by Ian Ayris
***
Screws leave me alone for the rest of me bird, mostly. Terry Wilkins is never far from a fuckin screw at all fuckin times and a couple months later he's on his way. Good fuckin behaviour, would you fuckin Adam 'n' Eve it. I get meself a bit of a name inside with the lags. When I'm up for me first parole, they turn me down. Always gonna fuckin happen. The Old Bill had a word when Johnson got done, but they couldn't prove nothing cos I was fuckin inside when it happened, but every bastard in here thinks I done him in. Him and his family. There ain't no fuckin changin that. I don't feel bad about Johnson. He was a cunt. He had it comin. But his missus. Fuck. And his little girl. I mean, for fuck's sake. Five years old.
Can't sleep for thinkin of Becky when she was that age. So funny, she was. Just learnin, you know, just startin out. Learnin with her laughin and her gigglin and she was so fuckin lovely. There's tears in me eyes most nights but I can't let em go. Cos if I do, I won't never stop. And I know I owe Ronnie Swordfish big time for gettin rid of Johnson. Fuckin big time. But all I can think of is that little girl. Five fuckin years old. And it feels like I killed her me fuckin self, even though I never. I got her blood on me hands, and no amount of fuckin scrubbin's gettin it off.
Me parole date keeps gettin put back cos the Governor thinks it's funny to start makin up shit about me. Ends up, the bastards stick nearly two fuckin years on me sentence. But then a different Governor comes along. Young geezer. All fuckin holier than thou, but a nice bloke. Knows his stuff. And that's me on me way.
Seven years. Seven fuckin years.
***
Mum's last visit before they let me out, she tells me Kenny's old girl got pulled dead out the water at Southwark Bridge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mum comes runnin across the road soon as she sees me, high heels clatterin, face all painted up. Fuck me, she looks a million dollars. I can't hardly hold me head up to front her. Feel so weak, you know, like the life's just fell out of me. She's got this nice coat on, some sort of snide fur, and she puts her arms round me and holds me to her and she feels so soft, and there's me, feelin about four fuckin years old and all I wanna do is I just stay here in her arms.
A white van comes up the road. Slows down and pulls up at the kerb. Charlie Paynter. What the fuck's he doin here? He leans over and winds down the window.
'All right, John?' he says, half an eye on Mum.
I've tensed up. Mum can feel it. She turns her head round to him, and pulls back from me a bit, then looks me dead in the face, like she's tryin to say something just by the doin of it.
Fuck. Never thought about that. Never thought Mum . . .
Dad.
Mum says Charlie's takin us home, and says about me gettin in the van.
She gets in the van, and moves up close to him, leavin room for me.
'Come on, John,' she says.
I wanna tell her I'll make me own way, but I never been south of the Water till they shipped me here seven year back, and the way me head is right now I dunno how the fuck I'd get myself home. And that's the only place I wanna be right now. Home. With Becky. Thinkin of her makes me mind up and I jump in the front with Mum and Charlie.
We're sittin in the van all squashed up, and no one sayin a word. I'm lookin out me window at places I ain't never seen before and I can feel Mum lookin at me the whole time. She's got her hand on me leg and I know she wants me to say something, anything, but I ain't got nothing to say. Not to her.
Don't even wanna fuckin look at her.
Crossin the River, I know I'm comin home. And as we're goin through Shoreditch, me heart's fuckin poundin. Canning Town, Bow, Plaistow, Bethnal Green, Custom House, all the East End, all of it's a fuckin shit-hole, but it runs in me blood, see, and bein here again's like seein a mountain for the first time, or the sea, or something like that. Sort of overwhelming, you know. Not that I seen no fuckin seas or mountains, but I reckon if I did, if I ever did, this is what it'd feel like.
I tell Charlie to drop me outside The Barmy and I go in the playground. Sit on the swings. Place is empty and it’s like I can feel Keith sittin next to me, tellin me everything’s gonna be all right and the wind’s blowin the roundabout round and round and round like it ain’t never gonna stop. And it's cold. So fuckin cold. Could sit here for fuckin ever, thinkin about Keith and Thommo, thinkin about how it used to be. But knowin where they are now just makes me feel so fuckin sad. I asked Mum about em every time she come to visit, you know, if she'd heard anything. She said Thommo's old man had disappeared off the face of the earth, so she don't know about him, and Keith's family don't even talk to her. Blamin it on me, see, their boy bein banged up. That cunt Johnson told me once he'd heard Keith was bein a right fucker up north. Told me he won't see the light of day for fuckin years. Laughin when he said it. Bastard.
