Blood Relatives (2 page)

‘Will you be late again tonight?’

She wor fishing again. I leaned over my boots so I wouldn’t have to look her in t’ eye.

‘No, so long as we don’t break down.’

I wanted to keep my options open. Maybe I’d go see t’ Matterhorn Man.

‘Those vans do seem to break down a lot,’ she said. ‘Someone should get them seen to.’

The Corona Soft Drinks depot wor t’ last in a row of gun-metal-grey industrial units up in t’ city’s northern suburbs. As soon as I stepped into t’ depot it lifted my morning bones; the metallic acridity of nails, rivets, corrugated panels, the headiness of t’ exhaust fumes, the saccharine odour of t’ pops – lemonade, limeade, cream soda – and squashes – orange barley, lemon barley, blackcurrant.

Going on twenty vans wor being readied. From Craner’s office came t’ chink of change being checked.

‘Morn, Mr Craner!’

The gaffer didn’t take kindly to me being so chirrupy first thing, which wor why I greeted him thus. Irritate the morose bugger.

Behind me came t’ jangle of nudging bottles on t’ end of a forklift. Coke, Tango orange, Tango lime – empties all being stacked; or full crates – orangeade, dandelion and burdock. Someone else wor dragging a crate along t’ floor – Tango lemon, Tango lime, malt vinegar.

I punched the clock, took our float and sought out our van. The load had still to be sorted and signed off, the engine checked for petrol, water and oil. That wor every van boy’s job.

I lifted up the bonnet and withdrew t’ rapier-dipstick, wiped it, slid it back into its sheath, withdrew it slowly, assessed the oil-line level, wiped it on a rag and then reinserted it. While I wor busying wi’ this I could see Craner in his office, balancing on his swivel office chair, chalking up crew names on t’ wall blackboard behind his desk. Cos he could barely reach the board wi’ his short arms outstretched the names sloped off at one end. I could make out my own initials alongside a capital ‘E’ for Eric.

I wor screwing on t’ radiator cap when from behind me came t’ unmistakable sound of glass splintering on concrete. One of t’ new lads, balancing too many bottles up each arm. He’d learn. If he lasted. The lad’s face puckered up like a butchered pig as dandelion and burdock meandered toward a sludge patch of oil. The crash brought Craner out of his office.

‘You! Yes, you, fatso! Chuck some bloody sawdust over that spill,’ Craner barked, his voice eaten up by its own echo. I grinned at Fatso, who wor just gawping at Craner like a friggin’ idiot. It wor t’ same here as in school: being podgy – especially being nearly friggin’ immobile – you worn’t part of t’ main gang. Craner pushed his glasses further up his nose and seeing me smirking, shouted in his favoured mocking tone, ‘Still here, Mr Thorpe?’

I unhinged the bonnet support strut and let the bonnet crash down. Craner flinched.

‘Good as gone, Mr Craner, good as, just waiting for Eric.’ I nodded toward t’ toilets. ‘He’s just taking a dump.’

I climbed into t’ cab to wait on Eric. In truth, I wor wary of Craner. Craner and Mitch went way back. I gobbed out onto some sawdust by t’ van wheel. It brassed me off, being in Mitch’s grip, but I also knew that Craner owed Mitch for summat. A little back-scratching, a little palm-greasing, and here I wor, my first proper job. Most times Craner wor holed up in his depot fiefdom, so it worn’t as if he could come check up on me. Although wi’ Craner you never knew, Craner seemed to have his spies everywhere.

‘Boo!’

‘Jeeeesus fuck, Eric!’

‘Ready?’

‘MIS–TER FAW–LEY!’

‘Craner wants you, Eric.’

‘The four-eyed fart. BE RIGHT WI’ YOU, MR CRANER!’

Eric scuttled over to Craner, flattening his hair wi’ one hand and tucking in his shirt-tail wi’ t’other. Craner liked to make you feel t’ wrath of God wor about to fall on your head, then deliver some quiet little aside about owt and nowt. Craner’s way. Eric wor playin’ out the game. He picked up the round-book and the float, and turned to grin at me, swinging t’ van keys round his forefinger.

