Deadfolk (12 page)

And then my eyes fell on a vehicle that I hadn’t noticed straight off, it being a white van, and white vans being commonplace in Mangel. It were filthier than I’d ever seen it, so much so that you could barely read the MUNTON MOTORS on the side panel.

I stepped into the road and looked up at Sal’s window. A face looked back at us for a moment, then the curtain fell away. Weren’t Sal’s face. It were Lee’s.

Bastard.

I ran to my car and fired her up. Tried to fire her up, that is. I tried three…four times and the fucker wouldn’t go. I looked over at the door of Sal’s building. No one coming out yet. But I knew it wouldn’t stay that way. Jess were loading up his shotgun like as not. ‘Come on, dozy bitch,’ I says to the steering wheel. He’d be down within half a minute. Maybe I ought to get out and leg it. ‘Come on…’ The engine were flooding and soon I’d have no chance of getting her started. That were the trouble with classic cars. And birds. Push em too hard and they crosses their legs on you. I saw a movement in the corner of my eye, someone walking across the street. I didn’t want to look. I wanted the motor to start so’s I could piss off. But it didn’t. And then there were a tap at the window. A gentle tap.

The tap of a feller who ain’t in no hurry.

I looked up. Lee were standing there empty-handed. ‘Fret not, I ain’t armed,’ he shouted so’s I could hear through the glass. ‘But I don’t like shoutin’.’

I wound down the window.

‘All right, Blake,’ he says.

‘All right, Lee.’

‘Just came down here to get you. Havin’ a party, we is. Me, Jess, and Sally. Celebratin’, see. A good job well done an’ that. Well, mostly well done. But we’ll go over that with you and give you a few pointers, for the future like.’ He grinned and stepped back. ‘Come on, Blake. Comin’ up or what? Got yer wages up there for you, we have. And you ain’t seen what we found in that safe. Don’t you wanna see what we found in that safe?’

‘Just tell Sal to come down,’ I says quietly.

‘No, mate. She’s enjoyin’ herself. An’ she wants you to join in. Look, she sent these down for you.’ He got a pair of Sal’s knickers out his pocket and put em to his nose. ‘Mmm. She’s a one, ain’t she?’

He weren’t getting to us. He could say what he liked, but he wouldn’t get to us. He wanted us to charge upstairs like a mad fucker and burst in on Jess, who’d be waiting there with a shotgun or summat. Couldn’t see why they wanted to kill us in Sal’s flat, mind. Like I says already, their style were more Hurk Wood at dead of night. Maybe they didn’t want to kill us. Maybe they just wanted to shite us up a bit. They’d got away with the robbery after all. All right, I’d pulled the trigger. But it weren’t like the gun were loaded.

‘Lee,’ I says. ‘You can keep my share. Call it forfeit, since I…you know, fucked up a bit. Soz about that. Dunno what happened. Reckon I were scared. See, I can’t do this robbin’ lark no more. I’m too old an’ I…’

‘Lost yer bottle.’

‘Aye.’

‘Seems you had bottle enough to shoot us, though.’

‘Well…that weren’t bottle. That were…barminess. Aye, fuckin’ insanity. I’m a bit fucked up in the head see, Lee. Doctors said so emselves. You knows about that, don’t you?’ I looked at him, mouth hanging open and one eye half-closed.

He weighed us up for a moment or two, then opened the door and says: ‘Come on.’

I couldn’t see that I had much choice, so I got out and started climbing the stairs. Lee were walking just behind us. He were talking about my Capri, telling us in a polite way that it were a bit past it and I might want to think about upgrading some time soon. They could do us a good deal at Munton Motors, he reckoned, and they’d even give us a couple of ton part exchange for the Capri. He said he’d be conducting trade affairs for the time being until Baz came back from his jolly. While he were talking I pictured meself turning round and twatting him so he fell back down the stair and broke all his bones. But I kept quiet and walked on up. It were better to just let him talk, even if he did know fuck all about classic motors.

Sal’s front door were a little ways open. I pushed it and walked on in.

First thing I saw were Sal. She were standing in the corner in her dressing gown, clutching it tight to her chest, looking pissed off more than frightened. She gave us eyes like she were trying to tell us summat, if only I could see what.

