Bucket Nut

by Liza Cody

  ‘Depends what Mr Cheng wants me to do next.’ I wasn’t sure Mr Cheng would like me working for Bermuda Smith. But the offer was tempting. And it made me feel better to know that Harry Richards thought I was good enough.

  ‘Tell you what, Harry,’ I said after thinking about it. ‘If I’m free I’ll come.’

  We walked to the door together.

  I said, ‘Who is that dweeg at the bar – the white one drinking red wine?’

  ‘Who him?’ Harry turned to look. ‘He don’t cause no hassle, Eva. He just an artist. Lives in Holland Park. Gets drunk, likes to play saxophone with the band. If they let him.’

  Harry grinned, and added, ‘He play lousy sax, Eva.’

  Chapter 7

  Mr Cheng is like a spider at the centre of a web. He has contacts with people all over London, but he never goes anywhere himself.

  There were three more envelopes to deliver that evening, three more bundles to collect.

  It would be easier and quicker if Mr Cheng gave me all the envelopes at one time and let me go from one address to another. But that is not Mr Cheng’s way. After each delivery and pick-up I had to return to the centre of the web.

  You might think that Mr Cheng does not trust me because I am not Chinese. But most people who work for him are Chinese and they have to do the exact same thing. He is not a man to keep all his eggs in one basket.

  When I was finished, at about eleven o’clock, one of the cooks sat me down in a corner and gave me a huge plateful of chicken, snow peas and rice. This is the other bonus about working for Mr Cheng. You always get fed. The cook gave me a spoon to eat with. He thinks I can’t handle chopsticks and he is right.

  I was halfway through my nosh when Mr Cheng came in with my own personal envelope. I laid down my spoon, slit open the envelope and counted the money while he stood waiting.

  It looks like bad manners, doesn’t it? But the reason I always count the money right then and there is because I do not want Mr Cheng to think I am a fool.

  In fact, I am acting the same way he does. And I have always noticed that people only think you are stupid if you do things differently from them.

  As soon as I saw the money was right, I said, ‘Thanks Mr Cheng,’ and picked my spoon up. He grunted and left. That is the way it always goes and it gives me a nice comfortable feeling.

  So there I was, with the night still young, and another job to do. I like to keep busy at night.

  But I had responsibilities, so the first thing I did was borrow a car. This time it was a red Vauxhall Nova. I was in a hurry so I wanted a small car with a bit of poke and this one fairly whistled south to my side of the river.

  Mr Gambon had released the dogs, as he always did, before locking up. He hates them, he says. Actually, he’s afraid of them and he has a set of roller shutters fixed to their pen. The shutters are operated by a remote control switch, just like some people have on their garage doors, which he can work from outside the gate. Mr Gambon does not have much bottle.

  I don’t know what it is with attack dogs, but they always go for the crotch. Even when they’re feeling friendly that is the place they butt you. I kneed Lineker in the chest to remind him to keep his distance. But both dogs were hungry and they followed me all around the yard as I inspected the fence for holes.

  I wasn’t going to feed them though. Not until I came back for good. Fed dogs go to sleep.

  By rights I should have been there, on site, from the time Mr Gambon locked up to when the men arrived for work in the morning. But if I did that I wouldn’t be able to pursue my career as a wrestler, would I? Or put in that extra hustle which will get my teeth fixed sooner rather than later.

  With the inspection done I raced to the Static. It was time to stash my stash.

  People who think I’m dumb are stupid. As a matter of fact, when it comes to hiding my savings I’m very clever. And when your bank or your building society has gone bust, and when your pretty little plastic card is only worth its own weight in plastic, you’ll find out just how clever I am.

  And if you think I’m going to tell you where I stash my stash, you’re even stupider than I thought.

  Look at it this way – my savings are protected by a razor-wire fence and by Ramses and Lineker. They are hidden in a place nobody knows about except me. And if by some outside chance you should stumble across them, there will still be a nasty surprise for you.

