by Liza Cody
There was a bloke at the fence. With the streetlight behind him I thought it was Keif. He had the same brick shit-house build. But then I saw it wasn’t.
‘Where’s Simone?’ he said.
I said, ‘Move your big arse away from my fence or I’ll set the dogs on you.’
‘Simone!’ he yelled.
‘Oh, you’re the one,’ I said, ‘you’re the tart-raking fuckin’ dumb boyfriend.’
‘Simone!’ he yelled..‘Yeah, I’m the boyfriend all right. What you going to do about it – hit me over the head with a hammer?’
And then Simone was there. She flew over to the fence. She said, ‘Eva, leave this to me.’ She said, ‘Andy, go a -way. Just get out and leave us alone.’
Andy said, ‘Oh no. I’m not having that. You said you’d only be a minute.’
I said, ‘Come on. Come over my fence. Meet my dogs. That’ll only take a minute.’
‘I don’t trust you,’ Andy said to Simone, and, wow, you should of seen Simone then. She was my sister all right – never mind her fancy ways.
She beat the chain fence with both hands. She said, ‘You stupid, stupid bastard. You troll. You greedy, useless fucker.’
He stepped back – it was like he got bitten by a butterfly.
I said, ‘What’s a troll?’
And then Simone turned on me. ‘Go indoors,’ she said. ‘Now. Right now. Or I’m going back to Copenhagen and I’ll never come back. You can all stew, kill each other, I don’t care. I mean it. I’ve had enough.’
Where the hell was Copenhagen? It sounded a long, long way away and it made me feel cold. I stepped back too. I said, ‘If you lay one finger on my sister again
‘You’ll what?’ said Andy.
‘Shut the fuck up, both of you,’ said Simone.
‘I’ll hang your bollocks over my door and you’ll be dangling from them.’
‘Eva!’ Simone said.
‘I’m going,’ I said. ‘But I’m leaving the dogs.’ And I went, walking backwards so’s I could see if he put one finger through the fence.
I didn’t stop till my heel hit the Puma bag. I picked it up. ‘That bastard ain’t having you,’ I said. Instead of taking the bag to the Static I took it to the dog pen.
I know. A troll is the man-version of a trollop. It should be – there’s all sorts of rude words for women but there’s never enough for men when you need ‘em. If Ma scores a bloke in a pub for the price of a rum and coke she’s a slag, a slapper or a slusher. But when he scores her, what d’you call him? Unlucky?
I wasn’t going to hand over all my gold to a troll and a trollop. No cocking way. I’m supposed to pay Ma off, keep her sweet? What for? What’s she done to deserve it? And him – the troll, the slut-puller, with his slick face and hairy hands – what’s he done I should pay him for? Scored a cheap shag off of my ma and tried to grab my sister. Does that deserve zillions? Well, does it?
I banged the nail into the doghouse wall and hung the bag on it. While I was doing that I had another thought, so I reached in, snatched a wad and stuffed it in my pocket. Then I went to the Static.
But before I got there I noticed that Simone was standing all alone with her back to the fence. Andy, the troll, wasn’t there no more. She was just standing, small and cold, with Ramses and Lineker sitting in front of her. I almost had to laugh. She really blew me away, my sister. She could come steaming out, with nothing but a little thin jersey to protect her, and mouth off to a beefy bugger who was threatening me. But she couldn’t walk past two dogs.
‘Every time I move,’ she said, ‘they snarl.’
‘Oi, shit-heads,’ I said. ‘Behave’: And they stood down immediately.
‘Don’t shout at them,’ she said. ‘I’ve had it with abuse and shouting.’
‘If you don’t shout, they don’t listen.’
‘There’s other ways,’ she said.
‘What other ways?’ I said. ‘You couldn’t walk past them.’ I put my arm round her, ‘cos she was shivering, and we went back to the Static.
I said, ‘Where’s he gone, that Andy bastard?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t care. Back to Ma’s, I suppose.’
‘Is he living with her?’ None of them lived with her for more than a couple of days.
‘He’s always there,’ she said. ‘He smells a pay-off.’
See, blokes can smell gravy. No wonder I was so popular.
She said, ‘So what is the pay-off, Eva? What’ve we got?’
