Deadfolk

by Charlie Williams

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’

  She held firm for a few seconds, then wavered. Sweet talk always worked wonders with Sal. She flung her arms round us and says: ‘Oh, Blakey. Woss goin’ on? You used to be so brave.’

  I’d been hugging her back but my arms went limp. ‘Eh?’

  ‘You bottled it again, Blake. They telled us. What this is for, ennit?’ She pointed at my head, grimacing. ‘And this.’ My arm this time, where blood were seeping through the shirtsleeve. Not so much that I might pass out, but it stung like billy-o nonetheless.

  ‘An’ you believed em?’ My head were numb, besides a throb right in the middle of it. I touched it, then looked at me fingers. Blood. I felt it again, wondering how they’d managed to get a cricket ball under the scalp like that. ‘What the fuck did they do to me swede?’

  ‘What were I meant to believe, eh? Why would they do this if it ain’t true? What’re you doin’ knockin’ around with them anyhow? I thought you hated em.’

  ‘Never says I hated em.’

  ‘Did.’

  ‘Never. Says keep away from em is all.’

  ‘Same diff’rence.’

  ‘Ain’t.’

  ‘Is.’

  ‘It fuckin’ ain’t. And what the fuck did they do to my head?’ I got up. My legs was wobbly, like I’d been in the gym squatting twice my own bodyweight all afternoon. But they had strength enough in em to get us to the mirror. ‘What the fuck has they done?’

  ‘Keep it down. There’s a babby next door.’

  ‘A babby? Fuck the babby, what about me head?’

  ‘Called ambulance, didn’t I?’

  ‘I don’t need no ambulance.’

  ‘Does.’

  ‘Bollocks. I’m all right. Cancel the fuckin’ ambulance.’

  ‘Why? Look at yer head. What if you’ve got brain damage or sum…?’ She stopped and bit her lip and looked sideways. ‘Sorry.’

  I wondered what she were on about at first. Then I remembered: I were barmy. In the eyes of most Mangel folk I were anyhow. Even Sal.

  A barmy bottler.

  ‘Cancel the fucker.’

  ‘Stop fuckin’ swearin’ at us.’ She went to the window, breathing hard. When she spoke again she were a lot quieter. ‘I can’t anyhow. Look, they’m outside.’

  ‘Tell em it were a false alarm.’

  ‘Blake, your head.’

  ‘Fuckin’ tell em.’

  I stared in the mirror after she’d gone out the door. To be honest with you I didn’t recognise meself. You wouldn’t recognise yourself neither if you had what I had. The bump were rising up right off the top, looking like the biggest and hairiest bollock you ever seen. If I didn’t have such a short barnet I’d not look so bad. But there were nothing I could do about that besides wearing a hat. Maybe I’d get a nice hat. I peeled the shirtsleeve off me skin and rolled it up. Looked like a cat had been having a go at us. The skin of my forearm were all scratched up and bleeding. But then I noticed darker stuff mixed in with the blood, like ink. And the scratches suddenly took on a pattern.

  Me guts tightened up.

  I went to the kitchen and ran water over it until most of the blood were off. Then I saw it clearly. CUNT, it read. I recognised the handwriting and all. It were the same as the SUSAN on Jess’s arm. I tried to wash out the ink but it were no use. They’d branded us a cunt for life.

  I heard Sal shouting down in the street. Giving her a hard time about wasting council resources like as not. Giving Sal a hard time about anything were a mistake. You didn’t know what a hard time were till you gave one of em to Sal.

  I went back and looked again in the mirror. I couldn’t see no bumps nor tats now. Just eyes. I could feel em burning into us, demanding to know what the fuck I reckoned I were up to. And how dare I let meself get knocked about in such a way?

  But, do you know, I had an answer. I were able to return the stare and say just how I could let such diabolical things come to pass. Far as I seen it, I were straight with the Muntons again now. I’d walked up them stairs knowing full well summat bad’d be lurking at the top. And it were. They’d done us over good and proper. But at least I were still breathing.

  Sometimes a feller’s got to take it on the chin.

  I’d be all right to walk around town without listening out for snapping twigs now. Long as they didn’t find out about Baz. And I couldn’t see that happening now. Not with his carcass vanished and all.

