Blood Relatives

by Stevan Alcock

  At Radclyffe Hall I found a proper commotion in full flow. Fazel, Camp David and Terry wor gathered in t’ kitchen. Fazel wor seated at the table, face like a sick griffin. As I came into t’ room he looked up at me wi’ bloodshot eyes. Terry wor leant against t’ stove, looking on, his thumb and forefinger under his chin like he wor solving a maths puzzle. Camp David wor sat beside Fazel, playing wi’ t’ fraying ends of his jacket sleeve.

  Terry put me in t’ picture in his usual deadpan delivery, wi’ Camp David interrupting floridly. Turned out that Fazel’s mother and two sisters wor about to flee Iran for Egypt. His brother wor already in New York. So Fazel had picked this moment to come out to his family over t’ phone. The news went down like a body being dropped down a well. The next day his family publicly disowned him by placing an advert in t’ paper, and his father withdrew his support money.

  ‘They can do that?’ I said.

  ‘They’ve done it,’ Terry replied.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked Fazel, arranging my face into what I hoped wor a suitably concerned look.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Fazel muttered. ‘Maybe I’ll join my brother in New York. In New York I will be free and no one and nothing can hurt me.’

  ‘New York?’ I said, wide-eyed.

  ‘New York! New York!’ trilled Camp David tunelessly. ‘I’m going to wake up with somebody who never sleeps!’

  ‘For God’s sake, this is real life, not a fucking musical,’ said Terry caustically.

  Fate, I wor thinking, could not have dealt me a better hand. There would be a free room at Rad Hall. And the last person on earth who I thought might make that possible wor t’ friggin’ Shah of Iran. I could feel opportunities opening up. But course this worn’t a good moment to say owt.

  Terry looked down at the floor and said, ‘Is that a semen stain on your boot?’

  By early February Fazel’s home country wor filling up the news. The Shah had fled, and some religious bearded bloke wor being mobbed in Tehran like he wor a pop star. Some of t’ men in t’ crowds wor braying themsens on t’ bonce ’til they bled. I couldn’t help wondering what this wor doing to their brains.

  Before leaving Radclyffe Hall later that evening I asked Camp David if he wanted to go out for a drink the following night. His eyes widened.

  ‘Just social, like.’

  ‘My dear, I wasn’t imagining for one moment you were asking me on a date.’

  The next night I arrived outside Leeds Town Hall just as the clock wor striking nine, and waited, pacing along t’ wide steps to stave off t’ bitter cold. I hated anyone being late. Hearing the single strike of t’ quarter hour, I wor just about to give it up as a bad job when I spotted Camp David emerging from behind a departing bus over t’ road. He waved at me and trilled my name in a high-pitched squeal. As he neared he said, ‘My, look at you. You look a pretty scary sight in that black leather jacket and those boots.’

  ‘I could say t’ same of you,’ I sniffed, ‘for different reasons.’

  He laughed heartily, like for all t’ world he wor pleased wi’ this. He looked like a transvestite hobo. He wor wearing a mangy old brown ladies’ fur coat that he said he’d picked up at Oxfam, a green bobble hat, black ladies’ gloves and, wrapped around his neck, a paisley-patterned scarf. This jumble-sale outfit wor completed by a large brown sweater hanging loosely over crimson loons and dark-blue Doc Marts.

  It wor too early for Charley’s, so we decided to pop into t’ New Penny first. Barely had we taken ten steps when from across t’ street this goon started shouting and gesturing at us. He wor wi’ a group of four others who’d just tumbled out of a nearby pub. They looked like bulldog office-workers who’d been out on t’ razz.

  ‘Hey! Queer boy!’

  Queer boy. Singular. They wor striding across t’ street toward us. There wor nowhere to run to, being so in t’ open, so we just stood there.

  ‘Well, lads, what have we got here? Quentin Crisp of Yorkshire?’

  Camp David and I glanced at each other as if to say, ‘You will stick up for me, right?’

  ‘Are you a pouf?’

  This wor directed at Camp David. It worn’t looking good. I cast about for exit options. I sized them up, the whole group, trying to decide how fit or fearsome they wor. I wor sure I could take on any one of them on their own, but as a gang …

  ‘I am proudly of that persuasion,’ Camp David declared.

  Oh, friggin’ ’ell, I wor thinking, just throw yersen into t’ cauldron, won’t you?

