We Go Around In the Night and Are Consumed by Fire

by Jules Grant

  I wrap it up, send everyone out with a job to do, keep them all happy.

  When I get an idea or something needs sorting, best thing is to keep moving, not think about anything at all, let things take shape somewhere at the back of my head. If you try and see an idea before it’s ready it melts away from you, like when you wake from a dream and there’s only the shape of it left. And the harder you try and see it, the more it fades away. Like knitting fog on the M62.

  I get out Carla’s old gloves, pull the bag out of the corner, fix it up on the bracket. It’s not long before I’ve got a rhythm going, then I step it up. Right left right. Left right left. Right left right left right left.

  I’m sweating now, right left sidekick, right left sidekick, right left right left. I speed up, aim to stop the bag moving in between, right left right, left right left. Leftkick, left right left, rightkick. Right left, right left.

  The breath burns in my chest and I feel the pain hot in my shoulders, all down my arms, nearly there.

  I keep it going until I get to the special place, the one with no pain, just the sound of your breath, thoughts floating away. Once you get there it feels like you could go on forever, only clear space in your head, everything else moving all on its own, like a dance you’ve done a million times before. Before I know it I catch myself smiling. Pretty much like a half-decent line if I remember right, only cheaper.

  I know I said you feel like you can go on for ever, but truth is, you can’t. Ten minutes later I’m lying on my back on the floor, arms out wide, gloves still on, wondering if I’m ever going to breathe again.

  I look at the ceiling, wait for the buzz in my ears to die down.

  Then all the bits come together, ring up in my head like a slot machine, ker-fucking-ching, and the very one I’ve been hoping for comes tumbling out.

  Someone in the Darts must have okayed it before Fats came for Carla, for the Cheetahs to have walked right into Heaven that night, no face-off, just Lloyd on the door. And Lloyd must have had orders from somewhere or they’d have never got past him with the hardware.

  I see Danny’s face come floating back to me. Finn, she’s not coming. So he must have known something was going down. But if he was in on it, why warn me? Something’s not right. And Mike would never let all that happen, not with the truce holding up like it was, not without giving me the nod.

  Unless Mike didn’t know. And if Mike didn’t know, then the only other person that could have okayed it would be Tony. But only if Tony knew the arrests were going down that night, knew he wouldn’t need Mike’s permission for Heaven.

  And that can only mean one thing. Both those dawn raids and Carla’s death got Tony’s pawprints all over them.

  11

  Geeta: r u ok

  Geeta: wer r u

  Geeta: tex me

  Geeta: ok c u tomoz

  12

  By the time I get to Finn’s I’m shaking. I park the bike up outside, bang hard on the door. She opens it, smiles, but I just push on past. Shiloh’s in her highchair and she gurgles at me.

  Friday night, I say. Just tell me.

  Finn looks at me as if I’ve gone loop but I can’t stop.

  Just tell me, I says, and I can’t help it, I reach for the blade.

  She pushes Shiloh behind her and that brings me up fast.

  I sit down, put the knife away, eyeball her. What happened to you Friday? Why weren’t you there?

  Her eyes fill up. I should have been, but Shiloh, she was sick. I’m sorry, God I’m so sorry.

  She comes over, puts a hand on my shoulder, I shrug it off. What kind of sick?

  She tells me Shiloh been over at Danny’s that day, like every Friday, only this time he brought her back early, said she’d been sick twice, once all over his mam, so Finn couldn’t risk it, didn’t want to leave her.

  I feel terrible, she says, I should have been there. Then she’s brimming. I miss her, she says, eyes wild. Maybe if I’d been there, maybe if Loh hadn’t been sick like that…

  I cut her off, Did you ask Danny to tell me you weren’t coming to Heaven?

  She looks at me squiff and I can tell she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

  Look, I would’ve text you, let you know I wasn’t coming. I should’ve. Only I put Shiloh in my bed, see, stayed with her in case she was sick, fell asleep, next thing I know it’s half-six in the morning, Lise banging on the door.

