Musclebound (20 page)

‘Concern yourself in someone else’s yard.’

He ignored me. Again. He said, ‘Simone, you’ve already proved yourself to be as sensible as you’re beautiful. Perhaps you can persuade your sister … how can I put this without causing a seismic response …? The bag and its contents will bring nothing but trouble, they will do everyone, except me, much more harm than good. They
must
be returned to me.’

Simone was looking at him like he was God Almighty – all huge eyes and respect. It made me feel like a tractor tyre with
the inner tube over-inflated. Something was going to explode in my guts.

I said, ‘I … you …’

‘Eva,’ Simone said. ‘Calm down and stand still.’

And suddenly I remembered standing in the rain counting to a hundred. ‘One, two, three,’ I said.

Simone said, ‘OK, Eva, it’s OK.’

‘Six, seven,’ I said.

‘Pardon?’ said Greg.

‘Please,’ said Simone, ‘she’s getting upset. We need a little time. I’ll sort this out. I don’t understand it, but I’ll sort it out. Everything you’ve said is news to me. I want you to believe that.’

‘Oddly enough,’ Greg said, ‘I think I do. Shall I explain further?’

‘Yes,’ said Simone.

‘NO!’ I shouted. Because suddenly I remembered Keif in the Static with Milo and I didn’t know how long it’d take him to come out and join the party. Everything was falling on my head.

I barged Greg out of my path and I walked away, straight out the gate and up the road.

He could shoot me in the back for all I cared. He could mash me with his BMW and leave me in the gutter.

I felt like he’d done it already – telling Simone them things. And her looking at him like he was God Greg, and believing him. Why? If she believed him she wouldn’t believe me – about the lottery and stuff. But she
shouldn’t
believe him and not me. I mean she shouldn’t
want
to believe him. I mean, she’s my sister and I wouldn’t lie to her. That’s what she should believe. That’s what I believe about her. I mean, why can’t she be the same? How can she stand there, with me, beside me, and give him my shooter? How can she stand there with me and look at him like he’s God Greg?

I don’t know if she called out to stop me. And I don’t care. I mean, why would she bother? Why would she bother with hulking great Godzilla when she could stand there nattering to
God? Who’d want Godzilla when she’d got God? Who? No one. That’s who.

So I don’t know if she called out my name, and I kept on walking. And I counted my footsteps, one, two, three, like she was there telling me to. And when I got the numbers muddled up I started again from one. And I thought maybe if I could get to one hundred without jumbling any of it up, maybe if I could do that, everything’d turn out all right. But counting ain’t my game. So in the end I did it for the rhythm.

I was climbing up some stairs and a woman said, ‘You don’t want to come up these steps without no shoes on.’

‘Eh?’ I said, and I stopped. I was climbing up the stairs to Ma’s flat and it was like climbing up an elephant’s arse.

‘You’ll give yourself an ‘orrible disease,’ the woman said. ‘What you want to come out without your shoes anyway?’

‘Lost ‘em,’ I said. But it wasn’t shoes I’d lost. It was time. ‘What’s the time?’ I said.

“Bout six,’ she said, and went on down.

I hate that. Not knowing what the time is or where it went. Or what I did in the time. Or what I was doing now. At Ma’s block. When Ma was the last person on earth I wanted to see.

Habit. I was there out of habit. See, I used to come here regular when Ma was the only family I had and I thought one day I’d meet Simone.

Only now it was all different. Ma wasn’t family no more, and Simone was back. And Wozzisname was one of Ma’s boyfriends. Had been. Used to be. Except, now, he was at the bottom of the Thames. He wasn’t smooching with Ma no more. He was smooching with a fire extinguisher and his own lump hammer. And he wasn’t hot for Ma no more. He was water temperature, and the water in the Thames is cold, cold water at this time of year.

So I couldn’t see Ma, could I?

But it was her fault. She sent Wozzisname and Andy. And now she was screwing all my dosh out of me. She had no right to be angry about Wozzisname. I had more right to be angry than she did.

I climbed on up the stairs. Maybe I could screw a pair of socks out of her. I can’t wear her shoes – me feet’s too big – but a pair of stretch socks is better than nothing.

I banged on her door but she didn’t come. It was freezing out on her walkway, and my bruised toe was throbbing. She wasn’t there to open the door. Typical. I paid her rent and I gave her one thousand one hundred and sixty-seven pounds, and you’d think that’d be enough to buy a pair of stretch socks. But was it? Nothing’s what I got from Ma, as per usual.

The next-door-woman came out. She said, ‘Who’s that making all the racket? Oh, hello, duck, it’s you.’

