Musclebound (15 page)

‘Excuses,’ she said. ‘Ask yourself why he’s hanging around. He’s always here.’

‘I’m paying him,’ I said. ‘Simone, I
don’t
fancy him. I don’t. I ain’t interested. I
told
you.’

‘How can I believe what you told me? You said you were getting rid of him days ago but he’s still here.’

‘Paid him till the end of the week,’ I said. Which was true.

‘You’re impossible too,’ she said. ‘You’re made for each other. Can’t you see how dangerous he is? You’ve got something to hide, Eva. But he’s always here. He could’ve overheard everything we said. He’s after you for your money, Eva, and sooner or later he’s going to find out something about you that’ll give him a real handle on you.’

‘He don’t know nothing,’ I said. ‘He can’t. I ain’t going to tell him anything, and you ain’t neither.’

‘It isn’t just us,’ Simone said. ‘It’d be all right if it was just us. Eva, you don’t get it – it’s Ma and her other feller.’

That stopped me right where I stood. I said, ‘Ma knows?’ But of course she knew. I knocked off her boyfriend, and her other boyfriend – the other bloke with no face – saw me do it. I was up to my chin in the slurry pit.

‘Shit, Simone, what’m I going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ Simone said. ‘I just don’t know. Ma’s drinking. When I came here she’d been drinking for hours. I’m doing the best I can, keeping her quiet, but she’s on a binge and I don’t know what she’ll do next. You know what she wants, Eva? She only wants to give that feller a proper funeral.’

‘
What? ’

‘Don’t yell. She wants to see the body and give him a proper send-off.’

‘She can’t.’ I was so upset I jumped off the bunk till my back reminded me to sit down. ‘You’re kidding, Simone, tell me you’re kidding.’

‘I wouldn’t kid about a thing like that. She went berserk, Eva. I didn’t know what to do.’

‘But it was her fault. She sent him.’

‘Try telling her that. She’s acting like a grieving widow. I can’t describe how disgusting it is.’

‘But she can’t have him back,’ I said. ‘He’s gone.’

‘Bring him back,’ Simone said. ‘I can’t answer for her if she doesn’t get her own way.’

‘I
can’t.’

‘He was in my car,’ she said. ‘You moved the car, right? You know where you put it, don’t you?’

‘But you said, “Put him in the river.’”

‘Yes, but …’

‘So I put him in the river. All by myself. How do you think I wrecked my back?’

‘Christ!’ she said. ‘You’re kidding?’

‘Not.’

‘Just the way he was?’ she said. ‘You didn’t search him or anything?’

‘
No
!’

‘You didn’t see if he had a wallet or any identification on him?’

I stared at her. I hadn’t thought of any of that. All I thought about was how to get shot of him. And that was so hard, so very hard, I couldn’t think about anything else.

Simone stared back at me. She was white and there was dark horseshoes under her eyes. She said, ‘He’s in the_ river? And for all we know he’s got papers and stuff in his pockets which’ll lead him right back to us.’

‘I didn’t think,’ I said. ‘You didn’t say. Last night you just said put him in the river.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yeah. So I did.’

‘Christ, Eva, what am I going to tell Ma?’

‘Why tell her anything? It’s her fault. You said so yourself. She’s against us, Simone, always was.’

‘That’s why I’ve got to keep her sweet. You don’t understand. She could shop us to the police.’

‘She
wouldn’t’
I said. ‘Even Ma.’

‘She’s a dipso.’

‘But it was her fault. She was going to kidnap you.’

‘Kidnap her own daughter?’ Simone said. ‘Who’s going to believe that?’

I was in the slurry pit all right and the shit was rising. Simone looked so tired. Sometimes when we was little and in trouble we’d hop into bed and pull the covers over our heads like a tent and pretend no one could see us. I wished we was still little, because it seems that the bigger you get, the bigger the trouble you get into.

‘I
can’t
get him back.’

‘Where did you put him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Whaddya mean you
don’t know?’

‘Don’t shout at me, Simone. It ain’t my fault. I was all alone. You left me. I was just driving around and around ‘cos I couldn’t find anywhere quiet. I think it was sort of Greenwich or it might of been Deptford.’

She stared at me like I came from Planet Weird.

‘What about the tide?’ she said.

‘What about it?’

She buried her head in her hands. ‘What about my car?’ she said.

‘It ain’t my fault,’ I said.

‘What ain’t?’

