by HJ Lawson
“I did. She’s going to be a good football player. Just like her dad.” I was pretty good as a kid, but when beer and girls came along that all ended.
“What you going to town for with my mum?” I ask, as my hand is still placed on Kaylee’s belly, waiting for the next kick.
Kaylee falls silent for a minute; I cannot help but smile. “More baby clothes, right? She’s going to be better dressed than her parents. Why don’t you get something for yourself? Or the new place.”
“There’s no point in me getting new clothes. I will only need to get more new ones after I’ve lost this baby weight,” Kaylee replies.
“That’s if you lose it. I like you having a bit of meat on you.” Kaylee’s hand flies into my ribs.
“Ouch,” I yelp.
“Let me see,” Kaylee says, as she pushes down her hand into the bed to bring herself up to a sitting position. I gently push her back up. Casey has really taken a lot out of Kaylee as she has gotten bigger.
She flips her legs around the edge of the bed, then pushes down on the bed and stands up with her hands placed on her lower back.
“Come on, let’s see,” she repeats. I know that she’s not going to stop asking until I show her, but I really don’t want to.
I wrap my fingers around the bottom of my white cotton T-shirt and pull it up.
“Oh, Liam,” Kaylee gasps in sympathy—her hand reaches out to touch my bruised ribcage, scarred from being kicked when I was on the ground last night.
Her eyebrows drop down to a point as her eyes glaze over—hollowness fills me for making her look at me like this.
I drop my T-shirt, covering the wounds. “Should have seen the other guy,” I say, with a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. I know it doesn’t because my black eye doesn’t throb with more pain—other than the dull, ongoing pain.
Kaylee shakes her head, clearly not impressed with my response. “I thought you said this was all over with? We’ve got a baby on the way and are moving into our own place in two weeks,” she says with her hands folded over her belly.
I let out a sigh, “I didn’t have a choice; and he hit me first.”
“You always have a choice,” Kaylee snaps.
Choice, a frigging choice. I can feel the anger raging inside me. “I’m not in the mood for an argument.”
“You should have thought about that before deciding not to come home last night. To not answer your frigging calls. Me and your mum were worried sick—how could you do this to me?” Kaylee blurts her raw emotions out as if she’s been holding them in since last night.
Her shoulders rise up and down as she breathes heavily.
My throat dries up; I feel ill thinking of the stress I’ve put her through.
“Come on, lie back down. I said I’m sorry and you know I mean it,” I say, looking at her with my best puppy dog eyes—which is very difficult to do with a swollen black eye—as I pat the bed beside me.
Kaylee lowers her tense shoulders as she surrenders. “Only because my ankles are swelling up and frigging killing me. Don’t do this crap again!” she says, pointing her finger at me. “Promise,” she says firmly.
“I promise,” I tell her as I stare into her blue eyes that I could get lost in, taking me away from my dark thoughts of what I do to people when they cross me. That part of me will never go away though—I will always protect the people I love. I just hope I can keep my promise, or that she can forgive me if I break it.
“Give us your feet then. Let’s see how bad these ankles are.” Kaylee smiles and grabs one of the pillows and sets it at the end of our park bench bed.
“Comfortable?”
Kaylee holds onto her belly and wiggles a little. “Once she pops out I will be, but this will do for now,” she says warmly.
Her ankle bones have disappeared from the swelling—the doctor said this would happen due to water retention.
I hold one of her feet up towards my nose, and then turn away, making a face like it smells of rubbish that’s been left out in the sun.
“Hey, I have had a shower today, unlike you. Stinking of stale beer and sweat,” Kaylee says, shaking her head. “Am I getting a foot massage or what?”
“Go on, pass the lotions,” I say, nudging my head towards the old wooden desk at the end of our bed. It’s never been used as a desk, more of a dumping ground for empty tea cups.
