not what I’m doing!’ I said, but I could feel my face flushing because he was right, in a way.
‘If you say so, girlfrien’!’ said Pea with a jerky hand gesture. ‘Don’t take a spy to figure out you an’ your mamma don’t exactly got da mother-daughter love t’ing nailed.’
Tokes was still walking backwards and he was staring at me in a confused sort of way. Pea had a massive grin on his face.
‘I hate my mum,’ I said quietly.
‘Told you!’ said Pea. ‘An’ what I hear, your dad not around no more neither. I right?’
‘My dad’s cool,’ I muttered. ‘My mum drove him away.’
‘See! Da Pea know everyt’ing!’ said Pea excitedly.
Tokes looked like he was about to ask me something, but then Pea stopped suddenly. We were outside Choudhary’s Electrical Store. The sign said: TVs, stereos, PCs and electrical. Sales and upgrades.
The Choudharys who own the store lived down the road from us and were probably the only friendly shopkeepers in the whole of Coronation Road. They were also the only people I’d really got to know – until I met Tokes that is. There was a power cut on the street once and my mum wasn’t around so I knocked on loads of the neighbours’ doors to see if they had any candles and the Choudharys were the only ones who were home. When they found out I was on my own, they invited me in and Mrs Choudhary gave me sweet honey cake while Mr Choudhary talked to me about Islam and high-definition cameras. He showed me how to use his old Super 8 camera and admitted that he used to be a bit of an amateur film-maker himself.
‘In my younger days I fancied myself the next Hitchcock!’ he said, laughing through his big furry moustache and offering me more sticky cake.
I remember that their front room smelt of incense and paprika and happiness. There was an old grandma who sat in an armchair by the window and didn’t say much, just nodded and smiled, and an assortment of daughters and sisters and aunts who came and went while I was there – all smiling, all dressed in beautiful, glimmering silks.
And then, right at the end, their son – the one I can see behind the counter now – came in. His name was Ishmael and he looked a bit like a Bollywood heart-throb, even though his hair was going a bit thin on top. He wasn’t very old, early twenties maybe, and I remember he was wearing cricket whites with big grass stains on the knees. When he offered me his hand to shake, I blushed and all the words in my head disappeared. Then the lights came back on and I realised I was still holding his hand and staring up into his dark black Bollywood eyes. Later he walked me back to our house and my heart was beating so fast as I said thank you that the words came out all in the wrong order.
Mr Choudhary and I have sort of become friends since then. I pop into the shop most days when I’m at home and we discuss the latest cameras he’s got in stock. Once Mr Choudhary showed me a film of Ishmael playing cricket. I can still see him, arm raised, red ball in hand, running towards the camera, looking right at me. ‘Like a young Shoaib Akhtar,’ his father said. ‘Only with less hair.’
Ishmael always says hello to me very politely and occasionally he tries to chat to me, but I always go red and can’t look at him properly. Something about his eyes makes my knees go weak and my stomach all wobbly.
Anyway, Pea had stopped outside the shop and his face was pressed up against the grille. My stomach did a little flip when I saw Ishmael behind the counter and I could feel my ears going red and hoped the others hadn’t noticed. But Pea wasn’t even looking at me. He and Tokes were staring at the TV screens in the window. They were all showing images of hooded figures being herded into police vans. The headline beneath said, Rival gangs fight on Starfish Estate. Gang member rushed to hospital in a critical condition.
Pea’s eyes were glued to the screens and a slow grin had spread across his face. ‘See – Shiv’s cousin Pats made da news! He like totes famous now, innit!’
Then another headline ran across the bottom of the screen: Family of injured youth claims he was beaten up by police.
‘Seriously?’ said Tokes, turning to Pea, whose eyes were bright with excitement.
‘What did I tell you?’ Pea hissed under his breath. ‘World War Three!’
‘Did you know about this?’ said Tokes. ‘Is this what you told Shiv? That the police hurt Pats?’
Pea looked up and grinned, but I never got to hear his answer because just then a blast of music sounded from his pocket and he pulled out a vivid pink, jewel-encrusted phone from his grubby jeans and flicked it open.
‘Yeah?’ he said into the handset. ‘Yeah, I seen it . . . Good, innit? You what? Now? OK. OK – I said OK, all right, innit.’
Then he flicked the phone shut and I caught the look in his eyes – they reminded me of old Mrs Choudhary’s, clouded and almost unseeing. But he grinned at me and Tokes and said, ‘’S been a blast, but I gotta shoot. Guess I see ya around – if you still alive that is.’
Then he turned and legged it back up Coronation Road towards the station, nearly slipping on a bucket of icy water spilling out of the butcher’s, before crashing into an old lady with a shopping trolley.
‘Keep filmin’, Hollywood,’ he called as me and Tokes stood watching him skedaddle. ‘Things gonna kick off big time in this hood, I tellin’ you!’
Then he dodged into an alleyway and was gone.
‘He’s mental that kid,’ said Tokes. ‘And he’s gonna get himself killed one day if he keeps hanging out with the Starfish Gang,’ he added, a worried look in his eyes.
‘Maybe he’ll get us killed too,’ I said, self-conscious again suddenly now it was just the two of us.
‘He’s gonna try his best, that’s for sure,’ said Tokes. His face broke into another sunny grin. ‘In the meantime, do you want to, you know, hang out with me for a bit?’ he asked. ‘Maybe we could, um, do some stuff for your film. If you want to.’
It was funny how he said that. Funny in the way things are when you look back on them after other stuff has happened. If I’d known how things were going to turn out, would I have walked away? Anyway, I didn’t. I just shrugged and said, ‘OK. If you want.’
‘Cool,’ he said. ‘Where do you want to go?’
SCENE 6: BEHIND THE FISH FACTORY
Next to Coronation Road Station, between the fish factory and a derelict house that looks like a squat, is an abandoned patch of yard. I found it the summer before last when my mum and dad were arguing all the time and I needed somewhere to escape to. But I’d never taken anyone else there before.
We clambered through the hole in the corrugated-iron fence and into the overgrown backyard. It was right behind the station platform and we could hear the announcer going on about some delayed train in a tinny, bored voice. There were so many pigeons roosting up in the netting under the arches that the brickwork was almost completely painted in white pigeon poo, and the stench of fish from the factory was mixed with the smell of old wee and diesel and oil.
But
