I questioned.
“Anna,” he said.
Knowing it was Ritchie who’d attacked me made me feel better and a whole lot worse at the same time. I could feel myself trembling, and now the initial shock was over, anger replaced it.
“You tried to mug me!” I accused him.
I know this was stating the obvious, but give me a break – someone had just tried to snatch my bag.
“I didn’t know it was you,” he winced, clearly still in pain.
“So that makes it all right then?”
He didn’t reply. Now I began to feel sorry for him. Which was pretty crazy, really – I can be a bit pathetic at times.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He swore, and told me he wasn’t. But slowly he got to his feet. Once he was on a level with me, the situation began to normalise. I was in King’s Gardens with Ritchie, late on Saturday night. Ritchie, the new boy in our English set. Never mind that he’d tried to rob me. It almost seemed natural that we should go and sit on a bench together, and he should take a crushed packet of cigarettes from his trackie bottoms pocket and light one, his fingers shaking. He offered me one too.
“I don’t smoke,” I said.
“I’m trying to give up,” Ritchie replied.
The few people who walked past us gave us superficial glances but then ignored us.
“Do you often do this?” I asked him. “Like bag snatching?”
“No. But I need the money. I owe twenty quid to a bloke I know, and if I don’t pay tomorrow there’ll be trouble. He’ll do me over.”
I was going to lay into him myself – verbally – for thinking the best way to get money was violent robbery, but something in his manner stopped me. The way he hung his head, the blankness in his eyes – he wasn’t mean, but desperate. Plus I was flattered that he’d confided in me. When you have someone’s confidence, you don’t want to lose it. I didn’t feel like criticising or judging him.
“Is there any other way you can get the money? Can someone lend it to you? Your mum?”
Ritchie shook his head. “No. She’s hard up at the moment, what with moving and everything.”
That was fair enough. Even though my mum was off work, we probably had more money than Ritchie and his mum. My mum would have lent me the money. She wouldn’t have been best pleased, but she’d have given it. Ritchie’s mum didn’t have the money. So if he didn’t have a job, and had no one to ask, and he was being threatened with violence, it was hardly surprising he had to resort to mugging. Or was it?
“Couldn’t you have just nicked some money without attacking someone?” I asked.
At that point Ritchie looked up at me, surprised. I understood why. I’d surprised myself. Here I was, suggesting he commit another crime – me, who’d never done anything illegal in my life. Except fare-dodging a couple of times, or noticing someone had given me too much change in a shop and not saying anything – oh, and keeping a twenty-pound note I found on a bus last year. But looking at Ritchie’s situation from his point of view, theft seemed the only logical answer. But it was wrong. Crime was wrong.
“I tell you what – I could lend you the twenty. It’s not a problem.”
“But you don’t know me,” he said. “I might just run off with it.”
“Because you’ve said that, I know you won’t.”
We both heard the urgent waah-waah of a police car – one followed by another. A typical Saturday night in town.
Ritchie spoke again. “You must think I’m a bleedin’ idiot.”
“I don’t, as a matter of fact.”
“Listen, let me tell you. My life stinks right now. First I get all the truant people on my back and my mum stressing about my education, and having to go back to school. I even thought I’d give it a try but it’s no bloody good. It’s pointless for me – I’m not going to get any GCSEs as I’ve missed too much. It’s all wasted effort. And then the guy I bought the weed from is on my back, and the crazy thing is, the weed wasn’t even for me – it was for Loz, my mate. And my other mates – the ones I used to hang out with – before going back to school – I don’t see them any more. But they were a load of nutters. Like, what’s the point?”
I was stunned. I’d never heard Ritchie utter so many words in all the few days I’d known him. I’d got him down as one of those inarticulate yobs you get (even in our school) but he wasn’t, exactly. I mean, how often do you meet a bloke who actually talks to you about his life, and not just the football?
“Look, I’ll lend you the twenty quid. I really don’t mind. And school’s not too bad.”
“You’re the only person who bothers to talk to me there. Other people just look straight through me. I don’t think I’m going to go back. What good is an education going to do me? I’ll end up working in some factory or behind a counter – like I said, it all stinks.”
“What do you want to be?” I asked him, intrigued. Even though in a lot of ways he was very different from me, I could see we thought in the same way. I felt things were pretty rotten most of the time too.
“What do I want to be? OK, then, how about Prime Minister for a start? Then I’d raze this town to the ground and start all over again, and I’d build houses that people wanted to live in, with gardens and that.”
I couldn’t help it – I laughed. I didn’t expect him to talk like that. But my laughter didn’t stop him. He seemed filled with a kind of fury and just carried on.
“Yeah – there’d be no more high-rise flats. You wouldn’t have to go to school unless you wanted to, and if you did, you could do what you wanted: paint, or play the guitar, or swim. Yeah, there’d be pools everywhere – free, of course, and free gigs every weekend. And free stuff for kids – shows, and that.”
I tried not to show my surprise at his words. I came over all cynical instead. “Yeah, right,” I said. “But first you’ve got to pay off your debts. I’ll lend you the money.”
“Yeah, but I have to meet this guy tomorrow, and I won’t see you till Monday.”
“Tell me where you live and I’ll meet you tomorrow.”
“Why are you doing this for me?” he asked.
I thought to myself, because I feel sorry for you, because I can relate to you, because by trying to mug me you’ve pulled me into the drama of your life, whether you wanted to or not. Because even though you sound crazy, I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. And because, in a funny sort of way, your life seems more exciting than mine. You take risks, you’re brave. And honest.
I said, “Why am I doing this for you? Because I want to. The end.”
“I’ll meet you outside the Fairfield community centre at one o’clock tomorrow?”
“Yeah – text me when you’re on your way there.”
His silence was eloquent. I understood immediately he didn’t have a mobile.
“I’ll be there at one,” I said.
He stood up then and our eyes met. “Thanks, Anna,” he said. “And sorry.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said.
I watched him go. He walked quickly, his shoulders