Well I don’t mind admitting I headed off into the woods and cooked myself up a champion tea that night. I didn’t hear nowt of it for a couple of days and tell the truth it weren’t nowt to be lingering on my mind any road. Then my old man comes in from work one day too sharp for things to be just so. He plants himself in the middle of the kitchen floor and bawls up a right racket about me being the runt who’s just cost him his job at the animal feeds. Turns out old Burgess had skegged me reeling in them rainbows and figured there’d be no better way of putting me straight than by dumping the old man out of the only job he’s ever had.
The old man never carried enough of a punch to give me no trouble and he knew it, though he fair packed a weight with his gob when he wanted to. He stands there and tells me he never thought he’d see the day when a lad of his was brought up big and soft as a barm dumpling and clever as a clog nail to match. Far as I’m concerned that deserved a fair welly but what with what’s gone on I had to admit I might be in the wrong. So instead of braying him I turned my back and lugged myself right on round to old Roy Barnes’s flophouse and the truth is the old man and me never swapped another word, though it didn’t stop them taunts of his sticking round long past the day they put him six foot under.
I’m no mind doctor so I can’t say for certain if what the old man said to me had anything to do with what happened up the lane that day with Mitzi Barker. The good Lord knows I’ve had enough dark times to try to figure out why it happened but I still can’t say for certain. All I recall is how I’d felt fair gradely when I set out with my rod and my bait box slung over my shoulder and holding that Mitzi Barker’s arm. Them people might have been saying I wasn’t amounting to nowt but times like that it felt like a mighty fine deal to me. I had my vest off so as to show off the extra brawn I got from turning all them vegetables in old Roy Barnes’ allotment and by the way she kept skegging over I reckon it got Mitzi Barker’s attention all right. Only I look back now and I see that damn old sun smiling out of the sky like it knew pretty soon it was going to have one less thickhead to have to worry about shining down upon.
We were way up in a wheat field where the land levelled out and Mitzi Barker was riding me slow and purposeful like she was bossing an old Combine up and down not to miss a strip. I was reckoning on telling her we should maybe make a go of things but when I opened my eyes I saw she was flitting a bluebottle away from her face and not looking down on me in a way I would have hoped, specially with all my working at it. There and then it crossed my mind about all other boys she took up here, and how it might be nowt more than a chore for a slap-up dinner of cooked rainbows, and the thought chilled me up real bad despite the heat.
Well, I clawed her back-end real tight till she started to make that sometime squealing noise, and I reckoned pretty much I’d made the moment pass. After we’d finished and hooked the rainbows I slapped them against her knees awhile till the blood-grease trickled down in her ankle socks. Then we headed down toward the dip and I could tell by the way she was coming over about as bothersome as a horse-fly that it was the dinner she was wanting all right and not so much me.
Came over me to think up new ways of getting her to earn her supper. Now I don’t want it coming over like I was some kind of odd-job, because I hadn’t done half of what other boys my age had got up to with Mitzi Barker or at least told of so. Fact was there wasn’t nowt of mine had gone up Mitzi Barker’s back-end more than a couple of fingers, nowt in her gob neither but my tongue. If Terrence Thorsby was still around now he’d vouch for how I would no more than skim through his books of dirty drawings on account of some of them peculiar predilections. That sort of stuff was not for me all right and I was no way intending to change that with Mitzi Barker or no-one else who’d have me for that matter any time soon.
So we got to the dip and the sun was still skegging up over the fields and I didn’t reckon nowt to it at the time. I was more for fretting about why there was an old Landrover parked up on the ridge. It was way up past where the road had gone to muck and there was no-one bar the trout farm lot had any business in being up this far. Thinking they might have seen me nabbing some of them fish earlier I lobbed that bait box in a patch of nettles and I had to keep hold of Mitzi Barker’s arm hard enough till it welted up just to stop her jumping right in there after it. Times like that I sure was glad she was dumb all right.
Well, there was no-one about and I was all for carrying right on back to that flophouse and making the best of things when curiosity overtook me and I was scrambling up that ridge on my hands and knees for a quick squint.
Mitzi Barker stayed down on the track eyeing up that patch of nettles and it was just as well because what I saw was no sight for a girl of her age, not even one who gave it up as regular as her.
