Waterlow Park

This is the final instalment of Waterlow Park. I stopped working on it after this. Hope you enjoyed what there is of it.
Chapter 21

At exactly 8:07 mum comes walk up the garden path to find me shivering outside the house. For a moment she looks puzzled and says nothing. Then she frowns and says: ‘Stephen… What are you doing outside, it’s raining?”

I try to reply but I’m too wet and cold to speak. I sort of mumble something and try to cough out the words. Mum moves over to me and scoops me up in her arms.

“What’s happened Stephen?’ she gently asks.

‘I got locked out!” I splutter, not able to stop the tears. ‘I left my bloody key in my room!’

Mum hugs me close to her chest so that I can smell her perfume and feel her body heat. She does this for several moments and then she suddenly draws away from me as if struck by a thought. ‘But why didn’t Sofia let you in?’ she says. “Have you two been arguing again?’

Some more words leave my mouth but even I cannot make any sense of them. I panic and shake my head back and forth. Mum takes hold of both of my arms and pulls them down by my side. “Look at me Stephen,’ she orders. “Try to stay as calm as possible and slowly tell me what has happened.”

“Sofia’s not here,’ I splutter.

Mum frowns again and then something like a smile seems to creep on to her face. ‘What do you mean she’s not there? Where is she Stephen? Is she hiding?”

‘She’s not here,’ I say again. ‘She’s gone.’

Mum pulls away from me and opens the front door as if she doesn’t believe what I’m saying. ‘Come inside,’ she says, roughly grabbing hold of my hand and heaving me inside the house. The she shuts the front door and begins calling Sofia’s name.

“She’s not here,’ I say. ‘She’s on the Bayswater Road.’

Mum abruptly stops yelling and turns around to stare at me. ‘What did you say?’ she asks. ‘Look Stephen, I’ve just got home from a hard day at work and I can do without this silly nonsense. Now where is Sofia hiding?’

‘She’s on the Bayswater Road,’ I repeat.

‘Stephen!’ she snaps, snarling like an angry dog at me.

And then I sort of slump to the floor and more shouting than talking I tell her all about what has happened since I got home. I tell her about Sofia not being here, about me calling and calling her and only getting voicemail; about me using Find my Phone to trace her whereabouts. And about Bayswater Road.

Mum starts to look worried as she takes this in. ‘Show me,’ she says, her voice raising in pitch.

’What?’

“Show me Find My Phone.’

She follows me upstairs as I try to tell her that it won’t work now. That Sofia’s phone has disappeared. That the red dot is gone. But mum won’t listen until I’ve shown her, and even then she seems either completely unimpressed or unable to understand what I’m showing her. Now she gets angry. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ she says.

‘You told me I’m not allowed to call you at work,’ I say, looking down at my feet.

Suddenly there is a noise downstairs. The sound of someone putting a key into the door lock. For a moment I feel a deep wave of relief wash over me. Everything going to be all right. Sofia’s home. She late and she’s really gong to catch it from dad but at least she home.

But it isn’t Sofia. It’s dad. He doesn’t say anything but mum ands me both know straight away that it’s him. ‘Tony!’ mum cries.

Waterlow Park – Chapter 20

Yet another chapter of the dumped ‘ Waterlow park’. My God, I really did do a lot of work on this. If you’re following at all you’ll notice that there are a lot of chapters missing. This is because I jumped a little forward in writing it and intended to go back and fill in the blanks later. I never did. I’ll have those words carved on my gravestone: ‘HERE LIES IAN. HE NEVER DID’.

Chapter 20
The house is quiet when I get home which is a bit odd because Sofia usually gets back before I do. She goes to Coleridge Primary School and it’s only 0.75 miles on foot. I know this because I used to go to Coleridge and most days Sofia and I would walk to and from school together. I sort of miss doing this. In fact, I really miss Coleridge. The new school is so much tougher and more serious. At my old school we didn’t get any homework but at William Ellis we get some almost every night.
I go into the living room and switch on the TV. I flick from channel to channel but there’s nothing on but the news so I go upstairs to my room. As I enter I find myself instinctively feeling behind the boiler to see if bag of money is still there and of course it is. Except there isn’t much left of the £10,000. I decide to count it and lay out the money on my bed, keeping an ear out for the sound of anybody coming into the house. There is exactly £3,275 remaining. This means that I’ve managed to get rid of £6,625; of course, I gave a lot of it to dad but it’s still pretty frightening to discover how quickly you can get rid of money. I lay on my bed and try to remember everything I bought with the money.
I soon lose track of time and begin to get bored all alone in the house. Mum and dad should be home some time around 8.00pm and even though most of the time Sofia irritates me I’m missing her company. I can’t remember if she has joined an after-school club. She hates after-school clubs but mum and dad are always putting pressure on her to join one; same with me, actually. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t so I decide to call her. She has my old phone, which is an iPhone 4s. I got this when dad upgraded and gave it to Sofia the next time he upgraded. She’s lowest on the mobile phone food chain so she always gets the worst. I ring her but it goes straight to voicemail. I try a second time time and a third but the same thing happens. I leave a message: ‘Answer the phone you little idiot. Where are you?’
I go downstairs and try the TV again. I watch an episode of Futurama which is ok but not very realistic. Then I go upstairs again and play The Sims for a while. ‘I’m lost in the game when I notice that it is beginning to get dark outside I check my phone. It is 5:45pm. Sofia is more than two hours late. This is getting really strange. I call her again but she still doesn’t answer. By now I would normally have cooked her dinner – beans on toast tonight – and I’m starting to feel hungry myself. This makes me angry with her. How could she be so late? What does she think she’s playing at? The spoiled little brat!
I have a brainwave: I quit The Sims and launch Safari on my iMac. Because it’s such as old iMac – dad got it from his office for me – it takes ages to load. I drum my fingers on the desk in irritation until it’s finally ready. On Safari I go to Find My Phone – this will allow me to trace the location of Sofia’s iPhone – and type in her user name and password. I know the user name and password of everyone in our house. I study the computer screen as a map appears with a small red dot that represents Sofia’s phone. I watch for a few moments as the dot slowly moves along a road. She’s heading west along a road I’ve never heard of before called Bayswater Road. This puzzles me so I zoom out of the map only to discover that it’s 6.8 miles away from our house. What’s Sofia doing so far away from home?
I sit quietly for a moment wondering what to do next. It’s going to take Sofia ages to get home and she’ll probably miss her dinner. She’s really going to be in trouble when dad gets home. I move closer to the screen again and scrutinise the map. And it suddenly occurs to me that Sofia is heading away from home; she’s actually going in the opposite direction. Why? Why is she doing this? I can feel myself starting to get worried; I can feel my face redden like I’m embarrassed. Then I realise that Sofia sometimes gets invited to birthday parties and I feel a bit better. Yes that’s it: she’s been invited to a birthday party at someone’s house. But I don’t think that Sofia knows anyone who lives so far away from us. And Sofia has never been invited to a birthday party on a Wednesday evening. They’re always on the weekend. Now I feel bad again.
I call Sofia for the fourth time and again I get nothing but her voicemail. I call her a fifth time. And then a sixth. But then, as the phone is ringing, something weird happens. Without warning the little dot moving along Bayswater Road disappears. I frown and quickly refresh the page and as I’m doing so I get put through to voicemail again. I leave a second message: “Sofia it’s your brother. You better come home right away. Dad’s gong to be very mad if you don’t!’ I frown and refresh the web page and when the little dot doesn’t reappear I refresh it again. My heart begins to pound like a little drum in my chest. I don’t know why it’s pounding but the house is so quiet that I can even hear it. Then I have another idea. Sofia’s phone has been stolen and she must be at school. She must be there right now, waling for me to go and get her. She’s probably crying because her phone’s been stolen and she thinks dad will shout at her.
I drop everything and put my coat on and leave the house. I half run and half walk to the school and I’m there in under ten minutes. The gates are still open and a few kids are playing on the swings; I rush into the main building. This is the first time that I’ve been here since I left Coleridge last summer. It looks identical but there are no people around at all and the inner doors are locked. I move into the playground and then walk around the grounds looking for Sofia. Without really noticing that I am doing it I begin calling ‘Sofia! Sofia!’ at the top of my voice. Some of the kids stop playing on the swings and look over in my direction. I ask them if they know where Sofia is but they’re in a different year than her and have never heard of her. I leave the school and run back home full pelt. By the time I get there I’m out of breath and my lungs are burning. To make matters even worse, I fish around in my pockets and can’t find my front door key! In my rush to leave the house I must have left it on my computer table, which is where I always put it when I get home.
Now I have to fight to stop myself from crying. My lip is trembling and I’m suddenly freezing cold. I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. I call Sofia again and again again but she still won’t answer. As I stand by the front door to the house it starts to rain. This is no gentle shower either. It really starts to bucket down. The rain is like shards of ice; it cuts into my face and burns my skin. I’m cold and wet and miserable and I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do. For a moment I think about calling Debra. Debra used to be out childminder when we were babies. She only lives in the next street and she would probably invite me indoors and keep me warm until mum and dad get home. Then I remember what dad said to me: ’Stephen, you must never – I repeat NEVER – mention to any adults that you look after Sofia when we’re not at home. We could get into big trouble if you do that. And if we get into to trouble that’s nothing compared to the trouble you’ll be in…’
I put my phone back into my pocket and sit down on the cold front step. The rain beats down on me like it will never stop as I wait for mum and dad to get home.

