Sour: My Story: A troubled girl from a broken home. The Brixton gang she nearly died for. The baby she fought to live for.. Tracey Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ were the prison visits to look forward to. They were our holiday. As soon as a letter came through the post with HMPS on the envelope we got excited: it meant there was going to be a bus journey or coach trip and a fun day out to the Isle of Wight or Dartmoor or wherever Dad had been moved to this time. We’d always get a tray of cakes. Oh yeah, it was delightful.

      Depending on how recently Mum had folded up the car, sometimes we would drive.

      They lay waited him in the Upper Cuts barber shop in West Norwood. Yeah, people was real upset when Axe died.

      They said it was a drugs connection but Axe wasn’t one of the naughty ones. Rafik Alleyne was the guy who did it. He was 21. Axe was 25. They knew each other. People saw them knocking knuckles outside before Andrew went into Upper Cuts on Norwood High Street to get his hair cut.

      Guy pulled a gun from a takeaway box and shot him in the back of the head as he sat in the barber’s chair. He went running to a minicab office in a panic looking for a getaway car, begging a driver to take him to Stockwell. He got 22 years.

      His mum wrote a really sad poem for the funeral. They said she stood up, wearing big dark sunglasses, to recite it.

      Who is the one that took my son,

      do you really know what you have done?

      This is a wake-up call to all of you,

      who wants to belong to the devil’s crew.

      The devil’s crew indeed. I wished I had listened to her. It would be a long time before I truly understood what she meant.

      One afternoon, I had been sitting by the Pen, probably not far from Shelley’s and Andrew’s flat. I’d bunked off school as usual, and had grown bored of hopscotch and the games we drew in chalk on the crumbling surface of the court. The goal nets and basketball rings were long gone – that is, if they’d ever been there in the first place – so we used to entertain ourselves inside the cage.

      The only other kid kicking around that day was Jerome. He was just one of the kids around the way. I didn’t much like him, but beggars, choosers and all that.

      Was it the first time I’d ever been stabbed? I honestly can’t remember. Getting stabbed is not like getting married or buying a new car, darling. It’s just not something that sticks in your mind. Shit happens.

      What I do remember is that Jerome taught me an important lesson that day.

      “Hey Sour!” he’d shouted over, spying me at a loose end. “Wanna play a game?”

      I shrugged.

      “It’s called Flick.”

      He cast a quick look around and huddled me into a corner where he felt sure no one was watching. Now he had got my attention.

      Then he pulled out two flick knives.

      “Here, take it.”

      I took it.

      The handle fitted neatly into my palm. The chrome felt smooth and polished. It was still warm from his pocket.

      “Look, do what I’m doing. Flick in, flick out.”

      I smiled. The mechanism was quick and light.

      “Let’s ramp,” he said. Let’s muck about.

      We started making phantom jabs for each other’s fists.

      Imagine fencing with flick knives and you’re getting close. Some kids play it with tennis racquets. Some kinds pretend they’re on Star Wars. And some kids in Tulse Hill fence with knives.

      He was quicker than me to start, but I soon caught up, matching every flick of the wrist and jolt of the fist.

      I wasn’t afraid.

      “See? Good, isn’t it?”

      I took my eye off his blade. He jabbed towards me. As he did, I went to block.

      “What the fuck are you doing, you idiot?”

      He had caught my hand, piercing the fleshy pad beneath my thumb.

      “You folly?” he said. “S’just a flesh wound.”

      “That’s how you lose.”

      You’re not playing, are you, I thought. We carried on. I was angrier this time and he knew it.

      It was just me and him. I started jabbing harder, more forcefully, but he was too practised, too quick.

      My pride had been hurt. I needed to make a wound for a wound. The game had now extended beyond striking the other fist. Now, the whole body was in play. We pranced back and forth, dodging contact with ragged swipes of chrome.

      A warm trickle of blood was streaming down my wrist. It wasn’t gushing. It was just a gash, but enough to catch Jerome’s eye.

      I got him. In the hand. While he was flinching I got him again, by the knee.

      “Ah, you fucking bitch! You stabbed me.”

      “That’s the point, innit? You a batty boy?”

      It was just a graze.

      “It’s not even deep.”

      This was getting boring. I put down the knife, stepped back and examined my wound. It was deeper that I thought. The rest of my hand felt tender to touch.

      Jerome seemed agitated, but tried not to show it. He wiped both knives on the grass and put them back into his pocket.

      “Call it quits, yeah?”

      “Whatever. Next time, bring a better knife.”

      I went home and told Mum some cock and bull story about cutting myself on the fence. I ended up having to get stitches.

      I decided there and then I wouldn’t be play fighting again – it was annoying and inconvenient. We had only been mucking about, but if that had been a serious situation I’d have been in trouble.

      But I was grateful to Jerome for teaching an important lesson. Next time, I learned, I’d better bring a bigger knife.

Islam

      Islam and I didn’t get on. We were very young when Mum converted. By the time I got to primary school, Mum was no longer Eleanor Raynor. She was now Ruqqayah Anwar, Muslim convert. My brother Jermaine became Yusuf. My name became Salwa. Try saying that in a south London accent. That’s how Sour was born.

      It was annoying at the time, but I hadn’t quite clocked, aged five, how useful two names can be when you get arrested. Later days, I’d thank my mum for it. Probably most useful thing she ever did. Get arrested, use one name; get arrested again, use the other. Keep getting arrested, just make ’em up. Boydem work it out eventually, but it buys you time.

      Mum СКАЧАТЬ