Jello Salad

by Nicholas Blincoe

  “India’s the business. Like I said, Goa. Gets your fucking head sorted. Come back and you’re game for anything. Look at Chebbo, here. Proves my fucking point”

  They stayed like that for hours that day, just talking, smoking, chilling to the sound of drum and bass When Lacey started asking questions, Cheb felt so grateful he tried his best to tell them something new. When they asked about Susan Ball he said she was running a psychedelic factory in Shaolin, synthesising phenethylamines which made you wake to the mystery of the ocean and tryptamines which fuelled jet-pack rides around the moon. He told them she was employed by NASA as a consultant. And she wore silver underwear.

  The problem was, sometimes they were on his wavelength. Other times they were different people. Mostly, their attention span was so short, they ended up getting bored. Cagney especially. And then the beating started over again.

  Lacey said, “What you say we drag a cooker up here.”

  Cagney agreed. ‘Nice one. See how this one takes to a good roasting.”

  They carried Bic lighters, the smallest disposables. When they lit them under his arse they were really only playing. Cheb hardly felt a thing.

  On the days when Frank Ball dropped by, Cagney and Lacey always looked pleased to see him. Even if it was a Bad Cop day, they were nice to Uncle Frank—which was what they’d started calling him. They would even turn their music down if he said it was giving him a headache. And they always overlooked the fact that he was something of an alky and a cry-baby, at least to his face. Apparently his son had just died, which was why they were so understanding. Behind his back, though, they really ripped the piss. In this one respect, Cheb didn’t mind their inconsistency. He didn’t like their Uncle Frank at all—too drunk or emotional to even begin a conversation, he only ever had the energy to kick the shit out of him.

  Uncle Frank called them Sean and Liam instead of Cagney and Lacey. He was so fond of them, it would have turned him inside-out if he knew what they said about him when he wasn’t around.

  During one of their regular Bad Cop scenarios, Lacey said, “Frankie told me to make sure I gave you one from him. So I guess I should be sucking your dick. But you’ll have to make do with this instead.”

  Cheb saw the curve of the chair leg as it swung through the air. When it connected, the force began as a tiny, concentrated speck but immediately sucked him up into something bigger and blacker, like a high speed train moving so fast it seemed to touch the end of a tunnel a fraction before it hit the beginning.

  After that, the hours collapsed into a series of still frames, whooshing past but, somehow, still dragging. He saw a big wet tongue wipe through the air then disappear as his ear filled with groggy saliva, and through it all Cagney’s voice saying, “Uncle Frankie likes it like that.”

  Lacey’s laugh sluiced around the room. “Does he not though? Senile fucking bastard.”

  “Uncle Ballistic.”

  “Uncle Bollostic.” And Lacey’s boot came powering into Cheb’s groin.

  They talked about Frankie’s stupidity, they imitated his stories about España or his prison reminiscences or they speculated on what he failed to do to his slaggy wife. Above all, they talked about his soft cunt son, the boy who dropped down dead before he talked to them.

  Cagney said, “Fair do to him. I can’t see Frankie holding out for as long. He’d have a coronary the second his arse started burning.”

  The only person they held in more contempt than Uncle Frank was little Cardiff. Cheb had to agree with them. Whenever Cardiff came to sit with him, the room would just shrink into silence. A death quiet, nothing but the jungle mumble in Cheb’s head and the sound of the man falling apart. He never thought a fat man could rattle. Sometimes it was so unbearable, Cheb would start speaking of his own accord. He would begin under his breath, burbling on until he felt himself hit a possible line and then riding it out. It didn’t always work, sometimes he moved his mouth and nothing happened. But when he hit a flow, Cardiff would get up slowly and start slapping him, left and right, about the head. It didn’t hurt. It was just slop, slop, slop and Cheb would swing back into dark tunnels and through them into space.

  He opened his eyes. Uncle Frank was staring down at him. Leaning over from the other side were Lacey and Cagney. It was Cagney who was speaking: “Face it, boss. He’s fucking tapped.’

  Frank Ball said, “He’s got to know something.”

