Of course I was worried that in the next days she would sink down again but the next few days could look after themselves. It had only been a couple of weeks since the taxing so I had no idea whether this was healing or some next shit that was going to send her down. All I could do was keep them fingers crossed. I smiled at her again. She looked at me calmly and I tried to do the same. To be calm. To double out the calm in the room even when I knew there weren’t no good reason for it. I felt like a dad making a clapping sound so his kid would forget that he fell down and scraped his knee.
What I remember most was this look she had. It was more than – what do you call it? – resignation. It was more like a look that said she weren’t so worried about Spooks any more. She looked like she did when she knew what was coming next. You know, like, in control. She handed me a mug of coffee and smiled casually.
‘You not having one?’ I say.
‘No. I’m going out for a few hours. I’ll be back by one.’
I rub my eyes and look at her puzzled. ‘Out where?’
‘Just out. I need to get some space.’
I begin to wake up a little more and then when her face comes back into focus I say in a panic, ‘Ki, you know you can’t go out. It’s too dangerous.’
‘Err excuse me? Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m not asking. I can go and I am going. I could have gone while you were asleep. So you just have to deal with it.’
‘But you’ll get seen.’
‘I won’t. I’ll pull my hood up and wear some shades. It’ll be fine. Besides as you keep saying, there’s no gangsters awake at this time,’ she says and just like that she leaves.
I tried keeping her back but it weren’t no good. I took her arm and looked at her like I wasn’t in any mood for messing about. But she gave me a look back that was twice as heavy and slid her arm out of my grip.
‘I will see you later,’ she said before she left. And I prayed she was right.
‘Where are you even going?’ I say to her back as she pulls at the door, but she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even look back.
The rest of that morning I am basically wired. I try her phone a few times every hour but it goes straight to voicemail. I send her some texts but I get nothing back. Where has she gone anyway? It can’t be just a walk or she wouldn’t have said she would be back at one. I couldn’t think. Maybe she was at a friend’s. Maybe she went to see Mum and Bless. I didn’t really think so, especially after the hassle of the last trip and all the things we had to do to make it safe. Anyway I racked my brains but I knew that my brains didn’t have the room for much racking so eventually I just give up and stand by the window looking out for her to come back.
One o’clock comes and goes. Then so does two. By the time it’s three I am really starting to worry for her. That makes it what six hours or something she has gone? It feels like the first time she disappeared all over again. Fuck. I shouldn’t have let her go man. I should have kept her in even if I had to hold her down and lock the doors. I stayed by the window for the next hour nearly, still calling and texting with no answers either way. Then as I am gazing out of the window I see her. But I nearly don’t. Which is more fucked up than it might seem to you lot. You see to get into my estate, there is really only one way you can get in if you are coming from the street. And that is a place I can see right from my window. I can’t miss it. It’s like directly in front of my view. But where she came from, and why I nearly missed her, weren’t from there. It was from around the back. I caught her just coming into view from the side. And if I can explain it to you, it is not a place she should have been. That is the place where like kids chill and blaze or deal or whatever. There is no other reason to be there – you can’t even get out to the street from there. You can get to the estates at the back but you going over some rough ground to get there. It didn’t make no sense to me. Not one bit.
When she came through the door I was in a mind to call her out. I weren’t angry exactly, just you know, confused. I couldn’t think of a thing she could say to explain it really, unless she would have said she went out to score, you get me? But something about the look on her face made me stop. She seemed worried and calm both at once.
So I just casually go to her, ‘Where you been Ki?’ I say, expecting her to give me some bullshit.
What she says next though throws me.
‘To see Spooks.’
‘What? Are you mad Ki? Fuck knows who saw you in that prison.’
‘I had to,’ she says, as if it was obvious, and takes her coat off.
‘Had to? Do you even know what you’ve done?’ I was furious. How could she put herself at risk like that? How could she put Mum and Bless at that kind of risk?
‘Just leave it. I had a visiting order already and, you know, I had to see if he was okay.’
