by Maggie Gee
(That was it. Mice. The thing about Dirk he had tried to forget. Dirk was eight or nine, May had asked Thomas to lunch. Alfred was at work, as usual. She was showing him her seedlings in their dark shed. Then they spotted two tiny pink blobs on the floor. They glistened faintly in the light from the door. ‘Is that nestlings?’ she asked, frowning, stooping. ‘Poor little things, has a cat got them?’ But it was two mice with their skins half-removed. Dirk had found them in her mouse-traps, and cut them with a penknife. ‘He’s just a child,’ she had said to Thomas. ‘You won’t say anything to his father? Alfred can be a bit strict with him. Boys will be boys.’ But her eyes looked frightened.)
15 • Dirk
Head hurts. Head hurts. Hangover. Sod. Sod. Sod the mornings. Nothing good, forever and ever. Nothing gets better. Nothing any good. Dad, Dad. She wouldn’t say, but there’s something bad. Something – worse.
I don’t believe it. The water’s cold. What has she done, the stupid woman? She’s gone and switched it off, that’s what. Old and muddly. Old and mad. She cried, last night. Just sat there crying. Wouldn’t explain, just sat and cried. Saying over and over ‘Your dad – Your dad –’
She talks to me like I’m a little kid.
I hate it when my mother cries.
I might have – given her a hug or whatever. But she hasn’t liked it, since I’ve been big. (Did she like it when I was small? Dunno.) She sort of shrinks when I try to touch her. That’s women, isn’t it? They don’t like men.
I hate living with old people. Why should someone young and strong like me have to live with old people? My Mum was ancient when she had me. Forty-seven years old, which is disgusting, still doing that at nearly fifty. I heard her tell Ruby Millington that I was a mistake, which made me mad. One day they’ll die and I’ll be happy …
Oh sod, I’m crying, oh shit, oh shit, Dad can’t die, not possible.
Half past five is the shit-work time. The hour when shit-workers start work, and everyone else lies snoring. Pigging themselves with pigging sleep. Two to a bed, pigs in a trough.
I pass their windows every morning, knowing they lie asleep inside. Hundreds of smug curtained windows. And I’m out here in the pouring rain, with water running down inside my collar and water bubbling up through my shoes. I want to throw stones and smash in their windows, and they’d see me standing there, pointing and jeering, it’s me, it’s me, I’m here every morning, but none of you know I fucking exist –
But I know them. I think about them. Nobody notices, no one ever did, but I’m sensitive, a thinker. A – philosopher. Even Mum and Dad never knew I was smart, but I am, I am. And now I’ve got friends.
My brother’s a thinker. They’re proud of him. He’s famous for thinking, and sounding off. I could do that. I’ve got my opinions.
I’m proud of him too. He’s my claim to fame. I told him that in the hospital yesterday. ‘Darren, you’re my claim to fame.’ ‘Oh I’m not famous, not really famous …’ He is, of course. He’s on TV, and in the papers every other day. I told him so. ‘You’re a famous writer.’ He liked that a lot. He got a funny look … What I would call an eager look. So I said it again. ‘You are, Darren. You are quite famous.’ ‘Do you read my pieces?’ He was pricking up his ears, keen as anything. ‘I see your picture, and your name’ – I couldn’t actually say I’d read them. And that wanker was listening, Thomas Lovell, and he smiled a funny kind of smile. Which Darren noticed, and his face fell.
‘I saw you on Newsnight,’ I told him. ‘You were good. You stood up to Paxman. He’s a ponce.’
‘Which time was that? Was it recently? The piece about American abortion clinics?’
‘Something about some women,’ I said. ‘But, you know, it was good. And your suit was cool. You walked rings around Paxo, in that suit.’ That is the very phrase I used. It just came to me. I was pleased with it. And he was smiling. I’d said the right thing.