Kaylee’s old tea cups have been replaced with empty water bottles now, though. I’m not sure what she misses most—not having her morning cup of tea, or our weekend drinking sessions in the pub. I miss her coming out with me; she’s the only one that can keep me out of trouble.
I wish she had been out with me last night. A stale, bitter aftertaste of last night’s beer enters my mouth, reminding me that I went too far.
Too many celebration shots with my friends, I want to make the most of my last few weekends of freedom before the baby comes. If I carry on behaving like last night, the baby will come out earlier from the stress I’m placing on Kaylee, or I will be sent away to spend my time at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Prison.
My head feels heavy with the thought. I told Kaylee I would go straight and that’s what I’m trying to do—it’s not easy though, when these buggers keep provoking me.
Every part of my body aches as I turn round to reach the lotions. Each of my muscles feels as if it is being ripped apart and the muscles will spring free like broken guitar strings. I let out a gasp as I pass Liam the lotions.
If this is just the pain from her being inside me, how am I going to handle the pain of childbirth? An icy shudder snakes down my back at the thought. How is something so big going to get out of me? I’m excited, don’t get me wrong, but, oh my God, I’m so scared.
Liam keeps telling me it will be okay; they will give me drugs to block the pain. Why can't I have the drugs now? Is the pain going to get even worse?
I let out a sigh, and then groan in pleasure as Liam places his warm, silky-wet hands onto my feet.
He has a cheeky grin on his face—I fell in love with that grin, it gets me every time. Warmth flutters through my body as I look at him and think about his baby growing inside me. I hope Casey gets his long eyelashes; they would be perfect on a girl. We both have blue eyes, so Casey will too. I hope she doesn’t get his nose though. I laugh.
“What you laughing about?” Liam asks as the palms of his hands move firmly up the bottom of my foot.
“Just thinking about what Casey will look like,” I say.
“And?” Liam raises one of his eyebrows.
“I hope she doesn’t get your nose.”
“What’s wrong with my nose?” he asks as he moves his hand to feel it, then stops once he remembers the lotion’s on his hands, and moves it back to my foot.
“It’s, well, a bit flat.”
Liam lets out a roar of laughter. “So would yours be if you had it broken as many times as I have. I had quite a nice nose growing up. Remember the photos me and Mum showed you? That was one good-looking nose.” Liam nods.
I think back to the photos of Liam as a kid—there was lots of laughter in those photos, though they have faded with time. His mum keeps them in old, brown, cardboard boxes; there was a musty smell when she brought them down from the loft. She wanted to show me what he was like when he was a kid—a fun way for parents to embarrass their kids.
“Remember the photo of you in the Spiderman costume?” It was a square photo with white edges around it—the colour had faded and the red in the costume was more of a brown.
“How could I forget? Best present ever! I wanted to wear it to school after the Christmas holidays. I remember screaming at my mum to let me wear it. In the end, she broke down and let me, only for the school to send me home to change. It was a good thing the school was only across the road. Mum will have it somewhere. I bet once you have Casey, you could fit into it,” Liam says, nodding his head at the idea and laughing. I just roll my eyes—as if I could fit into a kid’s costume… but it would be
funny to see.
Thud… thud… comes from the front door downstairs. Liam’s hands stop massaging my feet and freeze.
I hold my breath, waiting to hear who’s at the door—those thuds are the thing I fear the most. The day after a fight, Liam is always tense, waiting for round two—everyone knows where he lives, so if they want revenge, they know where to come.
I bite my bottom lip as time stands still. Liam’s friends don’t knock on the front door. They come in and knock on the living room door, announcing themselves as they do it.
The thud was hard and with purpose—and it was not the police, because they also announce who they are.
A hollow feeling drops into my stomach, a feeling of emptiness. That is not a friend at the door, nor is it a stranger.
I push my hands into the bed, and the memory mattress swallows them up like sand on a beach. Getting into a sitting position, I try not to make a sound, but the squeaks and creaks from the bed don’t understand that we’re trying to listen.
