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Monday, 22nd April
Gold
My name’s Gold and I live in Bristol. It used to be Marigold, but I hated that ’cause when I went to school, the other kids kept picking on me and said it was a dopey name, and called me ‘Petal’ or ‘Mouldy’‚ and that made me cry, so I told Mum I wanted to be ‘Gold’ instead. Mum said that wasn’t a proper name, but then I said that it’d be even worse when I went to my next school, and everyone would take the piss something rotten, so she gave in and filled out all the forms and changed it. And the teachers all started calling me Gold, and that’s what I became.
Gold’s much better. Gold’s stronger, and gold’s for winners, like in the Olympics, when they put great big medals round your neck. I want to be a winner, but I haven’t won anything yet. I’m already twenty-two and I still live with Mum and Grandad, but Grandad says I’m still a spring chicken and I’ve got everything to live for, so I’m lucky, but sometimes it don’t feel like that at all. So I’m going to have to change all that.
It’s cold this morning, walking to the convenience store. I’m wearing my go-to jacket—it’s a sapphire blue hoodie zip-up, but it’s doing a shitty good job at keeping me warm. I stop and get out my phone and take a selfie, like, pouting at it, posing like models do. Mum would tell me off if she saw me pulling a face like this ’cause she’d say it’s what teenagers do, and I’m not a teenager.
I can’t wait for spring to come proper. Like, I went and got some sunflower seeds (yeah, I did) the other week and I planted them last Wednesday in a big blue pot in my bedroom. They’re called ‘Gentle Giant’, and April and May are the right time to sow them. Mum says I’m bonkers ’cause we ain’t got anywhere to put them when they grow. But we’ve got the yard out the back, so they can live there. They’ll cheer the place up. It needs it. It’s just concrete.
I’m checking for messages now.
When I was younger, Mum was always saying I shouldn’t do that neither, that is, walk down the street with my head in my phone. She said it made me look a real zombie, like I didn’t care what was going on in the world. But I do care. I care masses.
Like, I’m asking myself just at the moment, ‘Is there such a thing as destiny?’ Grandad’s always saying you’ve got to dance to the tune you’re given. He’s always coming out with things like that, bless him, and I reckon that’s ’cause he worked for the Electric for almost all his life.
But what I want to know is this: Is everything set in stone when you’re young? If so, what happens if you don’t like what it is you’re destined for? I’m not sure how that part of it is supposed to work. Can you have a kind of ‘light-bulb moment’? Or do you just have to wish for some sort of ‘miraculous happening’? If so, bugger, ’cause I’ve missed both of them so far. Either that or they’ve been giving the Stapleton Road area the full-on cold shoulder.
The thing is, working at The Handy Store is okay, but I’ve been there over two years now and that’s ages, and I want to do better. A lot better. I don’t want to end up third from last in the sack race. I don’t want that to be my destiny. Not that we ever had sack races at our school, but you know what I mean.
My star sign is Scorpio, and when I read up on it, it said Scorpios were intuitive, emotional and determined. When I looked at my horoscope first thing this morning, it said Mars was in a favourable position, and that ‘today, Scorpio, you should take advantage of the opportunity for a new beginning.’
Grandad caught me looking it up on my phone, and he pulled a face and said it was all mumbo jumbo. Mum’s a Libra, which means she should want to get along with everybody and be helpful. And that’s just how she is, so it can’t all be mumbo jumbo, can it?.
I go in and Jenks (Mr Jenkins, that is) is behind the top counter, sorting through some paperwork. It’s not a big shop, but it goes back a long way, and it’s got two aisles. One’s full of household stuff and other’s food, with a cold cabinet, freezer and fridge. And there’s a rack with magazines in it, but they’re all boring ones about housekeeping or how to look young and stuff like that. I said we should stock some flowers, but Jenks said they were too much trouble, and took up too much room.
He sees me. ‘Morning, Marigold.’
