Cut To The Bone

by Sally Spedding

  "None o' yer fuckin' business." That glare still in place. Fists ready for a fight. "An' I do go to fuckin' school, OK? Ask old Jerry. 'Ell tell ye."

  "Your headmaster's name is Mr Jerome Morris, so show some respect to him, even if you can't show it to me. Now," she held the door open, "You've five minutes to get to Sunday School, and you'd better make out to Mr Molloy that your proper shoes are being repaired. And you're to be back here by four."

  Jez stalled, his neck suddenly flushing above his shirt collar.

  "I'm bird watchin' after. OK?"

  Kayleigh tittered but Rita looked puzzled.

  "Bird watching? You've never been interested in that. And on your own?"

  "Nope. Wiv Pete Brown. An' next week, we're goin' swimmin'."

  "Who’s Pete Brown?"

  "Me mate from school. I'm allowed one, aren't I?"

  Rita flashbacked to the trauma of the Scrub End move - the screams, the tears. How her one prayer was for him to find a decent friend to help him settle. But this particular boy's name was unfamiliar, and a niggling doubt lurked in her mind.

  "Course, but in by six at the latest. And remember you've still got Friday's homework to do for tomorrow."

  "Yeah, yeah…” as he humped his green bike down the steps and tore off along Wort Passage deliberately churning up clouds of black leaves as he went.

  Rita sighed in despair, then told Kayleigh to wait while she got Freddie ready for the afternoon's outing. At least the Single Mums’ Club had a crèche during their meetings. At least she'd get a break and a decent cup of tea.

  "Jez is 'orrible. D'you know why?" Kayleigh suddenly shouted from outside as she stuffed her doll into her little pink case and zipped it up. "'E made me take me knickers off so 'e could look at me puss. Then 'e took some pictures."

  Rita stopped halfway through fixing Freddie's dungarees. Blood seemed to drain from her face.

  "When?"

  "On me birthday. ‘E wouldn't give me knickers back till ‘e'd used up all the film. Said I was to say nuffink, or else..."

  "You should have, Kayleigh. Straight away. Oh, Lord..."

  "I was scared."

  "And where'd you get that rude word from?"

  "What word?"

  Rita hesitated for a moment.

  "Puss."

  "'E said that's what it's called."

  *

  Freddie was hurriedly placed in the buggy and within ten minutes the trio had crossed the estate and stood at the door of St Peter's Church. It was locked for security reasons, so Rita rang the bell, at the same time noticing her son's green bike heaped up with others. It was the only one not padlocked to the nearby railings, but just then that was the least of her concerns.

  Eric Molloy, the class's perspiring teacher, answered, and immediately invited her in.

  "No thanks," replied Rita. “I just need to speak to Jez. It's urgent."

  After a short wait, her son appeared holding a church copy of the Bible with a colourful marker set between its pages. The buzz of voices fell silent behind him.

  "Yeah? What now? Can't ye leave me alone?" He fixed his mother with an indolent look in his still-darkened eyes.

  "Come round here." Rita gripped his arm and led him to a grassed area studded with cremation plaques. Nothing older than six months, she noticed briefly, and, unlike the rest of Scrub End, nicely tended.

  She'd never threatened her kids, or thumped them, unlike some she knew, but her blood was boiling.

  "Kayleigh," she ordered, looking at her daughter. "Repeat what you just told me. And don't be scared."

  The eight year-old pushed her fair hair out of her eyes, squinted up at her brother before repeating her statement word for word.

  "Ye fuckin' liar!" Jez tried to hit her but Rita held him fast, her heart thudding against his. He felt young, strong, ready for anything. Her special boy with everything gone wrong...

  "I don't know what's come over you, Jez, but none of us recognises you any more. It's why I put you down for Sunday School, hoping it'd make a difference. Can't you see?"

  He shrugged, unsure where to look.

  "D'you understand, this behaviour can't go on. I've enough to cope with and you're old enough to help, not add to my worries. Now, where's that camera? And the photos?"

