by Helen Walsh
Wholly absorbed by the task to hand, overcome by pure hunger, Vinnie has tuned out. He lays out his kit, unpacks the carefully folded squares of foil, the bog-roll tube and the ready-made conduit. There’s a tablespoon, a gun and a filter and a spike for himself. ‘It’s probably best you chase your first head,’ he says, without looking up. ‘It can be a bit of a palaver getting a line when you’ve had a drink. Your veins shrink to nothing. Here’s what we’ll do, yeah? I’ll cook for you first. Then I’ll serve myself – and we can just lie back and stargaze together.’
Only now does Vinnie glance up. Kenny is looking down at him, utterly aghast. ‘Junk,’ he finally spits out. ‘That’s why you’ve brought me here?’
It takes a moment for Vinnie to catch up. ‘Uh? But … you know this. You followed me.’
‘To the … gay bars.’ He looks away. Devastated. ‘I thought that’s where you went.’ He sits down, cross-legged. Vinnie crouches next to him.
‘So, like … cake? Cakes and ale.’
‘You thought I meant gear? Fuck, Vinnie.’ He fights back the glisten of tears sheeting his eyes. ‘Cake’s what we used to call the queers inside.’ Kenny’s voice is grief-laden as he stands up. ‘I fucking hate smackheads, Vinnie …’
He looks him over one last time, then disappears down the stairs. Vinnie freezes – torn between smack’s sweet promise and the slap of Kenny’s footsteps fading off into the night. A beat. And then he swings down the stairway taking three and four steps at a time, desperate to find him.
When he reaches the bottom, Kenny has already gone. It’s only a hunch, but he senses where he’ll be. Oxford Road. He could have gone anywhere, but Vinnie has a calm conviction he’ll be there. Outside the station there’s a knot of boot boys, but they stand back to let him pass. He makes his way up the slope into the station, hoping against hope there may be one last chance to rescue this love of his.
Kenny is there. And in spite of himself, no matter what it is he’s feeling, he can’t keep the smile off his face when he sees Vinnie. Not for the first time, he reminds Vinnie of a child – Ellie, this time, when she’s been crying or sulking and she doesn’t want to make peace, but she can’t help herself. He’s tucked up against the café wall, his knees pulled in against his chest. Vinnie sits down next to him.
‘I’m sorry, Kenny.’
‘What you sorry for?’ Kenny drops his head. ‘I’m the one who’s made a tit of myself.’
‘The drug. I can take it or leave it.’
Kenny fixes his steely blue eyes on him, wanting to believe. ‘I’ve spent my life around gear. Yeah? I know what it does.’
Vinnie nods, humbly. The wind whips around them, blowing Vinnie’s hair into his eyes, obscuring his view of Kenny’s sad, serious face.
‘Kenny, man – if I could take back the night … take us right back to the bar… the drink, the buzz, the high … that moment when it was just you and me …’ He breaks off, choking up with the sudden realisation of what this is. This is all happening, to him. He looks at his feet, and takes Kenny’s hand. ‘Are you with me, Kenny? Do you get me?’
Kenny pushes the hair back from Vinnie’s angular cheeks and stares into his slit, beautiful brown eyes. Vinnie groans at his touch, his whole body electrified. It’s now or never. The wind rasps through them. He leans right in to Kenny and kisses him, fully, with all the love in the world. He sucks and probes and flexes the nib of his starved, callow tongue. His body, his mind is exploding. He opens his eyes, wanting to see his gorgeous boy, see how this feels. There are a thousand million tiny stars above. He looks at Kenny and he feels complete. He has lived. He has loved. He swoops to kiss him again, pushing him down onto the cold platform. They are necking, clawing and groping, lost in wonder, when the mob of skinheads troops onto the platform.
Fifteen
Sheila goes to pick her favourite, the one she’s been saving, the squishy, cherry-centred one, but as her fingers encircle it she knows that, really, she doesn’t want it. In truth she feels a little queasy and, glancing down at the near empty tray of Black Magic, she knows her sickness isn’t all down to chocolate. It was so strange, having Robbie there again. She couldn’t say how she might have expected to respond to him – it had been almost a year and in that time she had, more or less, forgotten what he looked like. In her mind’s eye, he certainly didn’t resemble the cartoonish end-of-pier drunk who’d sheepishly stepped across the threshold this morning. Her first reaction was shock; that it was, indeed, Robbie and that he looked so … wasted. She’d stood there, waiting for surprise to give way to something else, but it never came. She felt nothing for him. Nothing.
