Strange Affairs, Ginger Hairs

by Arthur Grimestead

  The lady settled, sitting with a clipboard on her lap and looking up at Dad. ‘Now, do you know why I’m here Mr Jones?’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘I’ve been seconded to the Hull branch to head a new home visit scheme—’

  ‘Ull!’ said Dad.

  ‘Pardon.’

  ‘The ’Ull branch. Silent H and a capital U.’ He pulled a face at me. ‘God help us if she can’t even speak proper.’

  ‘Right, well… It’s a scheme to visit the long term disabled such as yourself to—’

  ‘I’m not bloody cheating,’ said Dad indignantly.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘No-one’s saying that you are Mr Jones.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  Mum plodded into the room, exchanging Dad’s soiled sausages for a plateful of freshly cooked. She glanced across to the lady, gave a tut and rolled her eyes. Dad was sprightly with his first chomp, oblivious to the universe outside as he slobbered over his food like a pig being fattened for market day. Mum turned away, and as she returned to the kitchen I imagined her expression somewhere between resignation and imminent vomit.

  ‘So,’ I said to the lady, loudly, as much concerned with counteracting the sound of Dad eating. ‘What would be cheating exactly? Maybe a lodger? Paying rent?’

  She fidgeted in her seat. ‘Perhaps, but I’m not here to…’

  Glancing across the room, Dad’s face had reddened and seemed to be inflating, a blocked vent by way of a mouth stuffed with sausages.

  I smiled and continued: ‘What about selling bootlegged tobacco? Is that classed as cheating?’

  The lady looked puzzled. ‘I’m not sure if…’

  A hideous choking sound commanded our attention, our heads turned in unison as Dad spat half a sausage with such force it projected aloft the coffee table, descended like an incendiary bomb and hit the lady clean between the eyes.

  ‘Any baccy that comes in this flat is for my own personal use!’ bawled Dad. ‘You can’t prove otherwise!’

  The lady recoiled into her seat, her hand tremulous as she wiped gravy from her forehead. ‘Well I really don’t see what that has to do with me.’

  ‘I’ll tell you right now – stop my benefit and there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘But I’m not here to,’ she said, almost pleadingly.

  But Dad had stopped listening and his outrage turned to me. ‘And you’d better toe the line,’ he said, pointing a finger that appeared to have the contents of a plant pot stuck beneath the nail. ‘Stop being a clever little shit or I’ll kick you out so quick your arse won’t hit the carpet.’

  ‘Alright, calm—’

  Dad screamed and grasped his leg.

  ‘Mr Jones?’

  ‘Get me pills. Quick!’ he wailed.

  The lady was visibly shaken. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘You’ve upset his arthritis,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve only been here a minute.’

  ‘It’s very sensitive to stress.’

  ‘But…’

  I found Dad’s medication and mooched over, muttering into his ear. ‘Who’ll bring the pills if you evict me?’

  Dad writhed, but fighting the agony, he struggled to get a pill down.

  ‘Deep breaths Dad – you’ll be fine,’ I said, exaggerating the sentiment.

  ‘What can I do?’ said the lady.

  ‘I think you’d better go.’

  ‘Should I call a doctor?’

  ‘Just leave us alone. You’ve done enough already.’

  She looked on, distraught as Dad voiced his pain. Her top lip wobbled, then as Dad began to pray, she mumbled an apology and made a prompt, rather flustered collection of her effects.

  ‘Perhaps we should arrange a more, er, convenient time,’ she said.

  Soon, we heard the door slam and Dad sat up. ‘Job well done. Fish and chips tonight!’ he said, tossing his pills away nonchalantly.

  ‘I’m fed up of this. You know they’ll catch you one day.’

  Dad smirked and took a sip of his special tea – I smiled as he was nearly sick.

  Three

  Three large gins

  and I got you.

  That evening, a waft of fish carried through the flat, tickling my nasal hair with the most delightful smell. Fish and chips was a rare treat, arousing such excitement that I pounced on Mum as she entered the living room with two steaming bags.

  ‘Bloody gannet!’ She gave me a clout.

  Undeterred, I followed her into the kitchen. Mum piled three plates with fishes, chips, burgers, chicken – anything you could batter – golden mountains dripping in glorious grease.

