Musclebound (28 page)

Maybe Keif’s mum was right. Maybe I should of got my head X-rayed. I ran as far as I could. But my head was hurting so bad and all them aspirins made me feel so sick I had to stop and spew up in the gutter. I puked till my guts ached almost as much as my head.

After that I felt better and I walked the rest of the way. At the Fir Tree I stopped. I needed a drink, so I poked my head through the door. But the beer fumes and the cigarettes and the juke-box made me feel pukey again.

And then I thought, I ain’t never going to have another drink. Never. Ma drinks. I don’t want to do nothing Ma does. Nothing at all. Zero. I’ll do the opposite. She drinks. I don’t. I don’t want nothing from her, and whoever she is I want to be the opposite. I don’t even want her to be my ma no more.

And one day she’ll regret it. One day she’ll be old and wrinkly and she’ll say, ‘I’ll go round and see how that daughter of mine’s doing.’ And she’ll turn up at my back door. And the servants’ll come to me and say, ‘Hey, there’s this old bag at the door who says she’s your mother.’ And I’ll say, ‘What? I ain’t got no mother. I’m self-made, me. She must be lying.’ Then she’ll regret it all right. You’ll see if she don’t.

So I didn’t go into the Fir Tree.

Besides, I’m an athlete, and athletes got to look after themselves. I’m the London Lassassin, the one they call Bucket Nut. They love me. They say, ‘Hey, Bucket Nut, where you been?’ And they give me a boost back into the ring.

I didn’t see there was trouble till I got down the end of Mandala Street. Just as I was turning the corner I caught an eyeful of cop cars and blue flashing lights. It looked like the politzei were having a rave. In my yard. I jumped back.

And then someone poked me in the spine with something hard. A BBC newsreader voice said, ‘This is a sawn-off shotgun. Do not move. Just do as I say.’

So I stood like a stone.

He said, ‘Your sister is in the car. Will you come with me – no noise, no trouble?’

‘You’ve got Simone?’ I said.

‘Yes. She’s waiting. Will you come sensibly?’

‘OK,’ I said.

He turned me, and we walked slowly all the way back up Mándala Street – me in front, him behind.

His big gold BMW was parked off the main road.

He said, ‘Open the door, slowly, and get in.’

I opened the door.

‘You look terrible,’ Simone said. She was there, she really was – in her shiny black raincoat and high-heeled boots.

She said, ‘Greg, put that silly gun down. Don’t you hold a gun to my sister’s back.’

‘She’s unreliable,’ Greg said. ‘I had to make sure she didn’t storm off and do something we’d all regret.’ He stowed the shooter under the front seat.

‘Simone,’ I said, ‘that git, Andy, he ain’t your boyfriend, is he?’

‘Who on earth told you that?’ she said.

‘Ma.’

‘Who’s Andy?’ said Greg.

‘A friend of my mother’s,’ Simone said. ‘Eva, don’t go talking to Ma. It’s futile.’

‘What’s futile?’

‘Futile,’ said Greg, ‘is useless. It’s worthless, vain, abortive, unproductive and nugatory.’

‘Isn’t he amazing?’ said Simone.

I said, ‘Simone, it was such a fuck-up.’

‘Poor Eva,’ said Simone.

‘She lies all the time,’ I said. ‘
All
the time. She said Andy was your boyfriend and then she told her feller I wasn’t her daughter. She said Wozzisname wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘Who is …?’

‘Another friend of my mother’s,’ Simone said. She took my hand and squeezed it. ‘You and I know different.’

‘Differently,’ said Greg.

‘Thanks, Greg,’ said Simone. ‘We don’t want to talk about that now, do we, Eva?’ She squeezed my hand tight and flicked her eyes towards Greg and back to me.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve had it with all that. I’ve had it with Ma.’ I sat back in the warm car and rested my head against Simone’s shoulder. We had our secrets, Simone and me. We was family.

Greg said, ‘Eva, even as we speak the police are raiding your yard.’

‘Stupid bastards,’ I said. It was wonderful. The politzei was crawling all over my home and they didn’t know. They didn’t know that home was here in a warm car with Simone.

‘Why?’ said Greg. ‘Why are the police raiding your yard, Eva?’

‘Search me.’

‘Who called them?’

‘Dunno.’

Simone squeezed my hand again. She said, ‘Eva, you know what you were telling me in the pub?’

‘Wha’?’

‘About the lottery ticket and the people who gave you Greg’s money.’

‘What about it?’

‘Don’t get sleepy on me again, Eva,’ she said. ‘You said there was a detective woman asking questions about it.’

‘The Enemy,’ I said. ‘Once a copper, always a copper.’

‘What did you tell her?’