I’ll be frigging soaked through before I get to the shop, it just keeps coming, like a tidal wave. I used to wish for a tidal wave, to wash us away. The house and everything. Mum and Dad, and Shirley and me, especially after Shirley went funny …
But now Dad’s ill, I feel different about it. I want things back the way they were. Now it’s as if my whole life might change before I’ve had a chance to think about it. When you’re the youngest, you never get asked. The wave is coming, we’ll be swept away …
Mum’s cracking up. She’s not herself. She’s a different person when Dad’s not there. I thought last night, she’s going mental. My own mother, cracking up. She wanted me to sit with her. I mean, I never sit with her. And I couldn’t, could I? I was upset.
She’d had a talk to one of the doctors. For some reason she’d talked to a woman, but perhaps the senior doctors were busy. ‘What if he never goes back to work,’ she kept on muttering to herself. The tears were streaming down her cheeks, I didn’t know what to do with myself. ‘If he never goes back to work it’ll kill him.’
‘Course he’ll go back to work, stupid. He told me himself he’s feeling much better.’
‘That’s not what this doctor said.’
‘Talk to his proper doctor tomorrow. She was probably just a woman, panicking.’
Mum told me off for ‘funny ideas’. She said this doctor was his real doctor. She said that women were real doctors.
But Dad’s like me. We have the same ideas. They’re men’s ideas, of course they are. Men and women are different, aren’t they? That’s probably why Darren keeps getting divorced. Like coloured people are different from whites, only Shirley’s too thick to notice it.
We go down the pub and talk about them. Unless George is there, in which case they ignore me, Dad and him treating me like a kid, going on and on about the past, what Hillesden was like when they were boys. Which was before coloured people came, of course. Which happens to be of interest to me, but they leave me out of it, as if I’m too young to understand.
But I do understand. The blacks are taking over.
The row of shops is completely dark. Sodding hell, George hasn’t sodding got there. Left me locked out in the sodding rain. The sodding frigging soaking rain. Like a dog or cat left out to drown. My head gets cold now my hair’s so short –
Mum’s not keen on my hair being short. ‘It’s your good point, your hair-colour,’ she says. As though it was my only one. ‘That horrible crewcut makes you look bald. There’s enough men have to be bald. You don’t.’
My dad was actually there when she said that. Mum’s always on at me not to be rude, but how about that from Mrs Manners? My dad’s going bald as a cricket ball.
Seems to me women think men don’t have feelings. They get together and go on about us and laugh and try to make us feel small … Mum and Shirley, out in the kitchen. It was always like that: Us and Them.
Come on George, you frigging bastard. I’m dying out here in the rain on my own. I haven’t even had a cup of coffee. While bloody old George is on his first two fags, hacking and puking in the back of the car as his ugly fat bitch of a wife drives him over.
George keeps on about visiting Dad. ‘Just say the word, and Ruby’ll bring me. We’re waiting for the word, my boy.’
‘You’re not allowed to smoke, in a hospital.’
‘Do you think I’m unacquainted with hospitals?’
He talks like someone from a book. I don’t know what he’s going on about, half the time. He’s keen on books, or the idea of books. He actually thought we could sell some here! They ended in a bin, marked ‘3 for 20p’, and we still couldn’t sodding get rid of them. And these were great writers – Dick Francis, Jackie Collins! There aren’t a lot of book readers, round here.
He’s past it, really, a long way past it, but he won’t give up, he leans on me. I carry that man. I carry his shop. And I still can’t frigging get in in the mornings.
Ah, there he is. St Fucking George. Half-falling out of the car, good, bumping his great fat knee on the door. Then the rest
of his body, a sack of lard. ‘It’s wet, in case you haven’t noticed.’
‘Sorry, sorry. We had an attack. We soldier on, but –’ The rest of what he said was drowned in a horrible sickbag of coughing and gasping.
What I put up with. I’m a hero, really. Never mind George, I deserve a saintdom. I am a saint already. St Dirk.
Silly bloody name that woman gave me.
Something’s up. Maybe George is dying. He’s definitely being funny with me. Less rude than usual. Almost pleasant. As long as he’s managed to do his will …
Mum thinks he’s going to leave me the shop. It belongs to him, not rented or anything. George’s parents lived over the shop. Now they rent out upstairs for good money, which is handy because the shop doesn’t make a lot. (It could do. Would do. If I was boss.) They live with Ruby’s mother, who’s ancient. She’s going to be a hundred next year.
