Musclebound

by Liza Cody

  I hardly saw Andy when he came past again, and he didn’t see me at all. I waited till he went round the corner before I got up and blew my nose on my T-shirt.

  Then I crossed the alley and went up the iron steps to Ma’s door.

  Bang-bang-bang I went, with the heel of my hand against the cracked paintwork. I could hear music and gunshots from the telly inside.

  Then, ‘Wha’?’ from behind the door. I banged again.

  ‘Go ‘way,’ Ma said. ‘I told you. Go ‘way.’

  ‘It’s me,’ I said.

  Silence, except for more gunshots.

  ‘Open the fucking door,’ I said, ‘or I’ll kick it in.’ But, truth to tell, I was too tired and headachy to kick a paper bag.

  ‘You would too,’ she said from behind the door. ‘You’d leave me with no bleeding door.’

  ‘Believe,’ I said.

  So she opened the door, and there she stood in a lime-green camisole thing with only half her make-up on.

  ‘Wha’choo want?’ she said.

  ‘Talk,’ I said.

  ‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘Go ‘way.’

  Then she remembered, and her face went all saggy.

  ‘Oooh,’ she squealed. ‘You’re a murderer, you are. Go ‘way. Get away from me.’ And she ran off down a dark tight passage, through a door which she slammed behind her.

  I went after her. I opened the door she went through and found her in her tiny grim bedroom, standing there with a wire coat-hanger in her hand.

  ‘You going to hit me with that?’ I said.

  She used to hit us with wire coat-hangers when we was kids if she caught us playing in her bedroom.

  ‘I got a right to defend meself,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be so bleeding stupid,’ I said. I took the coat-hanger out of her hand and bent it in half. Like I should of done when I was little.

  ‘You’re a killer,’ she said. She sat down on the stool in front of her dressing-table.

  All her things were still in boxes except for a couple of frocks rumpled up in a heap. I sat down on the bed.

  She turned her back on me and stared at me in the mirror.

  ‘Look at you,’ she said. ‘You’re just an ugly great killer. I always said you’d turn out bad. I always said that. I said, “That one’ll turn out bad.’”

  ‘Well, you wasn’t wrong,’ I said. ‘With a little help from you. How could you, Ma, how could you?’

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said, ‘I ain’t killed anyone. You didn’t need no help from me. You started out bad and you went on from there. You was even born the wrong way round and you ain’t changed. I said, you ain’t changed. So don’t you look at me like that ‘cos it ain’t my fault.’

  I dunno how I was looking at her. She was sitting there with her back to me. All I could see was her wobbly white shoulders cut into squares by lime-green straps. Except when I looked in the mirror, when I could see that blood-red gash of a mouth jabbering.

  She was talking to me through a mirror and she couldn’t even do that proper. She got distracted by her own face and she started to paint her second eye.

  ‘But why, Ma?’ I said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’ she said. ‘And that’s another thing – I’ve told you and told you but you don’t never listen – don’t bleeding call me Ma. People look at me funny when you call me Ma. I’m still a young woman.’

  ‘What’m I s’posed to call you? What does Simone call you?’

  ‘Simone?’ The red gash went still for a moment. ‘Simone don’t hardly call me nothing. That other woman brought her up. Anyway it don’t matter with Simone. Simone takes after me.’

  ‘Never!’ I said. ‘She couldn’t be more different.’

  ‘Simone’s pretty,’ she said. ‘She takes after me. I could of done them things Simone’s done if I wasn’t lumbered with kids. Kids ruin yer figure.’

  She always does this to me. It’s always her and her stuff. Always, always, always. She won’t look me in the eye and talk about my stuff.

  ‘So that makes it all right?’ I said. ‘I ruined your figure, so it’s all right to ruin my life.’

  ‘You ain’t got a life to ruin,’ she said. ‘Look at you.’

  ‘I got a life, but you ain’t interested. You never saw me fight. Not even once. You never even came to my home. Not once. No. But you sent Wozzisname and Andy the minute you thought I had a bit of dosh.’

  For a moment it looked like she was too interested in her mascara brush to bother to answer. Then she said, ‘Your home? What home? You’d of taken a hammer to me like you did to poor Jim. I always said you was a bad’n.’