She’d persisted with the ritual for the sake of Ellie, whose eyes were dancing with delight at his very presence, his every word. When she wasn’t being mesmerised by her father, Ellie was glancing back at Sheila, making sure she felt it, too. It was tragic. He’d left them, this man – and for what? For this? She’d occasionally fought back stabs of anger; that he could waste it all. That he’d thrown it all away. She wanted to make sure he knew, yet she didn’t have to. It was there in his lost, glassy eyes.
For Ellie she’d kept up the show, filled in the gaps when conversation ran dry. Vincent did his bit too, but she could see it was an effort for him. At times he’d come out of himself, show a real spark and follow a thread; but it would tail off quickly enough, as though he were chiding himself for connecting with his father in any way at all. But Ellie, this was too sad. Day upon day, Sheila had more than enough to cope with, to finesse. The one thing she hadn’t tuned into at all was Ellie’s visceral need to have her father in her life. It wasn’t enough that he could saunter in and out, as it suited him, his situation, his self-worth. They’d have to work this out, between the four of them. Herself, Robbie and Ellie – and Vincent, while he was still here – they were going to have to make a plan they could all stick to, every time, no exceptions.
She looks at the chocolates again and, just for the sake of it, she swallows the cherry one whole.
She’d been on such a high all night, her good mood from this morning invigorated by the realisation that now, in Legends, she was one of the faces. Tales of her showing up at the pub in her school uniform; coating that acne-faced dealer off; carrying a load of hot credit cards; necking four, six, ten barbs – all this had been fed through clubland’s rumour mangle and come out technicoloured, and everyone Ellie met wanted to hug her, introduce her to somebody, slip her a pill. She danced and writhed to every track, scarcely stopping for water, and all she could see were the wonders of her future beckoning through the shimmering truth of the strobe light. Yet it was an innocent remark from Cal that brought her crashing back down. Sat on his knee, Marnie stroking her palms as Cal gently scratched her scalp, Ellie had leant back into Cal and said, ‘I love it, here. I love everyone.’ He’d blown into her ear and grazed her neck with a kiss.
‘Family, babes. We are family.’ He’d slipped a hand under her vest top, ran his palm over her tummy. ‘This is us, baby. One big family.’ He’d kissed her neck more fervently, guiding Ellie’s hand down towards his dick. And it wasn’t the situation. It wasn’t the seduction, the tender molestation. It was the words that sat Ellie up. The word. Family.
‘I’ve got to see him …’
‘Who?’
‘Me dad.’ Gently removing Marnie’s and Cal’s hands from her body, Ellie levered herself up to her feet. ‘Me father needs me,’ she said, stumbling to the exit, chewing hard and licking her lips.
Sixteen
Vinnie peers out through a narrow field of vision. His black, swollen eyelids can barely open a crack. Slowly, very slowly, he starts to take in his surroundings. He seems to be lying horizontal, up against the wall of a long, blue-tinged corridor. A doggedly preoccupied succession of green and white uniforms bustles around him, writing things down. One of them shines a torch in his eyes and says something, but though he registers the kindly smile and sees the lips moving, he can’t make out the wo
rds. A nurse appears with cotton wool and ear buds. She dips them in some kind of solution and gently, carefully cleans around his ears. Each discarded Q-tip and cotton wool ball is stained brown from his crusted blood. Then comes a rising din in the background, footsteps and chunnering machines; the senseless squawking of drunks and junkies; the disorientated moaning of the elderly and the injured. A smiling voice startles him. ‘Hello, handsome. Can you tell me your name?’
He tries to prise his lids wider open, but all he can see is her eyes. She looks shocked. No, she’s beyond shock, the careworn sister – she’s heartbroken. Her brown eyes bleed sadness and pity and compassion. He can’t open his mouth. Panicked, he tries to grab her wrist and misses.
‘It’s OK, you’re in hospital, darling. Now can you just …’ She leans right down to him, enunciating each word for him to hear and lip-read without ambiguity. ‘THIS IS Man-che-ster Ro-yal In-fir-mary, love.’
