by Liza Cody
It was dark when I got there, but I noticed Pierre’s people carrier in front of the house. I crept round to the back. My plan was to change clothes in the Ambo but I saw the light on in the kitchen so I went to the back door instead.
I could hear the shouting without even opening the door. Cherry was repeating, ‘Are you insane? I told you – I told you.’ And, ‘I want her gone by morning.’
Pierre was rumbling something I couldn’t make out but I heard Smister plainly: ‘It wasn’t our fault. Honest it wasn’t.’
‘I don’t care whose fault it was,’ she yelled. ‘You’ve all sunk to her level. You got to sort this out or I’ll call the… ’
‘Cherry… honey!’ It was the first time I’d ever heard Pierre raise his voice.
I knew Electra would hate the shouting, so I opened the kitchen door. I didn’t have to call or whistle. I said her name quietly and there she was, smiling, waving to me and pushing her wet nose into my hand.
‘C’mon,’ I said. ‘Let’s get away from the crazy people.’
7
Prayer Not Helping
I knew I couldn’t drive the Ambo far because there was hardly any petrol in the tank. But I didn’t think I’d have to go far. All Cherry wanted was for me to be gone from her house. So gone I would be, and Electra would be gone too – stick a spoon in that and suck it up, Miss Respectability.
The motor started at the fourth attempt and I reversed the lumbering, protesting lump of metal onto the street. Electra sat beside me on the front seat. We were alone together at last. My tear ducts started to ache. I reached out to stroke the softness of her ears. She lay down with her head on my thigh and closed her eyes. This reminded me that I was driving through the dark with no lights. But I couldn’t find the switch.
I turned onto the main road where the street lighting was better. But the traffic was worse and cars started honking at me and flashing their headlights – huge steel monsters, all wearing their hate-faces, screaming at me.
Sweat wilted my wimple. My hands gripped the wheel as if it were a life jacket. But I still couldn’t remember where the light switch was.
I saw a Texaco sign so I wrenched wheel and the Ambo lurched wildly onto the entry ramp. Where it died.
But we were alive, Electra and I. My trembling hands still clung to the steering wheel. ‘What do I do now?’ I asked her. But she just smiled sweetly and went back to sleep.
A Sikh guy in a Texaco bib and a blue turban opened the driver’s side door. ‘Can’t stop here,’ he said. ‘Blocking entrance, isn’t it?’
I couldn’t let go of the wheel.
‘Prayer not helping,’ the guy said. ‘You have to move. Turn on engine, I’m thinking, innit.’
Obediently I turned the key. ‘Worry, worry, worry,’ said the engine tiredly. It sounded as dry and thirsty as I felt. I turned the key four more times, and the engine worried four more times.
‘Now you are killing battery,’ said the Sikh. ‘Also blocking entrance to pumps.’
Behind the Ambo a queue of motors was forming. Some began shouting at me. I covered my face with my hands. The world smelled so sharply of anxiety, overheated metal and poison gas that it choked me. I got out of the cab and lifted Electra down from the passenger side. She was tired and reluctant.
The Sikh climbed into the driver’s side and worried the engine some more. ‘No gas,’ he said disgustedly. Meanwhile another half dozen cars piled up behind us – everyone hooting, everyone snarling.
‘Chaos,’ chuckled the Devil. ‘Ooh you do know what I like. Keep this up and there’ll be accidents. If we’re lucky, someone might be mangled into bloody schnitzels.’
Dazzled by headlights, deafened by the anger blaring from every horn, breathless, I turned away.
‘Oy,’ the guy said. ‘I got a spare can. Half gallon gets you to pumps. Then you fill up. Okay?’
He wasn’t a bad man or an unkind one. I’d made a mess of his forecourt and buggered his business.
I said, ‘But there’s no money left.’ I went round to the passenger side of the Ambo. In the carrier bag from the pet shop was dogfood, a bone, a rubber chicken and eighty-seven pence. I showed it to the Sikh. He blinked in disbelief.
A group of men left their cars and vans and advanced on us. The Sikh spread his hands and shrugged. He reached into the pet shop bag and brought out the eighty-seven pence which he displayed in the palm of his hand to the gathering crowd.