I couldn’t remember, and, even worse, I couldn’t remember exactly what I told Simone about the lottery ticket. And that could be a lot of bother because I was sitting in a car with God Greg.

I sat up straight. ‘Ramses and Lineker,’ I said. ‘Milo. What they done to my dogs?’

‘Never mind the dogs,’ God Greg said. ‘What did you tell the detective?’

‘They ain’t your dogs,’ I said. ‘They’re mine – and I mind.’

‘Where are you going?’ Simone said, hanging on to my hand.

‘The dogs,’ I said. ‘I ain’t letting no bastard politzei take my dogs off me.’ I was struggling to get out of the car but she was holding me back.

Greg reached under the front seat, grabbed the sawn-off and stuck it up my nose.

‘I beg your pardon, Simone,’ he said. ‘We tried it your way. Now we’ll try it mine.’

‘Greg –
don’t!’

‘What did you tell the detective?’

‘Nothing.’ My head was back. My neck was stretched. I had a shooter rammed up my nose and it hurt.

‘Don’t, Greg,’ said Simone. ‘Eva, tell him. For Christ’s sake, tell him what you told the detective.’

‘Nuffin,’ I said. ‘I don’t never say nuffin to her.’ Well, I don’t, do I? I couldn’t of. It’s against my religion, ain’t it?

‘It’s my religion,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘It’s like a religion,’ Simone said. ‘She wouldn’t tell. Honest, Greg.’

‘Honestly,’ said Greg.

‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ said Simone.

I can’t tell you what I’d of done if there wasn’t a shooter up me nose.
Sweetheart?

‘Greg, she’s spent half her life in custody,’ Simone said. ‘She hates the police. You can believe her, honestly you can.’

‘But she drinks too much,’ Greg said. ‘She isn’t in control of her faculties. She runs amok – we saw that last night.’

‘That’s wrestling,’ Simone said. ‘That’s theatre, Greg. You said so yourself

‘I don’t think she knows the difference.’

‘Fuck off,’ I said. ‘What I don’t know about wrestling you can stuff under your fingernail and scratch your bum-hole with.’

‘And she’d never do anything to hurt me, Greg,’ Simone said. ‘Would you, Eva? She’d never do anything to hurt me. If I told her that talking about you to the cops would hurt me, she’d go to her grave with her mouth shut. She would. Wouldn’t you, Eva.
Wouldn’t
you?’

She was trying so hard it almost made me want to bawl. And she was squeezing my hand so hard with her long fingernails – that almost made me want to bawl too.

I said, ‘I’d never let you down. You know that.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Greg? Please, Greg.’

He lowered the shooter. ‘I want to be sure,’ he said. ‘A lot depends on it.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ll go with her. I promise, Greg. I promise, your name’11 never come up.’

‘Go where?’ I said. The shooter was lying across his knees and I was wondering if I’d have time to grab it and shoot his underpants before he blew my nose off.

‘To the yard,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to talk to the police, Eva, and you’ll have to tell them the exact same story you told me.’

‘Identical, Simone,’ Greg said. ‘Exact same is a tautology. She’ll have to tell the police a story
identical
to the one she told you.’

‘You’re incredible, Greg.’

‘Thank you. And she must remember it so that she can repeat it again and again in every detail.’

‘That’s why,’ I said. ‘They’re on to you like piss on a lamp-post if you forget. That’s why you never say nothin’.’

‘This time’s different,’ Simone said. ‘This time we
want
you to tell them what you told me. And, Eva, it’s going to be OK,
because you can always say you’d had a little too much to drink so you can’t remember clearly.’

‘I’ll remember to sew the Enemy’s mouth shut with a rusty needle,’ I said. ‘Dobbing me in like that. She said she’d give me twenty-four hours. You can’t never trust a copper.’

‘Why did she, Eva?’ Simone said.

‘Dunno.’

‘How did she know to come to you in the first place?’

‘Dunno.’ I was trying to remember. ‘Oh yeah.’ Remembering’s a lot easier when you don’t have a shooter up your hooter.

‘Local traders, she said. She was working for some local traders who were all upset ‘cos someone gave them bad dosh. She said my name kept coming up.’

‘Ah,’ said Greg. ‘Now I understand.’

‘You see?’ said Simone. ‘I told you. My sister would never knowingly do anything to harm you. She didn’t know the money was wrong or she’d never have spent it.’

‘I got to eat,’ I said.

‘And you will,’ said Greg. ‘I can safely say that if you tell your story correctly, and are believed, I’ll make sure you eat well from now on.’

‘Oh, Greg,’ Simone said, ‘you’re so kind.’ Her fingers were digging into mine. So I kept my lip buttoned.

