We Go Around In the Night and Are Consumed by Fire

by Jules Grant

  Behind him I can see Tools and Danny. Sonn’s got her arm across the door to the living room, keeping them all out.

  Tony rolls his eyes, nods towards Sonja. Sniffs. Just wanna pay me respects.

  I look over at Sonn, Let him in.

  She looks at me as if I’m barking. You’re kidding me, she says.

  I hold my hands up, Hey. Force a smile. Don’t mind her, mate, we’re all just upset.

  Tony curls his lip and Sonn looks like she’s gonna stab him, right there and then, so I pull her arm from the doorjamb and walk her into the kitchen double-quick, tell her to back off. We don’t let him in and he’s gonna know something’s up for sure. Don’t make this complicated, I say.

  He can go fuck himself, she says, what’s complicated about that?

  Sometimes with Sonn you just want to hug her, on account of she just can’t get past it if someone pisses her off or disses one of her mates. Other times, it gets wearing. Like when things call for a bit of over-easy or you need to box clever and stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I never just ignore it, because Sonn’s got what you’d call judgement. It’s just that, once she knows something, there’s no gap between the knowing and the doing. And that’s the smart little gap where the thinking comes in.

  I’m in the kitchen when this woman walks in, dressed up like it’d take your breath away, holding a tray of samosa and a bowl of mint dip. She’s got a silk blouse on over her Levis, pattern sewed round and round with tiny stitches, sky-blue. Shimmery green-scarf-thing wrapped around her head and down on to her shoulders, thin like a veil, makes her look like she’s standing in a waterfall.

  She pushes back the scarf with one hand. Her hair’s all tied back and rolled over, but loose, so you can’t help notice how thick it is, shiny, like coils of soft rope just waiting to be undone.

  Then she tells me her name. Kaheesha.

  I say it back, and it’s like turning smooth stones over in my mouth.

  Lise takes the tray of samosa, slams it down on the counter, mimes from the sink, Geet’s mam, stop staring.

  I pay her no mind, try and decide what colour the eyes are.

  I’m Donna, I say. And you’re beautiful.

  Then, I swear it, she blushes, and just how cute is that?

  I’m trying to ignore Lise, over by the sink, head whipping side to side like the umpire at Wimbledon, slashing a hand across her own throat like a knife, For-get-it.

  But that’s the trouble with Lise, no sense of adventure, like having your key-worker right up there on your shoulder, just waiting to put a stop to all the good stuff.

  Ror’s nowhere to be found, Lise having a fit looking for her everywhere. She can’t have gone far, says Sonn, on account of Rio’s gone missing as well.

  By the time I find them, Ror shivering down on the floor in the outside toilet wedged in between the compost and the pan Rio snuggled up to her legs, it’s gone dark. A wedge of light from the kitchen makes the wet flagstones look shiny.

  Hey, I say, and I hold out my hand.

  Ror shakes her head, Bugger off, I’m not moving.

  Just then, the latch on the back gate clicks. I grab Ror by the hand, pull her up, shove her back towards the house.

  Hey, you’re hurting, she says, twisting away.

  I get behind the gate just in time and it swings open. Some kid with a hoodie steps into the yard. I grab him from behind, get a headlock going, What the fuck do you want?

  The gate swings open behind us, and there’s the two pairs of eyes, Paddington-bear height, duffel coats drenched with the rain.

  I rip back the hoodie and it’s Kim, just about the last person I want to see right now. Or ever again, if I’m honest.

  What the fuck you doing here?

  Can I see her? It’s a whisper.

  I look at her and I know she’s been crying but that’s hardly my fault. Some women bring things on themselves and I reckon she’s one of them. Forget it, I say, sling your hook.

  I’ve let go now, and she’s hanging on to the gatepost, kids staring up behind her.

  I’m scared, she says.

  Congratulations, I say, you’re not as stupid as you look.

  I try to stay tough but then I’m looking at her, eyes all messed, hoodie wet through, little bird fingers twisting at the toggle.