Waterlow Park. Chapter 10

  

Chapter 10
It’s Saturday morning and Mum’s not working today. As we all sit eating our breakfast on our knees dad suddenly gets to his feet and makes a momentous announcement. ‘I’m not going to the pub today,’ he says. 

There is silence for a few moments and Sofia and me stop eating and look up from our Frosties at the same time. Then Sofia turns to me and a worried frown appears on her face, almost as if she’s expecting bad news.

But there is no bad news. Dad smiles – the second smile in less than a day – and even gives mum a little wink. ‘I’m not going to the pub because we’re all going to the seaside for the day!’ he says cheerily. “We’re all going to get in the car and we’re going to Brighton. Anyone for fish and chips?”

I’m not lying when I say I can’t remember the last time that dad took us all out for the day. He’s usually too busy or down the pub with his idiots. I just feel happy inside and can’t stop myself from grinning. Sofia grins, too. But then when no-one else is watching she gives me a very strange look, kind of like the look your teacher gives you when you thinks you’re up to no good.
***
It’s lovely and hot and sunny as we leave the house and cram ourselves into the car. It’s an old Nissan Micra that’s way past its sell-by date and keeps breaking down. Dad usually swears at it when he’s driving but today he’s unbelievably jolly. Mum sits in the front as dad heads up the motorway and begins to sing. “Come on!’ he shouts. “Join in! Let’s hear some singing from the back!’

The engine groans as the countryside rushes by but there is a warm glow inside the car. Everyone is happy. Everyone is smiling. Everybody except Sofia, that is, who reaches over and whispers something in my ear.

‘I can’t hear you, you stupid girl!” I spit. What with dad’s singing and the wind whistling by it’s difficult to hear anything. But I don’t need to hear what she is saying to understand. She’s talking about the money again. Doesn’t she ever stop going on about it? But even though she knows I’ve given dad some she doesn’t know how much. I didn’t tell her everything yesterday. I pull a face at her and she pokes her tongue out at me so I pinch one of her thighs really hard and she yells out. 

“Are you two all right at the back?’ smiles mum. 

Everyone’s smiling because of the money. I’m learning that money can buy smiles.
•••
We reach Brighton and dad eventually finds somewhere to park. It’s the first time I’ve ever been here and even though it’s started to rain a tiny bit I find myself running towards the pier, where hundreds of people mill about buying ice-creams and doughnuts and bags of chips. Sofia races alongside me. “Don’t go too far,” yells mum, who is walking slowly behind us with dad. He has his arm around her, another thing that he doesn’t do very often. We spend a couple of hours in the arcade. Dad changes lots of money into 2p pieces and we feed them into the machines, trying to win the little prizes that are sitting on top of the piles of money. My fingers are soon tasting of metal. Then we get taken to have fish and chips. I get a the biggest piece and a really, really horrible gherkin which I wash down with diet Coke. Sofia has chicken nuggets and orange juice.

‘Wouldn’t it be nice it it was always like this?’ says dad, taking a gulp from a frothy pint of black Guinness. “I mean… It’s so great for us all to spend time together…”

“It’s lovely daddy,” says Sofia.

“It’s fantastic,” say I, although deep down I can’t help thinking to myself that the reason that we don’t all spend time together is dad. He’s always so shouty, or down the pub, or sleeping in the bedroom or calling everyone idiots that he sort of forgets all about us most of the time. I can see that Sofia’s thinking that, too. But neither of us say anything. We’re too happy and we don’t want to spoil the mood. Because days like this don’t come around very often. 
•••
We take a walk through the town centre. Dad buys us both some sweets and a comic book. He buys mum some jewellery and even though it’s not very expensive you can see that mum’s beginning to look a little concerned. She’s wondering where he got all this money from. As we walk dad draws us to him so that we’re all sort of huddling together. “Let’s hope this is all a new beginning,’ he says, although I wasn’t aware that anything had ever ended. ‘From now on life his going to be good,” he smiles a deep smile and although his face his beginning to wrinkle up he’s still handsome. His hair might be greying but he has it combed back like Elvis and at least he isn’t going bald like Smitty’s dad. He stops talking and kisses mum. Then he kneels down and kisses Sofia and she closed her eyes and grins. Then I wince as he reaches over and kisses me on the lips and smothers me in his arms; his breath smells of beer.

As the day begins to draw to a close we head for Brighton’s pebble beach. The sun is sinking behind an abandoned pier as dad spots a seagull that is in pain. It has fishing wire wrapped tightly around one of its feet, which has turned black. Dad approaches it slowly and it spots him but is too ill to fly away. With the help of another man who has seen what is happening, dad catches the bird and tries to pull away the fishing wire. As he does so it pecks at his fingers ferociously, making them bleed but that doesn’t stop my father. After a long time dad finally manages to pull away the wire and the bird screeches in agony. Then he puts it down on the floor and it sort of hobbles a little, looking very sorry for itself. It still cannot fly.

Dad turns to the man who helped him and offers him the hand that isn’t bleeding. The man is younger than dad and taller. He is smoking a cigarette. He reluctantly takes dad’s hand and shakes it before moving away quickly without saying a word. As he leaves he turns to look at Sofia and then he turns to look at me. Our eyes sort of meet for a few moments and I find myself looking down at me feet awkwardly. Then it occurs to me: there’s something about the man that is familiar. I’ve seen him somewhere before. I turn around to look at him but he has disappeared into the crowd.
***
On the way home from Brighton something bad happens. 

Dad’s too tired to sing in the car but we’re all in a good mood as he drives down the motorway – probably a little too quickly. Sofia’s almost asleep, pinned into her seat by the seat belt. I’m thinking about school and wondering what Smitty’s doing when there is suddenly a very loud bang. It sound like a clap of thunder inside the car.

Dad shouts the F-word and turns to mum: ‘Did you see what idiot just did Janie?” he cries, suddenly angry.

Like Sofia, mum was also drowsing. She says nothing at first but looks to the rear of the car to check if me and Sofia are all right.

“He bloody banged right into me!” yells dad, shocked as well as angry.

The everything happens all at once: Dad carries on shouting, attempting to simultaneously keep his eye on the road and watch whatever is happening behind the car. Sofia wakes with a jolt and I grab hold of her hand and look into her eyes, trying to calm her. 

Then there is another bang. If it’s possible this one is even louder than the other one and causes dad to temporarily lose control of the car. He swerves into another lane and several car horns can be heard tooting. Dad says the F-word a second and third time and then the car that bumped into us suddenly pulls up right alongside us. Inside, I think, are three men. From my position in the car I can’t see the driver and whoever is in the passenger seat but I can see the person in the back seat of the car because for a few moments that seem to last a lifetime we are almost nose to nose. 

As we look at each other my mind takes in other detail. I notice that the car is red and looks very clean. I also notice that the car seems to be moving closer to ours, forcing dad to swerve away. As the brakes scream I find myself looking directly into the eyes of the person in the back seat of the other car. He’s probably in his twenties but looks older than he is because he has a long black beard. As our eyes lock the other man slowly smiles and then shakes his head as if to say ‘no’.

I’m suddenly terrified and I yell out ‘Mum!’ 

Mum looks over to me and says: “Are you ok love?’ As she says this there is a roaring of engines and the other car speeds away into the distance.

‘Get his number!’ orders dad. But before anyone can do anything the car has gone.

Waterlow Park – Chapter 09

Another dollar another day. In truth I don’t remember writing quite so much as this – and there’s a lot more to come. Hope somebody out there is actually reading this.

 

Chapter 09
I don’t know if it’s normal for people to start being nice to you after you’ve discovered a dead body but that’s exactly what’s been happening to me. Three days have passed since Smitty and I found the man in the park and everyone’s been treating me like I’m the one who’s dead. Dad’s hardly shouted at me at all, the teachers in my new school have all been talking to me in grave, gentle voices and I’ve become something of a celebrity among my new schoolmates. Me and Smitty practically have a possé of people following us around at break time. All of them want to know what a dead body is really like.

Actually, there’s another reason why I’ve suddenly become so popular. It started on Tuesday when I couldn’t stop myself from spending a little more of Ali’s change money. I bought some sweets and later shared them with some of the other boys in the playground. They went pretty quickly so I bought some more. It only took a day or so for the older kids to start coming up to me asking for sweets. I’ve already gotten through more than half of the £42.68 that I was carrying in my bag. It’s amazing how easy it is to spend money.

