by Liza Cody
I took the money. That bleeding Enemy. You never know where you are with her. First she wants to kick that poor little sod and his dog out in the street, and next she’s buying the dog sugar for her tea. She just ain’t stable – that’s what’s wrong with her. Her mental attitude’s all up the bleeding spout.
So I trotted off to Hanif’s, which is open all hours, and as I went I hummed to myself, ‘Anna Lee, The Enemy, She wanted to shit, then she wanted to pee. She changed her mind at half past three.’
I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, having got my own way again. All you need is willpower. You can even make things rhyme with willpower.
‘Hee-hee-hee, Anna Lee,’ I sang to meself, and then Crystal came up behind me and grabbed my elbow.
‘Fuckin’ ow!’ I said, because my elbow was all bruised.
‘Sorry,’ Crystal said. ‘What’s happening, Eva? I looked out me window and there you was busting into the Premises.’
Which reminded me.
‘Those bleeding premises,’ I said. ‘I thought that was supposed to be my gym. I thought you said you was renting.’
‘I never,’ she said. ‘I said you would have it rent free.’
‘Me and everyone else,’ I said. ‘It’s a bleeding squat now.’
‘How?’
‘There’s a kid and his dog in there.’
‘Can’t you get them out?’ Crystal asked. ‘And who’s that other woman you’re with?’
‘That’s Anna Lee of Lee-Schiller Security.’
‘Who’s that when it’s at home?’
‘Security,’ I said. ‘Like me. Taking care of empty property.’
‘Oh shit,’ she said.
‘Yeah. Your “premises”. My gym.’
‘Does she know?’
‘You think I’m stupid or what?’
‘What she going to do, then?’ Crystal said. ‘Turf this kid out?’
‘Over my dead body,’ I said. ‘His dog’s just about to drop her litter.’
‘Puppies?’ Crystal said, her little monkey-face all screwed up. ‘You mean this Lee person’s letting this kid stop in our premises for a load of puppies?’
‘She ain’t,’ I said. ‘But I am. That bitch didn’t ought to be moved.’
‘Lee?’
‘No, stupid. The fucking dog.’
‘Oh,’ said Crystal. Honestly, she gets on my nerves.
I went on, and Crystal scurried along behind me.
At Hanif’s I bought sugar, eggs and milk. They’re all good for sick dogs. You got to separate the eggs though. You don’t want to give a dog white of egg, only the yolk. I got some more tea bags too because Queenie looked like she was going to have a long night of it.
Crystal tagged along on the way back too. She said, ‘What we going to do?’
‘What you mean – we?’
‘Us,’ she said. ‘You. Me. Bella and the girls.’
‘Don’t you lump me in with that lot,’ I said. Which shut her up.
Back at the Premises, The Enemy had rigged the light a bit better, and the kid’s pan of water was boiling. I dumped the shopping down and said, ‘This lot’s for Queenie. Not for you.’
‘I know,’ the kid said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘You can have the egg whites, I suppose. Queenie don’t want them. She gets the yolks, mind.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re very kind.’ He was a bit bloody polite for a squatter. I didn’t trust him.
‘Whip an egg yolk up in the milk and let her drink it,’ I told him.
He was squatting over his stove, making the tea in a plastic bowl. He spooned some sugar in. I stood there making sure he didn’t nick any for himself.
The Enemy stopped looking at the kid and saw Crystal.
‘Friend of Eva’s,’ Crystal said, before she was asked. She’s clever that way, is Crystal. She’ll seem all open and honest but she won’t even tell her own name.
‘Haven’t I seen you round here?’ The Enemy said.
‘Prob’ly.’ Crystal grinned her monkey grin. ‘I’m local.’
‘The market,’ The Enemy said. ‘You’ve got a stall, right?’
That’s double-dyed polizei, that is. Everything slotted in place.
‘That Queenie don’t look too clever,’ I said, to put her off.
She sighed. ‘The kid’s none too well either.’ She nudged me aside and said in a whisper, ‘He says his name’s Justin Ventura. Yeah, I know. He says he’s from Hampshire. He says he came to London to get a job and stay with friends.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Mmm. And he says he’ll be going home when his dog’s better. He only looks about fifteen, but he says he’s eighteen.’
