‘What did he say?’
‘What did he say? He says, I’m scared. I says, of what? Of being told it’s the end, he says.’ Yvette presses her thumb onto a stray crumb on the counter. When she moves her thumb, the crumb is gone. ‘I says, we’re all scared of that.’
‘Maybe I can have a word?’
Yvette shakes her head. ‘He doesn’t want people knowing. Anyway, what’ll it be?’
‘A BLT with mayo…no, no mayo. And coke. Diet coke.’
‘Pop’s in the fridge, I’ll bring the rest over.’
Corina takes a can from the chiller and sits at a back table. The sun streaming through the front window spangles her hungover eyes, suffusing everything with a honey-gold light; Yvette’s projected backwards across the empty table tops. As a bairn, Mam used to bring them here for breakfast on Saturday mornings before food shopping in town. Corina always had the same thing: a raspberry Crusha milkshake and toasted teacake burned brittle at the edges. Jim copied, but picked the currants out of his. They discovered a strange thing about their mother on those Saturday mornings. She wouldn’t sit anywhere else but along the back wall; would march them straight out again if those tables were occupied. An obstinate streak in an otherwise pliant soul, they had ripped her for it when they got older. For example, she and Jim had watched an old gangster flick on TV late one night – some paranoid mobster who always sat at the back table at restaurants, and the one time he didn’t a rival hood snuck up and blew his brains out. Mam was heavily involved with the Tenants’ Association by this point, and went to meetings at Yvette’s every Friday afternoon. As she headed out the door with folders and notebooks under her arms, the two of them would glower from beneath the tilted brims of imaginary fedoras.
Jim: Don’t be no rat, Ma.
Corina: Yeah, you disrespect the Gambinis, you better sleep with both eyes open.
Their mother’s face crumpling in confusion, Why do you keep saying that?
But they’d be too busy cracking up to explain.
There’s some spilled sugar on her table. Corina begins shaping it into a spiral with the tip of her finger. The Hi-Vised builder burps loudly.
The Tenants’ Association. It was the climbing frame which first got Mam involved with it. That climbing frame, what did people call it again?
—
The Thunderdome. A rung-rotten scaffold in the centre of the communal green, a rusting gallows that had taken its pound of flesh from generation after generation of block kid. Its most recent victim was Irene Donaldson’s boy Ricky, who had earned a trip to A&E, sixteen stitches, and a tetanus needle in his arse. Irene had been demanding the council get rid of the edifice ever since.
They don’t give a shite, she said. Might as well be speaking Swahili.
Irene was their left-hand neighbour in Asquith and often popped round for a cuppa with Corina’s mam (sometimes Corina joined them, most times she didn’t. Not that that mattered – from her room she heard every word). Irene wore sovereigns on each finger and nibbled the corners of her shortbread like a rat.
And do you know why the council doesn’t listen, Nora?
Why’s that? Corina’s mam said.
Because Westminster’s told them not too. If they start making places like this habitable again, folk will want to stay, and that’s the last thing they want. Same with the steelworks. They could’ve put money into it, could’ve stopped your Morris losing his job, but they want everyone off their books. Someone else’s problem. It’s a conspiracy against the working class.
Mam slurped tea. Yes, I see.
But then men did come for the Thunderdome, felled it in sheeting sparks. Irene was giddy. It’s that new Tenants’ Association, she said. Them Peel House people. They’ve sent the invoice to the council with a list of signatures, in case the buggers try for criminal damage.
Peel House? Mam said. Aren’t they the graffitiers?
Murals had been appearing in the stairwells of Peel House. Murals that flowed together like half-sunk dreams. Murals that were, in Corina’s opinion, gorgeous.
They’re good people, Irene said. Don’t listen to the gossips. They give a monkey’s, and that’s more than most. They want to see this place back to how it was. Remember that? Remember when we had clout, Nora?
I remember, Corina’s mother said.
