Salt of Their Blood

by Gerald Wixey

  By the time Don swaggered through the door five minutes later, Wyn’s screaming had lessened to a pathetic moaning grizzle. Mum had her arm around him, comforting Wyn the way she did to me whenever I grazed my knee badly, all the time whispering, ‘It’s okay – won’t be long, it’s okay.’

  Don’s strut abbreviated when he nearly tripped over Mr Goldstone, still on his hands and knees, retching away, his face still in the vomit-filled grate. Don took an unconcerned glance at the bloodbath and strutted across to Fred. Don’s features intentionally brutalised, his thick lips sneered, ‘Where were you action man?’

  Chapter 14

  1972

  Silence. Not like a basilica, or the Oxford University examination rooms, but quiet nonetheless. I loved the dark emptiness, the peace that this millpond calm brought me. For some reason, I needed the silence like a Catholic needs a catechism. A mute universe – until the coughing started, old men I guessed, clattering into my insular little world of tranquillity, coughing and moaning the night away. I say night; I assumed that was the case. I fancied midnight; midnight on a cloudy, moonless December. Darker than dark and this blackness complemented the gloom within me, giving a pleasant, if slightly anomalous effect. I slept on to the subdued orchestra of coughs. A double bass to my left and a wheezing, asthmatic wind section on my right, a melancholic ensemble that coughed unremittingly on.

  Someone tried to wake me, why? I couldn’t be face down on the sofa, drunk… Could I? It wasn’t a touch, or a gentle shake either, not even my old man grumbling away the way he used to when I was small, get up you lazy little sod. Just my mum singing – God, how she could sing. I tried, but my eyes refused to open. I could hear her, but my eyes remained clamped shut. Then she stopped and the comrade that was silence suddenly turned against me. A huge weight climbed across my chest and the stillness began to crush me.

  Despite this strange calm; it crossed my mind that this is how you die. People talking, distinct voices, but they made no sense, just empty nonsense. I could understand her clearly when she sang, but when it went quiet, death touched me. So close that I could smell its sickly, doglike breath, unmoved by its apparent proximity, just an inward shrug and happy to grip a jackal’s tail and walk with it, away from this place of torment into another hell.

  She started to sing again, a mellifluent and convincing voice calling me back from the abyss.

  ‘Haven’t got the heart to stand those memories, When my heart is still with you.’

  Every word was crystal clear and it compelled me to listen closely, duty-bound to let go of my canine friend and stare as it strolled away from me. The jackal took an occasional look back my way – are you sure? I nodded at him and turned away, preferring the sweet singing. Back from a short visit to hell, back to this place.

  I couldn’t distinguish between dream and reality; apart from the singing, everyone was speaking through an echo chamber – until a voice crashed into my consciousness. I didn’t mind, I could make out every word and immediately fell in love with his gorgeous voice; Laurence Olivier or Richard Burton surely. I imagined him, not as a young man but someone much older, a professor with delicate hands, ash coloured hair worn too long probably. Skin tinged yellow, coloured like parchment and textured similar to the Dead Sea scrolls. He stared at me over half-moon glasses, his sleeves hung loosely at his wrists, the backs of his hands were splattered with liver spots.

  His face, all chin with a bony nose that evolved just to sniff out problems within the neuro-system. The whole of your nervous system stored in his head. Last week’s operations, all down in a battered notebook that was his own brain. His cadaverous cheeks and the sunken eyes with panda-like rings around both, dark and deep-set like an aged kestrel’s. They had retained just a hint of former glories as they probed me for weaknesses. A fossil of a man, but with a voice that I loved; I understood every smooth word he uttered, but I needed to see him; I’d had enough of radio plays, I wanted theatre, the front seat of the auditorium to watch this man closely.

  He talked on. ‘The young man won’t need oxygen anymore and, in answer to your question, it was never touch and go. He is still critical though, but stable, a possible depressed fracture of the skull, cheekbone not broken as we feared, two cracked ribs.’

