Blood Relatives

by Stevan Alcock

  ‘God, I hate this weather – didn’t know you’d got hitched, Eric,’ Vanessa said in one breath.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘What’s wi’ t’ ring then?’

  ‘Engaged.’

  ‘Ooh, engaged? To that … what’s her name … Julie, is it?’

  ‘No, not her … to Karen.’

  ‘Last I heard you wor knockin’ about wi’ a Julie.’

  ‘Aye. Aye, I wor – but it’s Karen now.’

  The subject of t’ ring shunted off into a siding, Vanessa turned her attention to me.

  ‘Heard a lot about you,’ she oozed. ‘Eric tells me all sorts, he does.’

  My innards wor squirming like a bag of mealy worms. When, for pity’s sake, did Eric get to blather on to Vanessa about rings and marriage? We only stopped by when we were on t’ round, didn’t we?

  They wor both looking at me expectantly. The ring. Now that I’d clapped eyes on it, it had a permanent look. No hacking that off.

  ‘All good, I ’ope,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Well, now, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ Vanessa teased. ‘Nice-looking lad, though, ain’t he, Eric?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Trust me. Make some girl very happy one day, mark my words.’

  Friggin’ ’ell. Not the done thing – glowing like hot coals in front of a prozzie.

  ‘Oh, he’s not still a virgin, is he Eric?’

  ‘What you asking me for? He’s a bit of a dark horse, this one. I reckon there’s summat going on, what wi’ me dropping him off in town after t’ round every week, but he’s keeping mum about her.’

  Eric winked at me.

  ‘A dark horse, eh?’ Vanessa purred. ‘I lay bets on dark horses, them quiet ones wi’ t’ broad smiles and not much to say for themsens. They’re t’ ones you have to watch.’

  Luckily for me, Vanessa’s attention wor distracted by her toddler, who wor balanced on fat little legs, trying to clamber onto a chair, fingers stretching toward t’ Coke bottle.

  ‘Leave it. Leave it, Jase! I said effin’ leave it!’

  She scooped up the toddler wi’ one arm and plonked him firmly back onto a different part of t’ lino. The room filled up wi’ a piercing wail.

  ‘Effin’ kids! Always wantin’ whatever they clap eyes on. I want this, I want that. I want, I want, I want. Well I bloody want, but it don’t mean I can ’ave!’

  The wailing brought in Vanessa’s older kid from out in t’ corridor, yelling excitedly. Spotting us, he hid himsen behind his arm, gigglin’, ’til he spied the Coke bottle on t’ sideboard too.

  ‘Yer can ’ave some later, Barry. Wi’ yer tea. Take Jase out in t’ corridor, there’s a luv.’

  Barry ran out again. The toddler set off after him, toppling over, making us all erupt, then hauled himsen up again onto his crooked little legs.

  Vanessa moved to t’ window, from where she could keep an eye open for business. There wor fewer punters about in t’ daytime, but then, she said, fewer girls wor out working. The banter turned to Emily Jackson, the murdered woman, who like Wilma, like Vanessa hersen, wor a mother an’ all.

  Vanessa repositioned the one-bar electric fire toward her legs.

  ‘I didn’t know her, Emily. She worn’t no regular. I hear she used to hang out at the Gaiety and the Room at the Top club. But that don’t mean owt.’

  She patted the corners of her mouth wi’ a tissue, her gaze fixed on t’ gap between t’ gateposts. For a moment it seemed she had a punter. She sat upright, patting her hair, projecting her breasts. Then she relaxed her posture. The punter had moved on.

  ‘He’ll be back,’ she said, taking a long drag on her ciggie. ‘The girls,’ she said, exhaling upward, ‘are mostly working team-handed. They’ll keep it up for a week or two, and then they’ll forget. Trust me.’

  She screwed her fag end into t’ ashtray and lit another. ‘When you’ve been in business as long as I have, you can smell a bad’un.’

  She smiled at us both, a smile, I saw, that wor too light for t’ effort she gave it.

  I lay on my bed leafing through t’ local rag. They didn’t waste much ink on Emily. Just a brief mention of a second prozzie murder in Chapeltown, and a fuzzy photo. Whores get what’s coming is what most folk thought. If folk thought at all.

  I could hear sis in t’ bath. She wor always having baths. No wonder t’ reservoir levels wor so low. I slipped across t’ landing into her bedroom and, sliding open a drawer, took out the diary from under t’ layers of knickers. I flipped it open where a blue biro wor resting in t’ spine.

