Musclebound (3 page)

My teeth were chattering – rat-a-tat-tat. I felt smashed again. I couldn’t walk in a straight line.

I was rich. I was stinking dirty filthy rich.

It was what I’d always wanted.

I cried like a baby.

Go on, laugh. But I sat on the dogs’ bedding and howled.

Every crisp crinkly crunchy note in that Puma bag was mine. Mine, all mine.

If you haven’t ever been on your uppers, if you haven’t ever lived in hunger-town, if you haven’t ever really truly
wanted
– you won’t understand. So go away and suck on fish food.

It was nearly morning, nearly the time when the yard comes alive. I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. There was almost as much in my head as there was in that Puma bag – and I was counting it.

But at last the rhythm of the crusher took over. Bad’n, bad’n, it said. Just the same as ‘Satisfaction’. And I went to sleep with bad’n, bad’n thumping in my brain like a headache.

Which really did turn into a headache when I woke up – a bad’n. But I almost enjoyed it, because I was thinking, ‘Now I can straighten everything out. I can buy me own gym and get fit again.’

It wouldn’t be the same as Sam’s gym, where I used to work out – the one Mr Deeds kicked me out of. It’d be better. I’d have a personal trainer and a sauna kept ‘specially for me. I’d sweat the poison out of my system. I’d sweat the extra weight off. I’d be lean and hard. I’d be mean and tough. And I’d be in charge. Oh I’d be a bad’n all right. Believe. A lean, mean, bad machine.

I went down Mandala Street market for my breakfast. It was three in the afternoon, cold and grey. But I had a bunch of twenty-pound notes in my pocket to keep me warm. I bought a couple of burgers and a bag of chips at John’s Burger Bar.

‘In the money?’ John said, when he took my twenty.

‘What’s it to you?’ I said. People can never keep their nozzles out – always got to comment.

‘Only I ain’t seen you around lately,’ he said. ‘The girls was saying you’d had a thin time.’

‘Times change,’ I said. ‘And you can tell those toms to keep their snouts out an’ all.’

‘Always nice doin’ business with you, Eva,’ he said. Fart-face.

I’d take my custom elsewhere. That’s what I’d do. I’d go up West and eat at the Café Royal off of china plates and tables with tablecloths on. No more styrene cups and greasy fingers for Eva Wylie. Eat my dirt, fart-face, you won’t see me again.

But stuffing my face with burgers reminded me of Milo. Last I saw of him he was sitting all warm and stupid in the Enemy’s car. He betrayed me. But now I was ready to forgive him. If the Enemy thought she could drive off with the dog I’d hand-reared from a sprat she had another think coming.

Besides, she owed me money.

Just because I had millions and zillions of my own didn’t make her owe me any less. I don’t freeze my arse off all night in a car-park for nothing, you know. I ain’t stupid.

So I went round to see her.

To look at, her gaff is just like a dentist’s office. There’s a cream door with a plate that says Lee-Schiller Security. You walk in and there’s a secretary sitting behind a big office desk. There’s a waiting-room with a sofa and two comfy chairs.

So I walked in and the old secretary bird said, ‘Good afternoon – oh, it’s you, Eva. Have you come to collect Milo?’

And that’s the trouble with old secretary birds – they want to know all your business.

‘Where is she?’ I said.

‘Anna?’ she said. ‘She’s with Mr Schiller. But don’t go in. They’re busy.’

So I gave the top of her desk a little tap – just to remind her she wasn’t anyone. She jumped, and said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t hit things, Eva.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t stick your beak in my breakfast,’ I said, and I went past her.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘They’re busy.’

But I wasn’t mad really. I was too rich to be mad. Money soothes. Have you noticed that? There ain’t much a little dosh can’t cure. I could of bawled at her the way I usually do, but I
only said, ‘Fuckin’ shut up,’ quite sweetly, as a reminder. Gelt is good for your disposition.

I walked straight into the Enemy’s office and found her and Mr Schiller sitting side by side, drinking tea and studying ledgers.

‘Afternoon, Eva,’ Mr Schiller said. He’s sort of all right, but you can tell by the way he holds his mug that he used to be politzei too.

‘Oh bugger,’ said the Enemy.

‘Hip-herf,’ said Milo.

‘Shurrup,’ I said, ‘and get over here where you belong.’ He had been sitting at the Enemy’s feet, looking for all the world like he was her dog. That
really
gets up my nose – when people suck up to my beasts. She wouldn’t have a hope in hell with Ramses. Ramses’d rip her foot off.