‘I understand about bad families,’ Greg said. ‘It’s no disgrace provided you make the effort later.’

‘Like you did,’ Simone said, before I could tell him how much he understood about my family.

‘Come on, Eva,’ she said. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

She dragged me out of the car. We didn’t speak till we got round the corner and God Greg couldn’t see us no more.

Then she said, ‘This is the last time, Eva. I’m moving heaven and earth to drag your arse out of the fire and all you do is aggravate. You talk loud and show me up.’

‘What about you?’ I said. ‘Wha’choo calling that piece of
crap-smear “sweetheart” for? When he had a shooter up me nose. You called him sweetheart. I
heard
you.’

‘I
told
you,’ she said. ‘That’s what you call a guy with a gun, you stupid cow.’

‘I don’t,’ I said.

‘No,
you
get your head blown off.’

‘I’ll blow his fuckin’ head off’

‘Shut
up,’
she screamed. ‘Shut up shouting. Shut up with all this horrible talk. I’m sick of it. It’s all you do.’

‘Ain’t.’

‘Is.’

‘I’ll talk nice,’ I said. ‘Pardon me language – nicely. I’ll talk to the police nicely. And you can talk nice to fuckin’ God Greg – at visiting hours. Won’t that be nicely?’

‘You do that and I’ll never speak to you again,’ she said. ‘I swear to God, Eva – if you ruin this for me I’ll never see you again. Ever. I got a chance now.’

‘What chance?’

‘Security, Eva. Can’t you understand? He’s got money and power.’

‘Bad money.’

‘Oh that,’ she said. ‘That’s just a deal. Something he was doing for someone else.’

‘Bollocks, Simone. Bad money. Bad man.’

‘No, Eva,’ she said. ‘He could look after me. He’ll look after you too. You heard him. All you have to do is talk sweet to the coppers, just this once. He said he’d set me up in business, Eva. Think of it. My own business.’

‘Not yours,’ I said. ‘His.’

‘In my own name,’ she said. ‘In my own right. I won’t have to scrape and scramble ever again.’

‘Only to him,’ I said. ‘Only to God Greg.’

‘He isn’t so bad,’ she said. ‘I’ve met worse. Please, Eva, please. Don’t do it for him. Do it for me.’

‘What?’

‘Oh Christ!’ she said. ‘Tell them. Tell the police the story about the lottery ticket and the woman in Mandala Street market. The way you told me.’

‘Oh that,’ I said.

‘Wasn’t it true? I believed you.’

‘’Course it’s true,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t lie to you.’

‘Then you will?’

‘Will you be there?’ I said. I didn’t want to let her go.

‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘I told Greg I would. But, Eva, don’t get me into any more trouble. I don’t like the police either – so please, please, talk quiet.’

We walked round the corner together, into all the crawling cops and blue flashing lights. I was too wrung dry to do anything else. Anyway, even if Simone wasn’t beside me, I’d of had to go in. ‘Cos of the dogs. They’re
my
dogs, see, and I brought Milo up since he was a pup.

There’s laws about dogs. There’s sodding laws about every sodding thing on earth, and they’re wrapped around you so tight you’re like a fly trapped in a wire-wool pad.

Can you believe this one? You ain’t allowed to leave an unmuzzled, unrestrained guard dog alone in the place he’s guarding. In case he hurts the pillock who breaks in. Which is what he’s supposed to do. What’s he there for, I ask you? How’s he supposed to guard if he’s wearing a muzzle? You might as well train a goldfish to guard a yard.

‘Shshsh,’ said Simone. ‘Eva didn’t know. She’ll get muzzles in the morning. She only left the yard on urgent family business. She’s always here otherwise. She’s never left the dogs alone before, officer. Never.’

The politzei was really annoyed about the dogs, so I guess they put up a good fight. Didn’t I tell you – Ramses and Lineker are the meanest bastard dogs in South London, and Milo’s learning. I was proud of them.

‘Shsh, Eva,’ Simone said. ‘Eva’s in total control of the dogs. They’ll be much more trouble if you take them away.’

The dogs were in a politzei van. I couldn’t see them but I could hear them.

‘It’s all right, Eva,’ Simone whispered to me. ‘You’ll get your dogs back. Stay calm.’

Oh, she was a class act all right. I was so stone tired all I could do was sit back and admire her.

But the dogs was only the first stick they hit me with. The second
one was stolen cars. Laugh if you like, but this didn’t have nothing to do with me. Besides I ain’t a thief. I don’t thieve motors. I only borrow them. And I don’t never bring them to the yard. Well, hardly ever. No, I park ‘em, all neat and tidy, with a load of other parked cars where whoever wants ‘em can find ‘em again.