  Back in the living room, Dad moved quicker than I’d ever seen him as he sat up ready to eat. The heating was on full, EastEnders was on the telly and we sat and scoffed.

  ‘Been thinkin’,’ said Dad, aiming a brief, seemingly begrudging glance in my direction. ‘Maybe we can call it eighteen extra, for the rent like.’

  ‘Leaving me with two quid a fortnight?’ Big whoop, fatty. ‘What am I supposed to do with that?’

  ‘You don’t do nowt anyway.’

  I was quiet. Self-analysis was a difficult process for me, literally by the fact that there was so little to analyse; and emotionally by the fact that what I could analyse was essentially turd. All I knew was that I wanted to be different, and I’d known it deep down and for so long the self-knowledge had started to eat me from the inside.

  Dad sneered. ‘Hardly grabbin’ life by the short and curlies are you? More bloody life in my dirty socks.’

  Indeed, I envied Dad’s socks – they had a purpose. I mean, where would the world be without socks? Cold and covered in blisters. Where would the world be without me? Coping with a surplus of anti-dandruff shampoo.

  I took a deep breath. ‘But eighteen quid? Can’t you just…’

  Dad grinned, flashing crooked, mustard and occasionally absent teeth. ‘Offer bloody withdrawn.’

  For a few disturbing seconds, I looked at him and saw myself peering back – dull eyes, a bobble on his nose that could have guided Santa’s sleigh. A shiver trickled down my back. Thirty years on, with my own grey hair, I could see myself fitting easily into those mucky clothes that seemed to hang on him with indolence. I mean, in eighteen years I’d accomplished nothing but a large collection of smutty magazines.

  ‘I’ve put fish and chips on your slate,’ said Mum. ‘Ten pound thirty-seven.’

  Dad spluttered, it sounding like a convulsion. ‘What?’

  ‘Stop choking Morris!’

  ‘Giro’s not ’til next Tuesday! I can’t bloody afford that.’

  I looked at Mum. Cigarettes had destroyed the decade between her and Dad – bordering forty, her crinkled top lip could have been used as a bus pass. ‘Well, how much extra you getting from that lady?’ she said. ‘I’m sure that’ll cover it.’

  ‘I told you,’ said Dad, looking away. ‘We got rid of her before she tried to stop my bloody benefit.’

  ‘Well they went to see Barry the other day – you know, him with the gout – and he’s getting ten quid extra every week now. It’s not fair if other people are getting more.’

  Dad poked at his fish and chips. ‘Ten pound thirty-seven? Is that what my life’s worth? Cos you know what Chas does when people don’t settle.’

  ‘Don’t talk silly Morris!’

  ‘He’ll just have to dock your wages – otherwise it’ll be me that gets battered, never mind the bloody fish.’

  Mum gave a tut. ‘Where’s that letter?’ Her legs dangled from beneath her lap tray, overreaching for the coffee table, the strain accentuated the veins in her stick-thin calves. She snatched an envelope, squinting as she passed it to me. ‘You’ll have to read it.’

  I o
bliged, and after reading the first few lines, offered an unrestrained smirk. ‘It says here that there’s a “new home visit scheme to inform the long term disabled of a new legislation that may result in an increase of the benefits you receive”.’

  Dad dropped his cutlery. ‘What? What does that mean?’

  It means you’re a fat fuck who’s just shit-out. ‘Dunno,’ I said.

  He pointed at Mum. ‘You read it.’

  ‘I’ve not got my spectacles, Morris.’

  ‘Give it here!’ he snapped.

  Unwilling to shift from beneath my lap tray, I folded the letter into a concord-like thing and tossed it at Dad – it stuck upright in his mushy peas.

  Dad began to read, groaning almost painfully. The focus of his annoyance was me. ‘Your board’ll have to be an extra thirty to make up for this.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ I shouted, indignation forcing me to gasp for air.

  ‘Just done it.’

  My eyes scanned over the room, scouting for support. That coffee table’s pretty inanimate, that cushion’s not going to say anything. Hmm. Guess it’ll have to be… ‘Mum! Tell him.’

