Crocodiles & Good Intentions

by Liza Cody

  ‘I hurt me back, lost me job and me wife left me,’ he said, when he caught me staring at the vast expanse of uncontrollable flesh in which he was trapped.

  ‘You don’t have to explain depression to me,’ I said.

  ‘I ain’t depressed, I’m effing pissed off. The Home Help’s late. Meals on Wheels missed me out. Me daughter hasn’t come with a pie. The DVD’s stuck in the whatsit and I can’t bend down to find the remote I dropped last night.’

  I picked up the remote and handed it to him. He didn’t say thank you. He turned the telly on to horse racing, called his bookie and made a bet. Without taking his eyes off the screen he said, ‘There’s four cans of chicken noodle soup downstairs. Heat ’em up and bring the whole pan up with a spoon. I ain’t dainty.’

  ‘No shit,’ I said, and made for the stairs.

  The kitchen was a revelation. It looked like a warehouse. Bulk-bought chicken noodle soup was stacked to the ceiling, as was tinned rice pudding and a mountain of Fosters lager. I took a can straight away – well, wouldn’t you? I mean a skivvy needs wages, doesn’t she?

  I opened the kitchen door and went out into the scraggy back garden. An eight-foot fence separated it from Cherry’s next door. I could flatten part of it, I thought, and steal Electra back next time she was let out for a pee. I leaned against the fence but it didn’t sag even half an inch.

  While the soup was heating up I drank my lager and searched the kitchen for something better. The guy was a fan of soft food and weak beer. Everything he needed could be opened with a ring pull. There seemed to be nothing in the house that might force him to chew or unscrew. I stole another can of Fosters.

  ‘Go away,’ he said when I gave him the saucepan full of soup. ‘I can’t stand people watching me eat. I know what you’re thinking, and it ain’t like you got no faults.’

  ‘Indeed it ain’t,’ I said, and went through to the small room at the back of the house. The window overlooked his garden. I opened it and leaned out.

  Ms Malice’s was a corner house so she had space around her and a bit of driveway where the Ambo used to be parked. Her garden was deeper and better kept than her neighbour’s. There was a shed and about ten leafless rose bushes. I should ring Big Boy’s bookie, I thought, and bet on the flowers being pink.

  I couldn’t see or hear what was going on in the house so I sat down on the single bed and leaned back against the wall letting my head droop and my eyes close.

  ‘What do you want to sleep for?’ said insomniac Satan. ‘Shouldn’t you be next door, kicking up chaos? Where’s your pride? Where’s your dog?’

  ‘Leave me be,’ I said. ‘If I don’t sleep I’ll go bozey-quat.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ he said, ‘but I don’t know that word. Is it a medical condition?’

  The guy was leaning on his walker, purple in the face from effort. He said, ‘You can make my bed while I’m in the bathroom.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘If you want to spy on next door you got to make yourself useful.’

  ‘Who said… ?’

  ‘I wasn’t born yesterday.’ He really was a dab hand with clichés.

  ‘What did your last servant die of?’ I asked, not to be outdone.

  ‘And don’t pinch any more of my beer.’ He turned his back and began inching his way towards the bathroom. ‘I may be disabled but there’s nothing wrong with my nose.’

  I straightened his vast steel-reinforced bed and turned his pillows. The 3.10 at Chepstow Races was about to start. I sat down on his sofa. It was 3.10 in the afternoon. Time had gone berserk. I no longer knew when it was I’d walked out of prison. And where was I now – in yesterday, today or tomorrow?

  I dreamed I was on a treadmill somewhere out in the country – the moors, I think. I could’ve been on a ramble, free to roam anywhere, but instead I was walking at exactly four miles per hour on the treadmill. Electra said, ‘I want to get off.’ But there was no stop button.

  The guy said, ‘That’s my chair.’ And I woke up.

  He said, ‘If you want to sleep there’s a sofa downstairs. Wash up the saucepan while you’re at it.’

  I got up and he sat down.

  I said, ‘I’ve been concussed twice today. I was hit by a bus and… ’

  ‘What’s happening outside?’ he interrupted. ‘I can hear screaming.’

  I got to the window just in time to see Fergus and Connor climb out of a black cab. Fergus was limping and his bandage was still soaked red. He held roaring Connor by the hand and was dragging him to Chilly Cherry’s front door. His girlfriend was not there.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Big Boy.

