Musclebound (9 page)

All I had to do now was wait for him to agree with me. I didn’t have to hit him or nothing – that’s just stupid ‘cos it doesn’t work. The point is he’d got to agree with me that I’m bigger and better than him. He’d got to agree that I’m the boss and that I got him good.

If he was another Wrestler he’d of whacked the mat. The ref would of counted a submission against him. If he’d been one of my regular opponents like the poxy Blonde Bombshell or Olga from the Volga he’d of done it in two seconds flat. But Ramses ain’t them, I’m glad to say. Ramses ain’t no wimp.

So we waited in the rain and mud. Both of us wet through. Both of us cold and caked with oily grunge.

And in the end he agreed. How could I tell? Well, I dunno, really. He ain’t a person. But I know him and I knew it was time. So I sat up and got off of him.

As soon as I got off of Ramses, Lineker ran away. Ramses got up. He gave himself a good shake. He sprayed mud and water all over me but I said nothing. He didn’t even look at me. But with no warning at all he attacked Milo. Milo should of ran away too but he didn’t have Lineker’s experience.

Ramses charged him, bowled him over, picked him up by the neck, slammed him down and stood over him pinning him by the throat. And I said nothing.

What did Milo do? Well he did the only sensible thing a pup can do – he lay with his paws in the air and cried. I suppose the very same thing’s true of kids everywhere, whatever sort of animal you are. If you’re a kid and you’re really truly up against it all you can do is wave your paws in the air and cry. That’s life. I’m glad I’m not a kid no more.

And I said nothing ‘cos, even though Ramses is only a beast and not a person, he’s got his pride and he’s got to prove himself against the next one down from him.

So I let him. It didn’t last long ‘cos as I say, even if Milo didn’t have the brains to leg it like Lineker, he did have the brains to wimp out real quick.

Ramses gave me one snappy look. ‘That’s you next time,’ said his nasty little eyes. And he gave himself another great shake and stalked off about his own business.

‘Get up and shut up,’ I said to Milo. ‘You ain’t hurt.’ But it looked as if Ramses had thrown Milo’s pelvis out of whack again. He was gimpy and shivery. So I picked up the anorak with the torn sleeve and wrapped it round him.

I carried him to the Static. Milo was having a rough time lately, and I wasn’t feeling too hot myself.

I lit a couple of paraffin heaters and set some water on the hob. Milo didn’t give a hip or a herf so I rubbed him down and he went to sleep next to the stove. I wished I could do the same. I wished I could go and buy me a big bottle of something warming and finish the fool day. But I couldn’t, could I?

Someone broke into my yard, lopped my chain and got savaged by my dogs. I couldn’t bunk off.

I washed the mud away and put on dry clothes. I needed a bit of a think and I couldn’t do it in sopping duds.

See, it was the dosh, wasn’t it? It was those silky zillions. It had to be. Stands to reason, don’t it? I mean, what twat would risk losing his arm to Ramses for engine parts and car stereos?

I was thinking and thinking, but the only people I could think of, who knew about the Puma bag and what was in it, was the people I lifted it off. And they wasn’t the sort of people I wanted to meet on a dark night with only a torch in my mitt.

They fired a freaking gun at me. You ain’t forgot about
that
, have you? I ain’t. And all for borrowing their scuzzy car.

I mean, it wasn’t as if I knew about the zillions at the time. If I didn’t know about the zillions you can’t exactly accuse me of thieving them. You can’t
steal
a thing if you don’t know it’s there, can you? I was just borrowing a car. The zillions was a bonus – a reward for all my years of effort.

So those zillions was the only thing worth losing body parts for. Am I right? I know I’m right.

Next. Well, the guys I borrowed the motor from was villains. Right? Because, one – they was robbing the petrol station, and two – now they was trying to rob me. So that’s right too.

But if they got zillions in a Puma bag in the back of their motor, why was they robbing a petrol station? Answer – they was greedy, that’s why. Some people never got enough. They always want more. True. Absolutely fuckin’ true. I mean, do you know anyone in the whole wide world who doesn’t want more than she’s got?
He’s
got, I mean. These villains was blokes. I know ‘cos I saw ‘em.

And they was clever bastards. That stands to reason too. ‘Cos they didn’t get caught for robbing the petrol station when most people do. I know they didn’t get caught ‘cos if they got caught they wouldn’t be out, free to break into my yard, would they?

So I got clever bastards with shooters trying to rob me. That’s serious shit.

The other serious shit was – how did they know it was me? Go on – you’re so clever – tell me how they knew it was me? I didn’t know them from a poke in the eye with a dead turkey, so how did they know me and where to find me?