‘No dosh, innit,’ he said resignedly.
‘Just move this heap of crap,’ said an exceptionally helpful guy in a padded parka. The Devil applauded him silently and whispered in his ear. The man went on, ‘I don’t care if she’s Mother Theresa back from the grave. I don’t like nuns and she’s gotta get that piece of shit out of the way.’ He looked at me and the rubber chicken with such disdain that I chucked it into the back of the Ambo before he could comment further. I bowed my head so that he’d think I was praying and wouldn’t see my bruises. A guy like that would exploit any weakness.
‘Traffic cops,’ suggested a man in plasterer’s overalls. ‘They’ll be here next and I don’t want no nosey fucker checking my tax disc.’
‘Language,’ said someone else.
‘Yeah, show some respect.’
‘It’s not like she’s showing us any,’ said the nun-hater in the parka. I could smell beer on his breath and I hated him back.
I said, ‘I’m praying for peace and redemption but the vow of poverty and a bad back prevent me from taking more practical action.’
I could see the Devil urging the nun-hater to make an even more inflammatory reply when he was interrupted by a child crying loudly. The lonely, hopeless wail was one I’d heard before. It was coming from the back of the Ambo.
I thought, if I run away now nothing bad will happen. But I stood, paralysed, waiting for fate’s hatchet to fall on my unprotected neck.
The Sikh opened the back door of the Ambo.
‘Blimey O’Riley,’ said the plasterer. ‘Who we got here then?’
It was Connor Cropper. Of course it was. Who did you think it was?
Fate’s hatchet sliced through vertebrae and throat with a swish and a crunch. The Master of Nasty Surprises sneezed and sniggered, ‘I bet you didn’t see that coming. Am I ever on top of my game?’
Connor was standing next to the bunk, his mouth a gaping hole of misery. He was wearing a shapeless stripy jersey that had once belonged to me, and round his ankles was a soiled wet bath towel. He looked like a kid who’d just been hit on the head by a rubber chicken.
‘This don’t look too pretty,’ the plasterer said.
He was right. Even in a woman’s jumper Connor looked dreadful, his little legs were stick thin and mottled with bruises.
‘Wha’s happening?’ asked the Sikh, his eyes flicking from me to Connor and back.
I muttered, ‘This is what happens when Pierre and Smister get creative.’
‘Prayer still not helping.’
‘This kid’s starving,’ shouted the plasterer, making Electra cringe and Connor cry louder.
‘You read about this stuff in the papers,’ said the nun-hater. ‘Priests and nuns, see – perverts, the lot of ’em.’
Everyone looked to me for an answer. I said, ‘Electra is a rescue dog. The child is a rescue child. What you see is the Devil’s work. The Prince of Darkness provides in his own evil way. I’m praying that the Lord of Light and the kindness of strangers will provide something better.’
‘What a load of garbage,’ said the nun-hater. ‘You know what she’s doing, don’t you? She wants us to fork out our hard-earned cash just to move her off this fucking ramp.’
‘Can’t you stop the kid crying like that?’ asked a business type.
‘He’s three years-old,’ I said. ‘He’s hungry, wet, cold and alone. If you can’t cry then, when
can you cry?’
The business type reached into the Ambo to offer Connor his hand. Connor bit him and retreated to the back screaming.
‘He doesn’t understand kindness,’ someone else said.
‘His mum’s been in prison most of his life,’ I told them all. ‘There’s a lot of work to be done.’
‘No shit!’ said the business type, nursing a chewed thumb. ‘Hope the dog’s got a better nature.’
Electra replied by hopping up into the back of the Ambo and sitting down between Connor and the rest of us. She kept well out of range of his teeth. He stopped screaming, stuffed his fist into his mouth and emitted strangled moans instead.
‘This is dreadful,’ the business type said. ‘You see this kind of thing in Romanian orphanages. But not here.’
‘Connor’s home grown – every pitiful inch of him,’ I said firmly.
‘Guys, guys,’ pleaded the Sikh, ‘think queue, think forecourt, traffic cops, many et ceteras.’
