Читать книгу Blood Relatives - Stevan Alcock - Страница 9

09/05/1976 (survived)

Friday night, as usual, we all went for a chinky and then on to t’ Marquis of Granby at the end of our road.

Even Gran came along these days, now that she wor on her tod. Mandy, being too young for pubbing, said she wor going to Emma’s to listen to records. When sis wor fibbing she talked like a dalek and fiddled wi’ her hair. She wor off to see Adam. Her latest diary entries wor full of him. Adam-friggin’-Adam. Mother didn’t say nowt, except ‘Don’t be late.’

The Marquis wor a large, noisy pub wi’ swirly blue-and-green carpeting, a jukebox and a dartboard.

Mavis, Mother’s mouldiest friend, had pitched up, as had the neighbours, Nora Gudgeon, her diabetic mother Denise, and her daughter Janice. Mavis squeezed her ample backside onto t’ bench seat between Gran and me. She wor wearing a trowel-load of slap over t’ thin veneer of abuse doled out by hubby Don, and a pong so raking I thought I’d gag if I so much as flared a nostril. I spotted her abuser, across t’ bar, through t’ curling smoke, wi’ Mitch and two other blokes I didn’t know, drinkin’ themsens into a slurry.

Janice wor sat opposite me, face like a pickled egg. Struck me she wor all dolled up like she’d been planning on being elsewhere. I could sympathise. It didn’t suit me none, sitting wi’ all t’ brassy women, but Mother wor being as stubborn as a goat, using that ‘family together’ baloney to blackmail me into feeling guilty for wanting to stay at home and play my records.

Janice fiddled wi’ t’ buckle of her wide, white belt. Her nipples wor pushing pertly up against her cheesecloth smock-blouse.

‘Our Janice is getting spliced soon,’ chirruped Nora.

‘Married? Is that right, Janice?’ said Mavis, leaning forward, her glinting hoop earrings leaning wi’ her, her breasts bunching together in her low-cut glitzy top. ‘When wor all this decided?’

Janice dropped her chin, and all eyes followed to t’ gentle bump. Looked like it wor decided about four month gone, I thought.

‘So, come on,’ Mavis said. ‘Who’s the lucky fella?’

‘He’s called Drew,’ Janice said, lighting a ciggie and blowing smoke from t’ side of her mouth. Denise flapped the smoke away wi’ a flash of pink nails.

‘Drew? Short for Andrew, is that? So where is he? When do we get to meet him?’

Janice crossed her arms over her stomach. ‘He’s on a geography field trip. Wi’ t’ school.’

Mavis said, ‘Kids today, eh. Who’d have ’em?’ Then wi’ a toss of her head toward Mother, she added, ‘If I remember right, Pam, you married dead young, didn’t you?’

‘He wor a mistake,’ Mother replied waspishly. ‘We wor divorced before a year wor out … Oh, Janice, luv, not that I mean that it won’t last between yersen and … and …’

‘Drew.’

‘Drew … just that I married a wrong’un, that’s all.’

‘What wor his name …?’ Denise asked, pitching in her tuppence worth. Mavis snatched up her lighter, clicking it furiously against t’ tip of another ciggie ’til Nora struck a match for her, then lit one for hersen.

Mother hissed, ‘You know damn well, Denise. You know damn well his name.’

Mother stretched out a smile. I didn’t know if she wor shunting off the topic for her own sake or mine. What wor to know that I hadn’t learnt already by earwigging and nosing about? Some friggin’ carpet salesman, twice her age, who she’d married and divorced like t’ church had revolving doors. It all happened a friggin’ age before I came on t’ scene. And owt that happened before me didn’t really happen. Except in history books and on t’ telly. Of course she didn’t want to blab on about it.

Denise worn’t done yet.

‘Didn’t he take you down to London on honeymoon? Started out wi’ a stall in Leeds market and before you could say shag pile he had his own warehouse in an old church, heavin’ wi’ carpets and linos. Proper little peacock, he wor. Always wore a suit, and drove a car wi’ a walnut dashboard.’

This wor a stinking, fresh cowpat of news to me.

‘What kind of car?’

Mother looked like her hair wor on fire.

‘A bloody posh one,’ said Mavis.

‘So, Janice,’ said Mother, trying to park the conversation elsewhere, ‘any name yet for the … for the …?’

‘Damien,’ Janice said. ‘Or Rosemary, if it’s a girl.’

‘What unusual names, Janice,’ Mother said.

‘I think,’ said Mavis, ‘we should all drink a toast to Janice. And to Nora on becoming a grandmother.’

Nora bridled. I fathomed that ‘grandmother’ didn’t sit well wi’ her just yet. She nodded at me, and said to Mother, ‘Well, I’m sure this one will do you proud when t’ time comes.’