Can't take much more of sittin here and I'm soon on me way home.
And as I’m walkin these streets, breathin in the car fumes, skippin round the dog shit, it's like nothing’s changed. Not on the front, anyways. But there's a different feel to the place. And pretty soon I start openin me eyes to it all. Shops, what people's wearin, music comin out of houses and cars. It's all different, like they all carried on without me. Left me behind. And I feel sort of see-through, and it's like everyone's lookin at me and I'm disappearin with every fuckin step.
I go past me old school. Isaac Meade. Playtime. Hundreds of kids runnin round, not a care in the fuckin world. There’s some lads playin football just where we used to, up the top by the road. And you can tell on their faces kickin that tennis ball about’s all they ever wanna fuckin do for the rest of their little lives. I stop awhile, and watch.
And there’s this kid, looks a bit like me when I was that age. Better than the others by a fuckin mile, he is. And he’s past one, then another and he’s gonna shoot, when this fat kid comes out of fuckin nowhere and kicks him up in the air. Cuts him right in fuckin half, he does. And that starts a big fuckin free for all, twenty kids pilin into each other. The kid what got fouled, he’s turned into a fuckin animal, swingin and swearin and beatin the shit out of whoever’s fuckin nearest. I gotta walk away at this point. Can't fuckin stand it.
It's pissin down now, and the wind's blowin me off the street.
I’m half thinkin of goin over Keith’s, seein his mum and dad, you know, but I feel so fuckin tired. I’ll do it tomorrow. Only right I see em. Nice people. Never forget his mum faintin fuckin dead away when Keith got sent down, and his dad just holdin her like she was gonna break into a million pieces. Just thinkin of em like that makes me a bit, you know, a bit fuckin wary of seein em again. Specially with em blankin Mum an that.
I’m turnin the corner down our street. Charlie’s van's pullin up outside our house. Must’ve stopped off on the way. Mum could never go fuckin nowhere without pickin something up. Used to drive Dad mad. Her and Charlie’s talkin, and she's give him a peck on the cheek. Then she gets out and Charlie drives off real slow. I’m walkin waist deep in shit now, and every step's takin me further away. Mum’s waitin at the front gate. And I gets this big lump in me throat. Can’t fuckin swallow it for the fuckin life of me, and it sort of stops me breath for a second and I gets this feelin I wanna run somewhere, run away from the whole fuckin lot of em just so I can be on me own for a while.
I look across the street at Kenny’s house so I don’t have to look at Mum. All the lights are off, and next door, where he used to live, where his old man topped himself, it’s still all boarded up.
Then I see the lights are off in our house an all. And the curtains are shut. Thought Becky might be watchin for me, you know. But she ain’t.
Mum smiles weak and sort of awkward when I come near, and her eyes are all filled up. I wanna ask her where Becky is, thinkin she might be over one of me Aunties’ or something, but then it hits me: Becky's gonna be sixteen next month and she don’t need no lookin after no more. Fuckin sixteen years old. My little Becky.
When we go in the house, Mum
switches on the light in the hall. And there’s this new carpet goin all the way up the stairs. I’m thinkin Mum's had a touch at the shop, you know, moved up a bit, or Becky's got herself a little part-time job, but then I settle it's probably Charlie’s helpin out.
There's music blarin upstairs. Some sort of miserable shit. But least she's in.
'Come in here and sit down, love,' Mum says. 'I'll make us a cuppa.'
I don't look round, and start straight up the stairs.
'John,' she says.
I stop.
'John, love.'
But I ain't turnin round.
Mum tells me Becky ain't had it easy since I been away, and that I might want to leave her for a bit. Have a cup of tea first, you know.
I know what she's sayin but I don't wanna hear this shit. Just wanna see my sister, so I carry on up.
