O My Days

by David Mathew

  I want to know, he mutters absently, who’s coming to chat me.

  Shut up, man, Roper-man, Carewith offers, equally as absently.

  At least the seconds are passing. It’s a way of killing time.

  One day, yeah? says Carewith. I’m teefing bare poultry from the supermarket, innit. It’s me and my ting. My girl Aleisha. Not me babymamma, another ting. And we’re up there at the hot chicken shit. The counter, yeah? And she’s like, rah, I don’t feel well innit.

  Your girl says it? I want to confirm.

  Yeah. But she’s faking it, rudeboy. She giving it the hand to the head, right? I don’t feel good. I need to sit down.

  We all start to laugh.

  Making sure the chicken chick’s clocking her. Getting her nice and worried, yeah? She virtually be having a cardio innit.

  I remember in Felts, I dashed a yoghurt in a yoot’s face, says Roper.

  Ostrich says, Shut it, Ropes-man. Allow it.

  Carewith is smiling broad. Then she fall down innit, he continues. So what the chicken chick gonna go? He raises his hands: case considered and case closed. Leave her position, of course. Offer assistance, rudeboy.

  That Miss Simpson ting, Roper carries on, following the line of his own internal logic—his own gingerbread trail. He’s talking about a screw on his Wing. She’s something I’d move to on the outside.

  We’re not talking about that, guy, I tell Roper, impatiently. So shut your beak. What we say has got nothing to do with your life.

  You make me shut it, Roper says, his features yokelly and not to be trusted.

  He resembles the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. Such fear as he inspires is diluted with sadness. You can’t help but feel sorry for the cunt, regardless of what he’s done. Or who he’s hurt. Arson is not a man’s game anyway.

  I’ll scoop you out, motherfucker, I inform him.

  Give him the stare that I’ve learned from Dott, although I’d never concede my sources. And I doubt that mine is one tenth as fucking chilling as that bruv’s.

  Carewith is squirreling in a store of impatience. In an instant he stands up and says, Rudeboy, yat. You wanna tell me my story, rah? Yah?

  No, man, says Roper.

  Then rope up your lips, char. Allow it. Me taking piss.

  Roper nods. No allow, man. He raises his hands. Swear down, blood.

  You fucking dickhead, I add.

  Roper strokes me with the look that I’ve granted as worthless. It means nothing, cuz.

  And you’re speaking to me, rudeboy? he asks.

  I’m cool. I wave the yoot away. He’s not important.

  Carewith is eager to carry on, which is an underlying theme. What he says next is, and he says it with impatience on his taste-buds, Are you listening? And while she’s doing that, I’m dusting behind the counter with my sports bag. Filled that up with chicken, rudeboy. Made a split for the doors.

  All of us laugh like latrines.

  What happened to your ting? Ostrich wants to know.

  Carewith shrugs his sloping shoulders. Made a miracle recovery innit. Met me back in me yard an hour later.

  But Roper won’t let it go. He called me dumpling, he mutters.

  Who does, blood? I want to know.

  You’re not listening. This is Carewith again, eager to carry on with his tale, now that he’s obtained an audience.

  Okay, blood, says Roper, finally seeing the light. As I may have intimated, he’s a nice yoot and that, but not exactly management material, if you follow my drift. It takes him a while. Now he farts. Loudly.

  Ostrich is not best pleased at this turn of events. Frowning, I would expect, in the same way he did when he busted the cranium of that cheese-eater in Canning Town, he now says, How are you gonna do that, man? Respect it, you filthy cunt. He brushes the foul air away from his face.

  I can feel things tensing up. And this is in Sosh Time: when everything is supposed to be a gulped breath of freedom. On the surface, at least. Carewith is getting cross at not being able to finish his chicken anecdote; Ostrich is also pissed—and both of them are on at Roper. Not that the boy needs any help. What Roper lacks in intellectual faculties, he makes up with with speed of fist and a bulldog’s aggression. I once heard a yoot name of Welling (long since left the establishment) give someone else a précis of Roper’s talent.

