by Liza Cody
Billy drank his beer straight from the can too. But that was by choice – he has glasses in his cupboard and two pint mugs gathering dust on the kitchen window sill.
I took my glass upstairs and stood by the window sipping like a civilised person. I was warm. My hands were clean. If Billy wanted to attack me it’d be like being chased by a zombie. I’d be able to escape by the front door and run twice round the block before he managed to climb out of his sofa.
I was safe. I almost said it out loud just to hear the words.
Watching the street, letting the wine stroke away the perpetual cycle of anxieties which cramped and spasmed in my mind like abused muscles, I realised I’d met someone whose self-esteem was even more damaged than my own. It was an unfamiliar situation – but one I thought I could exploit. All I had to do was make myself indispensable.
If Frozen Cherry was a cow who could play a long game, so would I be.
Don’t you sit there and judge me. You haven’t just come out of prison, lost your mobile home and had your dog stolen. When you’ve lived for years on the street and slept in doorways never knowing who might rob you, rape you or set light to your feet for fun, then you can judge me. But not before.
‘Another beer, Billy?’ I asked with a helpful smile.
Chaos kicked off at nine forty-five precisely.
Two cops, a tall one and a short one, turned up and knocked on the door of Cherry’s igloo. They brought with them a middle-aged woman in leggings and a low-cut top. Her bosoms seemed unaware of the freezing wind, but that might’ve been because she was less than stone cold sober.
‘She’s a bit of all right,’ Billy said, squeezing in beside me at the window.
I wondered if there was something wrong with his eyesight.
Smister opened the door. He would’ve slammed it shut immediately except for a size thirteen constabulary boot. He had forsaken the trappings of poverty and chastity for a fuchsia coloured angora sweater and a royal purple miniskirt.
‘I wouldn’t kick her out of bed neither,’ Billy said, forgetting what I’d told him about the misshapen nether regions.
The cops seemed to want a quiet conversation but the woman started yelling.
‘Oy, you, blondie,’ she went, at the top of her voice. ‘Yeah, you – where’s them nuns I been hearing about? Them nuns stole my grandson – perverts!’
Smister looked as if he was going to faint.
‘Bloodyell,’ I said, ‘that’s Kerri Cropper’s mum.’
‘Who’s Kerri Cropper?’
‘Connor’s mum.’
‘Who’s Connor?’
I reminded him as quickly as I could but he wasn’t listening. He didn’t want to miss a second of what was happening outside Cherry’s house. And nor did I. Chaos is fun when you aren’t in the middle of it.
‘I knew you’d come round to my way of thinking,’ said the Lord O’Disorder.
‘Oh belt up,’ I said. I just wanted to be normal for once.
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘Did you just tell me to belt up?’
‘It’s Mrs Cropper,’ I said quickly. ‘Anyone would think she was Connor’s protector. But she’s the opposite. And someone should tell the cops not to let her anywhere near him.’
‘Shouldn’t you go down there? Tell them yourself?’
‘Billy,’ I said, ‘only suggest that if you don’t want another can of beer brought up to you tonight. I’m the sort of woman who gets blamed for absolutely everything.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘why was you dressed up like a nun? I keep meaning to ask.’
Smister was speaking too quietly to be heard. But Kerri’s mum shouted, ‘If my boy’s got so much as a mark on him I’ll know who to blame.’
‘Nice one,’ said the Devil with admiration. ‘Go girl! Way to offload guilt.’
I said, ‘The kid’s covered with burns and bruises and it’s all down to her and her boyfriend.’
‘I don’t get why that guy with the bloody knee brought him here,’ Billy said with some justification.
‘Who’s that screaming?’ one of the cops asked.
Cherry chose that moment to appear. She was dragging Connor by his dungaree straps. She said, ‘Just take him away. I don’t know why anyone brought him here in the first place.’
The cops looked at Connor. Connor looked at his grandma and went berserk. Cherry let go of Connor’s straps, stepped back inside her house and slammed the door, leaving him and Smister outside.
‘Looks like a job for the social workers,’ said Billy.
The taller cop hammered on the door while Smister leaned on the bell. The shorter cop crouched to extend a comforting hand to Connor. Connor stopped shrieking long enough to bite him. Mrs Cropper’s bosoms expressed innocent outrage but showed no grandmotherly feeling whatsoever. Billy was enthralled. I was afraid, if he leaned much further over the sill, he’d fall or the wall would collapse.
When Cherry opened the door again she had her phone stuck firmly to her face. She said, ‘Shut that kid up – I can’t hear myself think. I’m talking to my solicitor.’
The tall cop said something I didn’t catch, but Cherry replied loudly over the din. ‘I called you myself hours ago. Why didn’t you respond? Why’ve you brought this slut? If she’s related to the kid she ought to keep him under control.’
Then she shouted into her phone, ‘Mr Vernon, you’d better come immediately, I can’t contain the situation.’
Billy started wobbling like a soft-boiled egg. I looked at him with alarm but he was only laughing.
Mrs Cropper said, ‘Who’re you calling a slut, you stuck-up old mare?’
‘Fucking priceless,’ said Billy.