  "Like I said, Kayleigh's a lying git. I never did nothin’." Jez tried to wriggle free, seeing a couple of lads on bikes whizz past the churchyard gates.

  Rita tightened her grip.

  "You listen. If I find out you're fibbing, then that's it."

  "What d'you mean, that's it?" He cocked his head to one side, more tense now.

  "We go to the police." The words tumbled out like stones. His eyes widened in surprise.

  "You wouldn't dare."

  "Try me. Because if I get proof you've been doing stuff like that with your little sister, I'll march you there myself. Understood?"

  Jez finally nodded and she let him go, his head lowered as he went back into the church.

  *

  "We saw a Kingfisher up by the Sewage Works," he announced the moment he was back in Wort Passage as if nothing had happened. "Good eh?" He undid his trainers which were encased in black mud and placed them on a paper towel on the draining board. He was about to go out into the garden where Jip was waiting to play, but Rita blocked his way, unsure how to begin. "I'm on the dot of six," he protested before she could speak.

  "So you are, and it's good you're taking an interest in wildlife and swimming, with that brook being so close, but I want to say something else."

  "What?"

  "I know it's not easy here. I mean, you've only got to step outside the door and there's that Malcolm Wheeler pervert or someone wanting to sell you drugs, nick your bike and the rest..."

  "I can handle it."

  "Can you?" She took his arm and this time he didn't fight her.

  "Yeah. Course. No-one bothers wiv 'em Monks at the pub anyhow. Their stuff's not pure. 'Sides," he turned to face her, his blue eyes more normal now. "You gotta trust me, Mum, and that thing with Kayleigh, well, I was just muckin' about. It was a laugh, that's all. There weren't no film in the camera, an' she kept on about wanting to see me dick so we'd be quits. I could've made a fuss about that."

  Rita kept her sigh of relief to herself. The day's nightmare seemed to haemorrhage out of her system and when she saw Jip chase her son round the garden a smile struggled to her lips. Then suddenly she realised he hadn't got a camera. Frank had walked off with the only one, and she'd not been able to afford another. Just like his computer.

  "Jez," she called out as casually as she could. "Who's camera was it?"

  He turned, the setting sun pinking his face, disguising his unease.

  "Pete's. Why?"

  Rita's smile disappeared.

  "Nothing."

  11

  Monday 5th July 8.15 a.m.

  The same punishing sun with no hint of the usual easterly wind, accompanied the only activity on the Meadow Hill development. The Booth-Collinses’s car valeters were busy hosing down their silver Merc and Land Cruiser, leaving soapy maps on the tarmac.

  Louis felt cool spray kiss his cheek as he passed. Heard Kings of Leon from the men's radio. His favourite group. He liked their name, their lyrics, and that gave him some cred with the others in his class, especially Toby Lake whose parents were both dead.

  He checked the wealthy couple's windows to see if either was gaping him, then turned right instead of left for the bus stop. Having unpeeled his blazer and green shirt from his
shoulders, he pulled on an old vest which had been secreted inside his blazer's inside pocket then hid the hated clothes deep in a nearby bush. This time all pockets were empty. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

  The small key to his special locking case was still missing from the last time. He just knew The Fawn had nicked it when she'd found his blazer, and whenever he could, went through all her drawers, unfolding and folding her bras her pants, discovering slim boxes of condoms with ancient sell-by dates and Tampax rocket launchers with strings. No joy.

  He mounted the footbridge steps to watch the cars streaming up and down the A4700. The school run, where normally, he'd be trapped in The Maggot's new Discovery enduring Radio 3, to be set down at the school gates amongst the Baby Grubs in their Audis and Range Rovers. At least he’d got him a mobile for promising to call if he was late home.

  The funky Orange Rome sat snugly in his back pocket as he set his new satchel down by his feet. He stood exactly halfway over the footbridge letting the vibrations from below travel up his legs to his dick. He felt it grow as he waited for Jez to appear.

  He punched in the boy's mobile number, aware of more blood leaving his head; the same as on Saturday after orchestra practice when he'd gone down to Black Dog Brook...