  “He’s told us Callum was selling drugs at a rave south of the river. At a gaffe called Comecon. Funnily enough, there was some trouble there the other day. The cops say Yardies but I heard it was some Northern Paki outfit.”

  From outside the room, Cardiff squeaked “I told you Susan had hooked up with some Pakis.”

  Frank didn’t look around. “What else’s he said?”

  Only Cheb could see Cagney’s smirk. “That Callum was sacrificed by voodoo satanists on a mission from Mars. It’s what I was saying Frankie, we’ve hit him too hard.”

  Cheb lay between them, gurgling and dribbling.

  “Keep at it. Someone’s got to pay for what happened to my boy.”

  Frank turned to leave, then said, “Has he said anything about my wife?”

  Lacey looked down at the floor and shrugged—just like Cagney, trying to hide a smirk.

  “Well? He must have said something.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe on Cardiff’s shift?”

  Frank called on Cardiff. Eventually, the fat man came waddling into view and Frank put his question to him, “Has this cunt said anything about my slag of a wife?”

  Cheb had said so much, he wondered what he could have left out. She was possessed by juju sex spirits, she sucked on puppy dogs and bit the heads off chickens. She was a priestess, she performed the last rites when Lenin’s body was removed from open display and air-freighted to a cloning laboratory in Novosibirsk.

  Cardiff shuffled uncomfortably, “He said she’s screwing one of George Carmichael’s boys. Someone called Hogie.”

  Cheb couldn’t remember saying anything so boring. If he had done, it had been beaten out of his memory. He was beginning to find himself sinking into black spots. When that happened, he no longer remembered anything.

  TWENTY TWO

  Frankie told them to leave Cheb for now, “I got another job for you.”

  He walked out of the interrogation room towards the windows that ran along the first floor of the warehouse. Looking out, he could see water on three sides, if he had eyes in the back of his head he’d be able to see more. The warehouse was an industrial ruin, built on a kink in Bow Creek that had been marooned when a stretch of navigable canal was dug across the bend—what was left was now a river island When Frankie first saw it, he’d thought it was perfect. It was out of the way and it was quiet. He’d been dead wrong though, it was the noisiest fucking gaffe in the world. It was bad enough when it was just the two boys playing their electronic music. It would be unbearable when their crew had finished setting up their rave sound system on the ground floor of the warehouse.

  Just to drive him completely crazy—someone down below started doing a sound check. The windows were steel framed, set into heavy stone ledges, and even they began shaking. What the two boys called drum and bass was rising up through the floor, through solid concrete mind, and was still setting off explosions in his head. And Frankie had a very bad head.

  All he could tell himself, it’s what Callum would have wanted. It’s what Sean and Liam told him often enough: Callum’s dream was to run London’s biggest raves, mixing the hardest sounds with the more profitable drugs. They were simply following his guiding inspiration.

  Liam said, “Getting a bit loud for you, Uncle Frank?”

  He shook his head, “Nah, nah. It’s alright”

  “You want me to tell ’em to tone it down for now?”

  He was a good lad. “No, I’ll cope, son.”

  The deal had looked so sweet. When Callum first came to him with it, he was only too happy to help. He’
d always wanted something better for his boy than screwing tourists and hanging around spic bars. Now he’d never know if his boy had the balls for the life. Maybe he could have made a go of it. The chances were good, he had enough sense to hook up with a solid crew. Frankie reckoned Sean and Liam were the business.

  Sean was standing there, respectfully, a pace behind him. “You said you had a job, Uncle Frank?”

  Frank tried to clear his head, that tikka tikka tikka, it kind of got inside you. “Yeah. I just got word from Spain. Susan’s staying with this old tart she used to know. I want you to go round there, pick her up. Hopefully, she’s got the cocaine so you’ll be in business.”

  “Sweet.”

  Sean joined in. “Fucking brilliant. Then we’ll be able to start paying back on your investment, Uncle Frank.”

  He told, “No hurry, son. I appreciate what you’re doing.”

  They understood what it meant, too, getting payback for Callum now he’d passed over. Liam said, “God bless him.”

  Sean said, “Yeah.”

