Musclebound (12 page)

I didn’t press him. I stayed where I was, kneeling on the pavement. There wasn’t nowhere to go anyway. I might as well sit there all night and let all the trouble in the world fall on my head. That’s what it felt like. Every drop of rain was another spot of trouble. More and more trouble until I couldn’t bear the weight.

‘What’s doin’?’ said Keif.

Shit, there was no shaking that guy.

‘Milo,’ I said. ‘He’s under that barrow and he won’t come out.’

‘Why?’

‘Spooked.’

‘What of?’

‘Dunno.’

‘’Spect it was the fire, eh?’ Keif said. ‘Why not move the barrow?’

‘
No
!’

‘Why?’

‘What’s the matter with you?’ I said. ‘You move that barrow, you take away his hidy-hole. Then he’s even scareder.’

‘So then you give him a big hug and a bone or what?’

‘Fool.’

‘Why?’

‘’Cos I ain’t got a bone and you don’t hug attack dogs.’

‘He ain’t an attack dog,’ Keif said. ‘He’s a pup and he’s scared.’

‘Boo-hoo-hoo,’ I said. ‘He’s got to want to come to me.’

‘Pigs got to want to fly,’ he said. ‘Hey, Milo baby, come to Poppa.’

And, oh jeez, that idiot pup crawled out from under the barrow and licked Keif’s big hot hand. I felt so sick I could of laid down and died among the cabbage leaves.

‘Told you,’ Keif said. ‘Have I got a way with dogs and women or what? Voodoo digits. You listen, girl, when I tell you.’

He picked Milo up in his arms and marched off to the yard.

And Milo let him do it.

My guts was dry-heaving and I didn’t have an ounce of fight left in me. God was a clown and I was a killer.

I got up and followed.

I thought I was going crazy. I thought my head was exploding and I was going stark barking mad.

I pushed the Clio so it was backed up against the Static and no one could open the boot. I went to the pen to let the dogs out.

In the Static, Keif was making a cup of tea and warming up some soup.

And I was stone staring crazy.

The dogs were nervous. They could smell killer on my breath. They knew. Ramses wasn’t giving me an ounce of trouble tonight. He took one look at me and said to hisself, ‘She done it – she finally gone and done it. She’s madder than me.’ And he walked round me on tiptoe.

And Keif was warming up a pan of soup.

There was a dead bloke not three feet from the stove and Keif was warming up soup. For me.

I hit a bloke with his own hammer. I hit him so hard he croaked and Keif was making soup.

I didn’t know if I was coming or going. You think I should get rid of Keif? Yeah, me too. But, like, whaddya think I am? I ain’t a movie director. I can’t say, ‘I don’t want Keif in this scene,’ and then Keif ain’t in the scene. This is real life. What am I supposed to do?

Keif wouldn’t go away. He said, ‘Here, get this down you, girl.’ And he gave me a steaming mug of chicken pasta soup. I got Wozzisname all scrunched up in the boot of a car not three feet away and a steaming mug of soup in my mitt. What am I supposed to do?

Should I give the soup back and say, ‘I just fuckin’ croaked a bloke so I don’t deserve no chicken pasta soup’? Then should I go back out in the rain and slit my wrists with a rusty nail? Is that what I should do?

Tell me. Go on, tell me.

I was hungry, so I ate the soup.

That’s what you’re supposed to do with soup. You’re supposed to eat it. That’s all clear and simple.

But what’re you supposed to do with a dead bloke in a sleeping bag? Get old voodoo digits to magic him away? Turn girly and say, ‘Keif, baby, I been a bad girl. It wasn’t my fault.’ Flutter, flutter with the old eyelashes. Swoosh-swish with the poxy stocking tops. ‘Keif, baby, help me out of this and all of heaven will be yours.’ Well, maybe Simone could of done it. But Simone fucked off.

In the movies the body rolls into the river, plop. All done and dusted. Sometimes they roll the whole car into the river, plop, glub-glub. All gone. Except Simone wouldn’t allow that, for sure. Wherever Simone was.

Sometimes the car explodes. Like my head. Thwhump-whump. No car. No dead bloke.

Well, I can’t do that, can I? Not in central London. Not when Simone wants her car back.

So what am I supposed to do?

‘Eat your soup,’ Keif said. ‘Don’t look so mollixed. You seen a guy make soup before aincha?’

So I ate the soup and three feet away Wozzisname stared out into a dark car boot ‘cos I couldn’t bring meself to close his eyes.

I wanted to take a pill and go to sleep, and not wake up till someone else did something about Wozzisname.