“You’re mad,” says Sofia, when I tell her what I’ve been doing after school.

“No I’m not. I’m just being friendly, that’s all.”

“You mean you’re buying friends.”

“No I’m not.”

“And what if mum and dad find out? What are you going to say if they ask you where you’re getting all this money from?”

“It’s not very much.”

“It doesn’t matter. You know how broke they are at the moment.”

Sofia really gets on my nerves when she’s like this. “Stop being so bloody sensible!” I say.

Sofia gasps and looks shocked.

“What’s up with you?” I ask, knowing exactly what I’ve done wrong. “It’s not swearing.”

“It is swearing.”

“No it’s not – It means ‘by the blood of our lady’.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yes it does.”

Then Sofia goes quiet for a moment and I know exactly what’s coming next. Whenever we are alone Sofia cannot stop herself from talking about the man in the park.

“Have you heard anything more?” She whispers.

“About what?” I reply, feigning ignorance.

“About the… The… B…” Sofia refuses to say the word ‘body’. She can only bring herself to say the first letter.

“How would I? I’ve been at school all day?”

“Did you go past the park?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

Since Smitty and I found the body dad has not allowed me to go into the park. I don’t know why. It’s hardly likely that there’s going to be a dead body there every time we enter. It’s quite annoying as it adds 0.2 of a mile to my journey. Mind you, I’m not completely sure that I can face going into the park again. Still, I walk past it every morning and afternoon.

“The tape’s gone”

“The tape?”

“You know… The ‘CRIME SCENE’ tape. They took it off and people are allowed in again.”

“Oh…” Sofia’s voice drops to a whisper. “Do you think… Do you think… That we’re safe now?”

Time for me to get all big brotherly again. I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past few days and although I’m not sure that I really believe it, this is my theory as to the dead body:

“Look Sofia, I’ve already told you what happened. The man in the park was a gangster. A dangerous gangster like you see on the TV. He must have owed money to some other gangsters and they… They did him in because he didn’t pay it back to them.”

“But…’

“What?”

“But… Doesn’t this mean that you… That you…”

“That I what?”

“That you…”

I know what Sofia is trying to but finding impossible to say. She’s saying aren’t I responsible for the death of the man in the park? Did me taking the bag of money lead to his death? I’ve thought about this a lot over the past couple of days, too. And I’ve come to the conclusion that it might be a little bit my fault because if I hadn’t taken the money he probably would have been able to pay back what he owed. On the other hand, the man in the park was probably so evil that if he wasn’t killed now he would have been killed sooner or later. And anyway, we don’t even know if he was killed. We’re just assuming that he was. He could have died of something natural. Although he looked so smashed up in the park that it’s difficult to think what.

“…That I killed him? Don’t be such a stupid little brat, “ I say in a horrible shouty voice just like dad’s. “Sometimes you’re such a tool!”
***
I say a few more nasty things and Sofia runs off in tears to her bedroom. Which is good because I’ve suddenly had a really brilliant idea. An idea that could make mum and dad and Sofia really happy and stop us all having egg and chips for Sunday dinner. I go into the airing cupboard and fish around the back where I’ve hidden the money, the £9,950. I pull out a handful and count out exactly £1,000. Then I put the remaining £8,950 back into its hiding place.

“I’m just going out to the shops,” I casually shout as I head for the front door. In her bedroom Sofia says something in response but I don’t listen to what she saying. I slam the front door shut.

Even though Ali’s shop sells exactly what I’m looking for I walk past and go to the newsagent’s on Cressida Road. This is about a five-minute walk from Ali’s shop, a fifteen-minute walk from home. I go into the newsagents and find the stationary section. I choose a brand new pen and a pack of brown A5 envelopes. I pay for them at the counter. An old man with glasses and a disinterested look on his face takes my money.

“Do you sell stamps?” I ask.

“Book?” says the old man.

“Pardon?

“Do you want a book of five or ten stamps?” he asks.

I think for a moment. “Ten,” I reply. Something about having lots of money always seems to make you choose the larger option. I’ve noticed I’ve been doing that when I buy sweets.

I give the man some more money and leave the shop. I walk to the small park on Hornsey Lane where people are always letting their dogs soil the grass and find a quiet bench to sit on. I take out one of the envelopes and write the following on it:

 
**MR ANTHONY PROBERT**

**16 CROWTHER PARK**

**LONDON **

**N19 3TN**

 
I put it all in capital letters and because I want to disguise my own handwriting I use my left hand. It ends up looking quite messy but I don’t care because I’m known as a very neat writer so nobody will suspect that I wrote it. Then I take the £1,000 out of my pocket and slide it into the envelope. It fits quite snugly but I can’t get the gum at the end of the envelope to stick properly. After trying in vain for ages to seal the envelope I have no choice but to walk back to the newsagent’s shop and buy a roll of Scotch tape. The old man looks at me suspiciously this time, as if he senses that I’m doing something I shouldn’t be. I give him some more money then leave the shop and find the nearest letterbox. I have no idea how much it should cost to post an envelope like this. I know that these days you’re supposed to go to the post office and get letters weighed, that’s what mum sometimes does. I puzzle over this for some time and in the end decide to stick five stamps on the envelope. Then I think about it some more and stick the other five on as well. I hold it to my face and take a close look at my handiwork. The whole thing looks a right state. I shrug my shoulders and post it through the letterbox. I hear it drop and start walking home.

Waterlow Park Chapter 08

  
The new book I’m working on is starting to take shape. It’s provisionally entitled: ‘Dangerous’ and is an exercise in self counselling. I’m using writing to try and get some understanding of the feelings I’ve been experiencing due to the death of my father.  In order to do so I’m meeting up with people I haven’t seen for a quarter of a century when I was a sportswriter. Last Friday I saw the boxing manager/advisor Ambrose Mendy. The last time I met him was in 96 when I visited him in Woking Prison. He really is a fascinating character. And if I say so myself, the book is getting interesting.

In the meantime, here’s chapter 08 of my dead and buried kids book ‘ Waterlow Park’. Please read and send me heaps of money if you don’t like it.
Chapter 08

“So you see Mr. Dawkins, we really do recommend that you consider sending Stephen to one of our counsellors. It comes as a shock at any age to see a dead body. Let alone if you’re eleven years old.”
Dad nods his approval and I feel mum squeeze my shoulder. Then dad makes a stupid joke. I think he’s been drinking.

“So, just to confirm,” he says, too cheerfully. “You don’t think that Stephen did it?”

There is a long, long silence and the two police officers turn and look at each other. One of them shakes his head, the other one frowns. Mum squeezes my shoulders harder until it’s almost hurting.

“No we don’t think he did, sir,’ the woman police officer eventually replies with a dead straight face.
***
I didn’t know what to do other than call 999 on my mobile. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever done this and I was amazed that it took only eight minutes 12 seconds for the police to come sprinting up Waterlow Park. First on the scene was a young looking policeman called PC Foster. Straight away he told Smitty and me to move away from the dead body. Then he knelt over the thing on the ground and took hold of its wrist. Smitty told me later that he must have been checking for a pulse. He said he’d seen people do that on TV. Soon another four policeman arrived, including a lady policeman called PC George. She started asking us questions in a very soothing voice that you could tell was put on. What are your names? How old are you? Where do you live? Who first noticed the body? What time was it when you first noticed the body? Was there anybody else in the park when you found the body? Did you touch the body? Did you take anything away from the body? Loads of questions. So many questions.

While we were busy answering PC George’s questions I kept a sneaky eye on what the other policemen where doing. I managed to catch what a couple of them were saying and the words ‘suspicious’ and ‘murder’ kept getting repeated in hushed tones. One of them had a camera and was taking photographs or maybe it was a video. Another one put his ear to the the body’s heart and touched the face. I guessed that they were checking for signs of life. There was really no need to do that – the man was definitely dead. Anybody could see that. 

Then even more people arrived. These were not dressed in police uniforms but you could see that they were probably police. Some where dressed in white uniforms and wore face masks. One of them took some more photos of the body and another one covered the body up with a plastic sheet. Another man stuck a ring of red tape around the body that had the words ‘CRIME SCENE DO NOT DISTURB’ written on it over and over. When I looked behind me at the gates to Waterloo Park I could see that they was also being taped up with the same red tape. “It’s to keep people out of the park,” whispered Smitty.

There was a lot of talking going on and the crackle of police radios. “Why do they use radios?” I asked PC George. “Mobile phones are so much better.” PC George didn’t answer. She just smiled at me.

