Monkey Wrench

by Liza Cody

  ‘Ain’t the vet coming?’ Stef said.

  ‘She’s coming,’ I said.

  ‘She better hurry,’ Bella said.

  ‘If that dog dies,’ Stef said, ‘Justin’ll just break his heart.’

  ‘He’s sweet,’ Mandy said.

  ‘Lay off,’ Stef said. ‘He’s not your type.’

  ‘Lay off yourself’

  ‘What mice, Eva?’ Crystal shouted over the racket. She thought she was stopping a fight starting between Stef and Mandy, see. But she made a mistake. Tarts don’t go for mice. I could of told her that. My ma goes spare if she sees a whisker. Not that my ma’s a tart. She’s not a professional. She just has a lot of temporary fellers and she can’t stand mice.

  At the word ‘mice’ they all went berserkers.

  ‘Mice? Mice, yeugh! Where? We got mice in here. Where? I hate fucking mice!’

  And Kath’s little Stu ran around among them going, ‘Eek, eek. I’m a mouse. Eek-eek.’

  I had to laugh. And I felt a lot better.

  ‘Shut up laughing, Eva,’ Crystal said. ‘There’s no mice in here, is there?’

  ‘How do you know?’ I said, ‘Eek-eek-eek.’

  ‘You’re winding us up,’ Crystal said. ‘She’s winding us up. THERE’S NO MICE IN HERE!’ And she got things quieted down. Which was a pity.

  Everyone sat down again except Kath’s Billy who’d never got up, and Kath’s Stu who kept on running in circles going, ‘Eeek!’ until Kath smacked his ear and made him cry.

  They were so fucking silly, I told them about the whiskery little brown mice called Crystal, Bella, Stef, Mandy, Lynn and Kath. And I told them about Percy the Python and how Percy swallowed mice alive. And I told them about the game and the betting. I even told them about the white mouse and how California Carl bit her head off. I did not say her name was Eva. I kept that choice piece of news to myself. It still made me feel weird.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ Bella said. ‘That’s fucking disgusting.’

  ‘No more disgusting than cockfighting,’ Lynn said.

  ‘Cockfighting’s disgusting too,’ Bella said.

  ‘You know what’s really disgusting?’ Lynn said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What the boys used to do when I was a kid.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was brought up in a little place in Kent,’ Lynn said. ‘In the country. And in the country all the boys can get hold of air rifles.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, what the boys used to do in the summer was to catch frogs. They’d catch these frogs, see, and then when they caught a frog they’d stick a straw up its arse.’

  ‘What sort of straw?’

  ‘Any old straw – a cocktail straw.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Shut up and listen,’ Lynn said. ‘They’d stick a straw up the frog’s arse and blow it up.’

  ‘What you mean?’ Bella said. ‘Blow it up? Blow what up?’

  ‘The frog. Like a balloon,’ Lynn said. ‘Till it was all stretched fat and round and it couldn’t use its little legs. Then they bunged up the end of the straw with mud to stop the air escaping. And then they pushed it out on the pond. The frog couldn’t swim or dive ’cos it was like a balloon, see. So it just floated out. Out on the pond.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then they shot at it with the air guns,’ Lynn said. ‘Till someone hit it and it sort of exploded.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Bella said. ‘That’s really disgusting.’

  ‘What a way to die,’ Crystal said. She looked all upset.

  And then the vet came.

  I’d just about decided I didn’t much like Lynn’s story. Or Lynn. Or the celebration. And I ought to go and see to Ramses and Lineker. And then Mrs Gibbs turned up.

  She was small and pasty-faced and she had big round spectacles. She didn’t look much like a vet to me, but she carried a vet’s bag and she said, ‘Where’s the patient?’

  Everyone shut up when she walked in, like they do when a stranger comes. And that made Mrs Gibbs shuffle from foot to foot and look at the cracked walls.

  She said, ‘I was supposed to meet a Miss Wylie here.’

  She looked pretty harmless, so I said, ‘That’s me.’ And Crystal and I showed her upstairs.

  Crystal turned on the light and woke Justin up. He was still pretty even though his face was sweaty and yellow from the light bulb.

  ‘The vet’s come to see Queenie,’ Crystal told him.