  She looks puzzled. And Fridays Danny does the door at Metro-X, so he wouldn’t be in Heaven, would he?

  I believe her. I’m not sure what to make of Danny. But whatever he’s up to, he’s not telling Finn. He’s Tony’s right-hand man now I guess, so maybe Sonn was right. Maybe we need to be careful about what we tell Finn, just in case.

  Yeah, forget it, I thought that, I say.

  I get back to Carla’s and there’s no sign of Ror, as if I haven’t got enough to think about.

  I’m just thinking about going over to Marie’s to drag her back here when the mobile goes and it’s Mina, says she needs to tell me something. And even though I’m still mad with her, and she’s the last one I want to see, something in me just can’t pull away.

  Yeah OK come over then.

  She’s on the doorstep, soaked through from the rain, so I hold open the door. Don’t try it on though, I say.

  Then her face folds like wet newspaper and she’s holding on to the doorframe, just to keep herself up.

  To be honest I don’t know what possessed me. Maybe it was all that together whatever, or maybe I’m just pissy and shabby and weak. But there’s something about her, the way she was with Carla, makes me have to get close. I don’t have to spell it out, I guess.

  There’s something about the eye of a storm that I just can’t resist, and pretty much it’s always been like that. Carla was the only other one who got it, that beat, the one that makes going to the edge of things so good. I reckon that’s one reason why nothing, not Mina, not Louise, not a hundred other women, could come in between us.

  And I never really thought about it till now, how it might all pan out, that thing we had going, because it seemed like we had forever. Like we just were each other, you know, and so long as we were together then nothing could break.

  After, I’m just lying there in the half-dark, Mina asleep on my arm, watching the street-light through the gap in the curtain trying to work out what just happened. Me searching, turning Mina inside out looking for Carla but no matter how deep I went how she just wasn’t there.

  Then I’m thinking maybe if all that stuff hadn’t gone down with me and Mina I might have put my foot down with Carla over that Kim bitch. Then she might still be here. So when Mina turns her head, looks up at me with that look still in her eyes, I can’t stand to see it. Get moving, I tell her. You’d better get home.

  She looks at me, pathetic, like a dog that’s been kicked but I’m too pissed off with myself to give a shit about what she thinks. And all that close stuff has just picked itself up and walked right away and the more she bleats the more something in me just wants to smack her around.

  Get the fuck out of here and leave me alone, I say.

  It’s gone eleven when I get to Marie’s.

  She’s out cold in the chair, TV blaring, half a bottle of vodka and empty tinnies all over the floor, and I can hear the sound of someone doing the pots in the kitchen.

  Get the fuck out here Aurora.

  Nothing happens so I go over, pull the kitchen door wide.

  Then I see her, half Marie’s pissy sheet stuffed in the sink, the other half trailing all down to the floor.

  She turns and looks at me.

  I can’t get it all in, she says, and her eyes brim right up.

  Then all the sharp ice-cold stuff that’s been packed up under my ribs just melts away and we’re standing there, the two of us, holding on to each other. Scriking our eyes out. Hey leave it, I say, let’s just get you home.

  On the way out I chuck a blanket over Marie, which is
well more than she deserves, turn off the fire. Ror goes to pick up the cans. Leave it, I say, she can do it herself.

  I drop the latch and shut the front door behind us.

  Then I take the keys off her, put them through the letterbox. She can come and see you at ours, if she wants to.

  On the way back, Ror slips her hand into mine. I thought you weren’t coming, she says.

  Back at the house I feed Sappho and I’m just about to send Ror for a wash when I get an idea. Wanna sleep in your mum’s bed?

  She flicks me a look, With you?

  And I must be going soft, because whatever it was that I just saw in her face, that flicker, I just can’t snuff it out.

  Yeah, I suppose so, I say, if you don’t fart or snore.

  13

  At first I don’t know where I am, grey light coming in through the gap in the curtains same as always, the rain on the glass. I stretch out, hit something warm and for a second I think it’s Louise.

