The Front

by Mandasue Heller

  Suzie ground her teeth silently.

  ‘I didn’t wanna do it, you know,’ he went on, his voice taking on the whining edge he always used to elicit her sympathy. ‘I don’t even know how it happened. I mean, one minute we’re just sitting there watching them films, and the next she’s all over me. I couldn’t stop her. She was like – I don’t know – it was like the coke gave her super-strength, or something. And with me being so out of it, I didn’t know what was happening till it was too late, like. Suzie . . .? You listening?’

  Suzie had clamped her eyes tight shut. She didn’t want to hear his excuses. She’d seen who’d been on top. He’d have a lot of creeping to do before she forgave him for this – if she ever did. Right now, she didn’t know if that was possible.

  16

  Suzie pretended to be sleeping when Mal woke up the next morning, and it worked. He looked at her, then crept out, closing the door softly behind him. She heard him waking Lee and Elaine up. Then, ten minutes later, they all left. She stayed in bed for a few more minutes in case he came back. When he didn’t, she pushed the quilt aside and got up.

  Going through to the living room, she groaned when she saw the state of the place, and wrinkled her nose in disgust at the sour, sweaty smell hanging over the room like a cloud. The evidence of their betrayal still littered the room. From the mess of videos strewn across the floor, to the heaps of sweet-wrappers, empty cigarette boxes and ripped-up Rizla packets spilling off the table – right down to the disturbed cushions on the couch and chairs. And Elaine had forgotten her tights – they were draped sluttishly across the back of the couch.

  With a tight-lipped scowl, Suzie snatched them up and marched into the kitchen, holding them at arm’s length away from her. Hurling them into the bin, she went to the sink and scrubbed her hands with disinfectant. She didn’t want a single flake of Elaine’s skin contaminating her – or any other part of her disgusting anatomy, for that matter!

  Going back into the living room, she threw all the windows open to clear the smell, then whirlwinded her way through the room, scouring and disinfecting every visible surface, brushing and hoovering both the carpet and the furniture. And she didn’t stop until she felt she’d completely eradicated Elaine’s presence. When she had finished, she made herself a cup of tea, sat down, lit herself a cigarette and tried to put her thoughts into some kind of order.

  They must have thought they were so smart, sending Elaine in to calm the waters last night. But they were very wrong if they thought it had worked. She’d put up with everything Mal had done to her so far, but no more! She’d even blamed herself for winding him up. And why? Because despite it all, she’d really believed he loved her – that one day things would change. How stupid was that?

  But everyone had their limit, and she’d reached hers. Let them walk around thinking stupid Suzie would forgive and forget. She’d show them. It might take time, but she would make them pay!

  Mal and Lee arrived back at one that afternoon. By then, Suzie had calmed down enough to act as though nothing had happened.

  ‘All right, Sooze?’ Lee shuffled his feet, unable to meet her gaze.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said, laughing inside at his obvious embarrassment. ‘Why? Don’t I look it?’

  ‘No, you look great,’ he said. ‘I was just asking, like – you know . . .’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘You look a bit pale yourself,’ she said, peering at him closely, making him squirm. ‘You’re not coming down with something, are you?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said, sitting down. ‘I feel okay.’

  ‘Do you?’ she said. ‘That’s good. Sleep well, did you?’

  He blushed. ‘Um, yeah, thanks. The couch is dead comfy.’

  ‘How about you, Mal?’ she asked, smiling sweetly at him. ‘You sleep all right? I didn’t hear you come to bed.’

  ‘Er, yeah, fine,’ Mal said, looking everywhere but at her. ‘Do you want a brew? I’m just making one.’

  ‘That’d be nice,’ she said, sitting down and lighting herself a cigarette. Her hands were shaking, but she was glad she was making the others uncomfortable.

  ‘I think I’ll have a bath,’ she said when Mal came back with her coffee. ‘I’m feeling a bit grimy. Don’t know why – I haven’t really done anything.’

  ‘You want me to run it for you?’ Mal asked.

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ she said, getting up. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Want me to wash your back?’ he said, a small, hopeful grin on his face.

  ‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘I can manage.’

  Lee breathed a loud sigh of relief when she left the room. ‘She’s acting weird, mate.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Mal said, thinking the same thing himself.

