Pirate Cinema

Chapter 10

Facing the parents/Lasers in London/Rabid Dog's horror

26 got back to her house just as her father -- her biological father -- pulled up in a beat-up red Opel that was covered in mud-streaks. 26 and her step-father met her father on the doorstep. He was a big man, Asian like 26's step-dad, but with his balding head shaved to stubble, and dressed in clothes that made him look like a copper, even though they weren't a uniform. Or maybe I was just seeing things because I knew that he was the law, and that 26 and her family didn't exactly get on with him.

Her dad and her stepdad shook hands warily on the doorstep, and 26 busied herself with the key and the lock and her handbag so she didn't have to hug him. I watched it all from the sitting-room window, as 26's mum rushed to open the door even as 26 fiddled with it. They all spilled into the front hall with a stamping of boots and a rush of cold, wet air, and I skulked in the sitting-room doorway, looking at 26 with a feeling like a doggy that's just seen his mistress come home after giving up all hope of ever seeing her again. Our eyes met and for a second I thought she was going to smack me for having left the club so suddenly, damn me for a coward, and order me out of her life. But instead, she practically leapt into my arms, crossing the intervening distance with one long stride. She threw both arms around my neck and one leg around my waist and if I hadn't had the door-jamb to catch me, we'd have gone over like a cricket bail. I was intensely aware that three of 26's parents were watching us, including her copper bio-dad whom I'd never met. But I was even more intensely aware of the warm skin on mine, the lips pressing to my neck, the arms crushing my chest. I held her until I heard her mum pointedly clear her throat.

26 let go of me and I saw through the tears in my eyes that she had tears in her eyes, too. I had an overpowering urge to drag her out of the house and just go, run away and never come back. But there was the small matter of the giant copper looming over us, giving me a look so filthy, it should have come in a plain brown wrapper. I gently pushed 26 a little farther away and smiled at everyone with my best and most harmless grin. Her stepfather nodded back at me and managed a tired smile, but her bio-dad continued to look at me as though he was deciding which charges would send me to prison for the longest sentence.

26's mum stepped between us and gave 26 a hug, which let me escape to the kitchen to put the kettle on and load up a tray with biccies and cups and that. By the time I loaded it with the teapot and carried it into the sitting room, everyone was arranged in a kind of civilized tableau, with 26 equidistant from everyone on the floor, arms around her knees. I set the tea-tray down and began to sneak away. I reckoned I'd go hide upstairs in 26's room until things calmed down, but 26 called to me and patted the carpet next to her. I maneuvered around the stacks of books and sat down next to her, looking down.

“I just can't believe what you're letting her get up to, Amrita,” her bio-dad said. “Hanging out with crazy radicals, risking arrest over this nonsense?”

Her mum kept her composure. “Deepak, it's nice to see you taking an interest in her life again, but you've forgot her past three birthdays, so I don't really think you've got much business criticizing how we're raising her. But this young woman is smart as anything, gets top grades, is probably going to go to University College London next year only because she can't be bothered with Oxford, and she cares about injustice in the world around her and is doing something meaningful to change it. I, for one, am proud as anything of my daughter. I think you might start by telling her the same thing.”

I really, really wanted to go, but 26 had made a manacle out of her fingers and had cinched it tight around one of my forearms. I'd have to gnaw it off if I was to escape. So I breathed deeply.

“Proud? Fine, you be proud. Here's what I know: my daughter's been charged with Crim- inal Trespass, Criminal Infringement, Criminal Computer Intrusion, and those are just the major charges. She could wind up in prison for the rest of her life, and they don't let you go to Oxford or UCL when you're banged up in Askham Grange. So forgive me if I am a little skeptical of your pride here.”