Blood Relatives

by Stevan Alcock

  By t’ time I’d greeted every object in t’ garage I wor bawling my eyes out.

  Back in t’ kitchen, screwdriver in hand, I found Mother wiping a clean glass on a tea towel. Even though t’ glass wor dry she continued wiping it.

  ‘I want rid of t’ dog,’ I said to Mother’s back, caressing the screwdriver handle wi’ my thumb and forefinger. Mother stopped wiping the glass. She set it down and picked up another glass and started wiping that.

  I put an ad in t’ local rag offering to give Max away ‘to a good home’. On t’ first evening there wor a couple of telephone calls that led to nowt, and then after that it went silent. I wor planning on leaving Max tied to a lamppost somewhere when a man telephoned ‘to see if the dog’s still going’.

  The man rolled up in a rusting old Ford Zodiac wi’ a loose rear bumper. He had his wife and three small kids in tow, and another dog, a terrier, wor yapping and throwing itsen against t’ rear side window. He wor a bony-shouldered bloke who moved like he couldn’t quite manage his limbs, and his wife wor a mousy little thing in black slacks and a blue anorak who wor constantly pushing her hair back behind one ear. The kids and the terrier stayed in t’ car. The man kept nuzzling Max’s ears and saying to his wife, ‘We can’t turn this one down, luv, we just can’t.’

  I could see that she worn’t keen.

  Mandy came out to ogle t’scene, squished her lower lip and went back indoors.

  The man shook my hand and the deal wor done. I gave his wife Max’s lead and dog bowl and a half-full bag of dog bikkies. They didn’t want the basket. Max went without any fuss, but his tail wor drooped, and he gave me one last mournful look, like he thought he wor being carted off to t’ knackers’ yard.

  When Mother came home from Nora’s a bit later I told her I’d given the dog away. She smoked a ciggie down to t’ butt and said I should try to get shot of t’ kennel an all. Then she said she wor intending to visit Gran the next day. I guessed Nora had been blathering on to her about it. Mother said she wanted me to go wi’ her. I reluctantly agreed.

  At the nursing home there wor this empty space where Bobby’s chair had been, and there wor a new girl on reception wi’ dark-brown bangs jiggling before her eyes. There worn’t no Mr Kipling cakes neither. The new girl had the radio turned up loud and wor filling out a crossword book. I asked her about Bobby. She looked blank, so I told here he wor t’ man in t’ wheelchair who’d been abandoned there as a nipper and who turned the pages of his book wi’ a stick he held ’tween his teeth. She said she’d only started last month and that no one like that wor there then, so she knew nowt about it.

  We could hear raised voices echoing along t’ corridor, but no one wor to be seen. Gran wor in her room. She’d been got out of bed and plonked in her bedside chair. The bed had been stripped, except for a rubber sheet covering t’ mattress. My thoughts wor snagged on Bobby. Maybe they’d done away wi’ him? Or shipped him off somewhere where he couldn’t read his books on t’ music stand or listen to t’ radio?

  Mother patted the edge of t’ bed to check that it wor dry, then sat down on it and took Gran’s speckly hand. It lay lifelessly in Mother’s palm like a small dead fish. I perched my backside on t’ arm of her commode. She’d closed her eyes tightly, as if waiting for or willing us to be gone.

  Mother looked earnestly at Gran and said, ‘Mitch has gone. I’m a widow now. Like you. Rick’s the man about t’ place now.’

  I breathed steadily, said nowt.

  Mother changed tack. ‘When I wor small, about seven or eight, I took a pound note out your purse. I knew it wor wrong, but it wor that wrongness that thrilled me. I remember standing by t’ back door wi’ it in my hand. It wor a bright, breezy day. I wor holding the note by my fingertips. Then I let it go, watched it swirl across t’ yard and pin itsen to t’ back fence. I ran after it, but just as I reached the fence the breeze tossed it high up into t’ air and away it went. The next day, you and Dad had a proper barney over t’ housekeeping money. I’d never seen him so mad. You wor crying and your purse wor on t’ table between you, so I knew I’d been the cause of it.’

  ‘What,’ I said, ‘is to be gained by this? If you want to confess summat, go to t’ proper place.’

  ‘This feels like t’ proper place.’

  She took a tissue from her handbag and sniffled into it. Gran’s closed lids flickered.

