Читать книгу Blood Relatives - Stevan Alcock - Страница 11

23/04/1977

Mitch’s job wor driving a refrigerated lorry, delivering raw meat and canned food to works and school canteens around South Yorkshire. He had to deliver some pig carcasses to a coalmine, and asked me if I wanted to go wi’ him.

While Mitch worked Monday to Friday, I always worked the weekend, and had two free days in between. It wor siling it down outside, so I wor grouching about t’ house, getting under Mother’s feet or playing my punk records in my room or tugging mesen off at similar speed, so when t’ chance wor offered to get out I grabbed it wi’ both free hands.

Mitch’s lorry cab wor decked out in country-and-western/Southern US stuff, wi’ Texas Lone Stars and stick-on cacti, US dollar bills and dolly-bird pin-ups in Confederate flag bikinis, and Leeds Utd and Elvis stickers. To Mitch, Elvis wor some sort of god. Even though he had a bald patch, Mitch still combed his few strands into a greaser style and squeezed into his winklepickers on t’ rare times he took Mother out for some country-and-western hoofing.

The mine wor out Castleford way. We drove along a bumpy track between moonscape mounds of slack and scree. The air wor flecked wi’ coal dust like swarms of tiny black flies. We heard a bell ring, and then up ahead we saw t’ pit wheel turning, taking men under or bringing ’em back up top.

Mitch backed the van up to t’ loading bay of a low red-brick building that wor t’ kitchens and canteen. A large woman looked on, leaning against t’ doorframe, her thick arms folded over her apron. She wore a liquid-blue hygiene bag over her tight black curls.

We unbolted the doors and clambered up into t’ refrigerated air. There wor four carcasses on hooks: pale, headless, limbless, wrapped in orange meshing. They wor still swaying gently.

Mitch said, ‘Help us get ’em down, then.’

The carcasses wor smooth and cold to t’ touch, and the orange mesh made ’em hard to grip. It took the both of us to lift each one off its hook and heave it onto a pallet. By t’ time we’d unhooked the third we wor sweating heavily.

I pondered the pile of pigs on t’ pallet. Hard to think that not so long back they’d been snuffling happily about, jostling wi’ other contented little piglets over t’ sow’s teats. Fattened up ’til they all squealed their last in t’ abattoir. I’d heard it said that pigs are bright buggers and know their fate, that pigs know death.

I went to pick up t’ final carcass.

‘Leave that one,’ said Mitch, a little sharply.

‘But I thought …’

‘Well, you thought wrong.’

We lowered the pallet onto a trolley. The woman smacked each carcass like a newborn’s backside, then took a clipboard from under her armpit.

A group of miners passed by, freshly back up top, hard hats in their hands, white circles where their goggles had been. I watched ’em as they headed for t’ outdoor showers. Some wor already stripping off. The woman wi’ t’ meaty arms passed Mitch a docket to sign. Over her shoulder I glimpsed the pale arse of a miner as he nipped between t’ shower blocks.

Mitch jabbed me in t’ ribs. ‘Stop gawping. There’s a pile of boxes under that tarpaulin in t’ back of t’ van. Bring me five of ’em.’

I lifted the blue tarpaulin. Underneath wor about fifty boxes of hair rollers. What wor we doing wi’ hair rollers in a refrigerated lorry? At a coalmine?

I handed the boxes to Mitch, who passed ’em down to t’ woman wi’ t’ docket. She handed us a pink copy wi’ a number 4 signed for, and kept a white one wi’ a 3 signed for. The last pig rode home wi’ us.

We’d just driven by two ravens that wor pecking at a road kill, when Mitch said, ‘You keep shtumm about this, you hear?’

‘What are you going to do wi’ t’ pig?’

‘Let’s just say it fell off t’ back of a lorry.’

‘Or didn’t!’

We both burst out laughing.

‘I’ll sell it on tomorrow to this bloke I know over Shipley way. When we get home I want you to keep your mother occupied while I stash the rest of them there hair rollers in t’ garage. You hear me?’

‘I hear you.’

Mitch curled his bottom lip approvingly. I sat wi’ both feet up on t’ dashboard, feeling that all wor right wi’ t’ world, listening to Mitch singing Elvis songs tunelessly ’til he’d had enough of it. We wor stop-starting through inner-city traffic lights.

Mitch said, ‘How you getting on at Corona?’

‘Better than that last job you got me.’

‘Aye, well that’s as may be. And Craner? How’s our Mr Craner?’

‘Craner’s all right, I suppose.’

Mitch grunted, seemingly satisfied. He turned on t’ radio, which wor good cos it meant we didn’t have to sing or talk and there worn’t silence neither.

That last ‘proper job’ Mitch got me wor in a loony bin. Work experience he called it. I lasted all of three days. They didn’t know what to do wi’ me, so I just mooched about like one of t’ inmates.

I wor hanging about t’ corridor when suddenly there wor a friggin’ commotion and this woman screaming her lungs blue cos she wor being dragged along by t’ hair by two men in white coats. One of ’em eyeballed me and shouted, ‘Who the fuck are you?’