Finally, we were both asked where our parents worked. I couldn’t them where dad worked but I said that mum was a nurse at the Royal Free. They must have called her because within half an hour she was being led towards us by another policeman. She seemed shocked and gave me a big hug, not even bothering to look at Smitty. A little while later Smitty’s dad turned up and took hold of his hand. He was fat like Smitty, too. Like a bigger version of him. He didn’t bother to look at me.

Next, the police asked mum some questions and she got on the phone to dad. Then Smitty and I were put in separate police cars and driven home. It was the first time that I’d ever been in a police car. I sat in the back seat next to mum. PC Foster and PC George were in the front seat. I pretended to myself that I was a villain wearing handcuffs. The drive home was very quick. When we got out of the car I noticed that a lot of the neighbours were staring out of their windows at us. Some where shaking theirs heads, as if I had done something wrong. I waved to them and they just looked away.
***
After dad made that stupid joke PC Foster and George kind of stopped talking to him and just talked to mum instead. I think they must have guessed that he had been drinking. “So are you all right then young Steven?” says PC Young, holding a notepad in her hands and scribbling something down.

“I’m fine thank-you,” I lie, because I’m far from fine. Actually, I’m really, really scared. So scared that I can’t stop shaking. Lots of thoughts are going around my head. If that was the man we saw in the park the other day then who killed him? Was he killed because of the money? Does whoever killed him know that I took the money? Should I just have done with it and come clean about the money? Will I get into trouble? Will I go to prison for taking the money? 

I decide to try and act like I’m not scared. “Why do you use a notepad?” I ask. “Why not use an iPad or something?”

PC George smiles and hesitates before responding: “It’s just tradition,” she says. “Silly old old tradition…”

Waterlow Park – Chapter 07

It’s Friday and I’m off to a private members club in Soho to meet a face from my past. Before I go here’s chapter 08 of the dead and buried ‘ Waterlow Park’. Dunno about you but reading it afresh I’m getting a little excited about what’s going to happen next.
Chapter 07

It’s Monday: Smitty’s following me home from school again. He’s like my shadow. A big fat shadow that never stops talking. All weekend I couldn’t stop thinking about the money. Sofia insisted that I put the bundle of banknotes back in the barbecue cupboard with the rest and after she’d hassled me about it for I ages I told her I would. But I didn’t.
I tried hiding it under my bed but I got worried that mum might look under there, even though she hardly ever cleans the house. And then I tried hiding it in the bottom of a Cluedo set that I got for Christmas. That didn’t work: there was too much money to stuff into the box.

In the end I was clever: in my room there’s an airing cupboard that contains a big copper water tank. The tank is covered in some kind of cloth insulation, like it’s wearing a big coat to keep it warm. What I did was put the money down the back of the tank stuffed into the insulation. No-one would ever think to look there. Mum and dad would have heart attacks if they knew that there was £9,950 hidden in my room. Especially as they were really broke on Sunday afternoon. We had to have egg and chips for our Sunday dinner. Dad said he had to borrow £10 from one of the idiots in the pub in order to pay for it. I felt guilty that I had all that money. I kept the change that Ali gave me and put it in my rucksack in an envelope. That means that I’m carrying £42.68p. I’ve got to be careful that I don’t spend any more.

As we approach Waterloo Park, Smitty seems to sense that something is wrong with me. I’m feeling nervous about going into the park but I’m trying to act all normal. “What’s up?” he says. “You’re looking all worried again. Every time you go near this park you look worried.”

“I’m not worried,” I lie. “It’s just that… That…”

“What?”

“Maybe we should take a different route. If we walk up Swain’s Lane we can go into the village and look at the shops.”

“Phew… That’s a long way,” says Smitty.

“Not really,” say I. “It only adds 0.4 of a mile to the journey. It’s not far.”

“Yes but it’s a really steep hill – and I haven’t got any money to spend when we get there.”

“You could do with the exercise. And I’ve got some spare change – I could buy you something.”

“Really? You’d buy me something?”. Smitty looks over at me and a little smile creeps on to his face. “Well… OK… Whatever you want…”

We walk past the gates to Waterlow Park and I can’t resist stopping and peering through. In the distance I can just about make out the patch of ground where I found the money. There’s nobody standing anywhere near it. I huge wave of relief washes over me.

“On second thoughts,” I say. “Let’s go through Waterlow Park.”

“Whatever,’ shrugs Smitty, looking confused but pleased that he no longer has to climb the hill.

Smitty’s not a bad kid, actually. I think I got him all wrong. He collects comics and supports Arsenal. It doesn’t matter that he’s such a fat blob of lard really. As we climb the hill and get closer to where I found the money I pretend to listen to whatever he’s saying about some bug that lives in Africa.

“…And you know that when it hatches it turns into a big golden looking thing that flies around and lives on blood– can you believe it?”he says.

“Is that so?” I mumble.

“And then it grows and grows and grows until it splits in two and loads and loads of baby spiders come out of it… Hey… Hold on… What’s that?”

Smitty stops talking and points at something and I realise that he’s pointing almost exactly towards the patch of ground where I found the money. The blood drains from my face – I can actually hear it draining. I stop and look. For a moment I’m convinced that Smitty has found another bag of money. Bits of whatever is lying in the grass look plasticky and black but this is different to the one I found. It has bits of white cloth hanging out of it.

Smitty grabs my arm. “Let’s go see what it is,” he says.

“No!” I pull away from him and look around frantically to see if anyone is watching us. This could be a trap – someone could have left the bag there so that they could watch who picked it up. But there is no-one in sight. The park is empty.

“Come on!” Smitty rushes towards whatever it is lying in the grass. I watch as he stands over it and bends over to touch it. Then he lets out a scream. A really loud scream.

For a few moments I stand still and then I hurry over to Smitty to see for myself what he has discovered.

At first it’s difficult to make out what it is. It’s black and white and hairy and pink and dirty. It has bits of green on it and then I notice that there’s also some red. A lot of red, actually. Smitty has stopped screaming but is kind of gulping for air like a giant puffer fish. He looks me in the eyes. His face is chalky white. “It’s a dead body!” he says in voice that has gone all quivery.

And he’s right. It is a dead body. Except it’s a dead body that looks nothing like those dead bodies that you see in cowboy films on the TV. This one is all rolled up in a sort of messy bundle. Its arms and legs are sticking out at all sorts of weird angles. And it smells horrible. I let out a gasp and feel my knees to turn to jelly. My body starts to tremble and shake and I take an involuntary step backwards. The man – it is a man – has his eyes closed in sockets that are sunken and black around the edges like meat that has gone off. He has grey stubble growing from his shrivelled chin. There is dried blood coming from his mouth. He’s wearing a black jacket, at least it looks like it used to be black because it’s covered in grass and blood and chunks of dried mud. Clutched in the man’s hand is a leather leash or perhaps a dog’s lead – it’s hard to tell. Even though the man is dead he looks like he’s in a lot of pain. His nose seems to be bashed out of shape and there are bruises all over his face. He looks like he’s been run over by a steamroller.

“How do you know it’s a dead body?” I ask breathlessly, even though I know that it is a dead body.

Smitty looks over at me. “Course it’s dead,’ he says in a voice that is almost a whisper. “He’s not moving is he…”

“Better make sure he’s not breathing,” I say.

“No way!” I’m not touching a dead body!”

And then as he says those words I find myself staring at the man’s face and I’m suddenly recognising it. But before I can speak Smitty has already beaten me to it. “Hey!” he says, louder this time. “I think it’s that bloke we saw in the park the other day!”

Waterlow Park – Chapter 06

  
After the shock of the death of David Bowie and life-affirming meetings with a number of people from my past it’s back to posting the defunct ‘ Waterlow Park’. Hope somebody out there is reading it.

***

Sofia is being sensible again: “It was probably the postman or somebody wanting to read the meter,” she says.

“You’ve changed your tune,” I reply. “You didn’t think it was the postman when you were wetting yourself in mum and dad’s room.”

“Shut up! I wasn’t wetting myself!”

We’re back in my room now and I’m holding the pile of money in my hands again. Neither of us can stop staring at it.

“I reckon it was somebody looking for this,” I say.

Sofia’s face drops. “Don’t be silly,” she says. “How would they know where you live?”

“I don’t know… Maybe they’ve been following me.”

“Don’t be silly!”

“I’m not being silly. It’s a lot of money. I mean a lot of money. Somebody must have missed it. Maybe they went back to the park to spy. Maybe they’ve been watching everybody who walks by.”

Sofia frowns and looks troubled. For a few moments she is deep in thought. Once again I’m reminded that she’s only little. “I’m scared,” she finally whispers. “We’ve got to tell mum and dad.”

Now I feel my heart racing. “No!” I say. “Not yet…” Although I’m not really sure why, I want to keep hold of the money. I can’t really spend it, can I? Somebody would notice. Wouldn’t they? But still I don’t want to give it back just yet.

“Well I’m going to tell,” says Sofia.

