Authors: Julie Shaw
And that had been a learning curve in itself, Vinnie thought, as he toiled up the hill for what must surely be the last time. An hour? It already felt like half a day. He looked down at Downey, stationed at the bottom, checking his stop watch every minute or so. He’d had a lot to learn in the last pissing years of his life, and chief among the lessons had been one he hadn’t even realised needed learning – that the screws seemed to be almost as sharp as he was. Not quite, but almost – certainly a good deal sharper than most ordinary run-of-the-mill adults who couldn’t see they were being manipulated even if you went up and fucking told them – particularly his dozy mare of a mother. Almost, he thought, coming back down, breathing heavily, but feeling surprisingly fit and lithe now. Almost but not quite. Never that.
‘No point in a shower, lad,’ Downey said as Vinnie came down the hill for the last time. ‘Go get a cup of water then it’s straight back out here for your run.’ His gaze met Vinnie’s and he held it there, his eyes narrowing as he did so. ‘Maybe you’ll think twice about trying to pull the wool over my eyes in the future, eh, kid?’
‘Piece of piss, sir,’ Vinnie laughed as he trotted back to the front door, passing the lads that were amassing for their run just outside it.
The men who learn endurance
, he thought triumphantly, recalling one of his favourite Dickens quotes,
are they who call the whole world, brother
. Yeah, right, Downey, he thought. Something for
you
to bear in mind.
Fuck the burning in his thighs, fuck the run. Fuck Downey. He wasn’t going to let the fat twat get one over on
him
.
By the time Josie came home from school on Friday afternoon, a couple of weekends later, June had already gone out. Noticing two roll-ups on the coffee table along with a note, Josie lit herself a fag as she tried to decipher her mother’s letter.
Titch
Left you ten bob in the junk drawer. Get some chips and pop. If you need anything, go up to our Lyndsey’s. Me and your dad will be late so don’t be out all hours. Bed at 10.
Love, Mam
Josie snorted as she screwed up the note and threw it on the fire. That’s that then, she thought, might as well go sit round at Carol’s for a bit. It would be better than being in on her own all night; something she’d been having to do a lot just lately, now her mam and dad were swanning around the estate, flashing all their cash. She didn’t bother getting changed out of her uniform. After all it was Friday, no school tomorrow, so it could stay. Grabbing her coat and the money, she flicked off the light and went back out onto the streets.
The atmosphere in the Bull was getting raucous. Jock, June and the rest of the ‘club cheque gang’, as they had recently named themselves, were crammed in together in one of the booths in the corner of the pub, where they’d been drinking steadily since the early afternoon.
There were two ashtrays in the centre of the table, one overflowing with cigarette ends, the other stuffed with £5 notes and coins. This was the ‘kitty’, the pool of money being rapidly depleted in the cause of getting them even more pissed than they already were.
‘Hey, Jock,’ June said, laughing as she watched her husband lurch sideways, while staggering to his feet to go to the bar. She passed him a couple of notes from the collection in the ashtray. ‘Get some whiskey chasers while you’re up there,’ she ordered. ‘I might feel like dancing later, and I can’t do my Tina Turner without some of the hard stuff inside me.’
The others all laughed on cue as June also hauled herself upright, having to grasp the table edge to do so. She then made an attempt, only partly successfully, to twirl an increasingly unsteady Jock around.
‘Sit down, you silly old get,’ Jock slurred, pulling away from her. ‘And let’s have a bit less of the big fucking spender routine in here. You know what nosey bastards they all are.’
Jock was worried. And particularly about his mouthy wife. Despite the growing haze that was blurring the sharp edges of his thinking, he was aware that they’d been attracting suspicious looks. As they would – it wasn’t like no one knew them, was it? Pretty much everyone knew where they came from and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to work out that as they didn’t normally have two pennies to scratch their arses with, they were acting a bit flash with their money.
In fact, looking at them now – as he tried to, steadying himself against the nearest chair – they looked like they’d come into millions. Which would of course make people wonder what the fuck they’d been up to – even Don the landlord must be wondering what the hell was going on. Because he didn’t know either. And they weren’t going to tell him. As Moira had said, it made no sense to shit on their own doorstep, so she and June had sold the cheap booze to town-centre pubs only. And they should maybe – least for the moment – be drinking in them too.