Other side of the ridge there was a lad and a lass giving it up more happy than me and Mitzi Barker had ever done. They were moaning and panting so much it minded me of them nights in lambing season in the Thackerays’ barn. It didn’t do nowt for me did the sight. I seen enough privates in my time to get by without making room for more. Course, it was still a mighty fine sight on account of its unexpectedness and I lay there in the bracken wondering how to make the most of it. In the end I burrowed back down the ridge and brought Mitzi Barker up to have a skeg and she even fetched a quick smile so I reckoned I must have been doing something right.
There was no signs of letting up down below, in fact all the signs was of things getting more frisky, and just as I was about getting fed up something came into my mind that I wish never had.
I was back up that bank quick as an adder and I made it all the way to the back of the Landrover while they were still full involved in their business. Mitzi Barker was just lain there watching me with them big eyes of hers and I was getting them fanciful notions in my head again of her becoming mine for keeps.
Before I’d proper thought things through I was rutting up against the back of that Landrover so hard it was all for branding my backside. Well there was a fair look on Mitzi Barker’s face when I humped that wagon up a good few inches till my arms were burning sharp as the hot metal in my back. Just as I was thinking I had a right to expect her to be well impressed, I saw her gob changed to hanging open like she’d been fish-hooked, and bugger me if that Landrover didn’t start rolling slow enough right off that ridge edge.
It wasn’t till I popped my head down in the bracken and made to skedaddle that I heard the roaring. I’ve heard some roaring in my time but nowt like what was rising up out of that dip that day with the sun looking on. I took a sly skeg over at where the Landrover was rested and I saw the lad and the lass fair croodled up in blood underneath. The lad may have been fairly much obvious a goner right away but the lass was whimpering real soft like and surely not conked quite yet. Came to me it might be easier for all concerned if she was. Then I looked up and saw Mitzi Barker standing on the ridge top black-shaped against the sun and gawping down on me flayed as a lamped-up jack-rabbit. Then she bolted and there didn’t seem no chance of a lump like me ever catching her up but I left them lovers under the Landrover, her still whimpering and all, and it came to me to give it my best shot to get right after her.
Funny, but it’s not the sight of that lass that bothers me most when I’m sending that day back and forth through my stupid old head. The thing that makes me most frantic is what I might’ve done if I’d run fast enough to cop hold of Mitzi Barker one more time up the lane that day. Chances are I’d have wrung her neck quick as one of
old Robinson’s scrawny-arsed chickens and dumped her under that Landrover with them other two. Don’t I just know it and don’t I reckon the sun knows it too.
Well, I spent them next days or weeks fair sweating out my fear. Turns out them Landrover pair had no business being up that lane which was as I suspected. They were the talk of the whole damn village and there were a fair few reckoned they just about got what they deserved for larking about like that.
The lass, she got o
ut alive after a good few hours and wouldn’t you just know it, it was the lad of Burgess passing by who plucked her out. Still, turns out it was just as well far as I’m concerned as she recounted how the thing reared up like an unbroke colt and came down on them all of its own accord. Fair ended any suspicions there might have been over the cause of things, though it still don’t make it no easier when I pass her in the street some days and she’s stuck to the seat of that contraption of hers with her bones skew-iff as the teeth of a rusted old thresher.
As for Mitzi Barker, I never did see her again after that night, not to speak to any road. She was always crossing over or looking away and I couldn’t make no show of chasing her. And she sure as heck never went up that lane again, not with me nor any of them other boys far as I’m aware.
As time went by I long since stopped bothering myself with wringing her neck. All that nagged me was telling her so long as she promised not to say nowt about what she saw, we could still get along right as rain. Could feed her as many rainbows as she wanted and maybe plan for that future somehow, just me and her in that old flophouse of mine. Course, she wouldn't be inclined to say nowt back. But far as I’m concerned that would do just fine, just so long as that damn sun let up long enough for us to see things through.
* * * *
Revelations
Debbie Bullock’s mum was as horny as hell till the day she saw a vision of the Virgin Mary scouting up at her from the bottom of a fish and chip tray. Call it divine intervention, whatever. That was the day the shit really started to hit the fan.
We were sat on the end of the prom. Salt was shaking in off the waves. We were feeding up before we headed back to the Travelodge for more. Under her knee-length coat she wore panties the colour of ketchup. She had stilettos to match. She kept them on the whole time.
