Instead he walked up and down between the desks, stopping and saying something to each of us before going on to the next one. “Unemployed.” “Checkout girl.” “Garbageman.” When he got to me, he didn’t even pause. “Cleaning lady,” he said and carried on walking. He worked his way back to the front, turned and faced us. “OK, how did that make you feel?”
We stared at our desks or out the window. It had made us feel exactly how he wanted us to feel. Like shit. We all knew what sort of futures were waiting for us after school, didn’t need a puffed-up little tit like him to remind us.
Then Spider blurted out, “I feel fine, sir. It’s just your opinion, isn’t it? It don’t mean shit. I can do anything I want, can’t I?”
“No, Dawson, that’s the whole point, and I want you all to listen. At the moment, with the attitude you’ve all got now, that’s where you’re heading. However, if you apply yourselves a bit more, concentrate, make the best of your last year here, it could be different. If you get some certifications, get a good report from school, credits toward a degree, you can achieve so much more.”
“My mum works on the checkout.” That was Charmaine, two seats along from me.
“Yes, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but, you, Charmaine, could be the store manager if you wanted to. You all need to look a bit further, realize what you can achieve. What do you see yourselves doing? Come on, what are you going to be doing in a year, two years, five years? Laura, you start.”
He went ’round the room. Most of the kids hadn’t got a clue. Or rather, they knew his first assessment had been pretty accurate. When he got to Spider, I held my breath. The boy with no future, what would he say?
Of course, he rose to the challenge. He sat on the back of his chair, like he was addressing a crowd. “Five years’ time, I’m gonna be cruising the streets in my black BMW, got some vibes on the sound system, got money in my pocket.” The other boys jeered.
McNulty looked at him witheringly. “And how, Dawson, are you going to do that?’
“Bit of this, bit of that, sir. Buying and selling.”
McNulty’s face changed. “Theft, Dawson? Drug dealing?” he said coldly. He shook his head. “I’m almost speechless, Dawson. Breaking the law, peddling in misery. Is that all you can aspire to?”
“It’s the only way any of us are going to get any cash, man. What do you drive, sir? That little red Astra in the parking lot? Teaching? Working for twenty years? I’m tellin’ you, I ain’t driving no Astra.”
“Sit down on your chair, Dawson, and shut up. Someone else, please. Jem, what about you?”
How could I possibly know what was going to happen to me? I didn’t even know where I was going to be living in a year’s time. Why was this man torturing us, making us squirm like this? I took a deep breath and said, as sweet as I could manage, “Me, sir? I know what I want.”
“Oh, good. Carry on.”
I made myself look him right in the eye. 12252023. How old was he now? Forty-eight? Forty-nine? He’d go just around the time he retired, then. On Christmas Day, too. Life’s cruel, isn’t it? Christmas spoiled for his family for the rest of their lives. Serve him right, the cruel bastard.
“Sir,” I said, “I want to be exactly…like…you.”
He brightened for a second, a half smile forming, then realized I was taking the mick. His face shut down, and he shook his head. His mouth was a hard line, you could see the bones sticking out as he clenched his jaw.
“Get your math books out,” he barked. “Wasting my time,” he muttered under his breath. “Wasting my time.”
On the way out of class, Spider high-fived me. I didn’t do that stuff normally, but my hand went up to meet his like it had a mind of its own.
“Like your style, man,” he said, nodding his approval. “You got him good. Result.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Spider?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t do drugs, do ya?”
“Nah, nothing heavy. I was just winding him up. Too easy, innit, sometimes? You walking home?”
“No, got detention.” I needed to hang back for a couple of minutes, let the crowds of kids thin out. Karen would be waiting outside the gate. She was walking me to and from school at the moment, just until I’d “earned her trust.” No way I was going to let any of this lot see me with her. “See ya around, then.”
“Yeah, see ya.” He drop-kicked his bag through the classroom door and swung out after it, and as I watched him I thought, Stay away from drugs, Spider, for Christ’s sake. They’re dangerous.
CHAPTER THREE
It was one of those gray October days when it never really gets light. The rain wasn’t exactly falling – it was just there, hanging in the air, in your face, blotting everything out. I could feel it soaking through my hoodie, starting to make my shoulders and the top of my back go cold. We were ’round the back of the shopping center, where the concrete slabs of its walls met the dull green streak of the canal.
“We should go in the shops, at least it’s dry,” I suggested. Spider shrugged and sniffed. Even his movements were subdued today, like the weather had sapped his energy.
“Got no money. Anyway, those security guys are on my case.”
“I’m not staying here. It’s cold and rank and boring.”
Spider caught my eye. “But apart from that?”
“It’s crap.”
He snorted in appreciation, then spun ’round and started off down the path. “Come on, let’s go to mine. It’s only my nan there, and she’s OK.”
I hesitated. We’d kind of drifted into hanging out together, after school and on the weekends, since Karen had loosened the reins a bit. Not all the time – Spider sometimes went ’round with a gang of lads from school instead. From what I could tell, he’d run with them until they had a row, or even a fight, then he’d keep clear for a bit. There’s always something going on with boys. It’s like animals, isn’t it, monkeys or lions, sorting out the pecking order, who’s the boss? Anyway, for whatever reason, he wasn’t with them this Saturday, he was with me, and we were bored as hell. There was nothing for us to do.
Going to someone’s house was a big deal for me. I’d never been asked before. Even when I was little, I was never one of those girls who skipped out of the classroom in pairs, holding hands sometimes, giggling, excited. Having friends over for tea parties didn’t fit in with Mum’s lifestyle.
“I dunno,” I said reluctantly. Like usual, I was worried about meeting anyone new, not knowing whether to look at them or not. People think I’m shifty because I don’t like looking at them, but really I’m just trying to keep out of their lives – TMI.
“Suit yourself,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets and setting off on his own.
The rain was getting in my face, annoying me now. “No, hold up!” I shouted, and ran to catch him up, and we walked along together, hoods up, heads down, in the filthy London drizzle.
It took about five minutes to get to his place, one of those maisonettes at the front of the Park Estate projects. It was in the middle of a row, on the ground floor, with a little square of garden at the front. The garden was something else – some grass and a few flowers and that – but the great thing was all these little statues and things: gnomes, animals. It was hilarious.
“Cool garden,” I said, half taking the piss, half meaning it. Spider made a face.
“It’s my nan,” he said. “She’s crazy.” He vaulted over the low wall and picked his way through the concrete crowd. He swung his leg at the head of a particularly ugly gnome.
“No, don’t,” I called out.
He stopped midkick.
“They’re nice. Don’t hurt them.”
“Oh, God. Not you as well.” He shook his head and waited while I opened the peeling tubular metal gate and walked up the path. Then he pushed in the front door – it must have already been open – and shouted out, “Only me, Nan. I’ve brought a mate.”