Blood Relatives Read online

  The women made for t’ stairs, one slopping the drinks, t’ other portering the box. The box, I noticed, had once held Fairy Liquid bottles. I got up from my seat and crossed to t’ bar. I coughed at the barmaid who wor vigorously twirling glasses on a plastic brush head. She jutted her chin in my direction.

  ‘Do you have a snooker table upstairs?’

  ‘We do, luv, but there’s a meeting on up there tonight.’

  ‘So, erm … what meeting’s that, then?’

  She set two upturned glasses on a red slop cloth.

  ‘Gay Lib meeting. Sue and Lorna are setting up.’

  She spoke brusquely, as if it wor owt o’ nowt and time wor pressing. Her hands ceased their busying about t’ bar, her chin jutted out again, only over my shoulder toward someone else. Behind me I heard a voice saying, ‘Hey, Rick? Rick?’

  I turned, feeling the colour flooding from my face as I found mesen eyeball-to-eyeball wi’ an ex-school mate.

  ‘Warren?’

  ‘Rick?’

  My skin wor poppin’ and burstin’ like popcorn on t’ hob. Warren had sat next to me for t’ first three year of high school. I hated him, cos he wor good at maths and I worn’t. He’d shot up an inch or two since I’d seen him last, and had the wispy makings of a moustache on his upper lip. I inhaled deeply, willing Warren away, but when I opened ’em he wor still there, grinning like a gargoyle.

  ‘Rick Thorpe. Where have you been hiding?’

  I grabbed an ice cube from t’ bucket on t’ bar, crushed it in my fist, letting the water trickle between my fingers.

  ‘I … I … might ask yersen t’ same question.’

  ‘Me? I wor just passing by when I spotted you through the window. So this is where you lurk, is it? No one sees you any more.’

  ‘Here … and other places.’

  I smiled inanely at him. I had to escape, to reach cool water, cold air, but I wor trapped. I would have to … have to … Out of t’ corner of my eye I clocked two men arriving. A young’un wi’ a haystack of hair and decked out in Northern Soul gear – the platform shoes, the highwaister keks and a tank top wi’ a star motif on it – and an older bloke, thinning on top, wearing purple crushed velvet loons and a green denim jacket spewed over wi’ badges and buttons. He had the friggin’ set: Anti-Nazi League, pink triangles, pro-abortion, trade unions, Chairman Mao and Che Guevara, Keep Music Live, Rock Against Racism, and down both lapels, lines of friggin’ miniature railway pins. ‘YES, I’M HOMOSEXUAL TOO’ screamed the first badge in my sightline.

  ‘Oh, fuck!’ I murmured. Please, Warren, please – I wor thinking so loudly it felt that I wor shouting at him – please don’t turn round, don’t look at those men. I put a hand on Warren’s shoulder so he wor jammed between me and the bar stool.

  Warren looked petrified, though fuck knows why – I wor t’ one in t’ pig pen.

  ‘So,’ he wor saying, ‘what brings you in here, then?’

  ‘Me? I’m … meeting … someone.’

  ‘Bird, is it?’

  From t’ edge of my eye I saw t’ two men move to t’ end of t’ bar, where they wor served by t’ barmaid. Then, drinks in hand, they headed toward t’ stairs.

  ‘No, no, truth be known … Well, yeah, you’ve got me, yeah, I am. I’m meeting this bird and she’ll be here any mo’, so it might be a good idea if … Warren, I’ll be back in a jiffy, I’m bustin’ for a leak.’

  I pelted for t’ gents. Fortunately, it wor empty. No friggin’ mirror. Never a mirror in t’ gents. Mirrors are poncy. I rammed on t’ cold tap and threw water onto my neck, arms, face. I gripped t’ cool porcelain sink, inhaling and exhaling, my face tight wi’ agony, wi’ relief.

  I could scarper. Or I could slip up them stairs. I dried my face and hands on t’ dirty roller towel. What did it matter if Warren knew? Let him blab, let him tell every so-called friggin’ school mate who never wor my mate, let him tell t’ headmaster, all t’ teachers, every last one of those friggin’ tossers who said I wor a useless good-for-nowt and that I wor wasting my life. I wor out of their grasp now. No more hiding in t’ science-block toilets in a blind panic or bunking off school cos I wor terrified. A strange, floating calmness coated me. I stood tall, patted my hair. I strode back into t’ bar. Warren had skedaddled.