The next day it wor suggested I could look after some men out in t’ gardens. Get out in t’ fresh air. I wor happy about this, cos inside it smelt of piss and bleach. So I wor sent out into t’ grounds wi’ five grown men to play cowboys and injuns.

‘But,’ I wor told, ‘make sure you watch ’em, don’t let any of ’em run off.’

I looked on uneasily as these middle-aged blokes ran about and hid in t’ undergrowth. It wor more hide and seek than cowboys and injuns. No one went ‘Bang bang’ or hollered or whooped or lay on t’ grass pretending to be dead ’til they got bored and got up again.

For a brief while this wor brill. I just had to keep an eye out. When I wor a nipper I’d always played cowboys and injuns wi’ my best friend, Mickey. Mickey always played the cowboy and I wor t’ injun. Except one time Mickey undressed me down to my undies (injuns always wore very little) and tied me to a tree (injuns always got tied up). Then he went home and forgot about me. Not long after, these two older boys came along on their bikes. They cycled round and round the tree, laughing, but they refused to untie me. Then they chucked their bikes aside, took out their willies and pissed all over me.

I looked about for my grown-up cowboys and injuns.

I formed my fingers into a pistol and sighted one of ’em. Pow! Pow! (Silencer on.) The man’s face crumpled and he started to blubber.

I counted the men. One, two, three. Four. Only four. Where wor t’other one?

I spied him nipping into a greenhouse. I followed him in, creeping around t’ ragged tomato plants and whatnot. He wor ducked behind t’ seed tables, sniggering. He wouldn’t come out, but just kept running about t’ friggin’ greenhouse and giggling. For a baldy wi’ a paunch he wor fair nimble.

I’d soon had enough. I strode out of t’ greenhouse, turned the rusting key, locking the blighter in, and looked about for t’ others.

I shouted out, ‘Hey, cowboys! Injuns!’ cos I worn’t told their names.

Silence. No one popped up from behind a tree or stone wall or any of t’ bushes.

Behind me, the bugger in t’ greenhouse wor freaking out, tugging at the door and bawling. I quickened my step, heading out, telling the man on t’ gate I wor just nipping out for a paper.

A month later I wor standing in Craner’s office, wishing I wor still in t’ loony bin.

On t’ Wednesday following Tina Atkinson’s murder, Gran toddled over, as she often did, for a meal. She arrived early evening and sat at the kitchen table, fingers interlocked, pride dented, like she wor in a doctor’s waiting room.

Sis flounced into t’ kitchen and greeted Gran breezily. She wor chewing chuddy gum. She only chewed chuddy when she’d been smoking, so God friggin’ knows why she bothered trying to mask it. Mother frowned. Gran rooted out a bag of mints from her handbag. She handed Mandy the bag and said, ‘Now these are to share,’ like it wor a reward for being brave cos your pet hamster just pegged it.

‘Oooh, thank you Gran,’ sis had simpered. She spat out her chuddy into her hand and stuck it to t’ underside of t’ table. I puckered my face in disgust, so she stuck her tongue out at me, popped a mint onto t’ end, closed her mouth and began sucking noisily.

‘Don’t I get one?’

She pushed the bag toward me.

‘No ta. I just wanted to see if you would.’

Gran rose from t’ table, supporting hersen by t’ edge, sloughed over to t’ sink and began rinsing a plate under t’ cold tap. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I wor once stuck in a lift.’

Mother wor stirring some cheese sauce to pour over macaroni. I saw her neck vein bloop. ‘Yes,’ she sighed heavily. ‘I know.’

We all knew. Barely had Gran doled out the words ‘stuck in a lift’ before we’d collectively arrived at the end of t’ tale. Stuck in a lift. Stuck on repeat. Made me appreciate Mrs Husk the more. Mrs Husk never said owt twice, never mind fifty trillion friggin’ times.

I mouthed at sis, ‘Two hours.’ Sis sniggered. Mother replied dutifully, taking the rinsed plate from Gran, ‘When you were visiting Florrie. Quarry Hill flats.’

‘I wor stuck in that lift for a good two hour. How it stank. People had peed in it. I never thought I’d get out.’

Mother said, ‘Like being entombed in a metal box.’ I watched her lifting bikkies from a Tupperware container and arranging them on t’ rinsed plate.

‘I really should go and see Florrie,’ Gran wor saying, ‘but what wi’ t’ lift breaking down and them stairs being such a climb …’ Her voice trailed off.

Mother’s face turned concrete. Mandy and I stared at each other. The story had veered from its usual course and pitched into a ditch. Mother pressed down t’ Tupperware box lid firmly wi’ t’ flat of her hand. Florrie had been dead these three year.

A few weeks later Gran failed to show for dinner. Her phone wor just ringing out. Mother wor having an anxiety attack, her face and neck turning all blotchy. She wor all set to call t’ cops, fire brigade, even the friggin’ army. Barely had she had set the receiver on its cradle and Mitch wor putting on his jacket to drive over there, when t’ phone rang. Gran had got on t’ wrong bus.

‘So where are you?’ we heard Mother say.

Pause.

‘Pontefract?’

