Blood Relatives (12 page)

Thursday: The biology teacher, Mrs Burton, kept all the fifth year girls back after class. She looked at us all like she was going to burst a blood vessel and shouted ‘Who has been scrawling their name on the brand new desks? Alice Cooper, stand up now!’

Priceless, sis. Just priceless.

My next day off work I schlepped mesen over to Paradise Buildings on t’ off-chance of catching Tad. I had my plan. I’d say I needed another haircut from Jeremy, which wor a truth of sorts. I wor done wi’ my old high-street barber’s, wi’ its black-and-white photos of neatly shorn necks and perfect partings, squeaky chairs wi’ gashes in t’ red plastic, the smell of talc and rancid barber’s breath as he breathed into your ear, ‘How does sir want it?’ then turned everyone out the friggin’ same.

I buzzed the bell wires together and waited. I wor about to give up when t’ door wor swung open by one of t’ junkies. He scowled and said, ‘Oh, it’s you,’ wi’ a disappointed sneer. I followed him up the stairs.

‘Are they at home?’ I said as we reached the kitchen level.

‘Who?’

‘Gina, Jeremy, Tad.’

‘Haven’t seen ’em.’

The junkie wandered off into another room.

Left on my tod, I moseyed about. In t’ sunlight filtering through t’ old industrial windows dust motes danced on t’ air. At one end I noticed for t’ first time a wooden trapdoor in t’ floor, and hanging above it a rusting industrial winch.

I took the stairs up another level and pushed through some grey fire doors that led onto a corridor of cell-like rooms. I had slept here that first night. Each room had a small, square window of reinforced wire-glass and a cast-iron radiator beneath. The first room had no door, and there was nowt in it ’cept for a pile of wood and a bicycle wheel. The next wor empty save some tins of paint. The door to t’ next one along wor slightly ajar. Cautiously, I pushed it open. Inside wor a mattress on wooden pallets, an ashtray on a sisal mat, a dead plant on an old wooden chair and, blu-tacked to t’ wall over t’ bed, a few mag pics of big skies and some lush countryside.

‘Looking for someone?’

I jerked round. Tad, shirtless, sockless, in trackie keks, had emerged from one of t’ cell rooms further along. He wor eyeing me warily, curling his lower lip, as if he’d come upon a trespasser.

‘Hey, Tad,’ I said, taking a step toward him. He flinched as if a fly had skirted his face. ‘Jeremy about? I wor hoping he could give me a haircut.’

‘Is that right? Well, you’ve missed him. He’s out, wi’ Gina.’

‘Pity.’

My eyes flitted over him: the tattoos, the appendix scar, the soft hairs on his forearms, like pale, single sheaves of wheat in t’ glinting sun. He sensed me eyeing him, and crossed his arms over his chest. We wor standing a little apart, like there wor a chalk line between us that neither could cross. I looked down at his feet. His big toe wor precisely that – big – and it veered slightly away from t’other toes. Each wide foot wor muscular, meaty.

‘I mean, I wor hoping, if Jeremy …’

‘I’m just on my way out.’

‘Right. Well, maybe I’ll come back some other time.’

Tad didn’t answer. He returned to his cell room, reappearing moments later in a plain white T-shirt, washed-out drainpipes held up wi’ red braces and blood-coloured DMs. Safely in his armour.

‘Whose room’s that?’ I asked, trying to smother t’ awkwardness wi’ incidentals. Tad blinked then turned his head slowly toward t’ room.

‘That wor Julia’s.’

‘She’s left?’

‘No, mate. She overdosed. Jeremy found her dead in t’ kitchen. Right fucking mess. Stew all over t’ floor.’

An icy little creature scurried along my spine. Wi’ his eyes still fixed on Julia’s room, Tad said, ‘Thank your stars you’d buggered off wi’out seeing it.’ His voice cracked. ‘I mean, we couldn’t just leave her there, could we? Dead junkie on our hands? We’d have all been banged up in no time.’