I want my dad to live to a hundred. I want my dad to go on and on. I used to pop into the Park on my lunch-break and eat my sandwiches with him. It felt good, being with the Park Keeper. Being with the man in charge …
Dad is my other claim to fame. As well as my brother, who’s more – world-famous. Different kind of fame, isn’t it, really? They’d never think of having Dad on the telly, but everyone round here knows Dad. And I’m his son. And Darren’s brother. We’ve got a lot of go, in my family. And I shall be someone. I’ll make my mark. I shall get into the history books. Carve my name. Carve my name with – whatever. I’m good with words, but sometimes they escape me.
I’d like Mum to be proud of me. And Shirley (then she would be sorry). I could be their claim to fame. ‘White, the millionaire businessman.’
Mum must be right that I’ll get the shop. George hates me, but he hates the Pakis worse. The Pakis will never get this shop. They try it on, and he just says ‘No’. He doesn’t even like them coming in to buy papers. When they did, he talked about them under his breath. Swearing till even I got embarrassed.
Now I’d never do that, personally. Doesn’t make sense. You want their money, so shut up about them until they’re out of earshot. As customers, they aren’t that bad. At least they’ve got money, which the blacks rarely do. Not that you see them spending it here.
Just the businessmen in pin-striped suits, funny little brown men with thick hair in long haircuts, grinning at me and asking for George, and they go behind the counter with their briefcases and shut themselves up in the room at the back which I couldn’t stay in for more than ten seconds without throwing up because it stinks of George, of sweat and sweets and Players’ Navy Cuts, and after twenty minutes or so George starts shouting, George starts swearing and shouting a bit and they all pile out, still very smooth, the Pakis, smiling at him, smiling at me. Grinning, grinning as if they were winning. But I know he hates them. I know he won’t sell.
‘I’m playing a little game with them,’ he explained to me, the week before last. ‘I’m having a little game with our friends. Our coloured friends. It’s an amusement.’
‘How do you mean, amusement?’ I asked. ‘I thought you couldn’t stand them in your shop. Now they’re always round here. Oiling and mincing. They stink of aftershave. They’re poofs. They are, all Paki men are poofs.’
Just once in a while we have a laugh, and I think old George is not so bad.
Not that I’m joking. Pakis are poofs.
I hate him most first thing in the morning. Like now. When George is just sitting there smoking and choking and I’m shitting bricks getting everything done. And he always has to criticize, doesn’t he. ‘You’re not going to put those there, are you? Are you?’ Yet he does nothing. I mean nothing. Doesn’t even serve the customers now, the early ones who come in while I’m busy. He says he’s too slow to get to the till. Too fat, he means. Too idle, he means. So he’s sitting there putting all his effort into breathing. In, out, like a very slow saw. While I’m cutting the bundles of papers undone. And getting the van-drivers to take the returns. And checking to see the numbers are right. And seeing the supplements are in. And putting the papers out on the shelf, upside down because the mean old bugger is terrified of people reading headlines for free. And pulling out Hello! and Take a Break! and Woman to sit in our premier selling slots. And sorting out papers for the smelly little wanker who goes round shutting his fingers in letter-boxes. Harry Rutter, the paper-boy. And giving him a hard time if he’s late. (That was me, wasn’t it, for years and years? So maybe things are on the up, after all. Maybe Dirk White is on his way.)
But George is still sitting there, lighting up another.
Careful, fat-face. Don’t tire your wrist. Why not just stuff the whole pack down your throat, then chuck a lighted match down after it?
George will snuff it, and I’ll inherit. And get the shop the way I want. Bring the shop into the twenty-first century.
Which is going to be big for paper-shops, believe me. Forward-looking paper-shops. Shops that have got a bit of go. Ours hasn’t, at the moment, but that’s down to George.
Think videos.
Think Lottery.
Think Fax and Internet.
Especially the net. The Thing of the Future (We’ll advertise. Think money. Think big!) Because lots of people won’t have their own computer. And that’s where we’ll come in. With ours. Laughing. They’ll put money in the slot for quarter of an hour or however long they need to get what they want. A line of computers, a line of chairs. I can see it clearly. Smart … red chairs. And coffee. And snacks. As long as Mum doesn’t make them.