  My fingers danced grubbily through t’ pages. Her scribble wor hard to read, and she’d been scrawling biro flowers and stick figures in t’ margins. It wor t’ usual friggin’ rubbish. Some boys had been carving band names in t’ wooden bus shelter (boring), summat about copying her French homework off Emma in return for buying Emma some fags (learning fast there, sis), and some boy called Adam had smiled at her in t’ corridor.

  I turned the page. Sunday. She’d been listening to t’ top thirty pop charts and marking down t’ chart positions in a special chart book. What friggin’ chart book? My eyes skimmed over t’ shoes and bags strewn across t’ carpet, the teddies, frogs and gonks on t’ bed, the washing slithering out of t’ wicker basket. My hand hovered over all t’ girly clutter on t’ small dressing table that Mitch had put together for her in t’ garage last winter, not wanting to move owt in case she clocked it.

  I realised I could hear t’ bath water gurgling away down t’ pipes. I flipped the diary shut and scuttled back to my room. I threw mesen on t’ bed and laughed deliciously. A close call wor always more satisfying than getting away clean and easy.

  ‘Charts!’ I snorted under my breath. ‘Charts!’

  Marcella Claxton

  09/05/1976 (survived)

  Friday night, as usual, we all went for a chinky and then on to t’ Marquis of Granby at the end of our road.

  Even Gran came along these days, now that she wor on her tod. Mandy, being too young for pubbing, said she wor going to Emma’s to listen to records. When sis wor fibbing she talked like a dalek and fiddled wi’ her hair. She wor off to see Adam. Her latest diary entries wor full of him. Adam-friggin’-Adam. Mother didn’t say nowt, except ‘Don’t be late.’

  The Marquis wor a large, noisy pub wi’ swirly blue-and-green carpeting, a jukebox and a dartboard.

  Mavis, Mother’s mouldiest friend, had pitched up, as had the neighbours, Nora Gudgeon, her diabetic mother Denise, and her daughter Janice. Mavis squeezed her ample backside onto t’ bench seat between Gran and me. She wor wearing a trowel-load of slap over t’ thin veneer of abuse doled out by hubby Don, and a pong so raking I thought I’d gag if I so much as flared a nostril. I spotted her abuser, across t’ bar, through t’ curling smoke, wi’ Mitch and two other blokes I didn’t know, drinkin’ themsens into a slurry.

  Janice wor sat opposite me, face like a pickled egg. Struck me she wor all dolled up like she’d been planning on being elsewhere. I could sympathise. It didn’t suit me none, sitting wi’ all t’ brassy women, but Mother wor being as stubborn as a goat, using that ‘family together’ baloney to blackmail me into feeling guilty for wanting to stay at home and play my records.

  Janice fiddled wi’ t’ buckle of her wide, white belt. Her nipples wor pushing pertly up against her cheesecloth smock-blouse.

  ‘Our Janice is getting spliced soon,’ chirruped Nora.

  ‘Married? Is that right, Janice?’ said Mavis, leaning forward, her glinting hoop earrings leaning wi’ her, her breasts bunching together in her low-cut glitzy top. ‘When wor all this decided?’

  Janice dropped her chin, and all eyes followed to t’ gentle bump. Looked like it wor decided about four month gone, I thought.

  ‘So, come on,’ Mavis said. ‘Who’s the lucky fella?’

  ‘He’s called Drew,’ Janice said, lighting a ciggie and blowing smoke from t’ side of her mouth. Denise flapped the smoke
away wi’ a flash of pink nails.

  ‘Drew? Short for Andrew, is that? So where is he? When do we get to meet him?’

  Janice crossed her arms over her stomach. ‘He’s on a geography field trip. Wi’ t’ school.’

  Mavis said, ‘Kids today, eh. Who’d have ’em?’ Then wi’ a toss of her head toward Mother, she added, ‘If I remember right, Pam, you married dead young, didn’t you?’

  ‘He wor a mistake,’ Mother replied waspishly. ‘We wor divorced before a year wor out … Oh, Janice, luv, not that I mean that it won’t last between yersen and … and …’

  ‘Drew.’

  ‘Drew … just that I married a wrong’un, that’s all.’

  ‘What wor his name …?’ Denise asked, pitching in her tuppence worth. Mavis snatched up her lighter, clicking it furiously against t’ tip of another ciggie ’til Nora struck a match for her, then lit one for hersen.

  Mother hissed, ‘You know damn well, Denise. You know damn well his name.’