  ‘Too right,’ Lee said. ‘Can’t say I blame her, but it’s freaking me out. She was being dead cold when you was in the kitchen – like she hates me, or something. You don’t think she blames me, do you?’

  ‘I hope so,’ Mal said.

  Lee was upset by this. He liked Suzie and didn’t want her to think he was a cunt just because Mal couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. ‘It wasn’t all my fault,’ he muttered.

  ‘Yeah, it was,’ Mal hissed. ‘If you hadn’t got Sam to go for them stupid films, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘I never told you to shag Elaine!’ Lee hissed back. ‘Fucking hell, man! She ain’t even your bird.’

  ‘Didn’t hear you objecting last night!’ Mal snapped.

  Lee looked down sulkily. In truth, he’d been so wasted last night, he wouldn’t have cared who shagged her. Still, it wouldn’t happen again if it caused this much trouble.

  ‘You reckon she’ll be all right?’ he asked a few minutes later.

  Mal nodded. ‘Yeah, she’ll be fine. I’ll just buy her a few nice things to soften her up. She’ll be sorted.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Lee said. ‘I don’t like it when she’s like this. Anyhow, your brews are shit. Hers are dead nice.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Mal laughed.

  ‘I thought you wasn’t bothered,’ Lee sniped. ‘So how come you’re creeping round her?’

  Mal’s pride stepped up a notch. ‘It’s not that I’m bothered so much,’ he said. ‘It’s just, well, you know what birds are like. They take the huff about something and you can’t get a fuck out of ’em for days. You have to play the game to get ’em back on side, innit?’

  Lee thought about it and nodded. ‘I’d forgotten all that shit. Pauline used to hold out for weeks at a time. Makes you feel like your bollocks are busting.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Mal. ‘So that’s why we do it, innit? To stop ourselves getting fucked up. So I ain’t creeping, I’m looking after me health.’

  ‘You’re a right clever cunt, you,’ Lee said admiringly.

  ‘I know.’ Mal grinned. ‘You watch, mate. She’ll be right as rain in a couple of days. Now get a spliff built, I’m gasping!’

  Suzie had just got out of the bath when Elaine turned up – carrying several bin bags packed full of her clothes and personal effects.

  ‘All right, Sooze,’ she said when Suzie opened the door. ‘Jeezus! I thought I’d never get here without dropping the bleedin’ lot!’ She manoeuvred her load into the hall with difficulty. ‘I had to stop twice to tie ’em back up again!’

  ‘What is it?’ Suzie asked, stepping back as Elaine dropped the bags unceremoniously at her feet.

  ‘Me stuff,’ Elaine said, shaking her hands to relieve the cramps. ‘Left Tommy, haven’t I? ’Bout time I dumped the pleb, wasn’t it? He’s a loser. Never gonna get nowhere, him.’

  ‘So where will you go?’ asked Suzie, leading her into the living room.

  ‘I’m moving in with Lee!’ Elaine declared.

  Lee was sitting on the couch, putting a roach into another spliff. He looked up at this, shocked. ‘You what?’ he squawked. ‘Moving in with me?’

  ‘Yeah!’ she laughed, rushing across and dropping hersel
f down onto his knees, nearly squashing the spliff. ‘You are me fella! Where else would I go? Don’t you want me to, or something?’

  ‘No, it’s not that,’ he said, pulling the bent smoke clear. ‘I just wasn’t expecting it, like.’

  ‘That’s sorted, then,’ she said, planting a noisy kiss on his cheek and snatching the spliff from his fingers. ‘Giz a light.’

  Mal laughed and threw her a lighter. ‘I hope you like cleaning up, ’cos his flat’s a right manky hole!’

  ‘We’ll chuck it all out and buy new,’ Elaine said. ‘Spend a bit of that money we’ve got lying around doing nothing!’

  ‘You what?’ Lee spluttered. ‘That’s mine, that!’

  ‘And what’s yours is mine, now we’re living together!’ said Elaine sternly. ‘So . . .’ She slipped off his knee and looked around at them. ‘We gonna celebrate, or what?’

  Lee frowned, more than a bit pissed off about the ‘what’s yours is mine’ business. But then he thought about the advantages of living with a bird again. Hot cooked food on the table every night . . . clean socks and scrods whenever he needed them . . . pussy on tap – no more solitary wanking! Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.

