“Nice one. What you got planned?”
“We’ll just go for him this time, but it’ll send a warning to the rest of the MSC not to fuck with us. He ain’t getting away with a kneecapping though. We need to take him out. Do you know anyone who’ll be good for the job?”
Leroy looked across at Carl. “What about Mikey?”
“Yeah,” laughed Carl. “He’d go for it. He’s a bit young though.”
“That’s even better,” said Leroy. “He’s dying to prove himself. You told me he wanted part of the action. Now’s his chance.”
Carl had reservations, but he wasn’t the one making the decisions. If Leroy decided Mikey was up to the job, then who was he to argue? It didn’t make any difference to him. However, he knew Leroy had younger brothers who were also anxious to prove themselves, and he noticed how Leroy hadn’t been too eager to put their names forward.
“As long as he’s prepared to take him out. That’s all that counts,” said Mad Trevor.
“Dead right,” said Leroy. “If he wants a piece of the action, he’s gotta prove he’s up to it. Everyone’s gotta prove themselves some time. D’you reckon he’s still out there, Carl?”
“Might be.”
“Go and have a look. You can fetch him in, and we’ll have a little word with him.”
Carl did as Leroy ordered, then stayed for the remainder of the meeting while Leroy and Mad Trevor gave Mikey his instructions. The young lad looked out of place in a room full of adults. Carl guessed that he was about 15 or 16, and he noted how Mikey listened impassively as the other Buckthorn Crew members outlined a plan of action.
He wondered what emotions Mikey must be concealing; fear, dread or even perhaps pride and excitement at this acknowledgement. Whatever he was feeling, Carl was relieved it was Mikey they had selected and not him. While he was content to deal in drugs, he’d rather leave this sort of stuff to someone else.
Chapter 13
Wednesday 17th April 1991 – morning
“Right, that’s fine, Mrs Christos. You can get dressed now.”
Rita was relieved that it was over. She had never liked smear tests. What woman does? But then she had to go through the added humiliation of an internal examination. She was always tempted to make polite conversation when faced with a situation she was uncomfortable with, but what could you chat about when someone was rummaging about inside your vagina?
The doctor was an Asian lady who Rita guessed was aged somewhere between late thirties and early forties. She had a pleasant demeanour, and was one of those people Rita took to instantly. In some ways that made it more difficult though. Once Rita was on that examination table with her legs spread, the doctor’s manner became brusque and business-like, as though familiarity was forbidden under such circumstances.
The questions had been bad enough, most of which Rita had to answer while Yansis had feigned difficulty understanding the English language. Fair enough, some of them were directed at her, but even the others she’d answered for both of them.
When did you last have sexual intercourse?
What age were you when your periods started?
Are your periods painful?
What is your family medical history?
How frequent are your periods and how long do they last?
Talk about twenty questions! The most difficult one to answer, surprisingly, hadn’t been of an intimate nature. No, it had been the question about whether she had a stressful lifestyle. She could hardly tell the doctor that her sister was shacked up with a drug-dealing, violent gangster who had her dad selling dodgy goods down the local pub. In the end, she told the doctor she was having a few family problems, and left it at that.
Despite the probing questions and invasive examination, Rita was thankful that their appointment at the hospital had finally come round. After almost two years trying to conceive, they were becoming desperate, and maybe now they could make some progress. The health services were so poor in their part of Greece that there had been little chance of getting the help they needed. They had therefore been patient, telling themselves it would happen eventually.
But it never had. So Rita had suggested returning to Manchester for a few months to find out what was causing the problem. Her hope was that if a problem was identified, it could easily be put right. Maybe then, Yansis would stop obsessing over the need to keep trying for a baby. The other bonus was that, once things were sorted out, they could return to Greece. At least, that had been her original intention, before she found out about the situation with Jenny. Now she wasn’t so sure if she could leave things as they were.