‘Ready, Mr Thorpe?’

‘Ready, Mr Fawley.’

We wor done by late afternoon, so I got Eric to drop me off in town. I waited for t’ van to turn at the lights, then hurried on up Woodhouse Lane.

To see t’ Matterhorn Man.

I’d first met the Matterhorn Man that summer, just shy of my sixteenth birthday. He lived at 5 Blandford Gardens, a short cul-de-sac Victorian terrace. Almost no one in t’ Corona round-book had a proper name; most wor identified by some peculiar or particular feature: fist knocker, fishing gnome, third blue door, rabid mutt, buck teeth woman.

I’d been idly peering through t’ front bay of 5 Blandford Gardens when I spotted a mural covering one entire wall, a photo of a mountain, rising snowcapped against a blue block of sky. Same as I’d seen on a calendar in our local Indian takeaway.

So I scrawled in t’ round-book: ‘
Matterhorn Man
’.

Matterhorn Man wor a thin, gimlet-eyed Scot wi’ a small, dark moustache and sideburns. One bottle of Coke and a bottle of tonic water every week.

Most weeks our van would reach Blandford Gardens in t’ early afternoon. Often as not the Matterhorn Man would open t’ door in his cordless dressing gown, holdin’ it together wi’ one hand while he fished in a small velvet drawstring pouch for change. Then one day he said, ‘Come in a wee mo’, won’t you?’

Not wanting to appear rude or owt, I stepped into his hallway. Onto t’ hallway runner wi’ t’ wear hole. He skedaddled into t’ kitchen out back and came back wi’ t’ change and an empty. His dressing gown fell open. He had a lean, hirsute torso and thin, dark legs. His underpants wor a washed-out mauve.

Every week he held me up, rummaging for change, proffering up titbits about himsen. So I learnt that his name wor Jim, that he wor twenty-six year old, the sixth of eight brothers and sisters, all t’ rest of ’em still up in Scotland save for t’ one, who’d emigrated to Canada. That he worked the graveyard shift in a bikkie factory, ‘putting the hearts in Jammie Dodgers’, and that’s why I always caught him half-dressed, or in his dressing gown, and that he used to have a lodger, but they’d argued over t’ rent and so Jim lived alone now.

As Jim wor placing a florin into my grubby palm, he murmured quickly, ‘Why don’t you drop by a wee bit later on?’

‘What?’

The question took me unawares, surfacing all of a sudden like a shark from t’ depths. I felt t’ blood whooshing to my cheeks. In Jim’s face I saw t’ horror of a man who’d misread a situation. The door wor beginning to close.

‘No, wait. But I can’t say when I finish. It might be a bit late.’

‘I start work at seven.’

I nodded. ‘If we make good time, I can be here before then.’

Jim scuttled about t’ living room, tidying up, while I looked on nervously, wondering to mesen if I should have come at all. Then he went to t’ kitchen to brew up tea. While I waited on him I let my thoughts wander. I sat on t’ sofa edge at the foot of t’ Matterhorn mural like I wor in a photographer’s waiting room. I imagined mesen being photographed in front of it – ‘Mr Thorpe, over ’ere …’ the flashbulbs blitzing, the world’s press thrusting forward, all jostling for my attention: ‘Richard Thorpe! Over here, Mr Thorpe!’ ‘Richard! Richard, just one more photo for … for … the World News.’ Click. Flash. Flash. Click. ‘Richard Thorpe, how does it feel to be the first man to conquer the Matterhorn single-handed and without a rope?’

‘Hey, be careful there, you’ll knock your tea over.’

‘Oh, sorry, I wor just …’

I flushed furiously. Jim beamed his easy smile and sat beside me. He took a sip from his tea and set it down on t’ flecked brown-and-orange rug. We stared straight ahead like an old couple on a park bench. I caught t’ strong whiff of his aftershave, which he must have splashed on for my benefit while he wor out in t’ kitchen. A woman passed by t’ bay window, a blur of raincoat and headscarf, a brief shadow across t’ room.

‘Ta for t’ tea.’

