by M. P. Wright
We got out and he followed me as I ran up the green grass bank, down into the mouth of the mine and along the stone passageway towards the lean-to. I called out Truth’s name as I pushed open the hut door and bolted in. I found her sitting on the floor, cross-legged with the holdall at her feet. On top of it was the battered envelope containing the money. By her side, offering meagre illumination, was one of the Davy lamps, its flame now all but a low flicker. I walked across the hut and knelt down in front of her. She stared at my swollen cheekbone and pointed at it with her finger.
“What happened to your face?”
I reached across and pulled Truth in my arms, tucking her head underneath my chin, and began to hug her. “It ain’t nuttin’, child, just a bump, that’s all. I’m real sorry I took me so long to get back to you,” I whispered. I felt the little girl begin to tap slowly at my back with the palm of her hand.
“It’s OK, Joseph. I knew you’d be back . . . You promised you would, and you said you never broke a promise.”
Truth lifted her head from under my chin, looked down at the money and tapped the envelope with the tips of two of her fingers.
“I counted it. There’s over a thousand pounds, just like you said.”
“A thousand pounds! Damn, JT, ya rasclat. What you doin’ leavin’ that pickney wid a thousand pounds?” Vic was leant against the door jamb, shaking his head like a madman, staring down at the wad of cash on the floor.
The little girl looked up at Vic suspiciously. I smiled up at him then looked back at Truth.
“Truth, I’d like you to say hello to my cousin. This is Victor.” Vic’s top lip curled when he heard me call him by his Sunday name. Vexed, he scowled back at me and angrily tapped at the door jamb with his fingernails.
“Hello, Victor,” Truth said softly.
Vic flinched at the sound of his own Christian name being repeated again, then, under his breath, grumbled back a petulant greeting to the child. I bit my bottom lip and tried not to laugh. My head throbbed and my body ached as I crouched on my haunches next to Truth. Even feeling at my worst, Vic had still managed to lift my mood with his familiar grouchiness and avarice.
I groaned in pain as I gathered up Truth and the holdall into my arms. As we left the lean-to and walked down the passageway and out of the mine, I could feel Vic close at my side, like some terrier protecting a bone. He muscled in next to me, his broad shoulders pulled back, his stride confident and strong. He put his arm around my shoulder as we headed back to the van. He never took his beady eyes off the money in Truth’s hand for a single moment.
I got into the back of the van with Truth. I laid her down on a pile of old mail sacks and covered her with my jacket. She lay with her head on my lap and shut her eyes. I whispered for her to try and get some rest while we were on the move. Within ten minutes of leaving the mine, she was fast asleep.
Vic drove carefully but quickly. He chose as many quiet back roads as possible to get us safely back to Bristol. It may have taken us a while longer, but it meant, just as my cousin had assured me earlier, that we remained out of the sight and away from any unwanted police attention. I felt like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards. My body and clothes stank of sweat and dried blood. Every muscle ached and my head felt as if it was being held between the plates of a farrier’s vice. My eyes stung with fatigue and became heavy. I fought to keep myself awake, but the rocking motion of the van as it travelled around the twisting bends and turns of the country roads meant that I quickly relinquished my grip on the conscious world and was very soon welcomed into the land of Morpheus.
*
Vic had pulled over in a lay-by just as we were approaching Bristol. The sound of my cousin pulling on the handbrake of the van immediately woke me. I rubbed at my face in an attempt to knock some feeling of life back into me. I looked down at Truth, who was still fast asleep. I rooted around at my side for another mail sack. I eventually found one, folded it in four and carefully put it underneath the little girl’s head. I climbed over into the cab and sank down in the passenger seat next to Vic. He looked at me and jabbed towards the back of the van a couple of times with his thumb.
“That pickney, she still pawing that damn money?”
“Yep, she sure is.”
“Shit! She gotta tighter grip on a wad o’ cash than Loretta Harris does.”
I snapped my head back towards Vic when I heard him mention our friend’s name. “How’s she doin’?”