‘What’re we buying, Simone?’ See, Wylie by name, crafty by nature.
‘Silence,’ she said. ‘Freedom.’
‘Do them things stay bought?’ I said. ‘Or do you have to keep paying for them like the electricity? Every month, year in, year out?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Ma and Andy, they want whatever we’ve got.’ She knuckled her eyes. ‘They aren’t thinking ahead. But you’re right. We’ve got to think ahead.’ Her knuckles were mauve with cold and she drew her knees up to her chin.
I made us some more coffee and she poured the Scotch in. She said, ‘I could go off abroad again. I don’t need to do this, Eva. I’m stuck in the middle and I hate it.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No!’
‘Shshsh. If I left the country they’d never bother looking for me.’
‘Can I come too?’
‘Got a passport?’ she said. ‘You couldn’t take your dogs.’
‘Don’t go,’ I said. ‘Just don’t.’
She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me with them dark blue eyes and brushed her hair with her fingers. The torchlight picked up each strand and turned it silver-gold.
‘Don’t go,’ I said. ‘Promise. Please. I ain’t got no one but you.’
‘You did all right before,’ she said. ‘Think about it. It’s me that got you into this mess. If I hadn’t come back Ma would never’ve thought of that trick.’
‘She’d of thought of another one,’ I said, but then I wondered, would she? She pickled her brain so regular it was amazing she thought up the first one. ‘It ain’t your fault,’ I said. ‘You can’t leave. I’d much rather be in a mess with you than not in a mess without you. You’re the only family I’ve got. There ain’t no one else. No one.’
‘Oh, Eva, don’t say that.’ She covered her face with her hands and teardrops leaked down her wrists into her sleeves.
I couldn’t bear it. I emptied my pockets on to the bunk between us.
‘Look, Simone,’ I said. ‘Look. I don’t know how much I got. Count it. Give it to Ma. Keep it. Just promise me you won’t go.’
She looked. She counted. She said, ‘Where did you get all this, Eva? It’s over two thousand.’
‘The lottery,’ I said. ‘I bought a ticket.’ Well, I did, didn’t I? I wasn’t lying.
‘How much did you win?’
‘I didn’t get all six numbers. Nothing like that.’
‘How much?’
‘Dunno, I’d had a couple of beers – I ain’t clear on a few beers.’
Yeah, all right, I’m very nearly lying to my own sister. But see it my way – I didn’t want her to leave, and Ma and the troll was too much for her already. What in hell would she think about the red Carlton and the Puma bag and Droopy-drawers who might have a sawn-off hidden under his anorak? Go on – tell me what she’d do if she found out about that? She’s sensitive. She’d bugger off for sure, and maybe I’d never see her again.
‘Jesus Christ, Eva,’ she said. ‘You keep all this money lying around? Here? Didn’t you put some in the bank?’
‘Bugger banks,’ I said. ‘I ain’t giving my dosh to a bank, ‘cos then I have to ask permission to get it back. I ain’t stupid. I know what they do. You got to pay for cheques and stuff. It’s like your dosh got to pay rent for itself, when it can live here for free. They keep it and do what they like with it, but you got to say, “Please, sir,” when you want any back. And then you pay to get it back.’
‘But
it isn’t safe.’
‘It was safe enough till now.’
‘Oh, Eva,’ she said. ‘You need a manager. You do. You need …’
‘Doesn’t matter now,’ I said. I was looking at all that lovely lucre sitting on the bunk between us. It was like losing a friend.
She sat there all thoughtful for a minute. Then she said, ‘I can’t take all this. It isn’t right or fair. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take half. I’ll tell Ma and Andy about the lottery. I’ll say this is all that’s left. They don’t know any better, do they? You never told Ma what you won, did you?’
“Course not,’ I said. ‘And she wouldn’t know about it now except I paid her rent. Out of the kindness of me heart.’
‘It isn’t fair, is it?’ she said. ‘OK, so no one knows how much you’ve got. So I’ll give Ma half. It has to be over a thousand.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’ll seem like a lot.’
‘It fucking is a lot.’
‘Yeah, but a few hundred wasn’t enough, so maybe if we give her a four-figure amount it’ll satisfy her.’
‘Shit, Simone, it’s got to satisfy her. When did she ever see this much? She never had a pot to piss in. And you know she’s only going to piss it away.’