  ‘It was his hammer,’ I said. ‘He brought it. He was going to use it on me and Simone.’

  ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid,’ she said. ‘Jim wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s you. You get everything upside down. It’s just like you. You was born the wrong way round and you’ve taken everything the wrong way round ever since.’

  ‘Why did you send him?’ I said. ‘If you wanted money, why didn’t you ask?’

  ‘Ask you?’ she said. ‘Don’t make me laugh. Anyway, I never sent him. It wasn’t my fault. Don’t you shout at me.’

  She always does this. Always. ‘Who’m I supposed to shout at?’ I shouted. ‘You’re supposed to be my ma.’

  ‘Shut up,’ she shrieked. ‘I said shut up. That was ages ago. You’re grown up. What d’you need to call me Ma for now?’

  ‘Cos she is my ma. Why couldn’t she act like my ma? I could of picked her up by her jelly neck and shaken her till her blusher dropped off. Except she was my ma. If I didn’t remember that I’d be as bad as her.

  ‘It ain’t my fault,’ she said. ‘You always blame me for everything and it ain’t my fault. Now look what you done.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You made me eyes run,’ she said. ‘Now I’m going to have to do them all over again. You made me eyes run.’

  I had my thumb in my mouth. I did. And I was biting it so hard I almost bit it off.

  ‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘I ain’t got time. I’m going out.’

  I said, ‘You got time to send Wozzisname and that scrubber-lover round to screw dosh out of your own daughter.’

  ‘Don’t blame me,’ she said. ‘You want someone to blame, blame your toffee-nosed sister.’

  ‘You’re evil,’ I said. ‘You’re an evil slobbering lying old cow.’

  ‘I ain’t old,’ she shouted. ‘I ain’t. You’re always blaming me. Something goes wrong – wha’d’you do? – you come round blaming me. How did you find me anyway? Simone wasn’t supposed to tell you. No one was supposed to tell you.’

  ‘Simone doesn’t do what you tell her,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re both of you against me.’

  ‘Simone doesn’t have to tell me where you live, you dribbling old tart. All I got to do is follow one of your sick tart-raking fellers.’

  ‘Wha’?’

  ‘Andy,’ I shouted. ‘I followed Andy. Would you tell your own daughter your address? Like fuck you would! No, I got to follow your latest shag.’

  ‘You’re so bleeding stupid,’ Ma squealed. ‘Andy ain’t mine. He’s Simone’s.’

  ‘You take me for a retard, don’t you?’ I said. ‘You think Simone and me don’t talk. You think she don’t tell me about you. You kept us apart all these years. Well, it didn’t work, Ma. We’re family, Simone and me. You ain’t ‘cos you blew your chance.’

  She jumped up then and turned to face me. Her face was all twisted with spite. She said, ‘What’s she been telling you? It’s all lies. Where is she anyway? She was going to give me some money. I been waiting for her to come and help me out. She said she’d pay the rent, and now I got to go out, and me face ain’t finished.’

  I snatched a coat-hanger off the bed.

  ‘Don’t hit me, don’t hit me,’ she screeched. ‘It ain’t my fault.’

  I had to twist it with both hands to
stop me from twisting her wobbly white neck.

  And then, bam-bam-bam, someone knocked on the door.

  ‘Oh my god,’ Ma snivelled. ‘I ain’t even dressed yet.’

  I came here to have it out with her. Once and for all. But I’m so low on her list of what’s important I come below mascara, frocks and doors. There’s a dead bloke at the bottom of the Thames, and one daughter’s disappeared with a big dangerous man with a shooter, and her other daughter’s clawing at the ceiling. But does she care?

  ‘Get the door,’ she said. ‘Don’t just stand there.’

  She always does it to me. Always. She makes me feel smaller than the breadcrumb you wouldn’t bother to throw to the ducks. I don’t matter. Even the ducks wouldn’t miss me.

  ‘You’re like a big ox,’ she said, ‘a big dumb ox. Don’t just stand there. Get the bleeding door.’

  She was struggling into a short black frock.

  ‘Zip me up,’ she said. ‘Fucking zip me up, can’t you.’

  Bam-bam-bam went the door knocker.

