The Graft

by Martina Cole

  Job done.

  She would kill Gary when she got her hands on him. It was always the same, he caused hag and she cleared up the shit. As she always said to her sister, ‘No change there then.’

  ‘Do you feel better now?’

  Gino nodded.

  ‘Told you, didn’t I?’

  He smiled.

  Jude was almost envious of his first foray into heroin. She remembered her own first time, not the guy who had turned her on, he was scum, but that first feeling of belonging somewhere. And that somewhere was inside her own body. The way to true escape did not lie in plane tickets or a fulfilling job, the bullshit that straight people always gave you. The power lay in a needle for anyone who cared to use it.

  He was on the nod again, in the twilight zone as Sonny used to say when Jude opted out of reality. She had been on it so long now she couldn’t function if the gear was cut too much. The dealer they used cut it with quinine and it was a bastard. But beggars can’t be choosers. Jude had to take what she could get.

  She still had a thirty-pound bag and was careful not to give Gino too much. The last thing she needed was a dead boy on her hands. But even if he did OD, he was a consenting adult as far as the police were concerned. Once they hit seventeen they were men in the eyes of the law. Didn’t need their mummies and daddies down the station any more. So she wasn’t too trashed.

  Gino would become her new little helper, he would be the next Sonny. For that she needed to guarantee his devotion and this should do it.

  She heard a loud knock on the door and went to answer it. Gino’s mother was standing there, all thirteen stone of her.

  ‘Is he here?’

  Jude shook her head and said in a puzzled voice, ‘Who?’

  Deborah White stood there with her neat blond bob and her denim jacket, looking down her nose at Jude, and it rankled.

  ‘Who do you think?’

  Deborah was obviously not taking any shit today.

  ‘ ’Course he ain’t here, what would your Gino be doing here?’

  She sounded sincere and for a few seconds Deborah White remembered that this woman had just buried a child and felt a twinge of compassion for her.

  ‘Do you know where he might be, Jude?’

  She shrugged, wishing this woman a million miles away. Dead would be good.

  ‘Nah . . .’

  As she spoke, Gino jerked out of the front room towards the toilet, heaving as he felt the wave of nausea hit him. He was walking like someone drunk, lurching against the walls, the hand over his mouth already full of the yellow bile he was coughing up. It spurted through his fingers. Deborah White looked at her son and her heart stopped dead in her chest.

  ‘Gino?’

  She pushed past Jude, knocking her back against the wall.

  ‘Oi, hold up, this is my house!’

  It was her voice that did it, Deborah told herself later in the day. The way she acted like she was being wronged when Deborah’s son was drugged out of his head and vomiting through taking heroin given to him by this lying scum standing not two feet away from her.

  She gave Jude a punch that would have floored Giant Haystacks. She felt the other woman crumple under the force of her blow, and as she went down Deborah’s foot seemed to act of its own accord and she kicked Jude in the head with all her might, sorry that she was only wearing bumpers and not a pair of officer boots. For the first time in her life she wanted to take someone’s life because she knew that Jude had just taken her son’s. He might not die today but he’d be as good as dead once the brown got him.

  She ran to the toilet after him. The stench hit her first, and then she saw her son sprawled on the seat, his eyes glazed and his lovely new T-shirt covered in yellow bile. She was trying to pull him up and take him home with her when Jude appeared behind her.

  ‘He had already taken it . . . I took him in. I told him he was a mug, Debbie . . .’

  Deborah faced her furiously.

  ‘You fucking whore! You took my boy and you dragged him down to your level. You lost your boy, do you want me to lose mine as well?’

  Her voice was loud and by now the neighbours were crowding round the door. There was always a cabaret at Jude’s, she was like the local entertainment.

  ‘He’s all I’ve got.’

  ‘I was only trying to help him!’

  Jude was all self-righteous now, warming to her theme.

  ‘I lost my boy, that’s right, I did. So do you think I would take part in anything like this willingly? I was trying to help him, I tell you.’

  ‘You couldn’t help anyone, Jude. You’re fucking incapable of doing anything to help anyone except yourself. My Gino loved your boy, and he was a nice boy, Sonny. Despite you and your scummy fucking life, he was a nice kid. You destroyed him like you destroy everything you touch. You’re a fucking junkie and junkies are shite in my book. While you kept your shit inside your own front door you was safe from me but now you are in more fucking trouble than you could ever believe possible.’

  She grabbed Jude by the throat and pushed her forcibly against the wall, banging her head painfully and repeatedly against it as she shouted at her.

  ‘I don’t want to see my Gino outside the toilets renting his arse out like your fucking poor Sonny did to feed your habit. We all used to see him on our way to bingo, flogging his arse for you! You have no shame. People like you never do. We’re all fucking working to keep you in drugs! The world has gone fucking mad!’

  She started to punch Jude again and as she was dragged off, shouted, ’A fucking rent boy, Sonny! It was a disgrace what you did to that boy. Well, you’re not doing it to mine.’

