by Julie Shaw
Nick handed him a pint. ‘There you go, mate.’
‘But I got money,’ he persisted.
‘Get the next one in,’ Nicky told him, slapping him on the back.
Christine sipped her drink, trying to remember how many she must have had now. Too many, clearly. Or, perhaps not quite enough. Though enough to feel a warm glow of camaraderie begin to envelop her. Now Mo had fucked off the whole tone of the pub had changed. Like it had been holding its breath, or held taut, like a just blown-up balloon. And now she’d pricked it, all the bad air had rushed out.
Fancy the tatie man being Brian’s mate. He collected all sorts around him, but this was definitely an odd one, because Mally was a pretty odd guy. He was built like a bear – an amiable bear – and everyone knew him. He was simple. A bit retarded. Accident of birth, she remembered someone saying once. But he was strong and dependable, which was why the potato man used him – he could swing a sack of potatoes over his shoulder as if it was fluff. He was much older than Brian, though, so it was an odd kind of friendship.
‘Meeting of souls,’ Nicky explained when Christine asked him. Mally didn’t look the type to do drugs. ‘Lost souls,’ he added. ‘He lost his mum same as Bri did.’ He twirled a finger at the side of his head. ‘Not dead in her case, just loopy. He’s in the same council flat I think he was born in.’
Brian was busy whacking Mally on the back now as well. ‘That’s absolutely right, mate,’ he agreed. ‘You’re my mate, you are, serious! In fact, put that money away, will you? I’m going to buy you a drink for a change, okay?’
He turned to Christine then. ‘Poor old fucker,’ he whispered, as he pushed his way closer to the bar. ‘You know where I found him? Freezing on a bench at the bottom of Manchester Road. And, well, he’s poked up to fuck, and you never know how long our money will last, do you? Now, who’s got the coke or the blow?’
Her beliefs about their kinship not so much shattered as confirmed, Christine helped Brian get the drinks for the now much expanded crowd and was only too happy to join the others in making trips to the toilet, in between hearing Brian’s lurid tales about his short time inside. The drink flowed and in between visits to the toilets for a bit of coke, the group partied together, laughing at Brian’s tales from the inside. She didn’t doubt that they were embellished, but they were still very funny. Everything seemed very funny. And life felt so much better. Had Mo walked back in she might have slapped him on the back too. Kneed him in the testicles, too, but sod him. He was nothing. Not worth her hate even. She was among friends now. And as long as she kept drinking, she knew her mood would last, so she was as dismayed as everyone else was to hear the bell rung for time. There was nothing gloomier than having to sober up when it was still daylight.
And her sentiments were clearly shared. ‘Fuck,’ Brian said as they huddled in the freezing car park. ‘Is that it?’
‘Let’s go back to the flat, mate,’ Nicky suggested. ‘Carry on there. Well, in theory.’ He felt in his pockets. All of them, systematically. ‘Or maybe not,’ he said, frowning. ‘I’m all out of cash.’ He turned to Christine. ‘Do you have owt left?’
Christine shook her head. ‘Not a bean. Well, apart from these.’ She carefully extracted the two joints she’d made from the last of that morning’s Leb. ‘But they won’t last long, will they?’
‘I got lots.’ The three of them turned around. She’d half-forgotten Mally was even still there. As with almost everything by now, bar the no drink or drugs problem, he’d kind of melted away.
‘What’s that, Mal?’ she asked him.
‘I got lots,’ he said again, pulling notes from his jacket pocket. ‘It’s my mate’s party day and my flat’s nice and warm. I can buy some cider if you want some,’ he added shyly.
‘That’s my boy!’ Nicky said as he slapped Mally on his giant shoulders. ‘You’re a proper good mate, Mally. You’ve saved the day!’
‘Just like Scooby Doo!’ Mally said, beaming. ‘Mally’s saved the day like Scooby Doo!’
As they slipped, skidded and stumbled down Manchester Road to Mally’s flat, the January sludge didn’t feel quite so desolate any more. And once inside, the flat was warm and welcoming, and cosy.
Though also strange, Christine decided, as she left them to use the loo. Simply and cheaply furnished, it was impeccably clean and tidy. Perhaps his mam had been discharged from her institution, or perhaps he had a woman round.
