Winterton Blue

by Trezza Azzopardi

  Who?

  Them robbers down the precinct. It’s my decoy. They lie in wait, you know. Scagheads. Pension day, it’s like high bloody noon.

  Should you be drawing a pension if you’re still working? said Lewis, with half a smile to show he was joking.

  I’ve paid my tax, said Manny, not smiling with him, Here we are now.

  The house where Lewis’s mother lived was exactly the same in style as the house they’d rented twenty years before, except, at a glance, he could tell that she’d decided to settle. The garden had a clipped front lawn, neat rows of flowers in the borders, a giant yellow butterfly pinned to the outside wall.

  Manny flapped his hand at Lewis as he slowed to a halt.

  Round the bend! he shouted, ducking as if he were about to be shot, Don’t let her see us in this!

  Lewis sighed, scraping the van round the corner, parking it next to an overgrown hedge.

  Manny ran ahead of him, crabbing along the hedge, peeping over into next door’s garden, then racing up the path. He looked faintly comical in the open air, and he knew it, grinning widely at Lewis before stooping to look through the letter-box. Manny stared for a good long while, made a pantomime of cupping his ear to the door, then turned on his heel and trotted back.

  She’s not there, he gasped, winded by his efforts.

  How d’you know? asked Lewis, We could see round the back.

  Post on the mat, said Manny, pushing a hand to Lewis’s chest, C’mon, chief, we’ll try again later on.

  Lewis moved the hand away and stepped up the side path. There was a bicycle leaning on the wall next to the back door, which was slightly open.

  Mam? he called, and feeling Manny’s protestations behind him, called again, louder, Mam, are you in there?

  Who’s asking? said a man’s voice. It came from the stairs, followed by quick footsteps.

  Who’s asking me? Lewis shouted back, blinded by the darkness of the inside, I’m looking for my mam!

  Well, I’m her bloke, grinned the man emerging from the shadow, So I suppose that could make me your dad.

  Lewis’s Real Dad is dead. So whoever the man with the builder’s tan and the goatee thought he was, he wasn’t Lewis’s father. He was just having a joke. Lewis’s ‘dads’ went like this:

  DAD #1:

  Dead. As a child, Lewis didn’t often think about his real father; he was too busy coping with

  DAD #2:

  Errol was Lewis’s uncle-dad. Lots of their friends had them, even the boys who had real fathers at home had uncledads lurking around. Errol was self-employed, which meant he was on the dole, and spent a lot of time lying on the couch. Lying in Wait, he called it, for the Right Moment. Lewis’s mother once made a comment, picking his socks up off the carpet, that it was more like lying in state. You only had to say the wrong thing once to Errol to not make the same mistake again. It was a lesson the whole family learned.

  Errol claimed he was in the SAS. He had to make himself available at all times, he said, but the closest he ever came to the SAS was watching The Dirty Dozen at Christmas, lying on the couch with a box of liqueurs in his lap. He’d be chewing at the sides of his moustache and shouting, You don’t do it like that! And, Never in a million years, Telly-boy! Only Lee Marvin made him happy. There’s a real man, he’d say, You wouldn’t mess with him.

  It was messing with a real man that got them into trouble. That’s what his mother had said, when they were packing their bags in the middle of the night. She was leaving Errol for a real man, only Errol mustn’t find out, ever, and no one must know their business because he’d come after them. They were going to make a fresh start, in a house she’d found across town. She tried to make it sound like a thrilling adventure. Wayne was happy enough that they were leaving, but Lewis remembered the first time his mother had mentioned Errol: he’d been a real man too, in those days. Lewis was beginning to distrust real men, and anything that was made to sound like an adventure; he knew they weren’t at all thrilling, and he knew that there was nowhere, really, to run.

  Errol found them on the second day in their new house. Lewis and Wayne were putting up posters on their bedroom wall, arguing about who was going to have the top bunk. Lewis knew he would get his way; he was the oldest, and bigger, but Wayne was good at putting his case; he was more agile on the ladder, he would suit the top bunk. Lewis was, he reasoned, always restless at night, and occasionally sleep-walked.