  Like any gang of jackals, one led t’others. The head jackal wor a small, thick-set man in every thick-set man’s clothes: brown leather jacket, dark office-suit keks, pale-pink open-neck shirt wi’ a wide collar. He’d probably taken off his kipper tie as soon as he’d escaped the office. Only a breeder, I wor thinking, would wear pale pink wi’ shit brown.

  ‘You people disgust me! Fucking shit-stabbing, fudge-packing queers!’

  The bloke’s lips twisted open, baring his yellowed lower teeth. The others, all of whom wor taller and less thick-set than this gnashing mutt of a bloke, looked hesitant and confused.

  ‘Leave it,’ one of ’em wor saying. ‘Come on, leave it.’

  Mutt man eyeballed me. ‘And what have we here, then? His jobby basher?’

  I kept my eyes on t’ man’s chest and said nowt.

  ‘You know what your problem is, don’t you?’

  Camp David bit both the bait and the hook. ‘Whatever my problem is, darling, it ain’t half as big as yours!’

  ‘What?’

  Camp David’s tongue broke loose. ‘Nowt of yours can be half as big as mine, sweetie. Except maybe your gob. Only I use mine to better effect. In and out of the bedroom. You know what your problem really is? No? I’ll tell you, sweetie. I turn you on.’

  The bloke did a little jig on t’ spot, and then his expression shifted.

  ‘Euufff. Do you hear that, lads? He thinks I’m turned on. Turned on? By you? Fucking filthy nancy boy. You should be thrown into t’ furnace wi’ t’ rest of your kind.’

  I readied mesen for t’ braying that wor surely about to happen. His mates closed in, and seeing the one closest to me drop his guard, I slugged him on t’ chin. He tottered sideways, trying to steady himsen, then tripped over his own feet and keeled over. A gap opened.

  ‘Run!’ I yelled.

  We pelted across t’ road in front of two cars, then zig-zagged through t’ shopping precinct streets and up an alleyway that dog-legged past a pub, finally coming out on Lower Briggate. Camp David stopped, one hand propping up a lamppost, bent double, breathing heavily.

  ‘Wait! I think we’ve lost them.’

  A young couple passed us by. She nudged her boyfriend on t’ elbow, turning her head to get a full gander, but he just kept steaming ahead like he hadn’t seen us. We walked the rest of t’ way down Lower Briggate toward t’ New Penny. Just before t’ railway bridge, Camp David stopped and turned to face me.

  ‘How do I look?’

  His face wor gleaming and his eyeliner had smudged.

  ‘Just fine.’

  He peered into t’ barred-up window of a jeweller’s shop, tidied his hair and righted his hat.

  ‘Thank you for defending my honour.’

  ‘Your honour? Ha! You’re t’ one that dropped us in t’ shit. I’m just happy they didn’t come after us.’

  Camp David tucked his hand into t’ crook of my arm. ‘After that little escapade I need a stiff one. A drink, I mean. Preferably a gin and tonic. You buying?’

  I grinned. ‘No, you are.’

  We pushed through t’ saloon-style pub doors to find oursens facing a DJ wi’ a mic nearly kissing his tonsils who at that moment wor introducing Manhattan Transfer’s ‘Chanson d’Amour’. I would never have ventured into t’ New Penny alone, it being a brash, two-fingers-in-a straight-man’s-eye sort of place, but wi’ Camp David in tow, and wi’ t’ exhilaration of having dodged a braying, I wor feeling I could do whatever I wanted.<
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  Seated beneath t’ DJ’s pulpit wor a line of busty middle-aged women, arms linked and singing along raucously. Otherwise it wor what I expected: a few tables of old codgers, a few younger loners standing about, waiting to be picked up or just staring at the ends of their shoes.

  Seeing us, the DJ garbled summat about fuckin’ Sid and Nancy having just walked in, and one of t’ women doubled up wi’ laughing.

  Camp David murmured in my ear, ‘Plain-clothes are in tonight.’

  ‘Sorry?’ I wor thinking he meant everyone else.

  ‘Those two, by t’ pillar, propping up the bar.’ He took off his hat and fur coat, which he tossed showily over a bar stool, then parked himsen on top of it. ‘Plain-clothes cops.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Darling, I just know.’

  He looked at himsen in t’ etched mirrors behind t’ bar and patted his hair. The notion of plain-clothes cops in here wor a mite discomforting.

