Agnes Owens (29 page)

‘Where is everybody?'

Granny looked up at me pitifully and shook her head. My mother said she didn't know about everybody but she'd just been told that Donald had run off because he owed the drug-dealer. My heart sank. The dealer was a guy called Fat Harry, who did his business on the street corner without caring who saw. He knew nobody would have the guts to report him and even if they did the cops would turn a blind eye.

‘He's in a lot of trouble,' I said.

‘That's obvious,' said my mother.

‘His pals owe money as well,' spoke Granny. ‘I don't know why he's to take the blame.'

‘Because he's the leader.'

‘Then leader must be another name for mug,' declared my mother.

After that, life was so lonely and boring I wanted to cry but I didn't dare in case my mother noticed and sent me to the dentist. She had this theory that toothache was the only thing that made me cry and I'd never given her much cause to think otherwise. I became so desperate for company I took up with a guy in my class called Morton McEwan, another lonely type. Not that I'd always been a loner. It was just a stage I was going through. Anyway, Morton had good reason for being lonely. He wore thick spectacles which gave him an owlish appearance. He also had a bad case of acne. I didn't like being seen with him though I didn't mind going round to his house. He always had plenty of fags and dirty magazines.

I'd been going with Morton for a few days when my mother informed me that Donald was back.

‘Back?' I said, wondering whether to be glad or not. I'd actually given up thinking about him.

‘Seems he was hiding out in an old shed and his arm's broken. I reckon it was that Fat Harry done it.'

I immediately felt a strong surge of sympathy for Donald. I thought I'd go round and see him. Then my mother, who must have read my thoughts, said, ‘In case you're thinking of going round, Granny says he doesn't want to see anybody.'

My sympathy vanished. ‘I wasn't even considering it,' I said.

‘Ever think of joining a gang?' I asked Morton as we were leafing through some magazines.

‘Not really,' he said.

‘I think we should. We can't go on like this for ever.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like drifting along without any purpose. Before you know it we'll be drawing our old-age pension.'

He took off his specs and wiped them on his sleeve.

‘My mother wouldn't like it,' he said.

‘Your mother wouldn't need to know.'

He put his specs on again, stared into the distance and finally said, ‘I'll have to think about it.'

On an impulse I jumped up and said, ‘Well, you think about it, but I'm not going to hang around here all day while you do.'

I banged the door behind me feeling an unjustifiable anger for him. Surely I could do better than that.

Outside, the street was empty, apart from an old guy hobbling along with the aid of a stick, and a woman nagging at a kid to hurry up. All the shops were closed except a pub on the corner which I was too young for, even if I had the money to drink. How are folk like me supposed to make anything of ourselves in a place like this, I thought balefully. Of course, the plain fact was that folk like me were supposed to stay in and watch the telly, if they're lucky enough to have one.

‘Back already?' said my mother, who was getting dressed for the bingo.

‘Why shouldn't I be back? There's nothing for young folk to do here. No wonder they take dope.'

She gave me a sharp look. ‘Are you referring to yourself, by any chance?'

‘No. Just to young folk in general,' I said.

‘If it's something to do you're looking for, there's a pile of dishes in the sink,' she said.

‘Forget it,' I said, stamping off to my room. Talking to my mother was like banging my head off a brick wall, painful and without purpose. As soon as she'd gone I washed my face and went round to Granny's.

‘I heard Donald's back,' I said when she opened the door.

‘Yes, and in some state too. He says his arm's broken. I told him to go to a doctor but –'

‘Will it be all right if I go up and see him?' I asked. ‘Do you think he'd mind?'

‘Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't,' she said. ‘You go up anyway. I know he's fond of you.'

‘Is he?' I said, wondering what made her think that when he'd never given me any hint of it. I ran up the stairs joyfully.

Donald sat on the edge of his bed strumming the guitar, with no sign of a bandage even.

‘I thought you had a broken arm,' I said. He stopped strumming and sighed as if I had interrupted him in the middle of some composing.

