Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Time, as it usually proved to be, was not going to be the best medicine in this circumstance; even when he returned to the takeaway after school, Ken Jin found himself ducking and diving around the grey worktops in a bid to avoid any form of contact with his irate father.

During the walk back, he had argued with Chris about the events of the previous night.

            Perhaps the thought of his friend’s adventurous escapades (he had been coerced into the trip up to Scotland during the bank holiday) had riled him somewhat or maybe it was the fact he had fared better at the recent Parents’ Evening. Most probably however, was the dramatic backfiring that stemmed from his attempt to enact Chris’ advice: “Shout if you need to, to get your point across…”

The hectic takeaway humdrum was often a helpful distraction to times like these – when Ken’s father despised him more than he could realise, the takeaway life served an unignorable reminder that the teenage boy was an important and necessary component of the business.

Wednesdays presented generally variable levels of custom and today would have been classed as a good day by Ken’s standards. That was until nine o’clock in the evening when the phone rang.

‘Hello, Canton Kitchen.’

‘Order for delivery?’

Most takeaways delivered within a three-mile radius as a standard but with Ken’s father being the only licence-holder and his mother unable to communicate, they had just two options: either hire a delivery driver which they had tried previously with disastrous consequences, or have Ken run deliveries within a shorter radius… by foot. Of course, there was a third option – but not delivering at all was never a genuinely viable alternative, in the mind of his father.

‘Where to?’

‘Weigall Road.’

Those words were an anchor wrapped around his heart, now flung into the ocean of despair. 

He really wanted to say no but after the row yesterday, he felt obliged to demonstrate better behaviour – even if his stance on the situation remained unchanged.

‘What’s your full address?’

Weigall Road lay at the core of the dangerous Ferrier Estate or as Ken referred to it – the Feral Estate. Crimes were as common here as people asking for free prawn crackers and the spine-chilling rumour that Ken had caught wind of, was that anyone who dared trespass the estate after ten o’clock were shot at – by actual guns and actual bullets…

Deliveries by Canton Kitchen thus stopped conveniently after nine-thirty. At least it proved his father, who dictated this rule did care for his well-being… to an extent. But the caller had a clear understanding of the laws and had abided by this time restriction – just – so Ken was left with no valid reason to reject the customer’s request. 

There was also a cost threshold of ten pounds for delivery. This order came to ten pounds twenty, an amount Ken would describe as an utter liberty.

And lastly, to rub salt into this bone-deep wound, her apartment was situated within the one-and-a-half-mile radius that made her eligible.

Ken had debated whereabouts within the takeaway premises the central point of the delivery radius should begin. It wouldn’t have mattered in the grand scheme of things, but it would have made a difference on this occasion. 

Of course, his father had opted for a delivery radius which was shorter – or within running distance, but in some ways, deliveries were an opportunity to flee the takeaway – literally; to receive a breath of fresh air, which was a relative luxury his mother never got to experience. Most of the runs were rather peaceful; he could not be expected to answer phone calls nor be battered by customers and their demands for their chicken chow meins to come sooner when he wasn’t present. But the best part? They gave Ken the chance to build up his stamina and speed for those lunchtime football matches.

He felt a sense of freedom running to Weigall Road even if there was a lingering sense of impending doom. The scene morphed dramatically from cosy terraced cottages with pruned front gardens to a rusting metal gate that led him to a deserted square next to a cordoned-off basketball court. Here, two-bedroom maisonettes were stacked upon each other, meaning Ken was surrounded by four-storey buildings.

There was no chance for the descending evening sun to penetrate through. Most of the apartments were almost guarded by washing that had been hung out to dry – an extra layer of protection from the bullets perhaps. Those living in the Feral Estate clearly had a propensity towards dark coloured clothing. 

Ken brought the small flimsy bag close to his face. The bill and address were stapled to the front. Number forty… number forty…

He was certain he had been to this apartment before, but he had been to several others in the estate and they all looked identical.

A signpost, once tall and proud now leaned like the tower of Pisa with faded numerals. Ken squinted to try and make sense of it. Number forty, if the signpost was to be trusted, was right across the square.

Damn.

Running now was potentially hazardous. He had been taught a humiliating lesson by that hairdresser in Golden Babes: take some change. So, he had come prepared with nine pounds eighty in coins, to what was effectively a poverty-infested warzone; the last thing he wanted to do was attract attention from all the rattling in his pockets.