‘Not me. I’m never getting married,’ I said.

The women guffawed.

‘I’m not.’

Behind Janice’s head I could see Don’s barrel bulk heading our way, parting the drinkers like a shire horse fording a river. Denise, who hadn’t clapped eyes on him yet, wor saying, ‘Course you will, Rick. Some lovely lass will catch your eye, and then before …’

‘I told you, I’m not getting married. Ever.’

Mother’s brow knitted painfully.

‘All right, ladies?’ Don’s eyes combed across Janice’s breasts. Janice averted her gaze.

‘We wor,’ piped up Denise, ‘until we saw you waltzing over our way.’

‘Gerald!’ said Gran, as if she’d just hit on t’ answer in a friggin’ crossword puzzle. ‘His name wor Gerald. Had his own carpet business and a big house up Alwoodley way wi’ a garden, a big car and …’

Mother flashed me a pleading look. I said, ‘Gran, we know. Give it a rest.’

Gran cocked her head at me. ‘A gin and tonic, please, young man.’

‘You’ve got one, Gran. Look – right in front of you.’

It wor odd for Gran to call me young man. She usually only called anyone young man whose name she didn’t know or couldn’t recollect. She picked up the glass, downed it in one. ‘Gerald,’ she murmured, looking pleased wi’ hersen. ‘His name wor Gerald.’

The next morn, Mother wor leant against t’ fridge, watching me wolf down beans on toast before heading off to work. Our fridge wor covered in friggin’ fridge magnets. Sunflowers, London buses, Smurfs, Disney characters, cacti, flags, all plastered over t’ ruddy thing like fridge-magnet acne.

I wor wanting to ask her about Gerald and his car wi’ t’ walnut dashboard and that, but I could see she worn’t going to spill. Her face wor taut, her hair still unbrushed and she hadn’t put her lippy on. Mother said little above t’ necessary to make brekkie function.

‘I might be late again,’ I said.

Mother repositioned one of t’ fridge magnets.

‘Again? I’ll keep some cold ham and beetroot for your dinner.’

She spoke slowly, like she wor really saying summat else. I scraped back my chair.

‘It’s all right, I’ll get chips.’

Mother winced.

I rattled Mrs Husk’s letterbox. ‘Corona pop!’

‘It’s open, luv.’

Mrs Husk wor swilling out a teacup under t’ kitchen tap. She shuffled into her front room wi’ t’ teacup dangling from one finger. After a momentary difficulty freeing her finger from t’ cup handle she said, ‘Did yer get my whisky?’

‘Yer whisky?’

She eyed me beadily. I laughed and took the small bottle of Bell’s from my coat pocket and set it on t’ table, together wi’ her usual ginger beer. The things we’re friggin’ well asked to do.

Mrs Husk patted her hairnet. ‘Have you had a win on t’ pools or summat, lad?’

‘Being happy’s not a crime is it, Mrs Husk?’

‘It’s a rum world, lad, when folk are happy for no reason. Sit a moment.’

I sat. Today I had time. Eric wor knobbing some housewife at number 78, but I worn’t going to tell Mrs Husk that. She sloughed into t’ kitchen to fetch her empty. From my spot in t’ lounge I said in a loud voice, ‘My gran’s just moved house.’

I didn’t usually blather about t’ folks, but if I kept Mrs Husk conversationalising then I knew where she wor. Gran had upped sticks, sold sticks and moved about a mile across town into a small, modern, first-floor flat. Fitted carpets, new boiler, double glazing, window locks.

She’d taken as good as nowt wi’ her, but had instructed Mr Cowley – Second Hand Furniture – House Clearances, screamed the black letters on t’ day-glo orange sign – to cart away all t’ stuff that Mother had grown up about, sat at, played under, slept on. ‘Sold without sentiment,’ Mother had said bitterly. ‘Sold for a pittance.’

Mother then blathered on about feeling ‘complicit in a dirty crime’, denying a man barely cold in t’ ground all trace of his time on this earth. Wiping him clean of our lives, she called it, as if, she said, it wor her own childhood that had been parcelled up and disposed of in such an underhand manner. I wor thinking, ‘It’s only stuff.’

I thought Gran had done t’ right thing. It meant we didn’t have to have any of it. Mind you, we did end up wi’ some friggin’ boat-shaped lamp wi’ a parchment sail shade.

While I wor waiting on Mrs Husk to come back from t’ kitchen wi’ her empty ginger-beer bottle I picked up a framed photo from t’ side table. An old photo of a man and woman at t’ coast somewhere. They wor posing stiffly and smirking at t’ camera. The wind had blown the woman’s hair across her face and the camera had caught her pushing it aside wi’ her hand.

‘Is this you and Mr Husk?’

‘Is what me?’

‘This photo. Is it you?’

