by Nicky Black
‘Want me to look him up on the computer?’ Murphy’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
‘No need,’ said Peach. ‘It’s all up here,’ he tapped his temple.
‘Fair dos,' said Murphy. 'Oh, here you go.’ He leant down to the floor beneath the chair. ‘I got you a sarnie.’ He threw a white paper bag spotted with grease onto the desk. ‘Cheese savoury stottie,’ he said, prodding the bag with a proud finger.
‘I don’t like cheese,’ mumbled Peach.
Murphy grimaced. ‘Eh? Who doesn’t like fookin' cheese?’
‘Me,’ said Peach. ‘And swearing is a sign of limited vocabulary.’ It was a saying of Kathleen’s and it was out before he’d even realised. He cringed at the pomposity of it. ‘You can go,’ he added, and he was sure he heard the words “grumpy old bastard” as Murphy closed the door behind him.
***
With Murphy gone, Peach sat back in his chair and cast his mind back five years. Billy Logan had been mowed down in one of the most botched assassinations he’d ever investigated. It had taken six shots to kill him – two bullets missed, hitting the man’s front door frame, the third and fourth catching Billy’s shoulder and arm. Reggie Collins had had to walk right up to Logan to finish him off. But even then, Reggie’s hand shook so much the next one hit his victim in the stomach – not fatal. The last shot, the final bullet, went straight into the chest, but still Billy wouldn’t die, not for a long five minutes. The older boy, Trevor, and the toddler, Carl, had stood at the window and watched their father plead for his life, the mother out at bingo with her hoard of sisters. She’d come home to a river of blood that would see her on her knees with a scrubbing brush for weeks.
Peach had found Reggie Collins on his front door step within the hour, just three doors down from the Logans’, bleating like an infant, begging the forgiveness of all the saints in Heaven. The gun was in the dustbin buried in ash but still bearing his fingerprints. Not a single witness from Valley Park came forward, but still, Peach had secured the guilty plea after very little negotiation, Reggie compliant and dazed. Collins’ wife and teenage son had borne the brunt of the older Logan boy’s anger for months after: shit through the letter box, the dustbins set on fire, broken windows, graffiti. Death threats. Everything short of firebombing the house itself and he’d tried that once or twice. Trevor Logan was a serial pain in the arse and had done about as much time as Reggie by the time he was sixteen, invariably back inside within days of his release. Trevor had just finished a two year stretch for nicking motorbikes, removing the engines, and dumping the carcases in the Tyne, all in the name of funding an insatiable drug and alcohol habit that would probably see him dead by the time he was twenty. Jean Collins, Reggie’s wife, had killed herself in the end, he’d heard. Forty sleeping tablets prescribed that morning by the doctor. The reason for Reggie’s crime remained a mystery. Some said it was a crime of passion, most shrugged their shoulders and got on with their lives.
Peach tried to remember Tommy’s face. The boy had been there that day, a scrawny teenager standing on the doorstep as Peach led Reggie away in handcuffs, the mother on her knees in the hallway behind her son. Tommy had looked hard-faced, if he remembered, malnourished like the rest of them.
Tommy Collins. The name suddenly brought his blood to boiling point.
Criminals breeding criminals. Murderers breeding murderers. It was all par for the course in places like Valley Park.
DENISE
Denise Morris couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. An investment, he was saying: three hundred, maybe four-hundred per cent return. For someone.
Once the subtext of Tommy’s inane chatter had sunk in, she began to enjoy herself; watching his eager little face, all animated as he explained the size of the event, the colours, the stage, what would go where, who would do what. She listened, she played along, nodding her head as if interested in a damn thing the useless pile of shite was saying.
‘Easy money. For someone,’ Tommy said. ‘Just needs an investor with a few grand going spare.’
The arrogance of it.
Denise glanced now and then at her daughter who avoided her eyes, little flushes of red creeping up her neck. Denise was embarrassed for her. The clip on him: the T-shirt washed to within an inch of its life, the jeans torn at the knees, the socks … She turned her face sideways, feeling a bit sick at the toe sticking through the hole.