‘You took the keys. You didn’t leave me enough petrol. I was pushing and the steering locked. I had to walk away from it. I
had
to.’

Simone is a very gentle person, always was, so she didn’t scream at me or hit me or nothing. She just leaned forward till her forehead was resting on her knees. She put her arms round her knees and started rocking backwards and forwards.

‘Where did you leave my car?’ she said, all muffled.

‘I don’t know. Not exactly. I think it was sort of Deptford.’

‘Right next to where you dumped the … I mean, where you put
him?’

‘Not right next. I pushed it for ages.’

‘Christ,’ she said into her knees, rocking like an egg with blonde hair. ‘I don’t suppose,’ she said, in a tiny little voice, very slow, ‘I don’t suppose you wiped your fingerprints off, did you?’

“Course I did,’ I said. Who did she think she was talking to – an amateur? I always do that. Second nature. At least I hoped like hell it was second nature, because, truth to tell, now I thought about it, I couldn’t seem to remember what happened when the Clio finally conked out. I couldn’t seem to remember how I got home or nothing. But Simone was so upset I couldn’t bring myself to give her any more bad news.

‘’s all right,’ I said.

‘What’s all right?’ She looked up at me with those hunted-haunted eyes. She needed comfort.

‘You got to do what everyone does,’ I said. ‘You got to report your car missing. You got to tell the insurance. You got to act like you got your car nicked.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘OK. That’s OK.’

‘’s all right. Honest. The car weren’t nowhere near … him, Wozzisname.’

‘Jim,’ she said. ‘His name’s …

But I clamped my hands over my ears. ‘Don’t tell me his name,’ I said. ‘Just don’t. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know nothing about him. He was dragging you away, Simone, he had a knife to your throat. I don’t want to know he’s got a wife and kids or a mortgage or eczema. I don’t want to know none of it.’

‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘Don’t get so excited.’

‘I’ll go and see Ma,’ I said. ’I’il sort her out.’

‘No!’ she said. ‘She’ll go bananas. She’s bananas already. You don’t want to know anything about her bloke and you don’t want to see her bereaved.’

‘But, Simone, she isn’t bereaved. She scored him in a boozer or something. She never hardly knows them.’

‘Eva, that isn’t what she says. That isn’t what’s happening. You don’t know – it’s like he’s the love of her life.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Me neither. But you can’t go round there – you’re the Terminator or the Antichrist. You’re an animal, Eva – she wants to have you put down.’

I couldn’t spend another night like the last one. So when Simone went off to deal with Ma I went down Mandala Street to buy a new sleeping bag before all the shops shut. I took Lineker, and left Ramses to guard the Puma bag.

I took Lineker because I was weak and slow. I had to walk careful like an old lady. I couldn’t stride out and hop over puddles. I couldn’t move like meself. And if someone was going to jump me I couldn’t clout them proper or do a runner.

It wasn’t just Ma and her other feller I was thinking of. I hadn’t forgot the blokes with their shooters. I ain’t stupid. What about when my yard got broke into? What about that jacket with the torn bloody arm? You might of forgot that but
I
ain’t.

Between Ramses and Lineker, Lineker is the prettier. He ain’t as effective as Ramses but he’s politer to take out in public. And if you must know, he don’t pull like a steam train which is what Ramses does. I wasn’t up to being dragged along at a hundred miles an hour. I wasn’t Jumpin’ Eva Flash no more. I was Crawlin’ Eva Flash, and I didn’t like to leave the yard in that state. I felt like a crab without a shell.

You don’t think about your back till it lets you down, and then you don’t think about nothing else. It’s always there, behind you, reminding you. Like it’s saying, ho-ho, you thought you had armour. You thought your muscle was your armour. Well, girl, you took me for granted once too often. Now see how it feels. You can have as much muscle as Mr Universe but it won’t do you a scrap of good without a good back to back you up.

I bought a brand-new sleeping bag in camouflage colours. It really looked the bollocks – like an SAS guy might of slept in one just like it, in the desert or in the jungle or on the moors. Somewhere really truly hard. It even had a bit of mosquito netting attached.

Because I kept thinking, if things got any worse, or even if they stayed the same for too long, I might have to hit the road or go to ground or something. Just to get out the way.

I bought an army-surplus rucksack too – lightweight, with all sorts of waterproof pockets and zips and straps. I could afford the best. No fake shit for the London Lassassin this time. No picking up and walking away with stuff other people leave lying around. No. It was all legal, bought-and-paid-for gear.