  Wandering about on that top bunk, it could be hazardous. Better all round—Wayne was saying, when he stopped mid-sentence. It was just the one scream. The boys stared at each other. Standing at either end of the bunk-bed, they felt, through the floor, a thud.

  Downstairs, Errol was lying on the carpet, streaked with blood. There was blood on the wall above him and on the door-frame. Lewis knew it wasn’t Errol’s blood. It was a facility he had, for seeing things precisely, as if someone had showed him a film still. What Lewis saw, then, was someone else’s blood, and Errol in a faint: what Wayne saw was murder. He stood over Errol with an air of thrilled satisfaction.

  Quit ya jibba jabba! he cried, raising his fist to the ceiling, and in a mock-American accent added, I pity you, fool!

  Lewis carried on through to the kitchen. His mother was bending over the fridge, so at first he didn’t understand what had happened. He’d already taken in the strings of blood in a trail over the floor and the worktop, and a zing in the air, like an electrical charge; it was the smell of panic. His mother had one hand wrapped in a tea-towel and the other gripping a pack of frozen peas. She was biting it open, pulling at the plastic with her teeth. She looked at him and passed the packet across the worktop.

  Open that for us, babes, she said, in a calm voice, the one she used when she was doing something ordinary, like cooking their tea.

  And then run down and fetch Manny. Tell him it’s Della, she said, Tell him it’s an emergency.

  Behind Lewis, Wayne was over his euphoria; Errol was coming round. They could hear him groaning.

  What’s he done to you? Wayne shouted, his voice going up at the edges.

  Nothing, said their mother, Now will one of you go and fetch us a taxi before I bleeds to death!

  At the hospital, she presented the packet of frozen peas to the casualty nurse, who was already shooing her to the front of the queue. They went on through the double doors and out of sight. Lewis and Wayne and Manny sat in the waiting-room and said nothing, until Manny saw Lewis’s face, like plastic melting, and said,

  Don’t worry, son, they’ll sew that finger back on. She kept it nice and cold. Shall we get us a drink from that machine?

  Manny always was good at evasion; back then, it was about his mother’s finger—or maybe he didn’t understand that sometimes truth was a better option. As they walked back to the van, Lewis had the distinct feeling of being a child again, and that Manny would happily lie to comfort him. But he was no longer a child. He didn’t care for comfort.

  Manny sighed heavily behind him. It might have been out of frustration at the way Lewis had behaved, or in sympathy with the reception he received. Either way, Lewis didn’t care. He had to resist the urge to turn about, push past Manny, and run back inside; he would have knocked the boyfriend flat if Manny hadn’t stopped him. Neither of them spoke as they climbed in the van, but Manny let out another sigh, loud and long.

  Something on your mind? asked Lewis

  No, chief.

  What did he call himself again?

  Gary Barrett, said Manny, He’s local.

  You know him?

  Not really, said Manny, then after a beat, He drinks in the Old Airport with our Carl. They do scuba club on Tuesday nights.

  Lewis did a double take.

  Your Carl? Scuba? Fucking scuba?

  Manny grimaced.

  I know, son. Unbelievable.

  And this Gary Barrett, said Lewis, D’you think he was telling the truth? About her?

  Search me.

  Lewis pondered this
. The man was polite enough after the initial encounter, but he wouldn’t tell Lewis anything about where his mother had gone or when she’d be back.

  It’s not really my place to say, he said, But I’ll tell her you called. Leave us your number, just in case she wants to get in touch.

  It was the just in case that made Lewis’s blood pump in his neck. That, and the feeling he had, that his mother had been upstairs, standing behind the bedroom door, listening.

  Manny watched the skeleton dangling off the rear-view mirror, swinging his head in time to the rocking motion it made. Now and then he’d flip a finger at it, making it twirl.

  Does he glow in the dark, then? he asked. Lewis shrugged.

  Like I say, it’s not really my van.

  He turned the radio up, and they sat together, staring ahead, listening to the music. Manny turned it down when the disc jockey started to talk.

  Can’t stand all that yakking, he said, finally.