And this house. Oh, she hated it. So dull, so dreary. She rued the day she ever took Sam to that caravan at Sandy Bay. At sixteen, her daughter still carried the puppy fat of her childhood and had the gorgeous, smooth round cheeks of a babe in arms. She’d kept Sam close to her, her hourglass figure starting to attract the attention of boys and a few grown men who should have known better. She’d had friends with daughters of the same age, off the rails and barking at their mothers as if they were the Devil incarnate. Hitting them, some of the little bitches, slapping their mothers’ faces and calling them sluts. Sam was different: lively without the need to dominate, loving without the need for profit, and gentle. Gentle as a lamb. They’d been as close as mother and daughter could be.
Best friends.
This piece of work had changed all that. She’d thought Tommy harmless when she first saw him; like the runt of the litter, he wouldn’t last long and not many would want him. But she’d been wrong. Sam had spent one minute in the glow of those sad blue eyes and she was a goner. Him too. Smitten. And from Valley Park to boot, as if it couldn’t get any worse. What were the chances? The lovebirds had something in common instantly – the hell on Earth she’d escaped at seventeen years old.
But then Tommy Collins happened, and she was back. She wouldn’t leave her only child alone in this place, even if it had meant being nearer her little brother – the brother who shunned her, the brother she missed so much it hurt.
She was happy for Sam to believe she was the one who had turned her back, walked away from the violence. It had gained her Sam’s respect; her daughter thought her strong and resilient. But there was no truth in it, and when Sam fell in love, what little strength and resilience she had was replaced with an icy fear that she would lose her only child to this lazy lump of lard.
But it was worse than that. Turned out her daughter’s new love had nothing, not a qualification to his name, not a chance of a real job, no future whatsoever. Three years on, he still had nothing, and her nineteen-year-old child was turning into a dowdy housewife in front of her very eyes. He had a fiddle job like everyone else of his calibre; a quid an hour, cash in hand, a fiver a week, if that. She’d wanted so much more for her daughter, wanted her to live a life of comfort, to strive for the life Denise never had as a young woman, and yet here Sam was, married too young, a single parent in the making; history repeating itself. Her daughter’s general demeanour, however, was one of happiness which confused her. It didn’t make sense. Denise had never been happy poor. Poverty was nothing to laugh about. It brought you down, it ate away at your dignity.
Give her time, Denise had thought; give her time and she’d see Tommy for what he really was: a waste of space. But she hadn’t. Not yet.
He’d finished prattling now, leaning forward in the chair, waiting for her to tell him what a fine businessman he was and how lucky they all were to have such a clever man among them. Sam, too, had expectation in her eyes.
‘Well,’ Denise said, reaching for her handbag. She sensed Tommy stiffen, felt his hopeful eyes meet Sam’s as he imagined his mother-in-law’s fingers clasping the cheque book and asking him how much he needed. Instead, she pulled out a vanity mirror and a lipstick which she applied carefully, wiping the stray red away with her little finger. She snapped the mirror closed and rubbed her lips together. What Sam and Tommy didn’t know was that she couldn’t give it to him even if she wanted to. She had no money in the bank, not a penny to her name. Cash was so last decade. Credit was the way forward, and it was so easy to come by. ‘Sounds like a no-brainer,’ she said. ‘For someone.’
She smirked a little as she dropped the lipstick and mirror back into her bag, clicking it shut and sitting back onto the sofa. ‘Any tea going?’ she asked.
Sam’s eyes were closed, and Tommy’s face was turning a satisfying shade of pink.
‘I’ll make it then, shall I?’
Denise rose from the sofa and headed for the kitchen. By the time she came back, Tommy was standing at the small, round dining table in the corner of the living room. He was touching the new baby clothes Denise should have put out of sight, knowing how much it pained him when she indulged in Ashleigh. She might not want to invest in Tommy’s stupid parties, but the baby didn’t have to go around looking like something out of a Catherine Cookson novel. She’d put the clothes on top of a great pile of letters, unpaid bills, and the Visiting Order that Sam still requested every month on Tommy’s behalf. Not that he’d ever been to see his murdering father; one small thing she could give him credit for.