  Mum glanced over each of us, then shrugged.

  ‘Going for a bloody walk!’ said Dad.

  A walk? You barely moved when the first floor was on fire.

  Dad’s overhang sagged as he stood, grabbed a magazine from the coffee table and wrapped a piece of fish. ‘Off down The Eagle,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Morris,’ Mum croaked. ‘You can’t take your tea down the pub. Not in the TV Times!’

  It was quiet for a moment, broken as the front door slammed behind Dad.

  ‘Don’t know what to think of him sometimes,’ said Mum. ‘If it hadn’t’ve been for the twinkle in his eye and his few years’ extra experience…’ She appeared wistful, gazing down over her fish. ‘Well there’d be no you, for a start. And I’d have kept dancing.’

  At one point in her life, Mum could have been described as a dancer, loosely. She’d been spotted dancing in clubs in the 1970s, which, cutting-out a few blow jobs, led to being one fifth of a troupe that once filled in for Diana Ross on Top of the Pops. When she became pregnant – with me – it was decided that she shouldn’t jiggle about so much. Apparently, I ended her career.

  ‘Can’t you have a word with Dad? About the board?’ I said, refusing to acknowledge her age old gripe.

  ‘Not up to me,’ she snapped. ‘Eat your tea.’

  ‘But…’ I pulled a face and scoffed. It wasn’t often I could enjoy decent food in abundance, and I took some solace as my teeth skewered the fish, an out-squelching of grease dripping from my chin and back down to the plate – it was a strange pleasure, until mid-chew my teeth caught something tough, enough to send a twinge along my jaw. My reflex was to spit the mouthful, then probe the glob of fish flakes with my finger. A moment later, I was baffled to find myself holding a ring. It hardly seemed real, but there it was resting on the palm of my hand – and not a bad ring at that. It was gold and had a large red stone that glimmered through the grease. It seemed a catalogue job – I couldn’t think of anyone who could afford more – but I reckoned it could be worth a couple of quid.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Mum, squinting. ‘A ring? What you doing with a ring?’

  Fortune had a habit of avoiding me, so I lied. ‘Bit of junk from a Christmas cracker,’ I said, nodding to my plate. ‘Was in that fish.’

  Mum frowned, checking her fingers. ‘Well it’s not mine.’

  ‘I should sue the chip shop.’

  Her eyes widened, seemingly in recognition of said fish being battered by her own hand – making her perfectly blameworthy. ‘You can’t. I need that job. Your board would have to double… treble.’

  I beheld the ring and shrugged. ‘Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I’ll bugger off anyway.’

  ‘What? Where?’

  Hmm, where indeed. Maybe having friends isn’t such an overrated concept after all… Maybe I could get fifty quid for this ring? ‘Anywhere. I could get enough for a fare to London.’

  Mum laughed though her nose, the blast of air seeming nervous, yet annoyingly condescending. ‘You’re not Dick Wittington.’

  This was true, but I was Ginger Jones and I could do what the hell I wanted. ‘But what’s to stop me eh?’

  She sniffed, and all conversation diminished as she lit a fag and drowned the room with her clogged breathing.

  To lose a ring in a haddock seemed a bizarre act of carelessness – how, why and who the hell? But it belonged to me now, finders keepers and all that. Indeed, I promised myself that tomorrow I’d be down the pawn shop trading my auspicious find for an auspicious future. With fifty quid I could do just about anything! A strange feeling crept over me, bright and tingling.

  It was optimism.

  Four

  It’s plain you’re insane

  to live a life so sad.

  I thought hard that night. A ring could bring cash, and cash could bring the means to actually do something. It sounded simple enough, and so the following day brought an early start – even before Kilroy. I knew of a Buy, Swap or Sell shop round the back of town. My granddad had died a couple of months before and Grandma had flogged his gold tooth there, so I reckoned you could get rid of just about anything.

  English Street stood a strongman’s spit from the River Humber. The main road and side-shoots offered a mismatch of industrial buildings, contemporary steel units sitting amongst the spalling bricked relics of a fishing industry. Warehouses had been chopped-up and repurposed by low-level business – cut price MOTs; belly busting full English; authentic Tai massage; cheap rehearsal space (with PA!). Yet despite these amazing deals, there was a gloomy solitude to the streets, of the kind endemic to areas of dying industry.