Second thing I noticed—briefly—were the cricket bat swinging at me face.

I didn’t notice much after that.

‘Don’t move.’

I moved my head a bit.

‘Blake, don’t move. I’ve called the ambulance.’

‘Fuck sake…’

‘Don’t speak neither.’

I opened my eyes. Everything were blurred and swimming around us like murky water, which I didn’t like. But I recognised Sal’s voice so I kept calm. Her face appeared in front of us, upside down. ‘You called ambulance?’ I says.

‘Aye. Thought you was dead. Lie still.’

‘Why’d you call ambulance if you reckoned us dead?’ I tried to sit up. ‘What good’s ambulance to a dead man?’

Sal tried to push us back down but I didn’t let her. She folded her arms and glared at us, lips set like a clenched arse hole. ‘You never does nuthin’ I says. I says don’t move so you moves. Says lie still so you sits up.’

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’

She held firm for a few seconds, then wavered. Sweet talk always worked wonders with Sal. She flung her arms round us and says: ‘Oh, Blakey. Woss goin’ on? You used to be so brave.’

I’d been hugging her back but my arms went limp. ‘Eh?’

‘You bottled it again, Blake. They telled us. What this is for, ennit?’ She pointed at my head, grimacing. ‘And this.’ My arm this time, where blood were seeping through the shirtsleeve. Not so much that I might pass out, but it stung like billy-o nonetheless.

‘An’ you believed em?’ My head were numb, besides a throb right in the middle of it. I touched it, then looked at me fingers. Blood. I felt it again, wondering how they’d managed to get a cricket ball under the scalp like that. ‘What the fuck did they do to me swede?’

‘What were I meant to believe, eh? Why would they do this if it ain’t true? What’re you doin’ knockin’ around with them anyhow? I thought you hated em.’

‘Never says I hated em.’

‘Did.’

‘Never. Says keep away from em is all.’

‘Same diff’rence.’

‘Ain’t.’

‘Is.’

‘It fuckin’ ain’t. And what the fuck did they do to my head?’ I got up. My legs was wobbly, like I’d been in the gym squatting twice my own bodyweight all afternoon. But they had strength enough in em to get us to the mirror. ‘What the fuck has they done?’

‘Keep it down. There’s a babby next door.’

‘A babby? Fuck the babby, what about me head?’

‘Called ambulance, didn’t I?’

‘I don’t need no ambulance.’

‘Does.’

‘Bollocks. I’m all right. Cancel the fuckin’ ambulance.’

‘Why? Look at yer head. What if you’ve got brain damage or sum…?’ She stopped and bit her lip and looked sideways. ‘Sorry.’

I wondered what she were on about at first. Then I remembered: I were barmy. In the eyes of most Mangel folk I were anyhow. Even Sal.

A barmy bottler.

‘Cancel the fucker.’

‘Stop fuckin’ swearin’ at us.’ She went to the window, breathing hard. When she spoke again she were a lot quieter. ‘I can’t anyhow. Look, they’m outside.’

‘Tell em it were a false alarm.’

‘Blake, your head.’

‘Fuckin’ tell em.’

I stared in the mirror after she’d gone out the door. To be honest with you I didn’t recognise meself. You wouldn’t recognise yourself neither if you had what I had. The bump were rising up right off the top, looking like the biggest and hairiest bollock you ever seen. If I didn’t have such a short barnet I’d not look so bad. But there were nothing I could do about that besides wearing a hat. Maybe I’d get a nice hat. I peeled the shirtsleeve off me skin and rolled it up. Looked like a cat had been having a go at us. The skin of my forearm were all scratched up and bleeding. But then I noticed darker stuff mixed in with the blood, like ink. And the scratches suddenly took on a pattern.

Me guts tightened up.

I went to the kitchen and ran water over it until most of the blood were off. Then I saw it clearly. CUNT, it read. I recognised the handwriting and all. It were the same as the SUSAN on Jess’s arm. I tried to wash out the ink but it were no use. They’d branded us a cunt for life.

I heard Sal shouting down in the street. Giving her a hard time about wasting council resources like as not. Giving Sal a hard time about anything were a mistake. You didn’t know what a hard time were till you gave one of em to Sal.

