Heartland (31 page)

Goo on, baby, while you've got the chance, if yer want one.

Zubair wondered if Katie encouraging his smoking was a new strategy. Reverse psychology. She was into things like that.

All right, then. He winked. I'll be quick.

Daddy will be back in a minute, sweetheart. He kissed Camilla's head.

He'd worried, lately, when reports came on TV, about who would be the first to bang on their door, to herd them into trucks or whatever, if things were different, if people decided they could get away with it. He watched the ash fall from his cigarette. A knock at the door in the middle of the night. He smiled at a woman, smoking as well, some kid's grandmother probably, sneaking in a crafty one before the cartoons. She was wearing a pink tracksuit and had her hair up in a spectacular beehive. The problem he had was that a cigarette was the only thing that could clear his mind, make him feel calm, keep him on the surface of things. There'd be no knocks on the door in the middle of the night here. Still, it made him uneasy; if he could think about it, imagine it, other people could. He looked up at the shape of Castle Hill. The football ground had been here, close to here; he couldn't work out where now, it was all built so differently. He'd walked up the road with Adnan and their dad to see the Wolves here before everything closed. Erasure. He looked at the cigarette smoke as it floated away. He'd read
The Castle
once. Kafka knew the way of the world. That was a reason to stay on the surface. He'd had to read
Metamorphosis
for his German A-Level and then read the rest of his stuff. He'd only picked German because he'd had that brief fascination with the Nazis.
Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K
. He came across it all the time in his line of work, of course. He smiled to himself. Smiled too, at what he'd say if Katie had been next to him, asked him what he was thinking about.

Kafka, our beautiful daughter, the way of the world.

You could never tell what people were thinking, imagining. He nodded at Glenn again on the way back in. He had some silver balloons tied to his wrist. One of his kids was screaming, not the one with the runny nose. He was probably thinking about floating far away.

Butt slid towards Aimar.
Rob shouted, No. Everyone else was quiet. He won the ball. Great tackle. The others turned and grinned at him. Glenn was smiling at him warmly.

Wim all right, mate. Great tackle.

Great tackle that was, his Uncle Jim repeated. He's havin a bloody blinder, Nicky Butt.

He was quickly around the rest of the route.
A dog tried to bite his hand off at the new houses, where the dairy used to be. He pushed one of the Punjabi leaflets through Glenn's door, just to wind him up. Further on, an old woman called him back to ask for a leaflet in larger print, said she'd voted Labour all her life and that his uncle had helped her when her hip went and they'd fitted a walk-in bath. Rob asked her if she wanted a lift on election day and wrote it down on the back of his instructions, felt he'd done a good deed.

He was soon outside the mosque, in and out of the cul-de-sacs around it. He was quick here because the houses fronted straight out on to the pavement. At the end of one road, where he had to double-back on himself, coming up against the embankment up to the main road and the traffic's roar, he watched a woman in a veil and long flowing dress walk along in front of him. There was a breeze and you could see the shape of her body through the dress, curvy and firm, and he daydreamed about her and thought about a funny story he'd heard of one of the Woodhouse boys planning to rob the petrol station disguised in a burkha. The woman went a different way to him at the end of Dudley Road and he turned his head to watch her briefly before returning to the leaflets. Immediately after that, a car moved slowly alongside him down the road.

He tried not to look, pulled the rucksack he was carrying the leaflets in from his back and stopped to pretend to look for something. The car was level with him. Still not
looking he walked forward a few yards. The car edged alongside him. A horn sounded. It had stopped and was holding the traffic up. Rob looked now. The car was an old Vauxhall Cavalier that had been given tinted blue windows, flashing blue striplights around the trim and chrome wheel hubs and exhaust. He saw a long brown arm emerge from the driver's window to wave the cars behind it past. He was sure he heard someone swear, something
gora
, over the sound of the traffic. Three cars pulled out and around it. In the last of these, a grey-haired, middle-aged bloke with an unloosened tie shouted something at the car as he drove past. The brown waving hand turned into a finger.

