In Loco Parentis (3 page)

“Whatever happens, let's not go to Raiders,” Col said.

So Raiders it is.

I don't know if they know what's hit them, Preston's youngest and finest.

Jesus, it's changed since I first came. It's warm for a start. Packed. Some of the people are smiling and they're wearing colours other than black.

Haven't been for ten years. Doubtless I was in with the same gang then.

In walk a bunch of middle-aged lads and lasses who look like they're on a stag night.

I'm first to the bar, eager to get rid of the dryness. My round. Seven pints of Old Peculiar.

Beers given out, I see a jacket on the floor. A cagoule. Blue and transparent. I pick it up and try it on. Feel cool and funky.

The warm air inside brings the buzz back to my scalp and the waves of love swelling from the pit of my stomach and pulsing through my heart.

The music's too loud to socialise and I've said enough to fill a week already. Instead, I get to dancing. Swinging my arms and bobbing up and down like I'm one of the in-crowd.

It keeps on going like that for an age. I'm dancing and smiling and sometimes pick up another pint from the lads.

And then it happens. The moment I've been waiting for. The opening bar-chords of ‘Teenage Kicks'.

Call me romantic, but it gets me every time.

The lads I'm with appear from all sides.

We jump onto each other. Shout the words across the floor like we're writing them on the spot. Come to the middle and connect.

I don't know how it starts, not that anybody ever did. Someone pushes someone else. Another pushes back. If they're wise, they leave alone. If they're pissed they take a pop.

I see the fist in Carl's face. We all see it.

It's a short arse in a leather jacket who did the hitting.

Now his mates are holding him back as if they're doing us a favour.

“Bloody puff,” I see the little guy mouth. Little does he know.

Carl doesn't say anything. Just feels around his face to check out the damage.

It's not important that there's no harm done.

What matters is controlling the floor. Taking the centre of the ring.

Col's in. Bubble and Baz.

Stan's our secret weapon.  Always was. He's swinging his arms like a helicopter. I arrive like the icing on the cake.

Thirty seconds of bliss it is. I catch a Goth right on the jaw. He's out as soon as it lands.

Short-arse is already on the floor. I throw in a kick or two. See another pair of boots join in from the other side. We do it all in time to the music.

“I wanna, wanna, wanna hold her tight.” We're dancing again like nothing's wrong, shouting at each other and bouncing up and down, big drunken grins plastered onto our faces.

The bouncers come in, too late as always, and hard enough to take us all if they wanted.

Lucky for us it's still Kane who works the door. His big, black head shines with sweat and he looks disappointed to see that it's all over. Then he sees us all. Smiles. His eyes look red like he's had a couple of smokes. He walks off with a swagger and the crowd splits before him.

I'm getting a real buzz. The other lads are just getting up. It's probably time they went home for bed.

I get the urge to go and tell them so. Wait to see what the next song is.

See Jenny standing against the wall. Soon as she sees me looking, she turns her back and walks away.

blood, sweat and tears

She couldn't ignore me for long.

It's what families all about, taking care of each other.

I think she had to drag me out in the end, though I didn't offer much resistance.

Town's mobbed. More packed than in my time. Smarter, too.

I smell it in the air: lust, testosterone and adrenaline mix with the hair sprays and the gels and the beers. It's a smell I love.

Jenny holds my hand through it all. Keeps me talking and keeps me out of trouble, not that I have a problem with that.

I need to talk. To keep my mouth moving. Soon as it stops, the dryness and the jaw clenching become intolerable.

We wander past the shops, the station, the red-bricked splendour of County Hall, past the seedy hotels and the Mosque and eventually to the river, the giant snake that is the Ribble.

Walking along it for a while, flanked by the water on one side and terraced housed on the other, we eventually reach Meath Road.

Feel like I'm home for the first time since arriving.

She opens the door and we end up in the lounge. I sit on the sofa, my head resting on the wall, legs sprawled over the end.

