Angels

I put my hands over my ears and sat bolt upright in bed. Jesus, he was playing Reveille Rock again. It happened every single time other people stayed over and I was getting extremely bored with it. I groaned. It wasn’t funny anymore. It never had been, even the first time. I was beginning to get a bit sick of Adam in some ways. In the next room I could hear him hooting with laughter, and other voices shouting, and then scuffling noises. I sighed

None of us had had much sleep, but it was already past midday. I pulled my jeans and tshirt back on and stomped down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen to look for some coffee. T was there before me, looking in the fridge

“Fucking hell don’t they have anything here except bloody peanut butter and jam?”

“Nope – well – they have the freezer – it’s full of food – full as their mum left it when she went away”

T laughed

“Why haven’t they touched it?”

I shrugged. No one ever ate anything except peanut butter and jam sandwiches. I had no idea why

“All I need is coffee. Jesus my head hurts”

T filled the kettle from the tap, wincing at the noise the water made

“Another toot perhaps?”

“Oh yes, that sounds like a much better idea. Then I’ll go and get some more rizlas – we ran out last night”

While we waited for the kettle to boil, Adam and Joel came in, their faces were flushed red and they were giggling. T looked up

“Oi – cut a couple of lines for us too, you bastards!”

We took our coffee into the sitting room and went back to the sofas where we’d spent the evening before. The floor was sticky with spilled drink, and ashtrays overflowed everywhere. The engine had been covered over with plastic, to protect it from the mess. Balanced on top of it was a Led Zeppelin album cover, strewn with bits of torn up cigarette packs, loose tobacco, tin foil and a razor blade. Adam rested the mirror on his knees and started chopping lines out for me and T, and I went to find a note to roll.

As I was walking back through the hallway, the front door opened and Matt came in, with some of his friends. I opened my mouth to say hello, but when I saw Matt’s face I stopped. He looked sickly pale, and his dark eyes were wide. The others behind him pushed to get in and the last one shut the door and leant on it as if trying to keep someone out

After a second, they trooped into the sitting room without saying a word, and Matt went over to the big bay window and shut the curtains. Adam looked up;

“Hey! Why d’you do that?”

But Matt had already vanished into the kitchen where we could hear him closing the curtains there too, shouting to Spider to lock the back door. Gary stayed in the sitting room, pacing restlessly, his hands jammed into his jeans pockets. I shivered. I didn’t like Gary at all – he was evil. Matt and Spider were crazy, but likeable – they were always funny; Gary was just scary and horrible – I’d been at school with his little sister and I’d often seen her in tears over the stealing, the endless court cases, the violence. He might have been nice once, but by the time I knew him he didn’t have any redeeming features. His face was a waxy colour - almost grey – and you could see the bones move in his face as he chewed the inside of his mouth.

It was a minute before he seemed to notice any of us there, then he gave a half smile

“All right?”

I don’t think any of us felt very comfortable with Gary around. He was someone we all avoided whenever we could, really bad news; Adam nodded at him warily

Matt came back in, went over to the stereo and turned it off; then he walked over to the window and gently pulled a corner of the curtain away to peer out. When he’d done that he seemed satisfied.

“We’re ok for now. Ad come out here for a minute”; he gestured with his head to the kitchen. We all waited in the sitting room. I sat down where Adam had been and did my line, then passed the mirror to T. Gary walked over to the mantelpiece and then back again to the window, peering out once more, careful not to be seen. None of us said anything to him. I looked at Joel and T, to see if they had any clue what was going on, and Joel shrugged.

We didn’t have to wait long; Adam came back in and we could hear heavy footsteps of the other three going up the stairs

“What’s up Adam?” I said

He looked white faced too now and I began to worry. Matt was always up to something and it usually wasn’t very legal. We never knew much of what he and his friends did, but hints here and there gave us clues, and we knew not to ask too many questions – he was two years older and the stuff he did was way out of our league. Adam ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing it backwards, then he lit a cigarette

“What happened?” I asked again

“Gary’s in a spot of bother. They need to get him away somewhere safe.”

He sounded as if it wasn’t anything much, but from the look on his face I could see it was a very big deal.

“What kind of bother?”

“Angels”

“Fuck! Man, they’re bad news”; T shook his head and whistled

Joel’s eyes grew wide

“He never tried to rip them off did he? Fucking hell, he’s mad”

“They’re going to take Gary off once they’ve got a few things. We can’t stay here; they might…well, it’s not safe for a few days……” his voice trailed away; he was looking at Joel

“Yeah – sure – come to mine – it’s cool - mum’s in the country for the weekend. There’s something on at the Hollybush tonight”

“Thanks Joe. It’s best if you two go now; we’ll follow on in a bit, ok?” Then he turned to me

“You ok sticking around a while? I need to pick something up for Matt”

I looked at him; for a minute I wanted to say no. I was frightened, and I wanted to go off with T and Joel, but Adam looked very defenceless, and I could tell he really wanted me to stay with him

“Of course I will” I said, trying to sound reassuring.

Joel and T got up and we went with them to the door, letting them out quickly. As they turned to go down the path, T. looked back

“Good luck mate”

Adam shrugged and smiled

“Piece of piss. Won’t be long”, and then he shut the door behind them.