  He sat up and said, ‘She won’t take her away, will she?’

  But the vet said nothing. She was looking at Queenie and listening to her heart. She wasn’t interested in Justin.

  Crystal said, ‘Drink some water, Justin. I’ll get you something to eat in a minute.’ And she arranged his pillows.

  Mrs Gibbs said, ‘I’m going to have to take this dog in.’

  ‘You can’t,’Justin said. ‘She’s my dog, and she gets really unhappy when we’re apart.’

  ‘She needs a Caesarean,’ Mrs Gibbs said. ‘There’s at least one more pup inside. She can’t deliver it herself.’

  ‘But she’ll be really upset.’

  ‘It’s better than being really dead,’ I said.

  ‘Is it?’ Justin said. ‘I think it’s better to be dead than to lose the people you love.’

  ‘You’ll have to decide,’ Mrs Gibbs said. ‘I can’t perform a Caesarean here. This place is filthy.’

  ‘We could clean it up,’ Crystal said. She looked doubtful.

  Mrs Gibbs said nothing.

  Justin said, ‘It isn’t one of those Roman Catholic things, where you save the puppy but lose Queenie?’

  ‘I rather think the puppy’s beyond saving,’ Mrs Gibbs said.

  ‘Maybe Queenie’s just resting,’Justin said. ‘She’ll do it naturally if we give her time. Can’t you just give her an injection?’

  Well, he was very young. But he should’ve had more of a sense of responsibility to his dog. I looked at Crystal, and Crystal looked at me.

  She said, ‘Shut up, Eva.’ Which wasn’t fair, because I hadn’t said a dicky-bird.

  Mrs Gibbs said, ‘Your dog will have a better chance if we can operate.’

  ‘I hate hospitals,’ Justin said. ‘They’re horrible. All that noise and pain. They smell. Nobody listens. They just do things to you in hospital. Without asking. As if you’re not a real person.’

  ‘It’s a small animal clinic,’ Mrs Gibbs said. I didn’t understand what Justin was talking about so I couldn’t blame her.

  Suddenly, he cheered up. ‘I can’t pay,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got any money.’

  ‘We’d never refuse to treat a distressed animal,’ Mrs Gibbs said. Her eyes blinked behind her round spectacles.

  Crystal said, ‘We’ll have a whip-round. We can pay.’

  Justin looked at her like she was a traitor.

  ‘Shut up, Eva,’ Crystal said. And I still hadn’t opened my trap.

  ‘Justin,’ she said, ‘you got to let the vet look after Queenie. She’s too old to have babies. You said so yourself. She can’t look after herself and she can’t look after her babies.’

  And that reminded me that Crystal had buried Dawn’s blue baby, so she knew what she was talking about.

  She said, ‘Stop jumping around, Eva. You’re upsetting him.’

  She said, ‘Justin you got to let Queenie go. You know you must.’

  ‘You’re wasting time,’ I said. I couldn’t help myself.

  Justin said something and then he hid under the bed clothes.

  ‘What?’ Crystal knelt by the bed. Justin said something else.

  ‘Take her,’ Crystal said. ‘Quick. Before he changes his mind.’

  So we took Queenie, wrapped in a blanket, out to Mrs Gibbs’s Volvo. We took the puppies too.

  At the last minute Crystal came down and got in the car too.

  ‘Justin says I got to stay with her,’ she said. But she didn’t look as if she wanted to. Her littl
e monkey face was all creased up and misery-looking. A whole day spent getting other people to jump around the way she wanted them to must’ve tired her out. Stupid monkey. Maybe that’d teach her to leave folk alone.

  I left Stef and Mandy squabbling about who was going to give Justin his supper. Honestly! You’d think they’d be cheesed off servicing blokes by now.

  I was cheesed off with them. I can tell you. Cheesed and totally choked.

  Chapter 10

  I’m glad both my dogs are blokes. What goes wrong with them goes wrong with skin, muscle and bone. They don’t have horrible female problems – which all happen deep inside, in secret places you can’t get at without an operation. They don’t come on heat and act weird and wimpy. They aren’t in any danger of being put up the spout and having puppies they can’t deliver.

  No, Ramses and Lineker are dogs you can count on. They’re nasty all the time.