Well, Irene said, there’s a meeting tonight…
Which is how Mam got involved, and soon she was staggering in with two thousand leaflets to cut and fold for a demonstration, her thick glasses fogged up, long after tea time had come and gone. She spent nights sorting tinned pineapple from tinned butterbeans for Christmas food donations. She arm-twisted local journalists into covering community clean-ups on the slope behind Attlee House, where knackered settees were set to burn black oblongs into the grass. Indefatigability personified – and all while clocking forty hours at her cash-office job down at the industrial estate.
After Jim had his accident, she added carer to her list of duties. Constantly fussing around him, making sure he ate and did his exercises, standing outside the toilet while he was in there. One night he swung his crutch at the tray of chucky eggs she carried into his room, and it was Corina who’d held her mother’s yolk-tacky cheek to her chest.
I don’t know what more I can do, she wept.
Corina, speeding towards crackup herself, said, There isn’t anything. You have to start doing things for yourself.
Which was how the acting started.
Some people in Peel House had set up a theatre group and applied for funds to the Tenants’ Association, who rejected the idea. The grapevine was ashiver with rumours the council were planning tenancy transfer to a housing association, and they would need every penny to fight it. It was Mam who finally convinced them to sign off the funds, and to say thank you she was offered a part.
This was Final Straw for Corina’s dad.
Nora, you’ve lost the fucking plot! First they were just taking advantage of your soft nature, but now they’ve got you making a tit of yourself.
They were in the kitchen, Corina her bedroom, but the walls carried their argument – mixed it with TVs and toilets and wailing children – and piped it directly into her ears with stereo Walkman fidelity.
I like being part of the community, Mam said.
You’re part of this family, Nora, first and foremost.
So I don’t get to do something for myself, ever?
And that’s what you want to do, is it? Prance about?
I’ve always enjoyed acting.
Since when?
Since school. I was in lots of plays at school. You never forget, Mickey says.
A pause. Corina braced herself.
I’ve heard about this Mickey, Dad said. He’s one of them druggies what’s took over Peel House. That place used to be for normal people.
They just want a roof over their heads, Morris, same as everyone. They’ll be good for this community. You’d see that if you got involved.
Corina can picture the sneer on her dad’s face when he said, Let me tell you about community. Community is fucked. There was one, years ago, but freaks like them wrecked it. Now everything’s out of control.
Through the wall she shared with Jim, Corina could hear the relentless beat of acid music.
You’re a hateful man, Mam said. When did you become such a hateful man?
What? You’re talking like them! Nora, they are the ones what ruined our son!
Her mother made a high, wounded sound. Corina rolled off her bed, left her –
(‘You.’)
room and exited the flat, heading for –
—
‘You.’
(for –)
‘Hey, you. I know you’re listening.’
An old woman a few tables over glares at Corina through bi-focals.
&nbs
p; ‘Yes?’ Corina says.
‘I know you.’
‘I don’t know you, sorry.’
‘You’re that pervert’s sister.’
Others are eavesdropping. The builder looks furtively up from his butty. Only Yvette is still oblivious; lost to steam and sizzle behind the counter.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Corina says.
‘He snatched that poor bairn and now he’s God knows where with her, doing God knows what. How can you show your face?’
‘Shut up,’ Corina says flatly.
The old woman flashes pomegranate gums. ‘Or what?’
‘I’m just trying to have lunch.’
‘I will not shut up, not when me and mine have to rub shoulders with kiddie fiddlers.’ The woman’s magnified eyeballs are pink-yellow ruptures.
‘My brother had nothing to do with that girl.’
‘Is that right? Then where is he? Why’d he scarper?’
A memory of Jim in his kitchen the last time they had spoken. He was so thin and bent in all the wrong places, making black tea with his dead hand. And then another, later, after he had vanished, of walking into the disturbing contents of his living room. All those strange pictures on the walls.
Corina says, ‘Maybe he bolted because of old cunts like you who’ve got nowt better to do than spread nasty rumours.’