In a different movie, I’d be Ms Big. I’d chop a wedge off of all my zillions and I’d wave it under Keif’s nose. ‘Got a little job for you, boy,’ I’d say. And he’d say, ‘Whatever you want Ms Wylie.’ And while he was out I’d find another Keif and tell him to get rid of the first Keif.

‘What’s up?’ Keif said. ‘You’re staring.’

‘What’s up with
you
?’ I said. ‘You’re still here.’

‘Come an’ sit on my knee,’ he said. ‘We’ll see what’s up with me.’

Can you believe this? I was wrong. God ain’t a clown. God’s a totally crazy-insane movie director.

‘Are you absolutely bonkers?’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Sit on my knee. You don’t have to like it.’

‘Save it for Milo,’ I said. ‘He’s your little pet. I ain’t.’

‘Workin’ on that,’ he said. ‘If this was the Wild West I’d be a horse-tamer ‘stead of a personal trainer.’

‘So why don’t you go West and boil your ugly bonce?’

‘Think I’m ugly, girl? I don’t need to be pretty, know it?’

Milo didn’t think he was ugly. Milo stuck his head on Keif’s thigh and snoozed. That pup needed massive retraining.

‘Serious, man,’ Keif said. ‘This place a
mess
. You can’t sleep here tonight.’

‘I don’t sleep at night,’ I said. ‘I mind this yard at night. I sleep mornings.’

‘True?’ he said. ‘Ain’t a good way for an athlete to live.’

‘Ain’t staying for ever. Simone and me, we’re going into business together.’

‘Fer true?’

‘She said. And I can stay with her. You heard.’

‘I heard,’ he said, and he just sat there with Milo kipping on his thigh and a dead bloke not three feet away.

‘So why’re you still here?’ I said. ‘I’m OK.’

‘Sweet ‘n’ dandy,’ he said. ‘I see what I see.’

‘Who cares what you see?’

‘Well, since you ask. I see someone needs lookin’ after.’

‘See wrong. You couldn’t see wronger if you tried all year.’

‘See a good athlete gone bad. You let yourself go, girl.’

‘Fuckin’ did
not,’
I said. ‘Wasn’t me. Mr Deeds let me go. All them turdy heavyweights. Barred me.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘They told me. You a legend at that gym, girl.
Eva this, Eva that. Eva a monster with three heads and the baddest mouth in South London.’

‘They still talk about me?’

‘So I think, I gotta see this girl. ‘Cos if they treat a big woman like they treat a black man, then they treat a black man like a big bad woman. Like enemies, girl, like enemies. So my days is numbered too.’

‘I wish you’d seen me fight,’ I said.

‘They never said you was a bad fighter,’ he said. ‘They said you was a bad woman.’

‘Believe. And bugger off.’

‘Will do,’ he said. ‘Even though you beggin’ fer me to stay. First, what you got wrong with your ankle?’

What ankle? I’d forgotten the ankle but that silly sod only had to mention it and it started to sting again.

‘Burnt it,’ I said. ‘In the fire. It’s all right. I’ll put some more mud on it.’

‘
Mud?
You know what you putting on it? You putting oil and slime and dog germs. You killing yourself or what?’

‘Don’t you bring your Cousin Carmen back here on account of my ankle,’ I said. ‘Don’t you fuckin’
dare!’

Cousin Carmen would see through the Static wall for sure. She’d see through the metal of the Clio too. She’d see Wozzisname with his eyes open, staring back at her. I’d rather lose my whole leg than have her coming in with her potions, lookin’ through my walls.

‘You ain’t scared of one little old lady,’ Keif said, showing me teeth you could play honky-tonk on. ‘Come here, I’ll wash that mud off for you.’

‘Do it myself,’ I said. ’Cos those big hot hands made me feel small and I didn’t want them anywhere near me.

‘Suityerself. Now, don’t you cry or nothin’ but I goin’ home.’ He stood up. I stood up. And there didn’t seem to be enough space.

‘Hip?’ said Milo. He jumped awake, all shuddery again.

‘Here,’ I said. I scooped Milo up and dumped him in Keif’s arms. ‘Take Milo,’ I said. ‘You want someone to look after, take Milo.’

That’d give him something to do with those big hot hands.

‘Only for tonight, mind,’ I said, ‘while he’s nervy. I want him back tomorrow. And don’t you make him go all soft. My dogs gotta be hard.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Keif said, ‘you like ’em hard. I’ll remember that or what.’

What the hell do you do with a bloke like Keif?
What?
I never met a bloke like him before. Maybe there’s blokes like Keif all over the world only I never met one before.