She sidled over, handed me t’ empty ginger beer bottle and peered at t’ photo.

‘That? Aye, it is. That wor took at Whitby. A long while back.’

She took the photo from me and set it back on t’ side table. ‘Now I want you to rub some ointment into t’ back of my calf. I can’t do it mesen, I go all funny.’

I sighed. Mrs Husk parked hersen in her chair and rolled down her knee-length stocking to expose her bare leg. Taking the ointment from her, I squeezed a little onto my palm. Her skin moved in loose ripples under my kneading fingers, as if she wor in a coat too big for her tiny frame. I distracted mesen by thinking of Eric’s bare arse rising and falling over at number 78. I wor getting a stiffy, so I decided it might be better to make some more idle chat.

‘So, when he died, I guess he didn’t leave you much, then?’

‘When who died?’

‘Mr Husk. When he passed on. I wor saying that he didn’t leave you no money?’

‘Hah! Die? Who said owt ’bout him being dead? For all I know he might be still swanning about somewhere. No lad, he walked out on me a long while back, went off wi’ another woman. There, I’ve said it, never thought I’d say these things to a complete stranger.’

‘I’m not a stranger, Mrs Husk, I’m your Corona van boy.’

‘Well, no, I suppose not, lad. It wor my fault, you see. I put him on a pedestal, which never does, does it, putting a man on a pedestal? Put a man on a pedestal and it goes to his head. He came back one time. We wor living over Beeston way then. There wor a knock on t’ door, and there he stood, bold as brass in his brand-new overcoat, suitcase by his side, looking reet dapper. He didn’t say nowt, just stood there, waiting for … waiting for me to let him in, I suppose. Trouble wor, I had a friend round for tea, didn’t I? So I said to him, I said, “It’s not convenient, come back later.”’

‘And did he?’

‘Did he what?’

‘Come back?’

‘No lad. Never saw hair nor hide.’

‘Sorry to hear that, Mrs Husk.’

‘Aye, well it’s a rum world, it is that.’

Mrs Husk looked down at her leg.

‘I think that’s enough. I’ll bandage it later – let the air at it a while. I’d better not keep yer dallying, now that he’s finished wi’ her over yonder.’

I peered through t’ nets. Must have been a real quickie, cos Eric wor already on t’ back of t’ van, restacking crates. Mrs Husk sluiced her tea through her dentures and peered into t’ bottom of t’ cup.

‘Oh it’s a rum world, all right,’ she muttered to Lord Snooty, who looked up at her and mewed, then drummed his claws furiously against a chair leg.

After t’ round I got Eric to drop me in town.

‘Give her one from me!’ he shouted.

I legged it to Blandford Gardens, then stopped at the end of t’ road, doubled up wi’ a stitch. I knew at once that the Matterhorn Man worn’t home. The house wor in darkness. The street wor eerily empty, wi’ all t’ cars parked where they wor last week, like they’d never been driven. The sun wor slowly sinking behind t’ buildings opposite. I rapped on t’ door. The knocker had a dead knell. I waited, then rapped again. Standing in t’ gutter, I scoured up at the bedroom window. Where it happened. Where it should be happening now.

Before Jim, I’d never slept under a duvet before. Before Jim, I’d never even shared a bed wi’ a man, a proper grown-up man, wi’ a grown-up man’s stubble, and dark breath, hands wi’ hairs sprouting from t’ backs of t’ fingers, muscular calves and the amazing, perfect, slightly kinked cock.

At first it hurt a bit, like he wor trying to jab it in me, but that wor only cos I wor all tensed up. Jim said I had to learn to relax and imagine I wor drawing him in, and that it wor like learning to swim or riding a bicycle, wi’ practice and persuasion I’d soon be flying. Jim wor patient and gently insistent, and then suddenly I wor up in t’ clouds and there wor no bringing me down again ’til t’ inevitable happened.

And afterward I lay on t’ purple nylon sheets wi’ my head on Jim’s chest, listening to t’ squelches and gurgles in Jim’s stomach mingling wi’ Pink Floyd’s Meddle LP on t’ stereo, feeling warm and safe and sated ’til Jim said it wor time for him to go put the hearts in Jammie Dodgers and for me to go home.

I peered through t’ letterbox into t’ hallway. All wor dull and silent.

Flummoxed, I plonked mesen on t’ bay window sill, tapping my shoe-end against t’ brick. I decided to take mesen round t’ block a while. Maybe I’d just been unlucky and Jim had slipped out to t’ shop for some ciggies.

I gave it a good half-hour, then, still finding no one at home, I trudged off toward t’ city centre. At the junction wi’ Woodhouse Lane I found mesen facing the Fenton, a pub, I remembered now, that Jim said he frequented. I chortled. I’d find Jim again, easy peasy.