  Can you say the same for your stash? I bet you can’t.

  Chapter 8

  Harry Richards gathered his troops at the back of Bermuda Smith’s cellar club. We kept to the shadows so as not to frighten the punters. We were ready for trouble. We were given free sandwiches but no booze. Harry is no fool.

  Bermuda Smith went home early. He is no fool either.

  The band played. The singers sang. The punters ate and drank and danced their little socks off.

  Nothing happened.

  It was just as well we were paid half in advance – cash.

  I am a professional, which means that I don’t work except for money. But being a professional has its responsibilities. So I stayed alert. I wasn’t like some of the others who sat around their table playing cards. Those blokes, anyway, wouldn’t play cards with a female. So I sat by myself and paid attention.

  The so-called sculptor was at a table with three friends. He had this ‘I am an artist, I can go and get drunk anywhere’ pose. But his friends weren’t quite so stupid. It looked as if they were trying to get him to slow down on the red plonk. This was sensible because in that club, if trouble came, he would be just another white dick-head – and not the man of the people he thought he was.

  I hoped there would be trouble. If it came, maybe I would do something for him, just to show him who he had taken the piss out of. There again, maybe I wouldn’t. That would show him too. Either way I was on to a winner.

  I had this little daydream where I hauled his artistic white bum out of a hot spot, gave him back his sax and his wallet, and he said, ‘Jesus, Eva, where did you learn to handle yourself like that? I’m really sorry I insulted you.’ And in his ponciest voice he said, ‘I do most humbly apologise.’

  Most humbly apologise! – it made me laugh to myself.

  I looked at the backing singer, the one who despised men, and I tried that out too.

  ‘I despise men,’ I said to the so-called sculptor as he stood before me in the gutter, all rumpled and forlorn.

  ‘I most humbly apologise,’ he replied.

  Oh yeah! A woman can dream, can’t she?

  The lead singer was a strutter, a Lord of the Universe. He was all mouth and tight trousers. He had a voice, I’ll say that for him, but all the rest was one great big wank. He’d belt out a line and then cock his pretty head as if listening for an echo. Sure enough, his adoring little harem of backing singers would give him back his own words in harmony. An ego trip if ever I saw one.

  It wasn’t perfect. The one who despised men looked as if she was being propped up between the other two. Her shiny gold hair was falling all over her face and her head was too heavy for her neck. She came in late on some of her lines.

  And the punters were beginning to laugh at her. You could see everyone on stage getting narked. It spoiled the strutter’s show.

  He said something to her between numbers. It didn’t look very nice because suddenly she tossed her hair out of her eyes and glared at him.

  You could see his point. Boozers are a pain in the arse, especially if you have to rely on them for anything.

  She was better in the next number, but she didn’t look very reliable. I watched her closely. I was interested. What was a girl who despised men doing boosting the ego of a singer like that? She was small and a proper lovely with long legs and hair and long eyelashes. Everything long that should be long, just exactly what the magazines tell you a woman should look like.

  She could afford to despise men, I thought.

  It was just as I was thinking this, about how some wome
n could afford to despise men, when she fell off the platform. I suppose the other two got tired of holding her up because one of them stepped aside, and down she went.

  There were a few oohs and ahs from the punters, and some of the dancers stopped to look. But the band scarcely missed a note. And she just lay on her back showing her knickers.

  Harry Richards pushed his way to the front because that is the sort of disturbance he is paid to deal with. Except it is usually the punters who fall down stoned, not the entertainment.

  He tried to pull her to her feet, but she wasn’t having any of it. She started yelling, ‘Get your filthy hands off me,’ and, ‘Bastards, you’re all bastards.’

  And then the polizei came boogieing in.

  This was actually funny. There we all were, expecting trouble from the crowd, and what we got was the law.

  That made the band stop playing. In the hush you could hear a sort of rustle and plop as packets of illegal substances hit the floor and got kicked aside. A couple of bloods got jammed in the door on the way to the Gents.

