2026

Once Reuben had arranged the barrels and checked the supply lines he climbed the wooden stairs away from the cellar into the beery serving area to help Joe with the endless cleaning polishing and arranging of the bar and serving area. But first he counted the stock and calculated how many crates of beer cider lemonade and cans and spirits and all the rest to bring up. Probably three loads on the old fashioned manual lift twelve crates on each load. Ray the head barman went down to start loading up. Reuben took a spray and started on the tables.

A button on the floor he thought had fallen off Dermot Heaney's coat in the police scuffle last night. It was only ten minutes but bad for reputation. Dermot was eighteen, they all knew that and never checked for i.d. as he never carried any. The cops would give him a rough time, they hated nonconformists and young ones were the worst. The pub was in the clear and Reuben himself made sure he was always polite and businesslike so even if they recognised his document was a fake they never said so. No harm to them if they needed a hold over him when they had a case to solve. He was more afraid his father would walk in randomly off the street though as far as he knew the old man had never been to London still less to an obscure part of the north of Islington poised evenly between Arsenal and Spurs tribal areas. He picked up the button, maybe he would give it to Dermot's mum. He could even sew it back himself given five minutes. Letting his mind idle he carried on with the work.

*

The Euston signs finally came to a halt and he joined the queue to descend to the platform. It was chilly and he shivered after the heat of the train, despite Mark's hoodie and coat, fortunately both made according to the fashion of having three sizes too large for the thirteen year old. Taking out his ticket he secured the rucksack on his back, swept along by the crowd to the barrier. A boy his age wearing red trainers and a white hat bumped into him.

"Sorry mate you ok."

"Yeah. Was just looking for where to go."

"Oh. Want advice. Youth Information Project. Stephenson St. Out that exit, cross the zebra, it's a one way and just beyond the corner." It would be a short while before Reuben would come to recognise the different London accents.

He found the road easily, though it was called Stephenson Way and seemed to contain only office buildings, many not even in use. The smell of the city but not the roar in this street. Hardly anyone around away from the main thoroughfares and as if by instinct he looked behind to see a large youth probably he thought a Tunisian as they had started to come as refugees in the last year or so. He walked quickly towards the corner hoping the place would be there or at least the street would open out onto something where there were more people but no there were two others coming round the corner and he knew it was trouble when he turned to face back and saw the boy in red trainers keeping guard at the far end.

He was standing by the stairs of a locked office building so he wedged his rucksack into the gap behind the handrail then stood on the second step to face his attackers. As Barry he had fought off four at school but his reputation did not come with him and these guys were fresh from civil war. Summoning the image of his father staring him down weakening him he projected it into his own face, dismissing the younger two with a wave of his hand and squaring up to the bigger one. He knew there would be little to do when the knives came out but instead the guy said something in a coarse language to the others who backed off a little then just turned and walked away. The guy turned to him and stretched out his massive hands.

"Yo boxer. No fight." He had it was true done boxing training till he was twelve and liked hitting the punchbags and balls but had never seen the appeal in hitting other boys for sport or entertainment. He relaxed, seeing the threat evaporate and they touched their clenched fists together then the big guy moved off and Reuben surprised and confused retrieved his rucksack and returned the way he had come.

Seeing the white boy further along the street he followed after and caught him up at the corner of the main street where the shops started. Grabbing his arm he pushed him against the corner of the wall.

"Hey mate aint done nothing to you," said the boy in irritation, then in a lower register growled under his breath, "wise up man walk normal. Like we're mates." Reuben set his rucksack properly on his back and shuffled alongside as the squad car floated past, the cop in the passenger seat looking suspiciously at him but they did not stop.

"They know you?"

"Course they do. They'll know you too now. Next time they see you on your own they'll pull you in quiz you and examine you. Give you a hard time."

He took out a cigarette, did not offer one.

"We work the north of England. Liverpool Manchester and stations between. Get two or three a day. No knives no fighting keeps us below the radar. Cops don't mind too much if we send a few kids back in tears to mummy where they came from. Less for them to worry about. If not they can always go down Dilly for a bit of arse rent. He took a drag. "Wanna join us?"

Reuben shook his head firmly.

"Din't think you would. He eyed Reuben's body. "Don't ask less than a twoer. What's your name?"

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"Reuben," said Reuben though he had to think about it for a second or two.

"S'not the name on your id."

"No."

"Got a girlfriend?"

He nodded ever so slightly.

"Good. Give you something to think about while you're getting lubed up." He smiled a leer that disfigured the left side of his face. "You need to be eighteen. And take condoms. S'illegal for pros to work without condoms."

Reuben flinched at the word.

"Get used to it. I'm a tealeaf you can be a bumboy. There's worse places to be." He took another drag. "Like old."

Turning his cigarette so the burning end was shielded by his palm he moved into a narrow side street. "You want id go to Bratislava. S'on Caledonian Road. Dinos. Old guy with straggly hair and a bear tattoo on his arm. Used to be a wrestler. Two fifty." For a moment Reuben thought that was the house number then realised he would have to take money. "Oh and get rid of the rucksack and hick clothes it makes you look a mark." The boy nodded goodbye and moved off down the street and for the second time Reuben wondered where he would go for help. Then he realised the boy had not been nodding at him but at the building opposite where the sign bore the title Youth Information Project.