I shudder all over when he calls me that. I mean, it’s only really ancient people who sit in rocking chairs and knit cardigans that are called Marigold. I told him my name was Gold, all legal and everything, but he never took any notice. Probably ’cause he heard Mum call me Marigold, and he thought I was making it up. He doesn’t have a problem calling Joanne ‘Jo’. (Jo’s someone else who works here. She lives in Fishponds and does afternoons. She was forty last month and we bought her a cake and put four candles on it and a smiley, and she went, like, ever so red, but then she laughed and saw the funny side, and it was all right.) I suppose he thinks Jo is a proper girl’s name, like. And Gold isn’t.
Jenks lives above the shop, and he must have been here all his life practically, and watched the whole area change around him. Whenever he talks about Eastville, he has this weary frown and his eyes glaze over. He’s been on his own since his wife, Mary, died last year, and I don’t know what he’ll do when he gives it all up. He must have thought about it. I did ask him not so long ago how old he was, and he said sixty-eight.
It’s about a quarter to twelve, and I’m down the food aisle, stacking some shelves when the front door opens and I know at once something’s wrong.
There’s two of them. They’ve both got those balaclava things over their heads and faces, with just their eyes showing. And they’re wearing dark hoodies.
And gloves. Why?
Fuck. We’ve got trouble. What do they want, coming in here?
One of them, the bigger one, pushes past me. He heads for the counter, where Jenks is.
The other turns the shop sign to ‘Closed’, and he yanks the blind right down. Then he locks the door, and he knows exactly how it works.
Then he like, glares at me.
‘Up there,’ he says, pointing.
It’s a man’s voice. He’s young. I can tell.
I do what he says. I go back up the shop as quick as I can.
Then I see the knife.
Shit.
The bigger one’s holding it and he’s standing right next to Jenks.
He sees me coming. ‘Behind the counter,’ he says. He sounds young too.
I don’t move, like, not straight away, and he shouts at me. ‘Now!’
He’s waving the knife in the air. It’s like he’s showing it off, saying, ‘Look what I got.’ It’s big and long, like the one we’ve got in our kitchen.
The smaller one is up here now, and he yells at Jenks, ‘Key!’
It’s like he’s afraid of saying very much.
He points to the room in the passageway at the back of the shop where we keep the spirits.
If that’s what they’re after, how did they know where we kept them? And that the room was always locked?
Jenks pulls out a drawer under the counter and feels inside. He finds the key and gives it to the smaller bloke.
That one goes and opens up the store room and then unbolts the back door and takes the boxes of spirits and loads them, one by one, into a van they must have driven into the service yard. I hadn’t heard them do that. Mind you, there’s always comings and goings out there.
All the time he’s doing this, the larger bloke has been standing right by Jenks and me, with the knife in his hand, and saying nothing. Just staring at us.
And I’ve been like, frozen, not knowing what to do.
Jenks has been holding his lips closed tight, like he wants me to keep mum, and not get them annoyed.
Now his mate comes up to me and says, ‘In there,’ pointing to the store room he’ just emptied.
Is he going to lock me in there?
He is. He grabs me by the arm starts dragging me into the room. He’s very strong and he’s hurting me.
I yell at him to stop.
The big bloke is standing between Jenks and the two of us.
Jenks shouts at the smaller one to let me go.
The bloke keeps tugging me like he hasn’t even heard him.
Then Jenks rushes over.
The bloke with the knife slaps his hand on Jenks’s shoulder and wheels him round, and Jenks falls to the floor, groaning.
Fucking hell.
It looks bad.
The two thugs run off, out the back door.
The doors of the van slam, and the van drives off.
It all happens like, in seconds.
I’m looking at Jenks lying there.
And there’s blood all over his clothes. They’re bright red.
Oh my god. He’s been stabbed.
I can’t stand is the sight of blood. Mum said I almost fainted once when I cut my finger slicing carrots.
