by Nicky Black
She walked into the kitchen and started unpacking the refuge’s box of essentials while Nicola got changed upstairs and Liam slept in his buggy. A kettle, a toaster, some cutlery, cups and plates. Four of everything. When Nicola joined her, Margy could see she’d been crying again.
‘You need vodka,’ said Margy firmly. Nicola shook her head.
‘Wine? Methylated spirits?’
Nicola laughed. ‘I need to get Michael.’
Margy nodded and told Nicola what she needed to hear. Everything was going to be fine. New start. New life. New curtains for sure.
Later that night, with Michael and Liam sound asleep in bed, Nicola settled down into her armchair with a cup of steaming tea, quilt wrapped around her, the Ten O’Clock News chiming out of her little television. It had been one of the worst days of her life and she hoped sleep would envelop her soon.
Outside, the silver car slipped silently through the blackened streets of Valley Park. They’d followed him onto the estate. He was thoroughly plastered after six hours or more of drinking. Twelve pints, maybe fifteen. He staggered along the street, looking for Micky’s house, muttering to lampposts. Flies open, mouth dribbling, eyes streaming. Micky Kelly could fuck off. FUCK OFF! He toppled over as he shouted it, rolling off the pavement and into the road. He’d told Micky straight earlier on – thought he’d give him another chance. Game on, Micky, he’d said, how long did they go back? Wouldn’t even have a team if it wasn’t for him. Who would he get to do all the shit jobs now, eh?
‘Mooney,’ Micky had said, ‘I can find any number of dickheads to sell gear for me. People who don’t shit in their own nest.’
He’d stuttered, tried not to, but stuttered anyway. Said he’d heard where Micky’s missus was even though he didn’t have a clue. He’d have one up on him, the greedy get. But Micky had taken him by the throat, asking where she was, walking him backwards and up against the wall. He didn’t tell him. He couldn’t tell him, but he’d said he would tell him when he got some gear.
Mooney got to his feet now, sniggering, slobbering, trying to hold his head up, squinting at a pair of car headlights approaching him. He didn’t know where he was or what street he was on. When he heard the shots, his legs gave way under him, and he felt pain. Agonising pain. His legs. His fucking legs! He heard himself screaming, tasted the vomit in his mouth. Then someone was there at his side, the fat one, the one that was always knocking around with Micky’s missus, and then another woman was shouting at her, What’s happened? The fat one’s husband was there an’ all, telling Micky’s slut wife to get inside, watch the kids, and he heard the door close. The husband was telling the wife, Haway inside, Margy man, it’s not worth it. Leave it, will you!? But she wouldn’t leave it, and she took off her cardie and tied it round his thigh telling the husband to get an ambulance before he bled to death. No one else came. The streets stayed deathly silent apart from his own heaving groans.
EIGHT
Nicola approached the school gates with Liam in front of her, pushing his own buggy, his hands high above his head and his face facing the pavement. Michael skipped along beside her, his hand loosely in hers, excited about prizegiving day and receiving his little trophy in assembly for his reading. For the first time in weeks Nicola felt brave. It had been over a week since the funeral, and she’d dressed herself properly, putting on high boots and her favourite red jacket. A little lipstick had made her feel she could leave her house and not be stared at as the latest Valley Park victim.
At the school gates, the other mothers huddled in small groups, smoking and gossiping, pushing their little ones harshly back and forth in their buggies to stop them screaming. Chinese whispers about the regeneration of the estate were rife. Some said a billion pounds was coming, jobs for their men and grown-up sons, some were cynical that anything would happen at all. Nicola waved at Margy’s husband, Joe, dropping little Jimmy at the school door and heading off, no doubt, to his bed after another long night shift. Some of the women offered their condolences to her. Just a young lad an’ all, terrible thing. And him helping keep the other young ’uns off the street. Others looked at her nice clothes briefly then turned back to the topic of the day. She bent down and tucked Michael’s shirt into his shorts.
‘Ready?’ she asked. He nodded maturely. She turned to her left to pull Liam back to her side so they could go into the school together. But Liam wasn’t there. She spun round to her right and took a startled step backwards. She faced Micky, Liam hanging round his neck.