  I said, ‘But, Ma …’

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ she said. ‘I told you. Don’t call me that. I got company.’

  She’s my ma. She’s my sodding sodden mother. And I can’t make it to the first bend in the road with her. She don’t want to know.

  She pushed past me and went to the door.

  ‘You always,’ I said, ‘you always, always

  She opened the door and a voice said, ‘Get a move on, we’re missing valuable drinking time.’

  The voice was so familiar I rushed into the little kitchen to see who it was.

  It was just another bloke. No one I knew. Just another one of Ma’s fellers. I didn’t know him. I just knew the whole crappy scene like I knew my own hand. I knew the knock at the back door. I knew the voice in the kitchen or in the hall or on the walkway.

  ‘Nearly ready,’ said Ma. ‘Hang on.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘You got to talk to me.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ the bloke said.

  ‘No one,’ Ma said. ‘She just turned up.’

  ‘If you ain’t ready,’ he said, ‘I’m off.’

  ‘Wait for me, darlin’.’

  ‘I’m her daughter,’ I said. ‘She’s my ma.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ the bloke said.

  ‘She’s lying,’ Ma said. ‘She’s lying. She’s always making trouble.’ She kicked me hard on the shin.

  ‘You got to talk to me,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll walk out the door, and if I do, I’m never coming back.’

  ‘I wish!’ she said. She had her arms up her back trying to pull the zip. ‘Wait for me, darlin’, I’ll be ready in a sec’

  ‘Well, get your skates on,’ the bloke said. ‘I’m thirsty.’

  ‘Comin’, darlin’,’ she said in that horrible little-girly voice.

  I couldn’t stand that girly voice. I hated the bastards who made her talk that way.

  So I pushed the bloke backwards out the door. I pushed him backwards down the iron steps. I did what Pete Carver did to Keif – I gut-barged him all the way down to the alley.

  ‘She’s my ma,’ I said. ‘She ain’t your cheap shag. She’s my ma an’ she’s nearly forty years old.’

  ‘Oi!’ Ma shrieked from the top of the stairs. ‘Don’t listen to her. I told you, don’t listen. She’s lying.’

  ‘Bloody ‘ell,’ the bloke said, pushing me off. ‘I didn’t come here for no trouble.’

  ‘You all right, darlin’?’ Ma squealed. She clattered down behind us. ‘Don’t listen to her – she’s mad. We’ll have a few drinks. We’ll have a good time. Don’t worry about her – she’s crazy.’

  ‘Ma!’ I yelled. And I started kicking the rubbish bins to make her look at me. To make her listen. To make her stop at home and pay attention.

  And I went on kicking them long after she’d gone. I went on kicking them till I heard the cop car come.

  Then I ran away.

  Chapter 27

  Maybe Keif’s mum was right. Maybe I should of got my head X-rayed. I ran as far as I could. But my head was hurting so bad and all them aspirins made me feel so sick I had to stop and spew up in the gutter. I puked till my guts ached almost as much as my head.

  After that I felt better and I walked the rest of the way. At the Fir Tree I stopped. I needed a drink, so I poked my head through the door. But the beer fumes and the cigarettes and the juke-box made me feel pukey again.

  And then I thought, I ain’t never going to have another drink. Never. Ma drinks. I don’t want to do nothing Ma does. Nothing at all. Zero. I’ll do the opposite. She drinks. I don’t. I don’t want nothing from her, and whoever she is I want to be the opposite. I don’t even want her to be my ma no more.

  And one day she’ll regret it. One day she’ll be old and wrinkly and she’ll say, ‘I’ll go round and see how that daughter of mine’s doing.’ And she’ll turn up at my back door. And the servants’ll come to me and say, ‘Hey, there’s this old bag at the door who says she’s your mother.’ And I’ll say, ‘What? I ain’t got no mother. I’m self-made, me. She must be lying.’ Then she’ll regret it all right. You’ll see if she don’t.

  So I didn’t go into the Fir Tree.

  Besides, I’m an athlete, and athletes got to look after themselves. I’m the London Lassassin, the one they call Bucket Nut. They love me. They say, ‘Hey, Bucket Nut, where you been?’ And they give me a boost back into the ring.

