Deadfolk

by Charlie Williams

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Folks’ll hear.’

  ‘So? Let em. Part o’ the fun, ennit?’

  ‘They’ll call the coppers.’

  ‘Coppers is slow round here.’

  ‘They might be passin’.’

  He thought for a short while, chewing his lip. ‘All right. You wins. Hold onto this.’ He passed us the gun, then picked up a marble ashtray off the desk and crouched next to Fenton. ‘Giz yer hand,’ he says. Then: ‘Giz yer hand, less you wants to lose it.’

  Fenton reached out a shaking right hand. Then he pulled it back and held out his left instead.

  Lee stretched it out flat on the carpet, fingers nice and spread out. He brung the ashtray down on em. Hard.

  While Fenton were screaming I moved round the other side of him and curled me finger round the trigger. The bin liner were going in and out his gob, and soon he stopped screaming and started breathing funny, too fast like. Lee pulled it away from his face a bit to give him some air. ‘All right, mate? Don’t worry, I’ll have these fingers loosened up no time. You juss sit back an relax.’

  More screaming.

  I lifted the gun.

  Lee looked up at us. ‘Oi. Didn’t you hear what I says just now? Never point yer weapon at folks, beasts, nor objects you ain’t wantin’ to shoot. Basic shotgun safety, ennit? An’ watch yer finger there—’

  I pulled the trigger.

  11

  I were about fifteen when I killed my old man. Weren’t much of a killing, mind. No knifes, clubs, nor shotguns was present that time. Didn’t need em, see. When your enemy spends half his life drunker than a tadpole in a cider vat, he’s easy pickings.

  I were upstairs in my room, flicking through a wank mag. I were swilling out of a big placcy bottle of lager and all, and like as not half cut, but you couldn’t blame us for that. It don’t matter how much shite you sees when you’re a youngun. Don’t matter how many times the old man comes home and knocks you about. Don’t matter how often you goes hungry cos he’s pissed his dole up the fucking wall. None of that amounts to shite. You’re still gonna end up thirsting for the warmth and numbness that comes from necking sauce. If you’re bred for it, you can’t escape it.

  Front door slammed.

  I closed the mag and slipped it back under the mattress without thinking about it. My ears filtered everything else out and listened for my old man. You learns to concentrate like that when you shares a roof with someone like him. He were messing around in the hall, getting his coat off and muttering to himself. I went to my door. It were open a crack. I tried to hear what he were grumbling about. Any information helps when you’d rather avoid a hiding. I couldn’t hear all of it, but it sounded like the usual. Nag let him down just when he needed her to come through for him. When he suddenly shouted my name I jumped clear off the floor.

  I never knew what to say when he shouted my name. I wanted to say nothing. If you says nothing he might think you’re out. But saying nothing’s asking for trouble if he comes and finds you. On the other hand you don’t want to sound all keen and obedient because you’d be a cunt if you did. So this time, like all the other times, I shouted: ‘What.’

  He started up the stairs, saying, ‘Right. You little bastard,’ under his breath. The tone of his voice set my skin itching and the hairs standing up all over my body. I wanted to cry. He tripped on the stairs and fell on his face. That’d make him madder. I stepped from foot to foot. My blood were pumping faster, getting ready for the hiding it knew were coming.

  But I weren’t gonna cry. I never cried no more, not since I’d worked out that crying never got us nowhere.

  He’d righted himself and were stomping upstairs again. I opened the door and stepped out onto the landing. I could see him crawling on hands and knees now, afraid that he’d fall again if he walked on his hind legs like a proper man.

  Then summat left me.

  It were an odd feeling. Relief more than anything else. It were like I’d stepped outside of meself and left my body to do what it had to do. I could see him for what he were now. An animal, walking on all fours. I went to the top of the stairs just as he were reaching it himself. I put my foot on his shoulder to stop him. He looked up and caught my eye. There were summat strange there. Just for a second I saw a flash of…

  Not fear.

  Maybe understanding.

  And then the usual meanness were back.

  I pushed hard on his shoulder and sent him to hell.

  ‘Me old man’s dead.’

