Fall From Grace

by Menon, David

  SEVEN

  Lorraine Cowley had a visit from her nephew Tyrone. He was twenty-four and had never worked since leaving school with no qualifications at the age of sixteen. It was a badge of honour amongst Lorraine and her friends while there were always immigrants to blame.

  ‘There’s nobody standing up for the likes of us, Tyrone,’ Lorraine asserted. We want money in our pockets and all they do is throw flaming courses at us and tell us we’ve got to prepare for work, whatever the fuck that means.’

  ‘It’s disgusting,’ Tyrone agreed. ‘They’re trying to tell me Dad that they might take his benefits away if he doesn’t turn up for some stupid interview at the job centre.’

  ‘I should hope he told them where to bloody go?’

  ‘Too right, Aunty Lorraine,’ said Tyrone, laughing. ‘You should’ve seen him. He gave them what for alright. He told them there was no point going to work for the crap wages they pay these days and he wasn’t going to pay Cameron’s taxes.’

  ‘Unless you’re foreign,’ said Lorraine.

  ‘Oh aye’ said Tyrone. ‘You can get what you like if you’re Polish.’

  ‘Or one of them Muslims.’

  ‘And they’re all terrorists who should be kicked out of the country,’ said Tyrone.

  ‘And what I want to know is, how come they can carry on as they like whilst I get my benefits for Sam taken off me? Work that one out if you can.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Tyrone. ‘No decent white English person could.’

  ‘And that’s it,’ said Lorraine, ‘decent white English people like us don’t get anything these days. We should be fighting back.’

  ‘Some of us have already started,’ said Tyrone. ‘Me and some of the lads started throwing stones at some of the Muslim kids who were walking home from school the other day. It wasn’t anything they’re not used to. I mean, they go in for stoning and all that out there. It was a right laugh.’

  ‘I’ll bet it was,’ said Lorraine, laughing along with her nephew. ‘And I say you did the right thing. They should be made to feel so unwelcome that they piss off out of it. Somebody should tell the same to that Paul fucking Foster as well. I’m forced to look after my granddaughter whilst her mother is at school. It’s all wrong. Our Anita thinks she can do some stupid job and get her own flat and everything. I’ve never heard anything like it in my life. Everything she needs is here with me. I’ll knock all these stupid ideas out of her if I have to, you mark my bloody word.’

  ‘Is our Sam at the same school now he’s in care?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Lorraine.

  ‘The reason I ask is that the Headmistress, that Price woman, says she’s clamping down on truancy and she’s threatening to take loads of parents to court if they don’t get their kids to school and that.’

  ‘Have you ever heard anything like it!’ Lorraine exclaimed. ‘She’s got no bloody right. She’s another one who fills our kids heads with ideas above their fucking station. Learning? What fucking good is that? Do you want another coffee?’

  ‘Yeah, please, Aunt Lorraine,’ said Tyrone, handing her his mug. ‘Neighbours and Home and Away are on soon.’

  ‘Are you going to stay here and watch them with me?’

  ‘Yeah, sound,’ said Tyrone.

  ‘Tyrone?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Can you lend me thirty quid?’

  ‘Thirty quid? No, I can’t. Thanks to all the immigrants taking all the jobs proper English people like me are broke.’

  ‘I don’t suppose your Dad could help me out either?’

  ‘No,’ said Tyrone. ‘He’s never got any cash, you know that.’

  *

  Lorraine had bitten almost all of her nails off, but she just kept on going. At this rate she’d have none left but she didn’t care. Her daughter Anita was being leaned on by that arsehole of a social worker, Paul Foster, who’d virtually forced her into taking a job at the centre he ran. It was so bloody typical of that sort to want to take a young mother away from her baby, but he even had an answer for that. There was a so-called children’s centre at this place where women from the estate could leave their kids whilst they went to work. He said it would do her and the baby good if she could take some steps towards supporting herself. He should be strung up for even suggesting it.

  It was Paul Foster’s fault that she was now on the bus going to her mate Martha’s house on the Livermore estate just this side of Bolton. Foster was trying to set up a credit union on the Tatton and in the meantime had asked the police to patrol the streets for loan sharks. He had no flaming right! A credit union? More swanky rubbish he wanted to force on them but Lorraine wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of doing what he wanted her to do. She couldn’t go back to Glenn Barber for anymore money. She was too scared to even talk to him. That’s why she was going to get some money off another loan shark on another estate.

  It was possible to buy a one-day pass for the local buses but Lorraine couldn’t be arsed. The driver had said that it would save her money especially as she’d told him she was going to go shopping in Manchester afterwards before going home to the Tatton. But she’d just told him to give her a single ticket to Harrison Road. She didn’t like to shell out all her money in one go even if it would end up saving her. She didn’t like to think that far ahead and she didn’t like anybody telling her what to do.

  When she got there Martha made them both a coffee and the two of them sat in the living room drinking the coffee and smoking a cigarette each.

  ‘Have you heard anything from your Jim?’ Lorraine asked.

  ‘No,’ said Martha. ‘It’s been six months now.’