  Mother stretched out a smile. I didn’t know if she wor shunting off the topic for her own sake or mine. What wor to know that I hadn’t learnt already by earwigging and nosing about? Some friggin’ carpet salesman, twice her age, who she’d married and divorced like t’ church had revolving doors. It all happened a friggin’ age before I came on t’ scene. And owt that happened before me didn’t really happen. Except in history books and on t’ telly. Of course she didn’t want to blab on about it.

  Denise worn’t done yet.

  ‘Didn’t he take you down to London on honeymoon? Started out wi’ a stall in Leeds market and before you could say shag pile he had his own warehouse in an old church, heavin’ wi’ carpets and linos. Proper little peacock, he wor. Always wore a suit, and drove a car wi’ a walnut dashboard.’

  This wor a stinking, fresh cowpat of news to me.

  ‘What kind of car?’

  Mother looked like her hair wor on fire.

  ‘A bloody posh one,’ said Mavis.

  ‘So, Janice,’ said Mother, trying to park the conversation elsewhere, ‘any name yet for the … for the …?’

  ‘Damien,’ Janice said. ‘Or Rosemary, if it’s a girl.’

  ‘What unusual names, Janice,’ Mother said.

  ‘I think,’ said Mavis, ‘we should all drink a toast to Janice. And to Nora on becoming a grandmother.’

  Nora bridled. I surmised that ‘grandmother’ didn’t sit well wi’ her just yet. She nodded at me, and said to Mother, ‘Well, I’m sure this one will do you proud when t’ time comes.’

  ‘Not me. I’m never getting married,’ I said.

  The women guffawed.

  ‘I’m not.’

  Behind Janice’s head I could see Don’s barrel bulk heading our way, parting the drinkers like a shire horse fording a river. Denise, who hadn’t clapped eyes on him yet, wor saying, ‘Course you will, Rick. Some lovely lass will catch your eye, and then before …’

  ‘I told you, I’m not getting married. Ever.’

  Mother’s brow knitted painfully.

  ‘All right, ladies?’ Don’s eyes combed across Janice’s breasts. Janice averted her gaze.

  ‘We wor,’ piped up Denise, ‘until we saw you waltzing over our way.’

  ‘Gerald!’ said Gran, as if she’d just hit on t’ answer in a friggin’ crossword puzzle. ‘His name wor Gerald. Had his own carpet business and a big house up Alwoodley way wi’ a garden, a big car and …’

  Mother flashed me a pleading look. I said, ‘Gran, we know. Give it a rest.’

  Gran cocked her head at me. ‘A gin and tonic, please, young man.’

  ‘You’ve got one, Gran. Look – right in front of you.’

  It wor odd for Gran to call me young man. She usually only called anyone young man whose name she didn’t know or couldn’t recollect. She picked up the glass, downed it in one. ‘Gerald,’ she murmured, looking pleased wi’ hersen. ‘His name wor Gerald.’

  The next morn, Mother wor leant against t’ fridge, watching me wolf down beans on toast before heading off to work. Our fridge wor covered in friggin’ fridge magnets. Sunflowers, London buses, Smurfs, Disney characters, cacti, flags, all plastered over t’ ruddy thing like fridge-magnet acne.

  I wor wanting to ask her about Gerald and his car wi’ t’ walnut dashboard and that, but I could see she worn’t going to spill. Her face wor taut, her hair still unbrushed and she hadn’t put her lippy on. Mother said little above t’ necessary to make brekkie function.

  ‘I might be late again,’ I said.

  Mother repositioned one of t’ fridge magnets.

  ‘Again? I’ll keep some cold ham and beetroot for your dinner.’

  She spoke slowly, like she wor really saying summat else. I scraped back my chair.

  ‘It’s all right, I’ll get chips.’

  Mother winced.

  I rattled Mrs Husk’s letterbox. ‘Corona pop!’

  ‘It’s open, luv.’

  Mrs Husk wor swilling out a teacup under t’ kitchen tap. She shuffled into her front room wi’ t’ teacup dangling from one finger. After a momentary difficulty freeing her finger from t’ cup handle she said, ‘Did yer get my whisky?’

  ‘Yer whisky?’

  She eyed me beadily. I laughed and took the small bottle of Bell’s from my coat pocket and set it on t’ table, together wi’ her usual ginger beer. The things we’re friggin’ well asked to do.

  Mrs Husk patted her hairnet. ‘Have you had a win on t’ pools or summat, lad?’

  ‘Being happy’s not a crime is it, Mrs Husk?’