‘You’re most welcome.’

Silence mushroomed. I wor missing
Doctor Who
. I’d be late for dinner.

I picked up my tea, took a sip, put it down, picked it up again, sipped, set it down. I feigned interest in t’ row of scraggy paperbacks propped between two wooden bookends:
Valley of the Dolls
,
In Youth is Pleasure
,
Myra Breckinridge
.

‘I can’t stay long,’ I murmured, my head still cocked toward t’ book titles.

I felt a hand settle on my leg, as if it had fluttered down to rest.
Giovanni’s Room
,
The Persian Boy
,
The Plays of Tennessee Williams
… my head wor being gently yet firmly turned away from t’ books by a man’s palm. My face wor too close to his to focus. I knew at once that I wor about to be kissed. I leaned toward him, allowing it, wanting it.

The kiss felt strange. The neat moustache brushed against my mouth, the lips moist, the tongue wor warm wi’ … I pulled away.

‘No sugar!’

‘Sorry?’

‘You don’t have sugar in yer tea!’

‘Sugar? Aye, I don’t. Shall I rinse out my mouth?’

I glanced uncertainly out the window.

‘Nope, it’s fine.’

‘Aye, well, if you’re sure now?’

‘Certain.’

And as if to show him that I wor, I kissed him again, a long, slow and exploratory kiss, while reaching down to place my hand on Matterhorn Man’s evident stiffy.

‘Shall we go upstairs a wee while?’

‘Upstairs?’

And so it started. The Saturday afternoons after work. The curtains drawn against t’ fading day. Lying naked on purple nylon sheets.

The name, I wor to discover, wor apt, cos the Matterhorn Man’s erect cock had a kink in it, a bit like t’ mountain itsen.

That wor also t’ summer that Granddad Frank died. Mother’s dad, not Mitch’s – his folk wor gone before I wor slapped into t’ world.

Not a week after he wor buried I wor idling in t’ hallway when through t’ gap between t’ half-open door and the doorframe I saw Mother, standing in t’ middle of t’ living room, eyes closed, arms extended. She began to rotate, slowly at first, then faster and faster, like a kid twirling in a playground, whirling and whirling round ’til she stopped suddenly and had to steady hersen against t’ dining table.

Then I heard her say: ‘What are little girls made of?’ and reply to hersen, all breathless, ‘Sugar! … and spice! … and all things … nice!’ and in my head I finished the rhyme off for her. ‘What are little boys made of? Slugs, and snails, and puppy dogs’ tails,’ and I knew she wor remembering Granddad Frank, cos he used to swing us round like that when we wor small and shout out t’ same rhyme, so I guessed he’d done it wi’ her an’ all. Only she’d had him to hersen cos they never did have another.

She slumped down onto t’ carpet, sobbing gently, so I slunk into t’ kitchen, opened the back door and banged it shut, like I wor just coming in.

Granddad Frank had died alone. Alone, under blistering arc lights, alone amongst a load of nurses and doctors, clamped to a defibrillator. He’d been cold twenty minute by t’ time we pitched up at Leeds General Infirmary. The dour nurse on reception said that someone had brought him in by car.

‘Who?’ barked Grandma Betty, stabbing the air wi’ her forefinger. ‘Who brought him in!?’ Grandma Betty had her frosty side all right, but never before had I seen her face all screwed up like a ball of paper.

‘No idea,’ the dour nurse stuttered. ‘Whoever it wor didn’t leave a name, and I wor on my break anyway.’

We plonked oursens on plastic chairs and waited. Except for Mitch, who stayed in t’ Austin Cambridge, engine idlin’ cos he said the ignition wor faulty. It had been just fine yesterday. Mother wor clutching her handbag like it might float away. Grandma had both hands wrapped around a plastic cup of hot tea, her lips pressed tightly together.

We waited an age, watching people drift by. Sitting opposite me wor a tramp wi’ a gash on his hand. He wor mumbling and scratching his chest hairs furiously beneath his half-open shirt. He stank like a mouldy cheese. Two seats to his right sat a nervous Asian woman in a cerise sari and a brown anorak, rockin’ a bawling baby.