I look at Sofia and get all bossy: “You’re not going to tell,” I say. “Because if you do I’ll say it was you who told me to keep it.”

“What?”

“I will – I’ll tell them that you said we should hide the money.”

Sofia looks appalled and begins to cry. “You’re horrible,” she sobs.

I put my arm around her. “No I’m not,” I say gently, “I was just kidding.”

But I wasn’t kidding. Sometimes I can be really horrible to Sofia. I don’t know why I do it and I always feel really guilty afterwards. I try to make amends:

“Look,” I say. “Come down the shops with me and I’ll buy you a comic.”

Sofia stops crying almost immediately and looks up at me suspiciously. “What sort of comic?’ she asks, her tears drying a little.

“Anything you like…”

“Really?”

“Really.”
***
We walk to the local shop. It’s a five-minute walk. It’s run by a young Turkish man called Ali. It’s one of those shops that sells almost anything you can think of. Oranges, light bulbs, chilli powder, wine, envelopes, breakfast cereal, bread, umbrellas. It’s only a small shop but it’s got everything in it. Ali knows us quite well. We’ve been coming here since we were little babies. First of all with mum. But now we’re allowed to go on our own. Mum’s always sending me out to get milk or tea or firelighters.

“What’s up my little friends?” Ali smiles, sitting on a chair behind a big counter at the front of the shop and watching a football match on a really small fuzzy TV. The counter is covered with every type of crisp, chocolate and sweet you can imagine. On a shelf below the crisps is a selection of comics. Sofia pores over them, looking for the one with the best free gift.

“Hiya Ali,” I say. He’s a very nice man is Ali. Sometimes he gives us free lollipops.

While Sofia chooses her comic I help myself to some sweets. I get a Crunchie, three packets of crisps (Cheese and onion, ready salted, beef and mustard) and some wine gums. I put them on the counter. Sofia taps me on the arm and hands me her choice: a brightly coloured Jacqueline Wilson comic stuffed full of coloured pencils and sweets. 

Ali taps something into the till and says: “That’ll be seven pounds-thirty-two my little friends.”

I reach into my pocked and hand him a £50 note. 

And with that time seems to stand still for a brief moment and then all at once several things happen.

It’s almost as if Ali is waking from a long sleep as he takes the note and suddenly realises what I have just given him. He looks over at me and a worried sort of frown spreads over his face. As this is happening Sofia is also realising what I have just done. She immediately starts to say something but I squeeze her hand really, really hard. She hisses: ‘Ouch!’ and Ali stops looking at me and looks at her instead.

“Are you OK Sofia?” he asks.

She says: ‘Erm… Yes… Thank-you.”

Ali turns back to look at me again. “Stephen,” he says. “This is a great deal of money… Are you sure…”

“It’s his birthday,” Sofia interrupts.

“…Oh…Really… It’s your birthday?” Ali smiles a little uncertainly. “Happy birthday Steven.”

“Thanks,” say I, false-smiling.

“And how old are you?”

How old am I? For a few micro-moments my mind starts racing like a grand prix car. I try to work out what to say but I’m at a loss. If I tell Ali I’m eleven he might remember that I only turned eleven last July and get suspicious. If I tell him I’m twelve he might also remember that I only turned eleven last July and wonder why my birthday came around so quickly. I don’t know what to say.

There is an uncomfortable silence and then Sofia says: “He’s twelve.”

Ali holds the £50 note up to the light and examines it closely. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,’ he says to himself more than me, “but it’s quite unusual to get one of these in here. Especially from someone so young.”

He opens the till and puts the note inside. Then he takes out some other notes and some coins and hands them to me. “Birthday money is it?” he says.

“What?” I splutter.

“I said: birthday money. It’s a present from someone, right?”

“That’s right,” says Sofia. ‘His granddad gave it to him.”

“Lucky you,’ says Ali.

I stare over at Sofia in the way that dad stares at me in public if I do something wrong. We both know that granddad is dead.

Playing Stardust

My favourite song of all time is Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Stardust’. A live Benny Goodman version that he recorded in his eighties was played at my wedding. Artie Shaw’s small combo version from the 1950s, which in my opinion is probably the definitive version, will be played at my funeral.

Here’s me doing a plinky plonky version on guitar with only three mistakes, which ain’t bad for me:
 

 

Remembering David Bowie

  

At the back of the house in Bristol where I spent my teens were playing fields. At the top of the fields were swings where the older boys hung out smoking cigarettes and snogging girls. One day on the way home from the library I walked past those swings and saw two boys fighting. No punches were being thrown but there were plenty of kicks. 

The boys sported obligatory bumfluff and were wearing half mast white flares with tartan turn-ups and dangerously stupid platforms. There was a reason for the lack of punches: one kid was clutching an LP under his arm which made it impossible to use his arms and the other boy seemed to unwilling to use his own as a mark of respect. On the cover of the record was the picture of a strange looking man with a flash of colour painted across his chalky face. The youths were apparently fighting over a girl. It was the first time I’d ever seen boys of such an advanced age fight and I remember being a little taken aback at the lack of meaningful blows that were being exchanged. More verbal abuse was doled out than any damage.
That image places this random memory at some time around 1973. My first memory of the Thin White Duke. I was 11-years-old but I knew who David Bowie was: he was that weird skinny bloke on Top Of The Pops whom my dad used to hurl abuse at. And even though I didn’t own any of his records I knew some of his songs. I knew ‘Life On Mars’ and ‘Starman’ and I’d memorised the lyrics to ‘Jean Genie’ courtesy of a teen magazine called ‘Disco 45’, which printed the words to all of the hits of the day. 

***

Two whole years later I finally owned my first David Bowie single. In 1975 he re-released ‘Space Oddity’ and it went to No. 1 – his first No. 1. For some reason it was my five-year-old brother who actually bought the record. I can’t remember how or why he managed to do this and it’s certainly a claim to fame for him whenever one has those ‘what was the first record you ever bought?’ debates, but I was the real owner of that record. I played it and I played it. And I played it. I played it with the monotonous and desperate regularity of someone who only owned three records in total. And I memorised the words to its two b-sides, ‘Velvet Goldmine’ and ‘Changes’. 

Although I was not to know it at the time ‘Changes’ was/is probably David Bowie’s marquee song. Concealed within one of the singer’s more conventional arrangements was an attitude that was to define him: change. Metamorphosis. The idea that in order to progress, to grow, to make one’s way though life in a way that challenged and confronted, one had to change. 

And change Bowie did: dramatically, regularly, physically and metaphysically; in a manner that left those who admired his work trailing in his jet stream.

***

Five years later Bowie had his second No. 1. With ‘Ashes To Ashes’ and we saw an artist self-consciously highlighting the fact that he was older but with a desire to demonstrate that he was still cutting edge. And he most certainly was. The fact that the video for the song featured many of the rising stars of New Romanticism was an acknowledgment that Bowie was the Don Corleone of that movement. And the accompanying album, ‘Scary Monsters And Super Creeps’ showed Bowie to be master of the domain that he created. 

The record also provided an ideal accompaniment to my own life. I was now at art college, painting pictures that owed much to Bowie’s lessons of change. I, too, had changed. I had outgrown the life that was earmarked for me and reinvented myself. Bowie was never really a hero for me in the way that he was for many of my friends but he was the supreme example. The journey that took me from apprentice dogsbody to ‘artist’ was in no small part due to the influence of David Bowie. 

***

However, my devotion to Bowie was not blind or mindless. When he released the mainstream ‘Let’s Dance’ in 1983 I smelled a rat. Although the record certainly had polish and spawned many hits it lacked substance in my opinion. It was if Francis Bacon had turned into David Hockney and I was a more or less a lone voice of dissent. Things got worse a year later when Bowie released ‘Tonight’, which seemed a self-conscious attempt to return to former glories by giving himself a lick of paint. But eyeliner and lip gloss and songs about aliens could not really conceal the lack of moisture in his creative well.

As I came to the end of my degree in fine art I had already more or less consigned David Bowie to history. It didn’t matter much. I still had the – excuse the pun – Golden Years: I had Hunky Dory, and Ziggy and Diamond Dogs and Aladdin Sane (sic), Young Americans and Low and Heroes, Lodger, Station To Station… Each one of these a ground breaking album in its own way. And if I felt like a laugh I always had Laughing Gnome. 

It didn’t matter what the modern Bowie produced, there was a wealth of material out there to last a lifetime.

***

And things really did get worse. As the 1980s drew to a close and Bowie dallied wth the ridiculous Tin Machine I could scarcely be bothered to listen to his output. He was irrelevant. As was the awful ‘Never Let Me Down’. By now had I moved to London and changed myself again. I was now working in publishing and even though I noticed that some of the younger members of staff were playing ‘Black Tie White Noise’ I was largely indifferent to David Bowie.

