by Jules Grant
It’s quiet, says Sonn.
At the G-Mex we turn right down Whitworth Street. I scan round. Sonn’s right, dead as Southern Cemetery at Hallowe’en.
Not a sign of anyone, not the dib, no dealers, not even a mountain bike. Gives me the chills.
We pass the bottom of Canal Street. The rain’s falling fine now, makes a mist over the cobbles. Even the working girls are hanging back, right under the doorways, keeping out of the rain. That must be the shittiest job in the world, especially on a night like tonight.
A tram rattles past all lit up, windows streamy, squeals to a stop on the metal tracks, just as I pull up at the junction. The doors hiss open, cast an oblong of light across the wet pavement, into an office doorway. On the step there’s a girl all huddled up, wet through, hair like rat’s tails, trying to get a cig lit with a damp lighter, must be all of thirteen. Makes me think of Ror.
We get to Heaven and Lloyd’s on the door, lets us in past the queue. Lise blows him a kiss, raps him on the vest as she passes, cheeky. You know things are past crazy when someone the size of Lloyd wears body-armour under his Crombie. Built like a Sherman Tank, that fucker. Somehow you’d think the bullets would just bounce off.
Half-eleven and the place is kicking, Carla spinning up on the decks, floor heaving with sweat and skin. I look round for Mike, no sign. Not that the shotters come out on the scene much – too risky. Come to think of it, there’s not a single Darts lieutenant here as far as I can see, not even Tony.
Then me and Marta are leaning on the wall by the bar, minding our business, just keeping an eye out, when Danny comes over, all Whaassup and shit.
I can’t say I like Danny much, but he’s baby-daddy to my girl Finn, and once, when it got tight way out on the East Lancs with a boot fulla snow and Lise off her head on brown in the back, well, he calls me right up, tells me I got a tail. You can’t mess with that, so I ditched the car pronto. I musta walked ten miles that night, two kilos of coke on my back, dragging Lise by the hand, and all the while she’s giggling and spewing and whining like a kid in Asda on bank holiday. But I tell you it beat the other options we had hands-down: a twenty-year break in Her Majesty’s Pisshole or a bullet to the brain from some jumped-up gangbanger looking for an easy start-up loan. That was the last train I pulled myself if you get my drift. I don’t mind saying I’ve made loads of mistakes but I make it a rule not to make the same one twice.
After I made the drop we stayed in the flat three days straight. Lise locked in the bedroom all screaming and crashing about, Mrs Giggs from Flat Three banging on the wall, Carla on the answerphone every ten minutes going Fuckssake Donna where are you girl?
No one else gets to talk to me like that, on account of respect.
Me, I was working it out in my head, and when Lise got clean I made her promise, no more H. Next day I tell them all, Listen up, we got to be clever, get organised, and if you wanna be in, you gotta be clean.
Lise looks at me as if I said we’re giving up women for Lent, starts whining. Aw yeah Donna but why though?
Otherwise, we’re all gonna be dead, dumbfuck.
I never found out how Danny knew about the tail, or why he gave us the heads-up that night. At the time I assumed it was on account of Finn. There’s some things it’s best not to ask, but still I’m pretty careful round him now.
But tonight Danny looks at the floor, says, Finn, she’s not coming in. Got some stuff going on at home or some shit like that.
She coulda text me, I say.
Something doesn’t fit right. I look at him and he can’t look back, and, straight off, that feeling I got in my belly since last night gets way worse.
I flash a look across to Carla on the decks but she’s just laughing, schmoozing it up for the dykes at the front. I do a scan, but the music’s pumping and all I can see is skin. Arms, crop-tops, six-packs, all sweating, glistening then disappearing as the blue strobes go round. Now and then, little shafts of light shine down and light up a couple of dancers, making the darkness seem blacker and dense, making me squint.