  Cardiff had crept up from somewhere. Now he coughed and said, “This tart who’s helping Susan. Are we talking about Maltese Rosie? The one who used to work out of D’arblay Street?”

  “That’s her. Apparently she’s running a string of brasses from fuck pads all over the West End.”

  Cardiff said, “Can I go? You know, have a word, help her decide to give up Susan quietly.”

  Frank said, “Who the fuck would talk to a slag like you? You stay here with that cunt…” he pointed through the far door to where Cheb was lying “…I’m using people I actually trust.”

  Who’d have thought his own mother would have come swinging down on Callum like an angel of fucking wrath. Her problem, all women’s problem, was they couldn’t let go. Frankie had seen it before. Women chasing the gaga pills with straight gin, out of their fucking boxes the day after their kids lit out. The only difference with Susan, she had to get the menopause like something out of a Stephen King novel. What happened to Callum, that was down to her. He still couldn’t believe she’d actually killed him. But Liam and Sean said the poor cunt never showed with the drugs so it must be down to her.

  *

  Susan found she couldn’t sleep like she used to. By eleven forty-five in the am, she was propped up on her pillows and sliding another dollop of gin into her glass. She followed it with a little tonic for appearance’s sake, although Hogie was still fast asleep. She looked down at him, a thin boy stretched across the glossy sheets. He had been sleeping for four hours and she couldn’t imagine him waking for a long time yet.

  The heat of the room and the nylon weave of the sheets could have been a bad combination. Hogie had managed to slip through without problems, the sheets couldn’t chain him. the heat only brought a glisten to his skin. And wherever she was, underneath or above him, he swept her along until she was skimming the surface of the bed with hardly a friction burn. Until he fell asleep, of course.

  She took another sip of gin. Because there was no refrigerator, she had no ice. The gin was blood temperature, although her blood was a little hotter. She reached out for a bang of hair that covered Hogie’s face, spun it between her fingers and tucked it behind his ear. He had no ear lobes, the curve of the shell just disappeared into his jawline. It was a physiological quirk that Wm supposed to signify something sexual but she could not remember what. Anyway, he had no loose skin anywhere except in the obvious, otherwise hidden, areas. Especially in this ball-swinging heat.

  She wondered if she was a little drunk.

  The sound of a ringing telephone brought her round. She was semi-naked when she swung out of bed but grabbed something lacy and left-over from one of the previous tenants and followed the insistant squeal up a flight of stairs. She didn’t even know why she was wasting her time, it would only be another punter following a lead he’d picked up in a Baker Street call box. When she lifted the receiver, she heard nothing but the dial tone. The ringing never quietened. She stood swaying in the hall, unable to work it out. Then she turned on her heels and followed the noise back to the bedroom. She found Hogie’s mobile popped in the top of his bag He was flat on his back, unmoved by the sound She hauled out the aerial, pushed the receive button and took the call into the corridor.

  “Hello.”

  The voice hummed: “Susan?”

  “George. Why are you calling me on Hogie’s phone?”

  “Just a hunch I had. He is with you, isn’t he?”

  She didn’t want to talk about it.

  He came straight back at her in a mocking coo, saying: “What? You’re not going to tell me all about it? Then it must be love.” ‘

  She didn’t know what it was. But if he thought she was going to play a bout of most-salacious neighbour, he could forget it. It wasn’t even noon, she was gin drunk and dripping mascara, she was standing in the stairwell of a whorehouse in nothing but a negligee and pom-pom mule slippers. If this was a time for anything, it was a time for privacy.

  She shut George up by turning on him, “For fuck’s sake George. Leave it. Callum’s dead, we’re in shit and all you’re doing is coming the big puff.”

  Silence.

  Then: “I’m sorry Susan.”

  She heard her breath out in a whoosh; until then, she hadn’t even noticed she was holding it. She said, “No. No. I’m sorry, George.”

  “Are you alright?”

  She was almost crying. So she stopped herself. “No, I’m fine. Over-emotional and a bit broken down. What did you want?”

  He said, “Not on the phone, Susan.”

  “Something bad?”