Becky must've moved into my room cos that's where this fuckin miserable dirge is comin from. I knock on the door. But she ain't gonna hear with all that fuckin racket, so I turn the handle slow and go in.
Wall to wall posters. Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Sisters of Mercy. All that fuckin Goth shit. Becky's sittin on her bed, lookin at a magazine. Don't barely fuckin recognise her. Hair all dyed black and fuckin everywhere, face done up white as her fuckin bed sheets and this black make-up round her mouth and eyes. Dunno if she's heard me come in, but she ain't lookin up. I close the door soft and knock on the inside.
'Becks?' I says. 'It's me.'
She looks up like she don't care a fuck and goes back to her magazine.
'Becks, I'm home. Got out today.'
She shuts the magazine quick and chucks it on the floor. Storms over, givin me this filthy fuckin look like what I ain't never seen on her before. And then BANG. Smacks me round the fuckin face. Knocks me back a couple of steps. And me mouth’s bleedin.
'What the fuck was that for?' I says.
She hits me again. Then blows up proper and starts screamin at me.
'What the fuck was that for? What the fuck was that for?'
The tears are streamin black down her face, and I know she's got the last seven years in each and every one of em.
I go to put me arm round her and she tells me not to fuckin touch her.
Fuck.
And just when I think I'm in for another slatin, her voice turns soft, soft like the child she still is.
'I needed you, Johnny,' she says. ‘I fucking needed you. And . . . and when Dad . . .'
I hang me head. I hang me head cos there ain't nothing else I can do.
And we stand there for what seems fuckin ages, but what probably ain't even a minute. And it's like, as I'm standin there, head bowed, I'm realisin what I done. What I really done, to me family. And I wanna take it all back. I wanna say it weren't my fault, and that it weren't really me what done them things, and that I was a messed up, fucked-up kid, cos all I wanted was my dad.
I wanna say all these things to Becky so it'll make it all better for her. But there's a lump in me throat and it's stoppin me from sayin any fuckin thing at all. I reach out for her, and I'm holdin her in me arms, and we're both sobbin like newborn fuckin babies.
I start thinkin of Mum downstairs, on her own. Her two kids. All she's got. Upstairs. Bound to be thinkin what we're talkin of. Bound to be thinkin we're talkin about her and Charlie. Even if we ain't. I tense up again, just thinkin of it.
'Becky?' I says, calm as I can, but I know me voice is in shreds. And I ask her about Mum and Charlie.
Nothing, for a bit. Then she pushes me away like she can't bear to have me near her and I'm back on me heels.
And she's at it again. Fuckin screamin her head off, tellin me I ain't got a fuckin clue what it's been like for her and Mum, me bein inside, and Dad not around. Reckons it's nearly killed Mum.
'And when I needed you,' she says, 'where were you? Got yourself banged up because all you could think about was your fucking self.'
Black tears startin up again. She's well out of control now, shakin so much she can't move.
She's run out of words and just stands there lookin right into me eyes, knowin there ain't no words she's ever gonna find that'll make her feel any better. I can't do nothing but stand there and take it. Take it all. And I tell you what, I tell you fuckin what, George Johnson and cunts like that, Ronnie Swordfish, they ain't got nothing on my sis. It's like she's openin me eyes and rubbin sand in em, and all I wanna do is rub em till they bleed.
***
Later, I'm downstairs with Mum, havin a cuppa. New china cups. Proper cups. Saucers and everything. And I know what Becky's sayin, about Mum and Charlie. But it don't make it none the fuckin easier.
Mum asks me if Becky's okay, and I tell her she is. But she knows she ain't. Must've heard every fuckin word upstairs.
After our second cuppa, after I've answered all her questions about how I am, and what I'm gonna do, and shit like that, me makin all of it up on the spot cos I ain't got a fuckin clue about none of it, we ain't got nothing more to say to each other. But I can't fuckin ignore it. Can't let it go. But I gotta go in sideways cos facin it head on's just too fuckin much.
I know he's shelled out for the carpets, that's pretty fuckin obvious, and probably the cups and loads more I don't fuckin know about, but I need her to tell me. I need her to fuckin say it.
'Doin well at the shop, Mum?' I says to her.
