by Nicky Black
His fingers ran over the edges of the spaceship in the drawing. The face of the boy staring up at it looked just like him, but it wasn’t him. It was the astronaut without his helmet, the successful older brother who made Tommy strive to accomplish something - anything.
Tommy never finished the O level art exam; hadn’t finished any of them. He’d had more important things to contend with, like a father in jail, a dead mother, and an interloping grandfather who arrived with nothing but his pipe and slippers and his RAF photograph under his arm which he hung above the fireplace before taking to Jean’s chair and demanding a blanket for his legs.
Sitting up on the bed, Tommy emptied the pencils onto the sheet. This had always been his escape, and he’d neglected it for too long. As dusk crept into the bedroom, he picked out one of the pencils, turned to a fresh page of the sketch pad and started to draw.
DENISE
Paul sat stiff as a board, cradling a whisky in one of her best tumblers, the pink leather of the armchair squeaking as he lifted the glass to his mouth. The suite was only a few years old, but Denise had her eye on a new three-piece from Bainbridge’s – buy now, pay in six months. She was describing it to him, but his expression of boredom shut her down and she felt herself flush awkwardly.
‘You look well,’ was all he’d said so far, but she’d liked the compliment. She often thanked her lucky stars she’d kept the weight off, avoided the middle-aged spread most women her age suffered. She wasn’t skinny by any means, but she was no heifer either.
‘Hey, mind, ye divven’t look bad for thorty,’ a man of tender years had said to her in a bar on Friday night. She often lied to young men. And she didn’t look bad for thirty. She didn’t look bad for thirty-eight either which was her actual age.
‘Samantha all right?’ Paul asked now, his tone brightening. ‘Still with Tommy, I see.’
He hadn’t asked about Sam until now, but when he did, she felt her heart, a stone in her chest for so many years, begin to thaw. She imagined them all together, out for a meal or on holiday somewhere warm. The family – Paul, her, Sam, and Ashleigh – all together again. Tommy didn’t figure in her fantasy.
‘Oh!’ Denise shook her head. ‘Don’t get me started on Samantha.’
With no further enquiries from Paul, silence loomed, so she filled the void, recounting her chat with Tommy earlier that evening, how he had it all worked out - the figures, the return on investment from his ridiculous parties. As if Tommy Collins would amount to anything, she said. The last lot of money was confiscated by the police, he couldn’t even get that right.
Paul emptied his glass and set it down on the coffee table. ‘Confiscated?’
‘Lost the lot,’ she said. ‘I mean, would you invest in Tommy?’ Her laugh was brittle.
Paul shrugged. ‘Not my kind of thing.’
She sensed his mood darkening. It was a warning sign she recognised, the same black energy that had haunted their childhood.
‘Spends all his time with his waster mates,’ she said. ‘I swear, Sam might as well be a single parent.’
‘Maybe she loves him,’ Paul said.
The word jolted her. Coming from her brother, it sounded cold, bitter.
‘I expect she does,’ said Denise. ‘But Tommy loves his friends more, believe me. If it came down to it, he’d choose Jed Foster over Sam any day.’
‘How much did he ask for?’ Paul was looking into the empty glass on the table and she wondered if it was a sign he wanted another one. She knew she did, but she’d already had a couple for Dutch courage before he arrived. Okay, three.
‘Oh, he didn’t get that far,’ she said. ‘I told him in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t get a penny out of me.’ That uneasy silence again, putting her nerves on edge. ‘Jed bloody Foster,’ she repeated. ‘That’s his family, not Sam and the baby. I call him Wifey.’ She chuckled, a nervous thing that came out like a snort. ‘Tommy would sell his soul for that man.’
At last, she thought she saw a smile on Paul’s lips as he lifted his steady gaze to hers. Gone were the pleading, tearful eyes of his younger years, that look of sheer terror as their father beat the living shit out of their mother, the fear that the fists would come their way, the knowledge that they wouldn’t so long as they did what was asked of them. And so, they would watch, forced to sit still and witness what could happen to them if they uttered a word or moved a muscle, Paul clinging to her, terrified, his head buried into her chest. But Paul soon became desensitised, and by the time he was nine years old he was throwing himself at their father, raking his nails down the old man’s face, and he’d paid the price while she sat back and watched.