‘Is this child Connor Cropper, your missing grandson?’ the small cop shouted.
‘Who’re you calling “old”?’ Cherry sneered. ‘I’m a damn site younger than you, you dolled up old slapper.’
The tall cop grabbed Mrs Cropper’s arm and tried to haul her away to the car.
Connor bit the small cop’s knee. The cop jumped so violently he sent Connor flying into Smister. Smister avoided the teeth and escaped indoors.
‘Are you hearing this?’ Cherry said into her phone. ‘I’ve rung the police five times in the last four hours. My home’s been invaded by foreign terrorists and a filthy savage child. Finally the police have come, but they’ve brought an abusive old tart with them. I want you here at once. I want to complain to higher authorities. I want the officers to do their job and make my home safe for me to live in.’
‘That fucker kicked my Connor,’ Mrs Cropper screamed. ‘You saw him. That’s fucking police brutality, that is. I’ll have your balls in a mangle for this. Look at the poor baby – covered in bruises. You all saw what happened. I want compensation.’
‘We need backup,’ the small cop shouted into his radio, ‘and we need it now.’
By this time four or five neighbours had gathered. They had their mobile phones pointing at the action and one of them was recording on her camcorder as if what was being acted out in front of them was performance art.
The scene was playing like a farce, but it was a tragedy.
‘It’s the way I write,’ crowed the Poet of Cruelty. ‘I keep ’em laughing, you see, so they won’t notice the little boy dying of cold and neglect. And when they do, they’ll feel so sick with themselves they’ll try not to think about it. So they’ll turn their backs on what they know. Then next time they’ll be just a tiny bit more brutalised. Before you know it they’ll be tolerating all sorts of perversion and even wanting to join in. I seduce by increments.’
‘What can I do about it?’
‘Not a damn thing,’ Billy said. ‘Don’t interfere. I’m enjoying meself for the first time in I don’t know how long.’
‘It’s so totally screwed
up,’ I said. ‘There’s no voice of reason down there.’
Frozen-faced Cherry said, ‘Now you’re here, why don’t you do your jobs and get rid of the terrorists illegally occupying my home? Why don’t you take this impossible child into care? I’m the innocent victim here. I pay my council tax and I want action.’
The tall cop was too busy wrestling Mrs Cropper to the car to reply, but the little one said, ‘One thing at a time, ma’am. The child comes first.’
‘Then give him back to his grandmother. A crime’s been committed here and it’s still being committed. It’s called “home invasion” – or have you never heard of it?’
‘You’re thinking of trespass,’ the small cop said. ‘That’s not a crime so it isn’t our business. Your solicitor will advise you. Meanwhile, please answer some questions, like, how long have you been harbouring a kidnapped child?’
‘Excuse me? When did home invasion stop being a crime?’
‘It didn’t start. It might be a crime in America but it’s a tort in the UK. Now about this child… ’
‘You heard,’ Mrs Cropper screamed, ‘that pig called me a tart.’
‘Tort,’ the little cop yelled, ‘tort, you stupid tar… a matter for the civil courts not the police.’
‘You gotta feel sorry for the poor little guy,’ Billy said without a trace of sorrow. I knew he meant the cop and not Connor.
No one wanted to deal with Connor, who, meanwhile, was trying to go back inside the house. But Cherry Ice wouldn’t let him. She didn’t touch him; she just blocked every move he made.
I was almost holding my breath, waiting for Electra to appear. She wasn’t human. That’s why Connor could trust her.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about home invasion and trespass?’ Cherry snapped into her phone. ‘Now I look like a fool. What? Say again? Okay, thank you.’ She folded up the phone and turned again to the small cop. ‘How about assault?’ she said. ‘I’ve been assaulted in my own home by three French terrorists. Okay? Now what are you going to do?’
I can’t begin to tell you how dejected the short cop looked. He’d picked the wrong call-out, on the wrong night, on the wrong job. Circus lion tamer, he seemed to be thinking, would’ve been a wiser career choice.
He said, ‘The kid still has to come first.’
‘Then get rid of the kid,’ she yelled. ‘Do something. Don’t just stand there asking stupid questions while my life falls to bits.’
‘I could start by arresting you for obstructing… ’
‘I call you out with a legitimate grievance – assault in my own home – and you threaten me. Go ahead. I’d love to see how that looks on YouTube tomorrow morning.’
The cop turned and saw the neighbours pointing their phones at him. His shoulders slumped.
The tall cop, who’d had no success at folding Mrs Cropper into his car, said, ‘Put those phones away or I’ll impound them.’
‘Ooh, teacher’s going to confiscate our phones,’ said a neighbour who’d come out in Flopsy Bunny slippers.
It was people power. I was thrilled.
‘Hand me my phone,’ Billy said. ‘I want to get in on this.’
‘Who’re you going to send the pictures to?’ I couldn’t squeeze past him so I had to crawl under the bed.
‘My girlfriends,’ he said.
There is always more to people than meets the eye. I passed him his phone, but now he was taking all the space by the window so I went downstairs and out through the kitchen door to the back garden.