Tells me she's still on the tills, does a bit of overtime where she can, but there ain't much goin at the moment. Has another sip of tea.
I look at her how she used to look at me when I told her what I done at school, even though she knew I never went.
I ask her about the carpets, how she got hold of em.
She sips the last of her tea, and puts the cup and saucer on the table. Big smile, but sort of embarrassed.
Here it comes. Every breath fuckin hurts now. Like it did when that cunt of a judge sent us down all them years back and when Dad was lookin at me when I knew he was gone.
She's gonna say it. Charlie fuckin Paynter and my mum.
'That's not me, dear,' she says. 'That's Kenny.'
Fuckin what?
'Kenny?'
She tells me he moved in not long after his old girl got dragged dead out the River, and he's been sort of helpin out.
I wanna ask her all about him, how he is, what he's up to, and how the fuck he's in any position to be fuckin 'helpin out'. I gotta clear this money thing first cos it don't sound fuckin right to me. No way I'm havin my mum gettin mixed up in no dodgy shit.
'What d'you mean, “helpin out”?'
She puts her head down a bit, like whatever she's gotta say, she don't wanna look at me when she's sayin it.
'Me and your dad, John,' she says, 'after he lost his job, it was so hard.'
And she tells me how they barely got by, how she just made a little go a long way, an that. And how Dad cried every night, the state they were in.
Hearin Mum talkin about Dad like she's doin makes me know she's always gonna love him, no matter who else comes on the scene. I turn me eyes to the floor, and I realise I'm sittin in his chair, holdin onto the arms, scratchin and scrapin em at the ends just like he used to.
'Making ends meet,' she says, 'just got impossible in the end, and we started getting behind with the rent, and . . . other things.'
Puts me back to the Cup Final tickets and Dad's drinkin, and how she's probably thinkin all these years if she hadn't of bought them tickets he'd still be with us now.
She said Dad knew of this bloke they could go to. Said the Council were gonna turn em out the house. Reckons her and Dad had no choice.
This geezer what she's talkin about, the one Dad said could help em out, he don't sound like no fuckin bank manager to me, and I've half a fuckin idea who she's on about.
'And the money you borrowed, Kenny's payin it off?'
'That's right, John.'
Her head’s up, smilin again.
'He's a good boy, John,' she says. Tell
s me his mum would've been so proud.
Bollocks. I ain't buyin this shit.
I mean, Kenny?
I ask her where Kenny's gettin the money from, and if he's still Kenny, you know, mad as fuck.
Mum says Kenny's just 'different', that's all. Reckons his mum must've left something when she passed and that he wants to help out cos of that time we had him live with us when his old girl was in hospital.
Only thing Kenny got left from his old girl was a manky old cat and some piss smellin carpets. Unless she had a secret stash, which I fuckin doubt.
I ask her how much Kenny's givin her.
Tells me more than they need. Says Kenny's got the kindest heart in the world.
Wellin up now, she is. Says Kenny's different than what he used to be, not much of him left. Reckons the hospital’s done him a right bad turn.
'He doesn't understand like you and me,' she says.
Never was a fuckin mastermind to fuckin start with, but she don't see that. Thinks he was born fuckin normal and it was the hospital what fucked him up. Started way before that, but I don't wanna get into that with her. Just wanna find out about the dough.
She said she had a really hard time tryin to get him to take back what she didn't need. Said he took it back in the end when Mum said his old girl would've liked him to have some for himself. He was nearly crying when she give it back, she reckons.
Mum's lookin at the clock as she's talkin, like she's waitin for something.
Door bell goes.
And she's up, sort of flustered, and goes in the kitchen. Comes back with a bulgin envelope in her hand and goes to the front door. Couple minutes later she's back. Still flustered but tryin to cover it up. I go to the window, see who it was, and see Terry Wilkins strollin past. That sorts out for definite where her and Dad was gettin the money from.
I chase out the door, but can't see the fucker nowhere. Then I look across the street at Kenny's.
And I'm thinkin what it must've been like for Dad and Mum to be in hock to Ronnie Swordfish all them years, what it must have done to them. And that little girl, that little girl, she was only five fuckin years old.