  Mother went on. ‘Did I want too much? A proper family, decent kids, food on t’ table – just like most folk. Wor that too much to ask? Maybe that’s the trouble wi’ this life – we all want too much, don’t we?’

  She clipped the handbag shut, smoothed her skirt wi’ her palms and rose to leave.

  In t’ bus shelter outside t’ main gates wor a poster that read:

  Ignore the Ripper,

  and he’ll go away

  … to kill again.

  When we got home, I helped Mother collect all Mitch’s clothes together and burn ’em in an old water drum. My own confessions would have to wait.

  ‘Corona, Mrs Husk!’

  Mrs Husk wor leaning against t’ dining table, mashing up a small dish of cat food wi’ a fork. Lord Snooty wor sashaying about her swollen ankles, his tail erect, the tip swaying gently.

  As Mrs Husk turned slowly toward me I swore I heard the creak and strain of her neck sinews, like an old ship’s timbers. I thought I saw t’ hint of a smile cross her lips, and a flickering in her rheumy old eyes. She laid the fork aside and set the dish at the far end of t’ table. Lord Snooty leapt up elegantly and, purring loudly, began licking away at the dish edges.

  ‘So you’re back.’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘That lad who wor on while you wor off – I didn’t take to him none.’

  ‘Steve?’

  ‘Never did get his name. In and out of here like a rocket on wheels, he wor.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, Mrs Husk.’

  I set her ginger beer bottle on t’ table, took the dish of cat food and put it down on t’ floor. Lord Snooty protested briefly at his dinner being moved, then attacked it again.

  ‘You’re late this morning.’

  As if Mrs Husk wor keeping anyone waiting save her maker. God must be tapping his watch wi’ a frown. Not only had we been late starting out, but then Eric made a detour to sell ten crates of Coke to some newsagent. Only when we got there his missus said he’d gone to Pakistan on urgent business and she knew nowt about buying ten crates of Coke from Corona and shooed us out of t’ shop wi’ flaps of her painted hands, her gold wrist bracelets jiggling like sleighbells.

  ‘Sit,’ said Mrs Husk, motioning toward one of t’ dining chairs. Her wig sat askew on her head, as if it wor about to slip off.

  ‘Your leg?’

  ‘The leg can wait.’

  I pulled out a dining chair and sat on its edge. Mrs Husk clasped the teapot wi’ both hands, then poured a cup. Lord Snooty cocked his head and miaowed.

  ‘It’s still warm.’

  ‘Mrs Husk, I haven’t got time …’

  The tea worn’t for me. She held the cup in her left hand and slurped from it noisily ’til nowt save t’ dregs wor left. Then she upended the leaves onto a saucer. The saucer had a crack running through t’ rose pattern. She bent over t’ saucer, staring down into t’ leaves as if searching for a foreign body, her lips moving soundlessly. A fly clung to her hairnet, twitching the air, ’til she moved her head a smidgen and the fly took off sharpish.

  ‘What is it, Mrs Husk? What do you see?’ I wor itching to be gone.

  When she finally spoke, her voice wor thick, the words gurgling in t’ back of her throat. ‘I see a girl, or perhaps a young woman … an iceberg … a knife … a copse, no, not a copse … tall trees … yes, tall trees along a path, perhaps in a park. It’s hard to see … it’s night. Wait … Ah, I can see her better now, yes. She’s happy, she’s gay. But danger lurks.’

  ‘She’s gay?’

  ‘Yes, yes, hidden danger … the iceberg … She’
s been to see her grandfolk, and now she’s making her way home. Beneath t’ trees. Yes, home.’

  Her tea-leaf nonsense wor rattling me. Maybe Mrs Husk wor leaving the building. Wi’ her left hand she gripped the table edge.

  ‘A wolf, or someone wolf-like, is stalking her,’ she said, her wheezy voice rising and tightening. ‘Oh, he’s closer. The danger is walking toward her, not she toward it. She’s heading home. She has summat that she wants to show off, summat shiny … like gold.’

  ‘Gold?’

  ‘Gold. It’s time itsen. She wor showing her grandfolk time itsen, time all gleaming and gold, and now … and now he is upon her, and … Time stops!’

  Mrs Husk wor sucking in air. Then wi’ a sweep of her hand she sent t’ saucer skating off t’ table. Lord Snooty miaowed in protest and leapt away.