I said bugger-all to that.
Of course he said he was eighteen.
Everyone says they’re eighteen. Especially to strangers. I said I was eighteen ever since my thirteenth birthday. I said it so long I couldn’t remember how old I really was. Even now I have trouble remembering my age. You’ve got to be eighteen or you’ll have social workers swarming all over you.
I looked at so-called Justin Ventura. He was thin and he looked like he didn’t have any blood in his veins. He had fair curly hair, quite long, and a cold sore on his bottom lip. He was pretty.
The Enemy was probably right – he didn’t look as if he’d shaved more then twice in his life, but it was too dark to see properly.
Queenie didn’t seem to have the strength to get up and drink, so Justin held the bowl in one hand and helped support her head with the other. She lapped up about half the bowl and then flopped down exhausted. Her tail flapped once against the concrete floor, and she never took her eyes off of Justin’s face.
‘Poor thing,’ Crystal said. She knelt down next to Justin, but he said, ‘Please don’t come too close. I don’t mean to be rude, but she might get upset if she doesn’t know you.’
Crystal moved away. She doesn’t know sweet FA about dogs.
Justin said, ‘May I finish her tea? She won’t drink any more now, and I’ll make her some fresh when she’s ready.’
He couldn’t be all bad, could he? I don’t know many blokes who’d give their dogs first slurp at the tea.
‘Frigging Ada,’ The Enemy said. ‘He’s not going to drink from the same bowl, is he?’
But he did. He didn’t seem to have a cup for himself.
Then something happened. Well, no, it didn’t happen. Nothing happens, but everything changes. Suddenly things look long ago and far away. As if you’re stuck to the ceiling like a fly, and you look down on something you saw at the movies ages ago. Does that happen to you? It’s creepy. I hate it.
Crystal got weepy. That’s what started it. Bloody monkey face. What’s she got to snivel about? So, there was Crystal, and The Enemy, and the kid drinking tea out of Queenie’s bowl, and Queenie panting on the floor, never taking her eyes off of the kid’s face. And they all sort of glided away like Harsh on the escalator, going down. Going down. Until that corner of the Premises was small enough to put on a telly screen, all black and white from the torchlight in the dark.
And you know the creepiest thing of all? I wasn’t there. I couldn’t see me at all. Me. The biggest, strongest one there. Because I am big and strong. I’m so big and strong that when I’m there I’m really there. I am.
But when this creepy thing, which happens but doesn’t happen, happens, I’m not there. Well, I’m there but I’m not there.
And I fucking loathe it. I loathe being a tiny fly on the ceiling. So I walked out.
I just turned round and walked out. Well, wouldn’t you? You don’t have to put up with being not there if you don’t want to. Just go away and be somewhere else. That’s what I do.
Another bit of advice for free – if you want to prove you really exist, kick something. Go on. Try it. Pick something that won’t hurt your foot, haul back and plant your toe – smack bang flick.
A market at night is a really good place to have a kick. There
are loads of old boxes and crates and veggies. I was just having a lovely whack at a heap of dead broccoli when The Enemy came out of the Premises saying, ‘Oh, there you are, Eva.’ And I was glad she said my name.
‘Let’s get on,’ she said. Which reminded me we had a couple of other places to go. We walked on up Mandala Street, past the Full Moon and on to the main road. I thought she was going to talk about Justin and Crystal and how they’d need checking up on, but she never. She started in on me instead. Which was worse.
She said, ‘When are you going to get yourself sorted out, Eva?’
‘What you mean?’ I said. ‘I am bleeding sorted out. I’m doing very nice, thank you.’
‘I mean, when are you going to get things on a proper footing? For instance, it’s quite difficult to employ you when I keep having to pay you out of petty cash. I have to fiddle the records and it’s driving the bookkeeper spare.’
‘That’s your problem,’ I said, narked.
‘And why don’t you do the decent thing and get a driving licence? You’d be much more useful to me if you were a kosher driver.’