  I said, ‘I’m in your house, I’ve cooked your lunch and I’ve made your bed. What’s your name?’

  ‘Billy,’ he said. ‘What’s happening?’

  Cherry’s house was at an angle to Billy’s so I could see her front door from his bedroom window.

  I told him: ‘A guy in cycling spandex and a bloody bandage is taking a little boy to Miss Malice’s front door. He’s ringing the bell…’ I did not mention that Fergus had noticed the discarded nun’s habit on the path and was looking bewildered.

  ‘The little boy’s beside himself,’ I added unnecessarily – he could probably be heard in Paris.

  ‘What did you call her next door?’ Billy asked. He seemed as avid for news as for food.

  ‘Is she a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ he said. ‘She calls me Belly and I call her Witch-Bitch.’

  ‘Not very fair to wise women or lady dogs,’ I observed.

  ‘You a feminist or something? What’s happening now?’

  ‘Fergus is hammering on the door. He looks desperate. Connor’s biting his hand. Ooh, he’s drawn blood. That’s one feral toddler.’

  ‘Who’s Fergus? Who’s Connor?’

  ‘Oh look,’ I cried. ‘Sylvie just opened the door. They’re talking.’

  ‘Open the window. You can’t hear with the window shut.’

  So that was what he did for fun when the racing was finished. I opened the window. ‘They’re talking French,’ I told him, disappointed. I had to admit that it was a lot more fun to be safe upstairs watching than to be in Fergus’s position in the cold, being bitten.

  ‘An educated cyclist,’ I said. Fergus was engaging in a proper to-and-fro French conversation. ‘Uh-oh!’

  ‘What, what?’

  ‘He’s falling for her.’ I was far too tired to be a sensitive reader of body language, but even I could see Fergus’s attitude change from belligerent to melting. You can’t hide much in a spandex cycle suit so Sylvie probably noticed too.

  ‘Who’s Sylvie?’

  ‘An environmental activist, maybe, or maybe a singer – I’m not sure. But she’s beautiful – long auburn hair, huge amber-coloured eyes. Helpless in a fawn-like way. Surprisingly I don’t hate her.’

  ‘Well I do,’ Billy said with complete certainty. ‘Cos she’d look down her beautiful nose at me. Pretty women make me sick. What’s happening now?’

  ‘Fergus is trying to push Connor inside. Oh, hello – there’s Ms Icy Pants. I was wondering how long it’d take her to get involved.’

  ‘What’s she doing?’

  ‘She’s trying to push Sylvie out. That’s never going to work – not with Tantie and Zach still inside.’

  ‘I’ve got to see this.’ Billy started the long miserable task of getting to his feet.

  ‘She’s coming unglued,’ I said with unkind satisfaction. ‘Though, to be fair, it is her house and it’s been invaded. Plus she dumped her boyfriend. She isn’t having a perfect day.’

  ‘She’s got rid of the darkie?’ The floorboards groaned as he made his way over to the window. ‘She used to have standards, but she’d been alone since her hubby went barmy. You didn’t know? She had him sectioned a
nd he’s rotting in a secure unit somewhere. She never goes to see him.’ He joined me, squeezing me into the corner as he leaned against the sill. Now he had a better view than I did.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, stretching his neck as far as it would go. ‘When I moved here he was living with his first wife and their little boy. Then the Witch-Bitch… I dunno… one day there was this little family next door, and then suddenly the wife and kid disappear. Enter Cherry Price. And Steve was never the same from that day on. I used to see him in the garden at weekends, smoking, maybe weeding a bit. Then she stopped him smoking, and I’d see him just sitting there outside, chewing gum. Sometimes he’d wave to me. So she outlawed chewing gum. Then he sat and cried. Oh bugger, they’ve all gone indoors.’

  He levered himself onto the bed because it was closer to the window than the sofa. ‘It was his house. For all I know it still is. But he can’t live in it no more. You feminists think you’re all victims of men, but look at poor old Steve. And me for that matter.’

  I could’ve told him a thing or two about the man who stole my house, my life, my sanity and my freedom, but I was just too tired. I didn’t want to take him on about sexism either – I was too poor and too sick to be interested. As for racism – I was just too needy to take a righteous stand on any subject at all. What was I doing making lunch for a man like that, I wondered as I nodded off on his huge, comfortable sofa.