There are lots of other seats in the room, but when she returns with the mugs of tea, she sits next to me, the cushions sinking and rising like a tide. I'd thought we might have managed to avoid it all, but now I see it's going to surface if I don't keep fending it away.

At first it's easy.

“I'll be in Reception Class next year.” The words tumble quickly out and I let them, keeping the spaces to a minimum. “Can't wait. Not that I know how to teach them,” I say. “Haven't a clue.”

The tea's hot. I can only take a sip. “Should be a doddle, though. There are only fifteen of them to start with. Don't get the rest till after Christmas.”

Jenny gets up to put on some sounds. She fiddles for a while, then sits back down.

I don't recognise what she's put on. It's trippy. Laid back. Brings back the warmth and the good feelings. I forget to talk and let the music surround me.

She puts her hand on my knee. Taps out a beat to the tunes.

Soon as I can, without making it too obvious, I stand up and take off the jacket.

The elasticated sleeves are full of liquid. It looks like urine. I take a sniff. Stinks of armpit. A concentrated body odour with a bit of skunk thrown in. It makes us laugh.

Standing up feels good. I like being high up. Stretch up and onto my tiptoes. Almost make the ceiling.

“It's great up here. Try it.”

She puts her tea down. Tries to reach up. I watch her top rise and her jeans lower leaving a deliciously pale strip of midriff exposed, an amethyst sparkling blue at her navel.

She's seen me looking. It's too late to pretend.

“Looking trim,” I tell her.

“I've been working out.” She stretches higher, revealing more skin. “Work has a gym.”

It's clearly working for her. Her stomach's flat and tight. I want to kiss it.

At some point we both reach too far, wobble and collapse into each other.

From inside my arms she looks up. Maybe it's the drugs, but she looks like a goddess. I try and remember the last time I saw her. Quickly try and blank it out.

Her face gets close. She turns and rests her head on my chest. I lift my hand and give her hair a stroke.

“Missed you,” she says.

We start swaying to the music. It's nice to have her close.

“Me too.” She looks up and I see tears in her eyes.

“Really?” she asks.

“Really.”

Her head drops again and we sway together until the urge to smoke takes over from everything else.

A couple of smokes and a fresh cuppa later and the music's done.

Jenny springs forward right at me. “Bumpers,” she says and sets to rubbing the wall behind me. “Fucking bumpers.”

“I thought bumpers stopped you from swearing,” I remind her.

“Shove the fucking bumpers up your arse. Look at the mess.”

Turning my head I see it, like an enormous purple bruise on the wallpaper where I've been leaning.

“Bumpers,” I say and burst out laughing.

When she laughs too, I feel the warm sensation of relief build into desire.

We're inches apart.

It's too late now.

Our lips meet and move and find a rhythm of their own.

And I think to myself, ‘Oh God, what have I done,” before getting on with the kissing and letting my fingers stray to the metal ring in her nipple.

I can't face telling her I'm off, so I wait until she's out for the day with her mates.

I've told her I'd cook the dinner, so I've bought a pizza from Booths with a ready made salad, a tiramisu pudding and a bottle of sparkly wine for her when she gets in.

Next to the food on the table is a video from down the road. It's ‘Gone With The Wind.' It's supposed to be my little joke. I hope she thinks it's funny.

I pack my bag, clean up a bit behind me and sit with a pen and paper.

“Dear Jenny,” is as far as I get.

Screwing the paper up, I throw it at the bin. And miss.

There's nothing to say, yet it has to be said.

I go to the fridge. Move the magnets around.

Find an ‘m' and an ‘e' and an ‘a' and know what to write after all. My mistake, 3 letters and 5.

The car's parked by the river. It knows just where to go. Penwortham, Lostock Hall, Bamber Bridge, London.

home

Four hours is a lot of thinking time. Too much if you ask me.

It was rattling round in my head along with the shake of the exhaust and the humming of the engine.

Like a scratched record, my brain, the way it clicks into a thought and repeats it until I can't bear it any more. Only difference is a record only needs a nudge to get it moving again.

