They sent a red taxi to take me to Corinthian Avenue – maybe to make sure I went at all. Mum came with me that morning. The taxi driver was wearing a yellow football strip with PELE written across the back.
He kept looking at me in the driver’s mirror as we set off.
“Do you take many to Corinthian Avenue?” I asked him.
“Sure do. Got a contract. I’ve took quite a crew to Corinthian Avenue in my time, I can tell you.”
He drove on, past the park, through the slow-moving traffic towards the city center.
“And I could tell a tale or two,” he said.
“Tell one,” I said.
“No chance.”
He shook his head. He took a hand off the steering wheel and tapped his nose.
“Confidentiality,” he said.
He wound the window down and leaned an elbow on the frame.
“More’n my job’s worth,” he said.
The traffic thickened, edged through the streets past the offices and shops. We drove slowly onto the bridge. The arch arced beautifully above us. The river sparkled beautifully below.
I caught him watching me again.
“So what’s your story?” he said. “If you don’t mind me asking, that is?”
“Sorry?”
“Tell me to shut up and stop prying if you like. But some kids like to get it off their chest with a bloke like me. And whatever you say’ll stay within these cab walls.”
I looked at Mum. She looked at me.
“I think we’ll just keep it to ourselves, thank you very much,” said Mum.
“It’s OK, Mum,” I said. “I’m sure Mr. Pele will keep it secret.”
“It’s Karl,” said Karl.
“OK,” I said. “It was violence, Karl.”
“Get away,” said Karl.
“It’s true. I attacked a teacher.”
“Aye?”
“Aye. With a pen.”
“A pen?”
“Aye. It made a great weapon. I stabbed her in the heart. I’m really vicious once I start. I don’t look like it, but I’m a bloody savage!”
I snarled into the mirror. I bared my teeth. Karl raised his eyebrows. He shook his head. He whistled softly.
“Goes to show.”
“Goes to show what?”
“That you never can tell.”
“That’s what I think as well. You never can tell.”
He drove on slowly in silence.
“She asked for it,” I said.
“Aye?”
“Aye. She went on and on. Yak yak yak.”
“Yak yak yak?” said Karl.
“Yes. Yak yak yakkity yakkity yak yak yak.”
“I had a teacher like that,” said Karl.
“Was she called Mrs. Scullery?”
“Nah. It was a bloke. Blotter, we called him. Can’t remember his real name.”
“But he went yak yak yak?”
“Aye. He had more of a snarl in it, though. So it was like more vicious. Yek yek yekkity yek! That kind of thing.”
“Did you attack him?”
“Naah. He was a great big bloke, and I was just a titch. He had a hell of a temper, and all. So I just shut me lugs and let him get on with it. Yek yek yek yekkity yek.”
“Pity. Anyway I’d had enough of Mrs. Scullery and her yak yak yak, so I done her.”
“With the pen.”
“Aye. I done her good, with the pen.”
“Murder?”
“Not quite. She’ll survive.”
I looked down at the water that flowed beneath us toward the sea. I said,
“Are you as good as Pele, Karl?”
He grinned.
“Aye,” he said. “In fact, I’m even better.”
“Really?”
“Really. You should have seen the goal I scored in the park last week. Breathtaking.”
We grinned at each other in the mirror.
“So why are you driving taxis?” I said.
“Cos I love it. Who’d want to travel the world and make a million quid and be adored by all them fans? No, it’s journeys to Corinthian Avenue for me! And look, here we are, safe and sound.”
He stopped the car and opened the door to let me out.
He pretended to flinch as I stepped out. He put his hands up as if to protect himself.
I laughed and he grinned.
“Keep them pens under control today,” he said.
“I will.”
“See ya, Miss. Savage.”
“Bye-bye, Mr. Pele.”
He winked at us and drove away.
And there it was, a redbrick house surrounded by Tarmac and a steel fence, and tubs with blue hydrangeas in them.
I pause. I need to mess about before I go on. I’ll play with words for a while. I’ll do a single sentence and a single word. Good games to play while I gather my memories of that day.
Sometimes when I’m at my table or in my tree and I want to write I start a sentence to see if I can write a whole page before I need a full stop which at first can seem rather difficult but which is really quite easy, because a single sentence could go on forever just like numbers could go on forever, which is difficult for little children to understand because they believe that a number like 100 is so huge that there can be nothing higher until someone says there’s 101 and 102 and 103 and they say O yes and so they begin to understand that numbers have no true end and can go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on until the end of time, if there is an end of time which I think is maybe impossible because if numbers go on forever maybe time does too, but as I get closer to the foot of the page I know that this sentence must stop very soon which now makes me wonder if I am like God when I am writing and makes me wonder whether God could put an end to time if he decided he has had enough of it and whether one day he will speak the single simple cataclysmic word STOP and everything will simply stop.
