Thud thud thud
“All right. I’m coming,” said a muffled, grumpy voice from within.
“See,” exclaimed Adam with a smug grin.
The door swung inwards.
Eric “Smithy” Smith swept his long black hair, which hung down to his shoulders, back behind his ears as he peered at his visitors from behind thick lenses. He sniffed.
“Oh. It’s you two.”
Jake tried his warmest, most convincing smile of greeting, but it proved hard work. The sharp waves of body odour emanating from the man had already been registered. They threatened to steal his breath.
“Smithy! Long time.”
Smithy retained his solemn look, the corners of his lips turned downward under a light, fluffy moustache. His gaze darted back and forth between the twins’ faces. “What do you want?”
“Business. We hear you’re carrying,” said Adam over his brother’s shoulder.
Smithy glanced at both of them and across the empty street. He sniffed again. “You’d better come in.”
He stepped back to allow them inside.
Something black dashed past. In seconds it ran between Adam and Jake and into a rose bush. The twins jumped back.
“Damn cats.” Smithy looked at the brothers who gazed around the floor. “Are you two coming in or not?”
“Erm…yeah,” said Jake. “Sorry.”
Jake stepped into the house, quickly followed by Adam, who still scanned the area behind him. They waited in the hall, and Smithy closed the front door.
“Fleabags, the lot of them,” he said, his voice low and grumbling. “Don’t know why she has to have so many.”
“She?” asked Adam.
“My grandmother. Eight she has. Eight!”
As if to confirm their presence, a black and white feline trotted from a doorway on the left, cast them an unimpressed stare and vanished into a room on the right.
“That was Princess. Hairy little shit.”
The house reeked of wet hair, fresh urine and cat food that combined to form a dank, fishy smell.
“So you live with your grandmother?” said Jake. “She ain’t here, is she?”
“No, she’ll be a while yet. Besides, we won’t be long. I was in the middle of something when you knocked.”
Smithy led them down the hall and into a chintzy lounge. Jake stifled a laugh at the flowery wallpaper and embroidered pillow cushions. Adam, on the other hand, proved not so polite.
“Oh man,” he cried. “Look at this shit!”
“Tell me about it,” muttered Smithy, not stopping. He carried on through the lounge into a small dining room. The cat smell thickened due to a couple of litter trays sitting on the carpet along the far wall. Smithy strode through a door on the right. The brothers obediently followed.
Smithy’s bedroom was a complete contrast to the rest of the house. The walls were sombre, dark tones of blue and covered in posters, showing various bands with long hair and tattoos. A double bed, with a silver frame and twisted black sheets, occupied most of the space in the small room. In the corner sat a computer on a desk with a high-backed leather chair before it. Smithy walked straight to it and sat down.
Jake wrinkled his nose. Considering the size of the room, and the amount of time that Smithy must spend in here, his smell must have saturated the very walls.
“That
Cold Steel: Alien Raiders?”
he asked, looking over at the computer screen.
Smithy grunted and continued his game. The room filled with the noise of explosions and gunfire.
“That’s brand new, ain’t it?” said Adam.
“A-ha,” Smithy replied, eyes never leaving the screen.
Adam perched himself on the edge of the bed.
“It a copy?” pressed Jake.
“No. Bought it from a shop.”
A couple of cyborg alien warriors fell foul of Smithy’s plasma cannon. The reflections lit up the lenses of his glasses.
“You bought it? How the hell could you afford that?”
“I’ve had quite few people here on business this week. Word gets around quick, especially over something of this quality.”
Jake ran his tongue over his dry lips. He’d picked up the unmistakable smell of weed lingering in the room, underneath the dank
eau de Smithy
.
“Done that well, huh?”
Smithy nodded, his attention still fixed on the screen.
“Well, come on!” said Adam. “Where is it? We didn’t come all the way over here to watch you play on that.”
Smithy frowned. “It’s in a shoebox under the bed, right underneath you.”
Adam immediately bent over, reaching between his legs below the bed.
Smithy turned from the screen for a couple of seconds. “You’re going to have to go in deeper than that.”
Adam shot his twin a grimace.
“You heard the man.” Jake smiled. “Get searching.”