I check out the queue to the bogs. It’s still there, snaking right round the dance-floor and into the Ladies’. And I know Lise’ll be in there, up against the mirror with the atomiser, straight to the tongue, a fiver a pop. Sonn keeping everyone right, patrolling the door.
By the length of that queue, we’ll make a killing tonight.
You can tell if there’s trouble on a dance-floor, just by the rhythms, the way the whole thing moves. Got this sway about it, like everything is attached to everything else – the whole thing flows, moves like a sea. If something goes down then the rhythm gets broken, like dropping a stone in a pool. Then the ripples spill over, spread out, and if you know what you’re doing you can follow them, trace the thing back to the source. I stand and watch it for hours, testing myself, keep myself from getting bored.
So now I’m watching but there’s nothing doing. Then, as I start to relax, I see it, the ripple.
I trace it back to the door and see Fatboy and Mouse, and a couple of big Cheetah bastards I don’t even know, pushing into the crowd from the top.
No fucking sign of that shit-eater Lloyd.
I whip round for Marta but she’s on it already. Danny’s nowhere to be seen, but I got no time for that now.
I’m looking for Sonn and then I see her and Lise, wading in against the tide, looking for me but heading straight for the decks. Then I’m pushing through bodies and swimming in treacle, trying to keep my head up, get Carla’s attention, but she’s got some girl against the decks between her arms while she spins so she’s paying no mind.
I know I’ve got to get there fast but it might as well be the other side of Salford.
On the crest of a sway I see Carla turn and a speaker turns over.
Then there’s people pushing, stumbling, coming towards me, shoving me back. Some arse-wipe knocks into me and I drop my blade, have to bend down to get it, lose sight of her.
The thing about firing guns in a place like Heaven, you don’t hear it for the music. If it wasn’t for the flash, you wouldn’t know it happened at all.
For a second the room lights up, flicka flicka flicka, white-hot and blue at the edges. Then everything goes dark.
I’ve got a new strength from somewhere, pushing up against the wall of people screaming and running, punching my way to Carla. Then all of a sudden something gives, swings loose, and I’m out in front of it all.
Carla, lying on her back on the floor, a big space round her, everyone scattered, her lying there, all on her own. Blood all over her chest, the floor, everywhere.
I can’t tell whether I slip and fall or my knees just give way, but next thing I’m down on the floor and I can hear a voice shouting Get an ambulance, Get-a-fuck-in-Am-bu-lance.
And then I realise it’s me.
Then I can’t shout any more and her head’s in my lap, and her lips are still moving, the bubbles all frothy and pink with the blood.
Someone’s grabbing at my shoulder and I’m shaking them off. And somewhere, way out in the distance, the sound of Lise, crying.
6
I start up, heart going twenty to the dozen, neck all dead from where it’s been twisted in the chair, must have fallen asleep. Then they’re wheeling her back into the room, people and tubes everywhere, so I jump to my feet.
They unhook all the stuff and link it up to machines by the bed. Stand back please, you gotta stand back.
Her face is all stained with the yellow-orange stuff from the op and brown smears of dried blood. I reach for her hand. I’m here babe, I say.
My phone beeps twice in my pocket and everyone looks at me, fierce; you’d think I’d just set off the clock on some Semtex. Some prick with a badge pushes me back out of the way and I bang my leg on the chair. Hey, you can’t have that phone in here love, you gotta leave now.
Then I must have looked wild because he backs off a bit. You can wait in the day room, we’ll call you, he says.
&n
bsp; In the day room I can’t sit still and my heart is squeezed, head spinning like a waltzer. Then I’m looking out over the city from the window, and everything’s on fire, the dawn all coming up over the flyover and it looks beautiful. I remember what they told Ror at school, it’s only pollution. Then I’m wondering why teachers always have to go and spoil things like that.
Then I remember the text.
Lise: TURN ON THE NEWS.
Up on the day room wall there’s a telly, high up, no knobs on the front. I turn the room over, find the remote shoved down the arm of a chair, turn the bloody thing on, turn to Sky News.