I screw my eyes up. I don’t want to look.
But I’ve got to. I can’t do nothing. Jenks could bleed to death I’ve got to try to stop the bleeding.
Somehow.
Think.
Something absorbent.
What have we got?
Kitchen towels. We’ve got lots of them, and I know where they are.
I run and get a pack of three and tear it open.
I kneel down and press a handful over where I think the blood’s coming from.
He’s on his side, and I lean over to see his face.
‘Mr Jenkins, it’s me, Gold, Marigold,’ I say.
There’s some sort of grunt.
Oh, hell. It must be bad. .
The towels go pink, then red.
I take them off and put another, fresh lot on. My stomach heaves.
I hold them down. They go red too.
I put more on.
I’ve got to call for an ambulance, haven’t I? And the police.
My phone. Where is it?
Yeah, under the counter, where I always keep it at work.
That means letting go of the towels.
I’ll have to do it.
I do. I let go and I get the phone.
I come back and kneel down again and slam a hand down on the towels.
‘Mr Jenkins, I’m going to get an ambulance for you.’
Nothing this time. But I can see his chest going up and down still.
It’s really difficult, but I switch the phone on and somehow I manage to call 999, using my thumb.
I wedge the phone between my ear and my shoulder, and take yet more kitchen roll and press it down on Jenks’s side.
Fuck. I must have moved my shoulder ’cause the phone’s dropped on the floor.
This is a nightmare. I never thought this would happen here, and not to me.
But it has. This is real. And there’s no-one to help me.
I reach for the phone and pick it up. Have I lost the call?
No, I haven’t. The operator answers and asks which service I require. I tell her ambulance and police. I’m trying to say the words slow and clear, but I’m sure my breath’s all over the place, and it must come out weird.
She says she’s connecting me, and then there’s another woman’s voice asking what happened.
I tell her, and I give her the address and everything.
I’m still trying to press down on the towels.
Oh, God. Don’t let Jenks die.
She tells me to try to cover the wound and try to stop the bleeding.
I say I’ve already done that, but there’s still blood coming out.
I lift my hand and it’s red as can be. I feel dizzy now. I need something thicker. The kitchen towels aren’t working.
‘An ambulance will be with you shortly,’ the woman on the phone says. She tells me to stay on the line until it comes, and to put my phone on speaker mode. She says she’ll notify the police.
I say thank you.
I put the phone down and I press the speaker symbol. I smear blood all over it.
I scramble to my feet. I go and find a large packet of table napkins, luxury cloth ones.
I come back, get back down on my knees and try and rip it open.
Shit. It won’t come.
I take my teeth to it and bite it open. I take a handful out, then the whole fucking lot.
I put them all on as fast as I can, clamp my hands on top and push down. Oh hell. My head’s like a furnace.
The operator asks what’s happening and I tell her.
What else? I need to tie it all up somehow. Keep it tight against the skin. But what with? I can’t see anything. Not out here by the store room. And we don’t sell ties or scarves or anything.
There’s nothing else for it. I yank off my tee.
I shout at the phone, ‘I’m tying something round him.’
She says yes, try to stop the bleeding.
I jab my fingernail through it to make a hole, then tear the whole thing apart. I work it under the body somehow, pull the ends together and tie a knot over the messy, pink-red bundle.
I hear the sound of a siren, getting louder and louder, then stopping. Is it an ambulance? Or a police car?
It’s an ambulance.
Two paramedics in green rush in and I shout out to them so they know where I am—out the back.
They tell me to make room.
I grab my phone and get up. I tell the 999 woman the ambulance men are here, and that they’re in charge now.
She says she’ll end the call.
I’m breathing heavily, and my pulse must be super high, like off-the-scale high.
The two of them take a close look and do some checks.
One of them goes out the front and then he come back pushing a collapsable stretcher thing on wheels.
I look at my hands and my stomach churns again. This wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?