  I treasured the tone and content of this voice, but was he on about… me? He must be – after all, my head hurt. Pain radiated up from diagonally opposite sides of my head, forming a violent confluence somewhere around top dead centre. And as for my breathing, a stiletto probed away between my ribs whenever I tried to breathe in – it was me! He was talking about me – talk some more, tell me why, with every inhalation, a piercing, prodding red hot poker probes deep into my chest. Keep the breathing shallow and it became bearable, but the trouble is, once you become conscious of a pattern, aware that you need to keep the breathing shallow, a deep breath becomes a reflex… An unstoppable action, which triggers pain so acute you gasp.

  I couldn’t distinguish between dreams and reality, talk to me.

  ‘Bruising everywhere, it’s too early to assess whether there’s any permanent damage, but you cannot rule out that possibility. He’s young, fit and slowly coming out of his coma – let’s hope he’s sat up talking to you soon.’

  Silence.

  Don’t go.

  But he had, leaving me alone in this theatre of anguish. Until someone picked my hand up and then I felt the coldness of a surgical spirit being rubbed into my skin and finally a piercing, stabbing in the back of my hand. Within seconds I calmed down. As my pulse slowed, my head stopped pounding and my breathing became less laboured. The dreams began again.

  I knew who it was. I could feel the backs of her fingers touching my cheek, those educated fingers. Kathy, and I’d fallen asleep like the dead Brendan. Impossible for me to shake off and untangle myself from sleeps warm arms; turn my back on dreams and the sheltered safeness of my own bed. Now a small, angry voice hammering it’s way into my consciousness – telling me about sweat that smelt of beer, someone’s sunken cheek that felt like coarse emery paper.

  Everyone woke, except me. I slept on and on, even her voice sounded different. A faltering Nina Simone, or a drunk Billie Holliday, Kathy’s but not Kathy’s somehow, talking to my favourite consultant. He coached her, a voice coach.

  ‘Talk about happy things – always light and breezy – I know it’s easy for me to say. But he’ll respond to that; try not to get upset. Hold his hand, kiss him, tell him – well, whatever you want to tell him. The more you talk, the quicker he’ll come out of it.’ My favourite voice talked to Kathy – then silence. A crushing quiet… Speak to me – please Kathy.

  But the dreams started again. Kathy’s skin scorched me, holding her close, so hot. Looking up into my eyes, spellbound by their green blackness, feeling her pushing hard against me, teasing me.

  ‘Stuart. Stu.’

  I twisted in my bed, my blues singer! Talk to me – please, talk.

  An awful silence, no coughers, no trolleys – nothing. A warm hand held mine, someone’s warm face pressed against mine. I knew – I felt the smile.

  ‘Stu.’ A sniffle, maybe she had suppressed a tear. I listened, all I could hear – a kettledrum beating inside my head.

  ‘Do you remember – my hen night? Black-haired woman indeed, it still makes me laugh whenever I think about it.’

  Do I remember?

  Of course I remembered, they looked so happy, flushed and joyous. The music ricocheted off the walls as Bridget peeled away from their small clutch and barged her way past me.

  I mouthed fuck off at Bridget and that made Kathy laugh at my small act of vengeance. All the time my eyes poured over her. I thought she looked so good, all in black, right from the tips of the shoes, up through a tight skirt, tighter jumper and up to her jet-black hair. Apart from the face, I thought she looked like a black crayon. This amused me and I felt the exasperation siphon away.

  Do I remember?

 
Oh yes, I remember saying to her, ‘Big day soon, last day of freedom and all that – I hope you’re going out in a blaze of glory?’

  And she… Remember, what did she say? Something like, ‘I am thank you very much – not by your standards, maybe. But I’ve had a Chinese – meal, that is and I’m well on the way.’

  A pleasantly drunk Kathy and I said, ‘Good girl, same again?’ I never waited for an answer, ordering the drinks and plonking them down on the bar in front of her.

  She picked it up and nailed the large vodka in one. Slurring a little Kathy said, ‘Dance?’

  I shook my head. The music raucous and pounding, it bounced around the walls like a vehement hooligan in a squash court. I didn’t dance as such anyway; it tended to be more of a lean. I liked it that way – propping each other up like two punched-out fighters, clinching in the last round of a long fight.

  I said, ‘When it slows down a bit.’

  As if on cue, the music slowed and she grabbed my hand and dragged me away from my refuge at the bar. I thought, Kathy’s hen night, my lucky night. I wrapped my arms around her and listened to the words.