18
Pierre Joins The Legion Of Homeless
The first law of opportunism states that when a big kerfuffle is kicking off at the front door, there’s a chance that the back door might be left unguarded.
It was dark. The fence between Billy’s and the Iron Troll’s back gardens was eight feet high and solid. I went back inside to look for a stepladder.
Every house has a stepladder, right? Billy’s didn’t. I was suddenly angry with him. Why didn’t he keep the tools I needed to break into next door’s garden? Maybe he had a stepladder once but sat on it and broke it. Then I remembered that I was only in his house at all because he was disabled. I shouldn’t be angry; I should be grateful. Also, although he clearly had a corrupted relationship with food, he had fed me. So I should stop making fattist remarks and, again, be grateful.
‘Smash the fence with a hammer,’ suggested my dark destructive lord. ‘Vent that anger on an inanimate object.’
‘Who’s angry?’ I replied, and poured another glass of wine. ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I want to talk to Electra. You aren’t my friend and you give crap advice.’
‘I’m everyone’s friend. I’m always here when you need me. Always.’
This sounded more like a threat than a comfort, so once again I borrowed Billy’s duffle coat without asking and crept away into the night.
The plan was to go next door via the long route, round the block. I couldn’t just walk in front of Cherry’s house while Cherry was there, could I? Even swamped by the ginormous coat I might still be recognisable. I wanted to keep my presence a secret. If she didn’t know I was next door plotting a rescue, she wouldn’t guard Electra so closely.
If I turn left, then left, and left again, I reasoned, I would walk round the block and wind up at Cherry’s back door.
‘Because that worked so well at the hospital,’ sneered Lord Hindsight.
I really don’t want to admit he was right, but twenty minutes later, instead of finding Ms Dead-eye’s kitchen door, I found the Ambo. It was a sorry sight under the dull yellow light of a street lamp with Débris d’Or’s graffiti all over it.
On the off-chance that Pierre had left it unlocked I tried the back door… and found Pierre sitting on the bunk, hunched over the primus stove, heating up a tin of sausage and beans.
‘Why don’t you knock?’ he said, giving me a shocked stare. ‘Heart attack here.’
‘What on earth are you doing?’ I was as surprised as he was.
‘Cherry kicked me out.’ Torchlight gave his bowling-ball head a soft glow.
‘I know. Smister told me.’
‘Li’l Missy was there?’ He stared at me, eyes dark with emotion. ‘But Cherry kicked her out too.’
‘The treacherous little turd tricked me and gave Electra to Cherry. I’ve got to get her back.’
‘So she took Li’l Missy back in? Know what? I’ve had it – I wish I’d never met either of them.’ He poured the simmering beans into a plastic bowl. ‘Want some?’
I shook my head.
‘Nothing’s ever enough for them,’ he rumbled on.
‘If she wanted a dog why couldn’t she get one of her own?’ I asked
‘She didn’t want a dog,’ he said, blowing on a steaming spoonful. ‘Li’l Missy and Electra came as a package. But she really hated the idea of you. She didn’t want us wasting time on anyone but her. It was okay while I had my own place. But the minute I moved in with her it was like I was her property. It was like she’d won something. I was some kinda trophy and I had to conform to her ideas about what a boyfriend was.’
‘She’s a troll,’ I added just to be supportive, ‘an evil troll.’
‘What I don’t get is Missy. Her and me been homies for years.’
‘He’s an evil troll too.’
‘Calling her names don’t help none.’
‘Well he’s a little mushroom,’ I said. ‘He picks up the strongest flavour in the stew.’
‘She’s weak all right,’ Pierre said. ‘And, funny thing, I’d never’ve said Cherry was strong neither. But if she ain’t, how come she got her way about every fucking thing? How come I bought a suit and tie – which she picked out – to meet her folks? How come she cut up my whole wardrobe and I didn’t deck her?’
‘It’s the tyranny of the weak,’ I sugges
ted. ‘They whine and wheedle and demand your pity and protection while in fact they’re manipulating you. And you don’t get it till too late.’
‘Way too complicated for me,’ he said, swallowing the spoonful of sausage and beans. ‘Unless you mean passive-aggressive.’
‘She’s a manipulator. She got rid of her husband’s kid. She got the husband sectioned, and now she’s got his house.’
‘What kid?’ He stared at me, his spoon halfway to his mouth. ‘She told me her husband went crazy and abused her.’
‘Never mentioned the kid then?’
He picked up the torch and turned it on me. He took in the size of my coat and grinned. ‘You talked to the big neighbour, right? And knocked off his coat while you were there.’ He leaned forward, sniffing. ‘You’re on the sauce again. Yeah?’
‘And whose idea was it to dose me with Antabuse?’
He didn’t reply, so I said, ‘We’ve all got to do whatever makes us feel right with ourselves.’
He nodded morosely and kept spooning sausage and beans into his mouth. He seemed to have mislaid his bezaz. Hooking up with the wrong troll can do that to a bloke. I hoped one day before I died I’d be able to see him perform ‘Can’t Hurry Love’ for real in full costume.
‘I should go round there,’ he said, scraping the bottom of the bowl. ‘Have it out with her.’