‘No, but it felt like it. I got kicked, you know.' He put his guitar down and asked what I wanted.

‘I only came to see if you were OK but if you want me to go –'

He sighed again. ‘Actually, I was thinking of topping myself.'

‘You were?' I said, not really surprised.

‘I might as well do it and save Fat Harry the bother.'

‘What about Granny?' I said. ‘Wouldn't she lend you something?'

‘How could she? She's only got her pension.'

‘True,' I said.

We sat for a while, thinking. Then I got an idea so good I couldn't believe it.

‘Listen,' I said. ‘I know for a fact she's paying up an insurance policy for her funeral. Why don't you ask her to cash it in and tell her if she doesn't it could be your funeral.'

He stared at me thoughtfully through narrowed eyes.

‘That's a great idea. I'll ask her as soon as she comes up with the tea. But maybe it's best you should go. She might not want to discuss it in front of anybody. You know what women are like, very secretive.'

The following evening the gang were all there, including Marian. She gave me a hostile glance which I returned with an equally hostile one. Donald told me to hurry up and close the door: did I want the whole world to know his business? I didn't like the way he spoke but before I could dwell on it he was calling for everyone's attention. I waited, thinking he was going to explain how he'd soon be able to pay Fat Harry. Instead, he was saying that Fat Harry was willing to reduce the debt if they all did a bit of collecting for him. Apparently there were so many people owing him money he couldn't keep up with it. There was a silence until Marian declared it was OK with her. I thought that was pretty stupid, considering nobody would expect her to collect. However, that seemed to do the trick. They all agreed that it was OK by them. When I asked Donald later on if this was a wise move he said maybe not but it was the only way he could pay off the debt.

‘What about Granny's insurance policy? I thought you were going to ask her –'

‘I was, but then I thought she'll need it for her funeral so I didn't bother.'

He turned away then began to talk to Marian as if he'd suddenly found her totally interesting. I thought it was time to leave. No one was speaking to me anyway.

A few days later my mother told me Granny had cashed in her insurance policy to pay for Donald's debt. I was eating cornflakes at the time and I could feel my face flushing, but she didn't seem to notice for she went on, ‘To think she's been paying it up all these years and now she'll have nothing for her funeral. I don't know who's going to pay.'

‘Maybe the social will pay,' I said, with my head bent low over the plate.

‘Maybe they will and maybe they won't,' she snapped. ‘All I know is that I can't.'

After that she became so angry about the whole affair that she stopped visiting Granny. She said she was liable to do something drastic to Donald if she ever ran into him.

‘So where have you been lately?' asked Morton as we were about to watch
Ghostbusters
on video once again.

‘Nowhere special. Just hanging around.'

He offered me a cigarette from a silver case containing five. I was quite impressed with it, then he said, ‘Watch out for my ma coming in. She always likes to check up on me every so often.'

I smoked the cigarette hurriedly though I suspected it wasn't the smoking that bothered her. It was likely me. She'd a habit of staring at me very suspiciously as if I was up to something. Perhaps she thought I was gay, or we were both gay. I wouldn't have been surprised if Morton was gay by the way he carried on.

‘Anyway,' he said, ‘I'm glad you came.'

Then a good thing happened to us for a change. We joined up with a bunch of boys a year or so younger than us. They were right into breaking windows and wrecking fences, things like that,
nothing drastic except may be for the time we set the bins alight and all the old folk were out in their shirt-tails. Not that I'd call that drastic. Nobody was burned and anyway some of these old folk had it coming, the way they went on about us playing ball in the street. Though sometimes I felt all this vandalising was a bit beneath us. I told this to Morton and he said at least we weren't into mugging anybody.

‘Not yet,' I said with a laugh.

‘I hope you're not in with that lot that's pestering all the neighbours,' my mother was saying when I was on my way out the door. I turned to her indignantly.