  So now I’m just starting to think maybe she’s on the level, and Christ who wouldn’t be scared with Fatboy on one side and me on the other, her all alone in Ardwick with them two little kids. And maybe it’s not all her fault, because, of all the mad things Carla ever did, this one takes the garibaldi.

  Then she blows it. She loved me, she goes, all pathetic.

  I don’t know who she thinks she is, coming up telling me who Carla loved and who she didn’t, especially when if it’s anyone’s fault what happened to Carla it’s hers, and I tell her, no messing. Shove her back towards the gate.

  She scrapes at me with tiny claws, desperate, Let me stay, I can help you, I know things.

  I shove her out through the gate, Get yourself back to Fatboy, take what’s coming, you’re not wanted here.

  Now she’s bleating about what she’s gonna tell him, how he’s gonna kill her if she has to go back.

  What do I care what you tell him? Tell him we kidnapped you, tell him what you like. Now get out of my sight.

  I slam the gate, turn back to the house and see Lise on the step, giving me that look as if I just drowned a kitten with a registered disability.

  Harsh, she says, shaking her head.

  Then she looks at the ground. I guess Carla musta liked her.

  Bollocks, I goes. Don’t you fucking start.

  14

  I look up through the branches, bare, coal-black, water dripping everywhere, it’s barely light, early-doors.

  Southern Cemetery is grim at the best of times, half of Manchester boxed up and buried in the mud, lanes and lanes of us packed up tight, shoulder to shoulder. No room to move in this city even when you’re dead.

  It’s always raining here. God only knows how high the water table is and if you weren’t already dead when they put you in you’d probably drown. They can’t dig the hole more than eight hours early, don’t want it filling up with water before the funeral, puts everyone off. So those poor council bods got to work all through the night. And if it’s raining already they might as well not bother, hole just fills up anyway.

  I can hear the cars whishing past down the parkway in the rain, people setting off for Liverpool or Warrington or coming into town on the early shift. I close my eyes and it sounds shush like the sea.

  I push the bike past the vault with the flashing Madonna that lights up at night. Big Shaun and Jason Dooley, little coloured photos of them sunk in the stone.

  The Dooleys are massive, major shotters from Ardwick, five more brothers still kicking and plenty of room for them. Heard old Ma Dooley bought up the whole row in advance, just to make sure. Comes to something when you expect to bury your children but Ma Dooley wears it like a squaddie wears stripes.

  The day they buried Shaun I was only a kid and there was hell on, the whole of East Manchester shut down, schools, shops, offies, the lot. The council made out it was for safety, but we all knew it wasn’t, it was out of respect. You can’t move in Ardwick without permission from the Dooleys, and you’re not telling me the council is any different. Which is how come Big Shaun got all the security contracts after they went out to tender. There’s something spooky about a Dooley being the one to lock up the town hall every night or patrol the magistrate’s courts, in between murders.

  Shaun was a proper psycho, feared of no one, but that was before he started sampling the merchandise. Ma Dooley likes to pretend it was a contract that got him, but in the end things just came at him sideways, stabbed in the gut by his own dealer over a tenner, right outside the King’s Arms at Crown Point. The way I see it, sometimes life’s got its own way of saying Fuck You.

  Anyway, come the day of the funeral it was a proper sho
w, all the Dooleys walking out in front in their rows, helicopter phwat-phwat overhead. Then the horses jet-black, all feathered and shiny, kids running alongside, pulling Shaun along like he’s Princess Di. Everyone knows the Dooleys, doesn’t matter who your peeps are, and that day we were all out there, hundreds of us, a proper day out.

  Gone to the Angels, the stone says. I doubt it.

  Through the trees and I see something yellow moving, catch sight of the digger and I know that must be where they’re going to put her. I look back, just to get my bearings.

  I push the bike under a tree and watch, two blokes in yellow jackets standing back talking. The one on the digger jumps down, goes over to his mates for a cig. The fat one looks up and and sees me. Alright love? You lost?

  I go over, ask him if it’s for today.

  Yeah love, just these three today. He points over to where the holes are, offers me a Benson’s. Then he lights it for me.

  I take a drag, look over at the holes. Is there water in it?