  Louis watched the scene in shock, unable to believe what he was hearing but instinctively knowing that it was true. Tyrell was holding the big woman in his arms and trying to calm her down. The neighbours were all standing on the landing, shaking their heads and whispering among themselves. Some even had coffee, tea or can of beer in hand, depending on personal preference. It was like a party, only it wasn’t to celebrate anything good, it was to witness the final humiliation of his dead son.

  Deborah was calmer, crying loudly now as she said to Tyrell between sobs, ‘Look at my boy . . . she did that. He’s out of his nut on skag and she gave it to him. Your Sonny wouldn’t touch it though God knows she tried to get him on it. I know that for a fact, I used to hear Gino and his mates talking. They all think she’s so great, that because they can drink and smoke cannabis round here this is the place to be. I can’t fight that, see? My house is boring in comparison, all B&Q wallpaper and Coronation Street. But I tell you this, I will kill her! I am taking him home now and if I find out he has been near or by this shit hole again she’s fucking dead. Because if that’s what it takes to keep him off the brown I will do it.’

  Everyone fell quiet as she spoke and Tyrell looked at the woman with compassion, knowing that all she said was true.

  ‘Go home, love, I’ll sort this out. We’ll get your boy back for you, sweetheart, and I guarantee he won’t be round here no more.’

  ‘Look at him. Look in that toilet and see what she has reduced him to.’

  He turned and looked at Gino, saw him sprawled there, wasted, and felt the urge to clump Jude himself.

  ‘Come on. Let’s get you both home.’

  He nodded to Louis who went into the toilet and, seeing the state of the boy, placed a filthy towel over his shoulder before picking him up. He carried Gino out of the flat in a fireman’s lift, not sure which was filthier, the boy or the towel.

  The crowd at the door dispersed slowly as he walked past them. They were all still talking among themselves and there was much whispering and shaking of heads as they saw the condition young Gino was in.

  ‘Show’s over, people.’

  Tyrell walked the distraught woman out of the door, not even shutting it behind him. Jude was quiet now, feeling her neighbours’ animosity and knowing that whatever pity they had felt for her son’s death was ov
er now.

  Poor Jude was long gone. She was Junkie Jude again.

  But she consoled herself with one fact: Gino would be back. Whatever his mother thought, he would be back. The brown had called to him as it had to her, and for all Deborah’s big talk about her precious son, he was like all of them on this estate: accidents waiting to happen.

  Jude slammed the door in her neighbours’ faces as the police arrived on the scene. As usual no one had seen or heard anything and they were glad of that fact. So long as there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction involved they couldn’t give a flying fuck what the estate’s residents got up to.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gino was in bed. He knew something was not right, but as Jude had given him a bigger dose than before he was out of it completely. He could not be arsed to think about what had happened and so retreated further into the drug. He was nodding for England now. Had stopped caring what was going on around him. Tyrell and Louis had settled him and Tyrell watched him for a while, remembering doing the same thing for Jude on many occasions.

  This flat was a revelation, it was so spotless and homely. Gino had a much better chance than his Sonny ever did in that respect. Deborah made them all coffee and Tyrell and Louis came and sat in her kitchen and waited with her until she was calm enough to speak. Tyrell knew just how she was feeling; he had felt the same sense of futility so many times during his life with Jude.

  He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the feeling only got worse, never better.

  ‘What you just said about my Sonny . . . was it true?’

  Deborah turned to face him, placing the mugs of coffee on the spotlessly clean table, her eyes still red from crying and her heart sore for the truth she was going to have to tell this man.

  ‘You really didn’t know?’

  Tyrell shook his head hard, making his dreads move, and she saw what a good-looking man he was. Sonny had looked like him, lighter-skinned maybe but still like him.

  ‘Do I look like I knew?’

  Deborah pulled out a chair and settled herself at the table, getting out her cigarettes and lighter and placing the ashtray near her so she could concentrate on the listening men and not have to move again.

  ‘It started when he was about fifteen, not regular then, but I was going to bingo one night and the toilets by the bus station are a known haunt for rent boys. Well, I saw Sonny Boy near there and waved at him like.’

  She took a deep drag on her cigarette before shaking her head in sorrow and saying, ‘He was a nice kid, I never had a problem with him though there were plenty who did.’

  Tyrell knew she was trying to tell him there was no malice involved here but he had already worked that one out for himself. One look at her boy and he understood what her row with Jude was all about.

  ‘Go on, Mrs White.’

  She took another pull on her cigarette. Louis saw her hands were shaking and knew that Jude as usual had fucked up another two lives on her merry way to constant oblivion. He would lay money that this woman would never sleep easy another night for worrying about her son, and he would be the same if the boy he had just laid out was his. She knew Gino now had a shortened life expectancy. He would maybe father a child, have a few relationships, but the main relationship in his life would be with heroin. If Jude had got inside his head, that boy was lost.