Ken walked past a broken grey roundabout on a tarmac surface, the sky-blue paintwork now barely evident. The sense of vulnerability from being out in the open was daunting. He shuddered when he saw the smudged chalk outline of a human body close to the swings. How recent was that? Perhaps somewhere behind all the washing was a sniper getting ready for his ten o’clock watch… but Ken still had a fair amount of time before his life would be at the mercy of the metal projectiles, if the rumours were to be believed.

Number forty was upstairs and to get to the top, Ken had to ascend either the ice-cold stone staircase or the filthy lift. His gaze flitted solemnly between the two.

He tried the lift and the graffiti-tarnished doors opened immediately. Flies hovered over a puddle of urine in the corner – their presence only visible every other second as the dim light flickered. The arrows on the buttons at first appeared as tattered as the estate but the numbers were in fact derived from many smaller elevated speckles, much like that of braille. 

Ken used part of the bag he was holding as a makeshift barrier between his fingertip and the lift button. 

The doors juddered as they swallowed him into the lift.

Nothing happened. 

He tried again.

Still nothing.

The sudden fear that he would be trapped here for eternity was allayed when he pushed the button to re-open the doors. He sighed and headed to the neighbouring staircase. 

The whiff of weed filled his nostrils and the source soon became apparent. 

The stairs led to a mezzanine where three men in their twenties were leaning intimidatingly against the wall of the closest apartment with flashy trainers on show and wearing far too little for the weather. 

One of them had a red bandana covering most of his face whilst another wore a truncated gold necklace that covered half his chest.

Ken kept his head down and walked briskly past them before knocking on the vomit-green door. He heard muffled footsteps akin to slipper upon carpet approach, before several locks clicked – in fact, he counted four.

The door creeped opened an inch with the latch still fastened, releasing a jet of minty air up his nostrils.

‘Delivery,’ he said to the fraction of the face that greeted him.

‘Ah perfect,’ said the lady who seemed more frightened than he was. ‘How much?’ she asked.

‘Ten-twenty please.’

‘Okay, hold on.’

She closed the door on him, and he felt a sense of being fed to the intoxicated lions prowling by the stairs. 

Why did she not have the money ready? Ken thought angrily. He did not want to stay in this estate a minute longer.

More shuffling footsteps. 

At last, she opened the door a second time and handed him the exact money – not that Ken was expecting a charitable tip – he never received a tip from deliveries to the Feral Estate though he did wonder if that mentality would be different if the inhabitants learned that he had run all this way by foot.

‘Thanks,’ he said though he hardly meant it. He made a point of staring at the money forlornly before stashing it into his pocket and making a beeline for the exit, hurrying past the cannabis crew. 

‘Hey bro! Bro!’ one called after him. ‘We know you got money on you! Want some weed?’

‘No thanks,’ Ken replied.

‘We’ll give you a discount,’ one taunted, ‘or we’ll chuck in some prawn crackers for free!’

Ken ignored the comment and picked up the pace.

His heart began to pound.

Then he felt an arm grab his shoulder and spin him around. He tried to swallow but his mouth was parched.

‘Where are you going? You’re not scared of us, are you?’ said the man with the bandana, who was clearly the leader of the crew.

‘No,’ he lied. 

‘How much have you got on you?’

‘Like, ten pounds…’

‘Leave him alone man; he’s only a kid,’ one of his companions suggested.

‘I – I -’

He tutted. ‘You’re lucky this time bro. Clear off and don’t come back.’

The man with the gigantic necklace had been watching all the action from afar. He propelled himself off the wall with his left foot and mimed a gunshot at him with his fingers.

Ken breathed a sigh of relief and sprinted downstairs and out of the estate without looking back. His juvenile appearance had perhaps saved him from further agro, but what would happen in a few years’ time, when he did look his age? 

On his way back, he passed a beggar camped not far from the eerie metal gate. It had started to spit and the ink-scrawled sign appealing for money, food or water in his shivering hand was melting away. 

Ken’s speed took him several metres down the road before he stopped. Maybe it was the guilt from the clanging of change in his pocket or the beautiful black cat curled up next to the man, but something willed Ken to make a u-turn.