  I think I was the only one laughing. I was clean as a hound’s tooth. And I knew the back way out. This was important because, however pure I might have been right then and there, the polizei have a memory-bank and I have a record. And my record is not pure – mainly juvenile offences to be sure, but … it was best to move out sharpish.

  This seemed to be the Thought Of The Day in Bermuda Smith’s cellar club. Everyone was on the move – some in a rush, some ever so cool and casual – leaving their shit behind.

  The only people not moving were a few tables full of white middle-class voyeurs who sat with their hands in front of them looking bewildered and a bit daft. What was it they hadn’t been told?

  And little Goldilocks. I saw someone step on her hand in his hurry to the Gents. She began to cry.

  It was the way she cried which got my goat. She cried while staring vaguely around her, just like a little kid who wants everyone to know she’s crying. She wants everyone to know she’s crying because she is absolutely one hundred per cent sure some lovely, kind grown-up will come and save her, and dry her eyes and give her sweeties. It’s the way nice kids with nice families cry. They’re so confident, you see, even when they’re miserable. But there are other kids who don’t even bother to cry because it’s just a waste of energy. They are a hundred per cent sure no one gives a fuck.

  And who was Goldilocks crying for? Who did she want to dry her eyes? Well, I can tell you, because I saw her searching and I saw her reaching. She was crying for that twatty Lord of the Universe, him with the trousers and 1,000 horsepower strut. Dream on, Goldilocks.

  I clocked all this while I was ever so casually ambling along to the concealed door which hid the passage to Bermuda Smith’s office. The polizei were rampaging around trying to stop the stampede, and one of the oberleutnants was bellowing, ‘Everybody, stay where you are!’ Dream on, Fuehrer – some people don’t automatically do what they’re told, ’specially when shouted at.

  The next thing that happened could’ve been a bit hairy. Someone lobbed a can of CS gas into the pack.

  Well, you can imagine, can’t you? Everyone screaming, and coughing and weeping and running every which way. Tables and chairs sent flying, broken glass. Now that’s what I call anarchy.

  ‘Nobody move!’ the Fuehrer yelled at the seething mob. How stupid can you be?

  But Fuehrers have one-track minds. Give them a job and they’ll try to do it whatever else is happening.

  And in this case everything else was happening – including the exit, hawking and spitting, of half the Fuehrer’s force.

  Laugh? I thought I’d never stop.

  I blundered about quite happily. There are a lot of opportunities ripe for plucking in a bit of anarchy. People don’t always watch out for their valuables in a crisis.

  All the same, tear gas in an enclosed space gets to everyone eventually, and soon I was streaming from the eyes and nose like everyone else. Choking too, even with a table napkin protecting my face.

  I don’t know why I did it. Later I told myself it was because Goldilocks looked so pitiful. But that wasn’t true.

  Anyway, here’s what happened.

  I was choking. I had plucked enough chickens. I cut across the dance floor in front of the platform and I tripped over Goldilocks who was still there. She wasn’t alone. A lady copper was trying to drag her to her feet. The lady cop was not in uniform but that’s what she was, make no mistake. Who else would waste time trying to arrest some poor drunk in all that mess?

  Goldilocks was in a dreadful state.

  I said, ‘Cock off, copper.’ And I picked Goldilocks off the floor. I slung her over my shoulder and steamed out through Bermuda Smith’s private door.

  Like I say, I’ll never know why I did it.

  Chapter 9

  First, she said, ‘Where’s Calvin?’ And then she threw up all over the pavement.

  I was grateful to her. She could’ve thrown up down the back of my leather jacket, but she waited till we got outside. You can always recognise a lady.

  Then she said, ‘Where’s my bag?’

  Her bag, of course, was wherever she’d put it before going on stage. I told her so but she didn’t seem interested any more.

  She said, ‘He’s gone. He’s broken my heart.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ I said. ‘The heart is a muscle.’

  And then she passed out.

  Kindness is a lot of hard work. You can’t borrow a motor with a passed out, pissed singer on your back, so I pulled her dress down as far as it would go and left her where she was.