  ‘All right, son. Just tell us what happened.’

  ‘Me old man’s dead.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Dead.’

  I put the blower down and sat on the stairs. Someone came and put a blanket round us and says, ‘Don’t worry, feller. Someone’ll come and look after you.’ Folks came and went, most of em in uniform. They measured him up and looked him up and down and took a photo of him. Then they carried him away. And I felt meself coming back, stepping back inside meself.

  No one asked us what had happened. They just took for granted he’d fell down the stair, drunk as he were. That’s what I reckoned they thought, anyhow. But later, when I were meant to be living in care but were really dossing here and there and doing as I pleased, I got to thinking on that one. I got to thinking how perhaps they hadn’t assumed he’d fell at all. Maybe they knew the truth and were all right about it, being as he were a pissed-up old cunt who never done no good for no one, least of all his own son. Maybe that were the way things worked in the world. Or at least in Mangel.

  I thought about it, and soon enough it weren’t an idea no more. It were a fact, like a foot being twelve inches long or water being wet. And I went on with it and made meself what I were…what I had been. And that’s the way it carried on.

  Until Beth died.

  Everything turned around and came back at us then. See, I never killed her. I loved her, I did. We had our troubles like any couple does, but nothing so bad that I’d do that to her. The coppers asked us and asked us and shouted at us and slapped us. I never done it, and I told em so again and again.

  They never believed us. But they let us go anyhow, being as they couldn’t get shite to stick. No one believed us outside neither. Folks shunned us and whispered about us on the bus and sent us nasty letters. And that’s when I got to thinking again. About how I’d been wrong about Mangel and the way it works.

  I ain’t sure what I’m getting at here. Maybe I’m just trying to tell you how I came to be how I were, how I am. But I reckon it ain’t my place to do that. Fish can’t say much about water cos water’s all he knows. Ah, fuck it.

  Where were I?

  Oh aye. I were in Fenton’s office, shooting Lee Munton.

  But the gun weren’t loaded, were it.

  I pulled the trigger again.

  And still the bugger weren’t loaded.

  The look on Lee’s face went from shite your pants to well well well, what does we have here then? ‘Jess?’ he says, not taking his eyes off us. Jess stopped messing with the safe and gandered over his shoulder. He clocked the scenario and grabbed his gun. I ran for the door. Lee made a swing at us, but I poked the barrel at his head and caught his cheekbone, by the feels of it. I carried on pegging it. When I got to the front door Jess shouted and fired. But I were already through and closing it behind us. Buckshot peppered it from inside, but it were a solid door and soaked it all up. I kept on running. Uptown. They’d not expect us to run uptown, I hoped.

  Weren’t long before I had to pull up in a doorway, lungs screaming and legs like jelly. I’d always been one of them fellers built for strength and not stamina. Ain’t much call for stamina in a doorman, unless you’re talking about how long he can stand up for. Soon as I got my puff back I put me thinking cap on.

  All right, so the Muntons was in Hoppers, with Fenton. If I called the coppers I’d get em caught red-handed and sent down for a bit. But a bit weren’t long enough. And they’d gra
ss on us and all. No, that were a shite idea. But I had to do summat. I couldn’t very well roam the streets for the rest of me borned days, hoping they’d not ever find us. They’d come after us for surely. And they’d come soon. But long as they was in there trying to pop the safe, they wasn’t coming after us.

  I peeked both ways out the doorway and set off again.

  It were still dark when I got home. I got a bin liner and started filling it with gear. I thought about putting my doorman togs in but didn’t in the end. It’d get all creased and look shite when time came to put it on. So I left it on the hanger and took it downstairs with the bag. In the kitchen I necked a couple of glasses of water and wolfed an old pork pie I found in the fridge. No matter what shite is taking place in your life, it’s important to keep your strength up. More so, in fact, when trouble is on the cards. I upturned the whisky bottle into my gob and emptied it. I stopped by the front door.

  What the fuck were I playing at?

  Where could I go? And how long were I planning on staying there? All my life? I knew I couldn’t leave Mangel. And Mangel weren’t an easy place to hide in. And who said I had to hide anyhow? Who said the Muntons’d be after us?