  I wor miffed to find my drink had been whisked away, so I ordered another one.

  Folk started arriving in greater numbers now, singly and in pairs. My finger ends wor tingling. I bided my time, watching. It wor as if I’d stumbled on some secret society, and I wor about to be initiated, stretched out naked before ’em while all manner of acts wor performed on me. It occurred to me that maybe Warren hadn’t left at all. Maybe he wor upstairs wi’ t’ rest of ’em. That would take the biscuit. I stood there, undecided what to do. Then I took a long sup from my lager and lime and headed up the stairs into t’ growing hubbub.

  There wor a good thirty people there. Thankfully, most of them wor men. The meeting passed in a daze. I wor crushed by t’ stomach-aching ordinariness of it all. I found it hard to fathom what it wor all about, and my attention drifted off into musings on some of t’others about me. Such as the man in t’ Michael Caine glasses and mustard poloneck sweater. Or t’ long-haired man in black velvet loons who perched cross-legged on his chair all evening. The woman in t’ white denim all-in-one, the bib decorated wi’ flower patches. The thin-faced Asian bloke who listened wi’ his chin tilted toward t’ cornice.

  My stomach wor growling so loudly I wor sure everyone could hear it. The weasly, freckle-headed man sitting next to me must have heard. And yet, somehow the demons beneath t’ skin stayed quiet.

  Mustard-poloneck man stood up, took off his specs and wiped them, then welcomed everyone, ‘especially the new faces’. A few heads swivelled my way, so I looked down at my boots.

  There wor an agenda. And friggin’ points.

  Point one: Should the women have separate meetings? This wor held over, cos there wor so few women present. Maybe they wor stuck on t’ island Jim said they’d bought.

  Point two: Back copies of Gay News should be collected and donated to fish-and-chip shops as politicised wrapping. This wor passed, and two people said they’d take care of it.

  Point twelve: Should PIE be part of t’ meetings?

  I turned to t’ weasly man next to me. ‘Pie?’ I whispered hopefully. I wor friggin’ famished.

  ‘Paedophile Information Exchange,’ he replied.

  This caused a long and heated debate about t’ Gay Lib position on t’ age of consent, wi’ some saying there shouldn’t be one at all, and others saying it should be lowered from twenty-one to sixteen, which one of t’ PIE men said wor discriminatory against kids, and then he got into a right shouting ruckus wi’ this other bloke which ended wi’ t’ PIE man calling us all fuckin’ fascists and storming out. Finally there wor a show of hands. I didn’t raise my hand. PIE would still have lost.

  There wor more friggin’ points, and then we wor asked if anyone had owt else to say, and of course some goon wi’ a stammer did. The meeting lasted a friggin’ century, and I clenched my buttocks, trying not to fart. ‘Any other business?’ took a whole half-hour.

  Eventually we ‘adjourned’ downstairs. In t’ bar, the men flocked about me like gulls fighting over a morsel. Someone wor asking me loads of questions, someone else plied me wi’ drink, someone squeezed my arse. I knew I wor getting khalied, cos I wor drinking too fast and my teeth wor becoming numb. I fell against a table.

  ‘I should be off,’ I slurred, unable to will mesen to move. Then, somehow, I wor pushing through t’ pub doors and stumbling into a street bin. I heard a voice calling out after me, calling out my name.

  Irene Richardson

  05/02/1977

  The Saturday after Irene Richardson wor done over, we called in on Vanessa as usual. We found her in a bit of a state. The police had been doing door to door. She had hid hersen in t’ kids’ room, wi’ t’ kids, waiting for ’em to leave. Then a reporter
came nosing, doing t’ same.

  ‘She wor here,’ Vanessa said, rocking little Jase on her knee and chain smoking.

  ‘Who wor?’

  ‘Irene. Not long before she wor done over, Irene turned up here.’

  ‘Jeez, Vanessa, you haven’t told the cops?’

  ‘Tell them owt and they’ll never be off yer doorstep. So don’t you go saying nowt neither, hear me?’

  Eric nodded. Vanessa eyeballed me and I nodded also. She stroked Jase’s hair.

  ‘When I heard a banging at t’ door I knew summat wor up. I rolled over in bed, hoping that whoever it wor would go away. But it wor t’ kind of knocking that has the devil right behind it, if yer know what I mean. Then I heard my name called – or at least the name I use on t’ street – and I wor surprised, cos it wor a woman’s voice. I remember what time it wor cos the alarm clock said it wor after 3 a.m.’