Well, I thought and thought about that one. But the answer was staring me in the face. They knew me ‘cos I was famous. I was the London Lassassin, right? They saw me fight. Hundreds of people,
thousands
, saw me fight. So I’m famous. And famous people can’t protect their privacy. Famous people is public property. Fact of life. One minute everyone wants your autograph and the next minute they’re coming after you with a sawn-off shooter. That’s the price you gotta pay.

I dreamt I was the owner of a fitness centre called Musclebound. I was in this poncy reception room and the customers were coming in. Simone said, ‘You got to pay in gold coin.’ I really liked the idea ‘cos gold is valuable, more valuable than paper money and small change. So all the customers dug in their pockets and came out with lovely gold coins the size of those chocolate pennies kids get at Christmas.

The only trouble was we didn’t have a till to put them in. So I had to eat them to keep them safe. But they was gold not chocolate and I couldn’t swallow them down. So Simone gave me a plateful of tiny little burger buns – just the right size. And I thought, how dainty, ain’t that just like Simone? And we put gold coins in the burger buns with lettuce and tomato, and that way I could just about choke them down. Every time I swallowed a gold coin, my teeth went chunk-chink, like a cash register. So Simone knew I’d eaten it and not cheated by putting it in my pocket. I didn’t feel very well.

Stupid dream, huh? Yeah, and that’s the thing about dreams – you aren’t in charge of what goes on in them. You ain’t, I ain’t, even the Queen of England doesn’t get a say about what happens when she’s asleep.

Dreams make me sick. Well that one did. Just as I was choking down the last gold coin I woke up coughing and choking. Real coughs, not dream coughs. Me eyes was watering and me nose was dripping real snot.

See what I mean? Thinking gave me a headache, and it
worried the life out of me so I went to bed all snarled up. And then that poxy stupid dream did the rest. Take a tip from me – if you want an easy healthy life, don’t think and avoid dreams.

And then there was Keif. He came knocking on my door. Which made Milo jump up and go hip-herf, so Keif knew someone was in.

‘Hey, sweetness,’ he said, when I opened up.

‘Who you calling “sweetness”?’ I said, and I sneezed all over him. ‘No one said you could call me that.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘thought I’d try a little honey on you.’

‘Thought wrong,’ I said. ‘Save it for someone who gives a bollock.’ And I sneezed on him again. Milo ran outside to have a piss on the doorstep and I was glad to see he wasn’t limping no more.

‘I ain’t running,’ I said. ‘I told you I was sick yesterday but would you believe me? You probably killed me, making me run bleeding miles.’

‘Kill you?’ he said. ‘Am I a sixteen-wheel rig?
Am
I, girl? If I ain’t, I didn’t kill you. ‘Cos that’s what it’d take.’

I don’t know why that made me laugh. It wasn’t funny but it made me laugh and cough and sneeze.

‘Go back to bed,’ Keif said. ‘I’ll get you something fer that sickness.’ And off he went.

Oh yeah, I thought, I’m too sick for training so the joker can’t cut another slice off my wedge, so he blows and leaves a sick woman all by herself. Typical.

I called Milo in and while I was waiting for him I noticed that some of the blokes in the yard were staring.

‘What you gawping at?’ I yelled.

‘Got a boyfriend at last?’ the foreman yelled back.

‘Got bread puddin’ for brains?’ I shouted. I was stone narked. ‘That’s my personal trainer, in case it’s any of your business.’

‘Can’t be her boyfriend,’ said another of the dildos. ‘He ain’t got a white stick or a guide dog.’ And all the dildos laughed. But
I didn’t. I gave ’em the finger and slammed the door on the lot of them. Dirty bastards.

Why is everyone chatting back at me all of a sudden? Have I got the word ‘gravy’ tattooed on my forehead? Maybe they can all smell it like chicken vindaloo wafting out of the Static.

All I could smell was a noseful of snot. So I went back to bed. With a couple more hours of kip maybe I’d feel fit enough to drag myself out for some medicine.

I dunno how long I dozed but I just lay there feeling shivery and gibbery and achy. And then Keif came back.

He didn’t even knock. He just breezed in, saying, ‘Hey, Babyface. Doin’?’

‘Don’t you fuckin’ walk in here without knocking,’ I said. ‘This ain’t
your
drum.’

‘Brought Cousin Carmen,’ he said.