  "Yeah? Whosat?" A young voice answered. The line was poor.

  "Me. Pete," said Louis "Why ain't yer 'ere?" His voice deliberately cloning with the other's. All elocution lessons banished for his purpose.

  "I can't. Not today." Sounds of chaos around him. Hip hop. Other kids. Their dog barking. His Mum doing her nut.

  Louis' envy deepened, shaping into a terrible loss which he couldn't quite identify, yet which seemed to engulf him more and more frequently when he least expected it.

  "Ye fuckin’ promised," he snapped down the phone.

  "Ye don' understand..."

  Call ended. His dick shrinking. For a moment he hesitated. Saw his bus growling to a stop to let two crusts off. No-one from Scrub End went to his school. Couldn't afford the fare for starters, never mind the crap uniform.

  He redialled - the phone’s orange metallic casing even more vivid in the sun. This time Mrs Martin answered. The line suddenly clear, her breathing just as if she was next to him.

  "Sorry to bovver you," Louis persevered, "I’m Pete Brown, Jez's mate. I gotta give 'im back some dough I borrowed. Bin awake all night worryin' abaht it."

  A squirrel tore up a nearby tree. His gaze followed its crazy leaps until it vanished among the leaves.

  "Can I come over?"

  "No."

  Louis held the mobile away from his head, staring at it.

  "Ye what?"

  "I said no. Got it?"

  He couldn't reply. He was too choked. What had Jez been saying? What did she know? He had to find out. He shoved the phone back in his pocket, working out a plan and ran down the slope into the maze of grime-blackened hovels, along Needle Walk then left into Wort Passage. No sunlight here, just the stench of rotting rubbish and bad drains which brought his breakfast into his throat. Last autumn's leaves still lay in dusty heaps. Here a stained mattress, there a crumpled doll's pram and everywhere graffiti.

  Baby Tickler Perv. We'll dock yer cock and newer ones since Saturday including giant-sized dicks in red.

  Jez had told him about some old pamper sniffer who'd been re-housed in Gorse Way which led off on the right. He'd been roughed up twice already on his way to the Old Soldier. The one pub still open for business in the whole Estate, but with iron grilles over its windows, and some weird, tattooed guy guarding the door. Jez's Mum and a do-gooder couple called Molloy had spearheaded the local protest about this Malcolm Wheeler coming amongst them, but in the end everyone was duped. The council van delivered him and his battered suitcase to Gorse Way at three in the morning, during a thunderstorm.

  Louis had followed the story avidly in the local press, searching for more detail as to what the perv had actually done and how come he'd not been banged up given the strength of feeling about it all. The Maggot called the law an ass more than once, and how the Coalition’s ‘Big Society’ was a con. ‘We need more surveillance, more jails, not less.’ The only half-decent words his so-called father had ever spoken and seemingly the only common ground between them.

  One minute left.

  He ruffled up his hair into a mess and slipped on his black-framed glasses whose lenses actually made things clearer. Certainly made him look at least like a Year 10 Grub - and a swot at that.

  From his vantage point by the fence, Louis could see number 11’s concrete steps rising up from dog shit, beer cans, used bog paper like flowers with dried brown centres. He didn't mind. This was real. Not like his prissy home in Meadow Hill. Adrenalin powered through his body. He was more than ready for a fight.

  Then came Mrs Martin pushing her way through the door which had more paint missing than on it. Kayleigh next, with Jez and the pushchair on wonky wheels bearing Freddie, bawling his head off while their dog, a black lurcher type tried sniffing Jez’s pockets.

  "Piss off you. 'S me bleedin' lunch." The boy smacked its head, then saw Louis hiding in the shadows. Saw too, how his smile had gone. "Sorry mate. Whipper-in told me Mum she'll get fined if I don't show up at school."

  "Five quid," Louis whispered, loading each syllable with menace.

  "What?" The red-haired lad's mouth fell open.

  "You've let me down, so you owe me. Besides, ye bin squealin', ain't ye?"

  "No I ain't 'Onest."