The trays were warming our knees. She finished her chips and blinked down. Then she blinked down again. Her lips shone out in an O shape. She said, ‘holy…’ Then she said, ‘Jesus..’ I leaned in. The batter crumbs made a perfect outline. She said, ‘it’s a miracle.’ She said, ‘you see it, don’t you?’ I saw it all right. The way it greased out of that tray, I just knew it was going to be trouble.
Me and Debbie had been off and on till the day she went and got herself fish-fingered by a lad from the fleet. We’d known each other since first form. We were the golden couple. She looked hot, with banged-up blonde hair and a strain-out chest before the others wore bras. She stalked round school like she owned the place. We spent nights in the long-stay static with the broken latch. Then I screwed her best friend and things cooled right off. While she was camped up in the same long-stay static with twin sprats swimming round in her belly, I took Marnie Sleightholme down Back South Lane. We spun on mud and went side-on into a tree. They cut Marnie out and took her right arm off with it. It was kind of a hard thing to hide.
News of Debbie’s seaside dallies eased the guilt trip a little. Debbie’s dad slung his shotgun over his shoulder and headed straight off to town to try to hunt him down. There was more chance of Captain Birdseye washing up with the high tide than there was of him hauling in the lad in question. Debbie’s dad came back three days later with bloodshot eyes and a skin rash. Debbie’s mum near-drowned herself in gin for a couple of weeks then she buffed her hair bright and headed off down the gym to get her beauty back. When she showed up at my door soon after, she shone health and fitness. She said, ‘you must be hurting, babes.’ I invited her in. We sat on the couch. She slid her hand on my thigh just like the milf-movies. Next thing I knew, that gym-honed arse of hers was bobbing up and down on me like a pair of tight life-buoys in a swell.
After that time, Debbie’s mum fish-hooked me in every chance she got. She’d pick me up straight from school, hiss in my ear that she was naked underneath. She’d claw at my clothes, rub her nose in my class-dust. Some days she’d phone me in sick, beg me round to her place to spend the whole day in her marital bed. Once time I lamped out the back window in my boxer shorts when Debbie’s dad came home unexpected from the animal feeds. She took me shopping for new clothes to make up for it. She spent money she didn’t have on tight-fit tee-shirts and Calvin Kleins. She gazed in my eyes and said, ‘I need you.’ Our record was four times a day. After, she spoon-fed me porridge, crouched nude by the bed-side but for those stilettos. My grab-marks still twisted her tits. She told me, ‘it’ll keep your strength.’ I was seventeen. We made plans. She said she was leaving him just as soon as she got things fixed up. Said she’d get enough cash from the split-up for a place of our own in town. We window-shopped bed-spreads and televisions. I dumped my A-levels, gave up on my chance of a college place. I told my teacher, ‘I don’t need college where I’m going.’ I set my sights on a nine-to-five job on the quay. I reckoned the night-times would more than make up for the boredom.
It was our first night away when she saw the Virgin Mary greased out of chip fat. She’d thrown a bathroom bag and a bottle of gin on the back-seat, tossed in those ketchup stilettos and motored right out. She picked me up out of sight at the truck-stop. She kissed my lips and squeezed my balls. She said, ‘I need you.’ We booked in the Travelodge as mother and son. We had to squeeze the single beds together. We ordered champagne on room service. She drank it all off me, then she said, ‘I’m hungry.’ I smiled, ‘uh-huh?’ She play-slapped my cheek and told me we had all the time in the world. She wrapped her coat back over her undies and we headed out for those chips.
Debbie’s mum gripped that tray right back to the hotel like she had her hands on a chest of pirate treasure. When we reached the room she laid it down on the dresser. She sat in front and stared down, fumbling for the gin. She swigged and said, ‘I read about this.’ I waited on the bed in my boxers. I said, ‘uh-huh?’ She said, ‘tomatoes and shit.’ Then she said, ‘I haven’t set foot in a church since the day I headed up specially just to make double-sure his mother had gone in the ground. Why us, Jake?’
I said, ‘maybe He likes a challenge.’ When I looked back over her head was hung and her shoulders were shaking. I reached for her. She pulled back and said, ‘it’s a sign, Jake. I don’t know what it’s saying, but it’s a sign all right.’
