‘That’s not going to happen,’ Carly says in a businesslike way. ‘Anyway, Chris, however is that relevant? It’s our Jarvis I’m concerned for.’
What can Chris say? Bella rolls round here wasted, all bullshit and bluster, and there’s no knowing what substances might be found in her flat.
Chris sees not only her in his daughter, but himself, and it’s harrowing. Meanwhile a perfect, heart-shaped, half-submerged face peers out through the flab. Bella’s mint-green eyes pierce him. Chris doesn’t court that stare. He’s been afraid of Bella since she hit her teens. She’s had him shit-scared and running.
He looks past Carly into the garden where, after the night’s rain, everything’s lustrous. He should walk Daisy.
‘And anyway,’ Carly bursts out, ‘I love Jarvis – I love him! No baby would ever take his place.’
He tightens his arms round her; feels the throb of her yearning. Sod’s Law: the motherly women are childless.
‘So?’ she presses.
‘We can only try.’
‘Without the Social being involved. And, Chris, it could be expensive.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘We might have to pay her off.’ Carly shoots him a straight look.
Spot on. But Bella would break any agreement whenever she felt like it; keep snatching her boy back. So: offer an allowance. Maybe take out another no-interest card and generate monthly cash that way.
‘OK – but try not to worry too much in the meantime, Sweetpea. She does care about him.’ Is he pleading for his daughter – or for himself? ‘Bella’s just – not very together, never has been. Keeps bad company. But she has a good heart,’ he urges.
The tumble dryer revolves; Jarvis’ colourful outfits sail round. The air’s warm with talcum-scented innocence. Chris has a sense of Carly as a load-bearing wall. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she straightens up, a crease between her eyebrows. He knows she’s about to deliver a judgment.
Meeting his eyes, she says, ‘Get real, Chris. Nobody has a good heart when drugs are involved. Nobody.’
Later they wander round the glowing garden, bathed in late sunlight.
‘I meant to say,’ says Carly. ‘She’s still there. Look.’
‘Who?’
‘The bird.’
‘Still alive?’
‘I did wonder earlier but yes, hanging in there, still with us.’
The strangest sight: a spider has woven a strand of web over the closed wings of the ground-nester. Its web, quivering in the breeze, attaches to a fern at one side and hollyhocks at another. The spider’s patrolling the periphery: big chap, well-fed. Chris hunkers with his camera just beyond the RSPB barrier. His zoom catches thistledown in the web and the corpse of a trussed fly.
She looks distinctly mangy, her plumage lustreless. Dying, is she? Some insect hops near her eye; she’s hosting a population of fleas. The ground-nester’s eye blinks. Chris videos the spider mending its web, each leg working independently to extract gluey fabric from its glands, attach, build, balance. The tensile strength in that silk, he thinks: phenomenal.
‘The RSPB boss-man was round,’ says Carly. ‘He reckons she’s a rare sparrow. Native to Carolina of all places. He says there’ll be a male around – obviously – to feed and protect the chicks when the eggs hatch.’
‘I’ve not seen one – have you?’
‘No. Jarvis brought her a worm, bless him,’ says Carly. ‘But she won’t feed. A magpie came and she jabbed at it with her beak and made this weird hissing sound and, honest-to-god, inflated as if she’d pumped herself up. And he scarpered. The BBC might want to film her. And the Evening Post rang.’
*
Bella’s cramming her mouth with another chocolate brownie. Is the sugar something to do with her addiction? How’s he going to broach it? And slapping the child? Pot and kettle: he remembers turning her over his knee and giving her what he called a good hiding. He hasn’t mentioned this to Carly, who, down on the play-mat with Jarvis, is mooing and bleating as she fits shapes of farmyard animals into a board. The child moos and bleats back, rapturously. Again! Again! – the same game over and over, with whoops and skirls of laughter.
‘Bella, we were thinking,’ Chris begins.
Oh no, his daughter’s face tells him, don’t start.
‘Please don’t be offended. Hear me out.’
Flushed to the roots of his hair, he studies his daughter as he puts the proposition, noting the shadows under her eyes.