‘What’s this?’ Tommy asked.
‘Little tights with diamonds on.’ Sam was walking on egg shells, Denise could tell.
‘Aren’t they cute?’ Denise smiled at Tommy. ‘We got some lovely stuff, yesterday, didn’t we, love?’
Sam’s smile was weak, a mixture of gratitude and worry. She’d tried to stop Denise buying the clothes – ‘maybe just something little,’ she’d said, but Denise had hushed her, asked her why she wasn’t allowed to buy her grandchild nice things. Sam didn’t have an answer, and the basket had filled up. Denise knew it would rile Tommy, make him feel inadequate. But he was inadequate, and someone needed to make that clear.
Tommy’s fingers were rifling through the shopping, labels still displaying their unaffordable prices. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any food in the house?’ he said.
Sam flushed red. ‘There’s enough ’till we get your giro tomorrow.’
‘Well, first things first, eh?’ He dropped the clothes onto the table as Ashleigh stirred in her buggy, letting out a feeble whimper. Tommy walked past the buggy towards the living room door.
‘Where you going now?’ asked Sam.
‘I’m knackered.’
‘You’re always bloody knackered. I’m knackered!’ She was on her feet.
‘It’s all the excitement you get spending your mother’s money.’ Tommy was walking out into the hallway.
‘The only excitement I get is when the washing basket’s empty! What is your problem?’ Sam shouted after him.
‘I’m married to you, that’s my problem!’ he called from the top of the stairs.
The bedroom door slammed, and Denise lifted Ashleigh from her buggy as the room fell silent. ‘There is something the matter with him,’ she said.
Sam threw herself onto the sofa, her eyes filling up, and Denise sat next to her, rubbed her hand up and down her daughter’s arm while Ashleigh wriggled for her mam. She thought she felt Sam flinch, which only made her grab her arm tighter.
‘I just want you to be happy, love,’ she said.
‘I am happy,’ said Sam, pulling her arm free and taking the baby. But she wasn’t. How could she be?
Denise looked around the room, void of colour, unlike her own house which shone with pinks and purples, reds and yellows. Colour was life. This house still stank of death, the furniture dating back to the sixties, the walls bare of décor or pictures aside from a framed photograph of Tommy’s grandfather. It hung over the fireplace, yellow and shabby. She had to admit, it had a certain charm, him standing stiffly in his RAF uniform in the shadow of an aircraft hangar, chest proudly thrust out towards the camera. But it was so old, so bland, so passe.
She turned to Sam who was wiping at her eyes. She should offer comfort, tell her daughter everything would be all right. But Sam would never have the life she deserved if she thought it would all work out in the end, which, inevitably, it wouldn’t. ‘Why don’t you come home, love? Your room’s still there,’ she said instead.
‘Mam…’ Sam growled, but she didn’t finish the sentence, and Denise wondered if it was through pride, loyalty, or fear that her own pink bedroom was exactly what she wanted. Either way, the rejection smarted.
‘Well, I’ve got to go, love. You know where I am.’ Denise sighed, glancing at the window. The sun was getting low in the sky, and she needed to get herself ready for her visitor.
At last, her brother was yielding. They’d met twice already at Mark Tony’s in town, the conversation stilted and cautious at first. The telephone call had come out of the blue, his voice – so very familiar – bringing a lump to her throat and a shudder to her spine. As they’d sipped at their frothy coffee, she’d wanted to ask so many questions but didn’t know where to start. On their second meeting he’d been more at ease, and he did the asking; question after question about her life, her home, her work at the building society. She’d gushed her replies, the words cascading in the torrent of a waterfall, just happy to be near him again, to be in his company. Perhaps he would learn to forgive her now if he got to know her again.
Denise kissed Ashleigh on the cheek and picked up her bag, heading into the dreary hallway and opening the front door, leaving her daughter to her useless husband and her house that smelt of death.
