He began to slide down, partly on his bottom, struggling to keep control.
‘You coolie. I’ll get you for that!’ Smarting from the indignity of being kicked into the gutter, Johnnie came slithering down the embankment after him.
Jaspal reached the track. Just then, they heard another whistle. A second train was coming. If he didn’t get his notebook, it would be completely mangled beneath the wheels.
A goods train trundled into sight. It wasn’t as fast as the express, but it was going at a fairly swift speed. Jaspal didn’t hesitate. He dashed onto the line and grabbed the notebook. Johnnie too had now reached the edge of the track. Jaspal laughed and stood there, balancing on the rails brandishing his notebook. ‘Did you want something, beanpole?’ bellowed Jaspal. ‘Well, come and get it!’
The train driver was blasting a warning on his whistle. He was only fifteen metres away. Jaspal didn’t move. Johnnie made as if to run across. The driver blew his whistle again. Johnnie hesitated.
‘Cowardy custard, can’t eat mustard!’ yelled Jaspal triumphantly. Johnnie flinched with horror as Jaspal threw himself off the track, a couple of metres from impact with the train.
The two boys stared at each other between the passing trucks. Their gaze burned with enmity; then, before the long trail of goods had gone by, Jaspal had vanished.
That evening, Jaspal and his gang gathered in the cellar of the bombed house at the end of the road. They were initiating a new member into their brotherhood. Jaspal, as leader, stood on a table to give him height and authority. He wore a black turban and Indian shirt and pyjamas. His ceremonial sword was visible where it was tucked into his belt. He stood with his arms folded and feet apart, like a Sikh warrior waiting for action. Two candles flickered, casting gigantic shadows against the stone walls and the boys below him were quiet and attentive, their shadowed features turned upwards expectantly. They didn’t have turbans quite like Jaspal’s, but they wore bandanas round their heads whenever they gathered together.
He looked down on his followers – about eight of them – their faces solemn and dedicated. Two of the gang stepped forward, flanking a thin, pale-faced boy who was blindfolded. One of the gang removed the blindfold, while another gave him his spectacles. The boy hastily crammed the spectacles onto his face, which gave him a startled expression and made him look scared. He was new to the area and had been tormented at school. He knew that the only way to survive was to get into one of the gangs, then at least he would have the protection of his own gang brothers. He glanced around him nervously, then looked down.
‘What’s your name?’ demanded Jaspal.
‘Gordon Collins.’
‘To join this gang, you have to go through a test to prove you are brave and loyal. Do you understand?’ Jaspal stared at him coldly.
‘Yes.’ Gordon tried to control his quavering voice and he kept his eyes firmly to the ground. What would they ask him to do? He had heard stories of terrible tasks to get into gangs – things that were dangerous or terrifying. He waited with dread.
‘We have decided that you must spend the night in St Peter’s Church alone, and whatever happens – whatever you see or hear – don’t try and sneak out, because we’ll know, and not only will you be banned from our gang, but we’ll punish you for failing.’
Gordon heaved a sigh of relief, and looked round – his glance seeming to say, ‘Is that all?’ He thought they might ask him to run across the railway track in front of an oncoming train, or to walk across the wall of the canal bridge in the dark. But there was a general intake of breath and a low murmuring from the gang members, as if they thought this was bad enough.
‘When must I do it?’ he asked.
‘Tomorrow night,’ answered Jaspal. ‘Be outside the Palladium Cinema at ten o’clock sharp, and we will see you into the church. We’ll be waiting for you when you come out in the morning – so don’t think you can get away with anything. Understood?’
Gordon nodded. As he was escorted out of the cellar, he heard them chanting softly . . . Hanuman . . . Hanuman . . . Hanuman . . . They told him to scram. Until he was a gang member, he was not allowed to stay on for the meeting.
‘Cor! Wouldn’t like to be in your shoes,’ hissed his escort, at the top of the steps. ‘That church is haunted. I’ve heard of people who go grey with fright after spending a night in there.’
‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ declared Gordon stoutly, hoping that his shaking voice didn’t give him away.
‘Huh! Tell us that the day after tomorrow!’ jeered the boys, pushing Gordon on his way.
‘Right,’ said Jaspal, jumping down from the table and sitting on it. ‘Business. The Johnnie Cudlip gang attacked Ronnie, Teddy and Frank in Warley Grove last night.’
Everyone turned and sympathetically examined the cuts and bruises of three younger boys who sniffed and wiped their noses across their sleeves and grinned sheepishly.
‘They’re cowards, that lot, picking on the little ones. Got no guts to face us. I think we need to show ’em. We must draw the whole Cudlip gang out; plan an attack – an ambush – and fight them into surrender. It’s about time Johnnie realised he can’t keep messing us about. I say we fight them after school . . . down at the tracks. Put out the word.’
It was Saturday. Maeve Singh came downstairs and stood in the doorway of her parents’ flat. Her body was still girlishly thin and undeveloped, as if she had grown up reluctantly. She held herself awkwardly stiff, like a tightly-coiled spring; her lips pressed together, her pretty face taut and defensive.
Her paper-white skin looked almost translucent as the sunlight fell across her face.
She was dressed to go out, though without much effort. She would have looked drab, except that the sun seemed to ignite the coils of red hair, which fell to her shoulders from beneath a panama-shaped green hat, and enriched the otherwise dull brown of her shapeless coat.
Her little daughter, Beryl, stood half-behind her, knee-high, clutching her mother’s coat in one hand, while sucking her thumb through a tight fist, with the other. She wasn’t dressed to go out, and knew that she was about to be left. Her light brown eyes shifted uneasily round the room, settling first on Jaspal, her half-brother. She was frightened of him. He always scowled and looked angry. He didn’t like her, she knew that. He hardly ever looked at her.
Marvinder was different. Beryl loved her. Marvinder seemed pleased to have a sister, even if she was only a half-sister. But Beryl would get used to being only half; half a sister, half-Indian, half-Irish . . . not as wholly Indian as their father, Govind, and not as wholly Irish as her mother, Maeve. Her skin was neither white nor brown; her hair neither black nor red. Only her eyes, her pale, flecked-brown eyes like the skins of almonds, were exactly the same as her father’s eyes and exactly the same as Marvinder’s. But she would not know this yet. She didn’t look in mirrors – at least not to assess herself. Her mirror was other people, and she saw herself the way they saw her.
‘Are