Gran hadn’t clocked where she wor ’til t’ bus pulled into Pontefract bus station and the driver announced it. Mitch had to drive over there and collect her. He found her sitting in t’ station office, chatting wi’ t’ off-duty drivers. When he said he’d come to take her home, she asked him if he wor a taxi driver.

Over t’ next few months our worries about Gran grew. She kept buying milk, even though she had it delivered. She started to forget what she wor saying before she got to t’ end of her sentences. She forgot which flat wor hers, and surprised a neighbour in whose door she wor twisting her key and swearing under her breath.

One evening Mitch came into t’ lounge and turned off the telly midway through Columbo.

‘Oi! We wor watching that!’

Mand and I wor parked side by side on t’ sofa. Mother came in and perched hersen on t’ armchair, winding a manky tissue round her thumb. Mitch rocked on his heels before t’ gas fire, puffed out his chest a little, then said, ‘Your gran ain’t getting any younger. And maybe you’ve clocked that she’s been behaving a little queer of late.’

I winced when he said ‘queer’.

‘Could say that again,’ Mandy blathered. ‘Why, only …’

Mitch held up a silencing forefinger. ‘Think,’ he said, taking one of t’ fake plastic coals from t’ gas fire and placing it on his open palm like it wor a frog or summat, ‘of yer gran’s brain as a fire that once burned bright, but is now just dying embers. Or,’ he added, setting the plastic coal lump back on t’ fire, ‘like a set of Christmas-tree lights that have short-circuited and you don’t know which one’s blown without trying the lot.’

I imagined a set of short-circuiting Christmas lights in t’ shape of a brain.

‘Well, that’s what happening to your gran, and so that’s why … that’s why … she’s coming to live here.’

‘Here? Wi’ us?’ Mandy squeaked. Mother shuffled her legs, her stockings making a static rustle.

‘It’s just ’til they find a place for her in a home.’

‘What kind of a home?’

Jeez, sis wor a sack full of gormless questions.

‘A cats’ home,’ I said.

Mitch eyeballed me to shut it.

Mother said, ‘A nursing home, where she’ll be cared for proper. She’ll like it there. She’ll make new friends, and we’ll be able to go and visit whenever we want.’

Mand glared at us all, then ran from t’ room. Then we heard her bedroom door slam.

What wor she so upset about? Gran wor getting my room. Not that I had any say in it. I’d be on a friggin’ blow-up lilo in t’ lounge.

At Blandford Gardens there wor a shaft of light in t’ hallway. I stabbed the bell and waited on t’ porch. Overhead, a sash creaked. Stepping back in t’ road and looking up, I saw someone who worn’t Jim leaning out of t’ bedroom window, someone I’d never clapped eyes on before.

‘Can I help you?’ the man said, pushing strands of wispy hair behind one ear. He wor wearing Jim’s Chinese dressing gown.

‘Jim home?’

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Tell him it’s Rick.’

‘Rick? Ah, yes. I have a message for you. Fuck off, sweetie. Show your face around here again and you’ll get it mashed into next week.’

The man slammed t’ window down and yanked the curtains across. I stood looking up at the window, stung wi’ disbelief, waiting for Jim to appear, telling me in his sweet Scottish brogue that it wor all a mistake. But the window stayed stubbornly shut. I slumped down onto t’ low front wall, welled up inside wi’ anger, and bashed mesen repeatedly on t’ upper leg like a self-hating Mr Punch.

I headed for t’ Fenton. Maybe Jim wor there, and maybe I could explain. Instead, I found Dora, parked on her usual stool like she wor glued to it.

‘Hello,’ she cooed. ‘You’re not going to run off again, are you?’

‘Jim about?’

‘Scots Jim? Haven’t seen him, luv.’

I ordered a lager and lime and hiked mesen onto t’ stool next to hers. The pub reeked of old beer and cold smoke. Dora wor harping on about some other old crone who’d been bitching about her and how this other old crone wor jealous cos she – Dora – could still get the attention of men. Like I gave a rat’s behind. Dora paused only to suck on her ciggie. She left a lipstick print on t’ butt end. I drank, letting Dora buzz in my ear like a faulty fridge while t’ evening seeped away and the place became crowded and boisterous.

Then, not long before ten, this young’un came waltzing in like he owned the friggin’ joint, passing right by us and making straight for t’ lounge bar. A lanky, wire-haired lad wi’ his chin set a smidgen too high. Dora beckoned me close. I tipped my stool toward her and caught a full blast of her market-stall scent.

‘That one, who just sailed past us without so much as a how’s-yer-father, he’s one of Jim’s. I’ve seen them in here together. Jake, his name is.’

She pursed her powdered lids across t’ open bar toward t’ lounge-side bar stool where Jake had parked himsen. I kept my gaze fixed on him, waiting on him to look across our way. When he did, his eyes widened and flickered wi’ wary curiosity, like a startled deer. Then he turned away.

Dora wor saying, ‘I thought you knew?’

‘Knew what?’

‘That Jim picks up boys from t’ railway station. He picks them up, pays them. Takes them in sometimes. But then they move on, or get bored, or they steal from him.’

Her mouth fell open, showing her lipstick-stained dentures.