  ‘It’s a rum world, lad, when folk are happy for no reason. Sit a moment.’

  I sat. Today I had time. Eric wor knobbing some housewife at number 78, but I worn’t going to tell Mrs Husk that. She sloughed into t’ kitchen to fetch her empty. From my spot in t’ lounge I said in a loud voice, ‘My gran’s just moved house.’

  I didn’t usually blather about t’ folks, but if I kept Mrs Husk conversationalising then I knew where she wor. Gran had upped sticks, sold sticks and moved about a mile across town into a small, modern, first-floor flat. Fitted carpets, new boiler, double glazing, window locks.

  She’d taken as good as nowt wi’ her, but had instructed Mr Cowley – Second Hand Furniture – House Clearances, screamed the black letters on t’ day-glo orange sign – to cart away all t’ stuff that Mother had grown up about, sat at, played under, slept on. ‘Sold without sentiment,’ Mother had said bitterly. ‘Sold for a pittance.’

  Mother then blathered on about feeling ‘complicit in a dirty crime’, denying a man barely cold in t’ ground all trace of his time on this earth. Wiping him clean of our lives, she called it, as if, she said, it wor her own childhood that had been parcelled up and disposed of in such an underhand manner. I wor thinking, ‘It’s only stuff.’

  I thought Gran had done t’ right thing. It meant we didn’t have to have any of it. Mind you, we did end up wi’ some friggin’ boat-shaped lamp wi’ a parchment sail shade.

  While I wor waiting on Mrs Husk to come back from t’ kitchen wi’ her empty ginger-beer bottle I picked up a framed photo from t’ side table. An old photo of a man and woman at t’ coast somewhere. They wor posing stiffly and smirking at t’ camera. The wind had blown the woman’s hair across her face and the camera had caught her pushing it aside wi’ her hand.

  ‘Is this you and Mr Husk?’

  ‘Is what me?’

  ‘This photo. Is it you?’

  She sidled over, handed me t’ empty ginger beer bottle and peered at t’ photo.

  ‘That? Aye, it is. That wor took at Whitby. A long while back.’

  She took the photo from me and set it back on t’ side table. ‘Now I want you to rub some ointment into t’ back of my calf. I can’t do it mesen, I go all funny.’

  I sighed. Mrs Husk parked hersen in her chair and rolled down her knee-length stocking to expose her bare leg. Taking the ointment from her, I squeezed a little onto my palm. Her skin moved in
loose ripples under my kneading fingers, as if she wor in a coat too big for her tiny frame. I distracted mesen by thinking of Eric’s bare arse rising and falling over at number 78. I wor getting a stiffy, so I decided it might be better to make some more idle chat.

  ‘So, when he died, I guess he didn’t leave you much, then?’

  ‘When who died?’

  ‘Mr Husk. When he passed on. I wor saying that he didn’t leave you no money?’

  ‘Hah! Die? Who said owt ’bout him being dead? For all I know he might be still swanning about somewhere. No lad, he walked out on me a long while back, went off wi’ another woman. There, I’ve said it, never thought I’d say these things to a complete stranger.’

  ‘I’m not a stranger, Mrs Husk, I’m your Corona van boy.’

  ‘Well, no, I suppose not, lad. It wor my fault, you see. I put him on a pedestal, which never does, does it, putting a man on a pedestal? Put a man on a pedestal and it goes to his head. He came back one time. We wor living over Beeston way then. There wor a knock on t’ door, and there he stood, bold as brass in his brand-new overcoat, suitcase by his side, looking reet dapper. He didn’t say nowt, just stood there, waiting for … waiting for me to let him in, I suppose. Trouble wor, I had a friend round for tea, didn’t I? So I said to him, I said, “It’s not convenient, come back later.”’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Did he what?’

  ‘Come back?’

  ‘No lad. Never saw hair nor hide.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, Mrs Husk.’

  ‘Aye, well it’s a rum world, it is that.’

  Mrs Husk looked down at her leg.

  ‘I think that’s enough. I’ll bandage it later – let the air at it a while. I’d better not keep yer dallying, now that he’s finished wi’ her over yonder.’

  I peered through t’ nets. Must have been a real quickie, cos Eric wor already on t’ back of t’ van, restacking crates. Mrs Husk sluiced her tea through her dentures and peered into t’ bottom of t’ cup.

  ‘Oh it’s a rum world, all right,’ she muttered to Lord Snooty, who looked up at her and mewed, then drummed his claws furiously against a chair leg.

  After t’ round I got Eric to drop me in town.