Musclebound (27 page)

I was thinking so hard I almost caught up with him. Which wasn’t the idea at all. I had to crouch down and tie my shoelace or he’d of felt my breath on the back of his crummy neck, and then I’d of had to dot him right then and there instead of finding out where he lived and letting his missus do it for me.

So on he goes without turning round. And on I go behind
him. And he knows where he’s going but I don’t. Which is a right piss-off. I don’t like being led around like a dog.

I was just wondering if dogs like being led around like dogs when he turned into a service alley behind some shops. Halfway along he turned again and ran up an iron stairway which looked like a fire escape. He banged on the door at the top.

I was too close so I ducked down behind some rubbish bins. And I thought, he lives above a shop – maybe he owns a shop. If he owns a shop he’s got dosh of his own, so why …?

And then I heard a woman say, ‘She ain’t here. She ain’t been here. Bleeding sling yer hook, an’ leave me in peace.’

And I sat down in the wet – I was so gob-smacked. ‘Cos that wasn’t his missus, that was my ma.

I got it all the wrong way round. His missus lived in Ma’s old flat and Ma lived above a shop. That’s how they met – when she was moving out and he was moving in. They must of met the same day I had my run-in with the poxy rent man and the rent man clattered me with his frigging baseball bat. If I wasn’t so aeriated from being clattered, maybe I’d of met him too.

I could just see it – her running round like a headless chicken plucking up all that slaggy underwear from where it fell off of her walkway, and him clocking her and thinking, ‘Yahoo – any woman wearing tart-rags like this must be a pushover.’ So they go out for a drink together, and as soon as she gets bladdered – which would only be a couple of rum and cokes later – she’d say, ‘Yeah, me daughter’s loaded. She’s got a wedge the size of a pound of cheese an’ she paid off all me back rent.’

And then they’d cook up their greedy little game to grab my wedge off of me. Using Simone. Ma knew Simone was the most important thing in the world to me because I’d told her so over and over again for years and years.

Is that a lesson? Or is it a lesson? If you want something really bad – and I mean really, truly want it, like I wanted to see Simone again – don’t never tell anyone. ‘Cos if you tell anyone they’ll use it against you. Even your ma. Especially your ma. If you tell people
what you want, what you ache for, you’re giving them power over you. First, they use the power by denying you. And then they use the power by saying you can have what you want but only if you pay through the nose for it for the rest of your sorry life.

Keep it to yourself, I say. Don’t you tell no one what you want. Don’t give your ma the power to say no or yes or gimme all your dosh. If you don’t do that, you’ll be better off than me. You won’t find yourself sitting in the wet behind a load of garbage bins with tears in your eyes and a splitting headache.

I hardly saw Andy when he came past again, and he didn’t see me at all. I waited till he went round the corner before I got up and blew my nose on my T-shirt.

Then I crossed the alley and went up the iron steps to Ma’s door.

Bang-bang-bang I went, with the heel of my hand against the cracked paintwork. I could hear music and gunshots from the telly inside.

Then, ‘Wha’?’ from behind the door. I banged again.

‘Go ‘way,’ Ma said. ‘I told you. Go ‘way.’

‘It’s me,’ I said.

Silence, except for more gunshots.

‘Open the fucking door,’ I said, ‘or I’ll kick it in.’ But, truth to tell, I was too tired and headachy to kick a paper bag.

‘You would too,’ she said from behind the door. ‘You’d leave me with no bleeding door.’

‘Believe,’ I said.

So she opened the door, and there she stood in a lime-green camisole thing with only half her make-up on.

‘Wha’choo want?’ she said.

‘Talk,’ I said.

‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘Go ‘way.’

Then she remembered, and her face went all saggy.

‘Oooh,’ she squealed. ‘You’re a murderer, you are. Go ‘way. Get away from me.’ And she ran off down a dark tight passage, through a door which she slammed behind her.

I went after her. I opened the door she went through and found her in her tiny grim bedroom, standing there with a wire coat-hanger in her hand.

‘You going to hit me with that?’ I said.

She used to hit us with wire coat-hangers when we was kids if she caught us playing in her bedroom.

‘I got a right to defend meself,’ she said.

‘Don’t be so bleeding stupid,’ I said. I took the coat-hanger out of her hand and bent it in half. Like I should of done when I was little.

‘You’re a killer,’ she said. She sat down on the stool in front of her dressing-table.

All her things were still in boxes except for a couple of frocks rumpled up in a heap. I sat down on the bed.

She turned her back on me and stared at me in the mirror.

