A Sinner's Prayer Read online

  ‘How ’bout we get you some breakfast?’

  Chloe nodded silently. I hoisted her up on my hip and carried her down to the kitchen, sitting her in a chair at our blue Formica-topped table. The kettle on the hob bubbled away frantically, a thick plume of steam pouring from its spout. I grabbed a tea towel from the draining board, wrapped it around the kettle’s handle and took it off the gas, then turned and leaned against the sink with my arms folded.

  ‘So, what’s it to be then?’

  Chloe looked across at the pantry door. ‘Jam.’

  ‘Again? Child, that’s three days on the trot. You eat much more o’ that stuff, you gonna start looking like a strawberry.’

  I listened to her laughter as I walked across the kitchen and stuck my head inside the larder. I reached in and picked up a tall glass jar of home-made preserve, which had been made for us by her great aunt Pearl. I spun the jar in my fingers, thinking of my elderly relations. I felt myself smile. Chloe called out to me.

  ‘So, no ghosts then, Joseph?’

  That burning sensation rose again in the centre of my chest and the smile fell from my face. I turned back from the pantry to face my niece and shook my head at her.

  ‘Ain’t no ghosts here, baby girl,’ I lied for a second time.

  As I unscrewed the jam jar lid, I could feel my pulse beating in my throat with the urgency of a damaged clock that was about to run out of time.

  2

  Parson Street Primary was a red-brick school that resembled a prison more than a place of learning. It stood bleak and foreboding at the top of the Bedminster Road, on the east side of the city. I hated walking through its doors and I dreaded to think what kind of ill feelings it brought out in the children who sat in its classrooms each day. I may have had to grin and bear the gloominess of the old schoolhouse, but I sure wasn’t about to let my kin suffer it. Chloe had recently started at Newfoundland Road in St Pauls. Each morning before work, I dropped her off at Uncle Gabe and Aunt Pearl’s house on Banner Road, then they took it in turns to take her to school and then collect her later in the day. I picked her up each night after I came off shift. It was a set-up that worked well. It allowed me to clock in and out without any hassle from my employers, who were hot on their staff’s prompt timekeeping, and it gave Chloe a sense of routine and family stability. I left her with my kin, with not a worry in the world, happy in the knowledge that I was a working man, versed in floor waxes and bleach – not blood. The only weapon I carried these days was a pocket knife given to me years back as a birthday gift by my good friend and former neighbour, Mrs Pearce. The razor-sharp blade only ever pierced flesh if I nicked my own skin accidently.

  I walked into school the same way I did every morning: through the back door. The caretakers’ hut sat at the rear of the building, tucked away from both prying kids and, worse still, the teaching staff. The concrete and asbestos prefab, erected during the Second World War, was on its last legs. The old shack was like a sweatbox in the summer and felt like an iced-up fridge during winter. Its dilapidated frame and neglected interior had, over the years, been patched up and nailed back together so many times that there was little left of its original 1940s construct, and like the two caretakers who used it, it was out of sight and out of mind. This suited both the school governors and Bristol City Council, neither of which were eager to stick their hands in their pockets to cough up for a new build.

  Friday was the head caretaker’s day off. For eight or more hours, I got to be my own boss, and I relished every second of it. For the rest of the working week, my supervisor was Reg Everett. Everett was a 62-year-old waste of space, who spent more time with his mouth glued to his tea mug and chain-smoking roll-ups than he did doing any actual work. Reg was good at handing out orders, and he made sure that I was around to carry out every one that he barked out. Scrawny, lying and afraid of his own footsteps, I didn’t trust the man as far as I could throw him.

  Knowing I was on my own today lifted my spirits. On Fridays, I didn’t clock-watch. Never had to worry about ole man Everett and his indolence or the next dirty job he was about to throw my way. For one day a week, I got to put my head down and do things how it suited me.

