Dear Vinnie
Nice to hear from you, son. I hope you’re keeping well. Everybody keeps asking about you and I keep telling them how well you’re doing. You need to knock the stealing off, Vin, or they’ll bloody keep you there for ever. Saggy Sally came round the other day, she said you and your friends are getting into trouble all the time, fighting and that. If you want to be home after Christmas, love, you’ll have to settle down. Your dad said hello. Miserable prat wouldn’t give me any money to send you though. I’ve just sent enough for some baccy and papers. I will send you some more on Monday when I get my family allowance. I’m not talking to our Lyndsey yet, but the kids have been down so I asked our Robbie if he could bring me a poster for you. Our Josie is writing to you as well but she said she will post hers herself. Silly get said that she doesn’t want me nosing at her letter. Well, for being clever, she will have to buy her own stamp now, won’t she? I’m sorting something out with Sally to get down for a visit but she said it might not be for another week or two. She said you have to start being good first. So the way you’re going, I might never bleeding get to see you. Hope you like the photos I’ve sent. All my mates say that I look like a film star on that one of me; I think they mean Marilyn Monroe, with my blonde hair. Ha-ha, just joking. Right Vinnie, I have to go now, but I’ll write again next week.
All my love, Mam X
Dear Vinnie
Thank you for your letter. Very funny about my photo by the way. Carol said to say hello. (I think she fancies you, so tell your new mates that. An 11-year-old, ha-ha.) I told Brendan you were boxing now and he said he is weightlifting, so he will be able to beat you up when you get home. I told him he would have to take on both of us. I always stay out of trouble unless I am with you. I hate it when you’re not here, Vinnie. I have no one to talk to. Can I ask you something? Can the Devil really hear everything I say? One of my mates told me that he could, even if I say it quietly. I was going to ask Sister Josephine at school but I thought she might tell me off for mentioning the Devil. I might ask Carol, she’ll tell me truth, she always does cos of us being blood sisters. It’s not like having my real brother there though, Vin, I wish you were home. Our Robbie is going to nick one of Robbo’s David Bowie pictures so I will send it when I get some money out of my dad’s pockets for another stamp. I have to go now; Carol is calling for me to walk to the post office, so I can send you this letter.
Lots of love, your loving sister, Josie Xxxx
Home. Home for Vinnie right now was a box. It was painted in a mottled effect, with a white base and dark blue splatters, like some alien had thrown up all over it. The floor – a continuation of the walls, really – was covered in cold, hard vinyl, also mottled like the walls, but with the pattern reversed, a look that some idiot behind a desk must have dreamed up at some point, following a brief to make it is as chilly looking as possible. It was around eight by six, maybe smaller, and was pretty much identical to every other room on his corridor. A single bed – lumpy mattress, lumpy pillow, shit-all springs – a ‘desk’ that was actually just a strip of wood fixed along one wall, a chair – also wooden – and a matching bedside cabinet and locker to keep his clothes and personal belongings in.
It did feel homey, though, sort of, now he’d made it his own. In reality, it was better than his room back at home, which had bare floorboards, and not much else bar a knackered set of drawers. Course, there was his bookcase, which he did miss, because it was his pride and joy, having been carefully crafted in woodwork lessons on those rare occasions he’d turned up at school. He’d brought some books with him, too, of course – his two Charles Dickens favourites – A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations – and his other favourite, The Count of Monte Cristo. He’d also personalised the expanse of wall above the desk with a bunch of posters, all carefully gathered from the magazines he’d stolen from the ‘do not remove’ pile in the library. They were pictures of models, mostly, plus a selection of pop stars: the Who, the Beatles, another of Jimi Hendrix, and the couple of photos of family he’d taken with him, plus some more June had sent in the post. It would do. It was something to look at, at any rate.
He lay back on his bed to read his letters through a second time, happy to hear at last from his family. But something niggled about Titch’s one. He studied it again. There was definitely something wrong – what did she mean by all that crap about the Devil? Something was up, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He was just reading it for a third time, trying to fathom what Titch was getting at, when the door burst open, startling him. It was Vincent.