‘Thanks mate, God bless,’ the beggar said when Ken offloaded half his change into a used plastic cup. 

‘I hope you get yourself some shelter tonight,’ he replied before continuing his way back. 

#

It must have taken three weeks before Ken’s father truly hurdled their post-Parents’ Evening argument, unlike Chris Horns, who had gotten over their disagreement in three hours. But now there were less than two months before these vital exams and a new possible topic of conflict had arisen.

Chris and Ken were walking together from school again. It was a Thursday, and business at Canton Kitchen implied that some customers had assumed Thursdays to be the new Fridays. Chris was one such example; the fourth day of the week was traditionally a family day for Chris, and they would usually have dinner out because his father worked late on Fridays. There had to be a compromise. If only his own father understood this concept…

That also meant there would be no FIFA before Ken began his shift. This evening was slightly different for Chris, however.

‘Are you excited?’ asked Ken.

‘You bet.’

‘But do you even know her that well?’

Chris chuckled and replied, ‘That’s the whole point of a date man. You get to know the girl and find out what she’s about. Get the first date out of the way and then only two left before the big one!’

Chris was popular with the girls whilst Ken was yet to have his first girlfriend but then again, he had never been particularly interested in relationships until Aimee Peller came along. She had only joined the school last year and her claim to fame was that she was an excellent horse-rider and an even better swimmer. There was just one slight issue holding Ken back: she was white and there was no way his parents, who had yet to embrace modern-day values would let that happen. That, and of course, Ken had noticed how Aimee was a rather posh girl who instead of buying her uniforms from the school shop, bought hers from fashionable high street stores and have the emblems stitched on professionally. There was no chance she would bat an eyelid at a pauper like him.

‘Any luck with Aimee?’ Chris must have read his mind.

‘No, I can’t even get her to turn her head.’

‘But you’re not even trying!’

‘Yeah, I am!’

‘How?’

‘Have you not seen me?’

Chris pulled a face. ‘Am I supposed to have noticed?’

‘Well… how do you think I’ve been trying?’

‘I don’t know… I’ve not even seen you talk to her!’

Ken bit his lip and shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I mean…anyway… I have tried,’ he lamented.

‘You’ve tried to talk to her? That’s not good enough man, you have to get in there and actually speak to her. Pluck up the courage.’

‘Let’s not revisit the last time you advised me to speak up!’

There was a brief silence.

‘Anyway, she’s always speaking to someone else.’

‘She’s a popular girl, of course she would be. People don’t hang around on their own like loners at break waiting for the likes of you to approach them.’

 ‘What am I supposed to say anyway: Hi, I’m Ken and it would be amazing to go out with you, but I can’t because I must work, nearly every evening of the week…’

Chris laughed. 

‘She’s a classy lady. Me? I’m just a takeaway kid.’

‘Aimee won’t care what you do, it’s not like you’re going to be working in that takeaway forever! You’re fifteen years old, she can’t expect you to own your own place, drive a car and all that jazz,’ he said. 

‘Well even if I get past that obstacle, I will still be hiding her from my parents for the rest of my life.’

‘You don’t even know what they’d say if you had a white girlfriend.’

‘I do, trust me; they would chop me up and human fried rice will be a new addition on the menu.’

‘Look, either way, before you go and speak to her, make sure you get a haircut.’

Ken rolled his eyes. ‘Thanks for the quality advice! Enjoy your date.’ 

‘Besides, don’t worry man; there’s a girl out there for everyone. See you tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.’

The two teenagers waved to each other as Chris walked up the drive to his house leaving Ken to kick pebbles along the path to the takeaway. Onwards and downwards…

But when Ken arrived that evening, the door to Canton Kitchen was locked.

He peered through the glass, cupping his hands around his eyes.

The lights in the kitchen were diluted by the off-colour cowboy doors but he could not make out anyone inside.

He retrieved his key, which was at the end of a spring, clipped to the inside zip of his blazer and unlocked the door. 

‘Hello?’

His call was met with silence.

‘Mum?’

He ducked under the counter and searched the kitchen and storeroom. The back door was locked, and the shutters were untouched. Ken hurried upstairs then back down again. 

The whirring of the ventilators and debris on the chopping board pointed to the fact his parents had managed to start preparing for business, but for some reason they had both exited in a hurry and were nowhere to be found.