I ducked into t’ Fenton, hiked mesen onto a bar stool on t’ public bar side and ordered a pint of lager and lime. There wor a couple of flat-capped men in t’ lounge bar and, two stools along on my side, a rough-looking woman in a gaudy dress. Sixty dressed as thirty.

I drank heedlessly, tracing circles in t’ beer slops. I wor downing the dregs of my third pint when I heard t’ rough old bird say, ‘You want to go easy or you won’t last.’

Setting my empty down on t’ slop mat, I looked stonily into her face. A face that wor t’ wreckage of another age. Even her voice had been shredded by t’ years. She creaked out a smile, displaying the last of her wobbly, lipstick-stained teeth, and told me her name wor Dora. I nodded at her like I wor batting away a fly. She pulled her fingers through her dyed straw hair and adjusted one strap of her dress.

‘You not talking, stranger?’

I slid off my stool and headed for t’ door.

‘Hey, handsome, where yer going?’ she called out in her rickety voice. ‘Aw, don’t go yet. Buy me a G & T if you like? I’m good company …’

I trudged the quarter mile back into t’ city centre, a foul fog filling my brain, cutting through t’ Merrion Centre shopping mall, which wor empty and silent save for t’ flickering buzz of a faulty photo booth, passed on by t’ multi-storey and out through a filthy underpass. I wor burstin’ and the gents toilet in t’ underpass hadn’t been locked, so I reeled in. It reeked of piss.

I worn’t alone. There wor this old geezer by t’ cubicles, toying wi’ himsen, and a younger one at the trough. I pissed long and hard, sending an arc up the metal trough back. The young’un shot a glance at me and I glanced back. He worn’t much older than me. He wor half-cock, and I could feel mesen getting the same.

I nodded toward t’ cubicles, but he shook his head to mean that we should go elsewhere. I followed him out and up a back stairwell of t’ multi-storey. Only when we reached the very top did he turn toward me.

‘Safe enough here,’ he said, unzipping himsen.

I looked about. Anyone coming up them stairs would be heard long before they reached us. There wor no cars on t’ roof, so no one would surprise us from that direction neither.

‘You live round here?’ I said.

‘Just up the road. Neville Street.’

Neville Street – the parallel cul-de-sac to Blandford Gardens.

‘Can’t we go back there?’

‘I live wi’ my mum and older sister.’

‘You don’t know a Jim, do you? Lives in Blandford Gardens. Drinks in t’ Fenton.’

His eyes widened. ‘Aye, I know Jim. Been round his place loads of times.’

‘Have you now?’

‘Aye. I slip round there at night sometimes when my folks are all tucked up.’

A cold anger uncoiled in me. Still, I unzipped mesen and he dropped to his knees and took my dick in his gob even though I worn’t fully hard cos of t’ lager and the blather. I closed my eyes and concentrated on getting a stiffy. Not that I needed to. He wor good, didn’t get his teeth in t’ way and could deep-throat. Jim had trained him well, I thought. Opening my eyes now that I wor hard, I took hold of his head wi’ both hands and held him there. I wor soon going to spunk off, so I thrust deeper and made him splutter from near on gagging. He tried to pull back, but I tightened my grip on his head, thrusting into his gob ’til I basted his tonsils. I pulled out, and spunk ran across his lips and down his chin.

Then I hit him.

Unbalanced by my punch, he fell sideways. He looked up at me disbelievingly, like a trusting dog.

I hit him again, in t’ face this time, and blood oozed from a nostril. He made no sound, not a whimper. The less the reaction, the more I wanted to force one – a cry of pain, a plea to stop, even an attempt to defend himsen – but he did nowt. So I thwacked him again, hard, my fist landing firmly above his left ear. Just say summat, I wor thinking, say summat and I’ll stop. But he sat there, like a disused glove puppet, his gob half-open, his dick still peeping out of his fly.

I kicked him one last time in t’ ribs and ran down t’ stairs in threes and fours, cut back through t’ Merrion Centre and over t’ road. As I crossed it I caught sight of t’ old geezer emerging from t’ underpass, two plain-clothed coppers escorting him by t’ arms.

When I wor next delivering to Blandford Gardens, I found the Matterhorn Man all chirrupy, like there wor nowt wrong. I fathomed that the Neville Street tyke had kept shtumm. He invited me in while he looked for his velvet bag of change, which he’d mislaid in t’ kitchen somewhere.

There wor someone parked on t’ moss-green sofa, beneath t’ Matterhorn. His head jerked up toward me as I passed by t’ open lounge door.