She stands back, waits for the message to sink in. He stares back at her, utterly lost.
‘You’re in the very best hands, love. We’ll get you in as soon as can be. But I do need your name, first.’
The tight puckered anus of his mouth is only capable of bubbling formless sounds like the bleat of a newborn animal. More people arrive, cluster around, bend over him, discuss him. It’s all just noise. He tunes out. The trolley swings a corner and the ceiling spins away from him.
He’s dimly aware of being hefted up onto a cushioned bench. A machine starts up, its low purr soothing him back towards unconsciousness. The bench begins to slide slowly towards a brightly lit chamber, then he’s being pulled out and heaved onto another bed. More faces, more little torches shining in his eyes. There’s a gradual shifting in consciousness. One by one, his thoughts line up, sharpening themselves against the rising blade of pain. Two men in masks stand over him. The one with brown arms reads from a clipboard. ‘Fractured maxilla, grossly deviated nose, fractured ribs … possible entrapment of ocular muscles.’
‘Intracranial damage?’
‘Just waiting on the CAT scan.’
The white surgeon steps back, shaking his head. ‘Fuck’s this city coming to.’
The registrar stands in silence, awaiting instruction. Vinnie is growing cold and damp and clammy but his every fibre is aflame. Kenny. He slips back out of consciousness and in his altered state the night comes back to him, horribly alive.
He’s eating Kenny’s lips, they’re devouring each other and the whole world spins away from its axis, leaving the two of them swaying and coasting through the icy, weightless night. The kiss seems to go on for ever, tufts of Kenny’s hair wedged between his knuckles as their tongues collide and dart and probe. The dark dank city air envelops them like a secret cloak, moonlight seeping under its hem.
Then footsteps. Voices. The dawning of terror as he drags his head away from Kenny and sees the platoon of black DMs, stomping down the platform towards them. There isn’t even time to get up and run.
The onslaught is so vicious, so unrelentingly hateful that he only feels the recoil of the first boot. He goes down, and it all fades away. Blow after blow after blow, and just when he thinks that even these hyenas have had their fill, they turn him over and look into his eyes and …
He’s lying prostrate on the platform. He can’t breathe and there’s a lacerating pain splintering through him, splashing stinging hot liquid across his eyes. He can hear their voices fading away into the low husky grind of the city. In the distance a car alarm whoops and whoops. Kenny bends over him, distraught. He whispers in his ear. There’s a spark, the whoosh of his Zippo, then it all fades out again. Everything is woozy. Kenny, gently, carefully, lifts his head up. He can see the moon shrivelling to a yellow dot beyond the tower blocks. Kenny ducks down to kiss him, and everything levels out to black. A void – then an ambulance siren growing louder and louder, and a faint disc of light bleeding into his hazy frame of reference. He’s awake now and his thoughts are dislocated. His nose feels thick and clogged, his eyes have been bludgeoned to slits and yet he can sense no pain. His whole body is strung out on a numb, floaty thread. He knows this high and a weak smile starts to tug at the torn corners of his mouth. This is a morphine high, and it feels delicious.
He’s lifted up and strapped down, his head deadlocked into a brace. He’s aware of the spike being fed into the back of his hand. He can hear the garbled spluttering of the ambulance radio as they call ahead. Broken ribs. Serious facial trauma. Multiple contusions. Lacerations to the eye, lip, nose. Immediate attention on arrival. It sounds bad – but he feels fine, drifting and careless. He feels out for Kenny’s hand, but he’s gone.
Another, horrid memory jolts through his subconscious. Dad. Dad turned up this morning. He should have known. He spoils everything, Dad. He turned up on their doorstep, bringing his curse with him.
Vinnie trails off, blanks out from the pain.
Seventeen
Sheila is writing to Rasa when the knock comes.
She’d been putting it off – the letter, the confessional – hanging fire till the last possible moment. But that thing with Robbie today, it’s finally triggered closure for her. She cares for him still, after a fashion. And she hopes that one day, soon, maybe, Vinnie can take steps towards forgiving him. But she knows it now, he’s gone. She no longer wants him. She can tell Rasa the truth: Robbie and she are no longer together, and next year when they come to visit, it would just be the three of them. She was putting her faith in Rasa to make sure there’d be no raised eyebrows from her sisters, no raised voices from her brothers. It’s a good thing that she and Robbie have gone their separate ways, and she expects her family to embrace that. Next year, when they come to KL, she wants everything to be just fine.
