Nightingale Point. Luan Goldie

he hears something, someone coming down the stairs. It stops. He cranes his neck to look up and down. Nothing. But there’s someone breathing. It feels like he’s being watched, maybe by one of those crazy girls from the youth club. He had stopped going after he got involved with one too many of them. Some even know where he lives; they’re probably stalking him. Though he wouldn’t mind being stalked by the girl with the red weave – she looked like the kind of trouble he could enjoy.

      Again, the shuffle of feet, heavy, though, not like a girl. Footsteps. He looks up and down but can’t see anyone. He’s being paranoid, but it pays to be paranoid living around here. Last week some woman got her handbag nicked as she was getting out of the lift.

       ‘I’ll give that ghetto ghetto love, weed and sex, and some crazy drugs.’

      ‘No smoking in the stairwell.’

      Tristan is startled. His papers flutter to the floor.

      ‘What the fuck?’ he shouts.

      A man stands at the top of the stairs. He looks down at Tristan. He is tall and chubby, and has crazy bright ginger hair.

      ‘No smoking in the stairwell,’ he commands.

      ‘You what? You spying on me?’

      ‘No smoking in the stairwell,’ the man repeats, and his face breaks out into high red blotches. ‘It’s a rule. You cannot break the rules of Nightingale Point.’

      ‘Fuck off. Go. Go past.’

      But the man stands there, straight-faced. ‘No smoking in the stairwell.’

      There is definitely something off about him; he’s wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Elvis Presley on it, for a start.

      ‘Rule breaker. Rule breaker,’ the man chants.

      Tristan pounces up the stairs and grabs the idiot by the sleeve of his T-shirt. The man is bigger than Tristan but unsteady on his feet and he topples down easily with a tug. He lets out a small cry as he falls, then grabs the bannister and pulls himself back to his feet.

      ‘Stop looking at me!’ Tristan shouts. ‘Move. Go before I chuck you down the next five flights.’

      The man bends over to pick up his glasses. His grey shorts are too big for him and he gives Tristan an eyeful of his white fleshly arse cheeks before he runs off down the stairs.

      ‘Fucking retard.’ Tristan picks up his papers and returns to making the spliff. He empties his tobacco in and sprinkles the little weed he has left on the top. But he’s pissed off now. He has nowhere peaceful to call his own, except for this place in the stairwell, and now some dumb fucker wants to talk to him about rules and try to kill his vibe.

      Tristan lights up and waits a few moments to enjoy his first puff. It takes him a while to chill out again but finally he relaxes into his familiar routine, lounging back on the step and listening to the muffled sounds of the block.

      ‘Oh, look who it’s not.’ Mary’s voice echoes from above.

      ‘Fuck,’ he mutters and rubs the spliff against the steps. ‘Didn’t hear you, Mary. Boy, you’re so silent. Like a ninja.’

      ‘What you doing, sunshine?’ Her little plimsolled feet patter down the steps till she reaches him. ‘I was looking for you yesterday. Malachi tells me you’re not going kiddie club anymore.’

      ‘What?’ He laughs and fans the air between them. ‘Youth club? Nah, nah. I’m too old for that, man.’

      ‘Don’t man me. What is this?’ She pulls the spliff from behind his ear and he awaits the lecture. Mary’s got a lecture for everything these days. It’s almost like when Nan left last summer she handed Mary some kind of oracle of lectures, one for every minor deviance.

      ‘It’s Saturday. I’m allowed a little relief from life.’

      ‘Why not go and relieve yourself with a book?’ Mary rolls her head around like the African American women she’s always watching on TV. She leans towards him and sniffs his T-shirt till he moves away self-consciously.

      ‘What you doing? I’m clean. You know me, fresh like daisies.’

      ‘You stink like drugs.’

      He laughs. ‘Oh my days. Leave me alone. It’s bank holiday weekend.’

      ‘You don’t work. Every day is bank holiday weekend for you. This is no good, Tristan.’ She holds the spliff in her hands. ‘If you smoke too much wacky backy you’ll get voices in your head.’

      ‘Is that a fact? Is that what the NHS is training you nurses to tell people nowadays?’

      It’s obvious how hard she’s trying to hold a look of disappointment in her creased face, so he hits her with his biggest smile. ‘Come on, Mary, marijuana is a natural product. It’s grows alongside roses and shit.’

      ‘Don’t shit me.’

      Her lips soften into a smile as Tristan laughs. She reaches up and puts the white roll-up back behind his ear. Such a pushover.

      ‘You come with me,’ she demands.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Walk me to the bus stop.’

      He groans, knowing this will be Mary’s time to grill him on school, smoking, girls and anything else that needs to be filled in for her regular report back to Nan.

      ‘I can’t walk you, Mary. I’m busy. Meeting friends and going fair later, innit.’

      ‘You don’t have a choice. Come.’

      She takes him by the arm and they walk down the stairs in silence. The ground floor is filled with the smell of the caretaker’s lunch – egg salad – and the sound of football on his radio.

      ‘Why you wearing so much white?’ Mary asks as they emerge into the heat and light of day.

      ‘’Cause it makes me look like an angel.’

      ‘Angel, ha. That earring makes you look like George Michael.’

      ‘Boy, you’re giving me a hard time.’

      She snorts then let’s go of his arm as something hard and metallic falls to the ground in front of them. It’s her nurse’s fob watch.

      Tristan picks it up and hands it back. ‘It’s broke. Why you still dragging this about? It looks so old.’

      ‘Because it is old.’

      ‘Get a new one. Get a digital.’

      ‘I don’t need new anything,’ she snaps while trying to re-pin it. ‘David gave it to me.’

      A woman in hot pants and a bright red halter top, covering very little, walks past. She’s too old for both Tristan and her choice of outfit. Just his type.

      ‘It’s hot out here,’ he calls in an attempt to get her attention.

      Mary grabs his arm again and pulls him away from the woman. ‘This temperature would be like winter in Manila. It is thirty-five degrees there. Where you going today?’

      ‘Told you. There’s a funfair over on the Heath.’

      She stops and grabs her elbows in that nervous way she often does. ‘I hate funfairs. There’s always trouble at funfairs. Always someone getting robbed or getting their head broken on a ride.’

      ‘Yeah, that’s why I don’t get involved with rides. Those gypsies don’t do health and safety checks. I’m going to check a few gal and that.’

      Mary reaches up and takes hold of one of his cheeks. ‘Eh, sunshine, put a sock on it. Don’t want any babies running around here.’

      ‘Oh