It certainly didn’t look like a place where a man lived on his own. Not in Christine’s experience, anyway. But it was nice. She was floating now, unsure whether she regretted the final vodka, feeling alternately dizzy and suffused with contentment, the latter one soon overtaking the other as someone put on a Blondie album, the cider was poured and the joints from her bag were passed round.
But it was short-lived. It took a while for her to register it above the blaring record player and accompanying singing, but she thought she could hear someone banging on the door.
‘Shh!’ she slurred. ‘Shhh!’
Only Nicky, nearest to the door into the hall, took any notice. There was shouting now, too, and – fuck – was that Mo’s voice?
Her previous courage deserted her. But Nick flapped a hand. ‘Just ignore it. He’ll go away soon enough.’
But far from doing so, he was making an increasingly loud racket, yelling through the letterbox and sounding like he was trying to kick the door in.
‘Ignore it,’ Nicky said again, crossing the room to turn the volume up further. ‘How can he possibly know you’re here? He’ll go away.’
But Mally was looking scared now, and rocking anxiously on the arm of the armchair. They’d no business letting Mo kick his door down. It wasn’t right. ‘No! Fuck it!’ she said to Nick. ‘Of course he knows I’m here! He’ll have hung around or something. Followed us –’
‘You really think he’d bother?’
Christine recalled his expression, the dripping dreads, the blooming stain on his poncey yellow shirt. ‘Of course he’d fucking bother!’ she snapped. ‘Thanks to me, he’s lost his precious street cred! I might as well have bitten his fucking dick off!’ She felt scared but decided, and headed for the hall. ‘And he’s not fucking bullying Brian’s mate as well as everyone else.’ Grimacing, Nicky followed close behind.
Mo looked fit to be tied. And also very drunk. He had to hold the door frame to keep himself straight. ‘You horrible little cunt!’ he barked at Christine. ‘Thought you could get away scot free after showing me up in the pub, did you?’
Christine gripped the latch. Troy was leering at her from behind Mo. ‘What, like you thought you could get away scot free after –’
‘Mate,’ Nicky said, elbowing his way half in front of her. ‘Can we leave this for today? I know you and my sister have some issues, fair enough. But the lad who lives here’ – he gestured backwards – ‘isn’t right in the head, and he’s getting scared.’
Mo threw his head back and laughed, his gold fillings winking. Three of them, all on the top, as familiar to her as were his dreads. ‘Lad? That’s rich. Lad? D’you hear that, Troy? Lad? And “not right in the head” – that’s a brilliant one, that is! I’ve heard ’em called lots – let me see now – nonces and paedos, fucking scum of the earth – but this “not right in the head” is a fucking new one.’
As much tired of him as angry now, Christine squared up to him. ‘Listen, Mo, why don’t you just bugger off, eh? Okay, so I fucked you off in the pub. So what? You were slagging me off – me and my mother. And you got what you deserved. Now just leave it.’ She tried to close the door then, but he had a hand on it and shoved it back, hard, almost sending both Nicky and Christine flying.
‘You stupid mare,’ he growled, lunging for her throat, and simultaneously shooting a warning look at Nicky. Then, as suddenly as he’d gripped her, he let her go. He laughed again. ‘You know what, mate?’ he said to Nicky. ‘I reckon I will. You don’t want to get involved, mate. That in there is a fucking str
aight-up nonce. Likes little kids. You get me? Everyone fucking knows it.’ He looked at Christine, and there was now a different expression on his face. One she recognised. ‘The kid’s in care, you say? I get it now. No. Fucking. Wonder. Kind of people you associate with –’ He glanced behind her, to where Mally had stood trembling, seeing it all. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Absolutely no fucking wonder.’
Chapter 22
Nicky poured Christine a cider and ruminated on Mo’s words. He’d known of Mally for years. No, not well, but enough to have a sense of him. He was just the numbskull who carried the potatoes around, wasn’t he? The same Mally who all the kids teased and tormented when they saw him on the streets. Surely to God Nicky would have heard if he was a kiddy fiddler.