Milo didn’t even move – the sod.

Suddenly I was a fist on two feet. I said, ‘Gimme my pup.’

‘Take him. He’s yours,’ the Enemy said, ‘but if you think you can walk in here shouting the odds, you can walk right out again.’

‘You’d love that,’ I said. ‘You owe me money.’ I had her there. She couldn’t deny it.

‘I’ll pay you. When haven’t I?’

‘Now
you’re
shouting,’ I said. I was stone happy.

‘And why not?’ she shouted. ‘You’re so full of shit your eyes have turned brown.’

‘Please!’ said Mr Schiller. ‘Calm down, both of you.’ He paid me in cash out of his own pocket. Which shows what kind of bloke he is. But the Enemy looked like she was having a tooth pulled. Which shows what kind of a cow she is. It almost made my headache go away.

‘Call this money?’ I said. ‘Exploiting the worker, I call it.’

‘You call what you did work?’ she said. ‘I call it getting drunk on the job and snoring.’

‘Who the fuck cares what
you
call it?’ I said. ‘I did as much work as you paid me for.’ And I turned on my heel and made a smart exit.

The only trouble was I forgot Milo. Which spoiled it a bit. I had to go back in and drag him out by the scruff of his neck.

‘Just get over yourself,’ the Enemy said. ‘Come back when you’ve straightened up.’

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ I said, and I went.

Who the hell did she think she was – telling me to straighten up? Me. I had more oil in my oil-can than she’d ever see in three of her miserable lifetimes. I had it nailed to the wall of my dogs’ shed. It made me somebody. Somebody she couldn’t touch.

She’d never make me sit out in a car-park all night again. Never. She’d never take my time like that no more. She’d never steal my precious hours, minutes and seconds out of that little bag of time which is my life and throw them away like they was rubbish. Tick, tock. They may be tick-fucking-tock to her, but they’re chunks of my life to me. And now I’ve got dosh, I can spend all my tick-tocks how I like, not how she likes.

‘It’s all your fault,’ I said to Milo. Because it was. If he hadn’t stayed with the Enemy instead of coming with me, I’d never of had to go and get him. And if he’d left when I left, I’d of never had to go back. Then I wouldn’t have had to hear her say, ‘If you got paid every time you cocked up, Eva, you’d make a very nice living. As it is …’

But I didn’t wait to hear the rest. Who needs it? I don’t.

There’s no point in having so much moolah that it oozes out your ears unless you can swank about it. That’s why I went to see my ma.

My ma isn’t hard to swank to ‘cos she doesn’t have a pot to piss in. Anyone’d look good compared with her – ‘specially when she’s suckin’ on a jar. Which is practically all the time.

But she
is
my ma, and I’ve got family feeling for her. She’s different, though. She’s got about as much family feeling as she’s got savings in the bank – and that means none at all. And if I’ve got a grudge against her,
that’s
for why – look no further.

Do you know I’ve got an older sister I haven’t seen since I was eleven? Yes I do. People think I’m all on me own – no family. Well that shows how wrong you can be. I got a sister. Simone’s her name. It’s a pretty name – as pretty as she was last time I saw her. And as I say, I ain’t seen her since I was a nipper.

Why ain’t I seen her? Good question. It’s a good question with a bad answer. My ma – our ma. That’s the bad answer.

My ma is such a bad ma she couldn’t keep a home together for more than a couple of weeks at a time, and she didn’t give goolies for her own kids. So we got took off of her. And did she care? Did she – bollocks. Out of sight, out of mind – that’s Ma’s motto. Never mind we was sleeping eight to a room. Never mind we was getting our legs strapped, never mind the food was cat vomit, never mind it was so cold you could see your breath
indoors
. No, never mind all that, so long as she could suck on a bottle and score a few quid off of man-trash.

Well, now I’d scored more than a few quid. I was jumpin.

Ma thinks I’m a downer. She thinks I’ll never make nothing of meself ‘cos I ain’t a looker. She could’ve been proud of me for being the London Lassassin. But was she? She was not. She was shamed. That’s my ma. I make myself tough, I win fights, I give the crowd what it pays for. And my ma is shamed. She didn’t never come to watch me fight. Not once.

‘Ooh no,’ she says, ‘I don’t mind seeing the blokes if they’ve got nice bods. But I don’t want to see no daughter of mine make a spectacle of herself. Not with a bod like yours, Eva. It ain’t for display.’

Encouraging, huh? I don’t think about it. If I thought about that crap I’d top myself. I’d die on my feet.

