruined because of you.”
The bell went again.
“We have children, Dimple,” Danny said, sitting on the bed next to Lizzie. “Marley, Nicky, Amara. What are they gonna do?”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Dimple choked. She tried to keep apologizing, but the words were getting caught in the dryness of her throat. She coughed and reached for her cup again even though she knew it was empty.
“We’re stuck in here for life and it’s all your fault!” Lizzie screamed, her voice filling the entire cell. “It’s all your fault.”
Dimple coughed and coughed, her hands reaching up to her throat and her mouth as she tried to apologize again.
“You need to get up,” Nikisha said, walking over to her.
“What?” Dimple rasped. “I can’t.”
“You need to get up,” Prynce repeated.
“Dimple, get up.” Lizzie jumped up from the bed and put her hands on Dimple’s shoulders, shaking her.
“Dimple!” Danny shouted.
Dimple opened her eyes for real and saw Janet standing above her, her hands on her shoulders. The bell of her alarm chimed on repeat next to her head.
“Jesus,” Dimple gasped. Her heart was pounding hard. She sat up, brushed her mum’s hands from her shoulders, and turned her phone alarm off.
“You were having a bad dream,” Janet said, sitting on the end of the bed. Dimple wondered if it was wine she could smell on her mum, or if she was still in some sort of dream state.
“Was I?” Dimple asked, reaching for the glass of water on her bedside table.
“I walked past your room and I could hear your alarm, so I left you, and then when I came back past the alarm was still going and I could hear you saying sorry over and over again.”
Dimple tried to steady herself.
“What time is it?” she asked her mum.
“It’s just after ten,” Janet told her. “But don’t get up just yet, rest a bit. And tell me what’s wrong, Dimple.”
“Nothing is wrong.” Dimple swung her shaky legs out of the bed and stood up. “I need to get ready. Do you mind?”
“What do you need to do today?” Janet asked a little bitterly. “Seeing one of Cyril’s children?”
“I’m seeing all of them, actually,” Dimple shot back. “Our dad has asked to see us.”
The “hmmm” that passed through Janet’s throat was loud.
“Why are you even home?” Dimple asked her mum.
“I’ve got an appointment at eleven so I’m going into work after,” Janet said. “Anything else you’d like to know?”
“No.” Dimple shook her head. She flopped back onto the pillow before she had to get ready for the day.
* * *
A couple of hours later, just around the corner from her late grandmother’s house, Dimple saw a familiar face crossing the road and coming toward her.
“Hi, Marvette, how are you?” Dimple asked her aunt.
“I am fine, Dimple, and yourself?” Marvette answered curtly.
Dimple made the little bit of small talk with her aunt that she could, ranging from how the weather was to the traffic that was building up next to them.
“You seen your useless daddy?” Marvette pursed her lips and put her shopping down by her feet.
“I’m just on my way to Grandma’s to see him now,” Dimple told her. “But he’s having a bit of a hard time—I hope he’s okay.”
“I’m the one having the hard time, let me tell you that.” Marvette was ready to misplace some anger. “That funeral almost bankrupted me. I had to beg and borrow and steal, asking people on my knees to help me out. And your daddy didn’t put one penny toward it, but even now I’m hearing he’s telling people our mother didn’t have a good enough send-off? Disgusting. Tell him from me that his days are numbered.”
Dimple could tell Marvette meant that.
“I’m really sorry, I thought he— Well, he told me he—”
“And I hate to say it.” Marvette cut Dimple off, not caring at all about anything to do with her brother. “But the house selling so quickly is a godsend. We couldn’t even spend any time in there to properly say goodbye, but we had to do what we had to do.”
Tears sprang to Marvette’s eyes, surprising Dimple.
“Take care of yourself, Dimple.” Marvette sniffed and picked up her shopping bags. “I hope you’ll be sensible with the money. Unlike your waste-of-space father.”
As she watched Marvette shuffle away, a lot was going through Dimple’s head. Was she surprised that her dad had lied about the money? Not so much. It was very much a “not shocked but disappointed” situation. Her main worry was that she’d been weaving so many lies recently that she was turning into her dad, and she was concentrating so much on this transformation that she didn’t have time to wonder what her aunt had meant about being sensible with money.
* * *
“I have a favor to ask you all,” Cyril said to his five children. They blinked back at him from the beaten sofa in their late grandmother’s house.
“What is it?” Nikisha asked.
“Well.” Cyril laughed. “It’s funny, actually.”
They all knew it wouldn’t be funny.
“So you see this house?” Cyril asked, gesturing to the four walls around them.
“Mmm?” Nikisha responded impatiently.
“Yuh cyaan believe how much it’s worth.”
“Okay?” Lizzie said. “What’s that got to do with us?”
“So,” Cyril said. “My mother, she was a funny woman.”
“Was she?” Danny asked. “Funny weird or funny like she was a joker?”
“Both.” Cyril laughed a laugh that made his children uneasy.
“Where is this going?” Nikisha asked.