I seen her before. One time, when Ma was out, she lent me a kitchen spatula to pop Ma’s lock so’s I could get in.

‘No use knocking,’ she said. ‘Your mum’s gone. Din’t she tell you?’

‘But I paid her back rent,’ I said. ‘I thought she stayed.’

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘She’s gone. A young bloke turned up with a van and moved all her bits and pieces.’

‘But where?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ the next-door-woman said. ‘We wasn’t on speaking terms – she always left her telly on too bleeding loud. All hours. Day and night. Never turned it down when I asked. Paper-thin walls. I couldn’t get no sleep and the kids couldn’t get no sleep. Now there’s a young couple in there and all they do is fight. That keeps us awake too. But at least they go out and don’t leave the telly on.’

Fuckin’ hell! My ma just upped and scarpered even after I paid her rent. And she didn’t say where she was going. Can you credit it? She didn’t even tell her own daughter, who’d paid her lousy stinking rent. And that was before Wozzisname, so she had no excuse.

So now I couldn’t find her to give her a piece of my mind. And it was after six so I had to go back to the yard to lock up and let the dogs out. Only I didn’t want to go back to the yard ‘cos I didn’t know what I’d find there. And I was tired and cold already.

The only car I could borrow was a little green Yugo, so I crammed myself in that and drove home. There wasn’t nowhere else to go.

One good thing though – my back was easier. Now all I had to do was get voodoo digits to work on my foot.

I didn’t expect to find Simone when I got back to the yard and I wasn’t disappointed. I shouldn’t of left her with God Greg. I shouldn’t of done that. But she gave him my shooter and so I couldn’t shut him up. I don’t know what he told her. I didn’t want him to tell her anything but I couldn’t shut him up so I left, ‘cos I couldn’t bear to see her believing him and not me.

Now she’d walk out on me for sure. I was protecting her from trouble – from Fish-face and Droopy-drawers – but she ends up talking to God Greg who’s much worse. Only she can’t see it. He talks toffee-nosed like she does, so she thinks he’s better than me. Only he isn’t. He’s a jumped-up baboon. And now he’s a jumped-up baboon with a sawn-off shooter. And he’s after my dosh. Join the queue, God Greg, take your turn. If Simone’s got anything to do with it you’ll get one thousand one hundred and sixty-seven pounds too.

I locked up and let Ramses and Lineker out. Then I went to the Static. I wasn’t expecting to find Keif there either, but he was. He was lying on my bunk, on my sleeping bag, with Milo curled up under one arm. They was both snoozing, and Milo didn’t even lift an ear when I came in. That was bad, very bad. Milo’s in training to be a watchdog but he doesn’t wake up when someone comes in on him unexpected.

And that’s Keif’s fault. Keif turns everyone into candyfloss.

But not me. Oh no. I banged the kettle down on the stove,
ker-rash
.

‘Herf,’ went Milo.

‘Wha’?’ went Keif.

‘Who told you you could fart around on my bed?’

‘Me?’ said Keif. ‘I never fart in a lady’s bed.’

‘Herf?’ went Milo. He jumped off the bunk and asked to be
let out. I opened the door for him. He could take his chances with Ramses and Lineker tonight and if they toughed him up it was his own silly fault – letting Keif turn him into a candyfloss attack dog.

Keif was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. ‘Where you been, girl?’ he said.

‘Out walking,’ I said. ‘One of us remembered my training, and it wasn’t my personal trainer. No – my personal trainer earns his corn kipping. You’re out. Fired. Fucking hop it.’

‘What’s the time?’ he said. He was grinning at me and stretching like stretching was better than sex. ‘What you so bitter ‘n’ twisted for? Had another fight with your sister?’

I fired him. And if he took a blind bit of notice you can put a stick in my hand and wheel me out in front of a symphony orchestra – they’ll pay me more heed.

He looked at his watch. ‘Jesus!’ he said. ‘I’m going to be late. Me first and last fight and I’m going to be late or what. Get yer boots on, girl, let’s go. C’mon.’

I pulled my new skinning knife out of its holster and lobbed it at him. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘take me knife and scrape yer balls out of yer ears. I told you – I ain’t coming.’

‘You are,’ he said. ‘I got it all worked out. Hey, nice knife, sugar-puss. New? Lookin’ good. Everything going to be all right. You look like a soldier of fortune and when you step in that ring we going to boogie the arse off those tossers.’

‘We?’ My gob fell open like bomb-bay doors.

‘C’mon. Why not “we”? You were right on the money. It’s in your blood. It ain’t in mine.’