Once she had finished getting dressed, she sat down next to the doctor’s desk, and the nurse went to bring Yansis back into the room. The doctor reassured Rita that everything seemed in order as far as the internal examination was concerned, and asked to see them again in a few weeks’ time, to discuss the results of the various tests she had carried out. She then gave them a temperature chart, and handed them over to the nurse who explained how to use it.
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Wednesday 17th April 1991 – late morning
“Well, how did you get on?” asked Julie, when Rita returned from the hospital.
“God, it was awful! They started by asking us a load of embarrassing questions about our sex life, which Yansis wriggled out of by pretending he couldn’t understand English. They wanted to know all the ins and outs.”
“I bet they did!”
“Well yeah, literally as it happens,” laughed Rita.
They were sitting drinking coffee in Julie’s kitchen. Yansis had gone to meet Vinny at work, after dropping Rita off, and she couldn’t wait to tell Julie all about the hospital appointment.
“Then, once we’d finished answering all their questions, I had to have a smear test and an internal.”
“Yuck.”
“Dead right, but don’t worry, Yansis didn’t get off scot free. He had to go in another room to fill a plastic container with his sperm.”
“What you mean?” Julie accompanied her question with hand gestures.
“Yeah.”
“Oh no! I bet he was mortified.”
“His face was a picture, Julie. He couldn’t believe what they were asking him to do. I was dying to laugh. Anyway, the nurse has given me this chart to record my temperature, and she explained how I can tell when I’m ovulating. That’s a relief in itself! At least Yansis won’t be at it every hour of the bloody day and night now. I’ll just whip my thermometer out and say, ‘No, Yansis, wrong time. Sod off and wait!’”
“Rita, you’re a card. I’d like to see his face when you tell him that.”
“No, I wouldn’t really be like that with him … but at least I’ve got an excuse if he gets too much. Maybe he’ll calm down a bit when he knows that some days are a bit of a waste of time.”
“Maybe. Anyway, I’m just glad you’ve moved forward with things. What happens next?”
“They’ll call us back to the hospital in a few weeks and have a look at the chart, and give us the results of all the tests they took. Oh, and the other thing is, we’ve got to have sex a couple of hours before the next appointment, so I can be prodded and poked again for them to see how Yansis’s sperm are reacting inside me.”
“Poor you.”
“I know. I tell you, Julie, between that and all the carry on with our Jenny, I’m beginning to wish I’d stayed in Greece.”
“You might never have been able to have babies then though, Rita. At least this way you’ll get to the bottom of the problem, and get it sorted.”
“I know, I don’t mean it. I just wish it wasn’t so difficult, and we didn’t have to go through all this, especially with all the other shit that’s happening.”
“Rita, I know it’s not easy, but you’ve got to try and take your mind off other people’s problems. All this added stress isn’t helping. Try to focus on you and Yansis, and sorting your own problems out. That is what you came over here for,
after all. You’re well on your way to finding out the answers now. Before you know it, you could be back on that plane; you, Yansis and your little bump.”
“Don’t, Julie!” Rita had answered more sharply than she’d intended, but Julie had touched on a sensitive topic. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I can’t afford to get carried away. If I set my sights on it too much, I’ll only be let down if it doesn’t work out.”
“It’ll work out, Rita, you’ll see.”
Rita wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t that she didn’t want this baby. She wanted it just as much as Yansis, but not in the same obsessive, all-consuming way. That approach was for people used to getting what they wanted from life. For her, it was different. She’d been let down so many times in the past that she took a more philosophical approach. The way she’d learnt to look at things was that if you set your sights on something, it would never happen. Therefore, you were best not to expect it and just regard it as a bonus if something good came along. And if it did, then you had to grab it with both hands, like she’d done with Yansis.
She’d suggested returning to Manchester for Yansis’s sake, more than her own. It was becoming increasingly difficult seeing his face each month when she confirmed that, yet again, they hadn’t conceived. She could have accepted it, but Yansis’s look of ineptitude only underlined their failings. Rita felt it left her with no choice but to take some form of action that could put both their minds at ease. However, she realised that it might produce a negative outcome, and how would they cope with that? What would Yansis’s reaction be if she had to tell him she wasn’t able to give him the children he desperately craved?