  ‘Would you love me tomorrow like you say you love me now

  when the flames of our flesh have stopped burning

  and the fire of our love has cooled down?’

  We held onto each other, I said, ‘You’re sizzling.’

  ‘It’s warm in here.’

  ‘Nothing to do with that, it’s you – a full-blooded, hot woman.’

  ‘Give me your love in return, give me your mind and your heart

  But please don’t leave me with a love that burns.’

  ‘I’m drunk and you made me feel so hot.’ Kathy’s cocktail of alcohol and body heat excited me as she lifted her eyes.

  I shook my head, ‘Its you, you’re the distraction. You’re scorching me.’

  ‘Anyway, how do you know I’m hot?’ Kathy smiled up at me, all teeth, cheekbones and tease. ‘How do you know I am?’

  ‘It’s obvious, you’re a sexy, hot-blooded woman.’ Kathy was gripped, her eyebrows arched and her head tipped a touch, ready for the bump, ‘It’s a well-known fact that black-haired women fuck like stoats.’

  I watched her closely as she dwelt on my use of the word fuck, I had casually spat the words at her, smiling, of course – you can say get away with murder if you smile at the same time. I had shocked her, but her surprised expression turned back into a smile; she cherished the thought of being considered a hot-blooded and sensuous creature.

  My arms around her and I kissed her neck. Kathy seemed unbothered by this, or me pushing hard against her; she felt safe within the throng and enjoyed turning me on. Savouring her new found status as the world’s sexiest woman, she said, ‘It’s no good you getting too excited.’

  ‘It’s a bit late to say that.’

  She smiled and ground hard against me. Kathy took her head away from my chest to look at the effect of all this provocation. I saw it as an invite to kiss and my lips quickly pressed against hers. She responded, briefly pushing back at me, mouth open, and her tongue flicked through into mine. But it was a short response so epigrammatic, I wondered if I had imagined it, as she pulled away.

  ‘Whoa, boy.’ Indignation across her face, ‘Bridget’s told me all about you’

  ‘Yeah and I’ve told Patrick all about Bridget – another black-haired girl.’

  She laughed, ‘Don’t build your hopes up, when we leave, it’s separately.’ Her eyes smiled up at me as she said this. ‘I’m getting picked up at closing time.’

  Urgently I said, ‘C’mon, it’s your last night; you should be going out with a bang, if you see what I mean.’

  She shook her head; even in her tanked-up condition, the transparency of my statement was too apparent. Kathy knew exactly what I meant, but I pressed relentlessly on, convinced I could convince her. ‘You know you always do it for me, c’mon lets go for a drink somewhere else.’

  She smiled and lowered her head back against my chest and pushed harder against me.

  Bridget came over, awkwardly levering her way in between us. ‘You okay – what’s he been saying to you?’ She glared at me for a second and then gently guided Kathy away. But Kathy stopped and turned back to me, broke away for a second and came close, kissed me on the cheek and turned away. The pair of them wobbled off together.

  I stood outside on my own, watched Patrick disappear with Bridget around the back of the church and Kathy’s unsteady, clambering fall into Kenny’s car.

  ***

  The noises changed, the music disappeared. The smell of beer and Kathy’s perfume were replaced with that of tea and coffee. Not fresh coffee, it wasn’t Uncle Wyn’s brew, but coffee nonetheless. The vague impression of someone cleaning, it wasn’t Shirley or Bernice, it didn’t smell right; closer to Bernice than Shirley, though. More voices and another smell, toast and melted butter and the coughing stopped. There was a collective murmur of what sounded like people waking up, cups being stirred.

  Kathy said, ‘Stuart, do you remember?’

  ‘Everything, I remember everything.’ My first words as my eyes opened, ‘I remember a black-haired girl, dressed in black.’

  I tried to fight it, but my eyes shut again, as old men’s coughs were replaced by old men’s moaning. Another sound; curtains nearby being drawn, not window curtains, but metal rollers on metal rails. A grating, friction-afflicted, curtain-rollered journey. A chair pulled up close by, that cheap vibration-filled noise made by a low-priced, pre-formed, steel tubular chair as it dragged and juddered its way across a tiled floor.