Rob started to walk again. The car crawled alongside him. He wanted to run. At the canal bridge everything changed and the shops began. The kebab shop and A2Z taxis marked the start of a no man's land where people at least tolerated each other enough to shop on the same street. Halal butcher's and pork sandwich shop and all. But that was half a mile away and he wasn't going to outrun the car. He stopped leafleting and started walking, looked openly at the car now, blue lights flashing up and down the trim, like a police car by Dali. He could make out shapes behind the smoked glass.

At Mafeking Terrace, Zubair's old house, where his mum still lived, the last of the streets before the road went uphill to the canal bridge, the car drove ahead slightly and pulled into the kerb. Rob considered trying to cross, but there were other cars parked tight against the pavement and a regular stream of traffic now. The passenger window came down as he drew level. A stream of smoke floated out and a sweet, damp smell of skunk. Two, three, four crumpled Coke cans hit the pavement just in front of him and he stepped over them, telling himself not to say anything, not to look. He did glance in, though. Saw the face of the passenger. Early twenties, maybe older, elaborately
cut facial hair, an eyebrow piercing, collar of a Calvin Klein polo shirt sticking up. There were shapes in the back of the car and the hands of the driver resting on the steering wheel, spliff held nonchalantly in his fingers.

The driver revved up. Rob kept walking. He could feel the slope pull at his calves, decided he'd never make it up to the shops and, as they were on a main road after all, better here than a side street, clenched his right fist and almost, almost, turned to get one in, thought he might get a punch in through the open window.

The car revved again and did a wheelspin away from the kerb, there were clouds of exhaust fumes. The passenger turned and shouted something out of the window that Rob couldn't hear over the sound of the engine as the car drove up to the bridge. He could hear it turning around in front of the kebab shop after it dipped down the other side of the bridge and it got up speed coming back. Fifty, sixty even as it raced back in the other direction. Rob could still hear it roaring as he came down his side of the bridge, looking up at the castle and the space where the Cinderheath gantry had been and the new mosque's minaret would rise.

On the Monday of election week, the paper predicted the British National Party would win the Cinderheath ward.

I'll knock on a few doors for yer if yer want, Jim.

This was the longest sentence Tom had spoken to Jim for years. For once, for a moment at least, Jim was lost for words.

Will yer, mate? Am yer OK, can yer get up the road with em?

I'm all right. Gi me a list. I'll do the Juniper Close ones if yer want.

Jim had been telling the story about what had happened down at Juniper Close to anyone who would listen.

Am yer sure?

I wouldn't say if not.

That'd be great, mate. He tried a joke. I thought yer was thinking of voting for em.

There was a pause. Too long for it to be a joke. Tom nodded.

Sometimes yer just atta goo with what yer've got.

Thass a ringing endorsement, Jim said jovially, put his hand on Tom's shoulder.

Aimar again.
God knows why Argentina hadn't started with him. He stood over a free-kick.

Is Beckham still on the pitch? someone asked. He was finished, exhausted, not fit. He'd done his bit.

Aimar whipped it in there. Pochettino got a touch, away from Seaman. Just over.

I doh know why Argentina doh start with Aimar all the time, his dad said quietly. Great minds, Rob thought.

He'd said why didn't they make it a bit later, they could get something to eat then as well. Jasmine paused. She said that would be great but that she didn't want him to get the wrong idea. She didn't want to give him the wrong impression. Doing this work together was great and it was nice to have a friend here at Cinderheath, but he knew she'd had a difficult time, that things were still difficult, complicated. She told him a bit about Matt, her ex. There was more to it than that, though. Maybe he still had a chance.

He stubbed the cigarette out hard in the ashtray, looked at the patterns of ash as if to decipher some meaning, lit another one.

Jim got back early from work.
Pauline was still at the salon. Michael was God-knows-where. When Jim had read the paper's prediction, he'd hoped that it would stir people up a bit, make it clear what the danger was, that
the BNP wasn't just a protest vote, that they might actually win. Then he realized that was why people were voting for them. Not as a protest: but because that was what they wanted, what they believed. He put a CD in, slumped down at the computer.