Such a small patch, the approved school, yet there were two Vincents in it. What were the chances? That he come in here and find there was already another him there? A hard lad, like he was and, having been there two months, well respected. As he would be; he was in for violence and using weapons. They’d soon been sorted out though, in the usual geographic way. Vinnie became Bradford Vinnie and his namesake Cockney Vinnie, him having come from the East End of London. That had been an eye-opener in itself, Vinnie having never been to London; he’d always thought of it as being very different from Bradford – the sort of place where only rich and famous people lived.
But Cockney Vinnie didn’t like being called Vinnie anyway, so they’d now just become Vinnie and Vincent. And, perhaps partly because of the name-thing, good friends.
‘Come on, mate,’ he said now. ‘You gotta get outside. There’s only a fucking fight in the yard.’
Vinnie jumped up immediately. Fights were always worth seeing. ‘Who between?’ he asked, putting Titch’s letter down.
‘Bacon Neck Brian,’ Vincent said. He looked excited. ‘He’s having a right old go at Mr Sullivan.’
Vinnie ran outside with Vincent, the letters now forgotten. This was too good to miss. It wasn’t every day you saw a kid fighting with staff.
Bacon Neck Brian, who was in for persistent stealing and robbery, had earned his colourful nickname years ago, apparently, on account of being badly scalded when his mother had decided to throw a red-hot cup of tea at his head. The resulting skin grafts had left his neck looking like, well, streaky bacon, hence the name. He had a red-hot temper to match it, too.
As Vincent had said, it had all gone mad out in the yard. A circle of kids had formed around the fight, and they were all shouting and jeering. Mr Sullivan wasn’t all that bad, as it happened, so Vinnie couldn’t understand why Brian had kicked this off. Even so, Vinnie couldn’t resist a swift kick to Sullivan’s head when he ended up rolling around near his feet, Bacon Neck Brian having got the upper hand and decked him. It made sense. All eyes had been in Vinnie’s direction at that point, so it wouldn’t harm his reputation to show a bit of unnecessary violence. That was how you made your name in a place like this. In any place – he’d worked that out long since. Letting everyone see you were a bit of a psycho.
Within minutes, whistles started to go off all around them and the yard began teeming with staff. And, on cue, all the lads suddenly stood to attention, wherever they were and whatever they’d been doing. They had all been taught this from the outset – it was one of the first things they’d learned. And for good reason, too; anyone found to be flouting this rule would lose privileges for a month. And that hurt. Nobody wanted to go a month without pocket money, fags, phone calls and writing paper. You would also lose your radio if you had one. Not that Vinnie did, as yet, but he already had plans to put that right. There were rich pickings to be had locally, or so some of the longer-term lads said, so he’d have it sorted soon as he had his first unsupervised trip into town.
After it had all settled down and Bacon Neck had been taken off to be disciplined, Vinnie went back to his room. As it was Saturday, there were no lessons, so he decided to have another read of Titch’s letter before joining his mates in the recreation room. What the fuck was he missing here? He knew there was something; his sister’s letter was plain weird. She would have normally cheered him up, he knew, because that was the sort of kid she was. She liked writing and he’d expected there to be pages and pages from her – telling him all about what was happening back on the estate, rambling on about what she’d been up to with Caz. But just this. This short, gloomy, sad thing she’d sent him. Weird. He folded the letter in two and decided that he would ask for a phone call. You couldn’t usually make a call until you’d been there for a month – they’d already made that crystal clear – but he would go and ask anyway; say it was an emergency or something. Just in case he couldn’t though, he decided to write back straight away, before joining the lads for a game of pool.