***

Instead of being an innovator Bowie seemed to always be one or two steps behind the times. Witness 1997s ‘Earthling’, which attached itself to the shirt tails of drum and bass rather like the Warmington-On-Sea Home Guard putting shoe polish in their hair to look younger. Strangely enough, on a visit to France during the late 1990s I found myself in a room full of young men studiously listening to this mess of a record and solemnly proclaiming it to be the return of Bowie from the wilderness. It wasn’t. And frankly Bowie was destined never to leave the wilderness.

***

But even I was not immune to trying to believe. In 2003 I was browsing through the shelves of a dying Virgin Records in Oxford Street only to hear them playing a track from Bowie’s new album ‘Reality’. In retrospect it was an ordinary enough piece of music but I somehow managed to convince myself at the age of 41 that this was it, this was The Return. It wasn’t, and the twice-played copy of ‘Reality’ that is buried away somewhere in a cupboard remains a testament to that false dawn. 

***

And then in 2013, a whole decade after ‘Reality’ came, in my opinion, a genuinely good Bowie record. Maybe it was that ten years of inactivity that had exaggerated the loss so that any new Bowie product was sure to be gratefully received but there was definitely something about ‘Where Are We Now?’ that struck a chord for many people. Certainly it was a song that I played on more than two occasions. The sound of an ageing David Bowie no longer obsessed with the notion of having to appear contemporary saw him concentrating solely on music and melody. The end result was compelling and infused with melancholy.

***

Three days ago Bowie released Blackstar. Accompanied by nine-minute video that had some of my Facebook friends moaning about its ‘gloominess’. We can now understand why it’s so depressing. I spent this morning listening to this album in its entirety. It will take a couple more listenings  before an opinion is fully formed but on first impressions it hits the spot. Of course, because of the sad events of the last 24-hours the album’s context will always be compromised. However, for a man who knew that he was about to die it’s an impressive last word.

The strange thing is that we had friends over for food yesterday and for some reason I listened to pretty much nothing else but Bowie as I was cooking. I played – to my mind – his best music, those three albums he made in Berlin during the mid-1970s: Low, Heroes and Lodger. I also threw in a little bit of Station To Station. Later I was compelled to mention it on Facebook and called Bowie a ‘God-like genius’. 

And for a while he was.

Waterlow Park – Chapter 05

Another day another done of my defunct kids’ story ‘Waterlow Park’.

Didn’t have time yesterday because I was busy losing my iPad Mini on a train and then finding it two hours later while meeting up with former world champion boxer Steve Collins and hopefully asking him a barrage of questions he’s never been asked before. I also briefly met up with the beautiful and charming Frank Buglioni, who is the latest in a long line of boxers whom I’ve fallen deeply in love with. A purely platonic staunchly heterosexual kind of love, but a form of love nonetheless.
All of this a day after I’d apologised to another boxer for the grevious wrong that I committed upon his 6’5″ person no less than a quarter of a century ago. But that’s another story which I’m currently writing right now with a view (possibly) to offering it to one of the broadsheets.

Anyhow, here goes:
Chapter 05
Because mum is a nurse she has to work shifts. Sometimes she leaves the house very early and comes home in the afternoon. Other times she leaves the house in the afternoon and doesn’t come home until we’re in bed. Today is Saturday morning and she’s just left the house for a double shift, which means we probably won’t see her until Sunday. Dad left earlier to go down the pub. He always goes down the pub on Saturdays and Sundays. I suppose that’s why his stomach is so big and it’s probably why he’s always so bad tempered. Mum says we’ve never got any money because he puts it in his stomach. He says he needs to relax after teaching idiots all week. Funnily enough he says that most of the people he meets in the pub are idiots.

This means that Sofia and I are alone for all of the morning and some of the afternoon. And there’s something I want to – have to – do. I tell Sofia about it:

“I’m going to count the money,” I say.

Sofia is watching a really rubbish Barbie movie that dad downloaded and doesn’t want to be dragged away from it. She says nothing.

“Sophie,” I say. “Don’t you want to know how much is there?”

“Not really, Stevie,” says a distracted Sofia, not bothering to look at me.

I get the key from my underpants drawer and go into the back garden. I try not to look too suspicious and make sure that none of the neighbours are watching from any of the bedroom windows that overlook our garden. I open the cupboard door and peer inside.

There are already a few spider webs on top of the dogshitty plastic that I wrapped the money in. I don’t know how spiders are able to get into locked cupboards. I force my fingers under some of the masking tape that I stuck the plastic down with. I fiddle about for a while and eventually pull out one of the bundles of money. Because I can’t think of a better idea I quickly stick it down the front of my t-shirt. It feels cold and damp against my tummy. I quickly lock the cupboard and hurry back upstairs.

I go into my bedroom and shut the door. I pull the money out. It’s slightly worrying that it already feels damp. Perhaps the barbecue cupboard wasn’t the best place to put it. Sooner or later I’m going to have to think of another place.

I slide the notes out of their gummed paper wrap. I spread them out on the bed. I’ve never seen so many pictures of the queen. Somebody told me that if you fold a banknote in a special way you can make the queen’s neck look like a bottom crack. I start counting. I’m very good at counting. Exceptionally good. There are exactly 200 £50 notes in the bundle. That’s makes £10,000. Ten thousand pounds! I don’t know how many bundles there are down in the barbecue cupboard but there are a lot. I pick up the pile of banknotes and fan my face with it. I’m holding £10,000 in my hands!

The bedroom door suddenly opens and makes me jump. Sofia walks in. She sees me holding the money. Her eyes widen and her mouth droops open.

“What are you doing?” she says.

“I told you before?” I say. “I’m counting the money.”

“What are you doing that for? Someone could come in.”

“Stop stressing. Dad won’t be back for hours. And mum won’t be home until tomorrow.”

“But what if someone else comes round?”

“Like who?” I say, all smug and grown-up.

But just at that moment the doorbell rings.
***
Dad has told us many times that we are not allowed to answer the front door when we are alone in the house. He’s told us that strictly speaking we are not old enough to be left alone in the house and he and mum could get into big trouble if anyone finds out. The doorbell rings again. Sofia and I stare at each other. She looks scared so I put my arm around her. “Don’t worry,” I whisper so quietly that she can hardly hear. “They’ll go away in a minute.”

We tiptoe into mum and dad’s bedroom which is at the front of the house. The curtains are always closed in mum and dad’s room. The room is dark and as usual smells a little bit of stale beer. We creep silently over to the window just in time to hear the doorbell ring for a third time. Sofia waves her hands frantically at me as I move over to the curtain and gently open the tiniest of cracks so that I can look down.

Whoever it is at the door has lifted the letterbox flap. We hear its gentle creak. I look through the gap in the curtain and see the back of a large man stooping at the front door. He has his ear to the letterbox. I hold my finger to my lips and mouth and shush Sofia. The man seems to be listening to the house. Listening to see if there is anyone inside.

This goes on for several long moments. Me looking at Sofia. Her staring at me wide-eyed through the darkness. Then she moves closer to me and puts her lips to my ear. “I need a wee,” she says.

“You’ll have to hold it,” I whisper, half angry, half scared.

Sofia shrugs, unable to hear what I am saying.

I move closer to her, letting go of the curtain. “I said you’ll have to hold it…”

As the words leave my lips a loud noise makes us both jump. Except it isn’t really a loud noise. The man downstairs has simply let the letterbox flap slam shut. Once again I put my finger to my lips and then I go back to the curtain. I lower my eye to the slit and look through.

The man has moved away from the front door now and is now standing by the garden gate. He slowly looks up and down at the house until his gaze fixes upon the tiny gap I created in my parents’ curtains. I hold my breath as he continues to look right at where I am standing. I’m close to panicking. The curtain mustn’t move. Any slight movement and he will know that there is someone in the house. This seems to go on for a very long time. I can hear Sofia’s painful grunts as she holds in her wee. And then finally, just as I’m about to think that the man might never leave, he turns on his heel and walks quickly into the street. Then I hear the sound of a car door closing and an engine starting.

I gratefully pat my heart and Sofia rushes off to the toilet.

I didn’t get a very good look at the man. Even though he seemed to stand there looking in my direction for a very long time I was too scared do anything but keep my eyes completely still and frozen. I did, however, get the chance to notice that he seemed young… Well, younger than dad. And that he wasn’t the man from the park. He was someone else.

Waterlow Park – Chapter 04

  

Another day. Another chapter of the aborted ‘Waterlow Park’. Interestingly, someone seems to be reading this. Had an email from a small indie publisher in America yesterday who want to see more. Well here’s the more:
Chapter 04
“What’s wrong with you?” says the kid called Smitty, whom I don’t even know.

“Nothing,” I reply.

“Well why’d you keep looking around everywhere? What are you scared of?”

“Nothing.”