  They’re lowdown bad animals, and that’s the way I like ’em. Give me a shit-faced mean bloke dog any day of the week. I can handle that. I don’t have to make allowances. I don’t have to say, ‘Poor baby, it’s her time of the month,’ or stuff like that. I don’t have to understand stuff or watch out for stuff or protect them from stuff. If something bad gets done, nine times out often, it’s Ramses and Lineker doing it. It doesn’t get done to them.

  I did my rounds in the cold and dark. I checked the fence for holes, the chains for weak links. I tested all the locks, doors and windows. I looked in the used cars. I shone my torch in the stacks, heaps and piles. I made sure none of the silly sods who work there by day had left keys in any of the machinery.

  Ramses and Lineker prowled behind me, sticking their snouts in this and that. They started up rats. They growled at passing traffic and snarled at passing people. They glared at me with killer eyes.

  ‘That’s the way to do it,’ I said. And I went out to have a look at the other two properties The Enemy had given me to watch.

  It started to rain as I walked along – a slow fat rain – and the streets emptied. Which suited me. I’d had enough of company that day, and I began to feel more normal.

  You can only be yourself by yourself. That’s what I always say. You can’t be yourself with a monkey wrench like Crystal hanging on to you and squeezing your brain. Because that’s what she does – make no mistake – she gets a grip, like a monkey wrench, and then, try as you will, you can’t shake her off.

  I mean, look at the dung she got me into in the last few days. She’s got me tied up with trollops. She got me breaking and entering. She got me fucked up at Sam’s gym. She got me in trouble with my vet. Me. Who only wants to be myself by myself. Who only wants a quiet life with a few fights to get my jollies.

  The first property I looked at was fine. It was a flat in a block with outside walkways. We’d boarded up the windows, The Enemy and me. And there it was – untouched, tighter than a fish’s arse – which is watertight. No bugger had tampered with it. No pitiful little bastard with a pregnant bitch had wormed his way in. It was all sweet and dandy.

  I went on to the next, and the rain rained heavier. The gutters ran with garbage and water and swirled around blocked drains. The street smelled like an overflowing sewer. It was good to be out alone.

  The next property was a little house in a row of little houses. I could smell trouble almost before I turned the corner just like I could smell the drains.

  First off, I could see the door was open a crack. And then I saw a light. Torch light.

  I thought maybe I should go back for one of the dogs. Ramses. He’d appreciate the practice. We got things all sewn up at the yard so he doesn’t get much chance to do what he’s trained for.

  Then I thought, why wait? I mean, suppose I go back for Ramses but when we get back the dregs are gone. That’d waste my time and his time. And I’d’ve missed all the action. Because that’s my job too – to be all pumped up and greased for action.

  I took off my kit bag and rummaged in it for the torches. You don’t know about the torches? Well, I’ll tell you. The one I hold in my left hand is for light. Spot the target, see. But the one I hold in my right is my lethal weapon, the torture torch. It’s one of those big long jobbies that hold six batteries. Only it ain’t got batteries in it. Oh no. It’s specially fitted with something a lot heavier. It’s covered with black rubber so it’s ever so comfy to hold, and it’s designed to bounce a treat off any bugger’s bonce who gets in my way.

  And here’s the clever bit – a torch isn’t an offensive weapon. If I get rousted by the polizei I’m not carrying, am I? It’s just a torch, innit? So long as they don’t look too close.

  I checked to see my high-tops were laced tight – it’s about the uncoolest thing in the world to run into heavy action and trip over your shoe laces. Straight up. If you want to be cool, check for trailing laces.

  Because, see, even if all you’re doing is rousting a couple of twitchy sweaty junkies, what you want is authority. I’m in charge of that house, right? And it ain’t going to turn into some creepy shooting gallery or flop house while I’m in charge. So I got to have cool. I got to go in fast and mean, and clear the ground before them vein-poppers know what hit ’em.

  Then I took a few deep breaths to store up oxygen. See, there’s no point being cool, fast or mean if you run out of puff.

  Then I was ready. I crossed the road, sprinting. I hit the door with my shoulder. I burst inside. I pointed the light. I yelled, ‘Outside, fart faces! Out, out, out!’ I swung the torture torch and crashed it against an inside door.