  I nearly left her completely because, what with it being Notting Hill and the polizei monging about all over the shop, suitable motors were pretty scarce. All I could find was a Fiat Panda, a real sardine tin I’d rather not be caught dead in.

  Goldilocks probably lived in Hampstead or Highgate, I thought, somewhere totally out of my way. And then I thought, she’s probably just got up and taken herself off home. She was the type who could get a taxi driver to take her all the way to Watford, and her without a penny in her pocket.

  But I hadn’t exactly left her at a bus stop, I’d left her in an out-of-the-way back street which wasn’t very posh. So I thought the least I could do was go back and see if she’d gone home.

  She was still there.

  And that was how Goldilocks came to stay with me at the yard.

  I had to fold her up to fit her into the Fiat Panda. I had to carry her through the yard. I had to put her in my own bed.

  And as the night wore on I became more and more worried. She was not just drunk, she was ill. She kept on throwing up. She vibrated with chills. And she burned.

  I didn’t know what to do. Putting a drunk to bed is easy. But I’ve never been sick in my life so I didn’t know what was wrong with her, and I didn’t know whether to keep her warm or cool her down.

  I found myself rushing around like a one-armed paper hanger.

  She’d start shivering and moaning, so I covered her up. Then she’d practically toss the sleeping bag out the window. Then she’d say, ‘Oh Jesus, give me water.’ And then she’d throw it all up in the bucket.

  Sick people are a pain in the arse.

  I didn’t like her eyes either. Sometimes they bugged out of her head as if she’d been electrocuted and sometimes they rolled around in their sockets like marbles in a cup.

  Like I said, being kind is a lot of hard work, but the worst thing was that I was afraid she was going to die. I didn’t know how I’d explain a stiff in my Static, so one of the reasons I rushed around like a rat with an itchy tail was so that she’d stay alive long enough for me to get rid of her in the morning.

  But in the morning, just after I’d fed the dogs and put them back in their pen, Goldie drank some water, kept it down and dropped off to sleep. Before she went to sleep she looked at me as if she saw me for the first time, and she said, ‘Thank you.’

  Just thank you.
But the way she said it, as if she really meant it, made me change my mind about getting shot of her.

  I boiled water on my little gas ring and made tea. And then I sat on the end of the bed to look at her as she slept. I found that my hands had gone all trembly, and I had this ache at the back of my throat. I thought maybe I was going to get sick too.

  In the end I threw all the sofa cushions on the floor in the main room and went to sleep there. It had been a busy day and I was tired.

  I dreamed me and Simone were back at school – one of those ‘approved’ schools we kept being sent to in real life. And we decided to bunk off – the way we used to in real life. We came to a wall, and Simone said, ‘No. I can’t. It’s too big. We’ll get into trouble.’ ‘We’re in trouble already,’ I said. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a leg up.’ She put one foot in my hands, and I noticed she was wearing white satin slippers with little red jewels in them. ‘Where did you find the shoes?’ I asked. And I gave her a leg up onto the wall. ‘They’re my glass slippers,’ she said. And as I stood there the little red jewels started to fall like rain all around me and into my hair. I stooped to pick them up, because Simone was very particular about her shoes. But they turned to liquid. ‘Hey!’ I shouted, ‘you’re bleeding.’ I looked up and saw for the first time that the top of the wall was covered with razor-wire. And Simone was caught in it. I tried to climb up to help her, but the wall had grown. There was no one to give me a leg up. So she stayed where she was, and I stayed where I was with blood in my hair.

  I hate dreams.

  It was weird waking up, knowing there was someone in my bedroom. In all the months I lived there no one but me had ever set foot in the Static. I looked in on her, but Goldie was out for the count. She could have been dead. That’s how still she lay. But a wisp of goldie hair fluttered every time she breathed out. I was relieved.

  I closed the bedroom door tight. There were things I had to do. Things I didn’t want a stranger to see.