‘You don’t change,’ is all Bella says. Quite calmly. She seems to assess and dismiss him as, at best, a form of insect life. ‘Not – at – all. Thought you might have. But nah. Like Mam says. You always thought the worst of me. Anything went wrong: must be fat stupid Bella’s fault. Always.’
‘No, Bella.’
Her angry young face peers from the mass of her, a soul sitting in judgment. Your children have this power and this right. Especially if you yourself smacked them, smoked over them, yelled stuff you can’t remember but they sure can.
‘You do know, don’t you, Dad, that I only bring him here to please you.’
‘To please me?’
Carly disengaging from Jarvis, joins them on the settee, listening carefully. Chris thinks: all this crap is all down to her, pumping Bella up with resentment, telling her about his women, chapter and verse, making up what she doesn’t know. What’s Carly about to hear?
‘And now you’ve decided I’m a fucking junkie, to get Jarvis off of me! The pair of you – bloodsuckers! And I’ve tried to please you and all!’ Bella rounds on Carly. ‘I know you can’t have your own kids. I’ve been fine with sharing Jarvis, haven’t I?’
Carly hesitates. Chris hears her mind whirr. Scrolling back. Revising. Looking pained as honest people will when detected in an error they’ll need to own up to.
‘You have, Bella,’ says Carly, voice shaking. ‘You’ve been lovely and generous. Thank you. I’m so sorry. I made a mistake. I love him is all, I worry about him.’
‘All right. So what gave you the idea I was using?’
Carly stumbles: ‘Bella – I thought you were – out of it somehow – yesterday. And a couple of times you’ve mentioned – recreational drugs.’
‘Yeah, I’ve had the odd spliff, haven’t you? He has. You don’t want to know all the stuff he’s done – don’t ask, you might find out. And if you’d bothered to ask yesterday, Carly, I’d of told you … migraine. Every bloody noise Jarvis made felt like gunshots. And I didn’t hit him, for your information, I tapped him. I bet he doesn’t even know I get migraine. Do you?’
Chris says nothing; is unpersuaded; thinks he knows his daughter too well. But hasn’t a leg to stand on.
Carly says, trembling, ‘Bella. I was wrong. I was concerned for Jarvis. I’m so sorry.’
An odd sort of dignity asserts itself in Bella. ‘Fair enough if that’s what you thought. You got to think of the child first and foremost, chwarae teg. But you go sending in the Social, you’ll never see Jarvis again. I guarantee.’
‘I think your dad would do some things differently if he had his time again, Bella. And as for not loving you…’
Bella cringes. Her face begs, Don’t say it, don’t. Tears brim. She opens her arms to Jarvis, who enters them, sucking his comfort-sheet, eyes heavy.
‘Bella, don’t even go there. Your dad loves the bones of you.’
His daughter’s driven them on to the back foot. Carly has prudently surrendered because she fears losing Jarvis. He sees her paying out the line.
‘All I want is to support you, Bella. And Jarvis’ mam is his mam. Bottom line, darling.’
Chris watches Carly coax Bella on to the play-mat to build a Lego house. As the day wears on, he admires Carly’s swerve. All her tact and sensitivity flow past Jarvis, past Chris, towards his daughter. With delicate antennae, Carly unobtrusively schools Bella in how to play with her son. Chris drops to his knees; joins in.
The hurt in Bella’s long-lashed eyes
snags on his gaze like barbed wire.
*
Twitchers everywhere. It’s all getting out of hand. The BBC pitches up, with cameras and microphones, a producer, a famous naturalist and a national RSPB representative. Carly keeps brewing up. Neighbours crane from windows, over fences.
‘Sparrow Wilkinsensis,’ says Iolo Williams. ‘Never seen in Europe, bendigedig iawn!’
He helps Chris and Carly distinguish the song of the male, way up in the birch. They only leave the ground to sing, he explains. But how the Wilkins pair made it here and why they should nest on a Glamorgan housing estate is beyond him. Climate-change may be a factor. Chris, with Jarvis on his shoulders, imagines these two bundles of feather tumbled thousands of miles on tides of Atlantic wind across the warming planet, together.