I bought a skinning knife with a jagged edge, and a holster you strap on your leg to put it in.

I bought a multipurpose tool which does everything from bolt-cutting to pruning your roses. I bought a billy-can to heat your tea or stew in. I bought a portable primus stove. I bought a box of waterproof matches.

I bought a pair of strides with concealed pockets all up and down the legs. I bought a combat jacket. I bought a waterproof poncho which can double as a lean-to tent. I bought a new pair of boots. I was tired of being cold and wet. What’s the point in having zillions if you’re still cold and wet?

If the shop had sold kalashnikovs I’d of bought one of them too. I could see meself walking out from behind the Static with a kalashnikov in my arms, saying, ‘Oi, monkey-brains, what’s them little sawn-off peashooters you got there? You want to cock around with me, mate?’

And the monkey-brained bastards, they’d just go, ‘Uh-oh – too much fire-power,’ and they’d back off and I wouldn’t have to touch them. And I’d be safe and Simone’d be safe. And we could even sit out a siege if we had to ‘cos we’d have everything we needed for survival.

The bloke in the shop said he couldn’t find me a kalashnikov
but he could get me a crossbow which would stop a rhino at ten paces, and you don’t need a firearms licence for it. He didn’t have one in stock but he could order it for me.

Ain’t that the biscuit, though? ‘Can I order it for you, Modom?’ When you ain’t got the gold, it’s all, ‘Oi you, don’t touch the goods if you can’t afford them.’ But if you flash a little of the crinkly stuff, it’s all, ‘I’d be frigging delighted to order you one.’

‘Yeah, yeah, my man. Order me six and be quick about it. And while you’re at it, have this little lot gift-wrapped and sent up to my penthouse with a dozen red roses and a crate of spritzer-thingies for my sister.’

Oh yeah, I was feeling heaps better when I walked out of that shop. Heaps. Even my back felt oiled by that bugger’s smarm. I like a bit of smarm once in a while. And this is the same bugger who wouldn’t let me press my nose against the window a week ago. I wouldn’t be broke again if you paid me.

I was wearing the new strides and combat jacket when I came out of the shop.

‘Rrrr,’ said Lineker, because he didn’t recognise me in new clothes.

‘Shurrup, stupid,’ I said as I untied him. I thought I deserved a beer after spending so much dosh. I ain’t used to spending dosh so it went to my head and I needed a little something to calm my nerves.

Me and Lineker set off for the Fir Tree, but did we get there? I tell you—I ain’t never had a social life like this before. I can’t even get a simple shlurp without someone comes along and interrupts.

This time it was a total stranger – a spotty prat who looked like a drooping weed. He was so droopy I could of tied him in a half-hitch round a telegraph pole, but three things made me very leery.

First off – Lineker went, ‘Yerrrr-ack,’ and Droopy-drawers backed away the length of the leash.

Second – he was wearing a spanking new anorak.

And third – his left arm was bandaged right up to the knuckles.

‘This your dog?’ he said.

‘What’s it to you?’ I said.

‘Only, can I talk to you?’

‘What about?’

‘Listen, it’s really important,’ he said.

I kept walking and he kept shuffling sideways the length of Lineker’s leash away. All the hair on Lineker’s back was up in a ridge and I was really glad I brought him along. Droopy-drawers wasn’t much more than a kid, but he was wearing an anorak big enough for a bloke twice his size and he could of been hiding anything under it.

‘Got to talk to you,’ he said.

‘Well I don’t got to talk to you,’ I said. I wished I was walking faster.

‘No, look,’ he said. ‘Someone said … like … someone said you … like … someone said you was known for having it away with cars.’

‘Someone said wrong,’ I said. ‘Piss off.’

‘No, look, someone said you did it all the time. He said this place round here is … like, an elephant’s graveyard for nicked motors.’

‘Fuck off, Droopy-drawers,’ I said. ‘You calling me a thief?
Are
you?’

‘Na,’ he said. ‘I ain’t calling you nothing. I do a bit of that meself.’

‘What?’

‘Twocking.’

‘Hah!’ I sneered at him. Twocking, in case you never heard of it, is Taking Without the Owner’s Consent. And if that’s what you call nicking motors it prob’ly means you make a habit of it and it prob’ly means you’ve been caught at it. Which made Droopy-drawers a loser.