‘You know I only go round to Morton's to watch videos, but if you like, I'll bring him round here and then you'll know where I am.'

I knew my mother couldn't be bothered having anyone in the house. The effort of trying to put on a pleasant face in front of strangers was always too much for her.

‘Don't bother,' she said. ‘This place is too big a mess to bring anyone into.'

Then Donald was the main topic with my mother once again. She'd heard in the Co-operative that he'd been arrested for being in possession of drugs.

‘I knew it would come to this,' she moaned. ‘It was the company he kept. They were a bad influence.'

When I reminded her how she'd once said Donald was the bad influence, she replied that she didn't remember saying anything of the kind but anyway I'd better not turn out like him or she'd put me out.

‘Give us break. I've not done anything.'

‘Not yet,' she said darkly, then she went on, ‘Why don't you go round to see Granny? She's bound to be taking this badly.'

‘Why don't you?' I said, for I didn't fancy listening to all that
moaning and groaning that would go on about Donald. I could see myself slipping up to his room and strumming his guitar just to get away from it all, and that would be quite a depressing thing to do under the circumstances.

Donald did two months in jail. He came home one day and told Granny he was going to get a job down south as there was nothing doing up here and he would only get into more trouble if he stayed. Granny was quite upset at that. She said she would rather he got into trouble up here because if he got into trouble down south she wouldn't know anything about it. I was sorry to see him go. Having been in jail, he'd become something of a hero to the young lads in the street and I'd hoped some of the glory would rub onto me if we were seen together. Only my mother was pleased. Out of sight, out of mind, she said to Granny, who'd never stopped crying about him for days. It turned out that he never went south after all. We discovered he was living in another part of town with a guy who had a character as bad as Fat Harry's, if not worse.

‘I might have known,' said my mother. ‘We should be seeing him back any day now to upset us all.'

But he never came and things were altering for me again. It started with the weather becoming colder and some of the young guys not showing up in the evenings. They said they were staying in to study for their exams, which I could hardly believe. Then Morton said he was going to stay in for a spell as his mother didn't want him going out in the fog in case he got done in. What fog, I wondered.

Aloud I said, ‘Maybe she's got a point there. I might as well stay in myself and do a bit of studying. It's the only way to get on, I'm thinking.'

I stayed in but I didn't do any studying. Mainly I sat in front of the television hoping to see something of a sexual nature. I liked when my mother went out to the bingo so that I could watch whatever I wanted to without her switching it off.

‘You're a funny one,' she would say. ‘First you're never in and then you're never out. There's no happy medium with you.'

When I told her that I'd go out in the summer, she said we could all be dead and buried by that time and I said I hoped so.

It's April now and the nights are much clearer, which gives me this feeling that I want to go out and kick a ball straight through somebody's window. Still, I've heard some good news today. My mother told me that Donald was seen in the street driving a car. She thinks it's stolen. I asked her if he'd been to see Granny yet and she said she wouldn't be surprised as he's got the cheek for anything.

‘And I don't want you going round there,' she added. ‘He's a bad influence. I've always maintained that.'

‘Don't worry. I wouldn't dream of it,' I said.

As soon as she leaves for the bingo I'm going round to Granny's. Who knows, Donald might be up in his room strumming his guitar. And if he's not there I'll check on the street corner. He's bound to be somewhere near at hand and he might even be glad to see me now I'm a lot older.

M
ary sat on a bench at the top end of the central station, panicking. Her mind had gone blank again. She knew this was part of her problem, but it was a horrible feeling, as if a brick wall had shut out half her brain. For a minute she couldn't think why she was here then thankfully it came back to her. She was waiting for her son Brian to arrive on the Manchester train due in at platform 10, according to the chap in the ticket-office. It was terrible the way her memory kept going. She was not old enough to have senile dementia. She was only forty-six and it had been like that for two years now. A woman joined her on the seat, keeping to the farther end of it. Mary thought she would ask her about the train in case the chap in the ticket-office had got it wrong.