Blood Relatives (21 page)

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘Just about.’

‘You can let them see you drinking, but just don’t snog anyone.’

‘I worn’t planning on it. You’d think they’d have summat better to do. What wi’ t’ Ripper still on t’ loose.’

‘Darling, the filth always have something else they should be doing, but aren’t. I’ll just say one word. Kickbacks.’

‘This place?’

He nodded.

The opening bars of ‘Hey, Big Spender’ struck up behind us. Camp David let out a groan. A drag act mounted the tiny podium stage, someone called Ben Her. Lip-syncing that wor all pouted lips out of sync, deathly eyelash fluttering and Bassey-style flailing arms. The tape wor loud and distorted as Ben Her moved on to ‘Diamonds are Forever’, lips puckered up like a sex-shop doll.

‘Do you like this stuff?’ I shouted at Camp David.

‘It’s fucking shite! It’s an insult to us all – women and gay men.’

‘How come?’

‘How come? Just wait for all the red-dress-looking-like-a-used-tampon, fish or chopped-liver jokes we’ve got coming.’

Camp David ordered a gin and tonic and a pint of lager and lime. The barman eyed me over, assessing my age perhaps, but said nowt. As my pint wor being pulled I said loudly, ‘I’m thinking of moving out.’

‘What?’

‘Moving out. I’m thinking of moving out of home.’

‘And go where?’

Ben Her wor wowing us wi’ her ‘Goldfinger’. It wor an effort to keep my eyes from flitting stageward. The in-between patter in a Doncaster accent included one ‘In-that-red-dress-you-look-like-a-used-tampon’ line, and three jokes about vaginas resembling chopped liver. Ben Her directed his entire repertoire toward t’ group of brassy women and their gay mates strung along t’ foot of t’ podium, who wor lapping it up. Likely as not the Doncaster Ben Her fan club on an annual outing.

Camp David wor faced doggedly away from t’ act, his elbows on t’ bar, pretending it worn’t happening. Ben Her’s lacquered lids slid over t’ audience, looking for a victim to slag off. Our eyes met for a split second, then he moved on wi’ t’ barest flicker of a smile. He must have read my alarm signals.

‘My Way’ came to an end like a drunk falling downstairs, followed by badly pre-recorded applause from
Sunday Night at the Palladium
or some such friggin’ show, thanking the wonderful Miss Shirley Bassey, then t’ noise level wor cut abruptly as the tape ran out. By now Ben Her had dismounted the podium and wor pushing through t’ crowd toward t’ ladies’ toilet, elbow gloves already removed, before yanking off his wig to reveal a thinning, mousy mop. As he passed by I noticed the hands the gloves had been hiding. Bony labourer’s hands wi’ thick, half-crooked fingers.

The DJ tried to crank up the clapometer by rousingly asking for ‘Another round of applause for Doncaster’s very own Miss Ben Her!’

‘Doncaster can keep her,’ said Camp David. He swivelled round on his bar stool. ‘I’d forgotten how fucking awful this place can be.’

‘So why are we here?’

‘It’s the card we’ve been dealt. A single, low diamond. Or maybe a heart.’

I looked down at the floor. The carpet wor sticking to t’ sole of my boot. The DJ wor playing Donna Summer’s ‘Love’s Unkind’.

‘I wor wondering,’ I said, leaning into Camp David’s ear, ‘if there’s a room going begging? At Radclyffe Hall?’

Camp David’s plucked eyebrows arched.

I lay in t’ bath, my ankles resting on t’ taps, listening to t’ tranny radio parked on t’ toilet lid. We’d stayed at the New Penny ’til Camp David said he wanted some air, which had proved to be an excuse for him to walk along t’ darkened streets near t’ railway station and make a play for me. He said that when Fazel’s room came free he’d ‘smooth it over if I saw him right’. Seemed to me that everything in this world had a price, and nowt wor got for free. He led me into a fire-exit doorway that stank of old piss.

‘Here?’

‘As good as anywhere.’

I looked about nervously while Camp David wor caressing my unwilling crotch and trying to kiss me. The biting cold worn’t helping me none. When a dustcart came rolling by I used the disturbance to step out into t’ open. I hurried on to t’ end of t’ road, while Camp David lagged along behind. I saw my bus pulling up ahead. Camp David wor looking all flustered.