“Better than she was. I rang the hospital to check on her befo’ I came lookin’ fo’ you. I’ve got Redman Innes hangin’ ’bout outside o’ the ward in case she need anyting. I’ll go and see her later, send yo’ regards. She gonna kick five bags o’ shit outta you when she gits out, you know that?”
I nodded at Vic. “Oh yeah, don’t I know it.”
Vic laughed then turned the key in the ignition, pulled the van back out onto the road and put his foot down. It was just before one in the afternoon by the time we drove into St Pauls. Still sitting low down in the passenger seat, I’d closed my eyes again and let the rays of the sun filter through the windscreen and warm my face. I didn’t open my eyes until I felt the van stop about twenty minutes later. Vic jammed on the handbrake and turned off the ignition of the Commer van then sat back in his seat while the old banger juddered for a moment. I raised myself up in my seat and looked out of the passenger window.
“What we doing on York Road?”
Vic smiled at me and pointed out of the window up at the house he’d parked outside. “These are yo’ new digs till the heat’s off.”
“New digs?”
I stared out at a two-storey run-down tenement building and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I glared at Vic. “You gotta be kiddin’ me, right?”
Vic shrugged his shoulders at me. “Kiddin’ ’bout what?”
I turned back to face the house and watched in disbelief as a scantily clad young white woman, no more than nineteen or twenty years old, stood leaning against the door jamb kissing the cheek of a middle-aged white guy. I slowly shook my head from side to side, tutting to myself in disgust, then turned and looked disbelievingly at my cousin.
“It’s a whorehouse.”
Vic grinned at me. “Yeah, I know. It’s my ho’house.”
I closed my eyes, feeling despair wash over me. “I don’t believe this . . .”
“Believe what? Don’t tell me you gotta problem wid ho’houses now?”
“Damn right I gotta problem with’ em. I ain’t stopping in no bordello with the child.”
Truth had woken; she grabbed hold of the backs of our seats, pulled herself up off the floor and stuck her head in between Vic and me. “What’s a ho’house, Joseph?”
“Never you mind what it is. All you need to know is we ain’t stopping in one! Sit back down.”
Truth mumbled under her breath and dropped back onto the floor of the van. I scowled back at Vic.
“What you gittin’ so sniffy ’bout? It’s a bed fo’ the night, ain’t it?”
“Bed fo’ the night . . . You just don’t get it, do you? I ain’t takin’ Truth into one of your knockin’ shops!”
“Why the hell not? Do the pickney good to see a different side o’ life.”
I looked back at Truth then gave Vic a hard stare. “I think the child’s seen enough degradation and immorality these past few days. She don’t need to see any more, spendin’ a night in one of your nasty creep joints.”
“Nasty! Our grandaddy was born in a ho’house. Shit, he practically lived in one all his life . . . The muthafucka died in one, that’s fo’ sure.” Vic leant forward and stuck his finger in my face. “JT, ho’houses is in the Ellington blood.”
I grabbed hold of the dashboard and shifted in my chair. “They ain’t in my blood.” I sighed heavily, at my wits’ end. I frantically rubbed at the top of my scalp then looked back out of the van window and up the sandstone steps at my cousin’s dilapidated shack of ill repute. I stared back at Vic.
“How long you had this place?”
“None o’ yo’ goddamn bidness how long I had the place. You wanna stop in the muthafucka or not?”
I looked back up the steps of the house and then down at Truth, and realised that I had little choice. Both the police and Paxton would know where I lived and have somebody watching the place. I breathed another heavy sigh then resigned myself to the inevitable.
“OK, but you keep those women away from me and the child. You hear me?”
Vic began to laugh. I held out my hand in front of him and he clammed up.
“And one other ting.”
Vic huffed at me loudly then shook his head. “What the hell now?”
“I want you to send out one of your friends in there over to my place on Gwyn Street. Get ’em to knock for old Mrs Pearce. Tell her that I need her here.”
“What! Why you want dat hard-mout’ cow?”