Liam moves off our bed and slips his feet into his trainers, tightening the white laces with double knots, making them secure. His trainers are like a ritual to him—whenever he does anything, he has to wear his trainers... well, except for work. White Nikes are his favourite—not the new type that are more like professional runner’s wear, but the old style with the air bubble in them. I feel like his trainers are bad luck, not good luck, like he thinks. Every time he wears a new pair and has a night out, he returns with crimson drops staining them.
“Stay here,” Liam says as he rests his hand on my knee. He leans forward, kissing me on my forehead and then on my belly.
Thud goes the door. “I’m coming,” Liam’s mum yells out downstairs—her voice sounds like she’s in the kitchen, the room beneath our bedroom.
Then the living room door opens—she couldn’t have made it across the living room that fast; not that it’s big—but she would have had to run.
Keith must have opened it.
Liam’s eyes open widely in fear as he realises his beloved brother is going to open the door. Liam heads to our bedroom door.
“It will be fine. It’s nothing,” he says, shaking his head as if trying to convince himself.
“Back in a minute,” he says as he leaves our room, closing the door behind him.
There is an icy chill dancing over my skin—it’s probably nothing, bet it’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We are just overly worried. Liam will come back in a minute, laughing about it. I try to calm my racing heart.
I can hear blurred voices coming from downstairs. Sounds like three voices—Liam, Keith and someone else. Whose voice is it? I know the voice, but can’t work out who it is or what they are saying.
The air in the room feels as if it’s pushing against my skin from the tension of waiting. I breathe in and out as I try to gasp air, but nothing helps.
I lean over the bed, tilting my bump sideways, and edge towards the window as I try to snatch a drop of fresh air.
“Kaylee. Kaylee!” a male voice calls out. I look toward the voice outside and it's Tommy, Liam’s neighbour from the back.
He’s leaning out of his window, with more of his body outside the window than in. His leg reaches out the window frame onto the bathroom roof outside.
The sun catches Tommy’s white Reebok Classics, another popular trainer here. Many of the lads worked at the Reebok warehouse that closed down a few years ago, taking all the jobs with it. His trainers look too big for his pencil legs. He’s wearing the uniform of the estate—shorts, graphic T-shirt and a baseball cap with the peak folded over. The peak blocks the sun and also the view of his face—normally he wants that when he’s been up to no good.
“He’s got a—” Tommy yells. I can only make out part of what he’s saying.
“What?” I yell back as I place my hand over my ear, trying to make a funnel to hear him clearer.
“A gun!” Tommy screams. My heart sinks as the word enters my mind and body.
“Who? What?” I say frantically.
“Seamus! He’s after Liam!” My head goes woozy as I string the words together. Seamus with a gun. Seamus is the kid Liam was fighting with last night. The scum of the earth. Seamus just got released from prison a few months ago, and he’s been a bastard since he came out.
Listening to the voices downstairs, I block out all the other noises, like the birds tweeting outside.
“Fuck off!” Liam’s voice breaks through the muffled voices. There is fear and anger in it.
I push my body up from the bed. Casey kicks vigorously into my ribs as if she’s aware of what’s happening and wanting me to fight.
Out of the bottom of our door-less wardrobe, I pull out a see-through, plastic, large pink box that’s filled with Casey’s new clothes, and place it in front—I hope it can hold my weight.
Using the wardrobe for balance, I step up onto the plastic box lid—it bellows inward.
“Ouch.” My body jolts on the uneven surface as a shooting pain rips across my body. It doesn’t feel like she’s kicking. I breathe in and out and that helps to calm the pain. She can’t come now.
I reach towards the top of the wardrobe, moving my fingers side to side, but I can’t feel it.
Standing on my tiptoes, I reach out and then I find it.
The cold metal handle of Liam’s gun—I let out a sigh of relief. It’s here, just where he showed me.
Now it’s in my hands, but I don’t know what to do with it. I stare down at the heavy, matte black gun, feeling it weighing me down.
