Cry Myself to Sleep: He had to escape. They would never hurt him again.. Joe Peters

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СКАЧАТЬ and me snapping at him suspiciously, he managed to coax me into agreeing to go with him.

      He opened the back door, but I could remember previous trips with Uncle Douglas or in police cars, and hearing the snap of the locks going down and not being able to get out, so I threw my bag on to the back seat, slammed the door and climbed into the front passenger seat as if I thought that was what he expected. He didn’t seem bothered, hurrying round to the other side and climbing in. As he pulled out into the traffic, I stared straight ahead, trying to maintain a distance between us while I worked out what his game was. I had a clear plan in my head of what I would do to him if he showed the slightest sign of trying anything on with me.

Chapter Five The Muslim Samaritan

      As he drove me to the station, he told me his name was Mohamed and gave me a piece of mint-flavoured gum as he chatted. He seemed a nice man and I began to relax my guard a little as I chewed. I didn’t like driving back into the city that I was trying to escape from, but I could see that he was right: I might never get away on the road. If he was genuinely willing to get me a train ticket, that was an offer I wasn’t in a position to refuse. Arriving at the station, he parked in the taxi rank and we went in to the ticket office together, both of us unsure of how to behave with one another. The large, unsmiling woman behind the glass stared at us with a sort of unbothered hostility over the top of her half-moon glasses, like a headmistress trying to work out why a misbehaving pupil has been brought to see her.

      ‘A single ticket for my friend to get the next train to London, please,’ Mohamed said politely.

      ‘They’re doing repairs to the track,’ she told him. ‘Services have been suspended and he’s missed the last connection to London for this evening.’

      ‘When is the next connection, please?’ Mohamed asked.

      ‘Six o’clock tomorrow morning,’ she said, looking past him and returning my angry, gum-chewing scowl with the calm stare of someone enjoying their little moment of power.

      I could see that she was wondering what such a young-looking boy was doing travelling on his own and having his ticket bought for him by a middle-aged Asian man. It obviously struck her as strange. My heart was thumping and I was poised to run if she went to press an alarm button or pick up a phone to call the police. I felt so close to escaping, and the thought of having to hang around the cold station all night made me shiver. The disdain that she was showing towards Mohamed was stoking my anger back up again.

      ‘Can I buy a ticket for tomorrow then?’ Mohamed persevered.

      ‘Are you travelling alone?’ she asked me, ignoring him completely. ‘Are you all right?’

      ‘Course I’m all right,’ I snarled back angrily. ‘Look, woman, are you going to give us this ticket or not?’

      All the boys in the homes I had been in talked like that to virtually everyone. We all wanted to sound like the black guys we met on the streets. We wanted to mimic their easy confidence and cheek in the face of authority. I expect we all sounded as foolish as Ali G suggested when he turned our patter into a comic character. I guess the ticket lady lost interest in my welfare at that moment, deciding I was a nasty piece of work and could look after myself for all she cared, because she passed the ticket over and took Mohamed’s money.

      ‘Enjoy your trip,’ she said to me.

      I glanced back as we walked away and saw that she was watching us go, obviously still curious about what our story might be, perhaps not certain that she had done the right thing by issuing the ticket. Maybe she had grandsons my age.

      My next worry was how to get through a night on the station without being picked up by the police. I was still worried that Mum’s neighbours might have reported the damage I’d done to the house, and once the police started checking me out they would pretty soon put two and two together. Thanks to Mohamed I now had my ticket to the promised land of Charing Cross; I just needed to stay out of sight for the next ten or so hours. I had a feeling that Mohamed had been as offended by the woman’s suspicions as I had, but he didn’t say anything as we walked back out to his taxi, both of us wondering what to do next. It was as if I had become his responsibility now.

      ‘What are you going to do tonight, Joe?’ he asked eventually.

      ‘Find somewhere to wait, I suppose,’ I said with a shrug, trying to look as if I wasn’t bothered.

      I guess he was worried about what would happen to me if he left me on the street, but equally he was nervous about giving the wrong impression by asking me if I wanted to go back to his place. We were both stuck in a strange, polite sort of limbo.

      ‘Don’t misunderstand me, please, Joe,’ he said eventually, ‘but why don’t you come back to my flat for something to eat while you think about what to do next?’

      All my instincts flared up and warned me to be wary. I knew from bitter and painful experience how foolish it could be to go to a strange place with a man I knew nothing about. But at the same time the option of being picked up by the police seemed worse. He appeared to be a genuinely kind man and he wasn’t being pushy or creepy in any way. I decided it was a chance worth taking.

      ‘OK,’ I said, shrugging, as if it was I who was agreeing to do him a favour, rather than the other way round.

      We climbed back into the car and as we drove I picked up a book that was lying next to the seat.

      ‘What’s this?’ I asked, wanting to make conversation and break the awkwardness of the moment.

      ‘It is the Qu’ran,’ he said. ‘The Holy Book. I am a Muslim.’

      ‘That’s where you’re from?’ I asked, having no idea what he was talking about.

      ‘No,’ he said, smiling. ‘It is my religion. I am a Muslim Brother.’

      My ignorance was so total that I stayed silent, unable to think what to say next without sounding stupid. He must have realized that I knew nothing and spent the rest of the trip trying to explain it to me. By the time we got to his flat I was lost in new thoughts as I tried to make sense of what he was telling me about his God and his beliefs. I liked the fact that he talked to me as if we were just friends, not like an adult with a difficult kid, which was the tone I was used to hearing in other people’s voices.

      ‘My wife and I are getting a divorce,’ he explained as he opened the door to his flat. ‘So I have only just moved into this place. Our marriage was arranged for us by our families and we were not suited. My family are all very angry with me for leaving.’

      It was a cold, empty-feeling place with a musty, damp smell oozing from the shabby walls and worn carpet. There was hardly any furniture apart from a strangely old-fashioned record player housed in a wooden cabinet. There was no television or radio to break the silence of the little rooms. He explained that everything he owned he had left in the family house with his wife. The only decorations in sight were the pictures of the small children he had left behind in exchange for this bleak place. He saw me looking at the photographs and began to tell me about them, his face glowing with pride.

      ‘You want to listen to some music?’ he asked, gesturing towards the record player.

      ‘OK.’

      He pulled out an Elvis record and started dancing wildly СКАЧАТЬ