He clicked the link by mistake, musing over this business of whether it was just a protest vote, so was startled when the film began. He sat there, mesmerized, suddenly realizing what he was looking at. Andre's scared face, looking at the camera. What was this doing on the computer? They were on him like animals. That was one of the Woodhouse boys, he recognized him, suddenly intrigued, heartened even that this was a mixed crowd, not the usual racial stuff. He didn't know what to think. This was criminal evidence. On his computer. He didn't know how to turn it off when the screen went blank. Then it started up again. Michael's face. Laughing. Enjoying this. They could've killed him. The screen went blank again. Jim sat staring at the empty screen.

Lopez got away from Mills but Mills came back at him.

That's what this game needed now, hard work. Corner.

How long left?

Woss that say?

Eighty-odd. I cor see it, iss a bit blurred.

Seaman caught the corner to big cheers.

Jim asked Rob for Zubair's mobile number.

I doh think he's that interested though, Uncle Jim.

What?

I mean, he'll vote for yer but I doh think he'll be interested in doing anything else. He's organized his mother's postal vote. He'll get his sisters and brother to vote.

Jim just nodded his head. Have yer got it, though? I need to speak to him abaht summat.

Tom looked pale when he got back in from Juniper Close.

He was short of breath and had to lean against the kitchen table to catch it before walking through into the hall. He'd knocked on Tony Woodhouse's door. Tom had known him as a kid. People talked about that family being wild nowadays. They should've seen them then. When Rob and Karen were together he'd have a pint with Tony, her uncle, at family dos. When the door opened that morning, he could've sworn Tony had gone pale. It occurred to him afterwards that he might have got the wrong story about Tom's heart attack, thought he was dead. Tony told him to come in. That was more than he got from Wesley, even though he hadn't seen him for twenty years, who told him he wasn't interested, that he'd had enough of bastards like Jim pretending to represent people round there, it was too late.

Tony told him no one was that bothered about the election. Tom said if they weren't that bothered it wouldn't hurt them to go and vote for Jim, then. Tom didn't know what good it would do, his meddling or the vote itself.

Kathleen came down from upstairs. He held the flowers out to her.

Ooh, what am these?

Tom smiled. I got yer some flowers, love.

What for?

I doh need a reason, do I?

She fussed with them at the kitchen sink, cutting the stems.

I should get yer flowers more often, love, I know. I should do a lot of things.

He sat down to rest in the armchair. She turned from the sink and kissed his cheek, turned back to the flowers as a tear rolled down her own.

He'd intended to get some for a while, it was one of the things he'd promised himself after his heart attack and bypass. It was actually one of the things he'd promised to do
if he lived. It didn't amount to much, he supposed, in the end.

On the morning of his heart attack, he hadn't felt great. He'd been going at the drink harder even than usual, he wasn't sure why. He'd given up explaining his own moods. He'd seen on telly once, the way crows would follow medieval armies at a distance, descend after a battle to eat the bodies. If he'd had to describe it to anyone, not that he ever would, or could, he would describe it like that. Mostly they'd be off at a distance, up high, but sometimes it was like you were there on the battlefield, still alive, awful things all around, and out of the corner of your eye you see them begin to caw and swoop.

Kath had gone round to her mother's; the nurse was coming to talk about a false leg. They all thought it was a waste of time, Evie included. Tom'd had a pain in his back and his arm felt tingly. He couldn't settle. He'd wandered down the shop earlier than usual, bought a paper and a few cans. The bag had felt heavy on the way back up the slope and he was sweating, felt tight-chested.

He made it to the front of the house, thought the worst had passed and was struggling to get the front-door key from his pocket when it hit him. No breath. He'd gone sideways off the path, was half in the roses, his face in the dirt. The pain came again, through his arm, his chest, his jaw. Pain like he was outside himself. In the ambulance he'd thought he'd smashed his jaw on the edge of the slabs, it was only afterwards he realized that was part of the attack. The pain came in huge waves. In between the waves he'd grabbed a rose bush stem. There was blood in his hand when Rob found him.