Jim said the man wor his older brother, Steve. Anyone could see right away that he wor Jim’s brother. Knock Jim over t’ bonce wi’ a fairground mallet and that wor what he might look like: a podgier, squarer version of Jim, wi’ an extra chin, shorter legs, a beer belly and splurging love handles. Jim took it upon himsen to introduce me, which must have looked a bit odd, presenting the Corona delivery boy. I stretched out a hand, being polite. Steve looked at it wi’ an expression that slithered between uncertainty and hostility, then shook it briefly. He wore a signet ring. He looked underslept.

I excused mesen and went into t’ kitchen. Jim smiled ruefully.

‘Sorry, kid, he just turned up out of the blue. He cannae stay. It’s not the first time he’s done this. I’m guessing his missus has kicked him out again – that’s usually what this is about.’

He kissed me on t’ nose. ‘It might be best you don’t call by after your work for a wee while. Just until he’s gone.’

‘How long will that be?’

Jim had found his velvet change bag by t’ toaster.

‘Last time was about three weeks. Blethered on about getting a job and all that, but all he did was doss around the hoose all day. Trouble with Steve is he thinks the world owes him. In the end I gave him some dosh and put him on a coach back to Glasgow.’

‘Three week!’

Jim kneaded the nape of my neck. ‘He’ll not be staying that long this time, don’t you worry.’

‘Does he know?’

‘He knows, but I wouldn’t want to give him the extra ammunition, if you get my drift.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that you being underage jailbait, it’s better that he disnae know. I cannae trust Steve not to use something like that.’

Jim handed me t’ money for his usual order, and an extra bottle of Coke for Steve.

I said, ‘What about t’other one? Has he been warned off an’ all?’

Jim fiddled wi’ t’ drawstring of t’ velvet bag.

‘What other one?’

Craner had his feet up on t’ desk, flicking paperclips at the tits of Miss July on t’ wall calendar. It had barely rained since t’ end of May. We wor out on t’ road from dawn to dusk. Sales of pop wor skyrocketing. We sold it, drank it, sweated it, pissed it up the sides of walls and into hedges. Eric had even pissed full an empty bottle of limeade, and somehow we sold that. Craner hauled his eyes off Miss July’s tits and onto my face.

‘I hope you had a wash, Thorpy, cos by mid-morn in this heat you’re gonna stink like a wrestler’s laundry basket.’

‘Always wash, Mr Craner. Just wondering if t’ round-book wor ready.’

He tossed the round-book toward me. It fell short by my boots. I picked it up.

‘So, Thorpy, who’s going to win the cricket at Headingley, eh? England or the West Indies?’

‘Dunno, Mr Craner. Don’t follow it none.’

Friggin’ cricket ruled that week. Wherever we delivered, doors wor slung open, sash windows raised or lowered, radios cranked up to distortion, every last soul hanging on to t’ plummy vowels of t’ cricket commentators. Some folk had set up their TVs in t’ back yard, wi’ t’ cable running through an open window. Folk who never watched cricket wor watching cricket. Pubs had brought in TVs to drum up extra trade. Even kids had got the cricket bug, overarming tennis balls toward chalked stumps on brick walls or tapping cheap bats into t’ ground in front of upended box stumps.

Up at Headingley cricket ground, the Windies wor giving England a pasting.

Craner arched his eyebrows over t’ rims of his glasses and flicked off another paperclip. This one pinged against Miss July’s left eye.

‘Don’t follow cricket? Even my good friends at the Ukrainian Club are following the cricket. They don’t know a bloody thing about it, but they’re following it all t’ same. They know what’s important in this life, Mr Thorpe.’

‘Didn’t know you wor a Yu-ker-ranium, Mr Craner.’

‘My grandfolks wor from Lvov. Came to this country before t’ first war, changed their name to Craner. So now you know. Corona supplies the Ukrainian Club wi’ soft drinks and mixers. A lot of ’em are ex-forces that got left in Yorkshire at t’ end of t’ war. Same as for t’ Poles. Lvov wor part of Poland back then. Did you know that?’

‘No, Mr Craner.’

I wor thinking they could come from t’ moon for all it mattered.

‘All t’ things you don’t know or show no interest in. Connections, boy. To get on in life you have to show interest and propagate connections. It’s no good sitting back and waiting for life to grab you by t’ goolies. Remember that and you’ll make summat of yersen.’

‘Like you, Mr Craner?’

‘Aye, like me.’

‘Use your connections?’ Eric said. ‘Is that what he said?’

We wor parked up by t’ side of t’ road, scoffing lunch. We’d peeled off our shirts and the sun wor baking our bods through t’ windscreen, our reddened arms and necks contrasting wi’ t’ paleness of t’ rest. I liked sitting there half-naked, wi’ Eric half-naked alongside me.

I said, ‘Well, it wor Mitch’s connection to Craner that got me this job, so there must be summat in it.’

‘I wouldn’t trust Craner an inch. Not an inch. As for that shite about cricket and U-Cranes … I bet Craner don’t even know where U-Crane is.’