Adam huffed, stood from the bed and crawled on the floor on his hands and knees. He lifted a corner of duvet draped over the bed, folded it over and looking underneath.
“I can’t see it.”
“It’s under there,” replied Smithy, staring at the computer screen.
Adam outstretched his arm and reached underneath the bed, in up to his shoulder.
Jake checked his watch. The time approached nine o’clock.
This is cutting into my smoking time!
“Get a move on, Adam.”
“I’m looking, fuckface. Give me a minute.”
“Nice to see you two are getting on as well as ever,” Smithy commented, a sarcastic smile spreading on his face.
“Screw you,” said Adam from the floor. “I’ve almost got it…There’s some books, a few T-shirts… Damn it! You don’t have a torch, do you?”
“No.”
“Damn it,” he repeated under his breath.
Jake guessed that all sorts lay under the freak’s bed: rotten food, used tissues, body parts…
“Smithy?” said Adam.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have anything…you know…weird under here, do you?”
Smithy paused the game and swivelled the leather chair around to face Adam. He tucked his long, greasy hair back behind his ears and pushed his glasses up his nose.
“Do I look like I have something weird under my bed?” he asked, scratching his armpit.
“There’s something strange under here. Whatever it is, it’s warm and-ow!” Adam jerked his hand out from underneath the bed and clamped his other around it. “Fuckin’ ‘ell!”
Another cat, a fat ginger, shot out from the narrow strip of darkness beneath the bed and out through the open bedroom door.
Jake laughed while Smithy just smiled.
“That was Empress. I think she likes you.”
“Gobshite!”
“No need for such profanities, she barely touched you,” Smithy said and revolved back to the computer. Seconds later, the small bedroom sounded like a war zone again.
“Well?” asked Jake.
“Well what?” Adam replied.
“The box?”
Adam pushed himself up off the carpet and stood in front of his brother.
“Oh no, I’m not going under there again, there could be more cats.”
“You soft bastard. Fine. I’ll do it.”
Jake crouched on one knee and reached under the bed. After a few seconds he pulled out a white shoebox.
“Wasn’t that hard, was it?” he said.
To Jake’s relief, Adam didn’t rise to this challenge; he would have delayed what they’d come here for, and that lay within the box. The smell of the room seemed as strong as when he’d walked in. The sooner that they were out of there, the better.
He pulled the lid from the box and laid it on the bed.
On top lay a glossy magazine. He lifted it out, unfolded it and examined the cover. A girl wearing only a g-string sat with her legs open, her stomach bulging out.
Ah, the latest issue of
Pregnant Pussy
. Classy, Mr Smith, very classy indeed.
He glanced up and noticed Adam was eying up the magazine.
“Enjoy,” he said, tossing it to his brother who promptly began to flick through it.
Moving the magazine revealed several small polythene bags; the contents, either chocolate brown blocks or what looked like mixed herbs, were easily seen through the thin plastic.
“Oi, Smithy. This it?”
He glanced briefly from the screen. “Yeah, that’s the one, but you two won’t want to bother with the resins, being pros and all.”
Jake fished out a bag containing the green herb for a closer examination. He held it up towards Adam, but only got a passing grunt. Adam seemed too busy with the third trimester centrefold.
“This as good as I hear it is? It don’t look like much.”
“Trust me, Jay,” said Smithy, “the beauty is that it is uber concentrated. That small amount will last the both of you all week. It don’t take much.”
“What you sellin’ at?”
“Forty a bag.”
“Forty? Forty quid?”
“Well I’m not selling in fucking rupees, am I? Yes, forty quid.”
“We ain’t paying that,” muttered Adam from behind the magazine.
“Come on, Smithy! We’re old mates. Surely you can go lower?”
“Hang on there. Old mates? You only come round when you want something. Like when you two idiots got caught robbing your neighbour’s house. You came knocking for an alibi! So no, Jay. The ‘old mates’ argument doesn’t work on me. It’s forty or nothing.”
“Oh well,” sighed Jake. “Guess that’s that then. By the way Smithy, I noticed that all the time we’ve been here, you haven’t saved that game.”
Smithy carried on playing. “So?”
