by Nicci Cloke
I wandered back over to the screens and found myself a stool a bit away from the two blokes who were quietly swearing and twisting at their accumulators. It was five forty so I played Tetris on my phone for a bit, and soon enough the horses were being trotted along the edge. Saffire had a green-and-yellow-checked jockey, which was bad right from the start, I prefer a one-colour jersey, blue or pink or red. More of a pressing concern, though, was the fact that she looked like a little donkey with legs like Twiglets. Eleven quid as well. I thought to myself I must be going nuts, but maybe without Saffy about someone had to. A few other people were milling around by then, probably just out of the pub because everything started to smell a bit like lager and chip fat, which is a nice smell, homely. And then they were off, pink number three haring off too fast, those too pissed to know better cheering and the others who’d betted on it and actually knew what they were on about sighing and muttering, red and gold slowly notching its way up the inside, blue number two was who you’d want to have your cash riding on, steady pace in the thick of it but no strain still plenty of go in the motor, and of course green and yellow donkey bringing up the rear with a weird bow-legged run, Tetris cubes raining down and I shifted a few, glancing up and down up and down, red and gold had fallen, dunno how it was a flat course beautiful weather, pink had slowed slowed slowed until overtaken by everyone pretty much, donkey aside, blue number two was still quietly storming away, some flash purple wanker was racing up the outside now pulling his weight but not enough to pass blue number two, I switched a red L-shape upside-down to slot between a T-shape and a block of little ’uns, blue number two was slowing, purple wanker showed no sign of a sudden burst but it must have been there, he had that wanky feel about him, a T-shape speeding its way down, no obvious gap for it, oh, here was the burst from purple wanker and still no gap for my T-shape so I flipped it and laid it on its back, now hang on what was this? The last straight. And my mangled little pony was making its way past pink past blue, and then suddenly, shit-the-bed unbelievably, it was neck and neck with purple wanker, Tetris blocks piling up I never even noticed, eyes on that stupid little horse, all the stringy muscles in its legs bursting out, spit foaming out its mouth, it was like it was talking to me going, Look at me, Fitz, look at me go, and purple wanker was even looking surprised if a horse can look surprised and it must have slowed down because suddenly Saffire the donkey was crossing the line and everyone was groaning, and I was sitting there sweating into my slip and then slowly going up to the counter and Johnny-Eighteen-Last-Week was looking at it and gasping and pretending not to and opening the till and handing me £616, and I was shoving it in my pocket and hoping no fucker saw me and walking out the door and thinking, Woah, what just happened?
I was laughing like a bloody loon in the middle of the high street and Pissed-Piss-Pants was still up in the distance and that made me laugh more, at the total weirdness of it, and a couple of dudes sitting in one of the bus stops were looking at me funny so it was just as well I managed to stop. And then I was walking towards the Tube with 616 hot ones burning a hole in my pocket. And right there, outside the station, was a man who was only dressed in a dodgy old parka and stained jeans, but who told me everything I needed to know, just by playing his battered old guitar. Maybe it was fate that made him think that day was a good day for a Marvin Gaye song, or maybe he just recognised it for the absolute tune that it was, but whatever it was it made me feel like the whole of Brixton High Street was staring at me and if there was anybody up in the sky looking out for us all then they were looking at me for sure. And the sun caught all the windows in the street and lit them up like the truth dawning and suddenly all of Hannah’s words had set themselves free and they lined themselves up in my head for me to see and I knew then. I knew I had let Saffy down when I was supposed to be the one caring for her. I knew that this money was a chance to wipe the slate clean and to make everything better because if Quin was right and she was coming back then I would be ready and I would be waiting and I would have made everything safe and right for her again. I headed for the Tube and I knew exactly what to do.