Maybe it’s ‘cos this is the first time I’ve been rich so I ain’t used to blokes coming after me for my money. It ain’t anything else. Believe. I ain’t someone blokes come after. And I’m glad. Waste of time, all that. Blokes make complete pillocks of sensible women, and who wants to waste their energy on that stuff?

Whether they want them or not, women spend a huge amount of energy on blokes. Even me, who knows better. Look at how much energy I spent getting shot of Keif – and he’s alive and can use his legs, if he bloody chooses to.

I washed my ankle with cold water and soap the way he told me to. And it hurt. Ain’t that blokes all over? What they tell you to do doesn’t hurt
them
, does it? No, it hurts
you
.

All the time, I was waiting. I was waiting for Ramses and Lineker to tell me Simone had come back. I was waiting for Lineker to go, ‘Yack-yack-yack,’ and Ramses to drown him out with, ‘Ro-ro-ro.’ Then I’d go to the gate and let Simone in. Then I’d know what to do.

I hate waiting. I sat on the bunk. I didn’t have no sleeping bag to wrap myself in ‘cos I’d gave that to the dead bloke.

It got to eleven o’clock and then twelve, and all I could hear was rain bouncing on the Static roof. And I couldn’t think what was keeping Simone. I couldn’t seem to think at all, if you must know.

Then I dreamed I put the Clio through the crusher. I dreamed the Clio went through the crusher and came out like a crumpled box except for the boot which popped open. And everyone in the
crowd went, ‘Ooh, look at what’s in that car!’ Because, suddenly, the crusher was in the middle of the ring.

‘Boo, hiss,’ they all went. ‘Bucket Nut can’t even put a car through a crusher.’ So I had to do it again. Only this time, although the car came out the size of a beach-ball, there was the dead bloke’s head peering out of what was left of the window. His eyes popped open, and he said, ‘I demand a return match.’ The referee awarded me the beach-ball and the head as a prize and everyone started clapping.

So
my
eyes popped open, and it was dark, and at first I thought the Static was leaking ‘cos I was all wet and I could still hear the rain rattling on the roof. But then I knew I’d been dreaming and sweating even though it was cold and I hadn’t meant to go to sleep.

I went to the Static door to call Ramses and Lineker. For once they came straight away. I gave them each a Bow Chow biscuit but they didn’t want to hang out with me. And it was all Wozzisname’s fault ‘cos there he was, not three feet away, freaking everyone out.

In the movies the killer shoots someone and then sticks the gun in the dead bloke’s hand to make it look like he topped himself. The next thing you know the house is full of cops and medics. They deal with the body.

Why am I going on and on about the movies? Well, I’m thinking about the movies ‘cos I don’t have nothing else to go on. I don’t. I never done anything like this before. I can’t say to myself, ‘Well last time I croaked a bloke I did such and such, and that worked all right so I’ll do it again.’ But there are dead blokes in the movies all the time. I can tell you that ‘cos when you’re in chokey there’s bugger-all else to do except watch movies about dead blokes on TV.

But when push comes to shove, when you’re in that situation yourself, movies is no bloody help at all. Or maybe I seen the wrong movies. In the movies I seen, dead blokes just lie in the street for someone else to pick up. Or there’s somewhere to put
them. They don’t hang around freaking you out while you wait for your sister and even your own dogs won’t talk to you.

Simone kept the Clio key in her pocket so I had to hot-wire the car. I couldn’t wait no longer. I hot-wired the Clio, and Simone was going to be really pissed with me ‘cos I broke one of the panels on the steering column.

Maybe I don’t know what to do about dead blokes, but I do know how to borrow motors. At first I thought I could just leave the car somewhere, because you’d be surprised how long it takes for some people to notice a borrowed car in their street. Then I’d have time to collect the dogs and clear out.

But it was Simone’s car and she’d want it back. She wouldn’t want the politzei to come knocking on her door saying, ‘Got your lost motor back for you. Oh and by the way, there’s a dead bloke in the boot.’

No, the river was the best idea. If I could tumble Wozzisname into the river that’d be that. I’d never have to think about him again.

At least, now, I was doing something else but think about him. At least, now, I was driving him to the river. We was going somewhere. We wasn’t waiting no more.

Have you been across any London bridges lately? Was there ever a time you was alone on one of them? I mean, really alone – no traffic, no nothing.

‘Cos I couldn’t find a buggering bridge without it had traffic on it. Even in the pouring rain. Even at three in the morning. London don’t stop for nothing.