  Man, man say, man move from Chelmsford innit, because man love fighting too much. He put it on passionate, cuz. Had a fight with bare man. Make a statement innit. He have a madness with man? Man go down. No more beef. No more street beef. Bang beak. No more shit. Allow it, blood. He pauses his rant. Man, he adds after a couple of seconds, man must have done some stupidity.

  So I’m not exactly overly arsed about Roper’s predicament right now. But I don’t want Sosh to be abandoned in a riot of arriving screws. Too much of that I’ve seen in the Cookery class, recently still.

  What happens next? I say to Carewith. Anything for an easy life.

  It’s later. Couple of days later, and we’re chatting shit, he tells his adoring public, blazing a zoot.

  I miss that, man. I miss zoot, says Roper.

  My guess is that he’s about to get his head busted open.

  But Carewith simply says, Yeah—and says it fondly. Then we get the fucking giggles, right, and we get the munchies. And my ting says, Why don’t we get some chicken? And I’m like, rah, Can’t, babe, innit; spent all my peas on zoot.

  Carewith’s whip is off the road, due to some issues concerning no peas to fill up the tank; and the local petrol stations have all become wise to his habit of flashing his Blockbuster Video card from the pumps as a way of attempting to convince them he has the funds to pay—before driving off. They see him coming and they turn off the pumps from the counter. So what’s a poor boy to do? Man uses a selection of kitchen tools to break into the sideboard, where he knows that the neighbour in the yard next door has had his keys stored for the duration of his holiday in the South of France. Carewith’s mum has volunteered to feed the three cats. Carewith and his girlfriend hop into the neighbour’s enhanced whip and head down to the BetterSave to lick some chicken.

  Problem is, says Carewith, I’m high on zoot. Man catches me.

  He is wrestled to the floor by the shop’s security baboon. Word has gone round the ends and every shop in the area has been shown some grainy CCTV footage about the chicken-licker of old Canning Town. The worst is yet to come. Bruv’s girl, when she’s nabbed, denies even knowing him still. And that is serious betrayal. Until his mum comes home, Carewith does his seven hours in the cell, sweating out the marijuana. Then he’s released on bail (the matter of the stolen car is yet to come) and he takes the bus over to gritty Ilford. Where he finds his ting and batters her blue.

  So that’s my madness, Carewith concludes, fondly rolling an indulgent second burn. It’s all about the little becoming the big, innit?

  Chicken escalations, says Roper, oddly reading the mood correctly for once—and even nodding his head in what appears to be genuine sympathy. There is a silence. It is as rare as it is uncomfortable. Sosh is nearly over.

  It all starts with a chicken, Carewith adds, unable to believe his dark fortune, his hard-done-by-ness.

  I wish I had thought of chicken escalations.

  So what comes first, the chicken or the egg?

  No man ever done bird because of an egg. The chicken comes first.

  I’ve heard enough. I have to collect some winnings from Shelley.

  Those twenty minutes go quick time, I say, standing up for a stretch.

  Three.

  Kate Wollington knows all about how to keep a man hungry. She’s someone I’d move to on the outside, anyway. In here—in this poom-poom drought—I would sell my yard and give up my savings, for the chance just to wank on her shadow. Not that she’s buff, particularly; but y
our standards change. You realise how lucky you are that a woman is willing to share floor-space. You get tired of bash. You get tired of late night Channel Five. I don’t know why I’ve been called away from the Library. I’m in the Meetings Room, next to the dentist’s surgery. Dressed head to toe in black, as usual, she enters the room and the screw ups and leaves, with the promise that he’ll be right outside the door. Kate checks that I’m wearing my Redband—as though failure to do so would signify a dramatic descent on the graph of my trustworthiness. She seems appeased and she straightens her skirt as she sits down. Polo-neck sweater.

  And how are you today, Alfreth? she asks as she skims her clipboard. There I am, in small typed print: my life, my crime. It’s the only one that I was caught for—that wounding—and it’s in there like punctuation.

  What can I say? I’m top of the tree.

  Really?

  Yeah. Miss, a question, yeah, I add swiftly.

  Go on.

  I choose my words carefully, and what I say is: Why do we have to carry on with this, Miss? Mean, I’ve given you all I’ve got, innit.

  It’s part of your tariff, Alfreth, Miss Wollington informs me.

  I know that. But my question is why, Miss?