The guilt overwhelmed her at times. Paul had wanted her protection, her solidarity; she was older than him by six years, two babies kicked from her mother’s womb before they had a chance at life. But Paul had wanted to live; he’d demanded it, clung to that umbilical cord with the same heavy-duty fists that had rained down on her for years. But she’d deserved it. She should have sheltered him, but instead, she’d abandoned him. The minute Charlie Morris came into her life, she was gone; married at seventeen, pregnant at eighteen, living in the countryside with all its stenches and bitter winds, her father’s insatiable love of violence locked away in a box in her brain. Her eleven-year-old brother left to his fate.
But the violence had come back into her life when Charlie left her, and Paul turned up on her doorstep at the age of eighteen, a grown man, a cold man. Every six months he paid her a visit, as if he’d let the rage build up to the point of bursting. And she’d taken it. Just like her mother.
‘Ready for some dinner?’ she asked now. She’d cooked lasagne; she thought it quite exotic. ‘We could eat it in the garden,’ she said. ‘Mind, it’s a bit of a mess, green fingers I do not have.’ She chuckled, hoping it would rub off on him, ease his tense muscles. But Paul’s expression didn’t change. His eyes were on hers, and she guessed that he too was thinking back to their mother’s front garden, her haven for many years before she’d given up on it along with everything else.
‘I’d love a beautiful garden,’ Denise said, warmly, scrutinising her brother’s face for any expression of sorrow. But he seemed unaffected, and he drank her in, looking at her so intensely she thought he might swallow her whole.
Then, with the flash of a smile he said, ‘The garden it is.’
MONDAY
TOMMY
‘Hello, pet!’
Jed’s house was a rose among thorns, his mother, Betty, a precious ray of welcome sunshine even on the brightest of days. The tidy, well-trimmed garden, Betty’s pride and joy, was glowing with colour, the smell of baking cakes hanging in the air even at ten o’clock in the morning.
Betty Foster stood in the doorway in a long fleecy dressing gown, two curlers lodged at the fringe of dark hair that was starting to whiten at the roots. The Fosters didn’t rise so early these days, not since Jed’s father had been laid off from the Neptune Yard the year before.
Betty stood back to let Tommy in just as a long, anguished wail echoed from upstairs. ‘Having his hair washed,’ said Betty, referring to Jed’s younger brother, Barry. She shook her head stoically. ‘Just go up, flower, I don’t think he’s awake.’
Jed lay on his back, his tall frame too big for his single bed, his feet hanging over the edge by at least a foot. Jed was still dressed in yesterday’s clothes: blue 501s, black T-shirt, and a blue satin waist coat.
The room was dark, but daylight framed the curtains and Tommy could make out the walls, lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves of vinyl records, carefully catalogued A-Z by music genre and style. Three towers of shoe boxes containing the knock-off trainers balanced precariously in an alcove. On the chimney breast wall hung a cork board thick with music play lists, in the centre a photograph of Jed with his father, Davie, who wore a sweater draped over his shoulders, looking like something from a knitting pattern. Jed was about ten years old in the picture, and they smiled, fishing tackle prou
dly standing to attention by their sides. The cosy intimacy of the image had been spoiled by a single dart that hung from the centre of Davie Foster’s forehead. Jed and Davie had been at loggerheads for the best part of a year, and Jed had been practicing, hitting his target with precision.
Leaning over the bed, Tommy pulled back the curtains, making Jed groan and cover his face with his hands.
‘What time is it?’ he croaked.
‘Job o’clock,’ said Tommy.
‘Fuck off and die.’ Jed turned his face away from the light.
‘Howay, chop chop, I need me money.’ Tommy had run out of cigarettes and the cravings were starting to gnaw, aggravating his sense of disappointment. The big rave, the night club, the dream of turning them into a reality had lasted a mere jiffy. He was doomed to live the Valley Park life forever.
‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ he heard from under the pillow Jed had thrown over his head to drown out Barry’s shrieks.