Alright Titch
How’s it going? I just got your letter this morning. Fuckers hold ’em back from you for a few days in here, just for the fun of it. You don’t sound too happy, sis, what’s up? Nobody better be giving you any shit just cos I’m not on the scene. If they are, Titch, go see Pete or Brendan, or any of my mates, they’ll get it sorted. I know you, and even though I can’t hear your voice, I know what you’re thinking. My old man says I’m the Devil incarnate, so ha-ha, yes, your friend is right. The Devil can hear you. Seriously though, Titch, I know there’s something wrong. I am going to try to get a phone call this week, and if they let me I’ll ring you one night straight after school. I don’t know when though so don’t wait by the phone every night. It might even be never and then you’d be like Miss Havisham, waiting for Pip. Ha-ha, do you remember when I used to read you that book? If the teachers in here only knew how much I liked books, I would get some right stick. I have to go now, mate, but keep yer chin up, okay? I won’t be in here for ever, and I’ll soon be home to make you laugh again.
Lots of love, your big brother Vinnie. Xxxxxxxxx
Vinnie called in at the office on his way to the rec room with his finished letter, pleased to see the eye candy that was Miss Maureen Biggs – a young, leggy blonde bird who smiled a lot and worked there at weekends, and an object of lust for almost all the boys.
‘Afternoon, Miss,’ he said politely. ‘Can you make sure this gets posted today please?’
‘Course I will, Vincent,’ she said. ‘Anything for you, young man.’
‘Thanks, Miss,’ he said, smiling shyly, ‘and, actually, it’s Vinnie.’
Miss Biggs returned the smile, revealing a row of almost impossibly perfect teeth. ‘Sorry, Vinnie’ she said. ‘You boys and your nicknames! I don’t know how I remember who’s who, I really don’t. Though I shouldn’t really mix you up with anyone else, should I?’ she added. ‘Not with that lovely hair of yours.’
She smiled again and turned back to her desk then, but not before Vinnie could feel an intense heat flare in his cheeks. ‘Um, yeah, thanks, Miss,’ he mumbled, trying to untie his tongue before getting out of there as fast as he could, but with a definite spring in his step.
The main corridor of the approved school was quiet and echoey on the weekends, though on either side of it were classrooms in which teachers still lurked – coming in even though they didn’t have pupils to teach, which made them swots and idiots, in Vinnie’s opinion. And also fair game for being wound up, he’d decided, whistling loudly in an effort to annoy them.
But it was other prey, closer to his own age, that he was most keen on winding up this afternoon, if the chance arose.
Thoughts of Titch put to one side now, he wondered as he walked whether he’d be likely to get done for his small part in the Bacon Neck Brian fight. He didn’t care that he might be disciplined for the sly kick at the screw. That was incidental. No, what bothered him – what really preoccupied him, and would do so till he’d done something about it – was the fact that Brian had now earned his stripes as far as the other lads were concerned. He would have the glory and the kudos that Vinnie badly needed, if he was to secure a decent level of status in the pecking order.
He chewed his lip as he walked towards the rec room. It was on the weekends that the system at Swallow House was at its most vulnerable and, having quickly learned the way things worked in terms of routines and staffing, Vinnie knew that only a skeleton staff were employed on Saturdays and Sundays, which made right now a particularly good time to act. He’d also had quite enough of being fucked about by the older lads. He’d made his first mistake the very first week, having told a 16-year-old lad called Dennis to go and get fucked, when he’d tried to extort some of his precious tobacco from him. Next thing he knew, he’d been pinned up by three of them and warned that, as he was fresh meat, he’d just better do as he was told.
And he could tell they meant business. They were nasty, violent fuckers. And that definitely wasn’t going to happen again. He needed them on side – something Bacon Neck Brian had now managed to achieve before him. He was a bit of a divvy, as far as Vinnie was concerned, but maybe not as much as he’d thought – because he’d been clever. The older lads would now show him respect and look out for him, and the younger ones would be breaking their necks to do anything for him. Vinnie wanted a bit of that. And he wanted it sooner rather than later.
He cracked his knuckles as he headed into the rec room and grinned at the memory of Miss Biggs’s smile. Right now would be a good time, in fact.