  I didn’t see there was trouble till I got down the end of Mandala Street. Just as I was turning the corner I caught an eyeful of cop cars and blue flashing lights. It looked like the politzei were having a rave. In my yard. I jumped back.

  And then someone poked me in the spine with something hard. A BBC newsreader voice said, ‘This is a sawn-off shotgun. Do not move. Just do as I say.’

  So I stood like a stone.

  He said, ‘Your sister is in the car. Will you come with me – no noise, no trouble?’

  ‘You’ve got Simone?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. She’s waiting. Will you come sensibly?’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  He turned me, and we walked slowly all the way back up Mándala Street – me in front, him behind.

  His big gold BMW was parked off the main road.

  He said, ‘Open the door, slowly, and get in.’

  I opened the door.

  ‘You look terrible,’ Simone said. She was there, she really was – in her shiny black raincoat and high-heeled boots.

  She said, ‘Greg, put that silly gun down. Don’t you hold a gun to my sister’s back.’

  ‘She’s unreliable,’ Greg said. ‘I had to make sure she didn’t storm off and do something we’d all regret.’ He stowed the shooter under the front seat.

  ‘Simone,’ I said, ‘that git, Andy, he ain’t your boyfriend, is he?’

  ‘Who on earth told you that?’ she said.

  ‘Ma.’

  ‘Who’s Andy?’ said Greg.

  ‘A friend of my mother’s,’ Simone said. ‘Eva, don’t go talking to Ma. It’s futile.’

  ‘What’s futile?’

  ‘Futile,’ said Greg, ‘is useless. It’s worthless, vain, abortive, unproductive and nugatory.’

  ‘Isn’t he amazing?’ said Simone.

  I said, ‘Simone, it was such a fuck-up.’

  ‘Poor Eva,’ said Simone.

  ‘She lies all the time,’ I said. ‘All the time. She said Andy was your boyfriend and then she told her feller I wasn’t her daughter. She said Wozzisname wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  ‘Who is …?’

  ‘Another friend of my mother’s,’ Simone said. She took my hand and squeezed it. ‘You and I know different.’

  ‘Differently,’ said Greg.

  ‘Thanks, Greg,’ said Simone. ‘We don’t want to talk about that now, do we, Eva?’ She squeezed my hand tight and flicked her eyes towards Greg and back to me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve had it with all that. I’ve
had it with Ma.’ I sat back in the warm car and rested my head against Simone’s shoulder. We had our secrets, Simone and me. We was family.

  Greg said, ‘Eva, even as we speak the police are raiding your yard.’

  ‘Stupid bastards,’ I said. It was wonderful. The politzei was crawling all over my home and they didn’t know. They didn’t know that home was here in a warm car with Simone.

  ‘Why?’ said Greg. ‘Why are the police raiding your yard, Eva?’

  ‘Search me.’

  ‘Who called them?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  Simone squeezed my hand again. She said, ‘Eva, you know what you were telling me in the pub?’

  ‘Wha’?’

  ‘About the lottery ticket and the people who gave you Greg’s money.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Don’t get sleepy on me again, Eva,’ she said. ‘You said there was a detective woman asking questions about it.’

  ‘The Enemy,’ I said. ‘Once a copper, always a copper.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  I couldn’t remember, and, even worse, I couldn’t remember exactly what I told Simone about the lottery ticket. And that could be a lot of bother because I was sitting in a car with God Greg.

  I sat up straight. ‘Ramses and Lineker,’ I said. ‘Milo. What they done to my dogs?’

  ‘Never mind the dogs,’ God Greg said. ‘What did you tell the detective?’

  ‘They ain’t your dogs,’ I said. ‘They’re mine – and I mind.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Simone said, hanging on to my hand.

  ‘The dogs,’ I said. ‘I ain’t letting no bastard politzei take my dogs off me.’ I was struggling to get out of the car but she was holding me back.

  Greg reached under the front seat, grabbed the sawn-off and stuck it up my nose.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Simone,’ he said. ‘We tried it your way. Now we’ll try it mine.’

  ‘Greg – don’t!’

  ‘What did you tell the detective?’

  ‘Nothing.’ My head was back. My neck was stretched. I had a shooter rammed up my nose and it hurt.