Excerpt from THE STORY OF MY LIFE
by Anne Cassidy
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The last thing Kenny Harris wanted was blood on his hands. He almost smiled at this thought. Wasn’t it too late to worry about such things? He was in too deep. He couldn’t turn back now.
He was standing on Leyton platform. The Central Line. Above him a clock hung like a huge blank face, its hands stuck at three forty. He looked at his mobile to check the time. 22:48. He thought of Nat waiting for him at her house. He imagined himself trying to explain it all to her. The mess he was in. He found the words of an argument playing through his mind. He saw himself appealing to her. I wasn’t always like this, he would say, his hands out in supplication.
He had to stop. The air was heavy with rain but there wasn’t a sound as it hit the ground. The clock stared sullenly and he took a deep breath. He looked down at his bruised hand, his battered jeans, his busted-up trainers. With his good hand he felt above his eyebrow for the cut. It had stopped bleeding but was swollen and sore to touch.
He shivered with the cold. He turned and looked along the track for the glow of an approaching train but there was just a thick slice of blackness. He listened intently for a second. There it was, he was sure, in the distance; the rhythmic clatter of the wheels.
Where are you, Tommy?
The words ran through his head. A couple of people appeared on the platform opposite. A man and a woman, standing silently side by side. Like two ghosts that had come from nowhere.
Tommy Fortune. Where are you?
The man opposite said something to the woman. She turned her head away. In the distance there was the sound of a car braking. A sudden screech that set Kenny’s teeth on edge.
He had five, six hours left to find him.
The drizzle turned to rain abruptly. Just like that. It hammered on to the tracks and Kenny stepped back, away from the platform edge, into the dry. He watched the rain spearing down, invisible in the darkness but under the light it shone like steel.
His hand touched the back pocket of his jeans. The letter was there, folded in two. He’d taken days to write it and now it was finished. What would he do with it?
Something fluttered in his stomach. He could walk away. Leave things to sort themselves out. But wouldn’t that just make Mack more angry? And make things worse?
His hands were cold. He shoved them into his jacket pockets and grimaced as pain shot through his injured fingers. It made him feel nauseous for a moment. No, worse than that. The shock of the beating came back to him. Being thrown around like a rag doll, punched in the head, kicked in the thigh, his fingers smashed up. From the ground he’d looked up expecting more but there was just the sound of the car pulling away, revving up the road, leaving him like a rubbish bag on the street.
Was he afraid of Mack? Yes, he was. After tonight, Tommy Fortune would be afraid of him as well.
From The Story Of My Life. Text copyright © 2006 by Anne Cassidy. All rights reserved.
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