“Just do as I damn say, Vic! Either you get me Mrs Pearce, or the child and I are sleeping on the streets. Believe me, we slept in worse places these last few days.”
Vic hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand and got out of the van, slamming the door behind him. He stood in the street, swearing and stamping his feet on the tarmac before turning around and pushing his nose against the glass of the driver’s door window. He pointed down with his finger to where Truth was sat in the back of the van.
“Ax that damn pickney what she intend to do with that thousand notes! Ain’t right a child walkin’ ’bout with all those readies on her!”
I watched as Vic ranted to himself. He walked around the front of the van and headed towards the front door of the house, cussing obscenities at me. I sat back in my seat and listened with hidden delight as Truth giggled at Vic’s blustering rage from behind the passenger seat.
37
We were greeted at the front door by the same cheapjack harlot that had been plying her trade on the doorstep when we pulled up outside of the house. Vic brazenly waltzed into the hallway with Truth and me in tow, took us through into the kitchen at the back of the property and plonked down a couple of decrepit deckchairs on either side of a large wooden dining table. I watched as Vic walked back out into the hall, took hold of the girl’s elbow and drew her close to him. He began to whisper into her ear then the two of them shot off upstairs to no doubt try and scrub up one of the fleapit rooms for the two of us to stay in. The place was a mess. The walls were lined with ageing chipwood paper, which had greyed and was hanging away from the plaster architrave and the battered skirting. It looked like there wasn’t a single carpet laid on any of the downstairs floors and I doubted whether the upstairs boards would have fared any better. The house stank of lingering damp, stale reefer smoke and male sweat. Mouse droppings lay scattered across the Formica work surfaces and on the kitchen floor, and the waste bin next to me was piled high with foul-smelling rubbish. I’d been in cleaner prison cells. Truth looked around the threadbare, filthy scullery and turned her nose up when she saw the heap of dirty dishes piled up high in the sink and on the draining board.
Truth stood up, leant across the kitchen table and whispered. “Do we have to stay here, Joseph?”
I nodded my head. “We ain’t got a lot o’ choice, little one.”
Truth sank back down on to her chair and stared up blankly at the ceiling. “I’d like to see where you live.”
“Me too . . . But we’re in a jam at the minute. This place is gonna have to do.”
Truth huffed to herself and continued to gaze up into the air.
I heard Vic clambering back down the stairs. He stuck his head round the kitchen door and looked at Truth. “What da hell she starin’ at?”
I got to my feet and pointed my finger at the ropy-looking kitchen ceiling. “The child’s mesmerised, Vic. She ain’t ever seen such a palace.”
Vic raised an eyebrow, affronted by my comment. “Damn pickney’s an orphan. What kinda joint she bin stoppin’ in, to be so choosey?”
“The orphanage was always clean,” Truth snapped.
“Less wid her backchat,” Vic snarled back. He glared at me then disappeared. I heard him stomping back up the stairs, chuntering to himself. Moments later he shouted down to me, “You wanna come see dis room or not?”
Truth ran out in front of me and bolted up the stairs. As I reached the top step I heard her complaining. “It smells in here, Victor.”
I stood on the landing and watched as Vic stuck his head into the bedroom and sniffed the air. “Yeah, the place is kinda frowsy, ain’t it?” Vic stood back from the door and let me into the tiny box room. “JT open a damn window for dat pickney. She makin’ my ass itch wid all her bullshit!”
*
It was just after four thirty in the afternoon by the time the immersion heater had warmed up enough water for Truth to take a bath. I made Vic scrub out the tub and sink before either of us stepped foot into the place. Once it was reasonably clean, I ran the hot and cold taps and let the bath fill.
While Truth bathed, I sat on the end of the bed and wrote a note for my elderly neighbour, Mrs Pearce. In it I explained where I was staying and asked if she could kindly collect a spare change of clothes for me and then come over to the house on York Road as soon as she could. Earlier in the year I’d given her a spare key in the event that I ever lost my own. Mrs Pearce liked being a keyholder to my place. During the daytime, while I worked over at the gym, she’d often let herself in and clean around then leave me one of her special home-cooked meals. While she tidied she also snooped through my drawers and personal belongings. She was nosey by nature, judgemental and had a fiery temper. But she was also kind-hearted and generous and someone I genuinely thought of as a friend.
