by Ruth Jacobs
“If I don’t score off you, I’ll only be spending my money with someone else.”
“I can’t stop you,” he said. “But I’m not gonna be the one who kills you.”
***
“When your dealer won’t sell you drugs, that’s when you know you’re proper fucked.”
“I don’t need your take on what he said. I need you to bring me some fucking gear,” Shelley yelled down the phone to Len.
“We’re still cleaning up here.”
“Well stop for a bit and bring me some. I’ll pay your cab. Two-fifty of each. Come now, please. I can’t wait.”
Shelley rolled another joint. Why was the universe conspiring against her? And today of all days. Finding a viable vein was usually the more awkward element of her drug taking than finding a viable dealer – with a few exceptions, most notably being robbed and locked in Len’s house, although that had proved serendipitous.
She looked out of her window. Was Nicole hanging around outside? Had she spoken to Jay on his way in? Her car wasn’t there. She phoned her mobile.
“Don’t be stupid. You have given me an idea though.”
“I’m calling your flat. You better pick up.” Shelley redialled Nicole’s home number.
“I told you it wasn’t me,” Nicole said.
“What kind of dealer won’t sell you drugs?”
“I don’t think you should be saying that on a landline.”
“Now who’s paranoid?”
“Call me if you wanna get clean, otherwise I’ll see you Friday. And remember, I do love you. I’m trying to help.”
***
Shelley poured herself another gin and switched on the television. She watched the news to check if a body had been pulled from the Grand Union Canal. Tomorrow, once she’d had some gear and some sleep, she planned to visit the library to see if she could find out the depth of the canal. And in the meantime, she continued to think of a place she could go, or someone she could ask, to ascertain the stickiness of parcel tape once submerged in water.
“The man shot dead outside Ladbroke Grove station just after eight p.m. on Saturday has been identified as sixty-seven year old Peter Langton. Langton was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 for the murder of schoolgirl, Kimberley Wright. Despite the recent public outcry, he was given an early release following a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Witnesses are pointing to a single gunman, but the police are investigating whether the attack was instigated by a vigilante group. The gunman has been described as...”
Shelley turned off the television. She had imagined, being Ladbroke Grove, the shooting that held up her friends had been gang or drug-related. There was some comfort in the knowledge she’d suffered for that subhuman to be killed. There was justice sometimes, just not always delivered by the system designed to dispense it.
She wondered if the body in the canal had been found, but part of her didn’t want to know, not until she had junk in her system. Until then, she wasn’t ready to deal with the repercussions if it had.
***
At five o’clock in the afternoon, Len still hadn’t arrived at her flat. She thought of calling Ajay, but on top of all the waiting she’d done already, throwing his tardiness into the mix would be a recipe for disappointment. She considered going out to score on the street. Although the risk didn’t bother her, she couldn’t score a large quantity from a stranger and, even if she were to buy enough for a few hits, she didn’t feel she had the strength to leave her flat again or to be outside alone.
When the phone rang, Shelley answered in anger, screaming, “Len, where the fuck are you?”
“Kiki, is that you?”
“Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry. I thought it was someone else.”
“Is everything okay, sweetie? You sound troubled.” It was Resident Dicks All the Boxes.
“Yes. I am a bit.” Shelley looked around. Her flat was a mess. “My builder keeps letting me down. The flat’s a tip.”
“All the more reason to come to Miami. I’m leaving a week on Wednesday. I can still get you a ticket.”
“Thank you, but I can’t come.” Or can I?
”No, you can’t,” a director from the board told her.
”You can’t leave your mother.”
”You can’t go with a habit.”
”You can’t leave your friends.”
“Call me if you change your mind. It’ll be so good for your psoriasis... You’ll be brand spanking new.”
“I won’t... I mean, I can’t. I want to, but it’s just not possible. I’m sorry ’cos I’d love to come.”
“You can always fly out later in the summer. I’ll be there until the end of August.”