  I turn my head. Ror’s curled up like a pup, fast asleep. Then everything comes racing back in a wunner, makes it tricky to breathe.

  Downstairs I look into the living room, see the kitchen chairs set out in a row. Lise is in the kitchen with Sonn and Rio, just waiting. I make some coffee, put everyone an extra sugar in. No one speaks, so when the front door bell rings we all jump.

  She’s here now, says Lise.

  I open the front door. Skinny lat in a greasy black suit, little knot in his tie. He nods at me, folds his hands in front of him like something off Oliver Twist. Needs an iron, that suit.

  Behind him I can see the black car, windows down the sides so you can see right in, all shiny with chrome. I can make out the long wooden box inside but I don’t want to look at it.

  When they get her inside, the men put her down, balance the coffin across the chairs. Want me to open it, love?

  Lise looks over at me but there’s no way I’m letting that happen, four men in suits looking down at her when I don’t even know what they’ve dressed her in. Leave her, I say.

  OK love we’re off then. Mind you can’t put the fire on…

  Then Ror’s in the doorway, Rio squinting up beside her. I want my mummy, she says.

  I look at Lise. Get her outta here, I says.

  The room’s baltic, rain lashing on the window, grey light creeping in through the gaps in the curtains. The screws are halfway out, ready, so I unscrew them all the way, take them out one by one, put them in the little painted cup Carla keeps on the mantel for pins.

  I catch myself breathing funny, blowing out through my mouth slow, like Finn that day when we thought Shiloh was coming early and we had to jump all the red lights and then we got to the hospital and it was a false alarm.

  I try to slide the lid but it won’t budge. I grip it hard on both sides, lift it up, and it comes away all sudden.

  I pull back, expecting some kind of smell to be honest, but there’s just a faint whiff, somewhere between the hospital and opening a fridge, comes right up from the box. I stand the lid against the wall, heart thumping, take another deep breath. I never stuck around long enough to see somebody dead before, except me mam but that was smack and that kinda death got a look all its own, especially when you’re only eleven. Looks violent somehow, everything that should be on the inside coming out of everywhere.

  So I brace myself just in case.

  When I look down, she’s lying there in that hospital nightie, small. So still it makes your heart ache. They’ve brushed her a fringe, and she hates all that shit.

  I reach my hand out to push it back and her skin’s so cold and hard it makes me jump. Like touching your own fingers when they’ve gone numb on the bike, feels solid, somehow.

  I look down at the tips of my fingers, and they’re all powdery.

  Take me to the water and wash me down.

  Hey Lise, get your make-up bag and get in here, I shout.

  Ten minutes later and we’ve wiped all the old woman stuff off her. Shit, we’ll have to use something though, says Lise. Can’t just leave her like that.

  And she’s right, because under all that foundation the skin’s a weird shade of blue-grey, and then down under her neck it’s all bright purple clouds. Looks like the worst kind of bruises, like someone kicked the shit outta her down at the morgue.

  I’m just about to kick off when Lise puts her hand on my arm. It’s just where all the blood’s settled, she says.

  How the fuck do you know that?

  She shrugs. CSI innit, she goes.

  In the kitchen, I tell Sonn to take Rio out for a walk, take Ror with her. It’s raining, says Sonn, but I’m in no mood for fucking about.

  Just do it, and don’t come back for an hour.

  I shut the door behind them. Then I lock it.

  I fill the washing-up bowl, squirt the rose handwash into the water, put a dash of washing-up liquid in for bubbles, then I get an idea. I race upstairs, get the squidgy vanilla thing off the side of the bath, put a dollop in the washing-up bowl, turn the whole thing milky. Then the smell of Carla floats off the water, making my throat ache.

  In the front room Lise got the blanket spread out on the floor, looks at me, You sure?

  I don’t say anything, get hold of Carla under the arms and then we lift. It’s like she weighs a ton, even though she looks so tiny. Don’t you fucking drop her Lise.

