Niven Govinden - Graffiti My Soul

‘Everything good?’ I go, meaning, being sued by the greedy parents.

‘My people are working on it. Can’t say any more for legal reasons,’ he goes, flippantly, meaning that it’s looking deadly and he’s shitting his pants.

Casey has an embarrassing tin-box stereo and about three CDs. He used to be a music man, kinda like myself, only all his stuff — a couple of hundred CDs, he reckons — got lost in the fire. The stereo, a plastic thing that looks as if it came free with a packet of cereal, and the CDs, The Corrs, Coldplay and Fatty Bedingfield, are recent acquisitions.

‘You’re telling me you’ve spent six months without music?’ I go. ‘How did you live?’

‘We’re not all millionaires like you and your mates,’ he laughs. ‘Some of us have to work for our stuff.’

He’s kinda self-conscious ’cos I’m scanning round the living room as we speak, seeing that, beside the hired eighties furniture, the sofa bollocks etc, and the TV and the stereo, Casey doesn’t really have much of anything.

‘It’s not as bad as it sounds, young Turk,’ he goes. ‘You get used to it. Fewer possessions focuses the mind. It’s an important lesson for a young person to learn.’

‘Ha! I’ll, uh, take your word for it.’

‘You’re never without music anyway, if you have the radio, and the internet.’

Ah, yes, the internet… but the less said about that the better.

Until this moment I’d never given much thought to what Casey did for money. The council pay him for training me — I’d worked the ‘promising young kosher Tamil boy in athletics’ angle. Somehow thought that what they were giving him probably covered it. Didn’t think that the dodgy stereo and the empty fridge would prove a different point, that he’s skint. Sounds like he needs a couple more promising runners to mentor. Maybe I could set him up with… no. He’s a grown boy who needs to sort his own finances out. Not my problem.

I stick Coldplay on the stereo. They’re too grim for my taste, but anything is better than the Irish harpies or Fatty.

He doesn’t mention the tense ten minutes when I have an episode and have to lock myself in my room. Out of my depth and too frightened to move.

Ten minutes later, we’re all good. I wouldn’t have minded chilling in front of EastEnders , it’s what we all do, but somehow in front of Casey it doesn’t feel so manly. He gets the cards out and we play a series of poker hands. I forget about having any objections to group participation; as a houseguest, this kind of mid-evening shit is mandatory. Partly the reason why I’ve never taken up Dad’s invitations for holidays in the Black Forest or wherever the hell he is: because I don’t want to miss my favourite shows (they don’t let you down the way your parents do), and I hate anything to do with sitting round a metaphorical campfire. Moody teenagers are best left to their own devices. That should be the rule.

But I backtrack, like I always do. I seriously get into the poker and start whopping his ass. Ha! Casey wants to play with 2ps, but I insist on matches. He was going to use the coins from his copper jar, but I still wasn’t feeling it. You have to be strict this way with PPPs. If you start gambling with money, however innocent… This is far safer… says the boy in a flat on the Rose estate, on his own with a PPP. I’m a joker, ask anyone. I’m a headcase.

‘My father taught me how to play poker,’ says Casey. ‘When he left the army he was out of work for about a year, so we’d spend afternoons after school, kind of like you and me tonight, playing poker on the kitchen table. He’d tell me to close my eyes and imagine we were in one of those big casinos in Monaco.’

‘And?’

‘We became frequent visitors to Monaco. He’d do some voices. Make it believable.’

‘He can’t have taught you very well, if you’ve got a fifteen-year-old beating your fruity behind.’

‘What have I told you about calling me that?’ he says, laughing so I know he’s not really annoyed. ‘Anyhow, I’m letting you beat me, that’s the point.’

‘Yeah, yeah, Case. Whatever you say.’

I’m way happier talking about poker than I am hearing about grown-up sob stories. He should have dealt with that stuff ages ago, not left it smouldering to foist upon unsuspecting teenagers at a later date.

‘Why did you start running?’ I ask him on our fifth hand, when he’s as good as his word and thrashes me good and proper.

I forget for a moment that I’m trying to act cool and uninterested.

I’m expecting some poetic sub-Irish nonsense about the non-existent green hills of Wandsworth, of training in grotty back yards and pounding inner-city pavements. A glorious display of pure talent over poverty and all that bollocks. There’s none of that. I thought Casey’s buzzes might be the same as mine: enjoying the sudden drop you feel in your stomach as you arrive at the racetrack for a meet; breathing in that mixture of petrol, sweat and freshly cut grass at trackside (this being in Surrey means you’re never more than fifty yards away from the nearest car park); hearing the slightest of scuffles coming from behind when you first make it into the lead, as botched runners start to feel the power of the lion and strain to catch up; of positioning yourself in the starting blocks and waiting for that moment to descend when you cut out all the shit around you, disengage yourself from the people and the noise, and make yourself believe that you are the only winner on the track. That you’re not a loser who won’t amount to anything.

All he says is, ‘Because I was good at it.’

‘That it? Because you were good at it?’

‘OK, Mr V-pen. And when I was on a run, and my legs were working, really working, so that I was ahead of everyone else, I felt fucking invincible. There’s no feeling that can beat that. Not that I know of, anyway. And believe me, I’ve been looking.’

‘And now?’

‘Now nuthin,’ he goes, draining the last of the four-pack, the half Carling that I’ve left on the table for the past few minutes because it tastes like piss, and heading towards the kitchen. ‘I don’t run no more, so I’m never going to get those feelings back. What I can do, though, is help you sustain them. That’s what I’m here for.’

‘And is it enough for you? I mean, the Olympics…’

‘Ah, that was a long time ago. For the moment, this is fine.’

And then, because I’ve had some beer and am feeling brave, and because alcohol can suddenly make you very clever, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were training someone else?’

‘What?’

‘The kid you’ve got. The one I saw you at Britney Spears with. You’re training him, aren’t you? Why didn’t you tell me about him?’

‘Because you didn’t ask.’

‘Very clever, fruit loop. But really, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because you didn’t ask! And I’ve told you about the cheek. Once more, and your mum can come and collect you. I mean it.’

The reply comes sharper than before, the tone not what I was imagining. I know it’s not ’cos of the fruit thing, no matter what he says. He likes it, really.

‘Has Peter Platinum been talking to you?’ he asks. ‘He told me he’d told a couple of friends, other runners, but I didn’t think you’d be one of them. Fucking bigmouth, that kid. You know how little boys like to blab.’

He laughs in a dirty way that I don’t like. Ordinarily I would have joined in with him, seen the joke, appreciated his rare display of irony, but alone with him on Pluto, I’m not in the mood.

‘Track talk, y’know,’ I go, wishing that I actually listened to track talk once in a while.

‘Ah, that windbag! Jesus! God forgive my taking your name in vain. Means that everyone knows if that fairy’s been talking. Christ!’