‘Aw, that was just talk.’ Dave was dismissive. ‘Anyway, he’ll never find you if you get far enough away.’
‘Know anyone in Australia I can stay with, do you? ’Cos that’s how far I’d need to go. And, even then, I reckon he’d find me.’
Dave shrugged. ‘I don’t know what else to suggest, mate.’
‘No point thinking about it, ’cos it ain’t going to change anything,’ Johnny said philosophically. He gave a resigned sigh and got up. ‘See you in the morning.’
‘You can’t go to bed,’ Dave protested. ‘We need to talk about this.’
‘I’ve got a headache,’ Johnny reminded him.
‘More like you just don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say, ’cos you know I’m right,’ Dave argued.
‘Right about what?’ Johnny paused in the doorway and looked back at him with a look of strained patience on his face.
‘About not needing to be married to be a dad, for starters,’ said Dave. ‘Our mams and dads never got wed, and we did all right.’
‘This is different,’ Johnny told him. ‘The Hyneses are Catholics.’
‘So?’ Dave shrugged again. ‘Anyhow, have you ever thought this might be a wind-up?’
‘What are you talking about?’ Johnny asked, resting his aching head against the door frame.
‘I saw the way Frankie looked at you this morning, and there’s no way he wants you with Ruth,’ Dave told him knowingly. ‘And I reckon he knows it’s the last thing you want, an’ all. My bet is he’s doing this to punish you. Making you squirm before he kicks you out on your arse.’
‘Hope so,’ Johnny murmured. But he knew in his heart that it wasn’t true. Ruth was pregnant, and she wanted him involved – and, good daddy that Frankie was, he was going to see to it that she got what she wanted.
3
Johnny stayed in bed for the next three days, struggling to get his head around everything that had happened. He was glad that Frankie had banned Ruth from coming round because he didn’t think he could handle seeing her just now. But he still had Dave to contend with, and his friend had been a proper pain, popping in and out every five minutes with spliffs and suggestions as to how Johnny could get out of the wedding – each of which was more implausible than the last, ranging from Johnny accidentally-with-a-little-help-from-Dave falling off the fifth-floor balcony and breaking every bone in his body so he couldn’t get to the church to him declaring that he was a secret tranny, and wondered if Frankie would mind if he and Ruth wore matching dresses on the big day.
Dave was trying to help, but he was wrong if he thought that Frankie was joking about the wedding. Frankie wouldn’t just get mad if Johnny tried to wriggle out of it, he’d get murderous – and Johnny didn’t even want to think about the pain he would suffer along the way.
It wasn’t that he disliked Ruth, or anything, because he actually thought she was quite sweet – in an overly adoring, wipe your feet on me kind of way. But if he’d been told to choose someone to spend the rest of his life with, it wouldn’t have been her in a million years. He liked girls who were up for a laugh – and didn’t need the joke to be explained word for word until it was no longer funny; girls who knew what they wanted in bed, and weren’t too shy to say it – unlike Ruth, who hid under the duvet if he so much as mentioned turning the light on. And, sex aside, it pissed him off that Ruth never wanted to go out when she came round. She just wanted to stay in his room and pretend that they were the only two people in the world. And that drove him insane, because he was a party boy. He liked getting pissed with his mates and making a total tit of himself, smoking too much shit and having mad, spaced-out sex with whichever like-minded girl happened to be around.
But those days were well and truly over. And, loath as he was to admit it, Johnny kind of understood why Frankie was forcing him to do the right thing by Ruth. He was every bit as responsible for this baby as she was, after all – more so, if he was honest, because he’d known before he set foot in that club that he would have a girl on his arm by the time he left and should have gone prepared. Ruth, on the other hand, had been a virgin, so protection had been the furthest thing from her mind. And she wasn’t to know that she would stray into Johnny the master-knicker-remover’s sights. But he’d lined her up and picked her off, so now he was going to have to face the consequences like a man.
Either that, or run. And even if he’d had anywhere to run to, which he didn’t, how could he go through life knowing that his child was out there somewhere – hating him for walking away, just like he’d hated his dad; pining for him as much as Johnny had pined for his.