‘Hey, geddit? U-Crane? Craner? Funny one, that.’

‘No bloody wonder we’re losing the cricket,’ Eric said, ‘what wi’ it being so hot and the pitch so parched and playing like it is. Put up a few banana trees and they’ll think they’re back home.’

We ate slobbily, shovelling fried duck and eggy rice wi’ ‘special curry sauce’ into our mouths, washing it down wi’ swigs of pop. Sauce droplets slithered off our plastic forks and, I clocked, splattered onto Eric’s crotch area.

‘Bloody ’ell,’ he muttered to himsen, rubbing the spots wi’ his hankie. ‘Bloody effin’ ’ell. These keks wor clean on this morning.’

He mopped his forehead wi’ t’ same hankie, screwing his face up at the sun.

‘Must be up in t’ 90s today. Granddad’s as pleased as punch. Says it’ll bring on his allotment lovely, all this sunshine will. He’s out there every day, tendering, watering. Won’t last, mind.’

Eric rolled up the Sun and squished a wasp against t’ windscreen.

‘So, tell Eric, who is she?’

‘Who is she what?’

‘The girl, stupid. You know – Saturday afternoons? You all tetchy and eager to finish the round and cash up and get away at day’s end. Come on, spill all. We’ve all been there.’

I flicked the dirt from under a fingernail. The distant tower blocks shimmered in t’ heat. Somewhere nearby, an ice-cream van tinkled listlessly.

‘Ain’t no one.’

‘Ain’t no one? Is she blonde? Dark? Pretty? Don’t tell me, she’s already got a boyfriend and you’re seeing her on t’ sly? Married? If you want any advice on the best way to …’

‘I don’t need no advice. There’s some stuff I prefer to keep to mesen.’

Eric scented the air like a gun dog.

‘Vanessa’s right, you’re a dark horse all right.’

He scrunched up his foil tray and tossed it into t’ road. He pulled on his shirt.

‘We’d best get on,’ he said, turning the ignition key. The engine spluttered into life.

‘Aye,’ I said, buttoning up my own shirt. ‘We’d best get on.’

The heat wave lasted ’til t’ end of August. The grass withered away, leaving brown, naked patches, the sunbathers and park picnickers turned red and weary. Allotments, including Eric’s granddad’s, wilted away and fell foul to insect plagues and hosepipe bans. The government put up standpipes. Van washing, even washing the outsides of t’ bottles, had been banned, and everything wor looking grimy. In t’ queues for water, neighbours rediscovered each other and chattered like finches set free.

It wor August Bank Holiday before t’ heavens finally opened, but not before t’ Windies had crushed England in t’ final Test at the Oval. Every West Indian on t’ round wor celebrating to our faces. Back at t’ depot, our two West Indian drivers, Phillip and Chester, wor hollering to all who could hear, ‘Who said we’d grovel? Eh? Didn’t the England captain say it, eh? Didn’t he say he’d make dem West Indies grovel?’

I shrugged. ‘I couldn’t give a rat’s behind about cricket.’

Chester wagged his finger at me. ‘You’s saying that now! You’s be saying that now!’

If it wor too hot for cricket, it wor surely too hot for murder. That summer, nowt happened.

For t’ next few weeks I wor riled to find Jim’s good-for-nowt brother answering the door to Blandford Gardens. I longed for him to skedaddle back to where he came from. But three week became a month, and a month became three. He wor a friggin’ scrounger and a layabout if ever I saw one. He’d taken to ordering an extra couple of bottles of Coke for himsen on Jim’s money. Spent his Saturday afternoons watching Grandstand, and most likely spent his evenings in t’ pub.

I asked after Jim, keeping it casual, but Steve always said he wor either out or kipping. Besides, what wi’ t’ hot weather an’ all, sometimes we only finished the round after Jim wor on his way to t’ bikkie factory. To put the hearts in Jammie Dodgers.

Then one afternoon I found a note in an envelope under t’ empties. I tore it open.

Just one bottle of tonic water and one Coke. Jim. x

He’d left the exact change. I folded and pocketed the envelope and swapped over t’ bottles. Steve had finally pissed off back to Glasgow or wherever. I spent the rest of t’ round singing and whistling and joking wi’ Eric, and at the end of t’ day I told him to drop me in town. I ran full pelt the quarter mile to Blandford Gardens rather than wait for t’ bus.

Again, there wor no one home. It wor that dead hour of t’ day – too early for t’ pubs, but t’ shops wor already shut. I hung about for a while, my mood sinking wi’ t’ lowering early-autumn sun. I mooched off about t’ neighbouring streets and then up past Leeds Uni. I found mesen idling before t’ window of some feminist bookshop, fumed up about Jim being out even though Steve had gone, not wanting to go home and undecided about what to do wi’ mesen.