I don’t know Smitty’s real name. I don’t even know if he has a real name although I suppose he must have. In fact, I don’t know much at all about Smitty. Except that he isn’t a giant like all the other boys at the new school seem to be.

“Well something’s wrong. I can tell something’s wrong.”

It’s been two whole days since I found the bag of money and Smitty’s started following me home. He’s in the same class as me – 7W – and it turns out he lives just around the corner from me. I don’t know how he found this out, and I certainly didn’t invite him to start walking home with me. But here he is – walking home with me for the second day in a row. What an idiot.

“I’m telling you… Nothing’s wrong at all.”

“Well you’ve hardly said a word since we got into the park.”

“I’ve got nothing to say…”

Smitty doesn’t know the reason why I’ve got nothing to say but I obviously do and it’s freaking me out quite a lot. It’s because we’re walking through Waterlow Park and I can see the bushes where I found the bag of money. Standing only a couple of feet away from that spot is a man. A really big man dressed completely in black. And he’s looking right at me.

He wasn’t there yesterday. And he wasn’t there the day before. In fact, nobody was there yesterday or the day before when I walked home from school. Just when I was beginning to think that whoever the money belongs to had forgotten all about it.

I turn away. And then I wait a few moments and try and get a sneaky look at the man. He’s still staring at me. I quickly turn away again. 

“Look at the size of that bloke,” says Smitty.

Another sneaky look. He’s still watching me.

“What bloke?” I say. 

“That bloke’ says Smitty pointing right at the man.

“Stop it!” I say, grabbing hold of Smitty’s arm and pulling it to his side. “Stop pointing at him – it’s… It’s… Stupid…”

Smitty looks at me with a puzzled expression on his face. From the corner of my eye I can see the man still staring right at me. He also has a puzzled expression. I think.

Without realising it, I increase my walking pace. Smitty, who is really fat and really unfit is soon out of breath and struggling to keep up with me. We get closer and closer to the man. So close that I can see his grey eyes. He’s old and craggy and sunburned like he’s been under the grill for too long. He has grey bristles growing out of his chin. He’s wearing a woollen hat and a black jacket. He looks really weird, although actually to other people he probably looks quite normal. He’s so close that he can hear us talk. Except we’re not talking.

“So anyway,” I say, attempting to remedy the situation, “School’s really boring, isn’t it…”

“Huh?” says Smitty.

I try to wink at Smitty but I’m not getting any better at winking. “I said: school’s really rubbish, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“OMG. I said: school’s rubbish! It’s rubbish, isn’t it?”

“If you say so,” shrugs Smitty, looking at me really oddly.

We walk past the man. He smells of some sort of weird perfume or aftershave. As we pass, his head swivels around to follow us. Quite blatantly. He doesn’t even pretend to be looking at something else. I’m wondering if I even saw him smile a little. A really evil little smile. It had to be.
***
I eventually shake off Smitty and hurry home. I’m covered in sweat, partly because of the walk and partly because of the man. Sofia’s waiting for me. Her school’s closer than mine and she always gets home before I do.

“I just saw someone,” I pant, hardly able to get the words out.

“Congratulations,’ says Sofia. “I saw at least… Let’s see… Probably about a hundred people today.”

“No – idiot! I mean I saw someone in the park.”

“Really? Shall I call the newspapers?”

“What?”

“Shall I call the newspapers and tell them that you saw someone in the park? Do you think it will make the front page?”

As well as using big words and constantly finishing people’s sentences, Sofia can be very sarcastic.

“Somebody standing near the bushes…”

“The bushes?”

“…The bushes where I found the you-know-what.”

Sofia goes white and quiet for a moment as the penny drops. She reduces her voice to a whisper. “You mean the money?” she asks.

“Yes! The money!” I reply. “He was standing right next to where I found the money. And he was watching me.”

I describe the man’s appearance to my sister. And as I do so I remember more detail. “He had sharp pointed shoes. He had a leather leash wrapped around one of his hands.”

“Do you mean a dog lead?”

“I dunno. A leather leash. He kept looking at me and Smitty.”

“Who’s Smitty?”

“I told you yesterday. He’s a stupid fat boy in my class. He wants to be my friend. He keeps walking home with me.”

“Oh… Well maybe you should speak to him.”

“I do speak to him. I keep telling him to go away.”

“No. Not Smitty. The man in the park. If he’s there on Monday speak to him.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because it might be his you-know-what. It might belong to him. He might give you a reward.”

Waterlow Park – Chapter 03

  
I was wrong: yesterday’s response was even more underwhelming than the day before. All I got were a couple of likes and a typo pointed out to me. Still, out of sheer bloody-mindedness more than anything else, here’s chapter 03 of Waterlow Park.

Ian

PS I’m writing this on a Logitech iPad Pro keyboard, which is very swish but takes some getting used to. Mistakes are likely.
Chapter 03
“Money!” yells dad. “The whole world is trying to take your money!”

Dad’s in a shouty mood. He’s just come back from work and he needs to get things out of his system. He’s always in a shouty mood.

“Do you know I got out of the tube and five people asked me for money?” he continues, although everyone in the room is pretending not to hear him. “There was an idiot selling the Big Issue, an idiot playing an accordion, some idiot woman who looked like a zombie smoking a cigarette, an idiot standing at the bus stop and some idiot who tried to sell me a poxy idiot flower. What’s the world coming to?”

In dad’s world everyone’s an idiot except him. People on the telly are all idiots. All pop singers are idiots. All politicians are idiots. Me and Sofia are definitely idiots. Everyone.

“Calm down Tony,’ says mum. ‘Think of your blood pressure.”

Mum’s a nurse. You can tell by the way she’s always talking about health. Dad teaches people how to use computers for a living. He hates his job. He hates the people he teaches. He says they’re all idiots. 

“I am calm Janie!” shouts dad. “It’s just that I’m surrounded by…”

“…Idiots?” says Sofia.

“Yes… That’s right, Sofia,” says dad like he’s never heard the word before. ‘IDIOTS who want your money!”

Mum and dad don’t often have a lot of money. This is probably because whenever they do they go out and get rid of it as quickly as they can. Mum spends it clothes for us but dad mostly drinks and smokes it. Don’t get me wrong – we never go hungry. We both have mobiles and proper clothes and trainers and things. Well not proper – not with proper names like the ones that the kids at school wear. But we’re always aware that the we have to be careful. The last week of the month is always a bit of a struggle for everyone.

“How was school today?” Now mum’s talking, she trying to get dad to stop going on about idiots. “Anything interesting happen?”

Sofia and I look at one another, probably guiltily. There is a silence, which forces both mum and dad to stop talking and stare at us suspiciously.

“I got put in the golden book for spelling,” says Sofia, breaking that silence.

“Very clever darling,’ says mum. “And what about you Stephen?”

“I had a nondescript day.”

“Hark at him and his big words,” says dad.
***
After dinner mum and dad have a row. Sofia and I are not sure what starts it because any little thing is enough to get dad and mum arguing. We go upstairs and put our fingers in our ears as mum screams at dad and dad shouts at mum. Their voices are loud but muffled enough to hide what they are yelling about. We hear the sound of breaking glass and Sofia starts to shake so I get her to clean her teeth and put her to bed. Then I get into my pyjamas and go to bed myself. I hide under the sheets and read an Avengers comic by torchlight. Later, mum comes into the room and kisses me on the forehead and I pretend to be asleep. She’s been crying. She’s always crying.

Waterlow Park Chapter 2

  
I had such an underwhelming response to my posting of the first chapter of ‘WATERLOW PARK’ that I’ve decided to post chapter two on the basis that things can only get better.