Suddenly my brain went turbo-charged. I could see it – the whole story.

I said, ‘You need me in the ring too. Right? ‘Cos they’re going to cream you, aren’t they? They’re setting you up, right? So you’re going to need a mercenary, right? To come in and sort it. So I come in and save your arse.’

‘I dunno about saving my arse,’ Keif said. ‘I dunno ‘bout that.’

‘Dogs of War,’ I said. ‘Man, we could be a tag team.’

‘Hold it, hold it!’ Keif said. ‘This ain’t a career move.’

‘Why not?’

‘’Cos I ain’t planning to stick around in the wrestling game after tonight.’

‘Why not?’ I said. ‘It’s a fuckin’
brilliant
game.’

‘I just want to get through tonight without no injury. Just come in with a bang and go out with a bang, and leave it. I don’t want to be nobody’s patsy or what.’

See, he hadn’t never been in the ring, under the lights, with the crowd going nuclear.

‘You’ll change,’ I said.

‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘I just want to know if you’re on – for one night only.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m on.’

‘Then we gotta go, man. I don’t want to be late.’

‘You better be late,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Why? You’ve changed your costume. You ain’t going to be who they want you to be. You don’t want to hang around backstage fighting about that. You got to make an entrance – you can’t give ’em time to stand you down. ’Cos they will. Mr Deeds will. He’ll say, “Do it my way or fuck off.’”

‘Shit.’

‘And then there’s me. If they see me they’ll smell a rat straight off.’

‘So?’

‘So ring Mr Deeds. Say you’re on your way but your car broke down. You’ll be there, but you’ll be late.’

‘I ain’t got a car. I was going to go to my folks’ place. We was all going to go together.’

‘I got a car,’ I said.

‘Safe,’ he said. ‘Where’s the phone?’

‘Mandala Street,’ I said.

While he was gone I went to the shower cubicle and doused
down. I even washed my hair. And I brushed my teeth till my gums burned. It’s a ritual, see. Before a fight, you get clean and ready. You don’t want nothing wrong or messy. So even if you got to wash in cold water, you do it. But I didn’t mind. I was tingling. I ain’t tingled like that since a year ago.

I put on my new combat jacket and my new zippy strides which tucked into my old wrestling boots.

But underneath the new gear I wore the black. I pulled on my black leotard and black leggings.

They were a bit tighter than they had been but they still fitted well enough. So if you’re the genius who invented Lycra, I want to say ‘Thanks a lot’ from the bottom of my heart.

For once, I wished I could look in a mirror. Because I felt like the real thing – I felt like a mercenary. I was dressed like a soldier of fortune, and that’s a sort of assassin, isn’t it? So it ain’t like I wasn’t me. I was still the London Lassassin but I had soldiers’ clothes on top. And everything felt OK.

I danced on my toes and that felt good too – even the toe I bruised. My toes tingled like the rest of me.

‘I’m back,’ I said, out loud. ‘Look out, Pete Carver. You won’t know what hit you.’

But he would know. ‘Cos it was going to be me who hit him and I’d make sure he knew it was me. And I’d make sure Mr Deeds knew. And Gruff. And Phil Julio. And Harsh. And all the other wankers who thought I couldn’t hack it.

‘Hey, be cool, baby-cakes,’ Keif said when he came back. ‘Mind that lumbar region. You ain’t fightin’, remember. You just makin’ an appearance.’

A lot
he
knew. I don’t wash my hair in cold water just to make an appearance. No way. ‘Where we going?’ I said. ‘Ladywell Baths,’ he said. ‘Know it?’

Know it? Of course I know it. It’s the scene of one of me best triumphs. I was a bleeding star at the Ladywell Baths.

‘Yeah, I know it,’ I said.

‘Good,’ he said, “cos I ain’t got a map.’

But I don’t need a map. I know every one of the venues where Deeds Promotions ever put a fight on. I could find ’em blindfold.

I gave Keif the keys and told him to lock the gate because I didn’t want him hanging over my shoulder when I started up the little green Yugo. It had to be the Yugo ‘cos I knew where it was, and I knew it still had half a tank of gas. I wished it was a Roller or a Bentley or a Merc – something grand, something fitting. But it was a little green Yugo.

Keif and me ain’t little green people, though, so it was a bit like fitting a pint of cream in a toothpaste tube.

I didn’t care about that. What I cared about was when we pulled away from the yard I saw a big gold BMW coming in the opposite direction – God Greg’s flash wheels. I couldn’t see through the tinted windows, so I didn’t know if Simone was in there or not.