  I could picture the alarm clock. I’d spotted it one time through t’ open bedroom door: a kiddies’ clock wi’ Mickey and Minnie Mouse seesawing through time. Vanessa took a long drag on her ciggie.

  ‘I got up, wrapped mesen in my bathrobe’ (the pink one she often wore) ‘and shouted, “All right, all right, I’m effin’ coming – Jesus bloody Christ!”’

  I pictured Vanessa pulling her fingers through her tangled hair as she padded barefoot down t’ corridor lino and unslotted the safety chain to find hersen peering through t’ door crack at a small, dishevelled woman. ‘Only I couldn’t see her proper,’ Vanessa said. ‘Not in that light. But she wor somehow familiar.’

  Before she’d been able to say owt Vanessa had been hit by Irene pleading in her Glaswegian accent. ‘Cannae stay … I’m sorry, please … I need somewhere to stay … just a wee while, just for tonight, just one night, it’s so cold, and I won’ be no trouble …’ on and on she’d gabbled, plainly fearing that if she stopped for a moment the door would be closed on her.

  ‘What could I do?’ Vanessa said, looking at us both. ‘I unhitched the chain and told her she could have t’ sofa. She stood in t’ middle of t’ room in her fake suede coat, this wild look in her eye. I know that look, when someone’s hanging on by their last fingertips. Scared me shitless, I can tell you. Maybe, not far behind, there wor some very angry bloke, a pimp, a punter. I said to her, “Do I know you?” And that’s when she told me her name. Said she’d seen me out working once or twice, and knew where I lived.’

  After that Irene had fallen silent, as if suddenly struck dumb by some affliction. She’d stood there, shivering, clutching her bag to her chest. Vanessa offered her a ciggie and she took it, then Vanessa lit one for hersen. Irene’s fingers wor dark and unsteady.

  ‘I fetched her a blanket, and told her where to find a towel in t’ bathroom, but she said she wor fine. Said she’d been roughing it and tidying hersen up at a public lav. Then she asked me if I’d got kids. Turns out she’d got two an’ all, only hers were in care. She said it wor just for a while, ’til she got back on her feet.’

  Vanessa pulled her robe tighter about her. ‘Then she asked if she could see my kids. I held the door open just a little, cos I didn’t want her going in there, but then she wanted to stroke their hair. So I told her I didn’t want ’em woken up.’

  For most of t’ night Vanessa had lain awake, anxiously listening through t’ bedroom wall to Irene crashing about like a restless horse in a stall. Across from Vanessa, Barry and Jase slept on, top and tailed on t’ single mattress.

  Gradually the noises grew less frequent, then ceased altogether.

  The next morning Irene had tried to negotiate another night, but Vanessa had told her bluntly that she couldn’t stay. Irene’s chillingly blank stares and constantly furrowed brow sapped Vanessa’s strength, and she wanted to be shot of her. Vanessa pulled a fiver from her purse – her only punter the previous afternoon.

  ‘Here,’ she said, holding it out. Irene didn’t hesitate.

  ‘Vanessa, I swear …’

  ‘Forget it, luv.’

  Irene quickly combed her tangles of thick hair wi’ a hairbrush she’d found lying under a chair, then left without another word.

  The next night she booked hersen into a grotty rooming house in Cowper Street. The papers said so. She dumped her bag of meagre belongings on t’ bed, spruced hersen up hurriedly and left, telling someone that she wor headed for Tiffany’s disco in t’ city centre.

  A jogger found Irene Richardson’s body on nearby Soldiers Field, not a hammer’s throw from where Wilma McCann wor topped.

  When we called on Vanessa the next week she’d gone. Eric pressed his nose up against her window and peered in. I put my hands to t’ sides of my face like a horse’s blinkers and peered in also.

  There wor nowt but a mucky sock on t’ bare floor, a sun-faded print of a kitten in a basket of flowers on t’ wall, and a wooden chair wi’ t’ seat missing.

  ‘She’s scarpered,’ Eric said.

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Moved on, like they all do. Best strike her from t’ round-book.’

  All in all, I wor relieved that we worn’t having cuppas at Vanessa’s no more. Her teasing and questioning had always made me squirm inside. Like she knew really.