I leant queasily against t’ door jamb. An echo of t’ cold stew pinged against t’ back of my throat. I swallowed. ‘So what happened? Didn’t no one report it?’

‘Oh yeah, it got reported. But first we moved her body to this empty council flat a mile away and dumped her there, poor cow. Scattered a few bits about t’ place, left a needle between her fingers.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I hate junkies. Complete losers. Tossers, every one. They put themsens there, didn’t they? I mean, Julia could be all right at times, total posh bird, but all right when she worn’t high. When she wor off her face she could get utterly fucking paranoid. Funny, ain’t it?’

‘Funny?’

‘Her dad’s a magistrate.’

‘Poor Julia,’ I said, stupidly.

‘Don’t you go blabbing about this, or I’ll knock you into next week. If t’ cops find out, I’ll say you wor part of it. Geddit?’

‘As if I’d say owt.’

Tad slapped me roughly on t’ back of my neck. ‘Good. We understand each other then.’ He squatted down to lace up the DMs. I thought of Julia, slumped lifelessly in t’ kitchen armchair.

Tad said, ‘If I had the time I’d shave your head.’

‘I’d prefer someone like Jeremy. Someone qualified.’

Tad snorted. ‘Qualified? Jeremy? He just says he is. Anyway, I’ve shorn a few sheep in my time.’

Unsettling images of Tad waving sheep shears reared up.

‘Sheep?’

‘I wor brought up on a farm. Up on t’ moors over Huddersfield way.’ He grinned, his wide, boyish smile softening up his face. ‘Did you think I grew up on some scuzzy council estate? Is that what you thought? Bit of skinhead rough, eh? Your skin is a fucking sheep farmer’s boy.’

All laced up, he bolted down t’ stairs ahead of me, two, three steps at a time. I wanted to shout out that I didn’t care what my skin wor, as long as he wor mine. We wor bound now by t’ truth about Julia’s death, bound in blood, gin, spunk, stew. So why did I feel like a man clinging to a fraying rope? I pursued Tad down t’ stairs. He palmed the door onto t’ road open. We tumbled out into t’ bright of day. Tad started to run.

‘Tad, stop!’

Down t’ road, he stopped. But didn’t turn round.

‘Tell me, Tad!’ I demanded, my frustrations flooding me. ‘What’s changed between last week and this? Are you going to say you wor too tanked to remember owt? Oh, come on, I worn’t first, wor I? You knew what you wor doing all right. So why are you shutting me out?’

He didn’t reply. Still he didn’t turn to face me. I wor shouting at the back of his head from ten paces.

‘Why do you live here? In this shithole wi’ these scum junkies and fascists and – you said it – these washed-up losers? Eh? Why are you denying …?’

‘Go fuck yersen!’ he yelled, still not turning round. Then he started walking fast, down t’ centre white line of t’ road, as if he wor trying to shake himsen from me. Two doddery Asians, turban heads wi’ white, woven beards, dithered nervously on t’ pavement between Tad and me.

‘Didn’t it mean owt?’

He stopped again, turning now on his boot heels and walking backwards.

‘You wor just a fuck! A one-time nothing fuck! Forget it!’

I could hear t’ sob in his voice. The old turban heads had stopped to stare. Tad turned and tore off down t’ street like his life depended on it.

Wi’ both hands I picked up a nearby dustbin and launched it into t’ road, sending tins, rotting vegetable peelings and paper spilling out. The dustbin crunched onto t’ tarmac then rolled briefly ’til t’ handles stopped it. A sudden gust whisked up some food wrappers and newspaper pages. The bin lid rolled along on its end, like a loose wheel hub, ’til it too came to a stop. I stood there, breathing heavily, my chest tightening, watching Tad disappearing down t’ road, becoming smaller and smaller ’til he vanished altogether.