‘Yeah,’ the plasterer agreed. ‘We gotta get her moving or we’ll be stuck here.’
‘Toldya,’ said the nun-hater. ‘Didn’t I say?’
‘Shut up and effing push!’ said the plasterer.
The Sikh got into the driver’s seat and about half a dozen men pushed. I did nothing except stand with my hands folded, head bent, like a nun in prayer. I was passive, broke and gasless, helpless against the forces of society. And yes, the nun-hater was right – I was waiting for everyone else to get me out of the mess I was in. I live on charity anyway, so I wasn’t making any extra effort – except that I’d inadvertently dressed like someone who deserved it.
They pushed the Ambo to the rear of the forecourt where it was not quite blocking the air dispenser. Then they dispersed as quickly as they could. The plasterer gave me a ten pound note. The nun-hater gave me a look that could wither spring flowers.
I screwed up my nerve and reopened the back door of the Ambo. I peeked in and Electra jumped out. Connor was sitting in his own filth strangling the squeaky chicken. His face was screwed up in an expression of murderous intent. He glanced up at me once and his features spasmed into a rictus of hatred and fear.
‘Someone else who hates nuns, eh?’ I said in what I thought was a soothing voice. Even Electra backed away. I shut the door again. The little boy was an extremely disturbing sight.
I took the ten pound note to the Texaco shop and found the Sikh in conference with a tiny octogenarian. Her white hair was tied back with a shoelace into a thin ponytail and she wore outrageously sexy gold-studded sandals on her gnarly old feet.
‘If you’re a kosher nun, I’m a ham sandwich,’ she pronounced, giving me the once-over with bleached-out eyes. ‘But there’s always a daft one – even in convents.’
‘They let me drive the van,’ I said meekly.
‘Can’t drive tonight,’ the Sikh said. ‘Battery buggered.’
‘But them tossers left you in charge of a baby?’
‘It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.’
‘This good lady is Mrs Dora… ’
‘My son started sniffing around his granddaughter. But we soon put a stop to all that nonsense, didn’t we?’
‘Oh my, yes,’ the Sikh said with great respect. ‘Double-quick.’
‘So what do you know about babies?’ Mrs Dora fixed her foggy gaze on me, ‘Got any yourself? Well you wouldn’t, would you? Why, on god’s flat earth, do they put you people in charge of children?’
‘I only drive the van.’
‘Shouldn’t be doing that, even at all,’ the Sikh said.
‘So where is the poor little mite then?’
The poor mite was tearing the head off a rubber chicken with his pointy little teeth. The chicken was squeaking feebly.
‘He don’t half stink,’ said Mrs Dora. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Connor.’
‘Oy stinky,’ she said. ‘Look at me when I’m talking to you. Are you hungry or what?’
Connor looked at her and started screaming.
I closed the van door. A few seconds later the screaming stopped and the feeble squeaking began again.
‘He’s feral,’ Mrs Dora decided.
‘He’s Satan’s child,’ I said, because I’d seen that look before.
‘Well they’re all Satan’s spawn, ain’t they?’ Mrs Dora said comfortably. ‘Nothing new there. You got to spend the night here with the little horror. What you going to do?’
All I could think of was to drag him and the mutilated chicken back to Cherry’s house and dump him on Smister and Pierre. This was their fault, their crazy game, their mess. Let them clean it up. Let Miss Perfect help them out – she was never wrong or made any mistakes. She’d soon remake this catastrophic world in her own self-righteous image.
I must’ve looked as helpless as I felt because the Sikh said, ‘Prayer still not helping.’
Mrs Dora plucked the crumpled ten pound note out of my hand. ‘I’m calling for backup,’ she said, ‘but it’ll cost you ten quid an hour.’ Out of a huge tartan bag she pulled the highest of high-tech phones. She opened it and yelled, ‘Get your arses down ’ere as soon as. We’re on the frigging clock.’ She slipped and toddled her way back to the warmth of the Texaco shop to finish bellowing out her orders.