  Down on the floor she looks a bit more like normal, without all that scratchy silk stuff trapping her in. People think it’s there for comfort or decoration or some such, but really it’s there just to hide things. Dunno why I never got that before.

  Lise got her sleeves rolled up, ready. Then it’s like I’m rooted to the spot and can’t move, and I know this is the one thing I gotta do alone.

  I send her upstairs for Carla’s red top and her new G-Stars, tell her to leave them outside the door. Then just leave us alone till I shout you.

  Now it’s just me and Carla.

  I put a chair under the door handle just to be sure, dip my hand into the bowl to check it’s not cold. Then I kneel down beside her, start to undo the nightie.

  Hey baby, I brung the water, I goes.

  By noon everyone’s heard, and there’s people I’ve never even seen coming in for a look. Marie in the corner with a can of Special Brew, wailing to anyone who’ll listen, me by the coffin, Sonn and Rio keeping guard by the door. I’ll be honest it’s not the way I’d do it was just up to me, letting all and sundry peer over her like that, but there’s something final about it and I can see how some folks could need that. Then some old guy called Mr Lowski, says he’s from up the street, brings a quarter of whisky and some toffees for Ror. Better watch him, I tell Sonn.

  Lise and Marta are making butties in the kitchen to soak up the booze so by the time Father Tom comes in with a bottle of malt, a big tin of Quality Street, there’s hardly room to sit down. He takes off his leathers and sits down by Marie, lets her snivel all over him.

  You’d never know Father Tom was a priest just from looking, and if they were all like that you might even think about going along for a sing-song once in a while. Fact he has to live all on his own and can’t love anyone, ever, just seems like a waste.

  Then he hands me the tin. Fairy cakes he says. I made them myself.

  Well it’s bad but Sonn catches my eye and I’m trying not to laugh out loud and the more I try, the worse it all gets.

  By the time I get out to the back yard it’s all bubbling up inside me like Red Bull when you go to pull the ring off. Then I’m laughing out loud and can’t seem to stop.

  I put one hand on the wall, try to get my breath, and there’s a sound like the low-down hum of the ship canal in the fog. Then I realise it’s me.

  I try and breathe, get the hum to stop, but it just gets louder. Then I’m leaning my face on the cold wet of the brick and it’s all fizzing out.

  When things die down I sit on the step, look down at the flags, the weeds coming up through the cracks. Carla would’
ve been down on her knees by now, pulling those fuckers out. Me, I wouldn’t bother on account of how it’s just a shitty back yard, damp running down the walls, and an old outside toilet where she keeps the bag of compost, keep it out of the rain. But Carla she was proper proud of her yard, even though that toilet never even worked. Who cares nah, I got two bathrooms, she said.

  I look over at the pot with the clematis that just wouldn’t grow no matter what she did. Clematis clitoris she said when we saw it in the garden centre, on account of all the petals were that fragile, and every shade of purple and pink you could think. To me that’s just bad taste, but Carla never gave a toss about stuff like that, just laughed right at me, Hey prudie, she says.

  She was proper mad when we got it home and all the petals fell off, reckoned they shouldn’t be allowed to do that, B&Q, selling people stuff that only grows right somewhere else. False Pretences, she called it. It’s too dark here, she said, things need sun.

  Then I’m thinking about that time we took the bikes all the way to Newquay, just to see Fistral Beach, and how soon as we got there she stripped right off on the beach not even caring, spinning round and round like a loon, nut-brown and just this black triangle of hair, arms held up to the sun. How I told her Chrissakes at least put your boxers on, they’ll be selling tickets next. How she didn’t want to come home.

  Things need sun.

  So I never even hear Ror creep up on me. Watcha crying for, Deed?

  I pull her down beside me. Hey Christmas Fairy, I’m not crying, I say.

  Next thing, Lise is on the step, face like a smacked arse, says, Better get in here, because it’s gonna kick off.

  I go inside and Tony’s squeezed in the hallway, doing a Terminator 2, eyes sliding all over. I tell you, if there ever was any sun this side of the Pennines, he’s the kind of fucker be blocking it out.