31/07/1977 (survived)

In t’ Corona depot all t’ talk wor of Maureen Long, the latest Ripper victim. There’d been a breakthrough! The police wor in a buoyant mood. She’d lived to tell t’ tale. Except that there worn’t much of t’ tale she could recall, having been battered repeatedly over t’ bonce and left for dead. A white car wi’ a black roof. Friggin’ police panda cars wor white wi’ black roofs. But she’d survived. HE had slipped up. HE would soon be caught.

We drove t’ Corona van past graffiti that read ‘Hang the Ripper’.

Up in Chapeltown, Lourdes, along wi’ a truckload of other prozzies, got arrested. ‘What dey tink? Now mi got to work double to pay dem fines! And dey scare all duh punters away!’

Lourdes cackled as if it wor all too stupid not to laugh over. ‘Some girls, dey goes to Sheffield,’ she said. ‘Poleece don’t interfere so much, and it safer dere.’

She cackled again like it wor all t’ funniest thing ever.

‘They just want to look like they’re doing summat,’ Eric said once we wor back in t’ van. ‘Clear the streets. Like Lourdes said, they’ll all just switch patch for a while … head for Bradford or Sheffield …’

‘… or further than Sheffield.’

‘Or further than Sheffield,’ Eric echoed, sounding befuddled.

It seemed to me that the folk wi’ least to laugh about laughed the most. The distance between t’ prozzies and us gays didn’t seem to be much greater than between two gateposts; if it worn’t prozzies that some maniac wor killing it could just as easily be gay men, and the public reaction would be t’ same – they got what wor coming to them. Thankfully, no one wor going about slicing up gay men.

On t’ Friday following the attack on Maureen Long, as he wor tossing out the paypackets, Craner barked, ‘Henceforth, no Corona crew will be allowed out on the road in just vests. T-shirts or shirts must be worn. You are to always wear your blue Corona coats. Head office diktat.’

The men murmured, shuffled their feet. Garthy piped up that it wor cos of all t’ TV crews around. The company had to be seen to be keeping up an image. Craner told him that if he wanted his tuppence worth, he’d ask for it.

I looked about for Eric. Eric wor late, very late – must have overslept again. Craner kept catching my eye, I kept avoiding his. Neither my name nor Eric’s wor chalked up on t’ blackboard. Wi’ t’ office almost empty, Craner said, ‘Richard, a word.’

Craner never called me Richard.

‘Mr Craner?’

He scratched the nape of his neck, reset his glasses and looked like he wor readying himsen to fire me. Craner never needed much of a reason to get shot of anyone.

‘I’ve had a call,’ he said, then paused to make sure he had my attention.

Mitch, I wor thinking, Mitch has been sticking his oar in where he shouldn’t, and now I’m getting my marching orders. I opened my gob to say summat, but Craner held up his palm.

‘There’s been a sudden bereavement. Eric Fawley’s granddad. He wor watering his garden wi’ washing-up slop, carrying full buckets of it in this heat. He wor found dead amongst his withering roses.’

Craner lit a ciggie while t’ news bedded in. ‘Dead amongst his withering roses’? Had he been at the poetry? He worn’t done.

‘He will be interred on Thursday.’

Interred? My stomach drained and my legs tingled bloodlessly. Eric would be off work for t’ whole week, maybe longer.

‘So, this morning,’ Craner continued, ‘I’ll cover your usual round, and you’ll be on Leek Street.’

‘Not Leek Street?’

I didn’t want Leek Street. Leek Street wor a friggin’ massive city in t’ sky over Hunslet way, a monolithic housing estate of rain-grey breezeblocks criss-crossed by aerial walkways. Worse, my driver would be morose Kev, who’d lost his right little finger in a die press so his tattoos spelt LOVE and HAT.