Tommy trotted down the stairs and sat on the bottom step to wait.
‘Don’t sit there, hinny, come in and sit down.’
He peered through the spindles of the staircase to see Betty standing in the kitchen doorway.
‘I wish you lads would find yourselves jobs,’ Betty said as Tommy followed her into the kitchen. ‘Anything’s got to be better than having to go to that place every week.’
The Job Centre was a place Jed’s father also frequented regularly now, his tales of lazy bastards who thought the world owed them something filling Betty’s ears day and night.
‘Davie tells Jed all the time,’ she said.
Tommy knew he did. Jed’s father would phone numbers from the local paper’s job adverts on a Thursday, making appointments, telling them his son had skills in computer programming, teaching, bread-making. He knew it drove Jed to distraction.
A mint Club biscuit and a beaker of orange squash landed in front of him, awaking nostalgic memories of holidays at the Fosters’ caravan. Betty and Tommy’s mother, Jean, had been as inseparable as their sons, their husbands tolerating each other on pain of divorce, such was the bond between the two women.
‘Thanks, Mrs Foster.’ Tommy smiled up at Jed’s mother who patted him gently on the shoulder and went back to her chores.
As he sipped his weak squash, feet pounded down the stairs like a round of artillery, and Jed entered the kitchen, tucking a Beasty Boys T-shirt into his jeans, his teenage brother, Barry, close on his heels, flattening down the wet, wayward hair that had obeyed its own rules since birth.
Barry Foster had the face of an angel, his Down’s features displaying a cuteness that instilled maternal longing in women whose children had long fled the nest. They cooed over him, Barry lapping it up, the women wishing they could have a Barry in their lives forever.
Little did they know.
Barry clutched his Walkman in one hand, the fingers of the other pressing one of the earphones to his bouncing head as he chanted, ‘Aceeeiid! Aceeeiid!’
'Oh, for the love of God!' Betty cried. With a stern look at Jed, she ripped the earphones from Barry's head.
‘Nooo! I like it!’ Barry whined, fighting with Betty for the earphones.
‘If you’re going out, take him with you,’ said Betty.
Jed looked up at the ceiling and mouthed, fucking hell. ‘Right,’ he said.
Barry’s petulant pout turned to joy in an instant, a wide smile stretching across his entire face. It was a smile that never failed to cheer Tommy up.
Tommy got to his feet and punched Barry playfully on the arm. ‘Howay, Worzel Gummidge,’ he said.
***
The obnoxious orange sign of the Job Centre loomed over them as they stood outside its doors, Tommy ripping the cellophane from a packet of twenty, his eyes on the papers Jed had rolled into a baton in his hands.
‘What do you want to work at Nissan for?’ Tommy asked, twisting his face. ‘You’d be better off on a YTS.’
‘Oh aye, get treated like a twat for a tenner a week.’
Barry giggled and covered his mouth with his hands.
‘Can’t see you in a factory, like,’ said Tommy. ‘You’d have to get out of fucking bed for a start.’
‘It’s project management, actually,’ said Jed.
Tommy frowned. He didn’t know what project management was, but it sounded poncy. Besides, people like Jed didn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance at places like Nissan despite his seven O levels. They’d take one look at the postcode and chuck the application straight in the bin, throwing Jed’s dreams of independence and his own bachelor pad away with it.
‘Darren wants you for the disco,’ said Barry, skipping up to Jed’s side as they set off up the hill.
‘Not this time, kidda.’
Jed was at his best behind the decks at their all-nighters, and DJing at the youth club discos pained him. Nobody danced, nobody whistled or cheered or made him feel like God Almighty. But the youth worker had him over a barrel. Darren, every young person’s friend, had given Barry a volunteer’s job in the kitchen, serving crisps and cartons of Um Bongo to unruly youths.
Tommy glanced at Jed, who he couldn’t see losing himself in project management either, whatever the hell it was.
Lights, bouncy castles, Frankie Fucking Knuckles. Just five grand and Jed could have his night of glory.
