gun 2

“You don’t believe me do you? Here….”

I looked down. Adam lifted his Lewis Leathers jacket a little so that I could see it poking out from the pocket in the red lining. It had been bunched up between us on the bench, half-hidden under the table.

We’d been there a while, waiting. You could see the sticky circles where the glasses of coke had been. The ashtray had overflowed onto the melamine table, but no one had been over to empty it. It wasn’t that kind of place.

Outside, the stream of commuters hurrying to the tube had been replaced by a trickle of night people. After nine, nothing much respectable went on here.

Tramps shuffled along past the big window, slowed by their carrier bags and badly fitting shoes; temporarily turfed out of the mainline station by the police, they were waiting around until they could go back into the warmth.

Costa wouldn’t let them in – not to sit down anyway. He said they smelt too bad – put off the working girls who were his main clientele. If someone gave them the price of a coffee, he’d serve them, and then watch, eagle-eyed, his arms folded across his ample chest, until they were safely back out onto the Gray’s Inn Road again.

From time to time, we’d see one of the rent boys scurrying back into the gaming arcade next door, from across the road. They always looked cold, those boys. Too much speed; not enough food. It sharpened their features. The fake leather bomber jackets they all wore accentuated their thin frames.

They generally did their business round the back of the station – that desolate, unlit stretch of road with its disused doorways, where the taxis queued during the day. The police didn’t go there often. They stayed in the station, or just outside at the front, walking slowly back and forth.

“Fucking hell Adam”

His eyes were sparkling. He was trying to look like he didn’t care, but I could tell he was excited.

“Where did you get it? Can I …..?’

He didn’t reply, so I stretched my hand across, and put my fingers on the dull black metal, running them lightly along the cold edge. I stroked the trigger, feeling the way it curved. I’d never touched a gun before. I was fascinated.

‘Holloway Road. Friend of Simon’s".

“It’s not real’

“Fucking is!” He looked affronted.

I hadn’t needed to ask really. Adam was the baddest boy I knew. He would do anything. When I borrowed his leather jacket, I could see the dark red stain in the lining from where he’d come off the bike he’d been joyriding. He wasn’t old enough to have his own yet. The scar on the side of nose from the coke was healed up now, but still visible.

“Why does Matt want it?”

“Something about Spider. He isn’t going to use it. They just want it for protection – to scare someone.”

I nodded, accepting the vagueness of the explanation. All the big boys – Matt, Simon, Spider - they were way older than us - mostly eighteen or nineteen. We tagged along sometimes, and we were allowed to hear part of whatever was going on, but they were in a different league.

It could be anything if Simon was involved, although you wouldn’t think it to look at him – that dimple in his chin, the wide, innocent smile. He’d already spent six months on remand at Brixton. When he came out, and back to Hampstead, he brought with him a smack habit, and the kind of contacts who could get him guns and all sorts of other things.

I looked at Adam.

“Will Matt be ok?”

I was looking for reassurance, but Adam’s eyes weren’t sparkling anymore. Suddenly he seemed much younger than sixteen, and he looked as if he felt slightly sick. All the bravado disappeared from his voice.

“I don’t know. We have to go home after this. Wait for him to phone and stuff”

“What if …?”

“I don’t know. Phone Mum at work he said. They’re eight hours behind us in the States”

“Shit”

I suddenly realised how serious it was. I didn’t feel edgy or excited anymore, just scared and out of my depth. Nothing short of disaster would have made Matt or Adam phone their mum while she was away working – they would have done anything not to worry her.

The door swung open, letting in the noise and the traffic fumes.

Matt stood in the doorway, waiting for us. His face was even paler than normal. He raised an eyebrow at his brother. You could see his earring glinting under his dark hair. He was eighteen; tall and glamourous, and I idolised him from a distance – like Adam did, but for different reasons.

Adam picked up the jacket carefully and we edged ourselves out from the table.

He must have passed it over to Matt as we walked to the tube entrance - I didn’t notice exactly when. I don’t think they said much.

We stayed to watch Matt get back on his bike and speed off towards Euston, before going down the stairs to get the Northern Line back to Archway, to wait for the phone to ring.

I reached for Adam’s hand as we went down the first escalator, and he squeezed mine back tightly.