  She shrugs the cute shoulders that slope so definitely that her bra straps keep falling down beneath her top. And I should know: I’ve studied her often enough over the time in her presence. I sense her helplessness.

  It’s part of your tariff, she repeats, unable to elaborate.

  Now is the time for me to consider that she, in her way, is as trapped as I am. It’s just that the bars have a different colour. No one wants to be here. Not the yoots; not the staff. Not even the ducks, most likely. I’ll ask Ostrich to have a word with the latter to confirm. Dumb thought. But it leads me right back to Dott’s door. Suddenly I get the impression—chilled cold as it is by the conversation that follows—that Dott, with his weird ways and weirder manner, can talk to the animals.

  Sensing no possibility of escape, I say: Okay. I’ll ride it.

  Any objection to my turning on the tape recorder?

  Do I ever?

  No. But I thought it a professional courtesy to offer, as ever.

  I nod my head. Courtesy acknowledged, I say to Kate. Fire away.

  Okay. She reads her notes. She doesn’t glance up. Do you ever think about your past? she asks me with a straight face.

  Question knocks the wind from my sail. Swear down we’ve done this bare times.

  I say, Nope. I exhale. I want to go back to my pad, I almost add.

  Why not? she wants to know.

  Ain’t got one innit.

  She tries to appeal to my sense of reason but I’m fed up and pissed and I want to get back to my pillow.

  Well, everybody’s got a past, she says.

  Not me.

  Call me bolshy. I can’t help myself sometimes. And she’s the psychologist; let her pick the bones from my temper. Let her diagnose me. Miss Wollington abandons that line of inquiry for the time being. I watch her scribble something out and something down. For the first time I understand she’s a smoker. Never noticed it before. And you never know what is going to be important to retrieve in Dellacotte. When she sighs out her sensation of impotence, there’s a smell of tobacco riding the surface aroma of strong coffee and peppermints.

  Do you think about your crime then? she asks.

  How many more times? I want to ask but I hold my tongue.

  Nope.

  Why not?

  I copy her shrug. I can do nothing else. Virgin, I tell her.

  Excuse me, Alfreth?

  Consult your previous minutes, Miss, I say. I’m innocent innit.

  Now this is a horse she can jump on. The judge didn’t seem to think so, she replies.

  Well, the judge doesn’t have three yoots on bare sniff trying to kick his eyes out. You listening?

  Yes, I’m listening, she interrupts.

  I’m smiling now. It’s not, I say, it’s not like a question, man. Yeah, I’m smiling, right, but it’s in spite of myself, as they say. I don’t like it that she’s broken my armour. Been far too much of that noise of late.

  I’d rather you didn’t call me man, Miss Wollington informs me.

  Sorry, Miss.

  Kate is fine. Ms Wollington is fine.

  It’s a bit like having my fur roughly fondled; it’s like what I remember of my old boy—my only memory of him, in fact. No — That’s not the case. There are a couple of things I recall. I know that I sat on his lap and coloured in the tattoos on his forearms with a blue biro. I know how important I felt when I was sent out to the kitchen to fetch another bottle of beer. And I can remember the bloody nose he got from Mum—the vase in the face—when he refused to leave the flat and kept saying that he’d done nothing wrong. I remember. Is this my first memory of fear?

  It’s the first time that Miss Wollington has given me permission to use her forename, although it’s common knowledge. I’ve never used it before. Nothing more do I offer than a nod of the head, saying: message received; let’s not talk about it anymore. But Kate wants to.

  I notice you ask it a lot, she says.

  Ask what?

  Are you listening though? It’s as if you’re frightened of losing your interlocutor’s attention. Would that be fair?

  The fuck? I shout. I ain’t frightened!

  Concerned, then.

  I’m getting pissed. I’m getting vex, blood, I tell her.

  To which she smiles; it’s a comforting sight of back molar black bits and lumpy fillings: it convinces me once and for all that behind the shield of that clipboard and the notes on my case, she’s anything but invulnerable. It’s a nervous laugh and I’m only a few seconds from seeing her nervous once again. But for the moment it’s me who’s on the back foot.

  There’s really no need, she informs me. And please—I hate blood.

