Blood Relatives

by Stevan Alcock

  I went down on my knees before t’ record player, made a small shrine out of a T. Rex photo, some badges, an old concert ticket stub I’d bought in Leeds market and some half-wilted flowers I’d filched from t’ neighbours’ front garden. Then I played the whole of Electric Warrior and The Slider, and genuflected. I didn’t know if I should cross left to right or right to left, and if doing it wrong I wor cursing him to Satan, so I did it both ways to cover all t’ bases.

  ‘One day it will be my turn,’ I murmured to t’ makeshift shrine, ‘to become famous and die, or to die and become famous. Fate will decide …’

  Even though Eric had been back at work a while, he wor still down in t’ mouth cos his granddad wor kipping wi’ t’ worms. He sure milked it on t’ round – all that sympathy from his doorstep women. He’d leave me in t’ van while he wor shedding the odd tear or two wi’ some housewife who’d answered the door in a see-through blouse or a loosely bunched bathrobe.

  When I started to tell him how it felt losing Marc he cut me short sharpish, and told me to rebuild the load, cos all t’ Tango lemon wor at the bottom under t’ empties. Not that we shifted much Tango lemon.

  We did some four-storey maisonettes and a couple of tower blocks before lunch. Eric said we didn’t need to deliver to anyone above t’ sixth floor, unless they wor regular orders of three or more bottles. ‘Takes up too much time,’ he said.

  Over t’ usual lunch of chip butties and curry sauce he told me that the worst of it worn’t his granddad dying, but that his mum didn’t even know.

  ‘When she walks back into our lives,’ he said, ‘I’m the one who’ll have to tell her, won’t I?’

  That’s the trouble wi’ families, I wor thinking. Either you’re trying to find someone, or trying to lose someone. Pity you can’t just build your family out of Lego bricks, and then if you don’t like it, tear it down and build another one.

  Jean Royle (also known as Jean Jordan)

  01/10/1977

  In t’ months since I last saw Tad tearing down t’ Sunbridge Road, Paradise Buildings had been cleared by bailiffs, and corrugated metal sheets had been nailed over t’ doorways. Tad still popped up in my head like Mr Punch whenever I wor tugging mesen off.

  I kept a lookout for him at the FK Club and in t’ Mannville Arms, but he never showed. When I worn’t in t’ FK or t’ Mannville, I hung around various gay watering holes, drinking away t’ hours, feeling like all life wor happening at t’other end of a telescope from me.

  Sometimes I headed over to Radclyffe Hall. Sometimes Camp David wor there, sometimes Fazel, or even Fizzy, but most times it wor just Terry. Whenever he answered the door he would inform me drily, ‘There’s no one home,’ as if he himsen wor of interest to no one.

  ‘Make yourself some tea,’ he’d say, before leaving me alone in t’ kitchen, waiting. I’d sit there, leafing through yesterday’s papers and downing their tea and toast. If no one showed up, I’d leave.

  Then one time I wor contemplating attacking the Radclyffe Hall washing up out of fart-furnishing boredom, when t’ doorbell rang. I waited for Terry to get it, but when it rang again, and more persistently, I answered it mesen, expecting the leccy man or t’ postman or some such person. Instead, I found Gordon.

  ‘Rick! What a delightfully agreeable surprise.’

  We whiled away an hour in Radclyffe Hall’s scuzzy kitchen, drinking more friggin’ tea, Gordon smoking his way through half a packet of ciggies, ’til it wor as plain as a pig’s backside that no one else wor going to show their face that day. Gordon exhaled and looked at me soppily.

  ‘You know, Rick, I don’t own very much – the car of course, a sizeable collection of 78s, and an old gramophone that I’ve had since new. I’m not entirely sure what to do about the car, but I want you to know I intend to leave my entire collection of 78s and the gramophone to you.’

  ‘Me? What for? Not about to peg it are you?’

  ‘I certainly hope not. Mind you,’ he continued, pausing to hack up a cough, ‘I don’t imagine these things help.’

  ‘Don’t talk daft, Gordon. Anyway, what have I done to be so deserving?’

  I had absolutely no interest in his 78 collection. Mind you, they might be worth a bob or two. Mitch might know where to get a good price. Gordon leant back in his chair and puffed merrily.