It was strange standing knocking on the door and waiting for someone to answer and all the while looking down at my own front door tucked away below the pavement. The flats up there were bigger and some of the houses along the street were actually still houses instead of being split into flats. So I didn’t really know what to expect on the other side of the door and now I was actually there I was starting to get pretty scared. I was about to scuttle off back down to the flat when I heard footsteps clumping towards the door. My heart started thumping in my chest but I took a deep breath and stood my ground and then a bolt was unlatching and the door was opening and Kay was standing there. He had pink eyes again and all the veins in his arms were sticking out blue. His nose was all swollen and out of place and his eyes were a bit black, someone had done a proper job on him. He peered out at me and gave this horrible little creepy grin with pointy teeth and beer breath.
‘Howdy, neighbour,’ he said. ‘Won’t you come on in?’
I followed him in and the door shut behind me with a quiet clunk and everything went dark after the bright sun outside. I blinked a couple of times until I could see properly instead of little coloured flashes appearing everywhere, and then I followed him into the living room. It was a right mess, empty cans everywhere and old takeaway boxes piled up in corners. On the table my decks were all laid out and they were turned on but without a record on them, just an empty can swirling slowly and sadly around to static.
Kay was slouching in a chair watching me. ‘And what can I do for you?’
I swallowed and in my head gave my voice a little pep-talk about coming out strong and manly and not fucking it up for us. ‘I’ve got your money.’
He raised his eyebrows and gave a gurning sort of smile, chewing the inside of his mouth. ‘Super.’
‘How much does she owe?’
‘Three hundred.’
For a minute I couldn’t say anything. It was so much money, and even though he could have been lying and probably just pulled a number out of the air right that second, a part of me knew he wasn’t and things really had been that bad. ‘Fine,’ I said, and I got the wedge of notes out of my pocket and started counting them out, which in hindsight might not have been the smartest but I just wanted to get it done and get out of there quicksharp.
He stood up on shaky feet and went over to a little fridge in the corner and bent down to look in it. There was nothing in there so he picked up a half-empty bottle of whisky from the side and took a glug of that. ‘You’re lucky I ain’t charging you for the rest,’ he goes, and he was sort of slurring like one side of his mouth had given up the ghost and gone to sleep.
‘Whatever she’s had, we’ll pay for,’ I said, and I was feeling a bit braver but sadly that seemed to make my voice get a bit higher in a sort of Scrappy-Doo sort of way.
He laughed this weird single snigger. ‘I’m not talking about gear,’ he said, putting the bottle down on the table between us with a delicate little clink.
I looked at him blankly and he stabbed a shaky finger towards his face. ‘Who’d you think did this?’
I was still looking at him blankly which really wasn’t wise, sort of like how they tell you not to stare big dogs in the eye. ‘Your lovely girlfriend,’ he goes. ‘Was just trying to get a bit friendly with her. Neighbourly.’ He looked off into the distance like he was remembering. ‘I was this close.’ And he made a gesture with his fingers, which said that he was very very close, and then he licked his lips and smiled at me and I felt sick rising in my throat and blood rising in my face and a buzzing rising in my ears and I thought of him near Saffy, touching Saffy, hurting Saffy, and my fingers were closing around the bottle of whisky and the bottle was swinging through the air and the bottle was hitting him on the side of the head and the bottle was cracking and warm whisky was running down my arm and I was screaming words that were more like sounds and it was h
is turn to look at me blankly as he sat on the floor with blood and shock on his face and I threw the notes in my hand at him and they fluttered down like butterflies.
And then I was running.
I hammered on Eddie’s door like a maniac until he answered it, looking all confused with his puffy sleepy eyes, letting a cloud of weed puff out behind him slowly.
‘Fitz?’ he goes, blinking slowly.
‘How much for your car?’ I said, not bothering with hi or anything.
‘What?’ he goes, and I wanted to poke him in the head but I just said again, ‘How much for the car?’ and then I said, ‘I’ll give you two hundred and fifty,’ because I didn’t have time for this.