  ‘Bastard.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind but the social say that now our little Jim is at school I’ve got to think about getting a job,’ said Martha, all affronted. ‘Can you believe that? How can I get a job when my nerves are like they are?’

  When the loan man arrived Lorraine got the shock of her life. It was Glenn Barber. He told Martha to leave them and she did as she was told, noting the look of terror on her friend’s face as she walked out of the room. There was another bloke with Barber whom she hadn’t seen before but who Barber kept referring to as Jake. Barber was in his usual long black leather coat with gloves to match. This Jake character was in a zipped up bomber jacket and jeans. He too was wearing black leather gloves.

  ‘Please, sir, I’m desperate!’ Lorraine begged, ‘I’ve lost all the benefits I got for my son and I didn’t know what else to do, sir, please! Please don’t hurt me, sir, please don’t hurt me!’

  ‘My network stretches far and wide, Lorraine,’ said Glenn in a quiet voice that terrified Lorraine even more. ‘Did you think you’d escape me by coming over here?’

  ‘I didn’t want to escape you, sir, I just needed some money!’ she wailed. Barber and the other bloke who answered to the name of Jake, towered above her making her feel the most vulnerable and petrified she’d ever felt. What were they going to do to her?

  ‘Well if you’d needed some money then why didn’t you just come to me?’ Barber wanted to know. ‘Do you really want to have to satisfy two paymasters? How stupid would that be, Lorraine? But then, you weren’t in the front of the queue when brains were handed out, were you. You’ve always known that a condition of your loan is that you don’t go anywhere else if you need any further funding. Now you’ve broken that condition, Lorraine, and you need to be punished. And that grieves my heart, Lorraine, because it means I’ve got to hurt you.’

  Jake held Lorraine down whilst Martha came in with a steam iron that she plugged in and handed to Barber. She looked at Lorraine and for a moment their eyes met before Martha quickly looked away again.

  Barber placed his hand over Lorraine’s mouth before lifting up the front of her sweater to expose the naked flesh of her stomach.

  Lorraine was so frightened she couldn’t move or even make the most basic of protests over her predicament. All she’d come here for was a few quid to
help her through. That’s all she needed. Just a few quid to help get her back on her feet after the benefits she’d received for Sam had been taken away now that he was in care. The rotten little bastard. He’d be alright now. He’d be with some do-good middle class family who’d never known what it is to suffer.

  ‘You can’t have any more money, Lorraine,’ said Barber, holding the iron in the air whilst it heated up. ‘Your existing debt is already sky high. You’ve no idea. You’ve no idea how to manage your money but you see, the thing is, Lorraine, I should applaud that. I should thank you for being so fucking stupid. But there are limits, Lorraine. There are limits to what even I can tolerate and I’ve reached the level of my tolerance. You thought you’d give your business to some other loan man. Well let me show you what I mean by the word disloyalty.’

  Glenn Barber pressed the button which made the steam blast through the small holes on the iron’s stainless steel surface. Then he placed it down onto the skin of Lorraine’s stomach, branding her like some piece of cattle. She struggled, she cried, she looked like it had really hurt. Barber was pleased.

  ‘So don’t try and go behind my back again, Lorraine,’ said Barber after he’d put the iron down and watched as Lorraine bent over double in pain. ‘Otherwise, it might not be so easy for you next time. Now, you can have some money, Lorraine.’

  Lorraine lifted her head and looked at him in tear-stained bewilderment. ‘I can?’

  ‘Yeah, five hundred do you?’

  ‘But how can I ever pay that much back?’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ said Barber. ‘Your daughter Michaela will pay it all back for you.’

  ‘What do you mean? How can she?’

  Barber gripped her chin firmly. ‘That’s my business. But she won’t be home for her tea tonight and not again for some time. And if you open up your ugly little mouth to about it to anyone then I really will hurt you. Understand?’

  *

  Paul was woken up by a creaking sound coming from the stairs. He swallowed hard. He’d always dreaded a burglar getting in. He could’ve sworn he’d locked the doors. He went cold. He looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was just after half one. He picked up the phone and was about to call the police when his bedroom door opened and Jake came in. Paul sat bolt upright and exclaimed. ‘Fuck’s sake, you gave me a fright!’

  ‘I remembered I still had this,’ said Jake, holding up his key to Paul’s front door. He threw it gently at him. ‘I guess you want it back now.’

  ‘I guess, yeah.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jake who slumped down on the edge of Paul’s bed. ‘I just wanted to talk to you, be with you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why do you need to be with me, Jake?’ Paul asked wearily.

  ‘Because there’s no-one else like you.’

  ‘Don’t mess with my head like this, Jake.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Jake, ‘but I can’t talk to Tiffany about any of it. Please, Paul, let me in tonight. Let me talk to you.’

  Paul had never seen Jake in this state before. His eyes were full of trouble and pain and his whole demeanour spoke loudly of being in need. Paul still loved him. What choice did he have?

  ‘Okay,’ said Paul. He punched the pillows in the space next to him and Jake lay himself down. ‘I’ll sleep some other time.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you everything the other day when I came round.’

  Paul rubbed his eyes, ‘yeah, well I thought as much.’

  ‘I did a really bad thing out there, Paul.’