  Come to think on it, I were wondering if that whole Baz episode hadn’t all been a dream or summat. No corpse and no comeback. Maybe I hadn’t topped the fucker after all. Maybe that’d all been an illusion.

  What if the doctors had been right after all? All along I’d thought meself clever for tricking em. But maybe they’d seen through that. Maybe they’d thought us a mong anyhow. And to be honest, that’d be all right with me. Being a mong is a whole lot better than being a prisoner. Or a dead man.

  I breathed deep, looked in the mirror again, and made meself a promise.

  ‘Well I hopes you’re happy now,’ says Sal coming back through the door. ‘Look at you. Head looks like an upturned light bulb with hairs growing from it. An’ woss they writ on yer arm?’

  I pulled my sleeve down sharpish. ‘Don’t want no coppers stickin’ their snouts in.’

  ‘Didn’t call coppers. I called—’

  ‘Same diff’rence.’

  ‘Bollocks is it. Coppers can’t fix yer head.’

  I looked at her in the mirror. ‘I don’t want no more trouble, Sal. I’ve had it with trouble. From now on I’m keepin’ me head down and steerin’ clear o’ trouble. Stick to the well-trod path, and don’t ever let nobody lead you astray of it.’

  She looked back at us, then stomped off into the kitchen and made a lot of clattering. A while later she were back. ‘What about me, eh? What about me havin’ the flippin’ Muntons in here makin’ emselves at home? What about that?’ She tugged her towelling dressing gown away from her shoulder, flashing us a bit of cleft. ‘What about me wearin’ nuthin’ but this and hopin’ they’ll be nice and leave us alone? Eh?’ She stepped between meself and my sorry reflection. Her breath stank of fags and vodka—one of my favourite smells as it happens. ‘What about me?’

  ‘Well,’ I says, rubbing my bump. ‘I reckoned you’d have telled us by now if they’d had their way with you.’

  ‘Blake…’ Her eyes welled up.

  I felt a bit sorry for her, if I’m honest. Weren’t her fault she got all het up over a mild bit of aggro. I didn’t blame her that she were putting her pride before the bump on my head and the cunt on my arm. I went to put my arms around her.

  She stepped away. ‘Where’s the old Blake?’

  I looked in the mirror and rolled me eyes and smiled. Just let her get it out.

  ‘Where’s the feller used to pick fellers up and lob em out on the street? Where’s the feller used to knock a man cross-eyed for comin’ across cheeky? Where’s the feller weren’t afraid of no one, least of all coppers and Muntons?’

  ‘That man ain’t been around for some time, Sal.’

  ‘I know.’ She clackety-clacked to the kitchen door and back again. ‘I know. Seems he went missin’ about the time you and me hooked up.’

  ‘That ain’t the reason—’

  ‘Know summat, Blake? I don’t care if it is the reason. I don’t care about much no more. Don’t care about yer tattoo. Don’t care about the bump on yer head. Don’t care about yer problems. And I don’t fuckin’ care about you.’

  I looked in the mirror again and tried to lose meself in them eyes. If I could just do that…if I could just get lost inside me own swede and never find my way out…

  ‘Blake.’ She were yelling now, spit flecking up into me face. I don’t like folks flobbing at us. I put my right hand out and pushed her away. She went down and landed on her back, giving us a brief view up her dressing gown that she’d rather have kept hid just then, like as not. She set her gown straight and got u
p, avoiding eye contact.

  ‘Soz about that, love,’ I says. ‘Just that you was flobbin’…’

  But she were back in the kitchen. After a bit I followed her, but she came bustling back out as I were going in. She opened the front door and says: ‘Out.’

  ‘Aw, come on—’

  ‘Go on. Out.’ She weren’t shouting nor crying nor nothing. She were beyond all that. And when it gets to that, there ain’t much a feller can do.

  She held out a fiver as I were going past her. ‘Here,’ she says, blue eyes flashing. ‘Save you askin’ us for it.’

  I took the note and stepped out. Just as she were closing the door behind us I stuck my boot back in. ‘Sal,’ I says, pushing the door open despite her struggling against it. ‘Last night…’

  ‘What about last night? What the fuck does I know about last night?’

  ‘You were with me, right? I were with you.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I stayed here overnight. Didn’t I. All night.’

  Her face were white and hard like marble. Suddenly I could see what she’d look like thirty year on. ‘Aye, all right.’