  ‘So what do coppers want wi’ this place?’

  ‘Us. All of us. They want to know who we are. So they can pick us out when the time comes.’ He leant into my ear and whispered, ‘You are eighteen?’

  ‘Aye,’ I said. ‘Just about.’

  ‘You can let them see you drinking, but just don’t snog anyone.’

  ‘I worn’t planning on it. You’d think they’d have summat better to do. What wi’ t’ Ripper still on t’ loose.’

  ‘Darling, the filth always have something else they should be doing, but aren’t. I’ll just say one word. Kickbacks.’

  ‘This place?’

  He nodded.

  The opening bars of ‘Hey, Big Spender’ struck up behind us. Camp David let out a groan. A drag act mounted the tiny podium stage, someone called Ben Her. Lip-syncing that wor all pouted lips out of sync, deathly eyelash fluttering and Bassey-style flailing arms. The tape wor loud and distorted as Ben Her moved on to ‘Diamonds are Forever’, lips puckered up like a sex-shop doll.

  ‘Do you like this stuff?’ I shouted at Camp David.

  ‘It’s fucking shite! It’s an insult to us all – women and gay men.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘How come? Just wait for all the red-dress-looking-like-a-used-tampon, fish or chopped-liver jokes we’ve got coming.’

  Camp David ordered a gin and tonic and a pint of lager and lime. The barman eyed me over, assessing my age perhaps, but said nowt. As my pint wor being pulled I said loudly, ‘I’m thinking of moving out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Moving out. I’m thinking of moving out of home.’

  ‘And go where?’

  Ben Her wor wowing us wi’ her ‘Goldfinger’. It wor an effort to keep my eyes from flitting stageward. The in-between patter in a Doncaster accent included one ‘In-that-red-dress-you-look-like-a-used-tampon’ line, and three jokes about vaginas resembling chopped liver. Ben Her directed his entire repertoire toward t’ group of brassy women and their gay mates strung along t’ foot of t’ podium, who wor lapping it up. Likely as not the Doncaster Ben Her fan club on an annual outing.

  Camp David wor faced doggedly away from t’ act, his elbows on t’ bar, pretending it worn’t happening. Ben Her’s lacquered lids slid over t’ audience, looking for a victim to slag off. Our eyes met for a split second, then he moved on wi’ t’ barest flicker of a smile. He must have read my alarm signals.

  ‘My Way’ came to an end like a drunk falling downstairs, followed by badly pre-recorded applause from Sunday Night at the Palladium or some such friggin’ show, thanking the wonderful Miss Shirley Bassey, then t’ noise level wor cut abruptly as the tape ran out. By now Ben Her had dismounted the podium and wor pushing through t’ crowd toward t’ ladies’ toilet, elbow gloves already removed, before yanking off his wig to reveal a thinning, mousy mop. As he passed by I noticed the hands the gloves had been hiding. Bony labourer’s hands wi’ thick, half-crooked fingers.

  The DJ tried to crank up the clapometer by rousingly asking for ‘Another round of applause for Doncaster’s very own Miss Ben Her!’

  ‘Doncaster can keep her,’ said Camp David. He swivelled round on his bar stool. ‘I’d forgotten how fucking awful this place can be.’

  ‘So why are we here?’

  ‘It’s the card we’ve been dealt. A single, low diamond. Or maybe a heart.’

  I looked down at the floor. The carpet wor sticking to t’ sole of my boot. The DJ wor playing Donna Summer’s ‘Love’s Unkind’.

  ‘I wor wondering,’ I said, leaning into Camp David’s ear, ‘if there’s a room going begging? At Radclyffe Hall?’

  Camp David’s plucked eyebrows arched.

  I lay in t’ bath, my ankles resting on t’ taps, listening to t’ tranny radio parked on t’ toilet lid. We’d stayed at the New Penny ’til Camp David said he wanted some air, which had proved to be an excuse for him to walk along t’ darkened streets near t’ railway station and make a play for me. He said that when Fazel’s room came free he’d ‘smooth it over if I saw him right’. Seemed to me that everything in this world had a price, and nowt wor got for free. He led me into a fire-exit doorway that stank of old piss.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘As good as anywhere.’