I went back and looked again in the mirror. I couldn’t see no bumps nor tats now. Just eyes. I could feel em burning into us, demanding to know what the fuck I reckoned I were up to. And how dare I let meself get knocked about in such a way?

But, do you know, I had an answer. I were able to return the stare and say just how I could let such diabolical things come to pass. Far as I seen it, I were straight with the Muntons again now. I’d walked up them stairs knowing full well summat bad’d be lurking at the top. And it were. They’d done us over good and proper. But at least I were still breathing.

Sometimes a feller’s got to take it on the chin.

I’d be all right to walk around town without listening out for snapping twigs now. Long as they didn’t find out about Baz. And I couldn’t see that happening now. Not with his carcass vanished and all.

Come to think on it, I were wondering if that whole Baz episode hadn’t all been a dream or summat. No corpse and no comeback. Maybe I hadn’t topped the fucker after all. Maybe that’d all been an illusion.

What if the doctors had been right after all? All along I’d thought meself clever for tricking em. But maybe they’d seen through that. Maybe they’d thought us a mong anyhow. And to be honest, that’d be all right with me. Being a mong is a whole lot better than being a prisoner. Or a dead man.

I breathed deep, looked in the mirror again, and made meself a promise.

‘Well I hopes you’re happy now,’ says Sal coming back through the door. ‘Look at you. Head looks like an upturned light bulb with hairs growing from it. An’ woss they writ on yer arm?’

I pulled my sleeve down sharpish. ‘Don’t want no coppers stickin’ their snouts in.’

‘Didn’t call coppers. I called—’

‘Same diff’rence.’

‘Bollocks is it. Coppers can’t fix yer head.’

I looked at her in the mirror. ‘I don’t want no more trouble, Sal. I’ve had it with trouble. From now on I’m keepin’ me head down and steerin’ clear o’ trouble. Stick to the well-trod path, and don’t ever let nobody lead you astray of it.’

She looked back at us, then stomped off into the kitchen and made a lot of clattering. A while later she were back. ‘What about me, eh? What about me havin’ the flippin’ Muntons in here makin’ emselves at home? What about that?’ She tugged her towelling dressing gown away from her shoulder, flashing us a bit of cleft. ‘What about me wearin’ nuthin’ but this and hopin’ they’ll be nice and leave us alone? Eh?’ She stepped between meself and my sorry reflection. Her breath stank of fags and vodka—one of my favourite smells as it happens. ‘What about
me
?’

‘Well,’ I says, rubbing my bump. ‘I reckoned you’d have telled us by now if they’d had their way with you.’

‘Blake…’ Her eyes welled up.

I felt a bit sorry for her, if I’m honest. Weren’t her fault she got all het up over a mild bit of aggro. I didn’t blame her that she were putting her pride before the bump on my head and the cunt on my arm. I went to put my arms around her.

She stepped away. ‘Where’s the old Blake?’

I looked in the mirror and rolled me eyes and smiled. Just let her get it out.

‘Where’s the feller used to pick fellers up and lob em out on the street? Where’s the feller used to knock a man cross-eyed for comin’ across cheeky? Where’s the feller weren’t afraid of no one, least of all coppers and Muntons?’

‘That man ain’t been around for some time, Sal.’

‘I know.’ She clackety-clacked to the kitchen door and back again. ‘I know. Seems he went missin’ about the time you and me hooked up.’

‘That ain’t the reason—’

‘Know summat, Blake? I don’t care if it is the reason. I don’t care about much no more. Don’t care about yer tattoo. Don’t care about the bump on yer head. Don’t care about yer problems. And I don’t fuckin’ care about you.’

I looked in the mirror again and tried to lose meself in them eyes. If I could just do that…if I could just get lost inside me own swede and never find my way out…

‘Blake.’ She were yelling now, spit flecking up into me face. I don’t like folks flobbing at us. I put my right hand out and pushed her away. She went down and landed on her back, giving us a brief view up her dressing gown that she’d rather have kept hid just then, like as not. She set her gown straight and got up, avoiding eye contact.

‘Soz about that, love,’ I says. ‘Just that you was flobbin’…’

But she were back in the kitchen. After a bit I followed her, but she came bustling back out as I were going in. She opened the front door and says: ‘Out.’