From the first night that I knew him, Jubrel understood. He always knew what to say and what not to. He was safe.
‘This is us.’ Laura, my social worker, peered over the top of her glasses at the house in front of us.
I didn’t look up but continued to stare sullenly down at my feet.
‘Come on, Prince.’ Laura tried to put a hand on my shoulder but I shrugged it away. ‘Ruth and Jubrel are lovely, they’ve looked after lots of children.’ Laura pushed her glasses up her nose with her forefinger. She was always doing that. ‘You should be grateful, they don’t usually take . . .’
I looked up. ‘What?’ I said. ‘They don’t usually take what? Thieves?’ I spat out the word, angry. I should have been nice to Laura, she was nice to me. Not everyone had been, after all that had happened, the crime, the violence, the lives we led.
‘I wasn’t going to say that, Prince. They don’t usually take children who are so – unhappy. You are very unhappy, Prince, whether you want to admit it or not.’
Yes, I was very unhappy.
‘You need someone to look after you,’ Laura continued. ‘I think Ruth and Jubrel are just the right people for you.’
I didn’t want just the right people. I wanted my brother. Laura knew where he was, I’d asked her. But she wasn’t allowed to tell me anything.
I didn’t want to talk any more. Laura had tried to talk to me about my unhappiness before, it made me uncomfortable. I started walking up the five steps that I would later come to know so well, towards the house which would shortly be my home. ‘Come on then,’ I said, still angry.
The house was warm, I remember that from the first day. It was always warm. Ruth needed the heating on, she said. She was a tropical lady. Jubrel was always sneaking it back down but his wife was a human thermometer and within minutes she’d exclaim, ‘Oh, it’s getting chilly in here,’ or, ‘You messing with my thermostat again, you cruel man?’
The warmth went deeper than that, though. It was in Ruth’s smile, in her peanut butter on toast, in her knowing looks when I told her that I had no homework. It was in Jubrel’s voice, calm and measured, in his hands, laid on a shoulder, in his jokes.
But that first night I didn’t want their warmth.
Laura introduced us all. ‘Prince, this is Ruth and Jubrel.’
‘Hello, Prince, you are so welcome,’ Ruth said.
‘We hear that you like football,’ Jubrel said.
I said nothing.
Ruth showed me around.
‘This is the lounge, we just got this new bean-bag.’
‘The garden’s small, but the park is just nearby.’
‘So, this is your room. I really hope you’ll be comfortable.’
I stared at my feet.
Then Laura said goodbye, pushing up her glasses again. ‘Ruth and Jubrel are good people, Prince. Cheer up and I’m sure you’ll have a great time. I will come tomorrow and take you to your new school.’
Once she’d left, with a ruffle of my hair, my new foster carers tried to talk to me. I shrugged, grunted, gave a word or two. Even then I could feel the warmth, but I was frosty. I wanted my brother, nothing but that would warm me.
Soon they gave up. ‘OK, you make yourself at home.’ They left me perched on the bean-bag in the lounge, my coat still on.
Twenty minutes later Jubrel came back in. He carried a wooden case about the size of a shoe box. He placed it on the floor between us as he sat.
‘Can I show you something, Prince?’
The heavy box had my attention and I nodded.
As he reached forward to open the box I shifted on the bean-bag, sitting up straighter. The lid swung open and I drew breath. Nestled amongst brittle, folded paper was a gun, an ancient-looking revolver, mostly metal, a deep brown metal apart from the handle, which was wooden.
‘Don’t worry, it’s not a working gun any more,’ Jubrel said. Then he gestured for me to pick it up.
I hesitated. I’d never held a gun. It was heavier than I’d expected. I turned it over, feeling the weight of the cold metal. Engraved in the handle was a series of numbers and two letters, E.M.
‘It was my father’s,’ Jubrel said. ‘His most prized possession.’
I had nothing to say to this but held out the gun to my new foster carer.
‘He won it from an Italian army officer in the war. Maybe you’d like to hear that story one day?’ He raised an eyebrow and I nodded.
Jubrel looked back down at the gun. ‘He treasured this. And before he died, he gave it to me. Now it’s my most prized possession. It’s worth a lot of money, this chunk of metal, but I’d never sell it.’ He cradled the weapon, looking down at his baby. ‘My father has been gone many years, but he gave me this. That’s why I treasure it. And I remember all the good things, the happiness.’
I didn’t know why he was telling me this and still I had nothing to say.
‘We lose people, we all lose people, sooner or later. But we still hold them, sometimes we hold them even closer. Family, the people we love, who love us, they are the best things in this world.’
Now we were getting to the crunch.
‘But if we hold them too close, too tight, we have no room for anything else. No room for the rest of life.’ He bent down and carefully placed the revolver back into its box. ‘Think on it, Prince,’ he said as he left, placing a hand on my shoulder.
I didn’t shrug it away.