‘I don’t live my life to be useful to you,’ I said.
‘True,’ she said, and started laughing. ‘But one of these days you’re going to be nicked for taking and driving away. Without a licence. And then where will you be?’
I said nothing. I was stone choked. I mean, how does she know I haven’t got a licence? Well, I’ll tell you. She knows because she’s been checking up on me. That’s how.
I could’ve killed her. But she didn’t notice. She said, ‘If you had a licence I could help you get a cheap motor to fix up.’
What right had she? Interfering mare. Besides, there’s no cheaper motors than the ones I borrow.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said. ‘Is it the forms? I could help you fill in the forms.’
I stopped walking. I could hardly speak I was so rampageous.
I said, ‘Why don’t you keep your beak out of my birdseed?’
Fill in forms? Name, address, date of birth, place of birth, name of father, name of mother, distinguishing features, convictions, religion, employment, who, what, where, which, why, when? On yeah, there’s a lump of stuff they’d want to know about me. And some of it I don’t know myself. But it’s all my sodding business. No one else’s. My business does not fetch up on official government computers. No chance. You can build the Tower of London out of ice cream and eat it with chopsticks before I’ll tell official government computers my business.
Oh no. You can stuff your forms. I don’t tell nobody nothing. If I ever get into trouble it’s because I’ve said too much. That’s why I keep my mouth shut.
Even a fish’d never get caught if it kept its mouth shut.
Chapter 8
Next day I went to the gym early. I was still trying to avoid Gruff Gordon and Pete Carver, and it was messing up my timetable. I don’t like getting up early. I’m a big girl and I need my eight hours kip. What I like is going to bed at seven in the morning, getting up at three in the afternoon and no dreams in between, thank you very much.
If I wake up when I shouldn’t, I want to hear the blokes in the yard. I want to hear the crane or the crusher. I want to hear loud stuff happening. What I don’t want is to wake up and hear nothing – like you folk do when you wake up at night. I bet that’s why people get married – so they can hear something when they wake up in the night. I can’t think of another reason.
I hate waking up in the dark. You can’t see nothing, and you can’t hear nothing. So how do you know you haven’t woke up dead? Tell me that? If you wake up in the night, and you’ve had a queer dream you don’t like, in those seconds before you decide you’re real but the dream wasn’t, how do you know you ain’t dead? If you can’t see and you can’t hear.
But, see, I’m smart. I never have that problem, do I? It’s light any time I wake up in my eight hours. I can always see. And I can hear the blokes and the machinery in the yard. Except on a Sunday.
California was the only one in when I got to the gym, but I reckon he just about lives there. He was raising weights on his ankles. He must’ve been at it for hours because his rectus femoris and his sartorius were writhing like ferrets under his wet skin.
He stopped when I came in. Which was a first. Carl never stops for nothing.
He said, ‘Listen. Your body’s sacred. This here gym is its temple. You’ve got to keep it clean.’
‘You keep it clean,’ I said. ‘I don’t come here to mop up.’
‘Don’t get clever with me,’ he said. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’
‘Buggered if I do,’ I said, because I didn’t. What’s more, Carl barely ever talks to me.
‘Bringing prostitutes in here,’ he said.
I didn’t like the look of his eyes. They seemed to be boiling. Give him half a chance, I thought, and he’ll work himself up into a ’roid rage. Which is what happens to blokes when they’re taking the anabollox.
‘I didn’t bring them in,’ I said. ‘It’s not my fault.’
‘They came to see you.’
‘So what?’
‘You keep them out,’ he said, ‘or you’ll be sorry.’
‘You keep out of my business or you’ll be sorry.’
He stared at me out of his boiling eyes. I thought he was going to do something nasty and I got ready. But he decided not to lose his temper.
‘Nobody here’s serious,’ he said.
‘I’m serious,’ I said. ‘Harsh is serious.’
‘Kid’s stuff,’ he said. ‘Come here. I want to show you something.’
‘What?’
He got up and led the way to the men’s changing room. I’d never been in the men’s so I followed. And, believe me, it whiffed. I don’t know what it is about a blokes’ locker room, but it’s like the zoo. It doesn’t half make your eyes water.