The bookshop wor closed. The plate window wor a proper jamboree of notice cards, adverts and magazine covers wi’ names like Spare Rib, Marxism Today and Leeds Other Paper. On t’ far wall above a tatty sofa wor a pro-abortion poster and a Che Guevara poster. Studenty-politico-women’s-commie-lesbo stuff. I wor thinking about breaking in, or at least bricking the window, cos smashing summat up might make me feel better about t’ world, when my eye wor drawn to a word on a lavender-coloured card that wor taped to t’ side window. I took a furtive gander. The card read:

No mention of t’ friggin’ time.

As soon as I pushed through t’ pub saloon doors I knew I wor way too early. Apart from a few gruff old men strung along t’ bar and a teenage couple snogging in a corner, the Empress wor deserted.

I ordered a lager and lime and pitched up at a low corner table. I sat there a friggin’ age, shredding beer mats. Eventually two women entered, one of them portering a cardboard box.

At once I wor as alert as a fox. I watched ’em blathering on to t’ barmaid, who wor pulling two pints of bitter. Maybe, I thought, I should introduce mesen. Hello, I’m Rick. Is this the Gay Lib meeting? Like the friggin’ AA. What if they worn’t lesbos at all? What if tonight wor quiz night? One of ’em even had long blonde hair. What if, being lesbos, they didn’t speak to men? ‘Some lesbos are separatists,’ Jim had said, ‘who think all men should be castrated.’ I crossed my legs. ‘Some of them,’ Jim had said, ‘tried to buy an island off the coast of Scotland,’ either to put all t’ men on or for themsens, he couldn’t quite recall. They wanted to de-sex the Isle of Man, and Manchester and manhole cover, and chimneybreast wor to become chimney-chest. And ‘women’ wor now spelt ‘wimmin’. What’s more, Jim had said, all lesbos wor trouble, always getting into fights and being aggressive. Once, he said, a lesbo had threatened him wi’ a snooker cue, though he didn’t say why, leaving me to think that all lesbos threaten men wi’ snooker cues.

The women made for t’ stairs, one slopping the drinks, t’ other portering the box. The box, I noticed, had once held Fairy Liquid bottles. I got up from my seat and crossed to t’ bar. I coughed at the barmaid who wor vigorously twirling glasses on a plastic brush head. She jutted her chin in my direction.

‘Do you have a snooker table upstairs?’

‘We do, luv, but there’s a meeting on up there tonight.’

‘So, erm … what meeting’s that, then?’

She set two upturned glasses on a red slop cloth.

‘Gay Lib meeting. Sue and Lorna are setting up.’

She spoke brusquely, as if it wor owt o’ nowt and time wor pressing. Her hands ceased their busying about t’ bar, her chin jutted out again, only over my shoulder toward someone else. Behind me I heard a voice saying, ‘Hey, Rick? Rick?’

I turned, feeling the colour flooding from my face as I found mesen eyeball-to-eyeball wi’ an ex-school mate.

‘Warren?’

‘Rick?’

My skin wor poppin’ and burstin’ like popcorn on t’ hob. Warren had sat next to me for t’ first three year of high school. I hated him, cos he wor good at maths and I worn’t. He’d shot up an inch or two since I’d seen him last, and had the wispy makings of a moustache on his upper lip. I closed my eyes, willing Warren away, but when I opened ’em he wor still there, grinning like a gargoyle.

‘Rick Thorpe. Where have you been hiding?’

I grabbed an ice cube from t’ bucket on t’ bar, crushed it in my fist, letting the water trickle between my fingers.

‘I … I … might ask yersen t’ same question.’

‘Me? I wor just passing by when I spotted you through the window. So this is where you lurk, is it? No one sees you any more.’

‘Here … and other places.’

I smiled inanely at him. I had to escape, to reach cool water, cold air, but I wor trapped. I would have to … have to … Out of t’ corner of my eye I clocked two men arriving. A young’un wi’ a haystack of hair and decked out in Northern Soul gear – the platform shoes, the highwaister keks and a tank top wi’ a star motif on it – and an older bloke, thinning on top, wearing purple crushed velvet loons and a green denim jacket spewed over wi’ badges and buttons. He had the friggin’ set: Anti-Nazi League, pink triangles, pro-abortion, trade unions, Chairman Mao and Che Guevara, Keep Music Live, Rock Against Racism, and down both lapels, lines of friggin’ miniature railway pins. ‘YES, I’M HOMOSEXUAL TOO’ screamed the first badge in my sightline.

‘Oh, fuck!’ I murmured. Please, Warren, please – I wor thinking so loudly it felt that I wor shouting at him – please don’t turn round, don’t look at those men. I put a hand on Warren’s shoulder so he wor jammed between me and the bar stool.