Tommy took in a lung full of nicotine and strode on, feeling Barry’s arm go through his. He looked down to give him a smile, but Barry was staring up at him with doleful eyes, tears forming, lip trembling. He’d seen it before; Barry Foster could turn on the tears like Sue Ellen Ewing.
‘Don’t look at me,’ said Tommy, ‘I can’t DJ.’
Barry’s expression fell into a great huffy sulk. ‘Shit,’ he said.
‘Don’t say that,’ said Tommy. ‘Just grown-ups can say that, right?’
‘Right.’ Barry said. ‘No shit.’
‘Good lad.’
The dust from the roadworks stung their eyes as they headed home. A new dual carriageway was under construction, one that would cut Valley Park off from the rest of the city. At least that seemed to be the intention. The noise was so loud Tommy didn’t hear the voice that bellowed behind him until the hand was on his arm and he was spun around.
Jimmy Lyric, the MC from Saturday night’s rave, was glaring at him with the eyes of a serial killer. Peach had confiscated Jimmy’s decks; Tommy hadn’t paid him, and Jimmy was a big lad, bleached Mohican, tattooed from head to foot, even the face. Rumour had it he’d gone straight after his last stint in prison. Some said he’d been buggered one too many times, others said he was bent and enjoyed it. Either way, Tommy was too scared to ask.
‘You’ve destroyed my livelihood, pal,’ Jimmy said.
Tommy held up his hands, cigarette still burning between his fingers. ‘Jimmy, I’m sorry about your gear—’
‘You will be, coz I’ve got gigs, gigs I can’t do coz I’ve got no fucking decks.’
Tommy shrugged, looked sorry. What else could he do?
‘If they’re not on my doorstep by tomorrow night, I’ll rip you a new arsehole, got it?’
Tommy’s jaw dropped. A new arsehole was something he could do without. ‘Where am I gonna get decks from?’
‘Tomorrow,’ Jimmy said, his face just millimetres from Tommy’s.
‘Everything all right here?’
A voice came from behind Tommy’s shoulder. He froze, and Jimmy started to back off, his posture taking on a less aggressive stance before he turned and walked away with a warning stare at Tommy, who turned slowly to face DCI Peach.
‘Beautiful day,’ said Peach, squinting up at the cloudless blue sky.
Tommy’s eyes were glued like Pritt Stick to Peach’s face. It was older, a lot older, as if life had been unkind to him, the hair longer and greyer, the moustache curling over his top lip, twitching like the legs of an earwig.
He felt Jed’s hand on his arm, but his feet had grown roots. He was sixteen years old again,
his father being led down the path, his mother’s pleas over the following months to do something about Trevor Logan’s retaliation ignored.
‘No evidence,’ Peach had said. ‘Get some witnesses and I’ll see what we can do.’
He’d seemed distracted, disinterested, as if he’d grown bored with the constant moaning of a woman whose husband had committed such a terrible deed. The fear and dread of that time rushed though Tommy once more, just about knocking him sideways.
It was Peach who broke the stand-off now. He leant down to Tommy’s ear. ‘I’m watching you,’ he said.
The skin on Tommy’s neck crawled in protest, and his arms hung stiffly by his sides as he narrowed his eyes in the wake of the beige Mackintosh which fluttered in the breeze as Peach headed back down the hill. Humiliation muted him. He should have been the one to turn his back and walk away – been the bigger man, instead of standing there, immobilised like a wanker.
‘Is that …?’ Jed asked.
Tommy nodded slowly. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘And he’s got our money.’
***
‘Pleeease!’
Barry wasn’t letting up on the youth club disco and Jed’s patience was wearing thin.
Tommy grinned at Jed half-heartedly, Peach’s cold, colourless eyes still wedged in his mind. ‘It’s for the bairns, man, go on,’ he said.
‘You can shut up, an’ all,’ Jed snapped.
‘Pleeeease, Jed, it’s for the bairns!’ wailed Barry.
Jed gave Tommy a stern look that indicated he was less than impressed. ‘For Christ’s sake, I’ll think about it,’ he grumbled.
Barry whooped with glee, and he skipped ahead, but he stopped dead at his garden gate. The wail returned, genuine this time, and Tommy’s face turned to horror as they approached Jed’s house.