Starts off with the guilty feelings that mass in my stomach. It's like nausea, except it expands like cancer. Makes me want to tear it out and chuck it away.

I imagine the way she'll feel when she gets home. The phone calls we'll have just like the last time and the time before. I picture taking her in my arms to make it better, then taking her to bed and putting the world to rights. And then the guilt again.

Can't get it out of my head that I'm doing something wrong even though I'm not.

There's no law against sleeping with your step-sister far as I know. There'd be no weird mutations if we had a child.

It's just the image of what Mum might say and unless she comes back from the dead there's nothing she'll say about anything ever again.

I drive down the Archway Road, pass under Suicide Bridge.

Feel better to be home in a city where anonymity is king.

––––––––

no place to hide

T
he phone rings at 9 o'clock. I'm in bed. A week of staying up all night for cuddly chats and sex, topped off with the drive has done me in.

I let it ring. Seven bells and it stops. I daren't pick up to take the message, so I put the pillow over my head and try to sleep.

It rings again at 10, 11 and midnight, then at 6 a.m.

When I eventually check for a message, there's only one.

“JC, you're a tramp. A streak of yellow in a pot of piss. I hate you more than ever.”

I think there was a sob at the end. Dial again. Definitely a sob.

I could drive there right now. Put my arms around her. Stay there forever.

Instead, I pull the pillow over my head again and hold on tight to my insides to keep the pain within.

the girl in the jogging bottoms

When I first got to the café, I walked on by. Thought better of going in.

From the corner of my eye, I could see that it was packed, all the more chance I'd not been seen.

I can't say for sure what brought me back. Thinking about her in the bikini or the memory of her scent, or because I'd agreed to go. Whatever it was, I turned round as soon as I'd crossed the road.

When I go in they're easy to spot.

Emma's red hair shines like a beacon, her smile beaming like a nuclear accident.

Vince's face is covered in chocolate smudges and Sheena's chewing on a mouthful of cake.

Roger sits with his arms folded across his chest, resting on the top of his paunch. His lips stay dead straight as he talks to a man I don't know, a huge guy with a face that suggests blood pressure problems.

I'm not sure who to go to first.

Inevitably it's Emma who does the work. Holds out her hand, pulls me over and gives me a kiss. I feel her squeeze my fingers and wish I'd not turned back.

Vince gets a ruffle of the hair, Sheena a hug. They greet me like I'm the second coming.

Roger stays seated as he shakes my hand. His lips stay straight and he looks away.

Me and the big guy are introduced.

“Gus this is JC. JC, Gus.” We're polite. I sense that Gus is feeling about as trapped as I do.

A waitress comes over and everybody orders. Wine for the adults, pop for the kids. It would seem like a party if anyone was talking to each other.

Gus and I try to get things moving.

“See the football,” he asks.

“Yeah. Who'd you support?” Lowest common denominator.

“Spurs.” His hands go out as if to apologise.

“Can't be helped.”

“You?”

“Preston North End. Don't ask.”

Having established that we're both losers, the rest is easy. Best goals, the sending offs, a little match analysis and a couple of predictions and we're like a burning house.

Same can't be said of the rest of our table.

At least the kids are having a great time, blowing down their straws and making the fizz rise to the top of their glasses.

Roger and Emma must have had words. The body language isn't good. Hers is all adolescent slouching, his all closed like he's made of stone.

It's like we're waiting for something to crack, Gus and I, but nothing gives.

The wine's gone in a couple of minutes, the fastest I've seen in a civilised setting. I guess we're all as keen as each other to leave.

Roger holds up a note to the waitress.

She's over in a tick.

Looks like a fake to me, his cash, till I see the 50 on it.

“Never seen one of those before,” I say, but he doesn't react.

She puts the change on the table and he puts up his hand to tell her when to stop.

“Why, thank you very much sir,” she says and gives him an extra little wiggle of her skirt as she goes back to the bar.