‘Want Daddy to take you home?’ he asked Liam. Liam nodded shyly, his shoulders round his ears.
‘We’re going to the post office after assembly,’ said Nicola, holding her arms out to Liam, who slid away from her, grinning and snuggling into his dad’s neck.
Michael jumped gleefully on the spot. ‘Dad! Dad!’
‘Joining the giro queue, are you?’ said Micky, rubbing Liam’s back but ignoring Michael pulling on his sweatshirt.
Nicola didn’t take her eyes off Liam. ‘At least it’s clean money,’ she said.
‘All money’s dirty.’
‘At least I know where it’s coming from.’
Micky sneered. ‘Don’t come on all Mother Teresa with me while you’re breaking up our family. These bairns love me.’ He pulled Michael’s head to his leg. When Nicola didn’t answer, he moved his face closer to hers. ‘Why? Why are you doing it?’ he asked.
‘It’s not me, Micky!’ she hissed at him under her breath. ‘They won’t let you see them without someone there.’
Micky pulled her away from the gates and the gossiping women, leaving Michael standing a few feet away, glancing impatiently at the school entrance as the bell rang. ‘Come here,’ he said. ‘Stand here and tell me you don’t love me.’
‘What did you have to go and get involved in drugs again for?’ she demanded.
‘Nicola, I work the clubs. It’s part of the scene. People drink, they do drugs. It doesn’t mean I’m dealing.’
‘Where did Liam get it from then?’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘there’s no way you’re standing in a giro queue. Come home.’
Nicola stood her ground. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Who’s gonna look after you?’ he asked.
‘Mammy!’ Michael called, the pavement clearing of people.
Nicola looked at Micky, astonished. ‘I can look after myself!’
Micky’s mouth started to twitch. ‘I’ll tell you this for nowt,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘It’s a shitty world and you’ll not survive it without me.’
‘If I survived you, I can survive anything,’ she retorted.
Micky slowly stood up straight. ‘Where you staying?’ Nicola set her jaw firmly. ‘Tell me, Nicola, you’re not keeping me from my bairns.’ She took her cigarettes from her bag and pulled one out of the packet.
‘Come on! It’s starting!’ Michael’s anxious voice shrieked.
‘Fine,’ said Micky. ‘Get on with it. I’ll take the kids.’
Nicola pushed the cigarette back in the box. ‘You can’t…’
‘Say bye-bye to Mammy. Come on, Michael.’ Liam obliged and waved, smiling to Nicola over Micky’s shoulder as he walked away, but Michael stayed rooted to the spot.
‘MAMMY!!’ Michael’s desperate cry made her turn to him. He held his hand out to her, tears starting to brim his eyes. My prize! they said.
‘MICHAEL!’ Micky’s voice roared from the corner of the street. Michael sobbed as Nicola hunched down to his level. He wanted his daddy; he wanted his prize. She took him by the shoulders.
‘Go on, darlin’. Get your seat and Mammy’ll be there in a minute, okay?’
She watched him run hell for leather into the school, his bag dragging on the pavement. She stood up and looked around her. Micky was gone.
Margy answered her door bleary-eyed, just out of one side of the bed as Joe climbed into the other. She pulled her friend inside and put the kettle on while Nicola paced, thinking.
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‘You’ll have to get the police,’ said Margy.
But Nicola shook her head vehemently.
Margy was searching in her handbag, digging deeper and deeper. Where the hell is it? She tipped the contents onto the kitchen top. There it was. She wiped the crumbs from it.
‘Here,’ she said, handing Nicola a business card. Detective Sergeant Lee Jamieson, it read.
An hour later, her baby was delivered back to her at Margy’s house, carried up the path by a tall officer who bounced the giggling Liam on his broad shoulders. She thanked him as he passed Liam into her outstretched arms. Lee stood at the gate at the end of the path, his sunglasses reflecting the windows of the house. She shielded her eyes against the glare of the sun. Tentatively, he walked down the path, shaking hands with the officer as they passed each other. He expected the door to be firmly closed in his face, but it wasn’t, and she stood motionless, waiting for him. When he reached her, he raised a hand before she could speak. He fished in his inside pocket and pulled out a black keyring. A panic alarm, he told her. Just press the red button and the alarm will sound in the police station. He’d got it all sorted, so she wasn’t to worry. He was on personal standby.