The old woman rears up from her table. ‘You see? You see what she says? Threatening me because I dare say what we’re all thinking?’
Corina starts to shake. ‘It was people like you who ruined him.’
‘Leave her be,’ the builder says, though who he’s addressing, Corina can’t say.
A chapped hand on her collarbone.
‘Everybody relax,’ Yvette says.
The old woman crows, ‘When they catch him, I’ll be there to watch him swing.’
‘Phyllis, I think you better leave,’ says Yvette.
‘Me? It was her what said that awful word. Everyone heard!’ Phyllis casts around for allies, but all eyes are on mug and spoon, yolk and crust.
‘It’s for the best, love. Just for today.’
The look in Phyllis’ eyes is cauterising. She trembles with indignity as she gathers her things. ‘I’ve been coming here since your dad’s day, and this is how I get treated? Well, I won’t be back.’
‘Don’t be like that Phyllis. You’re welcome here any time.’
But Phyllis is gone.
Corina says, ‘You can’t afford to be losing customers on my account.’
‘Pet, all she ever has is a cream slice. She’s got no teeth.’ She slides the BLT under Corina’s face. ‘Eat up.’
The sandwich is typical Yvette’s fare: the bacon fatty, the L and T limp. But Corina, doesn’t notice this because she’s got her eye on something else.
The fruit machine in the corner.
—
Corina escaped the flat and was now battling the headwind on the sixth-floor walkway of Palmerston House. She buzzed for more than a minute before his muffled voice came from the other side of the door.
Yeah?
It’s me.
Who?
Corina. Open up.
A series of clicks and clacks, and then the door opened just enough for Alive to peer around. Cor, what are you doing here?
Jacketless, her teeth clattered. She said, I was just thinking it’s been a while since we hung out. I don’t know, I thought I’d surprise you.
Alive glanced down the walkway in both directions before opening the door a little wider. Yeah, well, he said, I appreciate it, but I’m a bit busy.
Only then did she register he was dressed in vest and boxers, and that the boxers were on backwards. His dilated pupils were polished volcanic glass. Ambient techno drifted from his bedroom, a room she’d never seen. There was a high-heeled shoe in the hallway behind him.
Hey, he said, maybe give me a ring after the weekend, aye?
Her smile felt carved into her face. Aye, no worries.
He shut the door without saying goodbye.
She took the cold, echoing stairwell down and stalked across the central green. All around her, encircling, enveloping, towered the blocks – a million windows blazing. Up in Peel House, a party was getting underway; an electronic beat pinged and ricocheted around the horseshoe. Her dad was right. This place was out of control.
She stood in the centre of the green, in the circle of bald earth where the Thunderdome had once spilled blood, and thought about what Irene Donaldson had said. How it was time to get their clout back.
—
She steps out of Yvette’s and hears the click of a crutch behind her. For an instant she thinks it’s –
‘Meredith! What happened to you?’
Meredith’s right foot is bandaged twice its normal size, a tartan slipper shod over the bulk. ‘I did it getting out of the bath.’
‘My God, are you alright?’
She shifts her weight and winces. ‘So they tell me.’
In the salon, Mrs Terry, her head still densely packed with rollers, has moved to the cutting chair. ‘Money’s in the box,’ she says without looking up from her book.
‘Thanks.’
Meredith sits awkwardly in the waiting area.
‘A man rang,’ Mrs Terry says.
Corina begins removing rollers. ‘Did he leave a name?’
‘He wouldn’t give me one, but he had a mouth on him.’ She looks at Corina, searching. ‘He said he was a friend of yours. Then a young lass come in. I told her what you told me, but she took off.’
‘Is she coming back?’
‘How am I supposed to know?’
‘Thanks Mrs Terry. You’re all done.’ She removes the final roller. The old woman’s hair now resembles curls of sheered steel. Mrs Terry scrutinises herself in the mirror and nods. Then, instead of leaving, she settles in the waiting area with her book. Corina turns to Meredith. ‘So, shampoo and set?’