  ‘Addicted to the spin, my mother used to say. She was right. I can look at the grooves in a 78 and tell you which part is the orchestra, where the horns come in. All that, just by holding it to the light.’

  ‘I’m impressed, Gordon.’

  ‘Something about the patina, the ageing, the decay even, of a 78 that makes it so alluring. The beauty of shellac.’ He leant toward me confidingly. ‘You know what shellac is?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘It comes from the lac beetle. Hence shell and lac.’

  ‘I didn’t know that, Gordon, truly I didn’t. So the death of t’ 78 saved the lac beetle then?’

  Gordon rocked back and laughed ’til he had a coughing fit, which he settled wi’ a large slurp of lukewarm tea.

  ‘Possibly so!’

  He ground his ciggie into his saucer. ‘I want the collection to go to a good home. I certainly don’t want my sister to have it – she’d just sell the lot.’

  ‘Gordon, please don’t be soppy. I hate it when you’re soppy.’

  ‘My mind is made up. The collection is to be yours.’

  I figured Gordon had a good ten year on t’ mileage clock, so I cast off t’ guff about t’ 78 collection. It wor just Gordon being gooey.

  It wor t’ Saturday evening before bonfire night and we wor glued to t’ telly, watching The Generation Game, when t’ doorbell chimed. Mitch had recently fitted up a doorbell that played different tunes, so it plink-plonked gamely through ‘Greensleeves’. A cartload more wor stashed in t’ garage. Mitch said to me quietly that I wor to say nowt about t’ boxes of door chimes, and that he wor going to sell them on to some bloke over Shipley way.

  Mother rose from her armchair, chuntering on about some bloody woman wi’ her charity envelopes wanting to bleed us dry. She reappeared moments later. ‘Mitch, it’s the police.’

  Mitch uprighted himsen sharpish from his slovenly position and flattened his hair across his bald patch. The constables apologised for disturbing us during The Generation Game. They took off their helmets. Mother turned off t’ telly, plunging the room into a funereal silence that wor punctured by some kids letting off fireworks up the street. Mitch coughed and invited the constables to sit.

  One of them sat himsen on t’ edge of t’ sofa, t’other remained standing. Mother offered them tea, which they declined. Apparently they’d just had a cuppa across t’ way, wi’ t’ Gudgeons at number 44.

  ‘I hope she didn’t use her cracked mugs,’ Mother said wi’ a queer little cackle. She fetched a plate of bikkies – ‘Just in case you boys might be peckish.’

  The seated constable, whose hair wor very black and curly and who had a small, neatly kept moustache, kneaded his forehead wi’ his thumb, as if wearily mustering his energies. He cleared his throat and apologised again. ‘We’re making door-to-door inquiries concerning a murder.’

  ‘Jean Royle?’ Mother replied, as if she knew her personally.

  He nodded.

  ‘It wor all over t’ papers. Changed his patch to Manchester, I see. Getting too hot for him, is it, on this side of t’ Pennines?’

  ‘We certainly hope so.’

  Mitch stopped picking at his fingernails, and wor trying on his attentive face. Mother’s shoulders relaxed. ‘She worn’t an innocent though, this one?’

  The standing constable spoke. ‘We have cause to believe that she may have been a working girl.’

  The standing constable took a bikkie, which Mother clearly saw as a small victory of sorts.

  The seated constable ploughed drily through some questions, like his tongue wor sticking to his mouth. He directed most of them at Mitch. He asked him about his job, wh
ere he worked, what he did, if he knew his friggin’ blood group, what car he drove, how long he’d owned it. He then asked for his shoe size, and whether his job took him over Manchester way or up to Tyneside. Mitch answered all these questions plainly.

  The constable then wanted to know exactly when Mitch had changed his car, then why and where. Mitch half-rose from his chair, offering to get the address in Heaton, but the constable told him that worn’t necessary, as they had a lot to get through.

  Then he looked at me, and asked me my age.

  ‘Nearly eighteen,’ I replied, grabbing a bikkie from off t’ plate and ignoring Mother’s frown.

  I watched him scribbling. He had hairs sprouting from t’ backs of his fingers. And two wayward single ones springing from his pronounced Adam’s apple. I imagined him starkers.

  ‘Anyone else reside at this address?’

  Mitch coughed, clearing his throat. ‘My daughter, Mandy. She’s gone to t’ cinema wi’ her boyfriend to see …’ He looked at me for t’ answer.

  ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic.’

  ‘Aye. That one.’

  While t’ seated constable questioned and scribbled, t’other one – the younger one wi’ t’ baby-faced cheeks – wor nosing about t’ room. Naked, he would be less hairy than his mate, if slightly flabbier. He took a long gander at the collection of framed photos on t’ windowsill. He picked up the one of me taken at the end of year four, looked at me now, smirked, then set it down again. I smirked back. Mother watched him, kneading her wedding ring. The seated constable turned to Mitch. I imagined both constables starkers. Wi’ me in t’ middle.

  ‘Make sure your daughter gets home safely, Mr Thorpe. Where were you on the 1st of October? A Saturday.’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Mitch. ‘That wor weeks ago.’

  ‘Saturday the 1st,’ Mother said slowly, as if ruminating. ‘Wor Leeds playing at home or away, officer?’

  ‘Away,’ rosy-nosey constable replied cheerily. ‘Against Chelsea. I got that weekend off.’

  ‘2–1 to Leeds,’ Mitch said, groping his way toward some common ground. ‘Lorimer scored the second.’ He found none.

  ‘So, you remember that, but you don’t remember what you were doing or where you wor on the 1st of October? In particular, that evening. I mean, did you stay in? Go out?’

  Mitch scratched his nose a tad too much.

  ‘We have to follow everything up, you understand.’ The constable clicked his ballpoint on and off repeatedly. ‘You know,’ he sighed, ‘you should see the piles of paperwork back at Millgarth station. So much paper, great stacks of reports and notes and jottings. Confessions from hysterical women who think their husband’s a serial killer, or sad gits who want to confess that they’re the murderer. This business has brought them all out of the woodwork. We’ve got hundreds of confessions, maybe thousands. They can’t tell you one bloody thing about the murders. The women swear blind that their husbands or boyfriends were at or near the scene of the crime, or that they know for certain that the Ripper is the chap next door, or the name of the murderer came to them in a dream …’ He paused, wiped his eyes wi’ his forefingers. ‘But it all has to be gone into. All has to be logged.’ He clicked the ballpoint head. ‘And on the 9th, the following Sunday?’

  Mother replied wi’ an arid little laugh that she could barely recall what she’d been doing yesterday, let alone on a date plucked from t’ calendar. Then she added, ‘I visit my mother twice a week. She’s in a nursing home, you understand.’

  The constable scribbled. He wanted to know if this wor on t’ same days or evenings every week. Mother’s neck vein made a single gloop.

  ‘Not always, no.’

  The constable scribbled again, then paused, his pen hovering over his notebook.

  Mother said, ‘Mitch, worn’t that the day you went over to …?’

  ‘No,’ said Mitch quickly. ‘You’re wrong there, Pam. That wor t’ week before.’

  He caught her eye. I saw it. A fleeting exchange at once understood. Mother offered up the plate of bikkies, which the seated constable declined, and a version of t’ truth, which he accepted.

  ‘We wor right here, at home as usual. My husband wor watching the telly … and I … I wor … you know … well, being a housewife.’

  Finally done, the constables thanked us, excused themsens and left.

  No sooner had the door closed than Mother’s expression shifted like we’d switched TV channel. The neck vein wor glooping furiously now.

  ‘So where wor you then?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Don’t give me that, Mitch. You know perfectly well when. The 1st of October. You certainly worn’t at ’ome.’

  ‘Went to Shipley. Like I said. Had summat to sort out.’

  Mother’s jaw tightened. She collected up the mugs and the plate of bikkies and went into t’ kitchen.

  Mitch harrumphed and switched on t’ telly again, just as the Generation Game prizes – an electric blanket! – a slow cooker! – a giant cuddly toy! – a set of kitchen knives! – wor whizzing by on t’ conveyor belt.

  A brand-new five-pound note had been found in Jean Royle’s handbag. The papers wor saying that this wor t’ note that HE had most likely used to pay her wi’. It had been traced to t’ Bingley/Cottingley areas of Yorkshire. It had most likely been part of a wage payout to a business in t’ Bingley or Shipley area. Then came t’ appeals on t’ telly, t’ radio and in t’ papers. Wives, it wor suggested, should look in their husbands’ wallets, or their paypackets. ‘If it’s from the same bundle of notes, then we’ll know which firm the money was issued to.’