‘What?’ I said again. Because I wanted to get out. I didn’t fancy being in the men’s room with Carl when his eyes were boiling.
‘Tell me what you think of that.’ He pointed. And there, on the bench, was a big square fish tank. There was no water in it, but it had a lid, and its own light. And inside was a bloody great snake.
‘Crap in a car park!’ I said. ‘It’s a snake.’
‘Brilliant,’ he said. ‘It’s a python. Gruff and Pete brought it in yesterday.’
‘What for?’
‘Little game they’ve got planned.’
‘What?’
‘What do pythons eat for breakfast?’ he asked.
‘Dunno. What?’
‘Look.’ He crouched down and pulled some small plastic boxes out from under the bench. Inside those were six twitchy, whiskery brown mice.
‘Mice?’ I said.
‘Go to the top of the class,’ Carl said. ‘That’s what pythons eat. Look closer.’
I looked. Each little box had a name written on the lid. There was a mouse called Bella. There was one called Mandy. There was Stef, Kath, Lynn and Crystal.
‘One missing,’ Carl said. He reached further under the bench, feeling around, and he came up with one more box. It was Eva. Eva was a red-eyed albino. She was bigger than all the others, and, shit, was she ugly! The others were sweet and furry, but Eva looked like a freak.
‘Funny joke, huh?’ Carl said. ‘You laughing, Eva? You want to know what happens?’
‘No,’ I said. I made for the door. He got between me and it. He had a body like a god and his eyes were boiling.
‘You know what happens when Percy the Python gets hungry, Eva?’ he said. ‘We don’t just feed him, do we? No, Eva, we don’t. We have a little game. We release all the mice into the tank. And we take bets. Which one gets swallowed first? Which one goes next? Get the picture? The big bet goes on which mouse survives longest.’
‘Gimme that fucking mouse,’ I said, ‘and let me out of here.’
But he held the white mouse above his head and didn’t budge an inch.
‘
You know the funny thing, Eva?’ he said. ‘You know what really makes us bust our guts laughing? See, Percy the Python eats mice whole. He opens his mouth and swallows them whole. And you know what, Eva, you can see a lump in the snake. And the best bit, Eva? The lump squeaks. You can hear the mouse squeaking from inside Percy. Ain’t that a laugh?’
I had enough. So I aimed a real up-and-under at his god-like jock strap. But he swung aside and I kicked the door instead.
‘That python,’ Carl said, while I was hopping around. ‘Sometimes he’s called Percy. Sometimes he’s called Roger, and sometimes he’s called Dick. Geddit, Eva, geddit?’
‘No I sodding don’t get it,’ I said. I wrenched the door open and hopped outside. ‘But why don’t you take your limp Percy-Roger-Dick and screw yourself?’
‘Don’t get all upset,’ Carl said. ‘I just thought you’d like to know the effect your little friends had. Just in case you were thinking of inviting them around again.’
‘Know what, Carl,’ I yelled. ‘Your body may be sacred, but your brain’s two hundred per cent sicko. And a bean-sprout’d have better muscles than you if you didn’t pump yourself full of hot air and anabollox.’
He didn’t have an answer to that. But you know what he did? He took the white mouse called Eva out of its box. He held her in his fist so that just her little head poked out. And he raised her up to his lips.
He said, ‘I bet you think this Eva-mouse will last longest. Eh? Because it’s biggest. Eh? Well, Eva-mouse may be big, but it’s all show. Eva-mouse is slow. Retarded. Eva-mouse will get swallowed first.’
And you know what he did?
He bit her head off.
I couldn’t believe it. He bit her little white head off, and he spat it out on the floor.
One minute there she was with her garnet eyes flickering, and the next she was staring up at me from the floor. And her eyes were just the same colour as her blood.
I couldn’t believe it. What kind of sicko-psycho does a thing like that?
I couldn’t even kick him because I’d already hurt my foot. I looked round for something to hit him with, but where we were standing everything had been nailed to the floor.
‘What you got to say to that?’ he said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and spat again.