The doorbell goes and a girl comes in. One of the regulars. Posh little cow. Big eyes, skinny. George has always been a dirty old man. He’s sweet on this one. Always has been.
‘All right George? You look a bit tired.’ She’s got one of those voices. Pretend caring. I bet she’s hard as nails, really.
‘Melissa, dear. How very nice to see you.’ Cough, cough, spraying the counter. ‘The old chest is playing up this morning … What can I do you for today?’
I’ve heard that line so often I could puke.
‘I’m just wondering if you keep aspirin. I’ve got a bit of a headache … I really miss our chemist, you know. It was so nice to have a local chemist.’
The chemist closed six months ago. And the lav shop will close. Windsor Drainage next door. It stands to reason that’s got to go. Who’s going to shop for lavs down here? This shop won’t close though. People like tat.
‘That’ll be one pound thirty-five. Yes, pity about the chemist. Betting-shop’s doing nicely though.’
‘Huge now, isn’t it?’
‘Shows some people have money to spend.’
‘If they had, why on earth would they be living here?’ And she gives a big grin, like she’s really smart, like she really knows something about this area, and then Ms Melissa is off with her aspirin.
They come and live here. People like her. Middle-class people, who fancy themselves. They go down the end where the slums used to be. They ponce around in jeeps and things, I see them, couples, laughing together, talking in loud stupid voices, and fucking queers, fucking arse-bandits – I know they look down their noses at us. They’re only here till they can afford to get out.
I shan’t do that. I’ll stay here and – prosper. That is the word. Be prosperous.
I had a bit of a talk with Darren, last night. Of course, I didn’t give everything away. But he is my brother. And he gave me respect. Together we set the world to rights, though he didn’t agree with me about the Jews –
But he thinks I’ve got lots of bright ideas. He thinks I’m on the right lines, with the shop. He says he’s shafted without his computer.
He even came up with some names for the business. I mean words are his manor, selling is mine. MediaNet was one suggestion.
‘Proprietor D. White, Esquire.’
They do sometimes write that underneath, I’ve seen it.
16 • May
May walked furtively past the paper-shop. It was bad enoug
h being at home with the boy. She had done her best to – tell him, last night – he had a right to know, he was their son – but he hadn’t seemed to take anything in. She supposed he couldn’t help it, but it made her feel worse. As if she would always be alone, from now on. In any case, she usually made a point of not going in when Dirk was working. It annoyed the boy, and she felt ashamed to see him lounging in a fug of smoke. He thought he worked hard, but there was nothing much to do, because even she could see the shop was failing. Alfred denied it, but that meant nothing. Being a woman, she faced facts.
Besides, she preferred the shop down the road, which had a much better choice of magazines and cards. Perhaps Dirk could get himself a job down there, though the staff all seemed to be busy young Asians – The wrapping paper was infinitely better, not that thin shiny stuff that wouldn’t fold. They made a feature of presents, there. May had bought a dozen sheets at Christmas, then hidden it, so Dirk wouldn’t see. Alfred accused her of disloyalty, but that was men; unrealistic. May liked to think she was a realist.
When it was wet, May’s bags seemed to shrink, and her pockets got twisted, so nothing fitted, nothing went in, nothing came out. Her knuckles grew bigger, her hands clumsier. As she walked, she was trying to pull on her gloves, put away her keys, check she had her purse. List. She had a list, or ought to have a list. She tugged it out at last from the depths of her handbag and watched as the rain sent it spidery, illegible, struggling to fold it and shove it back in. And her keys got caught in the wool of her glove, came clanking out and fell on the floor. May bent, sighing, and picked them up. The rain on the pavements was black and sour. Did no one clean the pavements any more?
She ached inside. She ached for Alfred. Without Alfred, she was older, more stupid. Alfred was a lump where her heart should be.
But she heard him talk to her. This won’t do. Buck up, May. This isn’t like you.
She straightened her coat and walked on more briskly. She didn’t want the neighbours to think she was defeated. The curtains would twitch, and they’d say ‘There she goes. Looks to me as if he isn’t going to get better.’