She could see that Julie was ready to hug her, but she resisted. As had happened so many times before in her life, Rita refused to give in to emotion. She’d fight it like she always did, and if things didn’t work out, she and Yansis would just have to cope with it as best they could. In typical Rita fashion, she dealt with her burgeoning emotions by burying them and changing the subject.
Chapter 14
Saturday 20th April 1991 - evening
Vinny and Yansis stepped out of the taxi on Deansgate, in Manchester city centre, where they were about to meet Vinny’s workforce in the Sawyer’s Arms. This was a favourite meeting place for them, and had been around so long that everybody knew where it was. Rumoured to be one of Manchester’s oldest pubs, it dated back to the 1700s, and was amongst the many listed buildings in the city centre.
Now that Vinny was running several sites, he liked to get all his workers together every few weeks. Not only was it good for staff morale, but it was something he enjoyed too. Tonight he was looking forward to introducing Yansis to some of the lads who he hadn’t yet met. They would have a drink in a few pubs, and then hit a nightclub, if they were still up to it.
Most of the crew had already arrived, and a loud cheer went up when Vinny walked in the pub. He responded to their enthusiasm by ordering a round of drinks for his workers. Yansis knew some of them who he had met at the site where he was working, and Vinny introduced the others. The conversation was the usual combination of work and football. Manchester was home to two major teams, Manchester City and Manchester United, so there was always friendly rivalry. Vinny did his best to make sure that Yansis wasn’t left out.
Later in the evening, when Vinny had a chance to have a quiet word with Yansis, he pointed out one of the lads to him, “That’s Rob, the one I told you about who lives on the Riverhill Estate, in Longsight. He’s the lad who told me the rumours about Leroy.”
He caught Rob’s eye, and he came over, “Did you want me, Vinny?”
Checking that there was no-one listening, Vinny spoke quietly, “Yansis is Rita’s husband, the sister of the girl that’s shacked up with Leroy. I told them about the rumours.”
“Hi Yansis, alright mate?” greeted Rob. “Jesus, yeah, there’s been some more said down the pub.” Rob looked around before continuing. “We’d better go outside so I can tell you the rest. You never know who’s listening.”
Although it was chilly outside, it was easier to find a quiet spot where they were unlikely to be overheard, and it seemed to give Rob the confidence to carry on with his story.
“You know that Carl that hangs around with Leroy? He was in the pub the other night. He’s a bit of dickhead. I don’t know whether he’d had a skinfull or he was drugged up, but for some reason he was even more gobby than usual. He was mouthing off about the gangs. He reckons he’s a member of the Buckthorn Crew too; seems to think that makes him summat special.
“He was telling anyone who was willing to listen that the Buckthorn Crew have their enemies. Not all the gangs get on. Apart from them having a rival gang in Moss Side, called the Moss Side Crew (or MSC), there’s another gang in Cheetham Hill that they don’t get on with. They’re called the Cheetham Crew. The MSC gang are friends with the Cheetham Crew, but the Buckthorn Crew aren’t. Carl’s not very happy about it because he didn’t know all this when Leroy enlisted him into the Buckthorn Crew. He’d be wise to keep his big mouth shut though. If Leroy finds out he’s been sounding off, I don’t think he’d be too pleased.”
“Thanks for telling us, mate,” said Vinny.
“Yes, thank you very much,” added Yansis.
“You’re welcome, any time, as long as there’s no come back. I don’t know if it will help, but there you go.” He directed his next comment at Yansis, “Seriously though, mate, your missus wants to be careful who she’s getting involved with. If I was her, I’d leave well alone. That Leroy sounds like a right nasty piece of work, if you ask me.”
“I know, but what can I do?”