  I leaned in to give her a peck, half expecting a belt round the chops. But none of that came. I kissed her cheek. That felt like marble and all. Cold and past caring. I moved away, then looked over me shoulder one last time. ‘And Sal,’ I says.

  ‘What.’

  ‘Couldn’t make that a twenty, could you?’

  12

  You might think I’d have enough to worry about already, but as I were driving homeward all I could think of were scran. I’d not had but a pork pie all morning and I had a right to consider me belly for a change. Full English, I reckoned.

  Reckoned I’d earned it and all.

  So I called in at the corner shop to fetch the essentials. It’d have helped if Sal had crashed us the full twenty like I’d asked her, but I reckoned I could set meself up all right with such funds as I had, which was a fiver. ‘All right, Blake,’ says Doug, the feller who stands behind the counter.

  ‘All right, Doug.’

  ‘Been chargin’ brick walls, eh?’

  ‘Wossat?’

  ‘Yer head.’

  ‘Oh, no. Fell down stairs.’

  ‘Oh aye.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Sorry state of affairs, ennit.’

  ‘Wossat then?’

  ‘Mangel. This blinkin’ town of ours.’

  I were ferreting around in me wallet as he spoke so I reckoned I hid my reaction well. It were obvious he meant the robbery of last night. He’d heard about it and he were having his old man’s rant. ‘Woss happened now then, eh?’ I says, all innocent.

  ‘Woss happened? You, askin’ woss happened?’

  There were summat funny in his voice that I didn’t much take to. I felt me hackles stirring before I could think. But I damped em down, took a deep breath, and says: ‘You’ve lost us, Doug.’

  ‘That’ll be seven pound and tuppence.’

  ‘Oh, aye. Here you go. I’ll give you the two next time, eh.’

  ‘No you will not. You pays full, like everyone else. See that sign? No credit.’

  ‘Aw fuckin’ hell, Doug. Credit? Two fuckin’ pound?’

  ‘And tuppence.’

  For a moment I stood there and gave him my lairiest glare. But I knew it were useless. I’d been owing him a few squid here and there far back as memory went. He knew I were good to pay him, and he knew his till had seen a fair bit of my trade over the years. Course, he didn’t know me and the lads had cleared it out once as younguns. But I reckoned I’d more than paid him back in patronage over the years.

  And now he’d turned on us, the bastard.

  Fuck knew what he’d heard and how many others had heard it, too. But he’d heard summat. And it weren’t good. ‘All right,’ I says. ‘Leave out the fags.’

  He tilled my fiver and gave us the change without a word. I could tell he wanted us out of his shop, but I couldn’t go just yet. For form’s sake. ‘You ain’t telled us woss happened, Doug.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Moanin’ about Mangel an’ that, you was.’

  ‘Oh, aye. Moanin’, were I?’ There it were again, that hard edge to his voice that got to us like a shoe in the teeth.

  ‘Well you tell us what you was doin’ then, Doug.’

  ‘So if a man sees things wrong all around him, and he speaks his mind about it, thass called moanin’, is it?’

  ‘Dunno. S’what it sounded like from here.’

  ‘Well that don’t surprise us. Not one bit.’

  ‘What the fuck is you on about? Robberies is nut’n special these days. Shop owner like yerself oughta allow for one every now and then. Ain’t no point whinin’. Best get yerself a good padlock and shut up.’

  ‘Who mentioned robberies?’

  ‘Y—thass what you was on about, wernit?’

  ‘I were on about this town, Blake. I were on about one thing after another, crime pilin’ atop crime so one day thass what Mangel becomes—one big crime that oughta be hanged by the neck until she hangs still.’

  ‘Know what you needs, Doug? Holidy.’

  ‘Oh aye? And who round here goes on holidy? Noticed summat missing down the High Street, Blake? Holidy shops. Mangel folk don’t travel well, do us. You’re born in Mangel, you stays here, whether you likes her or not. An’ thass fine, ennit. Or it would be without buggers like you fowlin’ her up fer decent folk.’

  ‘Wha…?’ I stared at him. This were the feller sold us milk, fags, and a paper every fucking day, and had done long as time went back. He’d barely spoke more than a word or two about the weather to us before today.