  I hung my jacket on a hook on the back of the door, grabbed a broom and made my way into school and along the echoing tiled corridors to reception to clock in. The time recorder was on the wall next to the staff room and the headmaster’s office. As I was putting my card back into the metal rack next to the machine, I heard the click-click of high heels walking towards me. I turned to face the school’s sombre receptionist, Shirley Kemp. She was a tall young woman with yellowish eyes and thick, slack lips, which gave her the unusual appearance of looking as though she was about to burst into tears at any moment.

  I leaned against my broom and smiled at her. ‘Morning, Miss Kemp. How’s things?’

  Shirley returned a brief, nervous smile. ‘Good morning, Mr Ellington. I’m fine thank you.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, if you don’t mind me saying, you don’t look it.’

  Shirley gave the briefest of glances behind her, then turned her watery eyes back to me and directed her thumb over her shoulder in a single sharp stab towards the staff room. ‘She wants you.’

  ‘Who?’ I looked down the hallway. ‘You talkin’ ’bout Amos?’

  Shirley nodded.

  I blew air into my cheeks, exhaling slowly. The deputy headmistress was the source of all discord and wasted energy. Haughty and disdainful, Amos hated me because I wouldn’t bow down to her position. ‘What now?’

  Shirley shrugged. ‘I was just told to come and find you.’

  I rested my broom against the wall and stuck my hands in my pockets. I looked at Shirley and winked. ‘Right, let’s go see what the ole witch wants.’

  *

  Sarah Amos had been deputy headmistress at the school for more years than she or anyone else working in the place cared to admit. Now part of the furniture, she had become the bane of my working life, considering herself – rather than the council – to be my personal employer. Most of the time, the old harpy stayed out of the way and outta my face, stuck firmly in her lair – an office laid with thick maroon carpets and a huge desk constructed from African ivory wood, with teak shelving installed from ceiling to floor. But every now and then she emerged to make my life a misery.

  Today was gonna be one of those days.

  When I arrived outside her office, the door was already open. I gave a sharp knock on one of the polished oak panels.

  ‘Come in, Mr Ellington.’

  I did as I was told, deliberately leaving the door open. She kept her head down, her glasses perched on the end of her pinched nose as she read the contents of a manila folder. She held up her hand and waggled her fingers at me. I stood across from her desk with my arms folded behind my back. For a brief moment, it felt like I was back on the force.

  ‘Deputy,’ I said.

  Amos pointed a finger straight out in front of her. ‘Door, Mr Ellington.’

  I looked back at the open door for a moment then shut it. The deputy head was still concentrating on the contents of the file when I returned to the spot I’d been standing in a few moments before. When she finally looked up, her eyes focused on the flock wallpaper behind me rather than on my face, though after a few seconds, she corrected her line of vision and gave me the evil eye. ‘A rather delicate matter, Mr Ellington.’

  I cleared a frog from my throat. ‘Say what?’

  Amos shook her head in disdain at my lack of diligence. She repeated herself, just to hammer home the point. ‘As I said, a rather delicate matter. Yesterday evening, I had a rather disturbing conversation with your superior, Mr Everett.’

  I felt my heart sink. ‘Yeah, ’bout what?’

  Amos’s eyes actually sparkled with anticipation. ‘Mr Everett came to report that he’d found a rather unusual discrepancy in the caretakers’ stockroom.’

  ‘Discrepancy? What kinda discrepancy?’

  ‘Bleach, Mr Ellington. Three bottles of Purex bleach seem to have vanished into thin air.’

  I shrugged, never once taking my eyes off hers. ‘What’s that gotta do with me?’

  Amos leaned forward in her seat, eyeing me suspiciously. I was used to it. Most white people I came into contact with liked to keep their eyes peeled on black people, and vice versa. We lie to each other so much that often the only hope is to see some look or gesture that betrays the truth. Amos’s arrogant motioning of her fat head towards me before speaking again told me everything I needed to know.

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to ascertain this morning, Mr Ellington: if it does have anything to do with you.’

  I held my palms out in front of me then rolled them over so that Amos could get a good look at the back of my hands. ‘Well, I ain’t been taking the stuff home to wash in it, if that’s what you’re getting at?’

  ‘That’s not a very helpful attitude, is it?’

  ‘Maybe not, but it’s the truth.’