  Grinning, he turned to Mal. ‘Better give us a bag of Charlie . . . Get the show on the road!’

  ‘Fuck off!’ Mal said. ‘I ain’t giving you nowt. You’ll pay for it!’

  ‘That’s what I meant,’ Lee said. ‘Mind you, though, you could give it me if you want – sort of a moving-in-together present!’

  ‘Sort your menk out!’ Mal snorted. ‘You ain’t getting nothing free off me! What d’y’ think I am? A bleedin’ charity? Flash the cash, matey!’ He held his hand out.

  Grumbling, Lee took a hundred from his wad and handed it across. Mal snatched it and went to the bedroom to get the gear.

  ‘So tell me again about what happened with you and Pasha?’ Elaine said to Lee when he’d gone. ‘Did you really blow his face off?’

  Suzie almost choked when she heard this. If Lee had spilled the beans, Mal would kill him!

  Just then, Mal came back. ‘What you talking about?’ he asked.

  ‘Lee’s just gonna tell me about him and Pasha again,’ Elaine said admiringly. ‘Gawd, I can hardly believe it was my fella what done it! Wait till Tommy gets wind of this!’

  Suzie looked at Mal, wide-eyed. Surely he wasn’t going to let Elaine run around opening her big mouth? They’d all be done for if she did.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ Mal said, giving Elaine a dark look. ‘You don’t tell no one! I thought I made that clear last night?’

  ‘I know,’ said Elaine. ‘But I don’t mean just anyone. I’d only tell Tommy. He wouldn’t say nowt!’

  ‘I thought you said he was a pleb?’ Suzie asked quietly. ‘A loser, you said.’

  ‘Fuck Tommy!’ Mal said vehemently. ‘You ain’t with him no more, so you don’t tell him nothing, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lee said, snatching his spliff back. ‘You’re with me now, so you’d better not go nowhere near fucking Tommy again!’

  Elaine giggled. ‘Are you jealous?’

  ‘Nah,’ he said sulkily. ‘It just ain’t right, my bird hanging about with her ex, that’s all.’

  ‘Ah, you don’t have to worry about him,’ Elaine said.

  ‘And you’d better make sure it stays that way,’ Mal warned her quietly. ‘ ’Cos I’m telling you now, if I find out you’re fucking around behind Lee’s back, I’ll sort you out myself. Got that?’

  Elaine looked at him adoringly. She could certainly see why Suzie liked him so much. He was a proper man! If she had her way, Suzie would be out on her arse and she’d be moving in! Fuck skanky Lee and his little excuse for a dick! As soon as his dosh was spent, she was dumping him and making a move on Mal.

  ‘All right, Mal,’ she simpered. ‘Whatever you say.’

  Suzie watched this with amusement. She knew exactly what Elaine was thinking, but she wasn’t worried. Mal obviously didn’t like her very much, and it looked like he didn’t trust her either. Well, good! But that didn’t mean he was forgiven.

  Ged and Sam arrived a couple of hours later. Suzie let them in, then sat back to watch what would happen when they found out Elaine knew everything.

  Mal and Lee were nervous, and tried their damnedest to control Elaine. But it wasn’t long before she blew the gaff. She just couldn’t help herself. Desperate to prove that she was part of the ‘gang’ now, she plonked herself next to Ged and nudged him.

  ‘Here, what you gonna do with all your dosh, then?’

  ‘What you talking about?’ he asked, casting a dark glance at Mal.

  ‘Elaine, button it!’ said Lee, going white in the face.

  Turning her back on Lee, Elaine went on coyly, ‘You know – the dosh from Pasha’s? I bet you were dead brave when them bullets went off. I would’ve been shitting myself, but I bet you didn’t, ’cos you’re well hard, aren’t you?’ She reached up and stroked Ged’s arm. ‘Dead muscly and all.’

  Ged went ballistic. ‘What the fuck did you tell her for?’ he demanded, shoving Elaine out of the way to glare at Mal and Lee. ‘You might as well have sent a signed fucking confession to the pigs as tell this cheap little slag! I don’t fucking believe you!’

  ‘Oh, God . . . oh, shit!’ Sam muttered over and over, gripped by an awful, absolute certainty that it was now only a matter of time before they were hauled in and charged with murder.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Elaine spluttered. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘You get the fuck away from me!’ Ged bellowed into her face. He jumped up and began to pace the floor. ‘Oh, shit! I can’t fucking believe this is happening! How could you, Mal? I knew that fucking ponce had no sense, but you? How could you tell this – this little slag our business?’

