Me and Paul get told to sit outside while they carry on talking. We can hear my mum still saying that I could have been killed. I want her to be quiet now. She’s made her point. He was actually trying to kill me, so there’s no point saying it. It’s what happens in a war.
All right? Paul says again and I nod again.
We shake hands and watch the fish in the tank by the reception window. Our class comes out of assembly and Michelle sees us and comes to walk over and ask us what’s going on but Mrs Jukes spots her and says, Where do you think you’re going, young lady? and Michelle goes back to the class line glaring at Mrs Jukes.
This was just before they sank the Belgrano.
Her’s onny havin this war to get bloody re-elected. People gerrin killed all for her vanity.
My grandad shouted at the television. My nan ignored him. She’d told him not to talk about the war in front of me.
A couple of days later HMS Sheffield was blown up; there was a picture of it burning on the front of the papers and on the news constantly. It was the ship Mrs Jukes’ son was serving on. He died. She was off school the rest of the year, until we left, so we didn’t see her again. We had a big assembly with a minute’s silence and a school collection for Mrs Jukes. We got told that he died serving his country. I imagined him burning, burning; then drowning in the freezing Atlantic.
I saw her at Merry Hill a few years ago, shuffling along with her daughter. There were soldiers there in their desert uniforms, collecting. You see them around much more now. I looked to see if she put anything in their collecting tins but she stared through the open doors of Marks and Spencer’s. I thought of her picturing her son burning, drowning, full fathom five, every morning, every day, all the time, over and over in her head. That’s what it would be like. That’s what it was like now, I supposed, as she walked through the shopping centre, holding her daughter’s arm.
One of the soldiers put a sticker on Josh. We nodded and said thanks and then sneaked it off him back at the car when he wasn’t looking.
My grandad watched the ship burning and muttered that at least the men he’d fought with had been dying for a reason. That was only the second time I’d ever heard him mention the war. There was a shoebox of medals upstairs in the back of my nan and grandad’s bedroom. He’d fought in Sicily and Italy. The only other time I’d heard him talk about it was with my uncle Freddie when he came to visit from Australia. Uncle Freddie had fought, too. He’d been shot in the leg in the Normandy landings. By an American, he used to say.
‘Without order fear becomes master and the strong and the violent become a power in the land.’
I know where there’s a gun. I’m not meant to know but I do. This gun’s from the war. It’s in that metal box on a shelf in the shed. I’ve seen it once before. We’d all been somewhere, for a big meal, celebrating my uncle Freddie’s visit from Australia. Everyone had come back to my nan and grandad’s. It was August. I had my wooden boomerang with pictures of koala bears to play with. Everyone had drinks in the house and out in the garden. Late in the afternoon my grandad walked down into the allotments with my uncle Freddie and said he’d show him something. He must have been a bit drunk. You could hear everyone laughing back at the house and we walked through the wild spiky grass and foxgloves through the allotments. I was still little, couldn’t quite see over the grass at that time of year.
When we got to the hut on the allotment, Grandad pulled a bottle of whisky from underneath the workbench and poured two glasses for him and Freddie. Freddie was laughing, always laughing. Then my grandad reached up to the high shelf, the one right under the ceiling where the old tins of paint and creosote were, and reached to the back. He pulled out a blue tin box, with a key in the lid.
Do you remember what this is? my grandad asked my uncle Freddie with a grin, like he’d forgotten I was there, which he had, I think.
He turned the key and opened the box, took out a cloth bag with all rags and torn up bits of newspaper in it, and it smelled of grease, and then he pulled the gun out of the bag. He pointed it off into the distance over the factory wall. Somewhere off towards West Bromwich.
Jesus, what yer kept that fower? my uncle Freddie asked.
My grandad shrugged. Never know when yer might need it, eh?
Yer should get rid on it. See Charlie with it. He’ll get rid on it for yer. It ay safe keeping it in here. An the bullets with it still, look yer. It ay safe. Yome meant to have a licence, ay yer?
My grandad laughed at this. I day think yow’d be so up on English law, Fred. Not after all this time.
My grandad pointed the gun towards Tipton. Then he took the whisky, poured two more drinks to finish the bottle and wandered over to the fence and stood the bottle on the fencepost, paced backwards with the gun like he’d seen in cowboy films.
Come on, Jack. Iss the middle of the afternoon. Yow cor fire a gun aht here. Yow’ll have the police here. What about Sean?
My grandad stretched his arm out in front of him, aiming at the bottle.
It still fires, yer know.
Jesus, Jack, doh be so saft.
The bottle wasn’t balanced properly on the fencepost and it wobbled slightly. It was White Horse whisky. I stood in the hut doorway, to the side and out of the way. Everything was still and very hot. The backs of the houses seemed a long way away over the tall grass. The sun shone on the windows.
He still had the gun in his hand and was holding it out towards the chimneys.
I oil it sometimes. I tode yer I’ve tried it a couple of times. Tek it apart like they used to show we. I doh know why. Still.
He lowered his arm so the gun was at his side.
Get rid of it, Jack.
My grandad opened the gun and took the bullets out, began wrapping the gun in the cloth again, carefully; put it back in the tin.