Grandma wor muttering under her breath, ‘I know who it wor, I know!’

When I asked who, she shook her head and blew her nose on a tissue that Mother passed to her.

After an age, an African doctor came up to us and ushered us all into a side room, where, he said in a cantering voice, it would be quieter.

21/01/1976

‘Seducing a woman,’ Eric wor saying, ‘is like throwing a pot.’

It wor t’ arse end of January, and after t’ frenzy of pre-Christmas sales the soft-drinks trade had gone belly-up. We wor running light and ahead of schedule. So here we wor, parked up in Spencer Place, Chapeltown, heart of t’ red-light area, scoffing chip butties and watching rivulets of rainwater scurry down t’ windscreen. I worn’t in no hurry today. The Matterhorn Man wor up in Glasgow, visiting his sick mother. Eric held his chip butty in front of his gob, undecided about how to attack it.

‘To start wi’,’ he said, spraying breadcrumbs as he spoke, ‘it’s all shapeless, and you don’t know if owt will come of it, she wobbles unsure in your hands. Then, if you’re workin’ it right, she yields and starts to take shape, until …’

‘… You’ve made an urn?’

‘Ha, bloody ha. Listen to Eric and learn, lad. There ain’t nowt I can’t teach you about that mysterious being called womankind.’

Eric’s other favoured analogy wor t’ lightbulb and the iron. In t’ world according to Eric, a man is turned on like a lightbulb, but a woman heats up more slowly, like an iron. He said it wor his dad’s explanation of t’ birds and the bees. Lightbulbs and irons.

‘What if you’ve got two irons? Or two lightbulbs?’

Eric licked the salt off his lips and tossed the crumpled chip paper into t’ road.

‘Two lightbulbs? What kind of skewed thinking is that? You’d blow a bloody fuse, that’s what. Two bloody lightbulbs indeed. Sounds a bit peculiar, a bit daft. A bit queer, if yer ask me.’

I flushed. I’d been blowing fuses on every visit to t’ Matterhorn Man.

On my third, or maybe fourth visit, we’d lain in bed afterward listening to Velvet Underground on t’ record player. Jim wor idly stroking my head and smokin’ a ciggie when he asked me if I ever had any problem wi’ what we wor doing. I just laughed.

‘It wor Maxwell Confait,’ I said. ‘He wor t’ one.’

‘Eh?’

So I told him about how, late one evening, I wor slumped on t’ living-room rug in my pyjamas after my bath, one eye on t’ telly, t’other on t’ music paper beside me. Mother wor mulling over a competition where you had to write a slogan to win a caravan at Skegness. The late-night regional news drifted into a documentary about t’ murder of some male prostitute called Maxwell Confait.

‘I pity people like that,’ Mother said, raising her eyes toward t’ small screen. Then she told me to move, cos I wor blocking all t’ heat from t’ gas fire.

I shuffled back a tad and reread some Black Sabbath tour dates. But really my lugs wor glued to t’ smug, southern voice of t’ reporter, who wor saying that Maxwell Confait wor ‘a self-confessed homosexual who was murdered in South-East London’, and that three teenage lads had been charged wi t’ murder. One of t’ lads wor only fourteen year old, same as me.

It wor like a firework had been lobbed into t’ living room. I remember thinking, clear as anything, ‘That’s me he’s talking about. That’s me. I fancy boys.’

It befuddled me that anyone my age could commit murder. What wor that about? Adults murdered, kids got murdered. Like that Myra Hindley and that bloke that murdered loads of kids and buried ’em up on t’ moors.

All t’ while Mother wor pretending to be reading her magazine, but I knew she wor listening an’ all, cos she kept clicking her ballpoint on and off. Then, when I saw his face on t’ telly a strange thrill coursed through me.

Jim sat up against t’ bedhead. ‘It did?’

‘Aye. He had these big, pleading eyes and unkempt hair and this black gash for lips. Cos we hadn’t got our colour telly then. But I knew. At that moment, I just knew.’

‘Well,’ Jim exhaled, ‘if I recall rightly, they were all acquitted in the retrial.’