  Several strides along a cobbled side-street, I found the low-level business I required. From outside, the place was intimidating. The whole shop was caged under a thick steel mesh, a red neon sign flickered in the window and a few dead letters obscured the message somewhat: Go-d- bo-g-- and so-d -or -ash.

  I ventured inside.

  A bell heralded my entrance, though the shop was very still. I stood amongst a poky medley of miscellanea – videos to violins, pocket phones to pocket nasal hair removers; the most eye catching thing a collection of prosthetic limbs hanging above the counter. As I observed more closely, a man with a wart on his chin appeared, like a genie.

  ‘Hello. How can I help? Are you interested in a leg?’

  ‘Er… No,’ I said, a little startled. ‘A ring.’

  ‘Rings?’ He pointed to a glass case display.

  ‘No, I mean I want to sell a ring.’

  ‘Right.’ He rubbed his wart thoughtfully. He was short and wore a tight blue cagoule that clung to his paunch – I couldn’t help but imagine him as a garden gnome. ‘Well, you’d better give us a shifty,’ he said.

  I passed a matchbox, which he slipped open to find the swag wrapped in some cotton wool.

  Examining through an eye lens, he held the ring to the light. ‘Very nice. Very nice. Where did you get this?’

  I’d prepared a lie earlier that morning. ‘It’s, er, my sister’s. She was engaged but she broke it off.’

  The man took a deep breath. ‘I’d need some proof of ownership first.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Receipt. Insurance.’

  ‘Well…’ Will chip paper do? ‘You know my grandma. She sold you a gold tooth not long ago.’

  ‘Are you Hetty’s grandlad?’

  ‘Yeh.’

  ‘Well I never. It’s a pleasure to meet any one of the Joneses.’ Following his lead, we shook hands. ‘I knew your granddad really well. Wasn’t it heart trouble?’

  I shrugged. ‘Dunno really… So, you want the ring?’

  He appeared pensive, scrunching o
ne eye and scrutinising the ring again. ‘Your sister’s?’

  ‘Yeh.’

  ‘Where’d she get it?’

  ‘Her boyfriend.’

  ‘Where’d he get it?’

  ‘Dunno. Argos I think.’

  The man looked back, holding me with a glare and pointing below the counter with a finger that looked like a cocktail sausage. ‘If that’s true – I’ve got a foot long todger.’

  The doorbell heralded a young woman, struggling with a kid in a buggy. ‘Hiya Arthur,’ she said to the man. ‘You all right?’

  I reached for the ring, the man snatched back, flinching repeatedly as he placed the swag into the matchbox and tucked it down into his pocket. ‘Best leave this with me, son,’ he said, rearranging his face into a more affable presentation and hobbling to the woman’s assistance. ‘I’m not too bad luv,’ he said with a fresh voice. ‘What can I do you for?’

  Just like at school, when: ‘Sir! Alex Turnbull nicked my dinner money.’

  ‘Idle bastard lost on the dogs again,’ said the woman. ‘I need to raise thirty quid for the rent – but I only got the buggy.’

  ‘Grow a spine, Jones. Stand up straight and go take it back.’

  ‘Let’s have a shifty then,’ said the man.

  ‘But sir—’

  The man bent over to inspect her offering, rubbing his back and sucking a gasp of air through his teeth.

  ‘Grow a spine, Jones.’

  I selected a prosthetic leg from above the counter, grasped the ankle and clobbered the man over the back of his head. He slumped into the buggy, dentures spilling over the baby.

  ‘Oh my God! Help!’ the woman screeched. ‘He’s trying to eat Charlene!’

  I ignored her, frisked the man for my matchbox and ran away to find another buyer.

  Three hours, seven miles and an igloo-like blister later, I realised off-loading the ring wasn’t going to be that easy. I visited a handful of places – a dirty dive, a slightly less tawdry jeweller and three subtle shades in-between; of which two people asked me for proof of ownership, two told me to fuck off and one person produced a roll of cling-film and asked for a sexual favour. Aching and annoyed, I made my way home.