Genie and Paul by Natasha Soobramanien Read Free Book Online

Paul’s mates were proper East End. People who’d lived in Hoxton and Shoreditch all their lives, like their parents and grandparents. I used to think he just liked villains – that’s what a lot of them were – and I could see why because a lot of them were clever in a raw sort of way, like Paul. But now I’m not so sure. I think it was more the strong sense they had of themselves. Who they were. They all lived in the same place they’d been born in, grew up in the same place where their parents and grandparents had grown up. These guys knew where they were from. Who they were. That really appealed to Paul. But when it came down to it, Paul was not one of them. And there was something a bit… loose about Digs. I was loose enough myself to know it when I saw it. So I went with them. Digs takes us to his flat, one in a council block round the back of Hoxton Market. As soon as I walked into that place, I feared for my life. The front room of this tiny council flat crammed with – well, it looked like a herd – of occasional tables, all of them crowded with fancy little figurines: sad clowns, dimpled shepherdesses, pigs in fancy-dress. Totally Pound Shop. Impressive how Digs manoeuvred his way around all that tat without breaking anything, telling us to watch this or that as we made our way to the sofa. The place looked so normal and the two of them so spannered, teeth grinding, these horrible grins when they thought they were smiling – the place reeking of Glade and psychosis. Then Digs says, Amazing, isn’t it? And I notice the fish tank. It’s on the wall-unit . This huge tank. And in it, one solitary, splendid turquoise fish, like no fish I’ve ever seen before. Its tail is like an ostrich-feather fan. Almost burlesque. Shimmery blue like one of those huge Brazilian butterflies. So I’m looking at thisfish and I think, There’s something wrong with it. I couldn’t work out what. Then I realised. It was absolutely still. Not patrolling its tank like fish usually do, but just hanging there, suspended in the water, like it was waiting for something to happen. And it was. Something was about to happen. Digs asks us what we think of his fish. Goes up to the tank and makes a kissy face. It’s a Siamese Fighting Fish, he says. Then he points to a smaller tank on the shelf above. There’s a smaller fish in it. Reddish pink and mottled. It has some kind of skin condition. Its tail and fins look kind of ragged, and dragging, like a kid dressed in grown-ups’ clothes. Digs tells us he’s got to keep them separate; two males in a tank will fight until there’s only one’s left. Like nick. He can’t even let them see each other. You want to see what happens when you hold a mirror up to ’em. Then he turns to Paul and asks which one he fancies. For the fight. My heart sinks but Paul looks blank. So Digs spells it out. He’s gonna make them fight. And he wants Paul to bet on one. Double or quits, he says. If Paul wins, he’ll wipe his slate clean. If not, he’ll double it. OK, Paul says, I’ll take the blue one. Digs says he fancies that one too, so they’re gonna have to toss for it. And it’s Digs who does the toss, Paul smiling to himself, because he can see by now he’s walked straight into this one. Paul loses the toss. He gets the red one. He just shrugs. What else can he do? Looks like a survivor, he says. A fighter. You take the pretty one, then. So Digs takes out a small net and dips it into the smaller tank and tips the red fish into the tank with the blue fish. The second it takes for Paul’s fish to right himself is the second it takes for Digs’s fish to go at him with all the force he’s gathered in his hours and hours of stillness. I see the lunge and I close my eyes and when I open them again a split second later all I can see is flashes of turquoise, flakes of mottled red and ribbons of blood unfurling like fag smoke in the water. A second ago I couldn’t look and now Ican’t look away.