  Lewis didn’t respond. They remained silent until Manny started to fidget again. Lewis could tell he was building up to something; he waited for it to work itself out.

  You could always stop with me, Manny said at last, Just for a bit, until you’ve sorted something for yourself. And since Sylvie went—it’d be company. After a fashion, like.

  Thanks, said Lewis.

  You’ll want to think about it, of course, said Manny, offended, I expect the offers are flooding in.

  How old is Gary Barrett, do you think? Lewis asked.

  Manny shrugged.

  Don’t know. Mid thirties? About your age, I reckon.

  Exactly, said Lewis.

  And that’s what’s eating you?

  Yep.

  Well, you know, son, squaring up to her boyfriend—however old you think he is—isn’t going to get you in her good books. You can’t just go barging into people’s lives without a by-your-leave. Not after all this time.

  Lewis snorted, jabbing his foot so hard on the accelerator that Manny jerked forward in his seat.

  After all what time? said Lewis, It’s stopped still for her. For a minute, I thought it was Errol standing there.

  Errol, said Manny, clutching the seatbelt across his chest, Which one was he?

  When we first moved round yours. Errol came to look for us. You took us to the hospital, remember?

  Manny stared out of the passenger window, nodding his head.

  Gary wouldn’t do anything to hurt her, he said, turning to look at Lewis, He’s soft as butter, that one.

  Thought you didn’t know him, said Lewis, his words tight in his throat, Only, sounds to me like you two could be mates.

  I told you to leave it, said Manny, You won’t heed a warning, that’s your trouble. Always has been, always will be.

  I see, said Lewis, That’s my trouble. So, what would you warn me to do now?

  Go home. Forget it. Get on with your life. That’s my warning, chief. Do you hear me?

  Loud and clear, chief, said Lewis, pulling up in front of Manny’s house, I believe this is you.

  As Manny stepped out of the van, Lewis wrenched the plastic skeleton off the mirror.

  Give that to your mate when you see him, he shouted, throwing it at Manny’s back, Tell him that’s my warning!

  EIGHT

  Get on with your life, Manny had said. But this is his life, sitting on a wall in Clapham high street and staring at the window of the Café Salsa; this is his elastic, inescapable joke of a life. The buses come and go, blocking his view, unblocking it, and the people get on and new queues form around him, and still he sits on the low wall, hugging his kitbag. He had left Cardiff in rage and panic: he wasn’t thinking straight. Lewis shuts his eyes, trying to block out the street noise all around him, trying to think in a direct white line. A metal grind of gears fills the air, a man’s sudden swearing, a long blast on a car horn. Unbidden, an image swims into Lewis’s head: of the night they went to recce the house. There were himself and Carl in the front of the van, Barrett poking his head between the seats, and Carl, reaching down into the footwell. Lewis had kept his eyes on the road, but now, as the blackness clears from his vision, he sees Carl again, surreptitious, examining something in his hand, and talking, all the time talking, driving Lewis insane with his talk.

  He didn’t see what it was. It happened so fast, a blur of trees lit up white in the headlights, a sudden, dense blackness, and, finally, the heart-shaped lake appeared before him, opening out in a spill of cold moonlight.

  Biting on his lip, Lewis reaches into the side-pocket of his kitbag, feels beneath the split bag of beans for the black felt pouch where he keeps Wayne’s bracelet. He knows, without removing it, knows by its weightlessness, that it’s empty.

  He couldn’t have known, the first time he saw the bracelet—the first time he had ever coveted anything his brother had—that he would eventually be its keeper.

  His mother was late home from work again. Lewis was preparing their tea in the kitchen while Wayne watched Top of the Pops in the next room, letting out exaggerated boos and whistles whenever a band was featured that he didn’t like. Lewis had peeled and chipped a stack of potatoes, and was washing up when he tuned in to the sound of voices. In the living-room, his mother was kneeling on the floor next to the couch, while Wayne sat, hugging his knees, at the far end. He looked upset, but Lewis couldn’t see why, at first, because there was his mother, looking worn and lovely, holding out a silver bracelet and saying, Just like the one Mr. T wears, love. Look, the links are dead thick, aren’t they?