There’s a stentorian quality to the knock and her heart jolts on seeing the blur of uniform through the dimpled distortion of the porch window. Instinctively she knows this is going to be bad. Her first thought is that it’s Ellie. Ellie has been showing off at Sara’s house. She’s got drunk and had to have her stomach pumped. She wraps her dressing gown tight across her chest and opens the door. The officer and his female partner both look grave. The WPC can’t look her in the eye. Her colleague speaks up. ‘Mrs Fitzgerald?’
She nods, once, turns and shows them into the living room. She sits down opposite them on the edge of the settee, her knees knocking together and flinching upwards. She dare not ask them what is wrong. For as long as she doesn’t know, it hasn’t happened.
‘Your son. Vincent Fitzgerald.’
The words burn a hole right through her. ‘Oh no, no,’ she pleads. ‘Not Vincent, no.’
The copper clears his throat and continues. It’s as though, in making all this as formal as possible, a formal solution can be found. ‘Your son has been the victim of a violent assault.’
Violent. The room shrinks away from her. She tries to pull herself together. Where has he been? Who was he with?
‘He’s been taken into Manchester’s Royal Infirmary.’
She takes the full shattering slam of the information. It sits her back in her chair, pulls her entire animus down inside her. She peers out at the WPC. She seems a better bet. She hasn’t delivered the blows, as yet. ‘How bad is it?’ Her voice sounds stronger. She has to face this. Has to face it now.
‘He was conscious on arrival. There’s been some facial trauma and they’re operating right away.’
Sheila zones out, hand clamped to her mouth. It takes her a moment to come round, remember where she is, what this is. She has to ask. Has to know. ‘Is he …’ Her voice cracks now, snaps like a twig. ‘Do we know the extent of the damage?’
The man looks at the woman. The WPC clears her throat, steps forward and squats down in front of Sheila. ‘Mrs Fitzgerald. You’re going to have to be very strong. Your son has suffered a prolonged assault. His injuries are going to be distressing.’
Once again, Sheila experiences the lurch of nausea and this time she can’t contain herself.
Ellie can’t remember whether it’s M6 north – towards Preston – or south, to Birmingham. She’s pretty sure she’s passed through Preston when she’s been up to Blackpool on the coach, but Birmingham rings a bell, too. Or was it Burnley? A lorry slows. The window goes down. ‘Hop in!’
She looks up at the driver. He seems all right – what she can see of him. The passenger door flips open a second, goes back on itself. She goes towards it. It’s so high up. She can’t imagine taking all those steps up, just to sit in a lorry. She bites hard on her lip, trying to snap out of it.
‘Yaow getting in or what?’
He sounds harder, this time. Impatient. She can’t place the accent. It’s like Barry from Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Her dad used to love that. She steps away from the lorry. ‘You’re OK, mate. I’m …’ She turns and stumbles back along the hard shoulder, away from the lorry and back towards the service station.
Sheila chases through dark empty lanes towards the motorway. It’s a real struggle to keep it together. She’s worked on casualty, tended dozens of maxilla traumas and she’s already flipping forward, preparing for the worst. Her baby – beaten up. Left for dead on a cold slab of concrete. Her thin, fragile boy. What kind of person would do such an evil thing? Why pick on meek, soft-hearted Vinnie? There can only be one reason. And, in allowing the thought to take flight, she dwells on the horror of her own experience, all those years ago. She, too, was pinned down, kicked, spat at. Why? For what? She can’t bear it, to think that such monsters are still out there, feral, roaming in their packs. She berates herself – she has to stay in control. But it’s useless, she’s sinking, she has no one. A vicious, visceral anger rips through her, a violent disdain for her useless, wasteful, wasted husband. He should be there with her. She can’t do it – she just can’t do this alone. A desperate thought. She knows it – it’s the last thing she should do, but there’s nothing else for it. She has Ellie. Ellie will come with her. And who knows – maybe Sara Cartwright’s father can make some calls. He must know surgeons and such people. She swings the car back and heads for Stockton Heath.