A shiver ran through Vinny, and he suggested that they go back inside. For a while, he turned these details over in his mind until his workforce noticed that him and Yansis had become a little withdrawn, and encouraged them to join in the banter. By the time they returned home, worse for wear, in the early hours of the morning, Rita and Julie were in bed fast asleep.
-------------------
Sunday 21st April 1991 – late morning
“What time did you two get in last night?” asked Rita.
The four of them were in Julie and Vinny’s dining room. Julie and Rita were standing at the table as they had been busy doing housework. Just as they were finishing sorting the last of the washing, Vinny and Yansis arrived downstairs at the same time as each other.
“Ooh, not too loud, Rita, my head’s killing!” said Vinny.
“It serves yourself right for being a pair of drunken reprobates. You wouldn’t catch me and Julie carrying on like that. We were tucked up in bed for twelve; weren’t we Jules?”
“Yes, and not a drop touched our lips.”
“What is this reprobates?” asked Yansis.
“Bad men like you two,” said Rita. “Men that stay out till the early hours, getting drunk, while their wives take care of the house and children, and go to bed at a reasonable hour.”
The girls couldn’t help but laugh when they saw the wounded look on Yansis’s face. When he realised they were poking fun at him, he joined in by tickling Rita into submission while repeatedly asking, “Are you saying I am a bad man?”
“Take no notice of them two,” said Vinny. “Anyone would think they’d never been drunk. Anyway, we were back for half two. That’s not bad going, considering we went to a club.”
“Ooh, that’s only about an hour later than us,” laughed Julie.
“Yeah, that’s more like it. I told you what they’re like, Yansis. I bet you were both gossiping, putting the world to rights. It’s a wonder our ears weren’t burning. Anyway, I’m getting some paracetamols.”
As Vinny walked through to the kitchen, Yansis ceased his playfulness with Rita, easing into a gentle embrace and she snuggled up to him, while asking, “What about you, love? How’s your head?”
“It’s not too bad. I think I didn’t drink so much as Vinny but his friends were buying him lots of drinks. He was very drunk. You know, Vinny
can be a very funny man when he has been drinking.”
“Not so funny now though, is he, eh Julie?” she teased.
“Eh, look at this, Yansis?” Vinny called, as he returned with two empty wine bottles he had fished from the top of the bin. “Not a drop touched your lips?” he asked Julie. “What did you do, love, drink it through a straw?”
“I told you he is a funny man,” said Yansis.
“Put them back in the bin, you dirty sod, and wash your hands. You’ll have Emily copying you.” Julie looked down at Emily who had picked up on the jovial atmosphere, and had diverted her attention from her toys to the adults in the room.
“Come on Emily, we’ll go to play with your toys.” Yansis broke away from Rita and, as he led Emily away to the living room, she was squealing with delight.
While Yansis played with Emily, Julie switched the kettle on and popped some bread in the toaster for Vinny and Yansis. Despite Rita’s offers of help, Julie insisted that she was fine, so Rita and Vinny took a seat in the living room. As soon as they were sitting down, Rita could tell by Vinny’s body language that he had some news to impart. He leaned over towards her, and adopted a serious expression as he began speaking.
“Rob was out with us last night; the lad that lives in Longsight.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, he told us a bit more about Leroy.”
He was about to carry on when Rita shouted Yansis over. “You might want to hear this love.”
“I already know. I was there when Rob told us, but I will come anyway.”
“I don’t know if any of this will make any difference to you, Rita,” said Vinny, “but Rob reckons that the Buckthorn Crew have got a lot of enemies. For one thing, there’s another gang in Moss Side that they don’t see eye to eye with, called the MSC, but there’s also one in Cheetham Hill, called the Cheetham Crew. Apparently, the MSC gang trade with the Cheetham Crew, but the Buckthorns won’t have anything to do with them. Rob found out through Carl who was mouthing off in the pub.”
A Gangster's Grip: The Riverhill Trilogy: Book 2 Page 10