By Sunday, Johnny had more or less resigned himself to the fact that he was getting married and was going to be a father. But one thing was still bugging him: whether or not to tell his mum.
He hadn’t seen her since he’d bumped into her in town five months earlier, and he’d been too pissed to have a sensible conversation at the time. He didn’t relish the thought of going round to her place now, because he hadn’t been near the flat since she’d kicked him out of his sixteenth birthday. But she was still his mum, and he did still love her, so he supposed he should tell her before someone else did.
Anyway, the kid was going to need at least one good grandma to compensate for the other one being a disgusting lush with a venomous tongue.
His mind made up, he got out of bed, had a wash and got dressed. Dave was lying on the couch with headphones on, singing along tunelessly to a Bob Marley track and sucking on a spliff. Johnny leaned over the back of the couch and tapped him on the shoulder.
Almost jumping out of his skin, Dave shot up and pulled the headphones down, leaving them dangling around his neck.
‘Fuckin’ hell, man! You scared the shit out of me,’ he squawked. ‘What’s got you up, anyhow?’ he asked now, looking Johnny up and down. ‘Did you shit the pit, or summat?’
‘I’m going to see my mum,’ Johnny told him, reaching for his jacket and slipping it on.
‘Really?’ Dave raised an eyebrow. ‘Why?’
‘To tell her about the wedding and the baby.’
Dave sucked in a breath through his teeth. ‘Good luck with that, mate.’ He took another drag on his spliff and squinted up through the smoke. ‘I take it you’ve decided to go through with it, then?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘You’re a dick,’ Dave said bluntly.
‘Maybe so,’ Johnny conceded. ‘But there’s no way out of it, so I figured I might as well stop fighting it. Anyhow, never mind cussing me, you need to start thinking about where you’re going to get your hands on a suit in the next three weeks.’
‘In your dreams.’ Dave pulled a disgusted face. ‘I don’t do suits. They make me look like the top wanker at a wanker convention.’
‘You’re not coming in jeans or trackie bottoms,’ Johnny told him firmly as he pocketed his keys. ‘The best man’s supposed to look as slick as the groom.’
‘Best man?’ Dave cocked his head to one side.
‘Who else am I gonna ask? You’re my best mate, it’s your job.’
‘Oh, wow, man, that’s ace!’ Objections seemingly forgotten, Dave grinned like a Cheshire cat. ‘I’ve never been a best man before. Shit, that means I get to organise the stag do, doesn’t it? And I get first dibs on the bridesmaids. She is having bridesmaids, isn’t she?’
‘I think she mentioned something about it,’ Johnny murmured, wondering if now might be a good time to tell him that Lisa would probably be one of them. Dave hadn’t talked about her in a while, but he’d been pretty scathing about her after they’d split so Johnny doubted he’d be overjoyed at the thought of seeing her again.
‘Get in!’ Dave punched the air. ‘Pussy on tap, and the best stag do ever!’
‘Take it easy,’ Johnny cautioned. ‘We’re skint, don’t forget.’
‘You just leave all that to me,’ Dave said confidently. ‘You’re forgetting I’m the bargain master. If it costs ten, I’ll get it for fiv
e – four-fifty at a push.’
‘Good luck,’ Johnny chuckled. As crafty as Dave was, even he couldn’t magic money out of thin air. Knowing him, the stag party would end up being a bring-your-own-drugs-and-booze bender right here at the flat. But that was cool – as long as he didn’t do something stupid, like invite Frankie.
‘I need to make a list.’ Dave dumped the headphones on the couch and jumped up. ‘All the lads will want to come, so I don’t want to miss any of ’em out.’
Johnny waved and headed out, leaving Dave rooting through the drawers in search of paper and a pen.
