What Came Before He Shot Her

number of windows in this city that want to be washed, yes?”

            Ness blew out a frustrated breath. She demanded to know if there was anything  Majidah could not turn around and make into something positive because it was getting damn irritating having to be around such a merry ray of bloody flaming fucking sunshine every day.

Majidah thought a moment before speaking, for she too had been awaiting an opportunity for a conversation with Ness, although not a conversation of the sort Ness wished to have with her. She said, “My gracious, is this not an important life skill? Is this not additionally the most basic skill an individual can develop in order to survive life’s disappointments in a healthy manner?”

            Ness sputtered, her form of pooh-poohing the Asian woman’s words.

            Majidah sat at one of the pint-size tables, waved Ness into the chair opposite hers, and said kindly, “Do you wish now to tell me what has gone wrong?”

            Ness’s lips began to form the word nuffink. But at the end, she couldn’t say it. Instead, the gentle expression on Majidah’s face, still present despite everything Ness had done to wipe it off, prompted her to tell the truth although she managed to do it with an attitude of spurious indifference that would have fooled no one. She’d met with Fabia Bender at the Youth Offending Team’s office, Ness revealed. She wanted to take a certificate course at Kensington and Chelsea College, a course that would lead to a real career in a fi eld besides window washing or bead stringing. But the course had turned out to cost over six hundred pounds and where the hell was Ness supposed to come up with that kind of money, short of going on the job or robbing a bank?

            “What sort of course is it that you wish to take?” Majidah asked her.

Ness wouldn’t say. She felt she would have to admit too much if she revealed it was millinery that interested her. She believed she would be admitting to everything that had altered in her life but remained unacknowledged and needed to stay that way.

            “Wa’n’t I s’posed to be comin up wiv a career?” Ness demanded instead. “Wa’n’t I s’posed to be tryin to make  something of myself?”

            “This is bitterness I hear,” Majidah said. “So you must tell me what good bitterness offers you. You see life as a series of disappointments. Seeing this, you fail also to see that if one door closes, another opens.”

            “Right. Whatever.” Ness stood. “C’n I go?”

            “Listen to me before you leave, Vanessa,” Majidah said, “for what I tell you is meant in friendship. If, as many others do, you thrash about in the wilderness of anger and disappointment, you will fail to see the opportunities that God will lay in front of you. Anger and disappointment blind us, my dear. If not that, they distract us. They make it impossible to keep our eyes open since when we rage, we squint and thus we cannot see all that surrounds us. If we instead accept what the present moment is offering, if we simply move forward through it, doing whatever task is in front of us, we then have the serenity necessary to be an observer. Observation is our way of recognising the next thing we are meant to do.”

            “Yeah?” Ness asked, and her tone presaged the next words she spoke. “Dat work good for you, Maji dah? Life say you can’t be an aeronautical engineer, so you keep your eyes open, you jus’ keep movin forward ever’day and you end up here?”

            “I end up with you,” Majidah said. “This, to me, was part of God’s plan.”

            “Thought you lot called him Allah,” Ness sneered.

            “Allah. God. Lord. Fate. Karma. Whoever. Whatever. It is all the same, Vanessa.” Majidah was silent for a moment, observing, much as she’d done over the months that Vanessa Campbell had been working at the drop-in centre. She wanted to impart the lessons she herself had learned from a difficult life. She wanted to tell Ness that it is not the circumstance of one’s life but what one does  with the circumstance that is important: choices, outcomes, and knowledge gained from outcomes. But she did not say this, knowing that Ness’s present state would prevent her from hearing. So instead she said to her, “You are at the turning point, my dear. What is it that you intend to do with all of this bitterness, I ask you.”

            AFTER HANDING THE flick knife over to Cal, there was nothing for Joel to do but wait to hear from the Blade. Days melted into weeks as he did so, watching his back and watching Toby’s back as well. They sought places of safety from Neal Wyatt when they were out and about. They walked quickly, and they continued to practise hiding from headhunters upon Joel’s command.

They were standing on the bridge that carries Great Western Road over the canal when things changed. They’d gone there to observe a gaily coloured narrow boat that was motoring eastward in the direction of Regent’s Park. Toby was chattering about the possibility of the boat’s containing pirates—a topic that Joel was listening to only dimly—when Joel caught sight of a figure coming towards them along the pavement, sauntering from the direction of the Harrow Road.

Joel recognised him: It was Greve, number one henchman of Neal Wyatt. Joel automatically looked around for Neal and for other members of Neal’s crew. None of them were nearby, which made the hair on the back of Joel’s neck tingle. He said to Toby, “Get down to that barge. Do it now, Tobe. Don’t come out no matter what, till you hear me call you, y’unnerstan?”

            Toby didn’t. He thought, considering what they’d been discussing, that Joel meant the narrow boat, which was at that moment precisely beneath them with a bearded man at the helm and a woman watering lush pot plants in the stern. He said, “But where they going? Cos I don’t want to go ’nless you—”

            “The barge,” Joel said. “Headhunters, Tobe. Y’unnerstan? Don’t come out till I tell you time’s right. You hear?”

            Toby got it the second time. He scurried to the metal steps and quickly descended. By the time Greve had reached the bridge, Toby was scampering onto the abandoned barge. It bobbed in the water as he went to his hiding place among the discarded timbers.

Greve joined Joel at the railing. He glanced down at the water and then back at Joel with a smirk. Joel thought he intended to give him aggro, but when Greve spoke, he merely relayed a message. Neal Wyatt wanted to have a counsel. If Joel was interested, he could meet Neal at the sunken football pitch in ten minutes. If Joel wasn’t interested, then things could continue just as they were.

            “Don’t matter to him,” was how Greve put it, with an indifference implying that the counsel hadn’t been Neal’s idea.

That spoke volumes. It seemed to Joel that the Blade had anticipated the request he’d intended to make of him, and this was no surprise. The man had demonstrated more than once that he knew what was going on in the neighbourhood. This was, in part, the source of his power.

Joel thought about the time: ten minutes and then the meeting between them which would take perhaps ten more. He wondered about Toby: being on the barge for that length of time. He didn’t want to take his little brother with him to talk to Neal, but he also didn’t want to risk Toby’s revealing himself to their enemies if this was a trick. He looked around to see if anyone was lingering in a doorway nearby. There was only Greve, though, and he said impatiently, “Wha’s it goin to be, mon?”

            Joel said he’d meet Neal. Ten minutes. He’d be there at the football pitch, and Neal had better show up.

            Greve smirked another time. He left the bridge and went back the way he’d come.

            When he was out of sight, Joel hurried down the steps and approached the abandoned barge. He said quietly, “Tobe. Don’t come out. C’n you hear me?” He waited till the disembodied voice whispered in reply. Then he said, “I’ll be back. Don’t  come out till you hear me call you. Don’t be scared neither. I jus’ got to go talk to someone. Okay?”

            “’Kay,” was the whispered reply, releasing Joel from the obligation of standing guard. With another look around to make sure he hadn’t been seen talking to the barge, he went on his way.

He crossed Meanwhile Gardens and trotted up Elkstone Road. When he reached the pitch, he saw that the town council had painted over the work of the local graffiti artists—something that the town council did on a yearly basis—inadvertently giving them a fresh canvas on which to work. A sign had been posted, threatening prosecution for the defacement of public property. This sign had already been tagged in red and black paint with the balloonlike moniker “ARK.” Joel circled around to the gated opening at the pitch’s far side. He descended the steps. Neal was not yet there.

            Joel was nervous about meeting the other boy in such a place. Once inside, with the playing area