Only joking, folks. Hope you enjoy it as much I enjoyed cooking a Christmas dinner for six people the other day. Totally stress free.
Chapter 02
“I’m definitely against this! I’m really most definitely against this!”
Sofia is definitely against my plan. She tells me this several times in her favourite whiny voice but I think I manage to get her down off her high horse a bit. 
“Firstly, they mustn’t know because it could get them into trouble,” I explain.
I don’t for a moment think that my finding a big bag of money in the park could get mum and dad into trouble but I must admit it sounds plausible. Especially when I lie and tell Sofia about something I saw on the BBC web site about what happened to somebody else’s parents who also found some money. “…And they got sent to prison for four years,” I say. “It’s called ‘money laundrying’ or something. It’s a terrible crime.”
Sofia looks at me suspiciously for a moment and mumbles some words, asking for names so that she can Google them later. But then I see tears begin to well up in her eyes. She’s only nine is Sofia. It’s easy to forget sometimes when she comes out with the big words and all that but she’s only a little girl. She’s still at junior school. I get all big brotherly and put my arm around her. “Don’t cry Sophie,” I say, knowing that she hates it when I call her that. “I ain’t not going to let that happen.”
“That’s a double negative, Stevie,” she sniffs through the tears.
‘Don’t call me that!” I say.
Sofia laughs. She can do that can Sofia – one minute she’s crying and the next she’s laughing.
 Back to the plan: “Secondly, we have to find a way of hiding the money until we decide what to do with it.”
“Why don’t we just tell the police?” she asks.
“Well… Yes… We could do that…” I say. “And we probably will do – definitely will do – in the end. But first let’s try and find out if somebody’s lost the money. You never know there might be a reward.”
“That’s true.”
“So where are we gonna put it then, Sofia?”
She thinks long and hard. “Well we can’t put it under the bed. There’s too much money and mum would notice it sooner or later.”
“True,” say I.
“And I can’t think of any cupboards that we could use to store it in… Except… Except…”
“Except?”
“Well there’s the barbecue…”
The barbecue! She’s brilliant is my sister. Sometimes she’s brilliant.
***
In our house we have a small garden at the back with a few plants and a green pond. The pond has exactly thirteen goldfish in it. Last week there were exactly fourteen goldfish but one died and dad had to fish it out with his bare hands and put it somewhere. He wouldn’t tell me where. Next to the pond is a brick barbecue that the person we bought the house from must have built. We’ve only used this barbecue three times in all the years we’ve been here. Mum and dad never invite friends around. On either side of the barbecue is a cupboard. One of the cupboards is used to store coal for the winter. The other is empty apart from a carton of fish food which dad won’t use because he says it encourages algae to grow in the pond. (This is probably why our fish keep dying of starvation.) That’s where we can store the money!
We move fast: give or take delays on the Northern Line we have exactly one-hour-and twelve minutes before mum and dad get home. Sofia and me get some plastic shopping bags from the kitchen and stuff as much money as we can into them. We carry the bags money downstairs into the garden. Paper can be a lot heavier than it looks and we are soon sweaty. I flick through some of the stacks of money and notice that there’s nothing there but £50 notes. I’ve never seen a £50 note before. Whoever this money belongs to has separated the notes into equal sized bundles and fastened it with gummed paper strips. I think about counting the notes in one of the bundles but decide against it. The clock is ticking.
I stack the money neatly inside the cupboard while Sofia goes upstairs for some more. It takes about fifteen minutes for her to bring down the rest of the money and she’s panting like a dog by the time she’s finished. By some strange coincidence the money fits into the cupboard exactly. There isn’t an inch to spare. “It’s like the cupboard was built to hold our money,” I say. Sofia and I look at each other knowingly, both of us realising that it’s taken only a matter of hours for ‘the money’ to become ‘our money’. We don’t mention my slip of the tongue. 
I get some sticky tape and the dog shitty black plastic sack. I carefully tear the sack open and spread it wide so that I can use it to totally cover the money. Then I stick it firmly in place with the sticky tape. Soon it looks like a solid block of black plastic. Finally, I close the cupboard door. From my pocket I pull out a padlock that I found earlier in dad’s kitchen drawer full of batteries and screwdrivers and super-glue. I lock the padlock and hide the key upstairs in the back of my underpants drawer. 
It’s done. The money is gone. Nobody will ever find it. 
I think. 
All we’ve got to do now is decide what to do with it.

A difficult new year

Happy new year to all those people who occasionally hit the ‘like’ button on this blog. A double happy new year squared to those who actually comment.

For my first post of 2016 I’m dipping into my ‘abandoned but not forgotten’ vault. What follows is an aborted children’s story that I began in late 2013 and worked on a little bit early the following year. I was very excited about it at first but like a lot of things I do the work was eventually abandoned after I sent it out anonymously to a couple of agents and got zero response.

It sort of pretty accurately reflects my state of mind at the moment: in that a small publisher has agreed to republish my 1999 book ‘Rope Burns’ along with a sequel that I’m provisionally calling ‘Dangerous’. The problem is that I have only four months left to write a complete book and I’m not sure that my heart is entirely in it. To write ‘Dangerous’ I have to get back in touch with a lot  boxing contacts whom I haven’t spoken to in 25 years. This started promisingly enough but I’m running into a brick wall in that far too many people aren’t as interested seeing in me as I am in seeing them. If I’m going to revisit my past and produce something worthwhile then it has to be good.

In the meantime, here’s chapter 01 of ‘Waterloo Park’. It’s for the 13+ age group. I’d be happy to hear any comments you have about it. Even bad ones.

Cheers and beers.

Ian

WATERLOW PARK

Chapter 01

“OMG! You’re in real trouble! You’re going to HAVE to give it back!’

That’s Sofia talking. She’s always so annoyingly sensible. She’s my sister. She’s younger than me by two years and a day but always SO sensible.

“Don’t be stupid… I haven’t done anything wrong. Let’s not be hasty. Let’s think about it for a bit…”

That’s me talking. Stephen Dawkins. Older than Sofia by 731 days and six hours and not sensible at all.

“How much is there?” she asks.

“I dunno. A lot. Thousands and thousands and thousands I think.”

“OMG! Is it real money?’

“Course it’s real money, idiot. It’s got the Queen’s head on it and all that.”

“Yes, but it could be counterfeit. Forged. We did about that in school.”

“Don’t be silly. Feel it.”

Sofia feels the money. She picks up a brick of tightly bound notes and cradles it in her tiny little white hands and feels its coldness against her cheek. She sniffs it. She runs her stubby nails down its side. “Well it feels real,” she says eventually, still unsure. “Where did you find it again?”

“Waterlow Park,” I say for the umpteenth time. “I told you: I was walking home from school this afternoon – got it down to 1.1 miles – and I noticed something in the bushes near the duck pond. It was a big black plastic sack full of this… Money.”

Sofia pulls a face as if she’s in pain. “Well it must be somebody’s money.” she says. “People just don’t leave sackfuls of money lying around in bushes. Perhaps it was a surprise for someone.”

“You’re not listening to me are you, stupid? I told you I looked around and there was nobody about at all. It was raining and the park was completely deserted. Apart from some old biddy giving bread to the ducks.”

“Maybe it was hers?”

“I don’t think so. She had one of those walking frame things…”

“Zimmer frame?”

“Yes, that’s it. She had a zimmer thingie and she was moving at about ten miles a year. She wouldn’t have been able to even pick up the money.”

“Well how did you manage to pick it up? It’s very heavy There’s a lot of it.”

I smile and try to wink but I’ve not quite mastered winking yet. This is where I was clever. This is where I used that devious little brain of mine. I try to sound as cool as possible – like this sort of thing happens every day: “Well I had to use my head,” I explain. “You can’t have people seeing me lug a big sackful of money through the park – can you? So I dragged it to another place – you know that clump of trees behind the playground with the climbing frame and the jumpy thing? And then I covered it with leaves and dog shit…”

“I’m telling!” Sofia immediately interrupts my story and crosses her arms. She’s such a prude is Sofia. “You’re not allowed to use that word!”

“Oh all right,’ I say. “Dog poo if it makes you happy. I did this so nobody would touch it. Then I rushed home and got my backpack.”

“I did wonder what you were doing with your backpack,” says Sofia. “I knew you were up to something.”

“It took thirteen separate trips for me get all that money into my backpack and then back here,” I say, a little too proudly I think. “I had to be careful, you know. I had to make sure that nobody noticed me. And nobody did.”

Sofia frowns again and shakes her head. “So you’re telling me that you decanted all that money from the sack into your backpack and carried it back here thirteen times? You’re mad.”

Sofia’s such a brain-box. She’s always using big words like ‘decanted’ but this time it’s me who’s the clever one. “Well I could hardly carry it through the streets could I? People would have smelled a rat.”

Sofia holds her nose and stares over at the black plastic sack which still has traces of the dog shit I rubbed on it. “Well I can smell more than a rat,” she says.
***
It was a normal day like any other when I found the money. I can’t really say any more than that. It was raining a little. The sky was grey, I suppose. The grass was wet and I was making my way home from school. I’m eleven-years-old and I go to William Ellis Boys School in Hampstead. It’s only my second week at the school but I’m guessing that it’s still pretty unusual to find a big bin liner full of money hidden in the bushes. I only found it because I was trying out a new route. I have an app on my phone that records exactly how far you walk and draws a line on a map that shows your route. I’ve been trying to find the quickest route to the school. On the first day I walked exactly 1.3 miles. On the second I walked exactly 1.21 miles. And it was only because I was trying to shave as much as possible off the distance that I ended up walking close to the bushes and spotting that bag of money. Today I walked 1.1 miles, which I don’t think I’ll better.
***
“What’s mum and dad going to say?” asks Sofia.

This is where I get annoyed. I don’t normally get angry and things but sometimes you have to if you need to make a point. “Mum and dad aren’t going to say anything…” I say in a loud voice – not shouty like dad – just loud.

“…Because mum and dad aren’t going to find out,” says Sofia. Sofia has an annoying habit of finishing everybody’s sentences.

“They’re definitely not going to!” I say.
And with that I/we hatch a plan.