Christine was busy brushing it off, reassuring Mally, who was clearly shaken, that it was just Mo being Mo. As was Brian, though, as by now he couldn’t even see straight, most of what he was saying was garbled rubbish. He was also more intent on necking as much cider as he could, which, after his months of abstinence, was knocking not only him for six, but also, as a consequence, Mally’s furniture.
Still, it niggled. Nicky knew Mo. Knew him quite a bit better than the others thought. He’d done plenty of dodgy deals for him in the past, and knew him well enough to know that, whatever the circumstances, it wasn’t like him to accuse someone of something if he didn’t know for sure. He just wouldn’t. It wasn’t his style.
Brian soon jollied him out of his reverie. ‘Oi!’ he called, as Nicky returned from getting another bottle of cider from Mally’s fridge. ‘I’ve got a little confession to make!’
He was standing in the middle of the living room, bending unsteadily to roll up one trouser leg. He had a plastic bag sellotaped to his shin.
Nicky gaped at it, his mouth starting to water automatically. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been squatting some bleeding coke all afternoon and keeping it from us!’ he said. ‘You sneaky little fucker! Didn’t you learn anything in Armley? Share and share alike, mate!’
Brian laughed. ‘What the fuck else do you think I’m doing now?’ He then held a finger to his lips as he hopped about comically, trying to rip the bag off his hairy leg with one hand.
‘Anyway,’ he added, having finally freed the bag, plus a few hairs. ‘You’re wrong. No, my friends, this isn’t coke. This is the finest H that money can buy.’ He giggled boyishly. ‘Even if I did nick it from under Geordie Paul’s mattress before I left.’
Nicky whooped, delighted at this pleasing new turn of events. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Get it sorted! I’ll just head up for a piss and then the party can really start.’ He turned to Christine, who was swaying to the music, staring glassily into the middle distance. He felt a pang of anxiety. He knew it was hypocritical of him, given that he’d introduced her to this life, but he really hoped his sister would draw the line at heroin. He knew from experience that once you crossed that line there was no going back.
Mally told him where the bathroom was and he headed up the stairs two at a time, noticing as he did so how unusually clean the carpet was. Did he don a pinny and do his housework, just like his mam used to do on Saturdays? Mally really was an oddball, for sure. Or maybe he had a carer. That might be it. All right for fucking some.
The bathroom was similarly pristine. You could eat your dinner off the bog seat, Nicky mused while he peed. Even out of the bog, he thought, chuckling to himself.
He shook himself dry, zipped up and turned to the sink. Not so much to wash his hands as to splash some water on his face. And that’s when he saw it; something he must have seen when he’d entered the room but not consciously registered. He registered it now. A small wicker basket of bath toys. Rubber ducks, plastic boats, tiny buckets.
Still extremely drunk, Nicky tried to clear his head. This was all out of kilter. This was way out of kilter. Why would a grown man have bath toys? He tiptoed out of the bathroom – even though the music still blared away downstairs – and glanced along the short, unlit landing. There were two other doors leading off, so he decided to have a nosey, discovering that the first opened into an airing cupboard – immersion heater, slatted shelves, neat pile of towels – which meant the second one must lead to Mally’s bedroom.
Once again, it was a picture of efficient domesticity. A pair of burnt orange curtains were already closed for the night, so the room was in darkness, just a band of the darkening sky outside visible. There was a modern bedside lamp, and a matching ceiling lampshade, which Nick registered with some surprise – where he came from, light came from bare lightbulbs. He’d no more think of buying a lampshade than fucking fly.
Again, the room was cosy, and welcoming, all soft shapes and textures, including the chocolate shaggy rug that lay beside the bed. Nothing to see, then, until his eyes began adjusting – were there teddy bears perched on Mally’s pillows?
He felt for the light switch and the room was bathed in a cheerful orange glow. And there were indeed teddies on Mally’s pillows. But not just that. There was also a toy box under the window. Brightly painted with balloons and clowns – it looked like by hand – its blues, reds and yellows looked garish and distinctly out of place in the neat orange bedroom.
‘What the fuck?’ Nicky whispered to himself as he walked across to take a closer look. From his new vantage point he could see a great deal more. A train set. A box of Dinky cars. A two-storey garage, with a range of emergency vehicles neatly arranged on it. And dolls. Big ones. Five or six of them. All in different outfits and clearly – he felt nauseous – much played with.