  Considering my possible replies, I wait. And then I add: I wanna go back to my pad.

  I’m afraid the hour isn’t up yet, Billy. . .

  Fuck the hour, fam! I ain’t your puppy, Miss Wollington. Allow it.

  She has solidified; she’s a fossil. I’m trying to help, she tells me, her voice as patient as it’s been hard trained to be, her accent as mild but pretty as ever: like good perfume, ah, the perfume of her voice, man. I like it sweet.

  Where you from? I ask her, calming down but betraying myself by revealing a curiosity—a long held-back question—to someone holding a pen. She’s not used to being asked much. Her business is on the other side of the counter: it is she who takes the hard cash of my conscience. But if she’s an emotional salesgirl what’s she’s vending? What’s in it for me, this transaction? Oh yeah, I’ve got it. She sells me guilt.

  She adjusts her glasses and fidgets for a fraction of a second that she doesn’t think I’ll notice.

  Why do you ask?

  Conversation, rah, I tell Kate. Shrugging my shoulders.

  We were already taking part in a conversation, she tells me, consulting the pages in front of her, thumbing the bull-clip.

  Feeling cocky because I’ve made her squirm, I lean forward.

  Don’t remember that, I reply. I do not quite fully recall, Miss, I’m having a conversation.

  My breath is a little bit nifty but I’m coming up out of this good.

  Kate smiles. Good girl that she is, she has come to understand the power of a well-meant compromise. She places the clipboard on her desk, to her left; she smoothes the skirt out over her legs again, her fingernails perfect and as purple and shiny as a plum.

  From what used to be called Czechoslovakia, she answers, when I was a girl. When I was your age.

  How old are you now? I ask.

  Never you mind! she answers, still smiling—and quite possibly smiling beca
use I haven’t asked the obvious question of What’s it called now?

  I’m not sure I’m winning and I’m not certain that she isn’t reading me. What I do know is, she’s not expecting something so personal.

  My turn, she says, whipping the matador’s cape. You’ve referred, in the past, to the fact that three men attacked you, she says.

  Fact is right, I tell her. But it’s the same old song, and she knows it, swear down. As fully as she knows that I’ll now be staring at her chest until she grows uncomfortable.

  Despite the fact the assault was filmed on CCTV.

  She is growing vex herself. She says, Billy. Billy, are you listening?

  I’m listening, I can’t resist saying.

  Then listen to this. There was only one man there, Billy. One man.

  I refuse this line, as I’ve refused it from day one. Three men, I tell her straight. I was attacked by three men. And when I discuss this, I even manage to confuse myself— routinely. I have been in a situation where three men attack me, I know I have; but I can’t recall the incidentals. What they’ve got me on is an attack I made on a guy who shares my first name.

  Billy, I’ve seen the film, she tries.

  Yeah, me too. But it’s three men, I repeat. Uno, dos, tres, innit?

  Kate Wollington nods her head and removes her spectacles in order to give them a clean on the fabric of a silk scarf that she has slung down over the spine of a metal radiator. The process takes less than a minute. It’s like a ballet, but in miniature. It’s something like poetry. And then the bombshell.

  Can I change the subject? she asks.

  Feel free.

  She waits. She is picking at her words with the choosy lack of charm of a fussy eater—like some of us do actually eat when we first get here. Until we realise that it’s all shit and that shit food is better than no food.

  What did you talk to Dott about? she asks.

  In truth, I feel sick. The news has spread too quickly.

  How do you know I spoke to Dott? I ask her. More importantly, I think, what business is it of yours?

  The conclusion I jump to is not a tricky leap. Either Kate Thistle has asked her to ask me; or Kate Thistle has mentioned that I’ll be delivering a publication to Dott (at the staff canteen, perhaps) and Kate Wollington is firing off on her own pursuit; or Kate Thistle has gained her own version of events from Dott himself, and she’s using Miss Wollington to verify the facts. The suppositions point firmly to an identical solution. One that has crossed my mind more than once, and has left bare footprints. Kate Thistle is a fed. Kate Thistle is Billy Blue-Light. Kate Thistle is a copper. Here to keep tabs on the raping piece of shit name of Dott. And I can buy that. The part I can’t buy is precisely why.