  Big noise. Big shock. Job over, right?

  Wrong.

  I kicked the inside door open and hurtled into the room.

  There were two of them. One leaped aside and went down in a crouch.

  ‘Move!’ I yelled. ‘Outside while you still can.’

  I charged the one who hadn’t moved.

  I was right there. Torture torch up. Blood pumping.

  And then I saw this face. White with fright. Gob hanging open. Crystal.

  And quick as a flash, I thought, without thinking, if I gave her a little knock – just a little one on the nut – I could get her out of my life. Just one little whack could get me free of monkey face. Not forever. Twenty-four hours would do. Just a day without her and her stupid ideas and maybe I could get my life back in one piece.

  I was right there. Torch up. Blood pumping ready. All it would take was one tiny bang on the bean.

  ‘EVA!’ roared The Enemy. ‘STOP!’

  So I stopped. Well, I had to, didn’t I? I couldn’t very well bean Crystal, knowing it was Crystal. Could I? Not if someone saw me know it was Crystal. Especially if that someone was The Enemy.

  ‘Oh it’s you,’ I said. ‘I thought you was junkies. You might have warned me.’

  ‘I might have warned you?’ The Enemy shouted. ‘My fucking car’s parked right outside. How much warning do you need?’

  ‘Don’t you shout at me,’ I said. ‘I’m just doing my job. If you had been junkies, I’d be a bleeding hero.’

  ‘Well, we’re not junkies, and you’re a bleeding head-banger.’

  ‘What’s she doing here?’

  Crystal still looked like she was going to lay an egg. At least I’d shut her up for a while.

  The Enemy wiped the palms of her hands on her denims. I’d made her sweat and that felt good.

  She said, ‘Look, Eva, I’m really glad to know you’re on the job.’ She’d forced her voice down to sound calm and in control. I grinned.

  She said, ‘But would you mind, next time, looking before you leap? I don’t want any accidents.’

  ‘If you say so,’ I said. Next time, I’d give her wet knickers, and it wouldn’t be any accident.

  ‘You probably didn’t notice,’ she said, ‘but there are two new locks on the front door, and I put security shutters on the windows. That should be enough to deter anyone. But I’d still like you to come by once a night, for a week, anyway. Okay?’

>   They always talk too much when they’ve had a fright.

  I said, ‘You letting her move into this one too?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Crystal. Old Monkey Wrench here.’

  ‘What’re you talking about?’ The Enemy said, looking peeved. ‘If you’re talking about the property on Mandala Street, there was already a squatter in residence when we turned up. That makes it the owner’s problem. Not mine.’

  ‘Did you tell the owner?’

  ‘No. But I told the agent. It’s the agent I’m working for.’

  Crystal stuck her tuppence worth in at last. She said, ‘Who’s the owner?’

  The Enemy looked from me to Crystal and back again. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just wondered,’ Crystal said. And I wondered who she was planning to get her jaws locked on to next. And I wondered what she’d been nattering about to The Enemy. And what The Enemy would do if she got too curious.

  Actually, The Enemy and Crystal seemed made for each other – a marriage made in Hell.

  ‘What’re you grinning at, Eva?’ The Enemy said.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m off now. Can’t stop around all night socialising. Not like some.’

  And I left because I was winning but it felt like things was going to go the other way. I mean, I made The Enemy sweat and roar. Which was good, right? But then there was midget monkey under my feet again. Which was bad. And it made me think. What did The Enemy want with Crystal? Was she going to get Crystal to spy on me?

  Crystal knows stuff. She knew me when I was ducking and diving. Before I learned mental discipline and cool. She knew me when I was a grungey kid and I didn’t care wibbly-dibbly about health and hygiene. She knew me when I was on the run and I hadn’t realised me full potential.

  And that’s who you got to watch out for – people who knew you before you realised your full potential. They’re dangerous, see. Because they never truly believe you are what you are now. And they tell stories about you as you were then.

  There are plenty of things I wouldn’t want Crystal to natter about to The Enemy.

  I was just thinking about some of the stuff I wouldn’t want Crystal to tell The Enemy when she came puffing up behind me. Crystal, I mean.