‘She can bugger off too,’ I said. And then I shut up. I didn’t say another dicky-bird ‘cos I saw Cousin Carmen. Cousin Carmen was a tiny little woman in a big coat. You could pick her up in one hand and put her in a cupboard, she was so small.

But she had the eye.

I seen that eye before. It’s like a white-wall tyre.

In chokey, once, I knew a woman called Ella Mae. No one roomed with her even though she had one of the corner units with two windows and two bunks. No one dared, and even the screws knew about the eye and they never said a word to her. ‘Cos this is an eye that sees round corners. It can see through brick walls. It ain’t an eye you disrespect.

They told me there was this other woman – she was three months pregnant when they banged her up and she got special privileges. They say it went to her head and she queened it over everyone including Ella Mae. They say she pushed in front of Ella Mae in the dinner queue three times running. After the third time she started to get sick. And then she started vomiting, but she didn’t apologise to Ella Mae. And they say she vomited so hard that the baby came out through her mouth and that’s how she
lost it. They say there was blood everywhere, even coming out of her nose. She didn’t die or nothing. Ella Mae didn’t kill her. But she lost the baby and she was never the same after.

That’s what they told me in chokey and I took one look at Ella Mae’s eye and I believed.

They said Ella Mae was an obeah lady, and you don’t disrespect obeah ladies unless you want to be awfully sorry. Well, Cousin Carmen had the very same eye.

So that’s why I kept my trap shut and didn’t kick Keif out even though he came in without knocking.

Milo went, ‘Hip-hip,’ and jumped off the bunk.

‘She only got a dog to keep her warm,’ said Cousin Carmen. ‘Light the stove, boy. Why you got no light in here? Why you got boards in your windows?’

‘No glass,’ I croaked. ‘Someone broke ‘em. I din’t have no money to fix them.’

‘Humph,’ said Cousin Carmen. ‘Why you pay my boy to put muscle on an’ you don’t pay for glass?’

I couldn’t answer. I was so used to having no glass in my windows, it didn’t bother me.

‘Humph,’ said Cousin Carmen. ‘No light. No air. No wonder you sick.’

‘It ain’t that,’ I said. ‘I had a dream.’

‘What dream?’ she said.

So I told her. It was that eye, see. You think I go around telling people the fool things that happen in my sleep? You think I’m stupid? Well, I ain’t. But when an obeah lady says, ‘What dream?’ you don’t think twice. All right?

‘A fitness centre called Musclebound,’ Keif said. ‘Not bad. Not good but not bad.’

‘Wasn’t talking to you,’ I said. I was really narked he heard.

‘It ain’t a dream about no fitness centre,’ Cousin Carmen said. ‘She dream she choke on gold. She wake up sick. Mebbe she wiser asleep than awake.’

‘Not hard,’ Keif said. ‘She poisoned herself. She stotious all the time.’

‘
Ain’t,’
I said.

‘You listen to me,’ Cousin Carmen said. ‘No more shouting loud. I gwan do something for you. You got medsin, boy?’

‘I got it,’ Keif said.

‘Heat it up,’ she said. ‘No boilin’, mind. Heat slow like fe baby milk.’

Talk about poison! The medicine was greeny and it had scum on top. It was sweetish like she’d put a spoonful of honey in it to hide the taste of pond slime.

‘Drink it down,’ said Cousin Carmen. ‘All.’

‘All?’ I could see Keif laughing and I didn’t like it.

‘All,’ said Cousin Carmen, and she fixed her obeah eye on me.

So I drank it down while she watched, and it was all I could do to stop myself retching. Then she smiled and her face cracked into tiny splinters. She only had two teeth.

‘You tek me home now, boy,’ she said. And they blew out the same way they blew in – no hellos, goodbyes or by your leaves. No nothing. Blow in. Feed me poxious fluids. Blow out. If Keif had the nerve to come round again I’d marmelise him. On second thoughts, though, maybe I better not. If Keif was Cousin Carmen’s Cousin Keif, she might not take too kindly to me mangling him. And I didn’t want to do the smallest thing to ruffle Cousin Carmen. No way.

But I did have a little mind-movie where I head-butted Keif and he crumpled up like yesterday’s paper – except that the taste in my mouth was so foul I couldn’t enjoy it.

I’d just made up my mind to go and use that brand-new toothbrush Simone bought me when I crashed – zonk – and went to sleep with green swamp and rat droppings on my tongue.

The next thing that happened was that I woke up and pissed pints. Gallons. I dunno what that stuff was Cousin Carmen gave me but it greased the old plumbing like you
wouldn’t believe. Pints, gallons,
rivers
. But I wasn’t sneezing no more.