  "Ye was s'posed to meet me by the bloody bridge. So when'll ye be there?" His eyes had changed and Jez stammered.

  "Half nine, Dead Man’s Hollow, OK?"

  "OK."

  His Mum turned round.

  "Who's that you're talking to?"

  "No-one."

  "Let me see."

  She relieved her eldest son of the pushchair and managed to get the brood down the steps. Then she saw him. So did Kayleigh.

  "You Pete Brown?"

  "So?"

  She let go of the buggy and got closer, looking pretty wound up, but no way was he going to do a runner, least not in front of Jez.

  "What's 'e bin tellin' you, eh?" He pointed at his mate. "I've a right to know."

  "You're not welcome. Keep away from us."

  "Well that's fuckin' charmin'." Louis stood his ground. Could see her tits under the tee shirt and wondered about the rest. The girl was staring. Little did she know what he knew about her. "Please explain what I'm s'posed to 'ave done."

  "We'll save that for the cop shop if I see you round here again.”

  She reclaimed the buggy, and, snatching Jez by the hand, took off down Wort Passage without looking back. When they'd gone, Louis waited a moment to recover his composure. His watch showed 8.50. He felt something touching his trousers. The dog dribbling cloudy yellow piss. Ribs moving under its fur.

  He had time to kill. Forty minutes in fact. Payback time. To teach them all a lesson.

  *

  The dog was stupid - its eyes on him, same as that hedgehog six years ago. And look where that ended up. Louis felt the narrow skull snug in his palm. He pressed down and the creature tried to pull away, but he'd got it by the collar.

  "C'mon Jip." He'd remembered his name. "Let's go play." He released his grip, clicked his fingers and the dog followed him down the steps and the opposite way to Scrub Lane Comprehensive School. Here the alleyway got worse. More crap, a dead crow, a screen of flies - some in his hair, one even between his lips.

  Down past the end of the flats and the burnt-out cars, the dumped Tesco trolleys, to the dark humus of Blac
k Dog Brook. "Named after you, eh?" Louis said stepping around young trees whose trunks had been snapped off, leaving pale, raw spears.

  The lurcher's nose was busy, but it stayed close while the boy found a level patch of ground and squatted on his heels to get a closer look at what passed for water. He found a stick and prodded the surface, bringing up a foul smell and a lump like treacle at the end of it.

  It was a miracle the swans and ducks still came along like they did, he thought, trying not to inhale. And yet like Wort Passage, the shit was real. What you did every day, twice a day in The Maggot's case, down a pan with a little perfumed parcel hooked over the toilet rim.

  In Meadow Hill, this open sewer became Willow Brook, lurking at the bottom of their garden, stinking on a hot evening...

  "'Ere." He clicked his fingers for the dog's attention. "Fetch!" The stick flew from his fingers and landed in the sludge. Its forked end just visible.

  The dog waded forth, struggling to swim out of trouble once the silt had taken hold. But it was soon held fast and sinking, accompanied by a yelp then a whimper. Its frightened eyes fixed on him, but he was already making his way along to Dead Man's Hollow as it disappeared from view, followed by a few bubbles.

  "Fun, eh?" Louis to himself, looking back and seeing nothing. His dick on the move again inside his trousers and this time as it was nice and private with not a soul around, he unzipped his fly.

  *

  "You're fuckin’ late," he accused the younger, red-haired boy struggling through the undergrowth with his green bike. "So I get that fiver. Now."

  An angry blush spread across Jez's freckled face, but that was all. Here was too quiet. Anything could happen. He wasn't that dumb...

  "Sorry mate." He handed over a crumpled fiver. “Homework check.”

  “Ta,” Louis sneered. Prep, assembly, French and Games were all irrelevant now. His schooling involved Jez's little knife kept hidden in the biggest hawthorn leaning into the brook. It also involved a rope and a roll of Tesco Value black bin liners. Certainly not what The Maggot and The Fawn had in mind for his extra-curricular activities. However, at his request they'd just upped his pocket money and soon, so Jez had reckoned, there'd be even more dough to spend on his special kind of nose candy.