Vic sent one of the girls out to deliver the note and then pick up a fish and chip supper for the three of us. He also made it known that the place was out of bounds to any punters until me and Truth had vacated the building. Thinking about my cousin’s sneaky, unscrupulous and illegal involvement in running the cathouse made me feel sick to the pit of my stomach. Vic was kin and I loved him, but sometimes I hated the way he chose to live his life and the unorthodox, illicit ways in which he made his living.
While Truth ate her fish and chips downstairs in the kitchen with Vic, I took a bath. I lay in the steaming hot water for over half an hour, letting my tired muscles and limbs benefit from a long soaking. When I finally hauled myself out and pulled the plug out of the tub I was shocked at the filthy colour of the water, a murky mixture of dirt and blood. I felt good to see it swirl away down the plughole. My skin felt clean, purified of the muck and squalor that had clung to me these past days. It was a shame that I didn’t feel as wholesome inside.
I leant against the sink and wiped the condensation from the bathroom mirror with the palm of my hand. My face didn’t look too pretty. The swelling around my right cheek where Jardine had laid into me had come up a treat. I felt at the cut at the back of my head from where I’d been hit by the butt of the gun. It didn’t feel as bad as I’d first expected. There was a sizable lump, but it was no longer bleeding and a scab had started to form over the wound. I dried myself, wrapped the towel around my waist, walked out onto the landing and came face to face with Mrs Pearce standing at the top of the stairs.
“Dear God, man, just look at the state of you!”
I stared down at the floorboards like a scolded child as the old woman walked along the landing, stood in front of me and stuck her tiny head underneath my chin to get a better a look at my face.
“So, that’s why you asked for the iodine, is it? What have you been doing, fighting?”
I nodded and kept my lips buttoned.
“Do you know you have the police looking for you again, Mr Ellington? What in the name of sanity have you got yourself mixed up in this time?”
“A spot o’ bother, that’s fo’ sure.”
“Bother, you say. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it. You’re up to your silly black neck again, aren’t you? That
crooked cousin of yours downstairs no doubt has something to do with it all, yes?”
I shook my head. “No, not this time, he hasn’t.”
“Well, that makes a change. So, are you going to stand there in the altogether or are you going to change into these clothes of yours that I’ve brought for you?” Mrs Pearce lifted up a large beige leather shopping bag and pushed it at my chest. I took the bag and thanked her then walked back into the bedroom. The old woman walked in behind me and looked around the box room in disgust.
“Just look at the state of this place. Tell me that you’re not thinking of sleeping in that bed. That mattress is alive with God knows what. It looks like it could crawl out of here on its own.”
I turned around to face my neighbour. “We haven’t got a lot of choice, Mrs Pearce.”
“We? What do mean we? Are you talking about that no-good relation of yours?”
I shook my head. “No, this is not ’bout Vic. I have a child here with me.”
“A child . . . Here with you, in this awful place?”
I nervously shuffled from one foot to the other and nodded.
“But this is a house of ill repute, Mr Ellington.”
I looked at the old woman in shock “How did you know what this place was?”
Mrs Pearce put both hands on her hips and glared at me. “I might look green, but I’m not a bloody cabbage, man. This dive has been a disorderly house for more years than I care to remember. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, bringing a child here.”
“I don’t have a lot of choice. If I’d have gone back to my digs on Gwyn Street, the police would have lifted the two of us within a couple of hours.”
“What are doing with a child anyway?”
“She’s an orphan. A little girl. I found her here in Bristol and she’s somehow connected to a heap o’ trouble that I’m stuck bang in the middle of now.”
Mrs Pearce rested her arms back down by her side. When she spoke again, the tone of her voice was softer. “Tell me, what kind of trouble are you in, Mr Ellington?”