Jock blinked hard a couple of times to try and clear his vision. He was getting a bad feeling about the way things were going. Yeah,
he
knew that, all right. Knew how careful they had to be now. He must just make sure his bloody wife stopped forgetting. Stopped flashing the cash in front of the neighbours, stop behaving like a kid in a fucking sweet shop, because if she wasn’t careful, she’d have the whole lot crashing down on the lot of them. And who’d be blamed when she shit hit the fan?
He
would.
Josie climbed over the fence of Carol’s front garden, taking care not to land in any dog shit as she lowered herself down. The gate had been tied up with wire so that their stupid German Shepherd, Blue, didn’t get out, which meant that if she was in the garden when Josie climbed over – having no choice – the stupid animal would start barking and jumping up at her, thinking she was breaking in. And then, having sniffed her, try to lick her to death.
She wasn’t around now, though, so she dropped to her feet unmolested and unlicked and, in the silence, could hear the sound of raised voices.
As she went down the path she could make out specific words, many of them swear words – it sounded like a loud argument coming from inside. She banged at the door, hoping that this would be enough to stop it. She hated it when Carol’s mam, Tina, was on one. She could be a right vicious bitch.
It took a while for the door to be opened and then only a crack, through which the tear-stained face of Caz peeped through. ‘Oh, Titch, come in,’ she whispered. ‘They’re at it again upstairs. I’m fucking sick of it. He’s off his bleeding rocker, that black bastard.’
Josie squeezed through the gap in the door, pushing the stupid dog inside with her foot. ‘Get in, you silly mare,’ she said as she finally got inside. ‘What’s up with them two then?’ she said, fussing over the dog long enough to satisfy her demand for attention.
‘Fuck knows,’ Carol replied, ‘but he’s just given me a slap for sticking up for me mum. He was calling her a slag and all sorts, and I’m not gonna sit there and say nowt about it, am I?’
Josie and Carol went to sit in the kitchen, trying to close off the noise coming from upstairs. They could hear what sounded like furniture being thrown around as well as the occasional angry scream from Tina, which made them start, but didn’t seem to signify that he was getting the upper hand. In any case, already at the sharp end of Black Bobby’s hand, Carol knew better than to interfere again.
‘Do you want to come round to our house?’ Josie suggested. ‘There’s no one in, and at least you wouldn’t have to listen to it.’
Carol gave her a weak smile. ‘I better not. That bastard might kill her if he knows I’ve gone out. No, better stay. I’ll make us a cup of tea, eh. They’ll stop soon – they always do.’ She grimaced. ‘Then I’ll have to turn the record player on, so we don’t have to listen to ’em doing you know what.’
Josie cringed, the horrible thing always lurking at the edges of her mind still. She thought of men, and what they did, and what they did it with, and she recoiled. She couldn’t help it. Perhaps she’d never be able to. And Caz too, she knew, even though it had been a while since Black Bobby had tried it on with her. Caz didn’t know why but she’d grown about a foot in the last year, it felt like. So maybe it was that. He didn’t dare. They exchanged a look.
‘Shush!’ Carol said suddenly.
‘What?’
‘Silence,’ she then mouthed, nodding her head towards the ceiling. She crept to the kitchen door and opened it an inch or two. ‘Oh fuck, it’s him. Coming down.’
Carol scuttled back towards the sink and turned on the tap to fill the kettle, just as Black Bobby walked in.
‘What the fuck’s she doing here?’ he demanded, pointing at Josie.
Josie hung her head. She couldn’t even bear to look at him. ‘Her mam and dad are out, so she’s come to see me,’ Carol said mildly. ‘Do you want a cuppa?’
Bobby reached Carol in three strides and belted her round the back of the head. ‘No I fucking don’t, and what’ve you been told about bringing people round here?’
Carol winced and put her hand up to guard against another whack. ‘She’s just come round for a bit, that’s all. Where’s me mam?’
‘None of your business, you nosey little cunt.’ Bobby reached round Carol and filled a glass with water. He then turned to Josie as he gulped it down, his Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘And you can fuck off an’ all,’ he said, having drained it in one. ‘We’re not fucking babysitters. Sling your hook.’