Johnny caught a bus to his mum’s estate in Ardwick. It was only a fifteen-minute ride from the flats, but it was so different around there that it might as well have been on the other side of the moon. Hit by a bitter-sweet pang of nostalgia when he got off outside the old Methodist church, he traced the faded outlines of the graffiti that he and his gang had spray-painted on its wood-panelled wall. His stomach lurched when he looked further along the road and spied the high green railings that surrounded his old primary school. That place had felt like a prison when he’d been a kid, and he’d been terrified of the headmaster, Mr Jacobs, with his bushy nose-hair, booming voice and sticky-out eyes. He remembered bolting out at last bell every afternoon and running home as fast as his little legs would carry him, then pleading with his mum not to send him back again. But she’d never listened. She was always too busy fretting over the latest fight she’d had with his dad.
Johnny had been invisible in his own home back then, and it got worse after his dad pissed off with his bit on the side. His mum had locked herself in her room for weeks, leaving Johnny to fend for himself. Things had improved when she’d finally come to terms with it and got herself a part-time job as a barmaid in the pub down the road. She’d started smiling again after that, and whenever she got good tips she’d treat Johnny with trips to the pictures and ice creams in the park.
But that had all stopped when Les moved in, at which point Johnny’s life had turned to shit.
His mum had been nervous about introducing him to Les, worried that he might resent a new man taking his dad’s place. But Johnny hadn’t been the one with the problem. Les had picked on him from the start, goading him about his dad abandoning him, and slapping him around for the slightest little thing – then laughing when he cried, and taking the piss because he was too small and weak to fight back. Johnny had only once made the mistake of trying to tell his mum where his bruises had really come from, but she hadn’t believed him – and Les had been twice as vicious the next time he’d got him on his own.
Johnny had kept his mouth shut after that. But the resentment had grown like a cancer, turning him from a nice polite kid into a nightmare teenager who stole anything that wasn’t nailed down, smoked and drank whatever he could get his hands on, and caused trouble wherever he went so the police were never too far from the door. All of which proved Les’s point: that Johnny was a bad seed.
The beatings had lessened as Johnny got older, bigger and angrier. But Les must have sensed that revenge was just around the corner, so on Johnny’s sixteenth birthday he made Johnny’s mum choose between them.
It still hurt that she had chosen Les, but Johnny tried not to let it get to him, reminding himself that his mum had only had one side of the story to go on – Les’s fictitious one. But now that he was actually here, back on the streets that he’d called home for most of his life, he wasn’t so sure it had been such a good idea to come. His mum had hugged him and told him that she missed him when he’d bumped into her in town that night, but Les had been nowhere in sight at the time, so she’d been free to talk without him giving her the evil eye. If he was home when Johnny got there now, he wouldn’t be too pleased. But so fucking what? Johnny wasn’t a scared kid any more, and if the cunt tried to stick his oar in he’d be the one pissing his bed in fear by the time Johnny got through with him.
The lift wasn’t working when he reached his mum’s block a few minutes later, so he climbed the stairs to the third floor. Johnny knew she was home as soon as he turned the corner onto her landing, because he could hear Northern Soul music drifting down from her end. She’d always loved her tunes, and in his mind’s eye he could still see her and her mates doing their crazy sliding dances and clumsy backdrops all over the living-room floor. But those impromptu parties of hers had been another casualty of Les’s arrival. Les didn’t like music. Or TV. Or conversation. In fact, the boring bastard would probably only be happy if he could force everyone to live in total silence – the way he’d tried to force little Johnny to do.
But that was then, and this was now, so Johnny swallowed his anger and knocked on the door. He would just tell his mum what he’d come to tell her, then get the hell out of there – and if Les didn’t like it, fuck him.
Cathy Conroy was shocked when she answered the door and saw her son standing in front of her.
‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped, quickly adding, ‘Not that it isn’t good to see you, but it’s been ages since . . .’ She trailed off and gave a sheepish, guilt-laden shrug. ‘Are you coming in? I was just about to put the kettle on.’
‘I’m not stopping,’ Johnny murmured, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
‘Les isn’t here,’ Cathy told him, sensing that might be the cause of his reluctance. ‘He went out a while ago, and I’m not sure when he’ll be back.’
Johnny gave a nonchalant shrug as if he didn’t care one way or the other, but Cathy saw right through it. Smiling, she held out her arms.