  ‘I knows what you are, Royston Blake. You can’t hide in a place like Mangel. No one can. A man crawls from cradle to grave and folks round here sees it all. They sees what he becomes. An’ iss a wise feller who once spoke of leopards and spots.’

  I were struck dumb, you might say. I could think of no words to summon, and none was coming up off their own steam.

  ‘Go on,’ he yells, breaking us out of me stupor. ‘Take yer vittles and piss off.’

  Climbing in the Capri and starting her up had the effect of calming me nerves no end. As I pulled into our road I were starting to think of me belly again, picturing a fork with a bit of banger, a mushroom, and some fried bread on the end of it, the whole lot dripping with runny yolk. It were quite a thought, and had me guts rumbling their appreciation loud enough to hear it above the knackered exhaust. I were still thinking on it when I pulled up outside the house and got out. But when I saw the copper’s car parked across the way I forgot all about that forkful.

  It were too late to back out. Two coppers was out of the car and approaching us from different angles before I knew it. One of em had a fat head and hands. Other one had bow legs. They was both lanky, but not so’s they had an edge on anyone. I gave em the winningest smile I could muster. Then I recognised em and relaxed quite a bit. ‘All right, lads.’

  ‘All right, Blake.’

  ‘All right, Blake.’

  ‘Bloody hell. If it ain’t Plim and Jonah.’ That’s the thing about Mangel, and places like it. There ain’t many folks you ain’t brushed up against one time or other. ‘Ain’t seen you two fuckers for yonks.’

  ‘Best not speak that way these days, Blake,’ says Plim. ‘Not to officers of the law, leastways.’

  ‘Why not? Spoke to you like it at school.’

  ‘School’s a long way behind, Blake. Folks change.’

  ‘Fuckers is fuckers.’ I knew I were being a cocky cunt but I reckoned I were on safe ground. I’d come away with nothing from robbing Hoppers, and I had an alibi.

  Plim shook his fat head. Jonah just stared at us.

  ‘Hey, lads,’ I says. ‘You knows me. Don’t mean nut’n by it, does I.’

  ‘That looks nasty,’ says Plim, looking at my head. ‘Been beatin’ panels with it, eh?’ They both had a laugh at that.

  �
�Fell down stairs, as it happens. An’ I don’t reckon coppers oughta be mockin’ an accident victim. Does you?’

  They must have agreed with that cos they shut up and took to frowning instead. ‘Woss in the bag, Blake?’ says Jonah.

  ‘Wha? Oh, scran. Don’t believe us? Go on then, have a gander. Fuck sake, can’t even do me shoppin’ these days without—’

  ‘We don’t want no trouble, Blake,’ says Plim, putting his chubby hands up. He’d always been like that at school. Soon as someone starts acting aggro he comes along and damps things down. ‘Less just go on inside, eh? Can we go inside?’

  Jonah grimaced like he had a mouthful of vinegar and ear-wigs. ‘What you doin’ askin’ him? We don’t need his permission.’ Jonah hadn’t changed neither. Still all mouth and no trolleys. I thought about decking the two of em right there in the street. But thinking were far as that one got. They was coppers, after all.

  ‘Come on, Jonah.’ They was whispering now, but I could still hear em. ‘You knows how we’re meant to conduct our investigations these days. Softly softly, an’ that.’

  ‘But we got a fuckin’ search warrant, ain’t us.’

  ‘Aye, but we don’t have to use it. You’re settin’ off on the wrong foot if you pulls—’

  I stopped listening and started thinking. ‘Lads,’ I says. ‘Less not stand out here, eh? Neighbours’ll think I’m a crook.’

  I led em indoors and put the kettle on. When I turned round only Plim were there, blushing. ‘Jonah gone for a slash?’ I says.

  ‘Er…well, he’s just havin’ a quick gander. That’ll be all right, won’ it?’

  I shrugged. ‘Sit.’

  ‘Oh, ta.’ He parked his arse on a wooden chair. It were the one I never sat on being as it seemed fit to break any day. It’d been that way for years, come to think on it. If it didn’t give up under Plim’s heft, I decided, I’d start using it again. ‘So, Blake. How’s it goin’?’

  ‘Sociable visit, this?’

  ‘Well we ain’t here to arrest you, if thass what you’re drivin’ at.’

  ‘I ain’t drivin’ nowhere.’