  I looked about nervously while Camp David wor caressing my unwilling crotch and trying to kiss me. The biting cold worn’t helping me none. When a dustcart came rolling by I used the disturbance to step out into t’ open. I hurried on to t’ end of t’ road, while Camp David lagged along behind. I saw my bus pulling up ahead. Camp David wor looking all flustered.

  ‘I’d really like you to move in,’ he said quickly, ‘but it isn’t just down to me. It has to be put to the house committee.’

  As the bus pulled away he waved at me like a film star on t’ aircraft steps and puckered up an air kiss.

  I stayed in t’ bath ’til t’ water turned lukewarm. Mother tapped on t’ door wanting to know if I wor all right and if she should heat up some dinner for me. I told her not to bother. I heard her clumping back downstairs.

  The news came on t’ radio and I paid little heed ’til, hearing the words ‘Sid Vicious’ and ‘found dead’, I sat bolt upright, sending a wave of bathwater over t’ rim. ‘Sid Vicious,’ the Southern twat of a newsman wor saying, ‘is believed to have died in a New York hotel room after taking a heroin overdose.’

  I collapsed back into t’ bath, sinking my head beneath t’ waterline. When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer I surged up again, gulping in air. Mother wor drumming her fists on t’ door.

  ‘Rick! What the heck are you doing in there? There’s water coming through t’ ceiling.’

  That night I made up a shrine to Sid Vicious. I placed a photo of him between my Pistols singles and sank on my knees before my shrine as I contemplated my fate.

  There wor a small tarn above t’ town which Mitch said wor frozen over. He said we should go see it. We took the dog along for exercise.

  The coldest recorded temperatures since ’63, Terry had said. Canals, ponds, even some reservoirs had frozen over. Pipes wor bursting, cisterns turning solid, paths wor icy, roads wor dicey.

  On t’ drive up neither of us had said a dickybird. Mitch had driven intently, his unshaven jawline set, straining through t’ gears as we funnelled between t’ dry-stone walls either side that blocked our view of t’ valley below. The town lay behind us.

  We came to a stop on t’ rough ground that wor t’ car park. I ruffled the dog’s head. The dog sat up, ears pricked, a breath patch forming on t’ side window.

  ‘Shush, Max,’ I said softly.

  There wor another vehicle in t’ car park, an old dark-blue van. Mitch sat there, caressing the car-key fob between his fingers.

  ‘Looks like we haven’t got it to oursens after all.’

  I peered up at the sky through t’ windshield. What kind of clouds wor they? Cumulus? Or cirrus? Terry would know, Terry wi’ his isobars and rain jars and thermometers. The dog whimpered to be let out. Mitch op
ened his door, so then I opened mine, the dog yanking hard on its leash to be let free.

  We stood in t’ crisp winter air, our breath hanging about our mouths. The snow glistened in t’ sickly yellow of t’ afternoon sun, melting now, save in those shadowed crevices beneath t’ rocks and between t’ tree roots. Soon there would be another frost.

  Mitch surveyed the terrain like a woodland tracker, stroking his chin. ‘It could be years,’ he said, ‘before she freezes over again.’

  We set out. We passed a wooden tourist-information hut that wor shuttered up ’til t’ spring. The tarn wor up ahead of us, out of view, hidden by an escarpment.

  There wor two possible routes: either we could follow the upward path ’til we came to t’ crest of t’ escarpment, from where we could look down on t’ tarn, or we could follow the path around t’ tarn shore. Up on t’ escarpment ridge the snow wor drifting like talcum powder, and the stunted trees quivered in t’ wind. The cold bit into my bones.

  Mitch said, ‘We’d be best to stick to t’ lower path.’

  I let Max off t’ leash and he scampered on ahead, nosing his way across t’ ground, lifting his leg on rocks and bushes.

  ‘Well,’ said Mitch, ‘let’s go and take a look at her.’

  The path wove between limestone rocks and bracken, then descended sharply toward t’ shore. The ground beneath our tread wor compacted and slippery, and we had to be careful of our footing.

  I picked up a stick and tossed it ahead of me. Max belted after it then brought it back in his mouth, his tongue lolling out the side. I tossed it again. And again.

  We saw it now – a dirty grey sheet through t’ skeletal birch trees. We stopped, so Max stopped too and turned his head, waiting on us.

  It wor a force of will for me to speak, my tongue ungluing itsen from t’ floor of my mouth, the skin of my chafed lips catching and tearing.

  ‘There’s summat I want to say. I’m thinking …’