“Get out of here, you crackhead scum!” Liam yells.
Casey kicks once more at the sound of her dad’s voice.
The plastic box beneath my feet wobbles as I jump off it, and I land on the sticky carpet with a thud as if there was a baby elephant in the room.
I grip the gun. My fingers hover over the trigger, just as Liam showed me.
The weight of it—it feels heavy, like there are bullets in it; or is it from the weight of what it can do?
I hear more muffled shouting—they are arguing.
The sound of my heart pounds in my ears as I push open our bedroom door with the gun in my hand.
Ripping pain shoots across my belly like an electrical pulse. Casey kicks my insides in between the waves of pain that knock me forward, towards the doorframe. I grip hold of it tightly, as I pant in and out, gasping for the pain to go away so I can get to Liam.
I tear my hand away from the doorframe—fragments of the wood line my hand, as if the door crumbled with my pressure.
Quietly, I tread down the stairs, not wanting Seamus to see me. With each gentle step, I pray that the old creaky wooden floorboards beneath the carpet will not give me away.
Liam and Seamus are shouting obscenities at one another—the argument feels as if it’s at boiling point.
Liam is standing by the front door, still in the house. Pearls of sweat gather around his crew cut and then roll down the back of his neck, making it glisten.
“Creak,” rings out as my foot lands on the next step.
Why didn’t Kaylee listen to me and stay in our room? I can feel her eyes burning into me.
He knows she’s here— I see Seamus’s eyes dilate with rage as he sees her.
I turn to look over my shoulder towards Kaylee.
Before I see her, I see the black end of my gun trembling in front of her belly, protecting our daughter. I shake my head softly side to side—she’s brought the gun. My throat feels raw with dread and my stomach tightens.
Kaylee’s black pupils grow in front of my eyes, and the whites around them also bulge in terror of what she has is seeing.
I turn towards the direction she’s looking and see a grin of revenge on Seamus’s face as he stands on the stone path outside that leads to my house, with a black gun in his hand—a hand that is not trembling.
His grin gets even wider.
“Get down!” I yell out as I see his finger press on the trigger, and th
e sound of metal fills the open air, birds squawking in the background as if an echoing wave of metal on metal has scared them from their morning sleep.
A gust of warm air from the shockwave flies over my head as my body crashes to the living room floor, landing on the ground with a thud.
My chest tightens up as I wait for a scream from Kaylee. I should have thrown myself in front of her, not away from her. My stomach churns into a knot as I get to my feet.
Mum’s face is white with fear, and she has her hands wrapped around Keith’s as he rocks back and forth with his hands over his ears, mumbling to himself, offering a blank, lifeless gaze.
Screams don’t come—instead, there’s an ear-piercing rattle from the hallway. It feels as if the vibrations from the sound have travelled along the floorboards and now rattle through my bones, as if the noise is alive.
A coughing splutter comes from outside as if someone is choking.
I step forward into the hallway and look up towards Kaylee. She’s motionless, with the gun held out in front of her, staring past me towards the front door.
I let out a sigh of relief that she’s alive. I turn and look out the open front door.
The stone path which I played on as a child and stagger along as an adult now has a red, growing pool capturing the morning sun. Seamus lies motionless with blood seeping from his body. She shot him, she killed him.
Everything around me falls silent and still, as if the world is trying to prepare for what the hell will happen next. Then I see a movement in a car on the road, a beaten up, old white Fiesta—the driver who brought Seamus to kill me is my own bloody cousin.
Kaylee’s knuckles are ghostly white as her hands grip around the gun. I wrap my hand around the hot gun barrel—it stings my palm as I squeeze it tightly.
“Let go,” I say to Kaylee as I grit my teeth. Her hands don’t move and her gaze remains steady. Kaylee’s knuckles are white from her grip as I peel her fingers from the gun.
Leaving her standing silently on the stairs, I turn away to see Mum standing in the living room doorway, her eyes bulging with fear.