Daisy, prowling the perimeter, deters cats and foxes. Iolo reassures them about the mess the mother bird is in, bound up in spider-silk. All good, apparently, because it camouflages and protects her. The cobweb’s festooned with leaves, moulted feather, scraps of bark. It’s like a slum dwelling. And all you see in this cocooning detritus is the mam’s vigilant eye and the emerging balls of fluff as the eggs hatch.
And at last his presence can be confirmed: the father, swooping from the birch with a beakful of grubs.
YES KUNG FU
Joâo Morais
Here’s the thing. I’m flying past all the charity shops and kebab houses on Cowbridge Road when the Corsa in front of me stops straight up. Two seconds later and my Saxo is three inches from the boot and I’m all jacked up with war hormones. The Audi behind me does the same, and in my mirror I can see the Audi’s big bald driver cursing me out something raw.
Get out the fuckin way, I goes to the Corsa. I’m late already. I can’t be late today. But the Corsa don’t move. It starts rocking. I honks my horn like it’s gonna make a difference, but the Corsa just stays there.
I opens my door to go ask the goober in front of me what the fuck. The big bald guy behind me honks his horn again. You can see the traffic building up where Cowbridge Road snakes back towards town. All the shoppers on the pavement are watching. But I can’t do much. My car is way too close. I couldn’t turn round even if I wanted to. All I can really do is find out why the Corsa driver had to stop like that and tell them to fucking move.
And that’s when I sees him.
Kung Fu is in front of the Corsa. He’s wearing a white string vest and blue denim cut-offs. He’s karate-chopping the Corsa’s silver bonnet, right in the middle of the street. Slam after slam after slam.
I marches over towards the driver’s side. The window is down. It’s some young bird with two nippers in the back. She got her hair scraped back in a bun. She can’t be older than twenty-three, and the nippers are bawling almost as loud as their Mumma is yelling.
Don’t worry, I goes to her. It’s Kung Fu. I knows him. I’ll go talk to him.
Everyone knows Kung Fu. There ain’t no point asking him what his real name is. His name is Kung Fu now.
I turns to face him. Just about everyone got their own Kung Fu genesis story. Some say cops were raiding his flat once and he had to munch a sheet of acid before they found it. Others say he answered the door and his vindictive ex-missus slammed him eight times across the swede with a gravestone. Go up to anyone walking past you in town and ask them why Kung Fu got to drum the bins all night or why he does the backstroke down to the Black Weir every Sunday and they’ll all give you a different answer.
Yes, bro, he goes.
Yes, Kung Fu, I answers back.
That God up there. He is speaking to me, electronically. He don’t like the grey.
He points at the car.
No, Kung Fu, I goes. It ain’t God talking to you. It’s me, your spar Tommo. We used to chill down the park when I was sellin a draw, remember? God don’t mind about the colour of the car. I swears down.
The bird gets out of the car and starts shouting at Kung Fu to get out the way. A few cars down, this green bus lets off its foghorn. You can’t tell which is loudest.
Don’t worry, I goes to her. I knows what it’s like. I got a little one too. I’m on my way to see her now.
That’s the thing with Kung Fu. He might look all Zulu with his knuckled brown torso and his long clinching stare, but he don’t mean no harm. Even when he ain’t been taking his meds. Some people just is how they is.
She looks at me for a second like she don’t give a fuck about what I been saying. Then she sits back in her car. When she gets her phone out you know that in ten seconds’ time she’ll be on the line to the law.
I only got one thought. They can’t come now. I needs to see them later. If they spies me now I won’t get to see Tasha. God knows how long it will be till next time. They’ll probably chuck me straight on remand. And I only gets her one supervised weekend a month anyways.
I goes into the inside pocket of my jacket. I gets out half of one of the bundles I was saving to give to my ex for when I gets put away.
Look, that’s more than enough for the bumps in your bonnet, I goes. He’s my problem now. I’m gonna take him away, and you can carry on drivin. It’s all gonna be safe.
I reaches through the window and presses it into her hand. Her fingers can barely close around it. She looks at me as if I was more mad than Kung Fu. Then she does the window up and slowly edges forward.
Kung Fu, get in my fuckin car, I goes.