“Well, Adam would also like to see you sell at around, say, twenty quid and he just so happens to be stood next to the socket your computer is plugged into. Get my drift?”
Smithy paused the game and spun his chair around, his gaze already darting between Jake, his brother and the socket, probably weighing up his options and how much losing his game meant.
“Twenty it is then. That is, cash up front.”
Jake grinned.
“You heard the man, bro. Put the jazz mag down and pay him.”
Adam closed the magazine, tucked it under his arm and delved into his tracksuit pocket. He pulled out the red purse and plucked a twenty pound note from within.
“Nice purse, girly man,” said Smithy, deadpan.
“Erm…it’s not a purse,” Adam replied. “It’s a wallet.”
“Bollocks it’s a wallet. It’s a fucking purse. My grandmother has one exactly the same.”
Adam froze and looked over at Jake.
“In fact,” Smithy continued, looking at his watch, “she should be back from the bingo by now.”
Adam swallowed. “Jake? I think we might have-”
“Shut up, Adam.” Jake snatched the note and passed it to Smithy. “There you are. Pleasure doing business with you. Right, we’re off now…”
“You seem a little eager to go all of a sudden,” said Smithy. “What’s the hurry, guys?”
5.
“I can’t believe you told him that, Jake.”
“Look, we had to get out of there. Imagine if the police came walkin’ in with old Granny Smith!”
“What? An apple?”
Jake sighed.
“Not the apple, you dumb fuck! Smithy’s grandmother! You know, the one that we kinda mugged? They’d have turned up eventually, so we needed to get out there quick. Smithy asked what the hurry was…”
“But you could have said something different! You could have said…I dunno…maybe that we had to go home for Mum.”
“Look, Ad, I panicked. I was put on the spot. You were stood there with that porno mag and it was the only thing I could think of!”
“You know, if you weren’t my brother, I’d fuckin’ kill you for what you said!”
“Look on the bright side, bro. He let you keep the porno mag. Here…”
Jake reached into his long coat and pulled out the glossy magazine, which Adam took with some enthusiasm.
“Yeah, I suppose. Let’s get this inside quick and sample the purchase, shall we?”
Jake agreed and held open the door to the garage at the back of the Dean house. The wind had grown stronger still, and the first drops of rain fell on the boys. No stars emerged through the thick formation of cloud in the dark sky. Jake paused, hearing the possible rumble of approaching thunder.
Adam pulled the bike by the handlebars and wheeled it inside. He propped it up in its usual spot just inside the garage.
“You two! Wait right there.”
The twins turned from the sound of the shrill voice and shared a small groan as their mother came trotting out of the house. She wore a faded blue dressing gown wrapped tightly around her, and worn out furry slippers that slapped the paving stones of the yard. Her hair had been crudely tied back. She fidgeted with the ring hanging from her necklace, which she usually did in times of stress.
“You two, in here, right now.”
Adam snorted. “Why?”
“Because I want to talk to you, that’s why.”
“What about?” chipped in Jake.
“Look, it’s too late and too cold to stand arguing out here. Come in the house.” She turned to head back in the kitchen but stopped and wheeled round. The boys inched towards the open door of the garage.
“Either you come in here, or I’ll go in there after you. It’s your choice.” She rubbed the ring again and vanished back into the house.
Adam cast his brother a worried look.
“She can’t,” he said.
Jake agreed. Their mother couldn’t go into the garage, not with some of the items lying around. Besides, it was
theirs,
the only place they escaped from their nagging, overbearing mother.
“Come on,” said Jake, heading towards the back door of the house. He bowed his head against the wind that threw raindrops against his face.
Adam followed close behind. “Wonder what she wants this time?”
They found Jenny in front of the fireplace in the lounge. The room hadn’t been cleaned up, which was a bad sign. When their mother let things slip in the house, she was either very angry, very upset or both. The brothers collapsed in front of her onto the messy sofa.
“Thank you,” said Jenny, a hint of sarcasm creeping into her voice. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Jake grunted while Adam watched the television.
Jenny reached over and turned off the set.
“Oi! What did you do that for?”
“We’re here to talk, Adam, not watch TV.”
“Well, what is it? This is so fucking lame; we’re not kids you know.”