  The blood was rising under Amos’s pale skin. ‘Be that as it may, Mr Ellington, I have a duty to follow up such matters, and to deal with them accordingly.’

  ‘Deal with ’em any way you like. I’m telling you I ain’t took a brass farthing outta this place that didn’t belong to me. Only thing I leave here with at night is my damn coat!’

  Amos didn’t like my bolshie turn of phrase one bit. ‘I don’t think there’s any need for insolence or that kind of language, do you?’

  A hammering in my ears spurred on my blossoming anger. ‘Maybe you’re right, Miss Amos, but you ain’t the one being called a thief.’

  Amos bit back at me. ‘I have done no such thing.’

  ‘No? Then why the hell you dragged me down here to interrogate me
then?’

  Amos lifted her face to mine, her eyes blazing. ‘This is hardly an interrogation, Mr Ellington.’

  ‘Well, it damn well feels like it. Why don’t you call the police? That’s what I’d do. When I find out ’bout some crime, I call the police. I don’t have anything to hide.’

  I looked down at the ground and took a breath. I hadn’t stolen any bleach, but bluff was all I had left to defend myself. I heard Amos sniff. Maybe she didn’t like the smell of my aftershave. Maybe she thought my patter stank. Maybe the bloodhound in her was trying to smoke out the missing bleach.

  I looked back up to find Amos nervously leafing through sheets of paper in the manila file. She returned another one of her hard stares. ‘I hardly think it’s a matter for the police.’

  ‘Why not? Looks to me like you’re accusing me of thieving bottles of your bleach.’

  Amos folded her arms on her desk blotter. ‘The city council’s bleach, Mr Ellington.’

  ‘I don’t care who the hell’s damn bleach it is, I ain’t took it!’

  Amos continued to eyeball me. I watched her try to clear her throat. She pinched under her chin with her thumb and forefinger before addressing me again. ‘Very well. I’ll speak to Mr Everett again on Monday morning. See if we can get to the bottom of this unfortunate conundrum.’

  I nodded in agreement. ‘Sounds good.’

  I turned to leave.

  ‘This isn’t over,’ Amos called back after me.

  ‘Too damn right it ain’t!’

  The sound of me slamming her office door behind me was loud enough to wake the dead.

  *

  My day went on at a natural pace. No fire alarms. No plumbing or electrical disasters. No more accusations of theft. It was actually a good day, because after my falling-out with the deputy first thing, she stayed locked away in her hide. She wasn’t around looking into everybody’s business like she normally did, whether it was teachers or the custodial staff. She often walked into classrooms to make surprise evaluations. That might have been a good idea, but Amos was rude and rough. She loved Parson Street School more than anything, but not a soul there cared for her.

  I went about my work, cleaning out the bins in the playground, fitting some shelves in the stockroom at the back of the assembly hall and directing two fellas from an extermination company who had come in to lay bait in the gutters of one of the older buildings to get rid of an infestation of pigeons.

  At just after three thirty, a short time after all the children and most of the staff had left for the day, I was outside sweeping leaves and dirt off the doormats at the school’s main entrance. I had my head down, with little over an hour of my work day left to play out. I was tired, hungry and looking forward to the weekend.

  I never heard the young black woman come through the school gates at the top of the path, heard her footsteps or noticed that she was standing right behind me. The first thing I knew of her presence was the gentle cough she gave to get my attention. I turned and smiled when I saw her pretty face. She could have been no more than eighteen years of age, slim built with deep brown eyes. She was wearing a coral-coloured coat drawn tight around her shoulders, her arms folded across her chest. I watched as she suddenly gave a shiver, her sandaled feet shuffling on the ground in discomfort. I could tell that she’d been crying.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  The young girl swallowed hard, embarrassment etched all over her face. She lowered her chin and looked down at the floor when she spoke. Her accent was pure Jamaican.

  ‘Ah was wonderin’ if there was a bathroom ah could use, please, mistah?’

  I looked inside the school, then back at the girl and smiled again. ‘Sure, no problem.’

  I took hold of the big brass handle, swung the door open and held out my hand. ‘I’ll show you where they are.’