  Paul held his breath. This wasn’t going to be easy. He turned onto his side and propped his head up by bending his elbow. ‘So tell me.’

  ‘We were out on patrol,’ Jake began as he went all the way back to that day, in a land so many thousands of miles away but which had come right back into his head making him understand that he could never escape, no matter how far he travelled from the reality of what had happened. ‘We were on our way back to base at the time. A bomb had been placed at the roadside which was detonated by remote control as we passed. I watched my two mates, Richie and Errol get literally blown up in front of my eyes. I watched as bits of their bodies scattered across the ground.’

  ‘Oh Christ, Jake,’ said Paul as he squeezed his arm.

  ‘I got out with a few minor burns, just some fucking cuts and bruises.’

  ‘But that wasn’t your fault, Jake,’ said Paul, sensing that Jake was feeling guilty over the loss of his mates. ‘It could easily have been you instead of your mates.’

  Jake pressed a finger into his chest and spoke with an emotion that shook Paul a little. ‘Easy to say but not easy to feel in here.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Paul, wanting to calm him down.

  ‘It wasn’t me, Paul,’ said Jake.

  ‘What do you mean it wasn’t you?’

  ‘It wasn’t me who got blown up,’ said Jake. ‘The vehicle was a fireball but everything around was quiet. I was lying on the ground and there were people just stood there staring, saying nothing, not doing anything to help me.’

  ‘They were probably as terrified as you, Jake.’

  ‘I don’t know how but I still had my rifle in my hand. This local guy stepped forward with something in his hand and I opened fire. He must’ve had half a dozen bullets in him by the time I’d finished. His wife and kids started screaming. They would’ve had me, Paul. The crowd would’ve had me. I saw the hatred in their eyes. And do you know what? All he wanted was to offer me some bread. He sold bread at the roadside and he saw me lying there and wanted to offer me some of it. And I killed him for it. I killed him in cold blood because he tried to show me a bit of humanity with the only thing he had. His wife is a widow and his kids are without their father because of me.’

  ‘It was war, Jake.’

  ‘And they were innocents,’ said Jake. ‘I shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have been in their country, none of us should’ve.’

  ‘You were an innocent too, Jake.’

  ‘Don’t make excuses for me, Paul.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Paul, ‘but I am trying to help you make sense of it.’

  ‘How can I make sense of it? I killed a man for no reason. You don’t have to live with that so please don’t even try and tell me that you can make sense of it.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Paul, ‘but it was just by chance that it wasn’t you, Jake.’

  ‘I know but I still feel the guilt.’

  ‘Well look, tell me how you got out?’

  ‘The patrol that had been following us picked me up. The crowd was shouting and jeering. To them I was evil.’

  ‘You were under pressure, you were scared, and you reacted,’ said Paul, who never imagined that the war in Afghanistan would come right into his bedroom in such a vivid and personal way. ‘And so did the crowd.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m evil then?’

  ‘No I don’t think you’re evil, Jake,’ said Paul. He’d always supported the country’s involvement in Afghanistan. But it had been ten years since the 9/11 attacks and still there was no sign of defeating either the Taliban or al-Qaeda. And young men like Jake were paying the price. He used to think that Britain was far too sentimental about ‘our boys’. They weren’t a conscript army after all. They’d joined up of their own free will. But now he was having his doubts. Were men like Jake out there so that the streets of Britain could be safer? He didn’t know anymore. What he had seen as evidence that it may be worth it, were the millions of Afghanis lining up to vote in the elections there despite the Taliban’s death threats. It had annoyed Paul to compare that with the voting record of those who lived on the Tatton estate. Hardly any of them had bothered to vote in the last general election. The sacrifices of heroic soldiers like Jake were lost on those lazy bastards.

  But he was also quickly realising that it wasn’t just the dead bodies being brought home that symbolised the shadow of death. It was the ones who’d come home and who’d gone through a death inside that sh
ould be added to the list of fatalities. And they were the hardest kind to deal with.

  ‘Tiffany thinks I’m working all night,’ said Jake. ‘I thought I was too but it turns out I’m not needed anymore tonight. My boss has stood me down.’

  ‘Do you want me to make you something to drink before you go home?’

  ‘I don’t want to go home,’ said Jake.

  ‘No, Jake,’ said Paul, sitting up and folding his arms across his bended knees.

  ‘You’re the only one I could’ve talked to about what happened over there,’ Jake pleaded as he raised himself up beside Paul. ‘Paul, I really need to be with you tonight.’

  ‘No, don’t do this to me, Jake! It’s not fair. It’s not fair that you come round here and pour your heart out and then come on to me like this.’

  ‘Please, Paul,’ Jake pleaded, tears filing his eyes. ‘It’s not about that. That makes it sound so dirty.’

  ‘Jake, you’ve made your choice,’ said Paul who was starting to cry himself.

  ‘What if it’s the wrong choice?’

  ‘You’ve got a baby on the way.’

  ‘You can’t send me away, Paul. We both know that.’

  Paul didn’t answer. Then Jake leaned forward and kissed him.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ said Jake as he caressed Paul’s face with his hand and looked straight into his eyes. ‘Let me stay. Please.’