‘I know. But it’s got to be more than a thousand. And it can’t be a round number ‘cos that’s too neat. She’s got to think it’s everything you’ve got. If she doesn’t think that, she’ll keep coming back for more.’
She decided on one thousand one hundred and sixty-seven pounds. I don’t know why. She said it wasn’t the sort of number you’d invent. She said the clincher was the sixty-seven. It was psychology, she said. If we’d made up a number under fifty Ma would suspect she was being short-changed. But a number over fifty was believable. She said one thousand one hundred and sixty-seven was a truthful sort of number. No one would make up a number like that.
And she was right – it sounded like masses more than one thousand one hundred and fifty. It even sounded like more than one thousand two hundred even though I knew it was less. Numbers are very, very weird, and very muddling.
And look at what she saved me! Did anyone ever have a sister as smart as Simone?
Chapter 19
I know what Simone was thinking about. Once, when we was six or seven, Ma won a lucky draw on one of her catalogues. A letter came which said, ‘You have won the chance to win fifty thousand pounds,’ and Ma got all excited ‘cos she never won anything before. This letter said all she had to do was choose two of a dozen items and order them, and that way she’d be eligible for the Grand Prize Draw.
Ma ordered some anti-static rinse to keep her undies tangle-free and a tooth-bleaching kit and she sat back and waited.
A second letter came, and it said she hadn’t won the Grand Prize but she’d come so close they were going to give her a twenty-quid voucher and a set of hand towels absolutely free. She didn’t have to order anything else.
Only by that time, Ma had pissed away the rent so she couldn’t even afford to pay for the anti-static rinse and the tooth-bleaching kit. So her catalogue company never sent her the voucher or the hand towels and she didn’t even get the anti-static or the tooth bleach. She got nothing at all. And Simone said she was down the price of the stamp.
Remembering that, Simone said if Ma used to be the sort who gave up fifty thousand pounds or a twenty-quid voucher for a night out at the pub, then she’d most likely settle for what she could screw out of me now. She’d blitz it all away and then forget about it. Simone said people didn’t change for the better over the years. They just stayed themselves and got worse.
Simone said the joker in the pack was Andy. She’d have to be very careful with Andy. He kept saying he was only doing what was right for Ma, but Simone thought he was calling the shots for his own advantage. Andy didn’t trust Simone. That’s why he followed her to the yard. He was the one she had to convince about the one thousand one hundred and sixty-seven pounds. In the long run he was a lot more dangerous than Ma.
Before she left Simone said, ‘So Eva, you’ve got to keep quiet from now on. You mustn’t spend any money. You mustn’t tell anyone about it. You haven’t told Keif, have you? Well, don’t. Don’t tell anyone.’
She was right, wasn’t she? Andy mustn’t know about the money. And the same went for Droopy-drawers.
I was glad I bought all my new gear before she told me not to spend anything. I’d of been very cold that night without a nice thick sleeping bag.
But I dreamt Wozzisname was sharing the sleeping bag with me. He wasn’t upset about being dead but he had a deep dent in his head and he kept tickling me and nudging me with his elbows. Which made me really angry. I told him to fuck off and leave me alone but he said, ‘No way, girl, we married now.’ And his voice was Keif’s voice.
The strangest thing of all was that when Keif turned up the next day he blew in saying, ‘Hey, dream girl.’ And I wondered if it was possible that one person could know that another person had been dreaming about his voice. It spooked me, because his cousin was an obeah lady and you never know if them things are passed down in families like brown eyes or warts.
He said, ‘Brought a friend.’ And he opened the door again. I was afraid he’d brought Cousin Carmen, but it wasn’t Cousin Carmen, it was Milo.
‘Herf,’ said Milo, and I thought his voice was deeper. He jumped on the bunk and swiped my chin with his tongue. He wasn’t shivery no more.
‘Oi,’ I said, ‘you ain’t a lapdog.’
He swiped my chin again and sneezed.
Keif said, ‘You make me sad, man. You been drinking again.’
‘Ain’t,’ I said.
‘Milo knows you’re lying, man, and so do I. We both got a wicked sense of smell.’
‘Piss off to the rose garden then. Both of you.’