  I walked her the short distance down the main corridor, stopping a foot away from the crimson-painted door of the girls’ toilet. ‘Here you go. I’ll be close by to show you back out. Okay?’

  The girl kept her chin tucked in low, her red-rimmed eyes unable to connect with mine. She nodded then hurried inside, thanking me as the door closed quickly behind her. While I waited, I busied myself with my broom along the corridor outside. I heard the toilet flush and then running water before the girl stepped out and made her way over to me.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I stopped sweeping and rested my hand on top of the broom. ‘That’s no problem. No problem at all.’

  The girl’s face brightened a little. She lifted her chin out of her chest to look at me.

  ‘Hard day, eh?’

  The girl nodded. When she spoke, her voice crackled uneasily. ‘Been trying to find myself a job, mistah.’

  ‘An’ no fool wanna give you one, right?’

  Another nod. ‘Dat’s ’bout tha sum of it, yeah.’

  I looked across at the bathroom door. ‘None of ’em let you use their toilet either?’

  The girl looked back down at the ground, her eyes filming. I began to hold out my arm but was interrupted by a familiar and unwelcome voice.

  ‘What’s going on here, Mr Ellington?’

  I turned to face Amos. I lifted my palm to introduce the girl. ‘This young lady here needed to make use of our bathroom facilities, deputy.’

  ‘Did she now?’ Amos gave the girl a cursory, bitter glance.

  I nodded again. ‘Yeah, she did.’

  ‘And you thought it’d be appropriate that this woman make use of our girls’ lavatory, did you?’

  ‘I thought it’d be more appropriate than her using the fellas’.’ I looked across at the young woman and winked. Her face broke into the briefest of smiles.

  Amos didn’t like me winking nor the momentary beam on the girl’s face. ‘Don’t be so facetious.’

  ‘I ain’t being nothing o’ the sort, Miss Amos. I’m just doing what I thought was right an’ proper.’

  ‘Right and proper has nothing to do with it. It wasn’t your decision to make.’

  ‘No? What was I supposed to do, let a young lady take a leak outside in the gutter?’

  I watched Amos grimace in disgust. ‘This happens to be a school, not a public convenience!’

  ‘Yeah, I understand that–’

  ‘I don’t think you do, Mr Ellington. We can’t have any old Tom, Dick or Harry wandering on to the premises. You, of all people, should know that.’

  It was that all people remark that got me really riled up.

  ‘You gotta problem with this here young woman taking a leak?’ Amos’s cheek twitched again when I said the word leak. I promised myself that I’d use it in her company more often if it caused such a disturbing reaction.

  Reigning in my temper, I turned to the girl. ‘You get yourself off now, child. There ain’t no problem here.’ I took a few steps forward and began to usher her down the corridor with my hand at her back.

  She gave me a nervous smile. ‘Thank you, mistah.’

  Amos didn’t like my belligerence nor my decision to escort the girl off the premises. She tried to block our path, her arm outstretched, palm stuck out in front. I put my back to her, pushed past her arm and guided my charge deftly towards the main doors, my hand cupped under her elbow to keep her moving.

  Amos hollered after me, ‘Stop right there.’

  I ignored her and carried on, but I heard the old hag’s footsteps coming up behind me, her pace quickening. I took hold of the handle and hurried the girl outside, nodding towards the street. ‘Go.’

  She hesitated for a moment, so I took a step forward, forcing her to move back up the path. ‘You don’t wanna see what’s gonna happen when that old harpy gets to this gate.’

  The girl’s smile grew large. Lord, was she pretty. I winked again. ‘Go!’

  I turned and walked inside, my back to the door. Amos came to a blustering standstill just inches away from me then pointed her finger in my face.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Her voice sounded like it was coming up from a well. Dangerous and wild.

  My jaw set hard, my hands restless. ‘Escorting the young lady off the premises.’

  Deputy Amos’s lip curled at my disrespectful tone. ‘That was also not your decision to make.’

  I felt my fingers curl up into a fist. ‘Mebbe not, lady, but I made it all the same.’