He stared for a moment, swaying, wondering what the fuck he should make of it. Dolls? Why the fuck would Mally have all those dolls? Perhaps the cars … that he could get. Maybe they were relics from his childhood. Maybe he felt sentimental. Couldn’t bring himself to throw them away. He did a mental head shake. But they were played with. They were out, and obviously used. There was no question. As with the ducks in the bathroom they were part of his life now.
But the dolls. He kept being drawn back to the dolls. And to the look on Mo’s face when he’d said what he’d said. Why would a grown man be playing with dolls? Or were the dolls there for others to play with? Children he lured here and coaxed into his bedroom?
He flicked the switch again, shrouding the sickening tableau once more in darkness. Should he say something? If so, what? Or should they simply piss off? He lingered on the landing while he tried to think clearly. Think what to do, who to tell. Assuming it was true, which, given everything he’d seen now, seemed likely. A fucking nonce, right in their midst! His mental exertions bore fruit then, as he remembered the heroin. No, no point in doing anything – not today, not this evening. There was cider, and music and warmth and lots of heroin. No, he’d do the sensible thing and keep the weird fucker’s secret for another day. First things first, after all. He hurried back down the stairs.
The party was already well under way. He was dismayed to see Christine already tooting the H from the foil with Brian, looking not in the least concerned at the step she was taking, despite having always, always promised him it was one she wouldn’t take. But why would anyone be surprised, given the shit she’d been put through? She needed that bit of oblivion more than most did, no question.
Mally, too, seemed to find the whole thing fascinating. He was perched on the edge of the little sofa, rubbing his hands together and looking on intently, as if he’d never seen anything like it in his life. Which he probably hadn’t, Nicky decided, looking at the big man with new eyes. Too busy fiddling with the kiddies. Well, maybe it was time to introduce him to slightly more adult pastimes.
He had to shout above the music to make himself heard. ‘Hey, mate,’ he yelled to Brian, ‘give us a blast on that, will you? And don’t forget our generous party planner over there,’ he added, winking. ‘I think he should have a bit of the powder, don’t you? And a few glasses of jungle juice.’
Brian laughed and nodded, passing Nicky the foil. He heated up t
he heroin and grinned as Nicky took a big toot. ‘Steady on, feller, this is strong stuff,’ he warned. Then he glanced over at Mally, who smiled at him beatifically. ‘Yeah, why not? Let’s get Mally off his head, shall we? Be a laugh, that. Hey, Mal, mate – you want to try this? Course you do. Come over here.’
Chrissy was already well gone. Off her face. Which both concerned and peeved Nicky. He’d feel the biggest shit if she notched up a heroin habit too now, and that concerned him. And peeved that she was already in heroin heaven and he wasn’t.
He went and joined her on the sofa, sitting down in the space Mally had vacated. ‘All right, sis?’ he asked.
‘Fucking brilliant,’ she slurred. ‘Fucking brew-i-ant, young Rodders!’ She tipped her head back against the sofa back and laughed. ‘Love a duck. Cor, it’s parky out. You plonkerrrr!’
‘Shut up,’ Nicky said, feeling a familiar warmth start flowing through him. That was the thing with H. The way it gave you that first sudden rush of adrenalin, an ecstatic feeling that only lasted for an exquisite minute or two, and was then replaced by a kind of blissed-up sedation where you were completely mellowed out and could see no wrong in the world. Then the drowsiness came over you, and slowed down your breathing, leading to the most fantastic, perfect, restful sleep. Until you woke up, of course, and that was when the real battle began. The desperate quest for more of the fucking stuff.
‘Whasssup?’ she managed. ‘Whaaaaaaaas bleedin’ up?’
‘Shh. Listen. You know, I think Mo might have been right about Mally. In fact I’m pretty sure he was right. He is a fucking nonce.’
Christine pulled a face but could no longer seem to form any words. ‘He’s got a bunch of gear up there,’ he whispered. ‘Cars and trains and that. And fucking dollies. A whole bunch of them. I reckon he lures little kids to the flat and takes them up there, the filthy fucker. Promises of toys and that, and then he’s all over them. A paedophile. A sodding paedophile. Can you believe it? Mo was right.’