‘Look at you,’ she said. ‘You’re just an ugly great killer. I always said you’d turn out bad. I always said that. I said, “That one’ll turn out bad.’”

‘Well, you wasn’t wrong,’ I said. ‘With a little help from you. How could you, Ma, how could you?’

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said, ‘
I
ain’t killed anyone. You didn’t need no help from me. You started out bad and you went on from there. You was even born the wrong way round and you ain’t changed. I said, you ain’t changed. So don’t you look at me like that ‘cos it ain’t my fault.’

I dunno how I was looking at her. She was sitting there with her back to me. All I could see was her wobbly white shoulders cut into squares by lime-green straps. Except when I looked in the mirror, when I could see that blood-red gash of a mouth jabbering.

She was talking to me through a mirror and she couldn’t even do that proper. She got distracted by her own face and she started to paint her second eye.

‘But why, Ma?’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘Why what?’ she said. ‘And that’s another thing – I’ve told you and told you but you don’t never listen – don’t bleeding call me
Ma. People look at me funny when you call me Ma. I’m still a young woman.’

‘What’m I s’posed to call you? What does Simone call you?’

‘Simone?’ The red gash went still for a moment. ‘Simone don’t hardly call me nothing. That other woman brought her up. Anyway it don’t matter with Simone. Simone takes after me.’

‘Never!’ I said. ‘She couldn’t be more different.’

‘Simone’s pretty,’ she said. ‘She takes after me. I could of done them things Simone’s done if I wasn’t lumbered with kids. Kids ruin yer figure.’

She always does this to me. It’s always her and her stuff. Always, always, always. She won’t look me in the eye and talk about my stuff.

‘So that makes it all right?’ I said. ‘I ruined your figure, so it’s all right to ruin my life.’

‘You ain’t got a life to ruin,’ she said. ‘Look at you.’

‘I got a life, but you ain’t interested. You never saw me fight. Not even once. You never even came to my home. Not once. No. But you sent Wozzisname and Andy the minute you thought I had a bit of dosh.’

For a moment it looked like she was too interested in her mascara brush to bother to answer. Then she said, ‘Your home? What home? You’d of taken a hammer to me like you did to poor Jim. I always said you was a bad’n.’

‘It was his hammer,’ I said. ‘He brought it. He was going to use it on me and Simone.’

‘Don’t be so fucking stupid,’ she said. ‘Jim wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s you. You get everything upside down. It’s just like you. You was born the wrong way round and you’ve taken everything the wrong way round ever since.’

‘Why did you send him?’ I said. ‘If you wanted money, why didn’t you ask?’

‘Ask you?’ she said. ‘Don’t make me laugh. Anyway, I never sent him. It wasn’t my fault. Don’t you shout at me.’

She always does this. Always. ‘Who’m I supposed to shout at?’ I shouted. ‘You’re supposed to be my ma.’

‘Shut up,’ she shrieked. ‘I said shut up. That was ages ago. You’re grown up. What d’you need to call me Ma for now?’

‘Cos she
is
my ma. Why couldn’t she act like my ma? I could of picked her up by her jelly neck and shaken her till her blusher dropped off. Except she was my ma. If I didn’t remember that I’d be as bad as her.

‘It ain’t my fault,’ she said. ‘You always blame me for everything and it ain’t my fault. Now look what you done.’

‘What?’

‘You made me eyes run,’ she said. ‘Now I’m going to have to do them all over again. You made me eyes run.’

I had my thumb in my mouth. I did. And I was biting it so hard I almost bit it off.

‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘I ain’t got time. I’m going out.’

I said, ‘You got time to send Wozzisname and that scrubber-lover round to screw dosh out of your own daughter.’

‘Don’t blame me,’ she said. ‘You want someone to blame, blame your toffee-nosed sister.’

‘You’re evil,’ I said. ‘You’re an evil slobbering lying old cow.’

‘I ain’t old,’ she shouted. ‘I ain’t. You’re always blaming me. Something goes wrong – wha’d’you do? – you come round blaming me. How did you find me anyway? Simone wasn’t supposed to tell you. No one was supposed to tell you.’

‘Simone doesn’t do what you tell her,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re both of you against me.’

‘Simone doesn’t have to tell me where you live, you dribbling old tart. All I got to do is follow one of your sick tart-raking fellers.’

‘Wha’?’

‘Andy,’ I shouted. ‘I followed Andy. Would you tell your own daughter your address? Like fuck you would! No, I got to follow your latest shag.’