I starts my engine. She still hasn’t quite driven away enough. The cars behind me starts beeping again. I catches up just as she indicates and pulls in outside a hardware shop. You know she’s gonna call the law anyway. I presses my foot down and goes into fourth. We just about makes it through the traffic lights at Vicky Park.
Fuckin hell, Kung Fu, I goes. You don’t half pick your moments.
You are not my carer, he goes.
No, Kung Fu. I ain’t your carer.
Jo Collins is my carer.
Yes, Kung Fu. Jo Collins is your carer.
This car, it just too small. Where is my Jo Collins.
I don’t know, Kung Fu. You tell me.
Kung Fu gives me the name of a hostel. It’s one of those Care in the Community places where he must live. It’s just around the corner from the flat where my ex lives with Tasha.
I turns to face him as we gets to the Ely roundabout.
Five minutes, Kung Fu. Five minutes and we’ll be there. I’ll drop you off and you can go see Jo Collins.
We turns through into Fairwater and starts climbing the hill to Pentrebane. Kung Fu goes through my glove compartment where I keeps all my pocket stuff. He sparks up a smoke and starts inspecting my phone like it was full of clues to something. His questions are non-stop. I can’t believe the sentences that are coming out of my mouth.
No, Kung Fu. I can’t drop you off in Arundel.
No, Kung Fu. That’s a cigarette, not a weapon of mass destruction.
No, Kung Fu. If you dial 666 the phone won’t be answered by Mephistopheles.
He gets more and more agitated by the small space. And the negative answers ain’t really doing it for him either.
Just as we gets to Beechley Drive and the last drag up to the flats, Kung Fu undoes his seatbelt.
Let me out, he goes. I need to find Jo Collins.
You might as well stay in, I goes. Save your legs for the last part up this hill.
I gets to the junction and comes to a stop to let this slow car go first. Just as I’m about to drive off, Kung Fu steps out the car.
Fuckin hell, Kung Fu, I goes. You coulda given me some warnin. I almost took off with half of you still sat down.
But Kung Fu don’t notice. He just starts walking back down the hill, away from where his hostel is. I thinks about going and grabbing him, but then I realises that time is running out if I wants to see Tasha. And Kung Fu ain’t my problem now. I done my good bit on Cowbridge Road.
I pulls into the residents’ car park and leaves a note on the window. I goes into my glove
compartment to get my smokes and phone, but they ain’t there. Damn, I’m thinking. It’s that Kung Fu. He musta taken them. He can be such a fucking goober. But it ain’t really his fault. He’s one of those people who got no understanding of possession. That’s why he’s always wearing such mad clothes, cos he just puts other people’s on all the time and walks away.
As I gets out the car, I makes a mental note to go find out who Jo Collins is at the hostel. I can go find her after I seen Tasha. But Tasha is more important right now than my phone and smokes.
I gets to the block where they lives, and the front of the buzzer system is all smashed up. I hates it when this happens. It’s always kids with nothing else to do or some dickhead with a stupid vendetta against another dickhead in this block, spoiling life for the rest of us. I looks around and there ain’t no one else nearby. So I knocks on the nearest window but they doesn’t answer. They must be used to this. The people on the ground floor never buzzes anyone in.
Tasha and my ex lives eight floors up. I tries calling out but no one replies. Not even anyone to tell me to shut up.
Fuck, I am thinking. I got to find Kung Fu. If I doesn’t find Kung Fu then I doesn’t get to see Tasha. I must find him and get my phone. Then Tasha or my ex can buzz me in.
I drives out of the estate and heads back down the hill. I has to get my phone. Ever since Jamo down the line got busted, we all knew it was game over. And when you hears on the grapevine you got a warrant out on you, sometimes you just wants to say goodbye to the ones you love. Especially when you got a daughter as beautiful and sweet as Tasha. I can’t let Kung Fu fuck it all up.
I’m halfway back down the hill, and then I sees him again. Kung Fu is at the side of the road. He’s karate-chopping this lamppost. He takes a few steps back and does a flying kick. You can hear the hollow banging coming from the lamppost’s metal front before you steps out of the car.
For fuck’s sake, Kung Fu, I goes. It’s only a fuckin lamppost. Leave it the fuck alone before someone calls the fuckin cops.
New Welsh Short Stories Page 3