“I won’t see you for three months.” The thought Shelley had been holding in her mind came out of her mouth unplanned. Why did that happen to her? Escaping words. Surely, it didn’t happen to normal people.
“I’ll miss you. I’ll miss the... the contentedness I feel when I’m with you,” he said quietly. “Next summer. I hope you’ll come with me then. It’s an open invitation. I mean it. You’re a very special woman, Kiki.”
48. Audacity
Len came through with the drugs on Monday night, but he didn’t bring the quantity of crack Shelley had requested. Apparently, it was a strategic move on his behalf taken to avoid her becoming psychotic. His strategising had worked. It also enabled her to leave the flat and visit William’s grave the following day.
The usual cemetery coldness that was always there to greet her wasn’t present. Tuesday brought a beautiful afternoon with a clear sky, and a bright sun that shone down on Shelley as she walked around her car in the car park, checking and checking and checking again that her car was locked.
Shelley pointed at her head. “I’m mad,” she shouted, staring back at the woman who was staring at her. “It’s called O-C-D.”
When the woman finally walked away, Shelley resumed her checking. After a few minutes, she turned to leave the car park.
Walking through to the graveyard, she noticed a sign she hadn’t seen before. She went closer and read the words: Lock all your windows and doors whilst visiting your grave. She smiled. Even she didn’t think her vigilant checking would be necessary in the afterlife, nor was she likely to have a car.
As she wandered through the sea of headstones, her body felt uncomfortably warm. Even though there was no one around, she kept on the long-sleeved, burgundy sweatshirt that she wore unzipped over a T-shirt. It would have been disrespectful to bare her war wounds in front of Will. And in the face of the other souls who no longer had life, it wouldn’t have been right to flaunt that she flirted with death.
On reaching William’s grave, she sat down next to him on the ground and laid the pink carnations by his headstone. She looked around to ensure there was no one present before speaking to him.
“I’m so sorry for what I’ve put you through,” she whispered. “I know you probably understand, but I’m still sorry you might’ve seen it...” Shelley heard footsteps behind her. She swung her head around brusquely.
“I want to talk to you,” said a man with a northern accent, walking towards her. Shelley raised her hand above her eyebrows and held it there for shade as she watched the man approach. A barren scalp shone in the sun. The long strands of dark hair swept across had failed to disguise its baldness. He was in a suit; perhaps he was there for a funeral.
“Do I know you?” she asked as she pushed herself off the ground and got to her feet.
“You can’t keep ignoring me, doll.” He stood next to her, leant towards her and stroked her cheek with his hand.
Shelly flinched. Her brain sent the message to her body to run, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. She was rooted in the soil, her feet frozen still. Her legs were shaking so uncontrollably she felt as though they were about to surrender to gravity.
“I really am sorry,” he said.
“I’ve got a knife and I’ll fucking use it,” she yelled in the man’s face. Was h
e the creep who usually wore a shell suit? Fear sent adrenalin pumping through her body and provided the catalyst to dislodge her entrenched feet.
As she sprinted on unsteady legs, in the direction of her car, she heard him panting behind her. She tried to pick up her pace, but she couldn’t run any faster.
“Fuck off,” she screamed in the hope that someone would hear. But it wasn’t likely. The graveyard was nearly always empty. Today was exceptional but unfortunately, the woman who’d been staring at her earlier had been on her way out, not in.
“Stop, Shelley. It’s all right. I’m not gonna hurt you,” the man called out.
She didn’t reply nor did she turn around. How did he know her name? Was he the Resident Cemetery Lurker? Was he stalking her and not the cemetery? Although her legs felt even more unstable, she continued to run.
“I’m on the wagon. I’m sober.”
Shelley kept running along the narrow path that weaved through the headstones, but she stopped dead when she heard him say, “Don’t you think you at least owe it to Will to hear me out?”