  He looks up at the sky through the trees, watches the drips, puts a hand on me shoulder, kind. There’s always water in it love. Don’t worry they can’t feel it. Is it your mam?

  A mate, I says, me mam’s already gone.

  Ahh love I’m sorry, he goes, for your loss.

  I ride back to Carla’s the back way, nothing on the roads. It’s still early when I pull up outside but the lights are on in the front room.

  In the kitchen and there’s Lise and Sonn, Ror just staring down at the table.

  I sit down. Lise is making toast, slaps some down on a plate, pushes it over to me.

  I push it back.

  She pulls her face, nods her head to where Ror’s just looking at hers. Eat it.

  I take a bite, try to swallow. Eat up Ror, I says.

  At half-nine I take Ror into the front room, tell her it’s time to say goodbye.

  Carla looks pretty fine now in her new red top, Diesel buckle polished and shining, rosary curled up round her hands on her chest. Lise done a great job on her face but her mouth still looks weird, teeth just showing in the middle, nothing we could do about that.

  Ror’s crying now, holding on to the side of the box like she can’t let her go.

  I don’t know what to say but I’ll have to try.

  Your mam’s not in there, Ror, and, even though it looks like she is, she’s already gone. Like when you get a mix-up from Shah’s and you eat them and there’s only the empty bag left, nothing in it, it’s done with.

  Gone to the Angels.

  She’s in Heaven with the Angels, I say.

  I can’t see it myself, Carla pitching up at the pearly gates, bumping into Big Shaun Dooley on the way in, there’d be war on for sure, but what the fuck am I supposed to say?

  That’s just her old paper bag in the box love, she don’t need it no more.

  Ror looks up at me, knuckles white on the box.

  Can we keep the bag, Deed? Please?

  No lovey, I tell her, not this time.

  Mel turns up about half-nine with some of her crew, just as Father Tom pulls up out back, puts his head round the door.

  Come to check everything’s OK for later, he says.

  He puts his helmet down on the kitchen table, takes off his gloves. He’s got those little white flaps on instead of a collar.

  Lise offers him some toast and he shakes his head. I’ll have a brew though.

  Then he asks me how it’s going. Wouldn’t like to think there’d be any trouble, he says, looking over at Ror.

  I nod. Me neither.

  He tells us what’s going to happen, what he’ll say, how things will go down. Then he looks over at Ror. Do you want me to say something for you love, for your mam?

  Ror thinks for a bit, looks at him, steady. Do you know Heaven?

  Father Tom nods and smiles, like she’s just asked him if he knows Old Trafford.

  I think me mam’s there already. Can you get her a message?

  He nods again, serious, I expect so.

  Ror creeps round the table, whispers something in his ear and he smiles back at her, puts his hand on her head. Oh, I think we can do better than that, don’t you worry, he says.

  After Father Tom leaves, Mel drops me down at the lock-up to pick up the Ducati.

  I give it a quick polish, wheel it out to the alley, turn the engine over. For a minute things go still as I listen to the engine, chest tight like a drum. I see Carla up ahead, low on the handlebars, taking the turns, feel the moors falling away behind us, then she’s gone.

  I love you.

  And if she was here now I’d batter her senseless, just for saying it like that and then going away. Idiot, I says out loud, eyes filling up. What the fuck were you thinking?

  Best get any scriking over with now, I suppose, keep my wits on for later. On the way out I grab a vest. No point in taking any chances.

  By half-ten there’s a dozen of us hanging outside the house by the bikes waiting for the hearse, when a brand new red Ford Focus pulls up. A man gets out, young, smart-looking in a dark blue suit, looks a bit like Amir Khan, proper handsome. He walks straight up to me, sticks out his hand. Sanjay, he says, smiling, Geeta’s dad.

  Behind him, Kaheesha climbs out of the car, dark blue silk jacket and matching skirt, cream leather kitten heels that aren’t gonna last five minutes in Southern Cemetery, make her ankles look tiny. She’s got a big bunch of flowers in her arms, all kinds of pink, and Carla would’ve loved those. Sanjay puts his arm round her waist, then she smiles up at me and the whole world goes slack, takes me by surprise.

  We’ll take Aurora for you, she says. In the car.