  He wears gold, said Wayne, staring at the television, And he don’t have crap written on it.

  Seeing Lewis in the doorway, his mother got up off her knees and handed him the bracelet. Lewis felt how heavy it was, and how cold.

  Smart, he said, reading the inscription. On the front plate, Wayne had been inscribed in a swirling flourish.

  Yeah, said Wayne, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice, Until you turns it over. I’m Wayne on the front and retard on the back.

  Lewis flipped the plate: in large capitals, the word epileptic was etched. In the kitchen, his mother was firing the spark gun repeatedly at the gas ring, talking to herself.

  You does your best . . . I don’t know. I asked the man about it down the market, and he said a bracelet was the thing, yeah, because they checks the pulse first? And they knows to look? But he—she gestured with her head to the other room—He won’t have it, will he? I can’t take it back now it’s been engraved. What am I gonna do with him, babes?

  She had her back to him, she hadn’t even taken her coat off. Lewis didn’t want to hug her, or speak to her, even. He wanted to say, What about me, like a petulant child, What did you get me? Anything? Did you get me a single thing? But instead, he hung the bracelet on his wrist and waited for her to turn round to face him.

  It’s a bit loose on me, even, he said, not looking at her, Say you takes these links out, makes it a bit tighter so the name don’t flip over, like . . . ?

  His mother called Wayne, who dragged himself into the kitchen like a deep-sea diver emerging from the depths.

  What?

  Your brother’s had an idea, she said, About the bracelet. We’ll make it tighter, see, so only you’ll know what’s on the back.

  I’m not wearing no bracelet, he said, his face purple with shame.

  It’s called a chain, said Lewis, That’s what Mr. T calls them; he calls them his slave chains. Says they’re to remind him of his ancestors, and what they had to go through.

  Yeah, but who’s my slave? muttered Wayne, fingering the chain despite himself.

  I am, said his mother, I’m shackled to the pair of you. Now. Is it sausages or burgers, my masters?

  The memory is so close he can taste it. He would’ve liked a ring with a skull’s head on it, like the ones in the window of the Oriental shop. He would have been content with a cross and chain, even if it wasn’t silver or gold. In the end, he was happy to have nothing, because the bracelet
was only to keep Wayne safe; and in the end, he was unhappy that he got the chain, after all. He got his very own slave chain.

  Through the jumble of thoughts in his head, another emerges, sudden and hot as chip-fat: the therapist had suggested that what he wanted was to be invisible. She said he wanted to be invisible and empty. Lewis had bought the theory, until now: if that was the case, he argued, then he’d got quite far on empty. The new knowledge comes like a wash of light inside him: No, she was wrong. He doesn’t want to be empty, that’s just how he feels. That’s the very thing he doesn’t want. He isn’t running away from anything, now—he’s running to. He’s running to wherever Carl is headed, and he’ll get his brother’s chain back, with interest.

  Thick as proverbials, said Manny. The edge of the world, he said, Over east. Doing a fun run.

  Lewis gets up from the wall and walks. He’ll go over east, then, and he’ll find Carl. And this time, when he gets hold of the slippery little bastard, he’ll bait him, and land him, and gut him like a fish.

  NINE

  Anna doesn’t know what to take. Brendan keeps reminding her that Yarmouth is only a couple of hours away, and she has calculated the mileage for herself in the road atlas spread out on the kitchen table. It just feels to Anna like a very distant world. She senses that she ought to take everything. So far, she’s packed a couple of boxes with bits of work she has to finish, her camera, a pile of unread books taken from a larger pile of unread books—the remainder of which she kicked under the bed—and a hot water bottle. She runs her hands over her collection of glass in the dining-room. It’s a motley group: two large jagged cuts that look like pieces of an iceberg, a row of misshapen paperweights, unearthed bottles in blue and green and brown, fragments of leaded lights from a Victorian window. Anna decides to leave them be. Her mother would think them ugly.

  You’ll need clothes, you know, says Brendan, seeing her struggling along the hall with her computer and following her like a handmaid with the trailing leads, As I have it on good authority that they do wear clothes in Strangerland.