‘Oh, come here, you daft sod. Give us a hug.’
Engulfed by the familiar scents of Head and Shoulders shampoo and Charlie perfume, Johnny closed his eyes, and for one sweet moment it was just the two of them again. No girls, no babies, no weddings – and, best of all, no cuntbag Les.
When Cathy let go at last, Johnny followed her down the short hall into the kitchen and gazed around. It felt weird being in there again after all that time; like he still belonged, and yet didn’t at the same time. The stench of Les was all over it, as if the prick had cocked his leg and pissed on every surface to ward Johnny off. But so much for his big talk about turning it into a palace: it looked exactly the same as it had when Johnny had left. The clock on the wall above the cooker still wasn’t working, its hands still at the 10 to 9 position they’d been in the last time he’d seen it; and the bin lid was still hanging askew, so he could see the packets of ready-cooked chicken korma – evidence that his mum still couldn’t cook.
‘Christ, I can’t believe you’ve still got that,’ he said when he spotted the spider plant he’d given her when he was eight sitting on the windowsill, complete with a dust-covered pink rosette stuck to its side. ‘It looks like a dead weed. Why don’t you chuck it?’
Cathy glanced around to see what he was looking at and smiled. ‘No way. You won that for me in the raffle. I remember how chuffed you were when you brought it home and gave it to me.’
‘Chuffed to get rid of it, more like,’ Johnny corrected her, moving over to the tiny table that was tucked away in the corner and sitting down. ‘When I told the teacher I was giving it to you, she bunged that pink shit on the side of it and my mates took the piss all the way home.’
‘Well, I thought it was lovely,’ Cathy said, casting another fond look at it as she stirred their coffees.
She carried the cups over to the table and handed Johnny’s to him before squeezing through the gap between the radiator and the loaded washing maiden and sitting across from him.
‘So, what’s brought you round?’ she asked, sliding two cigarettes out of her pack and passing one over. ‘Were you missing me?’
‘Whatever,’ Johnny drawled as he leaned forward to take a light from her. Sitting back, he exhaled into the air above her head. ‘Actually, there’s something I need to tell you.’
A loud bang from out on the landing cut him off before he could say any more, and Cathy rolled her eyes with irritation.
‘Who, Lynne?’ Johnny gave his mother a bemused look. ‘Don’t tell me you two have fallen out? You’ve been best mates for ever.’
‘No, not Lynne.’ Cathy flapped her hand dismissively as if he’d been stupid for even thinking she’d fall out with Lynne. Then, ‘Oh, I forgot, you wouldn’t know, would you? Lynne moved out a few months back to look after her mum, and that one got her flat.’
‘That one?’
‘Maureen.’ Cathy sneered. ‘Right stuck-up ugly bitch, she is. Reckons she’s the same age as me, but there’s no way she’s still in her thirties. And she’s a flaming nuisance, as well as a liar. You just heard how hard the door banged, didn’t you? Well, that was going on at all hours after she first moved in, so I had a word – explained about how you’ve got to hold it till it shuts instead of just letting it go. She said it wasn’t her, so I collared them lads from the other side. But they swore it wasn’t them, either. But I knew it had to be one of them, so I stayed up one night – to catch them at it.’
She paused and took a deep drag on her cigarette before continuing.
‘Anyhow, it was her. Or should I say one of her fancy men. And I say men, ’cos after I saw the first one coming out of her place I started keeping an eye on her. And I swear to God she’s got a different one every night – sometimes two, one straight after the other.’
Johnny eased his cuff back and took a surreptitious peek at his watch. His mum had said she didn’t know when Les would be back, but he could walk in at any time and Johnny wanted to be long gone by then.
‘I wouldn’t mind, but she’s got a face like a bleedin’ bulldog,’ Cathy rambled on. ‘So God only knows what kind of men they are, ’cos no decent bloke would pay to sleep with a boot like that. Anyhow, I was right, ’cos Diana told me. You remember Diana, don’t you – lives round your nan’s way? Well, she popped round for a brew the other week, and she bumped into that one on the stairs and—’
Lost Angel Page 4