  I tell them there’s Marie as well so Sonn will take them in the van.

  We’ll take them both, she says. Plenty of room.

  I look back at the Focus, see the three little heads in the back, dressed up smart as paint, shake my head. Nah, she’s drunk, making a show of herself, you don’t want to be bothering with that.

  Kaheesha just smiles, Where is she?

  In the front room, I say, you can’t miss her. Just follow the noise.

  Two minutes later and Marie’s slumped against the doorway, Sanjay with one arm round her waist, pretty much carrying her, Kaheesha right behind them her arm round Ror’s shoulders.

  Geeta jumps out of the car, runs over to Ror, takes her hand. We’ll see you there then, says Kaheesha to me, over her shoulder.

  I watch them go, like a proper family.

  Lise looks at me, eyebrows right up. So he’s nice then?

  I want to slap her. I suppose so, I say.

  By the time we carry Carla out all the neighbours are out on the pavement nebbing for England, both sides of the street. We slide her into the back of the hearse, put the flowers on top and I’m glad Ror isn’t around to see it all. Stick together, I tell everyone, we’ll take them round the parkway, in at the West Gate, out on the East.

  And I’m glad I checked it out this morning, put my mind at rest. We’ll be fine on the way there, no doubt about it, but afterwards that’s a different thing. Never hurts to know where your exits are.

  Half an hour later we’re out-riding the hearse down the carriageway, ten miles an hour, Carla in the middle, me up front on her pride and joy. Seems like we’re picking up riders and cars on every corner. I spot the girls from XS Bar on the Didsbury turnoff, the bar staff from Manto, that bent accountant from Chorlton in her branny red Porsche.

  Patsy from V-Bar pulls alongside on her Harley, gives me a nod.

  Last time I saw Patsy was the night V-Bar reopened after the fire, must be a year ago, me and Carla and the girls heading out together to check it out. They had a great MC back then, mean Salford slaphead called Tricks on the doors. Tricks is supposed to be a woman but none of us believes it for a minute – brick shithouse with a crew cut comes to mind. Male or female, every Salford player is a rock-hard fucker, loyal to a fault, and back then they ran all the doors in the gay village bar none.


  Anyhow, that night at V-Bar we were out to have fun not find trouble, and maybe that’s why we let our guard down. Carla was on the guest list on account of a one-nighter with Patsy, the new owner, so she was straight in, no bother. When it got to me and the girls Tricks stepped out in front of me, put her hand on my chest, Uh-uh, sorry.

  I knew I was going to feel the outline of that hand on my chest for a while if I didn’t sort it. Disrespectful, goes Lise.

  I pulled the hand from my chest. You need to keep your hands to yourself love. Or is it mate? And then the gauntlet was down.

  Even Carla’s charm didn’t work on Tricks, though she wobbled a bit and who wouldn’t? So in the end Carla had to go and get Pats to let us in.

  We’re waiting outside for Patsy when the Sale footy girls join the queue.

  Now football girls are a breed of their own, real mad fuckers. Drink like fishes, kick off over nowt, love a good scrap and a sing-song. Most of them are a real nuisance. Give me rugby girls any day. Anyhow they seemed to think it was funny, us all waiting outside.

  Once we’re past Tricks, we head for the bar. I can hear the footy girls cooking up a riot to the left.

  Ignore them, says Car, they’re not worth it.

  I look over and one of them is on a table already, pint balanced on her head, stripping off her shirt to a slow handclap. Jesus Car, I just hate them.

  Then they spot us. The handclap becomes a cheer, then a boo, then they’re yelling and chanting and pointing our way.

  She’s a twat she’s a twat she’s a twa-at,

  she’s a twat she’s a twat she’s a TWAT…

  There’s only so much a girl can take. I push Carla to one side and launch myself, grab the leg of the girl on the table. She comes crashing down, pint of Stella, table of drinks, the lot, and I’m just about to follow through when my feet leave the floor. Tricks has got me by the scruff and I’m dangling, useless, but I’ve no problem changing channels to give that bitch a kicking instead. I twist round, catch Tricks on the side of the jaw, then give her a kick to the groin.