‘Might do,’ he said. ‘Your sister been here last night. I can smell her too.’
‘Keep your sodding nose out of my business,’ I said. I was so choked off with him I could of smeared his wicked sense of smell all over his face.
‘My nose and your business don’t like each other,’ he said. ‘C’mon, Milo. We ain’t welcome here.’
‘Wha’d’you mean “we”? Milo’s my dog. Not yours.’
‘You ain’t fit for a puppy dog. When you guttered you mistreat him. When you with your sister she make you guttered. She no damn good for you, man. She no damn good, full stop. Then you no good for Milo.’
‘Don’t you bad-chat my sister,’ I said. ‘Don’t you ever do that. You don’t know her. You don’t know anything.’
‘I know you, man.’
‘You know nothing.’
‘If you say so,’ he said. He walked out the door. And Milo followed him.
I was so stone choked I leapt out of the sleeping bag, off the bunk and out the door before I remembered my stiff back.
I caught them up before they reached the gate.
‘Oi you,’ I said. ‘You apologise. You better ‘pologise right now. What you said ‘bout my sister is pure shite.’
‘Shite ain’t pure,’ he said, still walking.
‘Fuck you,’ I said. ‘She’s my sister. She’s the only family I got left. You can’t talk bad about her and walk away. You can’t. She’s all I got.’
‘Where’s your shoes, girl?’
‘Wha’?’
‘You run round barefoot you’ll catch the flu again.’
Suddenly I felt cold and I looked round. All the men in the yard were staring and grinning. I hated myself for running after Keif. I stone hated myself for doing that.
I picked Milo up in my arms and went back to the Static. Milo had put on weight.
‘I knew a boy at school,’ Keif said, following me.
‘You still here?’ I said.
‘Rude boy,’ Keif said, ‘slack like you wouldn’t believe. But he wrote poems like Bob Marley, like Gil Scott-Heron. A DJ talk to him one time. He say, “Write me a song, man, we�
�ll take it to the studio.” But this boy, running around with other rude boys all the time, smokin’ bush, buyin’ rocks. So he say, “Yeah man, cool. Tomorrow.” But tomorrow never come, ‘cos tomorrow this kid is all fucked up and wigged out and he can’t string two words together.’
‘Was he your brother?’ I said.
‘No, he ain’t my brother. Just a kid at school I used to look up to. ‘Cos he had talent. I used to respect talent. But talent don’t mean shit by itself. In fact talent’s bad for you. It make you think you don’t need nothing else. And you do.’
‘I know that,’ I said. ‘I ain’t stupid.’
‘No? Then you worse than this kid I’m telling you about. You diss your talent and you diss your brains or what.’
‘But she’s my sister.’
‘OK, she your sister.’
‘Family’s important.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So,’ I said.
‘So?’ he said.
‘So, you want to go weight-training?’
‘No. You ain’t up for that.’
‘Running?’ I never thought I’d hear myself suggest running. Keif’s got a point – a drop of Scotch in your coffee addles your brain something chronic.
‘You ain’t up for running neither. I’ll do your back. Then we’ll walk. But only if you put your shoes on. I don’t want to be seen walking with no hippy girl or what.’
So I lay down on my front, and after a while all I could smell was Cousin Carmen’s embrocation and all I could feel was deep heat.
Keif said, ‘You know what I’m saying or what?’
I said, ‘Yeah.’ Well, I didn’t say it, I just sort of groaned. And I thought, Eva, you’re getting addicted to this.
Keif said, ‘You got to do one thing.’
‘Wha’?’
‘Tell her. Tell your sister the juice is bad for you. See, mebbe she think athletes can drink sociable.’
‘They can.’
‘Listen to me. I’m giving you a way out. Couple of beers now and then – OK. Hard juice, out of your skull – not OK. It fucks up muscle tone, it fucks up co-ordination. Then you get hurt, man. Look at you now.’
He didn’t know nothing. What was wrong with me was all down to Wozzisname. And where was Keif at one in the morning when I needed a drop of something to dull the ache? Where was he then? It wasn’t him who kept me company in the night. It was Simone. She sat with me. And Wozzisname didn’t come visiting till after she’d gone. It was when I was alone that Wozzisname climbed in my sleeping bag and gave me bad dreams.