Warren looked petrified, though fuck knows why – I wor t’ one in t’ pig pen.

‘So,’ he wor saying, ‘what brings you in here, then?’

‘Me? I’m … meeting … someone.’

‘Bird, is it?’

From t’ edge of my eye I saw t’ two men move to t’ end of t’ bar, where they wor served by t’ barmaid. Then, drinks in hand, they headed toward t’ stairs.

‘No, no, truth be known … Well, yeah, you’ve got me, yeah, I am. I’m meeting this bird and she’ll be here any mo’, so it might be a good idea if … Warren, I’ll be back in a jiffy, I’m bustin’ for a leak.’

I pelted for t’ gents. Fortunately, it wor empty. No friggin’ mirror. Never a mirror in t’ gents. Mirrors are poncy. I rammed on t’ cold tap and threw water onto my neck, arms, face. I gripped t’ cool porcelain sink, inhaling and exhaling, my face tight wi’ agony, wi’ relief.

I could scarper. Or I could slip up them stairs. I dried my face and hands on t’ dirty roller towel. What did it matter if Warren knew? Let him blab, let him tell every so-called friggin’ school mate who never wor my mate, let him tell t’ headmaster, all t’ teachers, every last one of those friggin’ tossers who said I wor a useless good-for-nowt and that I wor wasting my life. I wor out of their grasp now. No more hiding in t’ science-block toilets in a blind panic or bunking off school cos I wor terrified. A strange, floating calmness coated me. I stood tall, patted my hair. I strode back into t’ bar. Warren had skedaddled.

I wor miffed to find my drink had been whisked away, so I ordered another one.

Folk started arriving in greater numbers now, singly and in pairs. My finger ends wor tingling. I bided my time, watching. It wor as if I’d stumbled on some secret society, and I wor about to be initiated, stretched out naked before ’em while all manner of acts wor performed on me. It occurred to me that maybe Warren hadn’t left at all. Maybe he wor upstairs wi’ t’ rest of ’em. That would take the biscuit. I stood there, undecided what to do. Then I took a long sup from my lager and lime and headed up the stairs into t’ growing hubbub.

There wor a good thirty people there. Thankfully, most of them wor men. The meeting passed in a daze. I wor crushed by t’ stomach-aching ordinariness of it all. I found it hard to fathom what it wor all about, and my attention drifted off into musings on some of t’others about me. Such as the man in t’ Michael Caine glasses and mustard poloneck sweater. Or t’ long-haired man in black velvet loons who perched cross-legged on his chair all evening. The woman in t’ white denim all-in-one, the bib decorated wi’ flower patches. The thin-faced Asian bloke who listened wi’ his chin tilted toward t’ cornice.

My stomach wor growling so loudly I wor sure everyone could hear it. The weasly, freckle-headed man sitting next to me must have heard. And yet, somehow the demons beneath t’ skin stayed quiet.

Mustard-poloneck man stood up, took off his specs and wiped them, then welcomed everyone, ‘especially the new faces’. A few heads swivelled my way, so I looked down at my boots.

There wor an agenda. And friggin’ points.

Point one: Should the women have separate meetings? This wor held over, cos there wor so few women present. Maybe they wor stuck on t’ island Jim said they’d bought.

Point two: Back copies of Gay News should be collected and donated to fish-and-chip shops as politicised wrapping. This wor passed, and two people said they’d take care of it.

Point twelve: Should PIE be part of t’ meetings?

I turned to t’ weasly man next to me. ‘Pie?’ I whispered hopefully. I wor friggin’ famished.

‘Paedophile Information Exchange,’ he replied.

This caused a long and heated debate about t’ Gay Lib position on t’ age of consent, wi’ some saying there shouldn’t be one at all, and others saying it should be lowered from twenty-one to sixteen, which one of t’ PIE men said wor discriminatory against kids, and then he got into a right shouting ruckus wi’ this other bloke which ended wi’ t’ PIE man calling us all fuckin’ fascists and storming out. Finally there wor a show of hands. I didn’t raise my hand. PIE would still have lost.

There wor more friggin’ points, and then we wor asked if anyone had owt else to say, and of course some goon wi’ a stammer did. The meeting lasted a friggin’ century, and I clenched my buttocks, trying not to fart. ‘Any other business?’ took a whole half-hour.

Eventually we ‘adjourned’ downstairs. In t’ bar, the men flocked about me like gulls fighting over a morsel. Someone wor asking me loads of questions, someone else plied me wi’ drink, someone squeezed my arse. I knew I wor getting khalied, cos I wor drinking too fast and my teeth wor becoming numb. I fell against a table.

‘I should be off,’ I slurred, unable to will mesen to move. Then, somehow, I wor pushing through t’ pub doors and stumbling into a street bin. I heard a voice calling out after me, calling out my name.