Her foot makes it tricky to get Meredith comfortable in the sink. Her skull thin like a blown-egg. The pipes scream when Corina turns on the water.
‘Goodness,’ Meredith says, ‘you should get that seen to.’
‘When did you hurt your ankle?’
‘Last Wednesday. I had to crawl to the phone.’
Meredith’s hair is long and white, and brittle like loft insulation when Corina starts shampooing it. ‘That’s awful. Have you signed up with the property pool yet?’
‘I’m on the phone every day, and every day they tell me the same – not successful, better luck next time. It’s horrible. I don’t like competitions. I don’t even play bingo.’
Corina knew. She was trying to organise her parents’ move ahead of demolition, but her mother needed specialist sheltered housing, which meant Dad had to be found a one-bed somewhere nearby. The process was nightmarish; an endless cycle of buck-passing between Rowan-Tree, the council, and the hospital. She needed to be assessed, they said. You need this form, that department. Last week she’d raged at a housing officer for not turning up to an appointment, only to learn Dad had cancelled it. When confronted, he’d said, She doesn’t need people looking after her! Nobody knows her like I do, isn’t that right Nora? But all Mam could manage in reply, as she sat knitting her shapeless monstrosity on the settee, was something about how Jim had been very rude today, how she’d banged on his flat for half an hour, and he hadn’t answered. Talking about it like it was yesterday, not a decade ago.
Meredith says, ‘All I want is somewhere dry. I’ve got mould everywhere.’
‘You should see my bathroom,’ Corina says.
Meredith closes her eyes. ‘I looked into getting one of those dehumidifiers, but they’re so dear.’
‘I had one once. You wouldn’t believe how much moisture was in the
air.’
‘I’ll bet, hinny. I’ll…bet.’
‘Meredith?’
But Meredith is asleep. Her nose whistles delicately.
‘The damp,’ Mrs Terry says from the waiting area, ‘plays havoc with my tubes.’
—
The dehumidifier was a story she used to tell back when she still went to meetings:
My daughter Annabelle had bad asthma growing up, and our house was – is – really damp, especially in winter. And I mean really damp. Like trickling-down-the-walls damp, which obviously did her chest no favours, so we got a dehumidifier for the upstairs landing. The amount of water it sucked out of the air…like, it would beep when it was full, and there’d be six litres in the tank. Six litres every couple of days. It’s a wonder we weren’t wearing snorkels.
If any attendees of the Gamblers Anonymous meeting ever found this funny, they never laughed.
Annabelle was always so keen on emptying the tank, but six litres is a lot for a twelve-year-old. She’d slosh half on the floor before she got to the bathroom, but that was Annabelle all over, always wanting to help. Me and Max – my husband – we worked different hours. He’d been a steelworker, but was laid off and the only work he could get was in a frozen food factory. He hated it because they had him doing splits, nights. And my business wasn’t doing so well either. I had to take work where I could get it, which meant staying open later. But when I got back, Annabelle would’ve done the hoovering, or tried cooking tea, no matter how many times we told her not to touch the oven. She just took it upon herself. How many kids do that?
So one day I open the paper to check the races, like I did every day, and two dogs jump out at me. I still remember their names: Mr Wu and Phantom Limb, and as soon as I see them, I know they’re the ones. I’d been losing all that winter, totally lost the touch. You know the touch, aye? When you look at a race and you just know…it’s weird…it’s less like predicting the future than it is controlling the present. So when I see these dogs, I feel, like, finally, someone – something – is acknowledging my shitty run. I owed money to people – well, one person – a man – let’s call him B – who I’d met literally only the second time I ever went to the track. At first, he was nice, he showed me the ropes, and when I hit rough spots he’d lend me money. I know, daft, but he was so nice about it in the beginning. It wasn’t until my losing streak went on that I started getting the feeling he wouldn’t be so nice forever. All I needed was one win, to get it off my back. And that’s when I saw those two dogs…
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