  ‘Mrs Husk?’

  I bent down to pick up the saucer from t’ floor. It had cracked clean along t’ fissure, split in two.

  ‘Soon!’ Mrs Husk breathed. ‘Soon!’

  I shuddered. ‘I should be going, Mrs Husk. Time don’t wait for t’ living.’

  I wor gone like a greyhound out of a trap, not waiting for her ginger beer money.

  Josephine Whitaker

  04/04/1979

  How many Halifaxes are there in t’ world? Some places are like that – you see t’ name on road signs, trucks and vans, but you never think you’ll ever visit. Not unless you end up there by happenstance.

  There wor a Halifax in Nova Scotia, I’d seen it on t’ globe in school. That’s two Halifaxes. I guessed there must be others spread about. I pondered on how confusing that must be for t’ post.

  HE had gone to Halifax. Driven there wi’ intent. It had been nigh on a year since his last topping, and it seemed that he wor fading from our minds, but truth be known he wor just cowering amongst all t’ junk that wor stashed in t’ attic.

  The police took a few days to confirm that it wor HIM. The ‘characteristics’, confirmed the pathologist, wor t’ hallmarks of HIM. She wor another innocent, as they said, a young girl on her way home from her grandfolks’, where she’d been to show them her new watch. Josephine even worked for the friggin’ Halifax Building Society.

  It wor only some time later that I made the connection wi’ Mrs Husk and the tea leaves. I told her she should go to t’ cops, tell ’em what she knew, but she wor having none of it.

  ‘What use would there be?’

  I pleaded wi’ her, and said that if she didn’t, I would. She listened on while stroking Lord Snooty beneath his chin.

  While we wor reloading the van, I spilled all to Eric about Mrs Husk and the tea leaves.

  ‘Karen’s really into all that stuff,’ he said. ‘You know, horoscopes and palm readings and the like. I didn’t realise how much ’til we went to Morecambe for a day out. We left the little one wi’ Karen’s folks, and took off. We’d just done t’ dolphinarium and wor sitting on t’ pier when Karen spotted one of them Gypsy Rose palm-reading tents. I never put much store in it – you pays good money to be told all sorts of stuff and nonsense, but she thought it would be a lark, so in she went while I waited outside. When she came out, she wor in a black mood. I wor half-minded to stomp in there and ask for our money back. She wouldn’t let on what she’d been told.’

  ‘That’s cos if you reveal it, it won’t happen.’

  ‘Well then, if it wor bad news, she should have said, shouldn’t she, to break the curse.’

  ‘No, you can’t do that neither – it doubles the trouble.’

  ‘Is that right? Well, maybe it did double anyway. We’d just left the pier when it started to rain. We’d had lunch already, so we went into t’ wax museum. Have you ever seen that place?’

  ‘Never been to Morecambe.’

  ‘Oh, you should go. First week of September’s good, when t’ lights are on. But if you do, avoid the wax museum. The models of t’ famous people are all tatty, and don’t look nothin’ like them. I mean, there wor one that wor supposed to be Neil Armstrong, but it wor just a mannequin in a space helmet – it could have been anyone. Then there’s this separate inner bit – “the Macabre Torso Room”. Really gruesome stuff, like models of pregnant women cut open so you can see t’ babby inside. Who wants to see that? And others wi’ their faces half eaten away wi’ syphilis. I tell you, a quick shufty in there wor more than enough for me. But Karen wor fascinated. After we left, she took me by t’ arm, and she wor trilling like a budgie for t’ rest of t’ day. Womenfolk, eh?’

  ‘I bet it had summat to do wi’ t’ fortune-teller. Only she couldn’t say.’

  ‘You think? On t’ way out I told the man who sold the tickets what I thought about his Torso Room. He said it wor what pulled in t’ punters. Without the Torso Room, he said he might as well shut up shop.’

  Sis had left her diary on t’ sofa, so I opened it at random and took mesen a peek. Since Mitch’s death she didn’t keep a proper diary no more, just a big exercise book that she scrawled and scribbled in. She worn’t much cop at keeping it up to date. Sometimes months went by without an entry.

  The page wor full of friggin’ ticks. It wor all about her new boyfriend. Some goon called Marcus. Every entry wor numbered and followed by a tick ’til last one.