Carol stood behind Bobby, wildly shaking her head, but Josie stood up, even so. No way was she sitting around for more of this crap. It was worse than home, plus Black Bobby scared her. She couldn’t understand why Caz’s mum was still with him. But then she knew she didn’t understand much about anything where men were concerned. Only that some of them – a few anyway – were just horrible.
‘You want to come to mine, Caz?’ she tried again, but Carol shook her head, as Josie expected. She wouldn’t go anywhere without checking that her mum was okay.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘See you tomorrow then, okay?’ Then she let herself out, slipping into the night quickly to stop Blue trying to follow. Maybe she’d pop round to Lyndsey’s instead. It would be good to see her nephew and nieces, if not her stupid sister and revolting Robbo.
Josie and Lyndsey didn’t really get along. Never had. With such an age gap, they’d never been close to one another, and since Lynds had moved in with and had kids by her last horrible boyfriend, there was little chance they ever would be either.
That her sister took drugs made Lyndsey a proper idiot in Josie’s eyes, and she had abhorred Robbo since the first time she’d met him. She blamed him – for meeting her sister just when she’d been left by the last moron she’d shacked up with, for dragging her into their seedy druggy lifestyle, for keeping her poor when she could barely afford her kids. She was bleeding lucky social services hadn’t taken them away.
And she wasn’t the only one who found Lyndsey a waste of space. Her mam and dad hardly ever saw their elder daughter, even they only lived a few houses down on the same street. They never called up and Lynds never came down. They might pass and chat for a minute of two on the street, if one or the other was going to the shops or something, but it was only ever small talk because June had no time for drugs and druggies – and if she wanted to see her grandkids or them her, she’d always just send Josie or Vinnie up to fetch them back.
It was sad but it was the way it was. And would keep being, Josie reckoned, and much as she didn’t want to be around Lyndsey or Robbo, she loved her little nieces and nephew and she knew they’d be pleased to see her now.
She ran most of the way back from Caz’s – and out on the street, since it was dark – hoping that when she got there the first thing she smelt wouldn’t be the dreaded wacky baccy. She hated the smell of it – it made her retch – and she hated what it did; made everyone who smoked it turn into grinning idiots.
Walking around the back of the house, as she knew she’d never get an answer from the front door, Josie tapped on the window and tried to peer in.
‘Auntie Titch!’ a small voice called from the back door. Josie smiled as she saw Robbie coming outside. He was naked apart from a pair of grubby underpants.
‘Ooh, get back inside, Robbie, you’ll freeze out here!’ she told him, ushering him back into the house.
‘We have to be quiet, Titch,’ he whispered now, putting a finger to his lips. ‘Everyone else is asleep and I’m doing colouring in.’
Josie closed the back door as quietly she could and followed her nephew into the front room. It was a pigsty as usual, cushions scattered across the floor, with little Lou and Sammy fast asleep on top of them. Cans of Special Brew and ashtrays filled the entire surface of the coffee table, and an overturned tobacco tin and papers were strewn across the shaggy fireside rug. In the midst of all this, entirely as she’d expected, Lyndsey and Robbo were top-and-tailing, spark out, on the couch.
‘You want me to make you a pipe up, Auntie Titch?’ asked Robbie, climbing back up to his seat at the table. He was all of eight years old now, and the picture of perfect innocence. It was heartbreaking. He grinned and giggled at her. ‘The idiot showed me how to do it properly.’ He pointed to Robbo, and quickly put his finger to his lips again. ‘But you’re only allowed to call him that when he’s sleeping.’
Josie pulled out the other chair and sat down on it. ‘No, you’re alright, kiddo,’ she said. ‘I don’t smoke that stuff. It sends you loopy, just like the idiot. I can’t stop long anyway. I just called in to say hello, that’s all.’
Robbie frowned, then brightened as his eyes alighted on some of his artwork. He held up a picture. ‘D’ya like my fire engine?’ he asked. ‘I did it to send to Uncle Vin. D’you think he’ll like it?’
‘He’ll love it, kid. And I’ll send it with my next letter. So you keep it safe and I’ll call back for it, yeah?’ He slipped it under his drawing pad, and as he did so, she noticed he was goose-pimpled. ‘You warm enough, Robbie?’
He shrugged and looked up at her. ‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘We got no gas till Monday, I don’t think, so we can’t have the fire on. I can always get mum’s dressing-gown though.’