  “Maybe… maybe not. Give me thirty minutes, l’ll come pick you up.”

  “And go where?” She hadn‘t stepped outside the door in days, she wasn’t sure she was ready to face the world but he told her not to worry.

  “We’re just going round to Hogie’s flat.”

  She didn’t understand. “But Hogie’s still asleep.”

  A cluck on the end of the phone, “I knew it… you’ve worn him out. You should be more careful, he doesn’t come with spares, you know.”

  “George!”

  “Oh I’m sorry, did I puff-out on you again? I didn’t mean to do that.”

  He hung up when he heard her giggle.

  Susan re-capped the aerial on the mobile. Walking back to the bedroom, she caught sight of herself in a wardrobe mirror. If she was supposed to be ready in just thirty minutes, she had a hell of a lot of work to do. By the time she heard George Carmichael’s voice on the lower landing, hotly denying that he was the guy who’d come for French with Gretel, she was showered, dressed, refreshed. She didn’t even feel too drunk.

  She leant over the bannister rail and shouted down, “One second, George. I’ll be there.”

  He nodded up at her and escaped out the door, saying: “I’ll be safer outside.”

  Before she left she took another look at Hogie. She meant to write a note. Instead, she stroked the side of his face until he woke.

  “Susan. Morning”

  He almost struggled to sit up, looking dazed.

  She put a hand on his chest, “No. You can go back to sleep. I’m just going out for an hour.”

  He reached for her and she met his lips. As they released, she said, “Just an hour.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  She hung over him until his eyes were closed again. As she left, she decided to take his phone. In case she thought how to put it into words.

  George met her on the pavement, holding the car door open so she could dive straight in. He cast a look back at the building but she told him she was alone. “You were right about Hogie, he’s worn out. Are you sure you can’t get spares?”

  TWENTY THREE

  Cheb knew the fat freak was sat there, just outside the door. But there was no more contact. Cardiff had run out of questions. If he’d only asked, Cheb would have continued to talk. He had an idea about the East End and all the forgotten riv
ers it straddled. If he listened he could hear the water and, unmistakeable now, the scampering of feet on the riverbed. It wasn’t his imagination this time, this was a thousand little heels clicking together.

  He knew that most of London was built on plague pits. He imagined the rivers seeping into the pits and the plague feeding back into the rivers. The clicking of feet had to be the sound of rats, running through the ancient conduits, all the way from the docklands. The rats came with the grain, the free gift in the cereal packets that ran from Sebastopol, from Tyre, from Shanghai. A single rat for every grain, free-loading all the way to Olde London Towne. Imagine, one hundred per cent pure Rattus Rattus faeces mixing in those cargo holds.

  Only the facts: 1996, more rats in London than at any other time in the capital’s history.

  Another: 1996, black rats at last tolerated by their larger brown cousins, cohabiting in a cosy rattus utopia where there’s enough food for every rattus to grow biggus and fattus.

  Amazing but True: 1996, rattus of either species never stops growing. A five-year-old rat measures a good twelve inches, a fourteen-year-old rat might be the size of a eat If there were no limits on the growth of ratty communities, a one hundred-year-old rat could overshadow a jap car and probably out-run it.

  What else would you like to know, Cardiff, you fat fuck? Cheb’s got all the answers. All you got to do is pump me, I’ll squeal, I’ll rat. Come over to your prisoner’s cell, he needs your special care, it’s latrine time. If I can’t empty my head of all this information, let me at least go shit it out my other end.

  Cardiff put his head around a door, “What?”

  The swollen bruises around Cheb’s mouth turned everything into a mumble, “Need Pish.”

  “Piss? Yeah okay.”

  Cardiff pulled a knife from his pocket. He made sure Cheb saw it before he walked too close. The knife was thin, more of a shiv with its slim-jim blade and flexi-plastic handle. Cardiff kept the edge tight to Cheb’s neck as he uncuffed his hands from the chair and re-cuffed them at his front. Chained like that, the boy could deal with his own fly and answer nature solo. Cardiff hauled him out of the chair and walked him across the floor to the semi-derelict toilets down the stairwell.