  I coped with a throbbing head, but the unbearable pain in my chest stabbed relentlessly on. Kathy watched me as I gasped and wheezed. Judging by her expression, she appeared in as much pain as me. We watched each other, her breathing huffing and puffing in sympathy with my every panting, grating gasp.

  We exchanged a bleak, bittersweet smile. It said everything; what sort of person did this? My head and ribs ached, painkillers blunted the throbbing. My heart ached and I needed more than codeine for that. Going over and over it all, looking for another road, another route; wind the clock back, unwind the past, trying to unlock events, trying to find the perfect place for us.

  My eyes shut. She said, ‘Stu…’

  I spoke, through the pain. ‘Are you all right?’

  I went back to sleep – leave me alone.

  ‘Stu, listen… Open your eyes, listen… Everything’s going to be all right, can you hear me? I love you so much.’

  I never heard her go. Much later, I levered my eyes open, ‘Where’s Kathy?’

  I said this to no one.

  ***

  He read the newspaper, the racing page of course, with a monastic zeal. I drifted in and out of sleep, the same page facing me whenever my eyes opened. The same thought in my head, what time is it? Are you checking form, or results? Drug-induced sleep a source of deep wonderment to me. I opened my eyes if something sounded interesting enough and went to sleep as soon as my eyes closed. Through it all, Patrick sat reading the paper and eating my fruit.

  ‘Buy your own grapes.’

  Patrick lowered the newspaper, never one that needed a mask to maintain inscrutability. He lit a cigarette and took a big drag. ‘You look a mess – it’s a pity Harry never finished him off when he had the chance.’

  Unfathomably deadpan, usually. But Patrick realised he had just said something so significant, his pupils momentarily dilated – a split second, then control was regained. Despite my stupor, I recognised Patrick had played the wrong card… what did he know?

  Thinking hurt my head and my breathing raced… Patrick, oh Patrick. Deep down, I knew that my old man had made Kenny lay off me somehow. But Patrick always denied any involvement in his own inimitable way, ‘Fuck off – I never told him nothing’.

  His face went back into his newspaper – he knew that I knew.

  ‘When did you tell him about Ke
nny?’

  He put the paper on the bed. I think he considered stonewalling, for a few seconds maybe, then he took a deep breath and said, ‘I bunked off school early, ran back to the pub and told him, before you left school – I told Harry.’

  I struggled to sit up, ‘But he was always asleep at that time.’

  ‘Of course – as I went in the back door, he was asleep in his chair.

  ‘You woke him? Rather you than me.’ Patrick’s bravery never surprised me anymore. ‘Tell me, please, Pat – tell me.’

  ‘He looked at me, you know how he woke up, his left eye shut and he locked onto me with the other. He said ‘no, you can’t have a drink or borrow some money’. Just like that, he closed his eye and repositioned himself and started to go back to sleep. I kept trying to wake him.’

  ‘Christ, it’s a wonder he never told you to fuck off!’

  ‘He did, swore at me with his eyes shut.’ Patrick stubbed his cigarette out in a saucer then said, ‘He sat up, fumbled with both hands for his fags – I spotted his lighter on the floor and picked it up for him and lit his fag. He called me a gentleman.’ Patrick stared at me, ‘Then I told him.’

  ‘You told him what?’ I shook, ached everywhere, twelve years and I was about to find out why Kenny stopped hitting me. I urged Patrick to carry on, ‘Go on. What happened.’

  ‘I told him that Kenny beat you up every day. He stood up, threw his fag into the fireplace, shouted something and I told him again. He picked me up by my lapels, his eyes were sort of glazed over, he shook his head and lowered me to the ground. I worried that Kenny would be dead soon, that Harry would kill him – but your old man seemed calm enough, I thought he’d be raging.’

  ‘No, always crystal clear, no temper – dead calm before a fight.’

  ‘Well, I’d rather him raging, it scared the life out of me. He told me to look for Kenny and when I’d spotted him, run back and tell him. He gave me half a crown. I’d never held that much money before – half a fucking crown! Back up the road I saw Kenny coming out of the shop, I thought he swore at old Goldstone.