  When I came home late that evening from t’ FK Club I found the kitchen crockery all smashed up and Mother curled up in t’ corner next to t’ fridge, sobbing.

  ‘Mum?’ She turned her head slightly. ‘What the heck …?’

  Glass and porcelain pieces scrunched beneath my boots as I crossed the floor and crouched beside her. ‘Did he hurt you?’

  She had her arm crooked about her head. Her shoulders convulsed. I wrapped my arms around her and stroked the crown of her head, waiting ’til she wor ready to talk about it. She swallowed hard, as if coming up for air.

  ‘My fault,’ she wor muttering. ‘All my stupid fault.’

  ‘How can this be your fault?’

  She turned her face toward mine. Between hiccupping and gulping, speaking in a hoarse whisper, she unfolded the whole caboodle. How she’d been barneying wi’ Mitch about that night in October, the 1st of t’ month. How he’d stormed out and left his old jacket, wi’ t’ torn lining, draped across t’ back of a kitchen chair. How she’d taken his wage packet from t’ right pocket, a square, buff envelope containing several folded banknotes. How she’d scanned the serial numbers for a match wi’ t’ one she’d torn from t’ Evening Post – AW51121565 – the number of t’ note found in Jean Royle’s handbag. The note HE had paid her wi’ for sex.

  ‘I didn’t hear him coming back,’ she sobbed. ‘He’d forgotten his mitts.’

  I moved aside a few of t’ bigger broken pieces close to me. The red plastic draining board lying on its side, the upended kitchen chair, the hanging cupboard doors told their own story. So did the tell-tale puffiness that wor already rising beneath one eye. A sea of jagged shards glinted beneath t’ kitchen tube light, where flies collected to die.

  ‘Where’s Mand?’

  Mother shook her head. ‘She wor here, but … I dunno. I heard her leave, I think.’

  ‘And Mitch?’

  ‘Took the car.’

  I bounded upstairs and flung open t’ door to Mandy’s room. Discarded clothes covered the bed. Shoes on t’ floor. The dressing table had make-up powder skidmarks as if it had all been swept into a bag. I yanked open t’ dressing-table top drawer. Empty. No smalls, and no diary.

  When I came back downstairs Mother had got to her feet and wor leant against t’ fridge door, staring down at the debris. Some of t’ fridge magnets had been dislodged.


  I found a dustpan and brush in t’ cupboard and passed them to her.

  ‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘Let him see it. Let him walk over it.’

  I set the dustpan down. Mother lit a ciggie and sucked on it.

  ‘At least he apologised.’

  ‘Apologised?’

  ‘To all this. To all t’ things he smashed. He apologised to each and every one. Like he wor killing it.’

  Mother went to bed, red-eyed and exhausted. When I looked in on her she wor fast asleep, her hair hanging across her cheek. Her clothes lay in a mess on t’ floor beside t’ bed. I went back downstairs and swept up all t’ broken crockery and emptied the pieces into t’ dustbin. I stood for a while wi’ my back against t’ sink, my fingers steepled against my nose.

  Mitch didn’t show ’til early morning. I heard him crash against t’ hallway telephone table, swearing loudly, drunkenly climbing the stairs. I lay very still. I heard him in t’ bathroom, the tap running for a long time. I heard t’ toilet flush. I heard nowt more after that.

  The next day Mitch wor hiding himsen away in t’ garage. The side door to t’ garage wor warped, and it scraped the floor as I shoved it open. Mitch didn’t look up, but he knew I wor there. He wor nailing a piece of wood. He took a second nail that he wor holding between his lips and hammered it into t’ plank too hard and for too long.

  I spied his old bottle opener, dangling from t’ workbench on a string. When I wor eight–nine–ten Mitch would make me sit wi’ him in this garage, even though I wor itching to be elsewhere. We’d play a game of trying to flick beer-bottle tops into t’ wastebin. I wor encouraged to try drinking beer. I pretended to like it, even though I didn’t. I pretended to like it all – the beer, the footie banter, the darts we played hour after hour. He’d always beat me, cos I wor bored. At that age I wanted to please him. Tried my friggin’ hardest.

  ‘I want you to stop punishing her,’ I said.

  His fingers tightened around t’ hammer handle. He wor building what looked like an oversized dolls’ house.