I stopped. Milo bumped into the back of my legs.

I said, ‘Why’m I thinkin’ crap, Milo?’

‘Hip?’ said Milo.

‘I’m on a roll,’ I told Milo. ‘I’m on the up. It ain’t never happened before but this time there’s
good
mojo working. And I’m going to ride it. Believe.’

And I walked straight into Value Mart and bought a lottery ticket with one of my brand-new silky smooth twenty-quid notes.

I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m crazy. I got squillions, so what do I want with more? Know what? I ain’t crazy. OK, I got squillions. But clever folk like me
keep
their squillions. They make their squillions work for them. And that’s what I was doing. Because, with good mojo buzzing, my lottery ticket would win for sure. And I wouldn’t of wasted a quid, would I? I’d of bought more dosh for a quid. Geddit? So now who’s crazy?

You think – that Eva, she never had no jack before, she don’t know what to do with it, she’ll just wave it and waste it. Shows how much you know. ‘Cos now I got it, it’s mine and I’m keeping it. So don’t you think you can get your grubby paws on it. Me and my three dogs say you can get stuffed. What’s mine’s mine. What’s yours is yours, and if you ain’t got none – tough. I’ll give
you exactly what you gave me when I had none. And you can guess how much that’ll be. Let’s all see how smart
you
are.

By now I’d got to that high-rise hen coop my ma calls home. I walked fast, and young Milo was huffing and puffing behind me.

I didn’t even bother with the lift – it only works one time in fifty. I trudged up five floors in that vertical pisser of a stairwell. The people who live here are Huns. Give ’em a flight of steps and the first thing they do is come over all unnecessary and wee on them. I dunno what they’re thinking of. Give me a flight of stairs and I go up ’em – or down ‘em. Simple.

Milo stopped on the third floor, his eyes oozing and pleading.

I said, ‘Don’t look at me like that. I ain’t carrying you.’

‘Herf,’ said Milo with a broken heart. He’s young. His muscles ain’t hard. But he’s too big to carry up toilet stairs. And he’s so dumb he wants to take a breather right where breathing poisons you stone blind.

‘C’
mon
,’ I said. And we came out on to the outside walkway where the wind tore our ears off.

It was my day for nasty surprises.

My ma was moving out. She was doing a bunk and she wasn’t leaving no forwarding address. Not even for her own daughter. That shows you. Does that ever show you what sort of ma I got? Cuddle up to a brick and call it Ma – you’ll get more satisfaction.

‘Where the cockin’ hell you off to?’ I said when I got my breath back.

‘Cop a hold of this,’ Ma said, and dumped a box full of frocks and crockery in my arms. ‘You’ll have to use the stairs. I got me bed in the lift.’

She disappeared back indoors and left me holding her crud. When she came out again it was with another armful of gaudy tat.

‘Get a move on,’ she said, ‘I got to load this in the van. The rent man’s due.’

‘Where you going?’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Don’t just stand there like a lump in the gravy,’ she screamed. ‘I told you – the rent man’s coming.’

‘You was flitting,’ I said. ‘And you wasn’t going to tell me.’

She said, ‘All right – you stand there shouting if you like. It’s all you’re bleeding good for. I’m off. The rent man’s coming and he’ll have me in court.’

‘You just don’t care, do you?’ I said. ‘How’re we ever going to get together – me and Simone – if you just bugger off and don’t tell us. How can anyone be a family if your ma just buggers off? Tell me that!’

‘Oh shut up, will you!’ she yelled. ‘I
told
you – the rent man’s coming.’

‘You wasn’t even going to tell me,’ I said. ‘I’d of come here and found you gone, you puke-coloured old bag.’

‘About time too,’ she said, ‘I’m fucking fed up of you going on and on and on about Simone. Why can’t you get it through your thick skull? You just ain’t someone Simone wants to know.’

How about that, eh? Ain’t that a fine way for a ma to carry on? It’s enough to make your gums bleed.

‘Oh fuck!’ Ma said. ‘Now look what you’ve gone and done. He’s here.’

I turned and saw a big bloke, all blue in the face from the stairs, hanging off the railing, panting his lungs out. He was carrying a baseball bat.

He staggered over and said, ‘Going somewhere?’

‘Not me,’ said Ma. ‘I was just tidying up.’

Ma. Tidying up. Not even a toddler who believed in Father Christmas’d fall for that one. The rent man didn’t. He said, ‘I’ve come for me money, Mrs Smith.’

Mrs Smith. That’s another good one.