The café, when he found it, was every bit as he expected, steam or grease on the window making it impossible to see in and when he opened the door the smell of deep frying ran out to greet him. He crossed the threshold in his new jeans and hoodie all bought from Camden Market where he had been directed by the manager of the hostel in Islington. He had arrived at the hostel in the luxury of a taxi, stopping a street away so as not to appear ostentatious but he left on foot with an old fashioned street map in his pocket and reached the market as the first stalls were beginning to pack up, having noted along the way the types of clothes other teenagers were wearing. His old clothes he left safely with his rucksack in the locker on the return to the hostel and he just had the hundred and fifty tucked into his boxers, held securely in place by the belt of his jeans, and another hundred in his sock, plus some change in the trouser pocket. He took a table, checked the sparse menu, went up to the counter and ordered some food, only now realising that he had not eaten all day. He did not look at the man on the table at the far wall and when he had finished and the only other two diners had left he took out the map from his pocket, opened it and saw out of the corner of his eye the man turn to look at him.

"We close to Islington here?" asked Reuben.

"Bout a mile." The man lifted his arm to point the direction and the bear tattoo was clearly visible.

"May I?"

The man nodded and Reuben stepped across the room to his table. Taking out his id card, which was the sole item in his wallet, he pushed it across the table.

"What name?"

"Reuben Ford."

"Write it on here." He shoved across a scrap of paper and a chewed up biro.

"How old you wanna be?"

"Eighteen," said Reuben with a hint of a question.

"Be nineteen," said Dinos. "And be a bit more sure of it. Now, how old are you."

Reuben waited a second. "Nineteen," he said, as if he had been nineteen all his life.

Dinos took out a very modern looking phone and snapped the id card and the paper with Reuben's name on it, then took the card out of its holder and photographed the back as well. Reuben had never even realised there was anything on there. "Two Fifty."

Reuben looked surprised. "The boy said one fifty"

"Boy?"

"White boy, red trainers and white hat, leery smile on the left side."

"Oh yeah. Euston station."

"Yeah. Anyway I got two hundred."

"Two's good."

Reuben took out the one fifty then reached down to his sock, realising too late that the extra money was in a wad of five twenties and he could only pull it out and stare at it.

"So I lied," he said handing over the bundle.

Dinos looked carefully at him for a second or two.

"You learn fast," he said. He removed two twenties plus a ten from the original wad and passed them back across the table. Pushing a button on his phone he watched it carefully.

"Done," he said. "Twenty minutes." He stuck a hand out, fingers up, and they shook. He smiled, showing several missing teeth. "You're a good lad. You'll go far. Do one thing now."

Reuben looked at him questioningly.

"Buy me a drink from the counter."

Reuben looked surprised.

"Do it. Without id. See if you can get past Stathos. He's pretty easy. Just make it like you own the place."

Reuben thought for a second, arranged his face. Looking at the label of the bottle on the table he got up and walked to the counter. The man in the kitchen stirred himself.

"Two bottles of Becks."

Stathos looked at him and he looked back calmly, trying to give the air that he would be very offended to be asked about his age. The man thought better and ducked down for the bottles, snapped the caps off and set them down on the counter.

"Glasses?"

Reuben shook his head and paid. Grasping the bottles by their necks in one hand he put one on the table in front of Dinos and went to take the other back to his original table but Dinos motioned him to sit down again.

"Here's the rules. Don't show your new id to the police, they'll clock it. Get a real one from a solicitor in your new name and keep it in your wallet. These guys are your enemy, they hate teenagers. So yes sir, no sir. You can use it in shops, workplaces, pubs and brothels. Not casinos, they have scanning machines. You get caught its two thousand. And they'll try and force you to grass. Else a month in jail. Rule is, you do the month and I pay the fine. Then you come and work for me for two months. So don't mess up."

He tilted his head to indicate that Reuben was dismissed so he moved back to his table and studied the map for a while till a boy on a mountain bike came with his new id.

By the time Reuben returned to the hostel it was long since light and the commuters had made their way to work. The manager was in his office by the front door, leaving the residents to attend to their own breakfast as and when they surfaced. He glanced up as Reuben entered the building.

"Wondered when we'd see you again."

"Yeah, sorry, kinda something happened last night."

"Something that involves getting paid for?"

Embarrassingly conscious of the two hundred pounds he had just acquired he felt reluctant to share too much. After taking advantage of city life to watch a film in the evening he had wandered down to Piccadilly, just to see whether the boy had been truthful, and a teenager quite clearly too young to be out on his own had given him the basic details. Which ones standing around the area were the enemy – he referred to them each time as Sid as they would always be in plain clothes – and where to throw his fake id if he was searched, so that someone would pick it up and he could rescue it the next day for a ten pound payment. Someone made a living from this.

"Best go to bed. Happens I might have a job for you. I'll wake you at three."