Sometimes, Mum used to make sandwiches and cut up oranges for us, so we could have a picnic. We liked that. Tennis balls or roller skates were the best things to break the boredom, but they could often end in fights. You just gotta improvise.
That day we had a good play, until my sister called us in on her way back from the shop. She’d got some ginger beer and ice poles. I didn’t particularly want to go in. Neither did Cheenie.
“We have to go now,” I told her, zipping up her jacket.
“No,” she sulked.
“Come on, mummy’s got some ice poles. Better be quick before Auntie Sour gets them first.”
She took my hand and stomped reluctantly up the stairwell, tripping over her shoes as she gazed back at the Pen.
When we got up to the walkway, Althea was fumbling through the blue-and-white striped newsagent bag to find her keys.
“Hold this,” she said, passing me the bag as she started searching her pockets.
I let go of my niece’s hand and reached for the bag.
Cheenie made her break for freedom, and bolted back along the walkway. One of the concrete slabs had been removed, and replaced with some mesh. The council had taken it off during some work, and never got round to putting it back the way it was. I’d got used to the red plastic mesh flapping around the gap.
I chased after her, but seeing me following her just made Cheenie run quicker towards the mesh where she could see the green grass of the courtyard below.
It was a 25ft drop.
For a split second I considered jumping behind her, but realised it was too high. I would die, and probably squash her in the process.
Althea threw herself at the walkway, almost flinging herself over after her.
“Cheenie!”
I can’t remember running down the staircase, but I guess I must have.
The neighbours below had seen something drop past the kitchen window but didn’t think for a second it could have been a child. They rushed out of their house when they heard us screaming.
I don’t know who called the ambulance.
They say you’re not meant to move a casualty like that. The official advice is to put them in recovery position or some shit like that, innit? Fuck that.
I scooped Cheenie up into my arms.
Her eyes were bulging. Her whole head was swollen. She looked like a Martian.
Blood dripped from her nose.
I caused this. The words were running through my mind. I caused this. I caused this. I hated myself.
As we sat outside the double doors of the ward, waiting for news, Althea couldn’t look at me. I tried to hug her, but she flinched. “Don’t touch me,” she spat.
Eventually, Mum stormed in, blabbering some Allah talk and giving us all her quotes from the Qur’an. She’d been praying at the mosque. I couldn’t bear it. I paced up and down the wards, knowing it was all my fault.
She spent weeks in hospital, wired up to the machines and a drip. They told me when she woke up she tried to call my name.
In the end, the doctors said they were happy I’d picked her up. They said it let the blood drain, or some shit like that, so I got praised for that.
Her lightness had counted in her favour. An older, heavier person probably could never have survived the fall.
She had a broken wrist and a fractured skull. But that was it. She would survive.
But it was a dark time. For the first time, I knew what shame felt like. I knew an anger I’d never known before, an anger that made me want to go out and cause harm, against myself, against anyone. I came back from the hospital a different child. I could still see the resentment in Mum and Althea’s eyes. I felt like Cheenie pulled me over the edge with her. Sometimes, I wish she had.
A week later, the music went on again. “Only love will solve your problems.” Over and over again, all through the night.
Tyrone had been my friend from young. He’d moved to another estate down the way, but always came to visit and see his old friends at Roupell Park. His mum was poor, poorer than ours, and his brothers knew some serious characters, but Tyrone was a good kid. He never got into badness.
He was a light-skinned Jamaican boy – we called him red-skinned, which he didn’t like – and he always dressed sharp. He didn’t have lots of new stuff, but the stuff he had, he kept fresh.
His only downfall was that he loved to eat. He was the kind of kid who used to come to your house, go straight to the kitchen, look in your pots, and before you knew it your dinner’s gone.
As usual, he brought his tennis ball, so we went to the Pen, but we soon got bored bouncing it off the wall.
“Alright, shitheads?”
It was Tiefing Timmy. He had two white girls with him. I vaguely recognised one of them.
“You the girl whose baby fell from the block?” she asked.
“Shut your mouf,” said Tyrone. “Ain’t none of your business, innit.”
“Kid fell from there,” she said to her friend behind a conspiratorial hand, pointing to our third floor flat.
“The social should be on to you,” she said.
Was she trying to incite a fight?
“Say that again.”
“C’mon, Sour,” said Tyrone, hearing the alarm bells. He tugged at my sleeve. “Let’s leave it. They ain’t got a clue what they’re talking about.”
The girl with the piercing – a jewel on the left side of her cheek – stepped forward. She wanted a fight.
“I said, say that again.”
She walked closer, and shouted out loud.
“I said, you and your family should have the social on to you.”
She was a little taller than me, but skinnier. I reckoned I could have her.
I barged forward, tugging against Tyrone, who was now trying to hold me back. She laughed.
“Aw,” she said, sarcastically. “Little Sour getting upset?”
She pushed me hard. I pushed her back.
“Whoohoo!” Tiefing Timmy squealed at the prospect of a bitch fight. “Go on yerself, gerls!”
I took a swing, but missed. She did the same and didn’t. I lunged for her face, making a grab for her hair and jewellery. I wanted to rip that stupid piercing from her ignorant face. But she was older, tougher. Unlike me, she had been in fights before.
Before I knew it, Tyrone and Tiefing Timmy were dragging her off of me. There was no doubt about it. She had won that fight. I wasn’t angry. I was blind fury livid.
On the way home, Tyrone seemed disappointed. He was a cool kid, and clever. He never got into fights. He wanted to be an engineer. But he was no pussy. He knew how to handle himself. He knew I could have done better.
“How come you didn’t have her? You can handle yourself.”
He seemed genuinely puzzled. I felt I’d let him down.
“Dunno. She riled me, I guess.”
“She ain’t all that.”
We took the long way home, through the underpass and by the Chinese takeaway. For most of it, we walked in silence.
“You know what, Tyrone?”