  Elaine burst into tears and ran to Suzie like a hurt child seeking the comforting arms of its mother. Suzie sat impassively, allowing Elaine to think she was comforting her as she patted her shoulder. Elaine would have been chilled to the core by the cold look in Suzie’s eyes.

  ‘Right,’ Ged said at last. ‘Kitchen – now!’

  Silently, the men trooped into the kitchen. Ged slammed the door shut behind them.

  ‘What’s he going to do?’ Elaine asked fearfully as their hushed, angry voices rose and fell behind the door.

  ‘They’ll be talking it through,’ Suzie said. ‘Ged’s sensible. He won’t do anything.’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell anyone, you know?’ Elaine said.

  Suzie looked at her and said quietly, ‘I hope not.’

  A few minutes later, Mal came out and motioned Suzie into the bedroom.

  ‘Look, take Elaine to town for a bit, will you?’ he said, taking a wad of money from his pocket with shaking hands.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  ‘The shit’s hitting the fan,’ he told her. ‘Ged and Sam are really pissed!’

  ‘Can’t say I blame them,’ she said quietly. ‘It wasn’t one of your brightest ideas, was it?’

  Mal frowned. ‘You’re not helping.’

  When the girls had left, the men came back into the living room to thrash it out. Ged was still furious.

  ‘You’ve totally blown it, you know that, don’t you?’ he said to Mal and Lee, who sat before him like a couple of schoolboys waiting to be caned. ‘You couldn’t be trusted for one lousy night! You don’t know this slag from Eve, but you had to go and open your fucking stupid gobs!’

  ‘It was him,’ Mal said, pointing at Lee. ‘He was flashing his money at her, and she wanted to know where he got it!’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ Lee protested. ‘You made me get me dosh out to pay you for the fucking coke!’

  ‘I never told you to fucking tell her!’ Mal yelled.

  ‘You fucking did, you cunt!’ Lee yelled back. ‘You said, “Go on, then!” ’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Ged shouted. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re both to fucking blame! Now, w
hat we gonna do to sort it out?’

  Mal and Lee looked down guiltily.

  ‘We’ve got to minimize the risk of her telling anyone else,’ Sam said quietly.

  ‘Yeah, right!’ Mal sneered. ‘Minimize the fucking risk? What’s that supposed to mean when it’s at home?’

  ‘Don’t start with me,’ Sam told him icily. ‘ ’Cos the mood I’m in right now, Mal, you’ll be lucky if I don’t break every bone in your fucking body!’

  Again, Mal looked down. He wasn’t brave enough to take Sam and Ged on when they were this mad. Apart from which, he knew they were right. He and Lee should never have told anyone what they’d done – least of all a tart like Elaine.

  ‘What we supposed to do?’ Lee asked.

  ‘We have to make sure she can’t tell anyone,’ Sam said. ‘That’s your job, Lee.’

  ‘How am I supposed to do that?’

  ‘By never letting her out of your sight,’ said Ged.

  ‘What if she wants to go somewhere without me?’

  ‘You don’t let her,’ Ged said, adding bitterly: ‘I’m sure Mal will give you lessons in keeping her in line!’

  Mal folded his arms and averted his eyes.

  ‘Not only do you not let her out of your sight,’ Sam went on, ‘you also make sure she doesn’t get to speak to anyone on her own.’

  Lee groaned. ‘How? I can’t exactly stop her using the phone, can I?’

  ‘No,’ said Ged. ‘But you can monitor what she says.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand what a threat she is,’ Sam went on grimly. ‘And not just to you – to me and Ged as well. Not to mention Wendy and the kids. Fuck knows what she’s gonna say when she finds out what you’ve done.’

  ‘Aw, shit,’ Lee muttered, sinking further down. Wendy would have his balls for this. He’d blown any chance he might have had of getting into her knickers now.

  ‘What about you two?’ Mal asked. ‘It ain’t just us who’ll have to keep an eye on her.’

  ‘I don’t see why the fuck we should do anything!’ Ged yelled. ‘It wasn’t us who couldn’t keep quiet. If I had my way, I’d never have to look at the bitch again!’