  Mid-morning tea break now wor wi’ Lourdes, a big West Indian woman, big, springy hair, big hips, big, unruly breasts. Lourdes wore knee-length striped stockings and played scratchy ska records. I asked Eric why all our breaks were wi’ prozzies. He said prozzies make better tea.

  Lourdes flashed her teeth a lot while she blathered, and her tea tasted like wrung-out dishcloth. She danced around t’ room to her ska music, her buttocks shimmying like maggot-filled medicine balls.

  ‘You dancin’, bwoy?’ She meant me.

  ‘I can’t dance.’

  Lourdes yanked me out of my seat. ‘Mi teaches yuh!’ She took hold of me wi’ both hands. I tried a few unwilling plods on t’ spot and kicked out a leg.

  ‘Bwoy, you ain’t trying to shift a fridge! Use dem hips!’ She slapped her own buttock.

  I shuffled like someone wriggling out of wet jeans. She tossed her head back and laughed.

  ‘Dat is duh ting!’

  Eric wor grinning at me like he wor seeing another story for t’ lads back at the depot.

  Lourdes said, ‘You’s like ska and reggae, bwoy?’

  ‘Punk!’ Eric shouted over t’ pulsating lilt blooping out of Lourdes’ stereo speakers. ‘He’s into all that punk stuff!’

  Lourdes’ face crumpled. ‘Punk? Wat dat? Mi nah nuttin’ about punk. How’s I dance dat punk?’

  ‘You pogo!’ Eric yelled. ‘You jump up and down on t’ spot and gob a lot. Go on, Rick, show Lourdes how to pogo.’

  ‘Shut it, Eric. I can’t do it wi’ no music, can I?’

  ‘Music?’ echoed Eric derisively. ‘You call that Sex Pistols shite music?’

  ‘Spit? Nah, man. Real dance ga like tis.’

  Lourdes locked her arms around my waist, pushing my leg between hers. Her clothes smelt of old smoke and school cabbage and she had sweat patches under her armpits.

  ‘Move like you’s making it wit’ sum girl,’ she gleamed. She put her mouth to my ear. ‘I teaches you, bwoy, mi’s a good teacher.’

  She cackled, tossing her head again. I glimpsed two gold caps. She thrust her full hips against my thigh bones, using her weight to shunt me around t’ room. I shut my eyes, trying to concentrate on t’ choppy backbeat. Then, almost unwillingly, I felt t’ two of us flowing together in harmony, while Eric looked on, bemused, at the West Indian prozzie, as wide as a dinner plate, dancing wi’ a young white boy, as thin as a spoon.

  I wor dipping into sis’s diary again, amusing mesen over sis and this friggin’ lad having sex in t’ back seat of an abandoned car, when I heard t’ front door slam and sis thundering up the stairs in her platforms. I shut t’ diary and froze, waiting to get nabbed in sis’s room. A prickly crawl travelled like a bushfire up my arms and neck. Oh fuck, fuck and triple fuck!

  Luckily she
ducked into t’ bathroom. I shoved the diary back under her smalls and scuttled across t’ landing to my own room. Moments later I heard the bathroom door open, then her bedroom door slam and a school bag being flung aside, then a sort of strangled sob. Summat to do wi’ Adam, I reckoned.

  I cut into t’ bathroom, opened the cold tap and splashed water over my face and neck and up and down my arms. I let the water run across my wrists as if calming a burn. I inhaled and exhaled, long and slow, waiting for t’ skin demons to retreat. I looked in t’ mirror. My neck wor all blotchy, like I’d fallen into a nettle patch.

  Mandy’s sobs had receded into snuffles. She must have heard the tap running. I flushed the chain even though I hadn’t used the loo, and went back to my room. I’d got away wi’ it again, although it had been a close call this time.

  I played my new single – The Damned, ‘Neat Neat Neat’ – full blast. When it ended I could hear Mandy screaming at me to turn it off. So I played it again. Then I played every punk record in my meagre collection while I put on my gear. I started wi’ The Ramones ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, followed by t’ Pistols ‘Anarchy’ and then Buzzcocks ‘Spiral Scratch’. Then I played The Damned again.

  Meantime, I hiked mesen into my old paint-splattered keks, yanked on a white T-shirt and then my old school jacket. I’d already rented the sleeves wi’ a Stanley knife and filched some safety pins from Mother’s sewing basket which I’d pinned on randomly. I’d added a few punk badges, pins and buttons to my lapels, including my latest – a small pink triangle. I figured that no one in t’ house knew what that stood for.