‘You’re so bleeding stupid,’ Ma squealed. ‘Andy ain’t mine. He’s Simone’s.’

‘You take me for a retard, don’t you?’ I said. ‘You think Simone and me don’t talk. You think she don’t tell me about you. You kept us apart all these years. Well, it didn’t work, Ma. We’re family, Simone and me. You ain’t ‘cos you blew your chance.’

She jumped up then and turned to face me. Her face was all twisted with spite. She said, ‘What’s she been telling you? It’s all lies. Where is she anyway? She was going to give me some money. I been waiting for her to come and help me out. She said she’d pay the rent, and now I got to go out, and me face ain’t finished.’

I snatched a coat-hanger off the bed.

‘Don’t hit me, don’t hit me,’ she screeched. ‘It ain’t my fault.’

I had to twist it with both hands to stop me from twisting her wobbly white neck.

And then, bam-bam-bam, someone knocked on the door.

‘Oh my god,’ Ma snivelled. ‘I ain’t even dressed yet.’

I came here to have it out with her. Once and for all. But I’m so low on her list of what’s important I come below mascara, frocks and doors. There’s a dead bloke at the bottom of the Thames, and one daughter’s disappeared with a big dangerous man with a shooter, and her other daughter’s clawing at the ceiling. But does she care?

‘Get the door,’ she said. ‘Don’t just stand there.’

She always does it to me. Always. She makes me feel smaller than the breadcrumb you wouldn’t bother to throw to the ducks. I don’t matter. Even the ducks wouldn’t miss me.

‘You’re like a big ox,’ she said, ‘a big dumb ox. Don’t just stand there. Get the bleeding door.’

She was struggling into a short black frock.

‘Zip me up,’ she said. ‘Fucking zip me up, can’t you.’

Bam-bam-bam went the door knocker.

I said, ‘But, Ma …’

‘Don’t call me that,’ she said. ‘I
told
you. Don’t call me that. I got company.’

She’s my ma. She’s my sodding sodden mother. And I can’t make it to the first bend in the road with her. She don’t want to know.

She pushed past me and went to the door.

‘You always,’ I said, ‘you always, always

She opened the door and a voice said, ‘Get a move on, we’re missing valuable drinking time.’

The voice was so familiar I rushed into the little kitchen to see who it was.

It was just another bloke. No one I knew. Just another one of Ma’s fellers. I didn’t know him. I just knew the whole crappy scene like I knew my own hand. I knew the knock at the back door. I knew the voice in the kitchen or in the hall or on the walkway.

‘Nearly ready,’ said Ma. ‘Hang on.’

‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘You got to talk to me.’

‘Who’s this?’ the bloke said.

‘No one,’ Ma said. ‘She just turned up.’

‘If you ain’t ready,’ he said, ‘I’m off.’

‘Wait for me, darlin’.’

‘I’m her daughter,’ I said. ‘She’s my ma.’

‘Bloody hell,’ the bloke said.

‘She’s lying,’ Ma said. ‘She’s lying. She’s always making trouble.’ She kicked me hard on the shin.

‘You got to talk to me,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll walk out the door, and if I do, I’m never coming back.’

‘I
wish!’
she said. She had her arms up her back trying to pull the zip. ‘Wait for me, darlin’, I’ll be ready in a sec’

‘Well, get your skates on,’ the bloke said. ‘I’m thirsty.’

‘Comin’, darlin’,’ she said in that horrible little-girly voice.

I couldn’t stand that girly voice. I hated the bastards who made her talk that way.

So I pushed the bloke backwards out the door. I pushed him backwards down the iron steps. I did what Pete Carver did to Keif – I gut-barged him all the way down to the alley.

‘She’s my ma,’ I said. ‘She ain’t your cheap shag. She’s my ma an’ she’s nearly forty years old.’

‘Oi!’ Ma shrieked from the top of the stairs. ‘Don’t listen to her. I told you, don’t listen. She’s lying.’

‘Bloody ‘ell,’ the bloke said, pushing me off. ‘I didn’t come here for no trouble.’

‘You all right, darlin’?’ Ma squealed. She clattered down behind us. ‘Don’t listen to her – she’s mad. We’ll have a few drinks. We’ll have a good time. Don’t worry about her – she’s crazy.’

‘Ma!’ I yelled. And I started kicking the rubbish bins to make her look at me. To make her listen. To make her stop at home and pay attention.

And I went on kicking them long after she’d gone. I went on kicking them till I heard the cop car come.

Then I ran away.