What Came Before He Shot Her

papers, she said, “My God, what about your dad? He started  with weed. You know that. He told you, didn’t he? He wouldn’t have pretended. Not with you. You even went with him to St. Aidan’s and waited for him in the creche. During his meetings. He told me that, Ness. So what d’you think it was all about? Answer me. Tell me the truth. Do you think you’re immune?”

            Ness had only one way to survive a reference to her father, and that way was retreat: a distancing that she effected by allowing that hot stone always within her to grow in size until she could feel it climbing a burning path to reach the back of her tongue. Contempt was what she experienced when anger did its work upon her. Contempt for her father—which was the only safe emotion she could harbour towards him—and even more contempt for her aunt. She said, “What’re you twisted ’bout? I make rollies, innit. Shit, you the sort always t’ink the worse.”

            “Speak English like you were taught, Vanessa. And don’t tell me you’ve been making rollies when you’ve got a packet of cigarettes big as life inside that rucksack. Whatever else you think, I am not  stupid. You’re smoking weed. You’re running round truant. What else are you doing?”

            Ness said, “I tol’ you I wa’n’t wearin that bloody kit.”

            “You mean me to think this is all a reaction to having to wear a school uniform you don’t like? What sort of fool do you think I am?

            Who’ve you been with all these weeks? What’ve you been doing?”

            Ness reached for the packet of Wrigley’s. She used it to gesture at her aunt, a movement that asked—with no little sarcastic intent—if she could chew a piece of gum since she wasn’t, apparently, going to be allowed to smoke. She said, “Nuffink.”

            “Nothing,” Kendra corrected her. “No-thing. Nothing. Say it.”

            “Nothing,” Ness said. She folded a piece of gum into her mouth. She played with its wrapper, rolling the foil around her index fi nger and keeping her gaze fixed on it.

            “Nothing with who, then?”

            Ness made no reply.

            “I asked you—”

            “Six an’ Tash,” she cut in. “All right? Six an’ Tash. We hang at her house. We listen to music. Tha’s it, innit.”

            “She’s your source? This Six?”

            “Come on. She’s my mate.”

            “So why haven’t I met her? Because she’s supplying you and you know I’ll twig it. Isn’t that right?”

            “Fuck it. I tol’ you wha’ the papers ’s for. You goin t’ believe wha’ you want to believe. ’Sides, not like you wanted  to meet anyone, innit.”

            Kendra saw that Ness was trying to turn the tables, but she wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Instead she resorted to an anguished, “I can’t have this. What’s happened  to you, Vanessa?” in that age-old parental cry of despair, which is generally followed by the internal query of, What did I do wrong?

            But Kendra didn’t follow up her first question with that silent and self-directed second one, for at the last moment, she told herself that these were not her children and technically none of them should even be her problem. Since they had an impact on her life, however, she tried another tack, without knowing her words formed the single query least likely to produce a positive result. She said, “What would your mum say, Vanessa, if she saw how you’re acting now?”

            Ness crossed her arms beneath her breasts. She would not  be touched in this way, not by reference to the past or prognostication of the future.

            Although Kendra didn’t know exactly what Ness was up to, she concluded that whatever it was, it had to do with drugs and most likely, because of her age, with boys as well. This added up to news that wasn’t good. But beyond that, Kendra knew nothing aside from what went on on the estates round North Kensington, and she knew plenty about that. Drug purchases. Contraband exchanging hands. Muggings. Breakins. The occasional assault. Gangs of boys looking for trouble. Gangs of girls doing much the same. The best way to avoid putting yourself into harm’s way was to walk a narrow path defined by school, home, and nothing else. This, apparently, was not what Ness had been doing.

            She said to her, “You can’t do this, Ness. You’re going to get hurt.”

            “I c’n take care of myself,” Ness said.

            That, of course, was the real issue. For Kendra and Ness each had an entirely different definition of what taking care of oneself actually meant. Rough times, disease, disappointment, and death had taught Kendra she had to stand alone. The same and more had taught Ness to run, as fast and as far as her mind and her will would take her. So Kendra asked the only question left to ask, the one she hoped would get through to her niece and mould her behaviour henceforth. She said, “Vanessa, d’you want your mum to know how you’re behaving?”

            Ness raised her gaze from the study she was making of her chewing gum wrapper. She cocked her head. “Oh yeah, Aunt Ken,” she finally replied, “like you’re really going to tell her that.”

            It was a direct challenge, nothing less. Kendra decided the time had come to accept it.

            Chapter

      4 While Kendra could have taken them by car, she opted in stead for the bus and the train. Unlike Glory, who in the past had always accompanied the Campbell children to visit their mother because she wasn’t otherwise employed, Kendra had a job to go to and a career to develop, so the children were going to have to make the journey to Carole Campbell by themselves after this. To do that, they’d need to know how to get there and back on their own. Crucial to Kendra’s plan for the day was that Ness should not know where they were going initially. If she knew, she would bolt and Kendra needed her cooperation even if Ness didn’t realise she was giving it. She wanted Ness to see her mother—for reasons that Kendra could not express either to herself or to the girl—and she also wanted Carole Campbell to see Ness. For mother and daughter had had a bond at one time, even through Carole’s terrible periods.

            They began their journey on the number 23 bus to Paddington station. As it was a Saturday, the bus was overly crowded since the route would take them to the top of Queensway where, at the weekends, hordes of kids hung about the shops, cafes, restaurants, and cinemas. This, indeed, was where Ness thought they were going, and when they approached the appropriate stop in Westbourne Grove, the fact that Ness automatically stood and began to head for the stairs—for they’d crammed themselves into the upper deck of the bus—told Kendra a great deal about where her niece had been spending her time during the days when she was meant to be at school.

            `Kendra caught the back of Ness’s jacket as the girl started to negotiate her way down the aisle. She said, “Not here, Vanessa,” and she held on until the bus was moving again.

            Ness looked from her aunt to the fast disappearing vista that was the corner of Queensway. Then she looked at her aunt again. She realised she’d been had in some way, but she didn’t yet know in what way it was since, always with Six and Natasha as her companions, she’d never ridden the number 23 bus any farther than Queensway.

            “Wha’s this, then?” she said to Kendra.

            Kendra made no reply. Instead, she adjusted the collar of Toby’s jacket and said to Joel, “You all right there, luv?”

            Joel nodded. He’d been assigned the job of seeing to Toby, and he was making the best of it that he could. But he felt agonised down to the roots of his hair about the responsibility. For on this day, Toby had been in a state from the minute he’d awakened, as if he’d had preternatural knowledge of where they’d be going and what would happen when they got there. Because of this he had insisted on bringing his life ring with him fully inflated, and he’d made a spectacle of himself, tiptoeing along, muttering, and fluttering his hands around his head as if he were being attacked by fl ies. It was even worse inside the bus, where again he wouldn’t take off the ring for love