  I opened the door and got into the Capri. Muntons after us or not, it’d do us no harm to get away for a bit. I needed some time to get my head in shape. And there were one place I knew I were always welcome, despite how she sometimes sounded.

  But instead of turning into the estate where Sal lived I took a right and headed out into the country. Soon the tree-lined roads swallowed us up and coaxed us farther and farther away from Mangel. But I knew it were just for now. Leaving Mangel were only ever a temporary thing. Nothing seemed real outside of town. It were like Mangel were the only town that really existed, and all the rest were just illusion, blurred around the edges and hard to focus on. But real as Mangel were, it were never a place for thinking and getting your head straight. That’s what the rest of the world were for. I started up the long hill on the East Bloater Road and put me foot on it.

  Summat always made us floor it when I started up that hill. I wanted to keep on going and smash through the barrier and come out the other side battered and bloody but somewhere else. But it were only ever a brief urge, gone by the time I were halfway up. And there were no barrier up there to smash through anyhow. Not one you could see, leastways. I slowed up and stopped as I hit the brow of the hill, planting the left tyres on the grass verge.

  I stood and admired the view, such as it were. Green and brown fields and a lot of trees. Bang in the middle of em were East Bloater—a bunch of rooftops huddled together around a spire and not much else besides. But the road went on and on past that. Up to the horizon and beyond it, like as not. And the horizon were what I always went out there to see.

  When I got back to where I originally intended on going, I were a couple of decisions to the good. Not that it made us feel much happier about life. I knew I were still fucked from every angle no matter what. But I were a tad less confused. And I had a wild card that might just sort us out.

  The money, see. Money were all them Muntons gave a shite about. So if I let em keep my share of the sherbet, they might leave us alone.

  It needed working on, but that were the strength of it. All right, it were a shite idea and I were a twat for thinking it might do the trick. Feller can hope, can’t he? Feller must hope, in fact. And if he don’t then he ain’t a feller in my book. He’s dead.

  But hoping never got no one nowhere. And I weren’t likely to reverse that particular trend.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘S’me, ennit. Let us in.’

  She said nothing for a short while. Then: ‘Come on up.’

  I stood there stroking me tash. That hadn’t sounded like Sal at all. She’d never spoken a polite word to us since I’d known her.

  Summat were up.

  I walked round the corner and looked up and down the road. I kept my eye on the old fence round the back of the flats, waiting for some bastard to vault over. Plenty of cars was parked, mostly battered old shite ones. I glanced up and down em while I were waiting, fists clenched in me pockets. I were looking for summat out of the normal, summat that belonged to whoever Sal had been dogging up there. I could feel a vein sticking out on me temple, pumping hot blood into my brain. I ain’t no slapper, she’d said. Them days is gone. I knew I wouldn’t touch her. Hitting women ain’t right. I already told you that. But you needs to hit someone. Feller can’t deny his urges. ‘Come on, mate,’ I says, desperate for him. I needed him. My head were fit to burst, less I dropped it on some fucker soon.

  And then my eyes fell on a vehicle that I hadn’t noticed straight off, it being a white van, and white vans being commonplace in Mangel. It were filthier than I’d ever seen it, so much so that you could barely read the MUNTON MOTORS on the side panel.

  I stepped into the road and looked up at Sal’s window. A face looked back at us for a moment, then the curtain fell away. Weren’t Sal’s face. It were Lee’s.

  Bastard.

  I ran to my car and fired her up. Tried to fire her up, that is. I tried three…four times and the fucker wouldn’t go. I looked over at the door of Sal’s building. No one coming out yet. But I knew it wouldn’t stay that way. Jess were loading up his shotgun like as not. ‘Come on, dozy bitch,’ I says to the steering wheel. He’d be down within half a minute. Maybe I ought to get out and leg it. ‘Come on…’ The engine were flooding and soon I’d have no chance of getting her started. That were the trouble with classic cars. And birds. Push em too hard and they crosses their legs on you. I saw a movement in the corner of my eye, someone walking across the street. I didn’t want to look. I wanted the motor to start so’s I could piss off. But it didn’t. And then there were a tap at the window. A gentle tap.