‘My car?’ he goes, scratching his head. ‘It’s a heap of shit. Can you even drive? You all right, Fitz? You gonna whitey?’ but he was so stoned it took him about five million years to get each question out.
‘No, you idiot,’ I said, shaking my head, and I probably did look a bit wired or mental or both in fairness to the boy. ‘I need your car to go and get Saf.’ I pressed a wad of cash in his hand and he was still stood staring at me like I was asking to ride him side-saddle all the way to Ipswich, but eventually his brain ticked round and he went and got the keys and handed them over.
‘Be careful, Fitz, won’t ya?’ he said as an afterthought, and I already had one leg in the little banger so I just yelled, ‘Yes, mate,’ and slammed the door shut, started the engine with a splutter and reversed off the drive with a clunk, watching him disappear into a tiny white dot in the rear-view mirror.
As I drove out of the city, I could’ve sworn I saw Fate Jones wink at me from a billboard.
SAFFY
There is a road that leads from the small market town and out into the open fields. As you walk along it, the big houses and their neat, manicured lawns turn into tiny cottages, round and crooked, and after that into empty spaces, a farmhouse, a greenhouse, allotments, spread out and lonely under the wide sky. After the fields of golden corn and the towering stacks of bales, the countryside is interrupted by a fat black line: the dual carriageway.
If you walk along the motorway at any other given hour of the day, at noon or dusk or deep dark midnight, you will be out of place, stared at, sworn at, horns beeped at. But if you walk along at dawn, you will be left alone, except for the odd cheerful trucker’s friendly toot. You can watch the sun coming up over the tiny villages in the distance and the pretty fields and over the Quick Chef and the petrol station and you can walk, one foot after the other, away from everything.
When I reached the station, I sat down on the pavement to catch my breath. Sweat cooled on my face, and my hair was sticky against my neck. I put Lulu’s backpack on the floor between my feet and watched cars pulling into the sloping car park, where the still-rising sun caught their colours against the grey asphalt.
People in suits and people in uniforms filed towards the doors like worker ants, stepping neatly through the ticket barriers and wandering onto the platform to find the little huddle where their door would be when the first train to the city pulled in. I thought it must be nice to have such quiet order to your life: the same train every day, the same carriage, the same door. Maybe even the same seat. You could just stand calm and silent, cow-like, and wait for each part of the day to come to you. Same desk, same work, same train home.
I unzipped the bag and found the little roll of notes. Housekeeping money in our house was for the gardener who came once a fortnight, the cleaner once a week, the lady down the road who did the ironing. Before each of their visits, my mother would fly into a panic and ignore my dad’s quiet muttering. On a Wednesday evening, in the dark, she would be out on her hands and knees, pulling out weeds. On a Tuesday morning, way before dawn, she would be dusting the skirting-boards, cleaning the hob. And on a Monday lunchtime, ironing clean clothes before putting them back into the bag that Lulu would trot down the road carrying in both hands. Housekeeping money for a house that was already kept but wasn’t going to keep me.
The woman behind the counter was round in every way, all chins and folds with two round hands and sausage fingers sticking out like chubby stars. She had a thin fringe cut too short above her eyes and it was stuck into three or four sweaty strands, like claws reaching out of her head to eat her face.
‘Sixty-nine pounds,’ she said. ‘Change at Peterborough, and then at Leicester for the replacement bus.’
I put four notes into the silver hole, careful not to touch the sides. The lid snapped shut. She held her hand above the ticket machine as it burped out the little orange card, and looked down at her magazine as she stuck the ticket and my change into the hole, sliding the trap open again without looking at me. I took them slowly, trying hard not to think about her sweaty sausage fingerprints on them, and then I walked through the gate and onto the platform.
