On the night before the Ireland–Netherlands match, Johnny J asked me to eat dinner at his house. By that point I was so sick and so scared that despite the hummingbird, or maybe because of it, I decided I was going to tell him I just couldn’t rob again. Auntie Alison cooked spaghetti bolognese. Uncle Ted read the newspaper. Johnny J and I watched some of the highlights from Italy v Czechoslovakia and Germany v Colombia on the telly. When dinner was ready, Uncle Ted went upstairs (on Auntie Alison’s instruction) to bring Johnny J’s mam down for dinner. Auntie Alison directed Johnny J and me to the table and it took ages before Uncle Ted arrived down with Mrs Tulsi. She saw me and smiled a big wide smile. Uncle Ted was holding her up, keeping her close. She had a scarf on her head and you could see she was completely bald under it. Her eyebrows were gone too, but she still had those big watery grey eyes that Johnny J had and his Auntie Alison did too. She was really thin, but the veins in her arms and hands were fat and sticking out.fn1 It was shocking. I wanted to cry. I closed my eyes and remembered how she used to look.
‘I haven’t seen you in months, Jeremy, and look how you’ve grown.’ Her voice sounded different.
I couldn’t talk, so I just nodded and messed with my ponytail.
Uncle Ted helped her to her chair. She sat beside Johnny J. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, and when her hand dropped under the table, I saw him reach for it and they sat beside one another quietly holding hands, but only for a few seconds.
‘What’s this?’ she said to Auntie Alison.
‘Spaghetti bolognese. It’s good for you, so just try to eat some,’ Auntie Alison said.
‘Very fancy,’ Mrs Tulsi said, and Uncle Ted laughed.fn2
‘Nothing but the best for our Alison,’ he said, and Auntie Alison just gave him that look, the one my mam gave my dad when she was unimpressed with him.
‘And why not? Don’t I deserve the best?’ she said coldly, and Uncle Ted shut up and ate. Mrs Tulsi ate a few bites and everyone praised her.
‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘That must be the first meal I’ve had in a good while.’
‘Five weeks, Mam,’ Johnny J said.
Uncle Ted ruffled Johnny J’s hair.
Mrs Tulsi asked me about my plans for secondary school.
‘I’m going to Luke’s cos that’s where Johnny J is going.’ That wasn’t strictly true. I was really going there because my brother went there, but I just wanted to make a point. Everyone stayed quiet, but Mrs Tulsi looked sad, Auntie Alison looked annoyed, but then she always looked annoyed, she had that kind of face, and Uncle Ted smiled and winked at me.
The spaghetti bolognese was probably the best spaghetti bolognese I’d ever eaten, but I was still glad to go. After seeing Mrs Tulsi I couldn’t tell Johnny J I wasn’t going to do the robbery, though by that point I was such a mess I wondered if they would be better off without me.
Auntie Alison told Johnny J to be home by 10 p.m.
‘Don’t go too far,’ she said.
‘I’m only going to Jeremy’s,’ he said.
‘Well, make sure you don’t go any further. Until they catch those thieves, you wouldn’t know what you’d find yourself up against,’ she said.
Johnny J blushed red. I wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed because he was one of the thieves she was talking about or if he was annoyed that she was acting like she was his mam already. Mind your own business, Auntie Alison!
I tried to be cool, to remain calm and pretend. I wasn’t very good at it and my friend knew me well. He could see I was panicking.
‘You’re still with me, aren’t you, Jeremy?’
‘Of course,’ I said, and I meant it even if it killed me.
Johnny J spent the rest of his evening rehearsing with the band. It was their third night practising in a row. If Johnny J was honest with himself he was starting to enjoy it, and if I was honest with myself they were starting to sound a lot better. Now that Johnny J was playing with them they dropped the backing tracks and he played guitar.
Rich was on a high. ‘We’re going to be the next U2,’ he kept saying, and I felt sorry for him, because Johnny J made his band good and Johnny J was only there for one gig. This time next week we’d probably either be in prison or Johnny J would be in England living with Auntie Alison. So that last night, while Johnny J lost himself in his guitar, playing and singing sad songs about roses, thorns, cowboys, I wrote a letter to God.
Dear God,
I hope you are well. This is Jeremy Finn here. I confess that I have sinned. In my thoughts (I planned a robbery) and words (I talked about it too), in what I have done (I robbed a granny) and what I have failed to do (I failed to get enough money to send Johnny J’s mam to America). And I’m doing it again, all of it – planning, talking, robbing and hoping not to fail again. I’m asking for forgiveness for what I’ve done and what I’m about to do, and I’m begging you to help us save Mrs Tulsi. You can put us in prison if you really feel you need to punish us. I understand we are committing very big sins, but please, God, save Mrs Tulsi.
Thanks very much,
Jeremy.
PS Please make me better at maths.
PPS And help me fit into my new secondary in September. (If I’m not in jail.)
PPPS And if my dad could win the Lotto, that really would be brilliant.
I folded up the letter and put it under my mattress for God to find.
After that I covered my head with my pillow and thought about the kind of letters I’d write home from prison.
‘Dear Mam, I used to like bunk beds. I don’t any more.’
‘Dear Mam, my new cellmate is called Stab-a-Rasher. I’m really scared.’
‘Dear Mam, I miss food.’
‘Dear Mam, I miss you.’
I cried myself to sleep the night before we robbed Walker’s dad’s security van, and in the weeks and months that followed I realised I wasn’t the only one.