Nicola looked around her anxiously. ‘I can’t take it.’
‘It works just like–’
‘– Listen, I’m sorry for giving you a hard time,’ she said, ‘but he wasn’t a dealer, my brother, he wasn’t.’
‘A kilo of cocaine and a bunch of kids at the funeral?’
‘I know how it looks, but there’s no way he would have given drugs to those kids. He worked with them, they loved him. Lost his job, lost everything.’ Her sincerity pulled him in ‘It was horrible, seeing him. Hanging there. I tried.....’
‘I know, I know...’ He put the alarm back into his inside pocket, put his arms around her and for a moment she let herself be comforted.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pulling away and finding her composure.
‘So you said.’
‘No, I mean for not thanking you, for trying to save him.’
‘It’s okay. I think you’ll find the care order’s been dropped, too.’
Nicola put her hand to her mouth. ‘Why are you doing all this for me? You must think I’m a right ungrateful cow.’ Lee raised his eyebrows. Well, now you come to mention it. She tried not to smile. ‘It’s just –’
‘– I know, we’re all bastards.’
She frowned at him apologetically.
‘Let’s start again,’ he said, and held out his hand. ‘Lee Francis Jamieson.’
While she laughed through her drying tears and shook his hand, Micky Kelly’s neighbours at 12 Elm Street wondered if they should call back the cops who had just left. There was a hell of a racket coming from next door – growling and snarling, shouting and bawling, things breaking, doors coming off their hinges. Instead they locked their doors and turned up their TVs until he left his house like a tornado at midday.
Two cups of sweet tea and a packet of chocolate biscuits later, Margy peeked through the closed curtains of her living room window and looked cautiously up and down the street. Nicola was desperate to get to school for the lunch break so she could see Michael. Poor Michael, her heart ached with guilt, but she was terrified to leave the house with Liam. Micky would be livid. He’d lost the battle, and now he would be all out for war.
‘Nah, he’s not coming,’ Margy said, but Nicola’s alarmed face opposed any permanent opening of the curtains, so she pulled them to again.
‘What’s that noise?’ Nicola asked, her ears straining towards scratching and whimpering sounds coming from the kitchen.
Margy’s hands flew to her cheeks and she gasped, ‘Eeeeh, the dog!’
Nicola looked puzzled.
‘The bliddy dog, man!’ Margy rushed to the kitchen, tripping over Liam and upsetting his jigsaw, much to his vexation. Nicola followed her, still baffled, and Liam, wailing, got to his feet and toddled after Nicola. Margy opened the door to the small utility room and out bounded a little Jack Russell, white with a couple of brown patches and a short beard that made him look like a sweet old man. He ran straight to Liam who stopped crying immediately and began shrieking with delight. Is it ours? Is it ours? He sank down onto his backside, tickling its ears and belly, the dog snorting happily, wagging its tailless behind and wriggling from side to side like a worm. Am I yours? Am I yours?
Nicola looked at Margy open-mouthed and Margy nodded at her. Nicola crossed her hands over her heart. ‘Ah he’s lovely, thanks, Margy.’
‘They’re lethal, these things, when they sink their teeth in.’
‘What’s his name?’
The dog barked. ‘Woof! Woof!’ Liam echoed, clapping his hands.
‘Rufus,’ said Margy. ‘He says he’s called Rufus.’
‘Doggies not talk,’ laughed Liam.
‘Yes he can,’ said Margy defensively, giving Liam a tennis ball and opening the back door. Rufus dashed outside ready to play and Liam was more than willing.
As they stood watching Liam throw the ball about three inches away from his feet and the dog happily pick it up and drop it straight back down again, there was a loud rap on the front door. Nicola ducked instinctively onto her hunkers. Shit! Her heart was in her mouth and she felt her breathing become shallow. She knew he would come eventually and she had the female independence speech all worked out. But now that the moment was here, she felt paralysed.