TOMMY
Upstairs, a veil of failure was enveloping Tommy. It happened more often these days – anything from a busted tap to the coin-operated meter running out and not a fifty-pence to his name. Other people providing for his child.
It came down like an avalanche, but he hid it most of the time, taking to his bedroom or his friends, not wanting to hurt Sam with his disappointment in life. She would take it personally, think she was the problem. She didn’t understand his need to branch out into the world, or at least beyond the confines of Valley Park. He wanted to do something; he wanted to be someone. But he’d messed up, missed his chance, didn’t finish school. Twenty-one years old and a has-been before he’d even got there.
He should be grateful after all. He had Sam; he had Ashleigh. He had Jed and Jed’s family who were like his second home. He even had Frankie, but he knew it wasn’t enough. Something in him was busting to be free; to be successful. He thought he’d found it, the recognition he craved – that feeling in his chest that bordered on pain but made him fly. Over the last six months, once a week on a Saturday night, he was truly happy. But it appeared Peach had other ideas.
Tommy was lying on his stomach, flopped over the side of the bed. He reached out, pressing play on the beat box under the window. He hung there for a while as the rhythm of his thoughts began to synchronise with the beat. It baffled him how others didn’t understand it – the vibe, the music, how it spoke to him in a voice of its own, how all the best sensations in the world could be wrapped up into one spectacular feeling on one night, shared by hundreds, thousands of others. Like a new religion, it was the closest he’d ever come to divinity. One hundred and twenty beats per minute of pure love.
His arms reached under the bed and he slid out a dusty, black art folder. He opened it and pulled out some posters, fanning them out on the threadbare carpet. He touched them: ‘Class of 85’ – a soul all-nighter – their first gig and his first printed design. He smelt it, remembering the hours he’d spent on it, time and food forgotten. There were others: mod revivals, raves, even discos at the youth centre.
Noticing something poking out from the back of the portfolio, he eased out a sketchbook with his fingers. He’d forgotten it was there and touching it took him back to a school he’d barely attended towards the end. A few scribbled designs of aliens occupied the first few pages. Flicking through it, his eyes fell on a charcoal drawing: a striking UFO scene – not the usual flying saucer crap – a fearsome dome, shards of white light carving a tripod into the twilight. The dark sky protested, grumbling clouds churning out their alien intruders. His teacher had applauded that sky – literally clapped her hands and held it up to the class.
Space Generation.
He imagined the words lit up in purple neon, forming an arch at the
entrance to a spectacle that would draw in fans of the movement from across the whole of the north. But it was pie in the sky, and he pouted gloomily as he reached under the bed again, straining his eyes. He spotted the little white box in a mound of fluff next to the skirting board, and he stretched further, easing it out with his fingertips.
Sitting up on the bed, he blew the dust from it and opened it carefully. A set of charcoal pencils lay inside, deserted and unused. On the inside of the lid was a message:
Dead proud of you, son, Mam xx
Son. Such a simple word, so full of affection. But he knew there was another son, the one she’d given up, and he knew she was proud of him too. She’d rarely mentioned him; only now and then from her weeping bed. The dark gloom would descend and take her upstairs for days or weeks at a time. He’d hated it, but now and then, at least he would get a snippet of information about his big brother.
‘Such a beautiful boy,’ she’d cried once, clutching Tommy’s hand. ‘Such a lovely family that took him. I think he’s going to be someone very special, someone amazing.’ She’d been so young, she said, and if she’d known Tommy’s father was just around the corner, she’d have kept him.
‘That’s enough, Jean,’ his father’s voice had come from the doorway, and ten-year-old Tommy had been led out of the room.
It had sent his mind into dreamy overdrive, and ever since, when he thought of his brother, he imagined an intrepid explorer, a scientific genius, or an astronaut – that was his favourite. The first time he’d mentioned the astronaut to Jed, Jed had sulked for weeks, so he’d never mentioned him again. Jed’s mother, Jean’s best friend, had ignored any hints he dropped over the years – all it did was make her clatter crockery around as if it angered her, and Betty Foster angry was such a rare occurrence he didn’t want to feel the responsibility.