  ‘The boys there, you can see what they are, bless them. Junkies, crack heads - well, it’s like anything really, ain’t it?’ Deborah shrugged. ‘You get used to it. At first it was shocking, you know? Seeing them there in their make-up with their funny walks. But eventually they were just part of the landscape. No one really took any notice after a while. But seeing Sonny Boy there . . . it really shocked me.’

  She looked into Tyrell’s eyes.

  ‘I liked him, cooked him many a dinner here, the poor little fucker. But I told my Gino to keep away from him then. Nothing personal, we all knew how good he was with Jude. People admired Sonny for the way he took care of her. And you know the worst of it all? She was never worth it. The woman is fucking carrion!’

  She lit another cigarette from the butt of her last one. Standing up, she said, ‘I’m going to check on my Gino then I’m having a drink. Do you want one?’

  Tyrell nodded, knowing she wanted company.

  ‘The glasses are in the cabinet by the sink.’

  She walked from the room, cigarette still held firmly in her hand. Louis got up, glad of something to do. He found it hard listening to this woman talking about Sonny being a rent boy so he could only guess how much harder it must be for Tyrell. Deborah came back into the room carrying a bottle of cheap Scotch and poured them all a generous measure.

  ‘Was he there much?’

  Tyrell could hear the catch in his own voice, could hear the disbelief and the horror, had to swallow down the tears that were threatening to pour down his face. He had never known, never dreamed, that anything like that could have been the case. Why had no one ever told him?

  But he knew why. They were too scared.

  ‘Not at first, but later he was there a lot. It was Gino who told me the score, see? I had banned him from seeing Sonny as I said. Didn’t want him involved in all that. You see it in the papers, you see it on TV, but we live it round here. This ain’t a Channel Four documentary showing how the other half live, we are the other half! We live that shit night and day. I might not be mother of the year, and I might live in a sink estate, but I do the best I can for my kids. Sonny was on a death wish, mate. I know you don’t want to hear it, but he was. She had a hold over him like I have never seen before, and that hold included my Gino. She offered them the chance to be bad boys, and living here, being part of this scummy place, they took it, grabbed the chance with both hands. It was an enticement they couldn’t resist.’

  Deborah gulped at her drink.

  ‘Gino said Sonny Boy had no choice about it. If he didn’t go out on the make then Jude would and Sonny hated her out on the bash, she knew he did. She had had a couple of hidings in the past, and besides she wasn’t up to much any more. Didn’t get the punters like, especially the state she was in. So he went out with her blessing because that lazy whore couldn’t even get her arse in gear to shag for her own skag.’

  Tyrell closed his eyes in distress.

  Deborah started to cry again as she said plaintively: ‘What am I going to do now, eh? Now she’s given my boy a taste of nothing. Now he knows what all the shouting is about. He will want it, he’s stupid enough for skag. The thieving I could cope with, but not this. I will kill her. I swear to God I will swing for that whore, and I don’t care who knows it.’

  Louis refilled her glass for her, knowing she would need to soften the edges today.

  ‘I’ll keep me eye on him, I promise. Jude won’t have him back there, Mrs White. I couldn’t help me own boy because I didn’t know enough, but I will help yours. I can’t say fairer than that,’ Tyrell told her.

  She nodded. It was what she had hoped he’d say.

  ‘He loved you, Sonny Boy did, I know that much. He talked about you all the time.’

  It was small comfort, but it was all she had to offer him.

  Nick was at his club in Bermondsey, a small spieler frequented by known faces. The good thing was no one could get in without either being well known to the other members or else having enough firepower to give Tony Blair an excuse to invade.

  The latter, though unlikely, had been tried over the years by better people than the PM, and the place was still standing and holding its own in an ever-changing world.

  Stevie was nervous today and this fact was annoying Nick.

  Anyone would think he had never done a bit of skulduggery in his life before and he had just come out after doing a big lump. Good job he didn’t have to deal with half of what Nick had to deal with on a daily basis. He was only trying to keep his head above water and the shit he had to deal with was astronomical. Now he had Stevie having a heart attack over a pile of shit. In fa
irness his old mate was still on licence so he had good reason to be bricking it, but Nick was not in the mood for babysitting.

  His annoyance came over in his voice as he spoke sharply to his friend.

  ‘They can’t trace him back to us. They’ll think he was dealing out and had a capture of some kind. The usual for dealers who try and out too much stuff too quickly. The filth will think Gary had open wallet surgery. It happens all the time, bigger firms jumping on the little dealers. There’s no way it can come back to us, so stop fucking tarting out and have a drink, for fuck’s sake.’

  Stevie could see the logic of what Nick was saying but it had all got too heavy for him. He had wanted to spank Gary Proctor, he didn’t deny that, hurt him badly, but death had not been on the agenda. He had already done a big lump, unlike Nick who had been lucky enough to live a charmed life. If he had done a bit of bird he might understand why Stevie was so reluctant to go back and do some more.