I turned over in t’ bed to ease the pressure on my elbow. ‘Since then, I’ve always thought that one day I’ll be a famous pop star, or be murdered. Or a famous pop star who gets murdered. Or a pop star who gets murdered and then becomes famous.’

Jim laughed and tousled my hair. ‘Just don’t end up like poor Janis. All washed up on heroin.’

Eric started up the engine, let it idle over. ‘Come on, we’ve enough time. Let’s call on Vanessa, if she ain’t too busy. Then we can have a quick cuppa, all right?’

It worn’t good to get too far ahead of schedule. Harehills and Chapeltown before lunch, then on to t’ big housing estates of Belle Isle, Gipton and Halton Moor in t’ afternoon, then finally the tower blocks and maisonettes up Seacroft way. Too early, or too late, and sales would be lost. And Craner wor intent on improving sales. Even a push on malt vinegar had failed to revive the flagging figures.

We pulled up outside Vanessa’s, and Eric headed in while I waited in t’ van.

It must have been a grand house once, but now it wor in a very sorry state. The stone wor sooty and pitted, the rotting gutters all clogged wi’ wet leaves, the paintwork flaking away. A board had been nailed across one of t’ etched panes of coloured glass in t’ front door. In t’ overgrown garden, a few spindly roses soldiered on.

Eric reappeared in t’ porch. ‘Bring a bottle of Coke!’

I fished one off the van and strolled up to t’ house, tossing and catching it as if it wor a baton.

As I pushed the door wi’ my shoulder a breeze gusted in, lifting the hallway linoleum at its edges.

Vanessa lived on t’ ground floor. I paused in t’ hallway at the foot of t’ stairs, my eye following the sweep of t’ banister rail upward into t’ gloom, my nostrils twitching to t’ stale traces of over-fried and boiled food, my ears hearing the steady plopping from t’ laundry slung over t’ banisters.

Although Vanessa’s door wor open, I knocked anyway and entered without waiting.

‘Here he is!’

I set the coke bottle on t’ sideboard, parked mesen on one arm of her grubby sofa.

Vanessa wor a big woman wi’ matted strawberry-blonde hair and a round, pocked face. I tried not to stare at t’ folds of pale skin slithering from her faded pink halterneck dress. Worn’t she cold? I dunked my teabag as she gabbled on in her brittle voice, talking about business mostly. All t’ while she kept one eye on t’ street, t’other on t’ nipper in plastic pants that wor shuffling itsen toward me across t’ lino floor. Vanessa crossed her plump legs and let one shoe dangle. Her feet wor deformed by years of stilettos. Chips of red varnish on her toenails.

‘God, I hate this weather – didn’t know you’d got hitched, Eric,’ Vanessa said in one breath.

‘I’m not.’

‘What’s wi’ t’ ring then?’

‘Engaged.’

‘Ooh, engaged? To that … what’s her name … Julie, is it?’

‘No, not her … to Karen.’

‘Last I heard you wor knockin’ about wi’ a Julie.’

‘Aye. Aye, I wor – but it’s Karen now.’

The subject of t’ ring shunted off into a siding, Vanessa turned her attention to me.

‘Heard a lot about you,’ she oozed. ‘Eric tells me all sorts, he does.’

My innards wor squirming like a bag of mealy worms. When, for pity’s sake, did Eric get to blather on to Vanessa about rings and marriage? We only stopped by when we were on t’ round, didn’t we?

They wor both looking at me expectantly. The ring. Now that I’d clapped eyes on it, it had a permanent look. No hacking that off.

‘All good, I ’ope,’ I mumbled.

‘Well, now, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ Vanessa teased. ‘Nice-looking lad, though, ain’t he, Eric?’

‘If you say so.’

‘Trust me. Make some girl very happy one day, mark my words.’

Friggin’ ’ell. Not the done thing – glowing like hot coals in front of a prozzie.

‘Oh, he’s not still a virgin, is he Eric?’

‘What you asking me for? He’s a bit of a dark horse, this one. I reckon there’s summat going on, what wi’ me dropping him off in town after t’ round every week, but he’s keeping mum about her.’