My grandad turned and came to the shed, looked at me like he’d forgotten I was there and put his hand on my head with the box in the other and said, Come on, darling, to me. He came back out of the shed and rinsed the whisky glasses at the outside tap and blinked in the sunlight like a mole. I mean like the mole when he emerges at the start of The Wind in the Willows. I’d never seen a real mole. My grandad held his hand out to me for us to go back to the house, realized he still had the box that held the gun under his arm, which is how it ended up on the shelf in the garden shed. He swayed as he walked up the path. Freddie had his hand on my grandad’s shoulder to steady him.
A couple of times, the odd chance I’ve had when I could get into the shed on my own, I’ve stood on the little set of steps and checked to see the blue metal box at the back of the shelf. It’s still there. I think my grandad was right to keep it. You never know, really, when we might need it.
‘Rejoice.’
We get an old banger from Harry Robertson, a beaten-up Marina. It’s brown, but the front driver’s wing is grey. He gives it to my dad for free; well, for helping him with the cars. My dad sells his Cortina. I can see that my mum hates the new car. I like it. She’s embarrassed of it outside our house. She doesn’t want to be but she is. She looks at it out of the front window at Crow Street.
Where you gonna park it?
What dyer mean?
Where yer gonna park the car?
We’ve got a drive. On the drive.
My mum used to say she didn’t care where she lived but she did. It was important to her what everyone else thought. It’s human nature, I suppose. Later, she really didn’t care what anyone thought, but that was later, and even then she did her drinking in the house, in her room. Even down Crow Street there were people who didn’t know what was happening.
We never used to speak to the people in Elm Drive, except sometimes on Sunday mornings, when the men used to clean their cars. My dad didn’t clean the Marina. My mum said if he tried to clean it, it would fall apart; it was only rust and dirt holding it together. I remember he smiled at her and didn’t get angry.
The police stop us on a Sunday morning. We are turning, where Watson’s Green Road goes up the hill by Green Park when the police car appears behind us and flashes its lights and pulls up in front of us. A policeman gets out of the car. I can see the fat shape of the other policeman, sitting in the driver’s seat.
My dad winds down the window. The policeman knows his name.
Morning, Francis.
All right, my dad says. He keeps looking straight up the hill towards the flats, not at the policeman. I look at the policeman. I try and stare him out like Michael Campbell does to the teachers. They can’t arrest me for staring. He doesn’t look at me, just at my dad.
The policeman’s head comes right in the car. If we wound the window up quickly we could chop his head off.
Where we off to then?
I’m driving home with my son. I’ve been to buy some paint.
This was true. We were going to paint the back door.
Okay to have a look in the boot, Francis? the policeman says.
My dad doesn’t say anything, nods a little bit and opens his door. The policeman doesn’t step back from the door like you’d expect, stands against it so there’s a narrow gap for my dad to get out of. I want him to push the door open, smash the policeman in his balls. That would take the look off his face.
Just stay there, son. Okay? my dad says to me. We woh be a minute.
Well, that might depend, Francis, won’t it? the policeman says.
The fat policeman, the driver, the same one again, gets out of the car and walks towards us.
Look, I’ve got me son with me.
We can see that, Francis.
We can see that.
Yer never know when we might want to speak to yer, mate.
We might want yer any time, mate. There’s a lot we might want to speak to yer about. There’s a lot of people we might want to speak to yer about.
Any time, Francis, any time.
The policemen are talking in quiet, friendly voices but you can tell they’re not friendly at all. I know they mean Charlie Clancey. They want to talk about Charlie. His trial’s coming up; I’ve heard my dad say.
My dad opens the boot for them. There is nothing in there. The tins of paint are by my feet because we didn’t want them to roll around. The police stand and look at the empty boot.
Where’s yer new car from, Francis? One of Harry’s, is it?
It’s weird, how the police know everyone we know.
My dad has to get the documents for our car and take them to the police car. They stand and talk some more. I can’t hear them. My dad nods a couple of times. His eyes look at the pavement. I don’t want to see him, looking like that. I’ve got my book with me, a guide to the World Cup. The captain of Honduras has recovered from smallpox. The capital city of Cameroon is Yaoundé. Poland’s star player is called Zbigniew Boniek.
A game kicks off on the pitch at Green Park so I try to concentrate on that. A team in yellow goes on the attack. Their goalkeeper is smoking a cigarette.
My dad gets back to the car.
Okay, son, we can go home now, get that painting done.
I nod.
The goalkeeper’s smoking, I say.
He looks at the pitch for a minute. The keeper stubs the cigarette out on the post.
Doh say nuthin about the police to yer mummy, eh?
I don’t like it when he says mummy. It makes me feel like a little boy. I don’t say anything about it, though. I can tell he’s upset. His hand is shaking when he tries to put the key in the ignition.
Okay, I say.
The police wait in their car. Our car doesn’t start first time, it never does; then when my dad does get it going we roll backwards up the kerb. The goalkeeper lets the ball through his hands and into the goal. As we drive up and past the police car I look at the policemen and try to stare them out. They are laughing.