  He might’ve given me half an hour’s kip – I don’t know, I wasn’t counting. Then, ‘Oy,’ he said, ‘oy, you, what’s yer name, where’s the cup of tea you promised me? You ain’t done the washing up yet.’

  ‘Want to wait for the Home Help?’ I can be nasty when I’ve just woken up.

  He pointed to the electronic contraption that hung round his neck. ‘I’ll press the button and get you evicted,’ he said.

  I didn’t believe him. He was just too damn lonely even to get rid of a waste of space like me.

  ‘You could stay here,’ Satan Satanis whispered. ‘You could steal his disability pension. You could get paid for opening cans of slop for him. You could steal Electra back.’

  ‘Taking back what’s mine isn’t stealing.’

  ‘What isn’t stealing?’

  ‘Electra is my dog. Your frozen-faced neighbour stole her from me.’

  ‘The old greyhound?’ He sounded interested. ‘See, that surprised me. I never thought Witch-Bitch would ever want an animal messing up her soft furnishings. The pretty one brought her one day. I don’t know why Witch-Bitch puts up with having girls in her house. She never had no women friends before. Only men.’

  ‘Now there’s a surprise,’ I murmured.

  ‘I get the darkie,’ Billy went on. ‘He does her motor for her. Keeps it in really good nick, saves her a bomb. She can use him. But what’s the blonde good for?’

  ‘Brilliant beautician,’ I said. ‘She wouldn’t be any threat – she has a medical condition.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Er, like, er, something wrong with her nether regions.’ Like all the boy bits Smister was trying to get rid of.

  That perked Billy right up. He seemed suddenly to be in a really good mood. It turned out his horse, a big ugly brute called Bath Bambino, had won him over a hundred quid in the 3.10. I offered to pick up his winnings for him. He laughed. So I went downstairs to make him a cup of tea and heat four cans of rice pudding. His tea mug held more than a pint and had the legend ‘I Am A Big Mug’ stencilled on the side.

  I took another pill while I was down there and opened the kitchen door into the garden. I could hear shouting from next door but there were too many voices and not enough clarity. How many people were in there? Seven? My lips stretched into an unkind smile.

  The fence, unfortunately, was very solidly built. Maybe I could persuade Billy to lean against it. I was suddenly afraid I was becoming as spiteful as Bitter Cherry.

  I served the rice pudding in a large plastic mixing bowl as he requested, with four spoons of raspberry jam on top. I didn’t steal another can of lager but found a dusty old bottle of sweet sherry at the back of a cupboard in the living room. What a dilemma – I love alcohol but I hate sweet sherry. My life’s a mess; even a decision about a drink is beyond me. I lay down on his sofa and closed my eyes.

  17

  Chaos In Suburbia

  Billy graciously allowed me one can of his chicken noodle soup and one can of creamed rice for my supper, but only after I’d fed him. He was weird – as well as not wanting me to see him eat he couldn’t bear to watch me eat either. ‘It’s my food,’ he said, even though he’d given his permission. ‘Don’t let me see you taking any.’

  But he was pleased with himself. One win and two places put him well ahead from his afternoon at the races. The other thing I learned about him was that he played online poker and was a small winner at that too. The Social Services knew nothing about either occupation. ‘And don’t you tell them nothing neither,’ he said. ‘They’re just looking for a way to cut me benefits. I know what they’re thinking, see.’

  What did I care about his winnings? Abso-bleeding-lutely nothing. I woke up from my deep nap with a skull-crushing headache and a hole in my heart where Electra should be. Maybe she’d been out in the garden while I was asleep. Maybe I’d missed my only opportunity to steal her back. Worst of all I kept thinking that she wouldn’t want to come back. Maybe I had saved her life but that wouldn’t save me. It was in the past. Now she was with a younger woman with a steady income, a house and a comfy carpet. So why would she want a damaged old broad with a craving for red wine? I tried to cheer myself up by washing down a diazepam with the hated sweet sherry. Sweet sherry really is an old tart’s drink. It clings to the roof of your mouth and the back of your throat like treacle.