Margy went to the living room window. ‘It’s alright, it’s just Kim,’ she said.
Nicola heaved a sigh and made her way unsteadily to the sofa. She thought back to the days when she lived without fear. Before that night out in the new Russian vodka bar in town where the big NatWest used to be. The fella was just some kid, some young professional type who’d looked at her breasts, still swollen from having Michael Jnr a couple of months earlier. He’d looked at her chest and smiled drunkenly to himself, imagining for a split second his head between them, her hands behind his head pulling him closer into her cleavage. Micky, too, watched the scene unfold in the bleary mind’s eye of the young man. His fist propelled the kid backwards like a skittle into the drinks and gaping mouths of the other punters.
That was the night that same fist came at her face for the first time. She’d seen stars. Literally, like Tom and Jerry, she’d reeled and fallen over, her head hitting the corner of the vegetable rack. There was blood and she was stunned, his face hovering over hers within seconds, not angry, but satisfied. That’s when it started, the fear.
Kim came in holding out a piece of paper. The bill for the funeral. Her face was lined and puckered. Margy took the bill from her and read it. Her hand went to her forehead. ‘Kim, you should’ve got the basic one!’ she said.
‘Well, I didn’t know, did I?’ Kim’s hands shook as she lit a rolled-up cigarette.
‘Did you get your grant?’ asked Margy, a little impatiently.
‘Yes, but only, like, a thousand.’
Nicola took the bill from Margy and her jaw dropped. Three thousand, five hundred pounds, and a quote for seven hundred for the headstone.
Kim picked tobacco from her tongue. ‘What about Micky? Ask him for us,’ she ordered.
Nicola shook her head and swallowed, ‘I can’t –’
‘– He was your brother!’
The accusation hit Nicola in the face as brutally as any fist of Micky’s. She stammered, ‘Look, as soon as I’m straight, I’ll see if I can get a job or I’ll give you something each week out my giro,’ she said.
‘It’s got to be settled in fourteen days,’ said Kim sullenly.
‘I’ll put them off,’ offered Margy, holding her hand out to Nicola for the bill.
‘No, giz it.’ Kim snatched it out of Nicola’s hands.
Margy pursed her lips at Kim. She’d never had much time for her, always thought her a bit of a whiny leech, but tolerated her because of Nicola.
‘What about a collection?’ suggested Margy, trying to lif
t the mood with solutions.
‘Hey, man, I’m not a friggin’ charity case!’ Kim headed for the door, Nicola reaching out to her.
‘Kim, hang on...’
‘Don’t bother,’ she snapped at Nicola, ‘and don’t bother coming round either.’ Nicola reeled again from the blame as Kim turned and walked out of the front door, leaving it wide open. Nicola sat down on the sofa as Liam skipped into the room with Rufus at his heels. She picked him up and cuddled him into her lap, thinking of Michael, hoping the dog would make up for the disappointment of this morning. Liam’s thumb went in his mouth and he curled his fingers around her hair. Michael Kelly! She imagined the teacher calling his name, and Michael taking his trophy amidst a scattering of applause, his head bent to the floor. He would sit back down and put the trophy on the empty seat next to him.
Margy watched Kim scurry down the path as she went to close the door, but she stopped short as she saw little Jimmy come plodding up to her holding a piece of paper. When her son looked at people he had a habit of scrunching up his nose and baring his uneven teeth as he tried to focus through his thick glasses. He looked up at Margy and said, ‘This is for you, Mam.’ Margy took the note and unfolded it. ‘YOU’RE DEAD’ it read.
Lee stood on Debbie’s front step and took a deep breath. He was finally taking Louise out for the evening, maybe to the pictures so they’d have something other than each other to concentrate on for a couple of hours before she hurled the accusations at him, pointing the finger, blaming him for the neglect and the missed Christmases and birthdays.
He rang the bell.
Debbie opened the door with an ‘I’m not impressed’ look. He was late. Debbie called behind her, not taking her eyes off Lee.