Charlie went to prison, no one else. It didn’t do anything to him, he was only in a couple of months and he’d been in before. Tommy came back to feed his horses and all work stopped. My dad did a few bits and pieces for Harry but the police didn’t seem interested in that any more; they didn’t come down Crow Street.
We settled into a routine then, with my dad and grandad at home. Johnny would get back from his work and go and sit down the end of the garden and paint the deserted allotments. Sunday mornings, or other times when there was no one around, he’d pull the fence back and go in there and have a wander around with his sketchbook. There were signs up about how dangerous it was, how the ground might cave in. He painted a toad he found sitting on one of the paths. He told me he thought we’d see snakes in there soon. The foxgloves grew higher than the sheds, then a sunflower appeared and he sat at the end of the garden with his feet up on the fence drawing the swirls of the sunflower and the crows that flew back and forth from Cinderheath.
Sometimes, if it was warm enough, Natalie would go down the end of the garden with Leah. She was learning to walk. I saw Johnny and Natalie holding hands across the fence one time, Leah toddling to the wall and back, laughing. Johnny finished a sunflower, tore the page from the book and handed it to Natalie.
What if I love her? Johnny says to my mum.
Well, thass great then, doh look so miserable about it!
No, but another bloke’s babby, kid, I doh know.
Johnny stares across the kitchen. My mum touches his hand. I’m sitting with my back to the door, reading. They’ve forgotten I’m there.
But if you do love her, John?
I doh know.
If you do love her, that’s a great thing, a lovely thing. And you do know. If you do love her, you do know.
But what if I cor trust her?
Johnny bites the skin around his fingers; my mum holds his other hand.
People make mistakes, Johnny, they do. I ay tellin yer it’s great. It ay a very good situation, is it? But it does happen. It wor like you was together when it happened. I mean, her ay betrayed yer if thass what yer think.
Iss a big thing, though.
Of course it is. It’s yer life.
They sit quietly for a bit. There is a saucepan boiling on the hob and the lid rattles, my mum goes and turns the gas down, opens the window a crack to get rid of the condensation.
Is he still around, the dad?
He ay no good.
That’ll be hard.
If I did, if we did, then it’d have to be as if Leah was mine.
My mum nods and says, It’ll still be hard.
I doh know.
I think yer know what yer should do. I doh mean I know; I mean deep down you know yerself.
Johnny nods.
I’ll tell yer another thing, she says. If yer decide not to then that has to be it, you have to put it behind yer; one way or the other yow’ve gorra decide. Iss a big thing, Johnny, course it is.
I doh know, Johnny says and gets up to put the kettle on.
Pour us a drink, Johnny, will yer? My mum pushes a glass across the table.
Yer wanna watch what yome drinking, Johnny says.
Doh yow start as well. She taps the glass and says, This is the least of me worries.
There are piles of stuff at the house, photos, clothes, even a reel of old ciné film we took at the caravans once, Johnny’s sketchbooks. I’ll burn it all, I think, when it comes to it, not look at any of it, watch the ashes drift over the hill.
We sit and watch the World Cup together at my nan and grandad’s, every game; Johnny rushes back from work to catch the end of the afternoon games. We go for day trips in the summer, not far: Worcester, Stratford, Evesham. My dad still points out the nice houses to my mum, in the countryside, and closer to home like on Oakham Road and by the Priory ruins, but now I know we’ll never live in them. That suits me fine.
I started secondary school at Cinderheath that year; I got picked for the team, scored a goal from outside the box against Claughton with my dad and grandad watching. We got set a piece of home
work to draw our dream house, the same as years before. I got Johnny to design a palace for me with swimming pools and hanging gardens and a horse-racing track with a grandstand; wrote my name on it when he’d finished. I wasn’t making the same mistake twice. I got a certificate and a letter home to say how good my work was. Things went okay. I made new friends, one was a lad called Spencer O’Brien, we played in midfield together, although he moved away with his family not long after my dad died. His dad moved for work, to make nuclear submarines up in Barrow-in-Furness. There was a lot of that, then, moving if you got the chance.
The truth is that I had the time of my life for that year or so. It’s one of the things I feel guilty about now, I suppose. It didn’t last, it couldn’t; the wave was towering above us about to crash down. Margaret Thatcher’s voice was still playing in the background. God knows what lengths my mum was going to in order to show that things were fine and would be back on track at any minute, as soon as my dad got a new job. Then things took a turn for the much, much worse.
With Charlie, I hear my dad say.
Charlie has been out of prison for a couple of months now. He came round our house and my mum walked down the drive and told him to piss off, to never come near us again. He took ages trying to reverse his rag and bone van all down our road. My dad stayed inside. My mum stood on our drive, glaring at him.
Not after last time, my mum says to my dad. Yer need to get a proper job, Francis. Yow’ve stopped looking.
There ay no jobs.
Yer doh know if there’s no jobs if yow ay lookin. When yer was first out of work yow was walking round places, asking around, waiting for the paper. Now, I doh know, Francis, I just doh know.
Who’s gonna want me?
I doh know what yome talkin about.
Who’s gonna have me now?
I doh know what we’m gonna do, Francis.
How I Killed Margaret Thatcher Page 14