  There was no money and no red wine downstairs. I looked everywhere. There were no photos of the missing wife either but there was a picture of a younger fitter Billy posing astride a big Honda motorbike. Clearly he’d never been a beauty but he looked strong and as if he had once enjoyed his life.

  Overcome by sadness I borrowed his huge black duffle coat which was hanging on a hook in the hall. It smelled of dust and I wondered how long it’d been since he’d worn it. I put his door on the latch and went out into the rain.

  It was dark. There were chinks of light winking at me from behind Ms Mean’s pink velour curtains. I couldn’t see in, but I could hear Connor screaming.

  ‘You’re not wanted,’ the Devil said. ‘She’ll put up with French environmental activists and screaming babies before she’ll let you set foot in her house again.’

  ‘I’m not talking to you,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to go in. I want Electra to come out.’

  ‘You know what Electra’s doing? She’s lying asleep at Cherry’s feet. Her belly’s full and she’s warm and comfortable. Yet you want her to come out and freeze her buns off with you.’ He sniggered unkindly. ‘That’s the kind of love I approve of,’ he said.

  ‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘I’m lurking.’

  ‘Not very good at it, are you? What have you learned by lurking? Dipsy-doodle. Why don’t you just toddle away to the off-licence? You still have the ten pound note that woman gave you in the hospital car park.’

  Astoundingly, he was right – there was a ten pound note in the pocket of my red trackie bottoms. Smister hadn’t stolen it. I hadn’t lost it.

  I didn’t obey orders though. I went to the nearest all-night convenience store and found two cans of dogfood and two thick bars of milk chocolate. Only then did I add a two litre bottle of red wine to my basket. I had a plan.

  With only a small nip of the red nectar to encourage me I went back to Billy’s house.

  I can’t describe how good that first jolt of wine tasted as it filled my mouth with its ancient promise of comfort and joy. It slid over my tongue and down my throat like butter on hot toast and settled in my stomach, a lo
ving hand. Now I could talk to Billy. Now I could deal with an uncaring universe.

  Billy said, ‘Where’ve you been? I was calling and calling. You can’t just bugger off when you feel like it.’

  I produced one of the chocolate bars and said, ‘I went to buy you this, y’know, as thanks for letting me stay for a little while.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, snatching it out of my hand. ‘You want me to die of Type 2 Diabetes?’ He hardly had time to get the words out before a quarter of the bar was in his mouth.

  ‘What’s happening next door?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s a kid crying and it’s doing my head in. Why’s she got a kid in there? She can’t stand kids. I don’t get it. It’s since the darkie came to stay. He brought the blonde piece. She’s tasty. But why would Cherry even let her through the door? She’d never have let her husband even talk to another woman. Like she wouldn’t let him have a dog, so I don’t get the greyhound either. As for kids – know what? Steve’s little son? He was only two years-old when Witch-Bitch forced Steve into kicking him and his mum out. To begin with the kid came every weekend. Then, later, Steve started waiting for him on the street – she wouldn’t let his son in the house, see, so he’d have to take him out somewhere. By the end of the year that little boy disappeared. She plays a long game, that cow, but she always gets her own way no matter how many steps it takes.’

  ‘Well she isn’t taking my dog,’ I said.

  ‘I thought she already had.’

  ‘Why doesn’t anyone stand up to her?’

  ‘There’s women like that,’ Billy said sadly. ‘They make it more trouble than it’s worth.’

  ‘Men can be like that too.’

  ‘Bring us another beer,’ he said without listening.

  I brought him another can and while I was in the kitchen I poured myself a glass of wine.

  I poured myself a glass of wine! Do you know what that means? No, of course you don’t. You haven’t been glugging down wine from the neck of a plastic bottle for more years than you can remember. You probably have glasses in a kitchen cupboard, in a kitchen, in a flat or a house. You put the glass on the kitchen counter, fill it with wine and then take it through to the living room. Or you open a bottle at table and pour for your lover or friends. Sometimes a waiter or a barman does it for you. If you have a house you can have glasses and friends to pour for. If you haven’t – well, all you’ve got is a bottle with a screw cap. Sometimes you have to share. So you pass it back and forth and hope none of your temporary drinking buddies is dying of a communicable disease. Sick Hazel caught her permanent bronchial illness by sharing cider bottles with someone who died last year. Now she drinks cider from a can. But it’s too late.