  1. I have new boyfriend √

  2. His name is Marcus √

  3. He’s year older than me √

  4. He eats licorice sweets that make his tongue turn black and then he tries to snog me.

  Then she’d written: ‘Note to self. Must change that.’

  I bet I could make his tongue loll, sis.

  ‘We’ve all got inner rooms.’

  Damned if I knew what Gordon meant by that. We wor taking a drive out of town in t’ Humber. On t’ way I’d been blathering on about Mrs Husk, and Eric and Karen in Morecambe.

  At Blubberhouses Gordon swung a left toward Fewston reservoir. We parked up on t’ bridge that wor also t’ dam wall and got out. It wor a fine spring day, bright and blustery, the sunlight punching holes in t’ clouds, and I stood there beneath t’ restless giant sky, the wind tugging at my hair and making my donkey-jacket collar flap like a flag’s edges.

  We leant over t’ parapet and looked down on t’ sky reflecting in t’ water. Gordon’s ciggie smoke wor snaking away.

  Gordon said, ‘I popped by Radclyffe Hall and saw Terry. I thought it wise to put them in the frame.’

  ‘Ta.’

  ‘Fazel’s still there, you know. His visa doesn’t expire until July – the end of the academic year, I suppose. Poor boy. Do you think he’ll get to New York? Apparently he has a brother there. Terry’s suggested he should seek political asylum.’

  ‘But they won’t give him asylum just for being gay.’

  ‘No, indeed. Maybe the Dutch would give it, but he would need to prove persecution. It helps that his mother and sister have gone to Egypt. That’s where the Shah went when he first went into exile, incidentally.’

  ‘Fazel told me he hates him.’

  ‘The Shah? Right now, my boy, it’s a case of lesser evils and self-preservation.’

  A pair of ducks skimmed over t’ surface of t’ water, quacking noisily.

  ‘Well, when he does go, I won’t be taking his room. I can’t now, can I?’

  ‘Your mother …’

  ‘She’ll have to go out and work. Get a proper job. Wi’ Mandy and me both earning, we’ll be right.’

  The copper on duty at Mill Street cop shop had his elbows on t’ desk, and his head bent over a form. On t’ wall to his left wor a photo-fit poster of HIM. It looked a lot like Jason King.

  The cop knew I wor standing there, waiting for him to look up, but he worn’t going to hurry himsen.

  I scuffed my boot toecaps against t’ bottom of his desk. He continued to ignore me, so I hacked up a cough, and his shoulders tightened. He pushed the form aside, but only so far that he could get back to it as soon as he’d dealt wi’ me.

  ‘Yes?’

  The whites
of his eyes wor mapped in fine red cracks. He had a prominent wart on his temple.

  On t’ bus I’d been going over and over what I’d say – ‘I know this old biddy who can read the tea leaves. She can see into t’ future, and she knows when and where t’ next one will be’ – but now I wor here, it wor clear as daylight how gormless that would sound. Likely as not I’d be dismissed as just another barmpot.

  ‘Sorry. I’ve made a mistake. It wor nowt. Sorry.’

  The officer pulled the form back beneath his nose and resumed scribbling. I walked out.

  When I got home, Mandy waylaid me in t’ kitchen.

  ‘There’s this girl who’s showed up. Says she knows you. She wor in a bit of a state, so I let her in and gave her a mug of Nescaf.’ She nodded toward t’ lounge. ‘In there. I wouldn’t let Mother catch sight of her. She looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge twice over, and whiffs like she ain’t washed in a while.’

  I opened the lounge door.

  ‘Gina!’

  She wor huddled in front of t’ gas fire, turned away from me. Hearing her name, she jerked her head slightly, but kept her face hidden behind her hair, which wor longer now, and had grown back to its natural mousy brown. I went over to her, and touched her lightly on t’ arm. In spite of t’ fire her skin wor cold and clammy. She wor sodden wet, soaked wretched. She looked up at me wi’ mournful puppy eyes and wiped one hand ’cross her nose.

  ‘Can I stay?’ she said, barely whispering.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Is she your sister? She’s pretty.’

  I kept shtumm.

  ‘Please. Let me stay. Just for tonight. I’ll be gone in the morning.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  She turned away again, as if the answer lay in t’ glimmering plastic coals.