Not that you saw much of your driver on t’ Leek Street Estate. At Leek Street you pulled a trolley along t’ web of open walkways, while three, four, five storeys below, your driver moved the van around t’ block entrances. Crates wor sent up and down t’ stinking steel lifts by a process of shouts and signals and bangs on t’ lift doors. And you kept losing sight of t’ van and that four-fingered git of a driver. You spent half your time leaning over t’ waist-high parapets, the ground below hurtling up to kiss your eyeballs, waiting for t’ van’s canary-yellow roof to reappear.

‘Do I have to do Leek Street?’

Craner tossed the Leek Street round-book onto t’ table.

Mitch finally got shot of t’ old Cambridge van, and bought a Ford Corsair off some bearded bloke over in Heaton. Bit of a bargain, wor how he described it.

‘Bloke wor desperate to get rid of it.’

Mitch’s bargains usually worn’t, and this one wor no different. But Mother wor happy, cos it wor a proper car and not a friggin’ van wi’ a dodgy exhaust. Mitch said he’d take me for an evening run in t’ new car, show off what it could do.

We set out. The engine coughed and spluttered on t’ steeper inclines as Mitch talked to it and coaxed it through t’ gears. The interior had a sickly-sweet odour that wor masking summat more unpleasant. We drove around a few city roads, and then Mitch declared that it wor sounding so smooth we should take it on t’ motorway for a bit.

We hit the motorway south. After thirty mile the Corsair rolled to a gentle halt on t’ hard shoulder. We’d run out of petrol.

‘Didn’t you fill it up?’

‘Gauge is buggered. I could’ve sworn it wor half-full.’

‘Or half-empty, more like. So what do we do now?’

‘There’s a petrol can in t’ boot. I’ll walk to t’ petrol station.’

‘But that could be miles.’

‘Two mile. I saw t’ sign a bit back.’

He got out of t’ car, slammed the door. I watched him in t’ rear-view mirror, petrol can in hand, head bowed slightly, trudging away.

I played around wi’ t’ radio dial. Radio 1 wor playing Elvis’s ‘Always on My Mind’. I turned the dial to Radio Luxembourg, but the reception wor fuzzy. They wor playing Elvis too, ‘Way Down’. Back to Radio 1, and now it wor ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. I scythed the dial through t’ regional stations. Another Elvis song – ‘Burning Love’ – then another – ‘The Wonder of You’. This wor friggin’ ridiculous. I hated Elvis. I left it playing anyway.

For nearly two hours I waited in t’ car for Mitch to return as the traffic juddered past, waiting and enduring one friggin’ Elvis song after another. By t’ time I finally spotted Mitch making his way back along t’ hard shoulder, thin wisps of cloud wor turning a deepening mauve against a pinking upper sky. A star, or maybe a planet, I didn’t know which, hung low over t’ motorway embankment, twinkling fiercely. Mitch emptied the can of petrol into t’ tank and got in t’ car. He dangled the keys in his hand and looked at me.

‘What?’

‘Elvis is dead.’

The next morn Craner had us all assemble in his office.

‘I thought that this morning we should have a few minutes’ silence before you head out on your rounds. I know that Elvis meant a lot to many of you here, as he did to me, and that his passing is a great, great loss.’

He slid a cassette into a portable machine that wor parked on his desk. We shuffled our feet and kept our heads bowed while listening to a mangled ‘In the Ghetto’. The man to my left wor snuffling. A single tear snaked down his rough cheek. He let it run.

Granted, the death of Elvis wor a bit sad for older folk, but then, old Elvis
had
been ballooning like someone locked in a pie factory, so maybe fate had played a kindly hand. But the third death, one month after Elvis’s, fair tore me up. I’d never known what it wor like to lose someone who really meant summat to me ’til then. I wor fair sliced up about it. Marc Bolan, glittery lead singer of my childhood heroes, T. Rex (up ’til 1973’s naff
Tanx
album), had been driven into a tree by his girlfriend. Why did she have to survive and not him? She wor just his friggin’ backing singer.

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.