She sat and blubbed her way through most of the bottle. She said, ‘it’s not right. It’s not right.’ I ordered pizza and ate hers too. I watched sport. Later, I stripped her nude but for her stilettos. She said, ‘it’s not right.’ I licked her right enough. Five minutes in, she stuck a stiletto in the bed-gap and wrenched her ankle ninety degrees. She bawled about telling me about it not being right. She screamed so high she shook the gin bottle on the side. I headed out to the McDonald’s opposite and fetched a super-sized ice-cold coke. I stuck it against her ankle and tipped it over. I rubbed in the cubes. Her ankle swelled bigger than her daughter’s belly. She said, ‘I think it’s broken.’ Then she said again, ‘I said it wasn’t right. I said it wasn’t.’
I wriggled her on her panties and blouse. Her foot was too swelled to take her jeans. I wrapped her coat around her and hopped her down the hotel lift to a taxi. He dumped us at the door of A&E. They smelled her breath and stuck us at the back of the queue. The X-ray showed up sprained. They strapped her up and gave her pills. I wheelchaired her out. She said, ‘the tray!’ I flagged a taxi and we headed back to the hotel. She wailed the whole way. The bed was made and the bins were empty. It seemed the Virgin Mary had gone out with the trash.
Well, that was the time the shit really did hit the fan. Debbie’s mum levered up and slapped me hard. She spat, ‘I told you!’ She swung out the door and lurched down the corridor. She palmed the walls. She fell on the first cleaning trolley and started tearing at the bin-bag. She pawed out food leftovers and shit paper on the carpet. A maid popped her head round the corner. She had dark skin and wide eyes. She saw the slew of mess and shouted, ‘what the hell?’ Debbie’s mum was on all fours, tossing stuff high. Her coat was open. Her blouse rode up. Early-nighters peeped out of their rooms. One of the rooms peepe
d out a whole hen-night of old girlfriends. Tammy, Lizzie, Jodie – I’d been with them all in my off-time from Debbie. Now they all posed bare-legged and strappy-topped and leered like I wouldn’t stand a chance in hell if I tried, not since I left poor Marnie with her arm hanging half off the way I did. They said, ‘Jake? Mrs Bullock?’ They’d all grown up with Debbie and they’d taken enough of her shit not to give them reason to keep it in their traps. They giggled and glued phones to their ears. Debbie’s mum burst out more tears and splayed her ketchup knickers for all to see. They said, ‘Mrs Bullock? Are you okay?’ Debbie’s mum said, ‘my Virgin. They’ve taken my Virgin.’ They hooted when security came and carried her off. She got dumped on the hotel steps and sat for half an hour spewing see-through gin-sick. She shivered and told me to stick it. Then she crawled back up the steps on all fours and stuck her fist through the hotel front window. I peeled my shirt and tied it round her wrist. The ambulance splashed blue at the front walls. They loaded her in as the hen night struck out. They clacked past the gin-sick and didn’t look back.
By the time I reached home the next day, I reckoned the whole place must be in on the story. I’d spent half the night cricking my back on an A&E chair. Debbie’s mum got kept in for some sort of psycho check. I struck out when the sun came up. When I passed village limits it seemed the whole place fell silent. I held a Kwik Save bag with her red stilettos. I’d about got past the static site when I heard Debbie calling. She leaned out of the broken-latch window and said, ‘shit, Jake – what happened?’ My tee-shirt was caked in her mum’s wrist-blood. She flung her door and helped me in. The place stank of stale fags and hung with cold. She flopped back in the couch I used to fuck her on. Cardboard stuck round the windows. She said, ‘home sweet home, huh, Jake?’ I said, ‘you don’t have to do this.’ She said, ‘it’s the way I want it.’ I crumpled opposite. She laughed, ‘look at us pair of fuck-ups.’ She struck a fag and threw me one. She nodded at the bag and said, ‘I never knew you were that way inclined.’ I tried a smile. Her hair was mud-brown and stuck-down limp, and baby-weight clung in folds from her face down. I don’t know where it came from, but I started crying. Debbie said, ‘shit Jake, it’s me who has the hormones.’ I wiped the wet from my eyes. I looked in hers and blurted out the whole of everything.
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