After he’d caught up with her, she stared at him, studying his face. He was the man she’d seen before, she was sure of it. And now that she looked at him closely, she could tell that he was William’s father. His face didn’t have the same look as William’s – kind and open – but the resemblance was there.
His face was chiselled like William’s, but it was hidden underneath skin that hung as loose as a housewife pillowcase stuffed with a bolster cushion. High cheekbones were concealed by eye-bags merging into sagging cheeks. What would have been a strong jawline was obscured by a number of dangly jowls, as well as a succession of chins in residence beneath the main one. The one that was there first. The one in which Shelley spotted the central dimple. William’s central dimple.
***
In the Bald Faced Stag on East Finchley High Road, Shelley sat waiting at a window table while William’s father, Jim, stood at the bar. The windows didn’t let much light through and although outside it was a glorious day, inside the run-down pub it was gloomy.
As Jim carried their drinks over from the bar, Shelley watched him closely. His swagger created a slight twist in his shoulders every time he took a step closer to the window table where Shelley was sitting. The way that he walked reminded her of Will; he’d had that same gait.
The square table wobbled as Jim set down her pint of snakebite and blackcurrant. When he slumped into the high-backed, wooden chair opposite, he reminded her of Will again. The way he sat with his shoulders rounded, and the way that every now and again he jutted out his chin and bottom lip – a nervous habit or twitch, Shelley had thought, but now she knew it was hereditary, though perhaps a hereditary habit or twitch nonetheless.
“How’s your mother keeping?” Jim asked.
“She manages.” Shelley looked at his hands – the shape of his fingers, and his fingernails, were identical to Will’s.
Jim supped his pint of Guinness. Maybe that’s what turned him into a thin, fat man – fatness in his stomach and face. He had the red nose and cheeks of an alcoholic.
“Am I imagining it, or did you tell me five minutes ago you were sober?”
“I am, doll, have been for years now,” he replied.
“I don’t think so.” Shelley gestured to the pint glass cradled in his hands. “There’s only one kind of sober and you’re not it if you’re drinking that.”
“No, I still am. The Guinness doesn’t count.” He raised the glass to his mouth. “It’s for keeping in good health. You know, medicinal purposes and that malarkey.” He smiled at her, perhaps apologetically or in embarrassment, but his eyes didn’t smile. William’s eyes had always smiled. William’s eyes, so light a blue they were nearly transparent, were expressive. She knew where she stood with those eyes. Although the eyes of this man were an exact colour match, they were shifty, and the baggage they carried was obvious. The hoods were as heavy as the bags underneath.
Shelley took the packet of Benson and Hedges from her handbag and lit a cigarette. What she really wanted though was a fix. If only she could get to her car, but she couldn’t, not yet. She owed it to Will to have a conversation with the pathetically coiffured man across the table. Will never had the chance to have his questions answered by his father and Shelley was sure he was watching them now. Although she resented the man whose company she would have to endure, this was something that she could do for her brother.
“Why didn’t you come back and see him?” she asked.
“Times were hard for me in those days.” In one quick movement, his bottom lip and chin protruded. “It was complicated. There was a lot going on.”
“He needed you. He really needed you.” Shelley took a pull on her cigarette. “Do you even know what happened to us?”
Jim responded with a nod then began shaking his head vehemently. “That was a terrible thing... an absolutely God-awful thing. No kids should have to go through what...” He took a gulp from his glass. “I really am truly sorry for you, doll.”
“You should’ve come back. He might still be alive if you had.”
“Whoa, hold your horses right there. You can’t lay that at my door. That was your mother’s job. She should’ve protected him properly. And you. Both of you. She was the one with responsibility for your safety.”
The heat of Shelley’s rage imbued her face. “If we didn’t have useless, fucking fathers that cunt wouldn’t have picked my mother.”
“Shelley-Margaret, I might not have been around in William’s life but you cannot pin what that nonce did on to me. And I will not have you use that language in my presence.”
