What Came Before He Shot Her

            “Mon, you know when you know.” Cal took a hit from his joint and studied Joel. He shook his head as he let the smoke ease its way from his lungs. “Tried,” he said. He sounded defeated. That said, Cal left him. Joel was free to go on his way. But he knew that was the extent of his freedom.

            What Joel didn’t know as he fetched his brother was that he’d been seen. Dix D’Court, in transit from the Rainbow Cafe to the Jubilee Sports Centre, had caught sight of Joel in conversation with Cal. While he was not aware of the name of Joel’s companion, he recognised the signature garments. He read them as gang and his thoughts moved in a logical direction. He knew he could not let this go. He had a duty, both to the kids and to Kendra.

            His mind was on this as he completed his workout, a rushed and abbreviated affair. He arrived home having planned an approach, but also rather feverish in his anticipation of the conversation he intended to have. Kendra wasn’t there—a massage in progress somewhere in Holland Park, according to a note she’d left on the fridge, with suitable exclamation marks to illustrate her happiness about the destination—but, to Dix, this was just as well. If he was to be a father figure to the Campbells, there were times when he’d have to be that father figure alone.

            No one was on the ground floor of the house. Television noise—that perennial background motif to every waking moment—drifted down from above. That meant Toby was at home, which meant Joel was at home. Ness’s shoulder bag dangled over a kitchen chair, but there was no other evidence of her.

            Dix strode to the stairs at the back of the house and yelled Joel’s name. Doing it, he heard the sound of his own father’s voice issuing forth, and he recalled how both he and his sister had jumped to at the bellow. He added, “Get down here, mon,” when Joel replied with,

            “What?” from somewhere above. To that he went on with, “We got to talk,” and when Joel said, “’Bout what?” he replied, “Hey! Get your arse down the stairs.”

            Joel came, but he did it without haste. On his tail came Toby, ever Joel’s shadow. To Dix, Joel seemed to slouch down the stairs and into the kitchen and when Dix told him to sit at the table, he did so but without the alacrity that might otherwise have telegraphed respect. Joel was in another world, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. He’d tipped up the chest of drawers in his room. He’d found the gun where he’d left it. He’d buried it in his rucksack. After that, he’d sat on his bed, feeling sick at heart and sick in stomach. He tried to tell himself he could do as the Blade had ordered him. He added that, after he did it, he could go back to being who he was.

            Dix said, “What’re you doin wiv dat lout, Joel?”

            Joel blinked. “Huh?”

            “Don’t huh  me, blood. I seen you wiv him in the street. Him tokin up an’ you standin there waitin for a hit yourself. What’re you doin wiv him? You sellin now or you just smokin? How your aunt goin to react to dis, I tell her what I see you up to.”

            “What?” Joel said. “Wiv Cal, you mean? We were talkin, mon. Dat’s it.”

            “How you come to be talkin to some candyman, Joel?”

            “I jus’ know him, okay? An’ he don’t—”

            “Wha’? Sell? Use? Offer it round? You t’ink I’m stupid?”

            “I tol’ you, it was Cal. Dat’s all.”

            “An’ wha’ you talkin about, if it ain’t dope?”

            Joel didn’t reply.

            “Asked you a question. I mean to have it answered.”

            Joel’s back went up at Dix’s tone. “None of your business,” he replied. “Bugger off. I don’t got to tell you nuffink.”

            Dix crossed the kitchen in one long bound and jerked Joel out of his chair like an unstrung marionette. “Watch your mouf,” he ordered. Toby, lurking in the doorway to the stairs, where he’d been all along, cried, “Dix! Dat’s Joel! Don’t!”

            “You shut up. Let me get on wiv my business, okay?” He tightened his grip on Joel.

            Joel cried, “Lemme go! I don’t got to talk to you or anyone.”

            Dix shook him, hard. “Oh yeah, you do. Start ’splainin yourself and do it now. And lemme tell you, mon, it better be good.”

            “Fuck you!” Joel squirmed to get away. He kicked out and missed.

            “Lemme go! Lemme go, you fuckin cocksucker.”

            The slap came quickly: Dix’s open hand squarely meeting the flesh of Joel’s face. It sounded like wet meat coming down on a board, and it flipped Joel’s head backwards and upset his balance. Another slap followed it, harder this time. Then Dix began to drag him towards the sink.

            He grunted, “So. Like dirty words? Like dem better’n answerin questions? Le’s see if dis makes you like dem words less.” He bent Joel back against the work top and stretched out to reach for the Fairy Liquid. Toby shot across the kitchen to stop him. He grabbed Dix by the leg. He cried, “Get ’way from my bruvver! He ain’t done nuffink. Get ’way from my bruvver! Joel! Joel!”

            Dix shoved him away, too hard. Toby weighed next to nothing and the force sent him crashing into the table, where he began to wail. Dix had the Fairy Liquid in his hand and he squirted the detergent into Joel’s face. He aimed for his mouth but got it everywhere else. He said,

            “Someone’s mouf needs dis’nfectin,” as he tried to drive the spout between Joel’s lips. But a clatter from the stairs brought Ness into the room. She flung herself upon Dix and her brother. The force of her flying body threw Dix hard against Joel and Joel just as hard against the edge of the work top. His feet scrambled for purchase against the lino and he slipped in some of the Fairy Liquid. He went down. Dix went with him. Ness landed on top of them both.

            She shrieked a string of curses as she clawed at Dix’s head. His grip loosened on Joel as he tried to protect his face from her nails. Joel rolled away and against the table, where he reached for a chair and staggered to his feet.

            Ness was screaming, “Damn you! Fuck you! Don’t you never touch one of my brothers!” as she went after the bodybuilder with her hands, her feet, her elbows, her teeth.

            Dix managed to catch her arms. He flipped her over and himself with her. He was on top now, and he pinned her to the floor. They writhed there in the Fairy Liquid, a desperate coupling that he tried to still by covering the length of her body with his. She screamed then. She gave one long, horrifying cry, sounding like someone just entering hell.

            It was into this scene that Kendra came: Toby in a ball under the table, Joel trying to pull Dix off his sister, Dix doing what he could to quell her, Ness far gone to another place.

            “Get off her. Get off  her!” Ness shrieked. She flung her head back and arched her spine with such strength that she managed to lift both of them off the floor. “You leave her be! No! Mummy . . . Mum my. . .” And on that final fruitless appeal to a woman not there, never there, and never to be there, she began to howl. It was like the sound of an animal shot, doomed to dying by degrees.

            Kendra rushed forward. “Dix! Stop this!”

            Dix rolled off the girl. He was bleeding from the face and panting like a runner. He shook his head, incapable of speech. Which didn’t matter, because Ness was doing all the speaking: on the floor, spread-eagled, but kicking now and beating her fi sts against the air and then against her own body.

            “You get off. You bloody get off .  Get off !”

            Kendra knelt at her side.

            “He did it to me. He did it. He did.”

            “Ness!” Kendra cried.

            “An’ no one there.”

            “Ness! Ness! What’s—”

            “You go off to the fruit machines. You say watch ’em and he say fine. An’ you jus’ go and leave us wiv him. But it ain’t him. It’s all of dem. Pressin up ’gainst me an’ I c’n feel it’s hard. An’ he reaches up my top and squeezes . . . says I like ’em young. I like em like dis cos dey still firm mmm mmmm an’ I don’t know wha’ to do, innit, cos I don’t ’xpect—”

            Kendra yanked her fiercely into her arms. She cried, “Jesus God.”

            The others watched, like statues, turned to salt not by what they saw but what they heard.