I followed behind more slowly. Now that I no longer had ten pounds I found I wasn’t welcome in the shop. Instead I sat down outside next to the wilting bunches of flowers and the newspaper vending machines. I was tired and queasy because I’d had nothing to eat or drink all day. Electra was tired too. She lay across my lap sheltered from the cold wind by my long black robe. As usual, she said nothing, but I could see she was hungry.
‘Freedom, day three?’ I asked her. I couldn’t remember. It seemed weeks ago that I’d walked out of chokey with nothing on my mind but hugging Electra and celebrating with a swig of red. Since then I’d been fed cocktails of mind-corrupting toxins and my best friend was taken from me. I can’t blame Electra – she’s a dog and it’s in her lovely nature to do what she’s told if she wants food and shelter – same as me, really. Except my nature isn’t half as lovely. Nor is Smister’s – he clings weakly, like bindweed, to whoever he thinks will support him with a spare room and access to a well-lit bathroom mirror. That’s why he got to know me all that time ago – he thought I had cash.
I thought Pierre was different. He was the illusionist who made people believe that a nineteen-stone motor-mechanic could be a petite diva. He’d seemed so strong in his position outside the norm. He’d seemed to have infinite care and compassion to spend on others who were persecuted by normality. But no. Wrong again. When it comes to the girlfriend, Perfect Miss Cherry with her icy little eyes, he’s just like any other bloke led panting along her chosen path with his dick in his hand. He’ll betray anyone and anything for a fuck. And that, so I’ve found, is the norm.
These were my friends. They dumped me with a feral child in an ex-ambulance with a bollixed battery and no fuel. I hope you’ve got better friends than mine.
I played with the gimcrack crucifix the guys had slung round my neck that day and discovered that the tiny Jesus hanging from the cross was sporting a woody. That must’ve been Smister and Pierre’s idea of a joke but no one had told me. Or more probably it was the work of the Prince of Cruel Jokes. Who else would dress me in the clothes of chastity then sling a pornographic crucifix round my neck? After all, he put my life in the hands of Pierre who was the obedient servant to his own needy greedy dick, Smister who was trying to get rid of his in favour of a needy greedy pussy and Cherry Ice who could pull their strings by dispensing or denying sex and shelter.
I too am Lord Satan’s creature because of sex. I am in this ridiculous position, sitting next to the guilty-conscience carnations, wearing a joke Jesus, because I craved love and the caressing, torturing hand of the Devil. I gave
him my love, my sex, my soul. He asked for my money, my house, my reputation and my expertise with customer accounts. I handed them to him on a plate. He took my freedom and after that he took my mind and played pinball with it.
There’s an empty, unfillable pit where my heart used to be that aches like a rotting tooth. Or it would do if the Devil hadn’t played dice with my teeth as well.
Electra raised her beautiful slender head and looked at me with warm golden eyes. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and then there was you. But we don’t talk any more, do we? – thanks to Antabuse.’ I laid my hand on her skull and ran my thumb gently between those angel eyes.
A woman said, ‘That’s what I like to see – a nun blessing a dog.’ She was on her way into the shop to pay for a tankful of gas.
‘Maybe it should be the other way round,’ I said.
She stopped and stared at me in surprise. ‘I didn’t think you lot believed dogs have souls.’
‘If god made a creature he gave it a soul,’ I said firmly. Of course I don’t believe god made anything at all. Creation was a blind cosmic accident that the Devil has fun with. ‘But mainstream theology isn’t my thing,’ I added apologetically.
‘Are you a Franciscan? Are you collecting for something?’
‘She’s hungry.’ I stroked Electra. ‘And in the shop there are people who’re trying to help with, er, the van – only they’re charging ten pounds an hour so now I’m flat broke.’ I ignored the question about Franciscans because all I knew about St Francis was that he talked to the animals. Just like me. She didn’t notice. She was a tall, rangy woman who looked as if she didn’t faff around. She immediately reached in her pocket.
‘No – if I go in there with money, they’ll take it for the van. But bless you all the same.’
‘If you want to feed a dog, buy dogfood,’ she said and marched away.
‘Sorry,’ I said to Electra. ‘There’s food in the Ambo but I’m scared of Connor.’
She snuggled closer in a way that said, ‘So am I,’ but she was still hungry.