To calm herself, and hold down the urge to slap Resident Comb-Over, Shelley took several long draws on her cigarette. She lifted her black patent handbag onto her lap, took out her mobile phone and checked the time. How much longer could she bear his brazenness?
She turned her head away from the familiar stranger and instead stared at the pool table. The pool table on which she’d played her final game with William, and where now, under the light of the green, low-hanging lamp, a game was being played by two men dressed in white overalls.
“He wanted to know why you never came back.” Shelley returned her gaze to Jim. “Why you never called, sent a card on his birthday, at Christmas. You broke his heart. Do you know that? Have you got any idea how much pain you caused my brother?”
Jim stared into his pint glass. Did he think the answer was in there?
After a short silence, he spoke. “It was a difficult time, made harder by your mother. You’ve got to remember it was her that took him away. She should’ve told me where she moved to. I didn’t know where to find him.”
“You could’ve found him easily.” Her upper lip curled in contempt. “Mum had the same friends, she was in touch with the old neighbours – they’d have given you our address. There’s pictures of you taken in Aunt Elsie’s house, the same bloody house she still lives in. There’s no point lying to me. You abandoned your son. You could have found him anytime you wanted but you didn’t.”
“You kids have no idea what it was like back then. Thatcher was closing all the pits and—”
“For twenty-one years solid? I don’t think so. And when were you ever a miner?”
“My whole life, doll, apart from when I lived in the South. Look, I know you’re hurt, but—”
“Hurt?” Shelley stared at him incredulously. “I’ve been fucking destroyed. Will was destroyed, and where the fuck were you? Mining somewhere. Fucking mining. Well that explains everything. Now it all makes sense.”
“I’ve come back to make it up. I’m here now because I want to put it right.” A chin and lower lip jut interrupted Jim’s words. He smiled at her, unauthentically. It caused Shelley no surprise that as the sister of this man’s departed son that was the smile she was given; it was more of a smile than her brother had received in two decades.
“You wanna make it up? How’s that gonna work?�
�� Shelley threw her handbag strap over her shoulder and got to her feet. She walked around the table to Jim’s chair. She lowered herself with her face up close to his. “You’re too fucking late. He’s dead. Your son is dead.”
She stormed towards the exit. As she reached the step that led to the door, she felt a hand on her back and turned around. “There’s nothing to say,” she told Jim.
“If you think of something...” From a pocket in his suit jacket, he pulled out a scrap of paper and pressed it into Shelley’s palm.
She pushed the silver bar, opening both the wide double doors and for a moment, the glorious day, the sunshine, the brightness of the sky, came pouring into the pub and washed away the bleakness, killing the darkness with light.
“You can call me any time.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. “I want to put things right if you’ll let me. I’m not too late, doll, not for you.”
49. A Not So Different Generation
“He was full of excuses, pathetic excuses. He’s a fucking loser. I don’t even look like the cunt. He can’t be my father.”
“Shelley, stop swearing or I am not having this conversation with you.” Aunt Elsie sipped her tea as they sat having breakfast outside The Coffee Cup.
“Why did Mum tell me I had a different dad? It doesn’t make sense.” Shelley was trying to keep her voice low. There were other customers seated at the tables nearby and although it was early, an endless stream of shoppers and workers were walking along Hampstead High Street, a few feet from their table.
“You mustn’t judge your mother. Things were different back then. She did what she thought was right.” Aunt Elsie patted Shelley’s hand.
Shelley wondered if she’d done the right thing telling Aunt Elsie what William’s father had told her, or even that she’d met him. Her to-do and to-worry lists had grown exponentially in the three days that had passed since they’d dumped the body. She’d yet to visit the library to establish the depth of the canal. She had to research the stickiness of parcel tape. She had to make enquiries to ascertain if there was CCTV at The Lanesborough. She barely had enough crack for another couple of hits. Her friends were hassling her to get clean. Her checking had become overwhelming. And to top it off, she was having breakfast with her aunt at nine o’clock in the morning – a time when she should have been asleep.