  The tap of a feller who ain’t in no hurry.

  I looked up. Lee were standing there empty-handed. ‘Fret not, I ain’t armed,’ he shouted so’s I could hear through the glass. ‘But I don’t like shoutin’.’

  I wound down the window.

  ‘All right, Blake,’ he says.

  ‘All right, Lee.’

  ‘Just came down here to get you. Havin’ a party, we is. Me, Jess, and Sally. Celebratin’, see. A good job well done an’ that. Well, mostly well done. But we’ll go over that with you and give you a few pointers, for the future like.’ He grinned and stepped back. ‘Come on, Blake. Comin’ up or what? Got yer wages up there for you, we have. And you ain’t seen what we found in that safe. Don’t you wanna see what we found in that safe?’

  ‘Just tell Sal to come down,’ I says quietly.

  ‘No, mate. She’s enjoyin’ herself. An’ she wants you to join in. Look, she sent these down for you.’ He got a pair of Sal’s knickers out his pocket and put em to his nose. ‘Mmm. She’s a one, ain’t she?’

  He weren’t getting to us. He could say what he liked, but he wouldn’t get to us. He wanted us to charge upstairs like a mad fucker and burst in on Jess, who’d be waiting there with a shotgun or summat. Couldn’t see why they wanted to kill us in Sal’s flat, mind. Like I says already, their style were more Hurk Wood at dead of night. Maybe they didn’t want to kill us. Maybe they just wanted to shite us up a bit. They’d got away with the robbery after all. All right, I’d pulled the trigger. But it weren’t like the gun were loaded.

  ‘Lee,’ I says. ‘You can keep my share. Call it forfeit, since I…you know, fucked up a bit. Soz about that. Dunno what happened. Reckon I were scared. See, I can’t do this robbin’ lark no more. I’m too old an’ I…’

  ‘Lost yer bottle.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Seems you had bottle enough to shoot us, though.’

  ‘Well…that weren’t bottle. That were…barminess. Aye, fuckin’ insanity. I’m a bit fucked up in the head see, Lee. Doctors said so emselves. You knows about that, don’t you?’ I looked at him, mouth hanging open and one eye half-closed.

  He weighed us up for a moment or two, then
opened the door and says: ‘Come on.’

  I couldn’t see that I had much choice, so I got out and started climbing the stairs. Lee were walking just behind us. He were talking about my Capri, telling us in a polite way that it were a bit past it and I might want to think about upgrading some time soon. They could do us a good deal at Munton Motors, he reckoned, and they’d even give us a couple of ton part exchange for the Capri. He said he’d be conducting trade affairs for the time being until Baz came back from his jolly. While he were talking I pictured meself turning round and twatting him so he fell back down the stair and broke all his bones. But I kept quiet and walked on up. It were better to just let him talk, even if he did know fuck all about classic motors.

  Sal’s front door were a little ways open. I pushed it and walked on in.

  First thing I saw were Sal. She were standing in the corner in her dressing gown, clutching it tight to her chest, looking pissed off more than frightened. She gave us eyes like she were trying to tell us summat, if only I could see what.

  Second thing I noticed—briefly—were the cricket bat swinging at me face.

  I didn’t notice much after that.

  ‘Don’t move.’

  I moved my head a bit.

  ‘Blake, don’t move. I’ve called the ambulance.’

  ‘Fuck sake…’

  ‘Don’t speak neither.’

  I opened my eyes. Everything were blurred and swimming around us like murky water, which I didn’t like. But I recognised Sal’s voice so I kept calm. Her face appeared in front of us, upside down. ‘You called ambulance?’ I says.

  ‘Aye. Thought you was dead. Lie still.’

  ‘Why’d you call ambulance if you reckoned us dead?’ I tried to sit up. ‘What good’s ambulance to a dead man?’

  Sal tried to push us back down but I didn’t let her. She folded her arms and glared at us, lips set like a clenched arse hole. ‘You never does nuthin’ I says. I says don’t move so you moves. Says lie still so you sits up.’