The train pulled into Leicester and I stood up and stepped out onto the platform. My backpack felt heavy and I trailed along with the crowd, dragging its buckles along the tiled wall beside me. I didn’t notice or care if I was bumping into anyone. I felt as though I had already run a million miles; my body was tired and my mind was empty. I climbed the stairs and when I got to the top I wondered if I should just sit down and wait to see if anyone would move me. Then I remembered why I was running. Then I remembered counting to twenty at the top of my voice with a nurse in blossom pink outside the toilet door; I remembered plastic tubing in nostril, down throat, later stitched into skin; I remembered long benches and long tables and girls screaming and girls crying and girls scratching at wood and arm and face so I pushed through the ticket barrier and into the forecourt.
The departure boards stared at me like square black spider eyes under the concrete legs of the roof. I found the board and bay number for the bus I needed and then I walked through the terminal, feeling smaller and smaller under the weight of Lulu’s tiny pink rucksack.
I found the bus, idling next to the grey kerb, the air warm with diesel and late summer.
‘Is this the bus for Liverpool?’ I asked the driver, and he nodded and gave me a jittery wink. I showed him my little orange ticket and he nodded again without looking at it. He held out a hand for my backpack, one foot on the open luggage hold, a crooked rollie fizzling out between hairy fingers. I shook my head. ‘I’ll keep it with me. On my lap.’
He shrugged and slammed the hold shut, flicking the cigarette into the shallow gutter. ‘All aboard,’ he said, and I followed him through the folding door.
The bus smelt like old chewing gum and sweaty feet. I found an empty seat about halfway down the aisle and sat next to the window, hugging the shiny pink bag and smelling Lulu’s little girl smell on it. The bus began to pull out of the station and I watched the grey floors and the grey people as they turned small in my window until I couldn’t watch any more. I leant my head against the shaking window and closed my eyes.
I must’ve fallen asleep because when I opened them again we were stopping in another big bus station I had never seen before. The woman who had been sitting in front of me was standing and leaning over the seats to get her bag from the shelf above. Her top was too short and stretched up with her; in the dim light I could see dark scars stretching across her white belly. I looked away. She took her bag down and left. A mother and two children got on and rustled down the aisle all bustling plastic bag and shiny anoraks. ‘Sit there and be quiet,’ she said to them, and they hopped into the seats behind me as she sat across the aisle and started unpacking juices and comics and crayons. As the doors shuttered closed again, and I closed my eyes to match, four tiny trainered feet started kicking the back of my chair. Feet thudding at my back as the glass of the window thudded at my face and London disappeared unseen into the distance. I pulled my knees up under my chin and hugged myself into the pink backpack and sadness.
After a while the kids fell asleep and the bus pulled into another station. More passengers lumbered on, the wheels creaking and rain starting to patter on the wind
ows. A fat man who smelt like sweating onions sat next to me and I shuffled closer to the wet glass. His legs swelled over the seat and closer and closer to me. There was a greasy stain on the front of his T-shirt and the fat around his neck was shiny in the last reflected sunlight. As the bus began to move again, I swallowed hard and looked out of the window, breathing in Lulu’s smell from the pink straps and watching the buildings turn to darkness as we drove onto the motorway.
The radio was playing from the front, quiet news creeping through the quiet bus. The tinny woman’s voice was slow and mesmeric, drawing words out and clipping others. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass again.
‘… cloudy in the Midlands with a chance of thunderstorms later tonight. There’s some patchy rain making its way across the south-east this evening, but this will clear up by the morning, with things looking sunny across England tomorrow. That’s it for this evening – you can find updated reports for the next seven days on our website, or by texting FORECAST to 68887.
‘And here’s the headlines for this evening once more. The Home Office have once again raised the UK terror threat level to ‘severe’. The Home Secretary has said that the move is intended to make people more aware and to encourage vigilance, not to scare the public.
‘Footballer Caiden Kingsley has lost the last of his sponsorship deals following revelations about his infidelity. Sports drink manufacturer Thirst have released a statement thanking Kingsley for several successful campaigns before stating the company’s recent decision to pursue a different direction with their new range.