Bang in the middle of the screen there’s that slaphead Gartside, our very own chief super, right in the middle of a press conference, flashbulbs bouncing off his baldy patch.
For a second I think it must be about Carla, try turning the sound up.
Just as I find the sound button there’s a whole row of mugshots flashing up on the screen. I don’t need surround-sound to tell me who those faces belong to.
Tanweer, Mikey, Tommo, Jason Uzumi, the whole fucking top tier of the Greater Manchester wedding cake – staring right back at me. Man, I got to sit down.
Gartside’s beaming now, proper smug. Diligence and commitment of our officers… top tier of gangland criminals… culmination of years of police work… Operation Revive.
Operation Revive? You couldn’t make it up. Dickheads.
Some bloke from News Corp, asking about informers, immunity or something.
Gartside beams wider. It is not the policy of the Greater Manchester Police to offer immunity to any criminal in return for information.
My arse.
Then this babe from the Evening News stands up. The camera zooms in so close I can see the notebook shaking in her hands. Won’t there be mayhem on the streets now, aspiring leaders jockeying for position, as in 2001 and 1992?
Yo sweetheart, great question.
Gartside looks at her like she’s shit on his shoe, when actually come to think of it she’s pretty hot, and if I ever bump into her on Canal Street I’m going to snog her face off just for asking that question. He’s rattled, but he’s trying not to show it, trying to get a grip on the smile before it slides right off his face. No, no… come a long way… confident this time… yes, the root of the problem.
That’s right Grandad. In your dreams.
There’s a rush somewhere behind me and I turn round to see a white coat fly down the corridor towards the ICU.
I look out into the corridor. Doctor in glasses and green pyjamas is jogging down the corridor towards me, towards Carla.
I step out in front of him. What’s going on?
He pushes past, doesn’t even look at me. I’m sorry, he says.
I get to the door of the ICU. Can’t see much for the curtains but there’s a crowd of folk round the end of the bed, everyone flapping and moving around. I’m just about to go in, make them let me see her, when I see the two uniforms by the curtain, standing back, like they’re waiting.
I should’ve gone in. I could have gone fuck ’em. Should have, but didn’t. If it happened now I’d walk straight in, stab anyone who got in the way, do my ten years in Styal, just for the chance to hold on to her hand.
But it’s not now, it’s then. So I stand back at the door behind the curtain like a yellow-belly, rooted, just watching.
I think about praying, there’s no excuse for it, I’m so freaked.
I try to remember the name of that one she made me take her to over Liverpool way, queuing for hours just to see some old bones in the glass thing and stuff. St Thérèse, that’s it. So I make St Thérèse this promise, right there and then: if you bring her back to me it’s all over, I promise. And just for that second I mean it as well. And that’s how they get you I reckon, the God Squad, just creep about and wait till you’re down.
I get a grip. Hey Thérèse you cunt. Let her die you useless bag of shit-for-bones and I’ll bomb every Catholic church from here to Liverpool. Then I’ll take all your bony bits and pieces to that glue factory outside Warrington, fucking melt them down myself. And then, I’ll personally fuck the Pope with his own stick. That’s right, the gold one with the ball on the end.
Then I start to feel better. They won’t dare let her die.
So when it happens, I’m just not ready for it. It’s like stepping off into nothing. Just the noise of the machine when it stops bleeping, does that long whine, thin, like a shop alarm going off in the night.
7
Carla’s just standing there, smiling. That top she got down Ashton market last week is skin-tight and I like the way her belly dips and swells on the way to her jeans. I know I must have said this before, but she’s got this amazing dip-thing going on, just about everywhere.
I love you, she says.
And somehow I don’t laugh like usual, or grab her by the belt and jump on her back to make her yell out. I don’t even tell her to shut it. I know it, I say, and my heart does a flip.