Eric winked at me.

‘A dark horse, eh?’ Vanessa purred. ‘I lay bets on dark horses, them quiet ones wi’ t’ broad smiles and not much to say for themsens. They’re t’ ones you have to watch.’

Luckily for me, Vanessa’s attention wor distracted by her toddler, who wor balanced on fat little legs, trying to clamber onto a chair, fingers stretching toward t’ Coke bottle.

‘Leave it. Leave it, Jase! I said effin’ leave it!’

She scooped up the toddler wi’ one arm and plonked him firmly back onto a different part of t’ lino. The room filled up wi’ a piercing wail.

‘Effin’ kids! Always wantin’ whatever they clap eyes on. I want this, I want that. I want, I want, I want. Well I bloody want, but it don’t mean I can ’ave!’

The wailing brought in Vanessa’s older kid from out in t’ corridor, yelling excitedly. Spotting us, he hid himsen behind his arm, gigglin’, ’til he spied the Coke bottle on t’ sideboard too.

‘Yer can ’ave some later, Barry. Wi’ yer tea. Take Jase out in t’ corridor, there’s a luv.’

Barry ran out again. The toddler set off after him, toppling over, making us all erupt, then hauled himsen up again onto his crooked little legs.

Vanessa moved to t’ window, from where she could keep an eye open for business. There wor fewer punters about in t’ daytime, but then, she said, fewer girls wor out working. The banter turned to Emily Jackson, the murdered woman, who like Wilma, like Vanessa hersen, wor a mother an’ all.

Vanessa repositioned the one-bar electric fire toward her legs.

‘I didn’t know her, Emily. She worn’t no regular. I hear she used to hang out at the Gaiety and the Room at the Top club. But that don’t mean owt.’

She patted the corners of her mouth wi’ a tissue, her gaze fixed on t’ gap between t’ gateposts. For a moment it seemed she had a punter. She sat upright, patting her hair, projecting her breasts. Then she relaxed her posture. The punter had moved on.

‘He’ll be back,’ she said, taking a long drag on her ciggie. ‘The girls,’ she said, exhaling upward, ‘are mostly working team-handed. They’ll keep it up for a week or two, and then they’ll forget. Trust me.’

She screwed her fag end into t’ ashtray and lit another. ‘When you’ve been in business as long as I have, you can smell a bad’un.’

She smiled at us both, a smile, I saw, that wor too light for t’ effort she gave it.

I lay on my bed leafing through t’ local rag. They didn’t waste much ink on Emily. Just a brief mention of a second prozzie murder in Chapeltown, and a fuzzy photo. Whores get what’s coming is what most folk thought. If folk thought at all.

I could hear sis in t’ bath. She wor always having baths. No wonder t’ reservoir levels wor so low. I slipped across t’ landing into her bedroom and, sliding open a drawer, took out the diary from under t’ layers of knickers. I flipped it open where a blue biro wor resting in t’ spine.

My fingers danced grubbily through t’ pages. Her scribble wor hard to read, and she’d been scrawling biro flowers and stick figures in t’ margins. It wor t’ usual friggin’ rubbish. Some boys had been carving band names in t’ wooden bus shelter (boring), summat about copying her French homework off Emma in return for buying Emma some fags (learning fast there, sis), and some boy called Adam had smiled at her in t’ corridor.

I turned the page. Sunday. She’d been listening to t’ top thirty pop charts and marking down t’ chart positions in a special chart book. What friggin’ chart book? My eyes skimmed over t’ shoes and bags strewn across t’ carpet, the teddies, frogs and gonks on t’ bed, the washing slithering out of t’ wicker basket. My hand hovered over all t’ girly clutter on t’ small dressing table that Mitch had put together for her in t’ garage last winter, not wanting to move owt in case she clocked it.

I realised I could hear t’ bath water gurgling away down t’ pipes. I flipped the diary shut and scuttled back to my room. I threw mesen on t’ bed and laughed deliciously. A close call wor always more satisfying than getting away clean and easy.

‘Charts!’ I snorted under my breath. ‘Charts!’