Then, she stretches her arms out, and I’m holding her. I got my lips on the sweet warm of her neck, and she smells like a memory, but more like herself than ever before. I can smell the vanilla she gets in that weird stuff from Lush, and the rose from the soap that she keeps on the sink. Underneath it all, the very best, the actual pure smell of her, like hot earth and summer, and cinnamon bread.
I breathe her in deep and all the tiny baby hairs that escape from her band are soft like they’re silk. Then something inside me is melting, and all the bad stuff that’s in me just drains away, Oh you smell good, I say.
Then she laughs, and it’s like a hundred pure lines going off in my heart and every good feeling I’ve ever had comes tumbling down, to the one perfect place where she’s touching my face.
Take me to the water and wash me down, she says, and I know I’ve heard that someplace, I just can’t think from where. Yeah, I promise, I say.
Now I’m trying to lift her, but she’s rooted somehow, my hands slipping, and I can’t. I lift up my hands and the blood is all over, and she starts to slide down. Then it’s like someone’s knocked the breath clean out of me, and I know for a fact something bad’s gonna happen, and then I know it’s my fault.
I’m trying to shout but it’s a whisper and she’s falling, getting smaller, just slipping away. Don’t leave me, I say.
I’m on my knees now just trying to stop all the sliding away but I can’t make it stop and her lips are still moving, the bubbles all pink.
Aurora, she says.
I open my eyes with a start and there’s Aurora, standing over the settee looking down at me, still in her jimmies, arms folded. Where’s me Mam then?
It’s like a CS grenade, going off in my chest.
And it’s the way she says it. Not like she’s bothered, but just the way she does when her Mam’s out on the pull and I’ve got to stay over so she’s safe. And even though she’s acting big and she’s got a proper strop on, she looks really small.
Get your clothes on, I’ll tell you, I say.
Before I can get off the settee, there’s Kim, standing there, face like a slapped arse, in Carla’s blue shirt. Carla must have let her back in without telling me. Makes me see red.
You better tell me where she’s been all last night, because I’m gonna kill her, she says.
By the time I’ve ripped the shirt off her back, thrown her out on to the pavement, brats, clothes, tart’s-make-up case and all, she’s bleating. Aurora stands on the step beside me with a smug grin, lifts her hand for a wave, Ta-ra then. I tell her to get back in, give her a shove. She twists away, Hey give over pushing me, she says.
It’s weird how you can practise saying stuff, over and over but then, when it comes down to it, things get their own head of steam and somehow the words get a life of their own.
She’s not coming back, Ror. They shot her, I says.
To be honest I don’t like to think of it now, how hard it must have been for the kid, but at the time it was the n
oise, got right on me nerves. There’s me, trying to think about what to do about it all, keep me head straight, while Ror’s kicking out at me, wailing like a banshee, and even though I’m trying to hold her I just can’t keep a grip.
I fucking hate you. You killed her, says Ror.
Something white-hot shoots right up inside me, and I give her a slap.
Part of me can’t believe I done it, not just because I never slapped a kid before, but because even if I did, the last one I’d slap would be Ror.
Lise is just coming in through the door, grabs a hold of Ror, looks right at me, What the fuck are you doing?
Now Lise is just staring and Ror’s took to sobbing, holding right on to Lise when it should have been me. Aurora.
And then I can’t hack it.
Fuck this, you sort it. I’m outta here.
8
I pick up the hire van and get my arse on over to Tony’s. One of his boys opens the door, shirt open, skinny, bare chest smooth as the proverbial.
The place is a shit-tip, forty-six-inch flatscreen, Sky Sports. Five or six toe-rags, none of them a day over seventeen sprawled around watching, one perched on the arm of Tony’s chair. He waves a hand and they scatter like birds.
There’s Danny and Tools, monged out like two rag dolls at a jumble. Danny looks right across at me, takes a long toke. Toolie just smiles.
I try to smile back, but my face aches.
Toolie nods. Hey I’m sorry y’know, for your mate. Then he holds out the spliff. I don’t mind telling you, it touches me, that.