‘I’d really like you to move in,’ he said quickly, ‘but it isn’t just down to me. It has to be put to the house committee.’

As the bus pulled away he waved at me like a film star on t’ aircraft steps and puckered up an air kiss.

I stayed in t’ bath ’til t’ water turned lukewarm. Mother tapped on t’ door wanting to know if I wor all right and if she should heat up some dinner for me. I told her not to bother. I heard her clumping back downstairs.

The news came on t’ radio and I paid little heed ’til, hearing the words ‘Sid Vicious’ and ‘found dead’, I sat bolt upright, sending a wave of bathwater over t’ rim. ‘Sid Vicious,’ the Southern twat of a newsman wor saying, ‘is believed to have died in a New York hotel room after taking a heroin overdose.’

I collapsed back into t’ bath, sinking my head beneath t’ waterline. When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer I surged up again, gulping in air. Mother wor drumming her fists on t’ door.

‘Rick! What the heck are you doing in there? There’s water coming through t’ ceiling.’

That night I made up a shrine to Sid Vicious. I placed a photo of him between my Pistols singles and sank on my knees before my shrine as I contemplated my fate.

There wor a small tarn above t’ town which Mitch said wor frozen over. He said we should go see it. We took the dog along for exercise.

The coldest recorded temperatures since ’63, Terry had said. Canals, ponds, even some reservoirs had frozen over. Pipes wor bursting, cisterns turning solid, paths wor icy, roads wor dicey.

On t’ drive up neither of us had said a dickybird. Mitch had driven intently, his unshaven jawline set, straining through t’ gears as we funnelled between t’ dry-stone walls either side that blocked our view of t’ valley below. The town lay behind us.

We came to a stop on t’ rough ground that wor t’ car park. I ruffled the dog’s head. The dog sat up, ears pricked, a breath patch forming on t’ side window.

‘Shush, Max,’ I said softly.

There wor another vehicle in t’ car park, an old dark-blue van. Mitch sat there, caressing the car-key fob between his fingers.

‘Looks like we haven’t got it to oursens after all.’

I peered up at the sky through t’ windshield. What kind of clouds wor they? Cumulus? Or cirrus? Terry would know, Terry wi’ his isobars and rain jars and thermometers. The dog whimpered to be let out. Mitch opened his door, so then I opened mine, the dog yanking hard on its leash to be let free.

We stood in t’ crisp winter air, our breath hanging about our mouths. The snow glistened in t’ sickly yellow of t’ afternoon sun, melting now, save in those shadowed crevices beneath t’ rocks and between t’ tree roots. Soon there would be another frost.

Mitch surveyed the terrain like a woodland tracker, stroking his chin. ‘It could be years,’ he said, ‘before she freezes over again.’

We set out. We passed a wooden tourist-information hut that wor shuttered up ’til t’ spring. The tarn wor up ahead of us, out of view, hidden by an escarpment.

There wor two possible routes: either we could follow the upward path ’til we came to t’ crest of t’ escarpment, from where we could look down on t’ tarn, or we could follow the path around t’ tarn shore. Up on t’ escarpment ridge the snow wor drifting like talcum powder, and the stunted trees quivered in t’ wind. The cold bit into my bones.

Mitch said, ‘We’d be best to stick to t’ lower path.’

I let Max off t’ leash and he scampered on ahead, nosing his way across t’ ground, lifting his leg on rocks and bushes.

‘Well,’ said Mitch, ‘let’s go and take a look at her.’

The path wove between limestone rocks and bracken, then descended sharply toward t’ shore. The ground beneath our tread wor compacted and slippery, and we had to be careful of our footing.

I picked up a stick and tossed it ahead of me. Max belted after it then brought it back in his mouth, his tongue lolling out the side. I tossed it again. And again.

We saw it now – a dirty grey sheet through t’ skeletal birch trees. We stopped, so Max stopped too and turned his head, waiting on us.

It wor a force of will for me to speak, my tongue ungluing itsen from t’ floor of my mouth, the skin of my chafed lips catching and tearing.

‘There’s summat I want to say. I’m thinking …’

‘You know, Rick, I used to bring your mother up here. When we wor courting.’

‘Courting?’ The very word seemed old-fashioned. ‘Back in ’62?’

Mitch raised his face to t’ escarpment ridge. ‘Did you know I met your mother at a ten-pin bowling club?’

‘You’ve said. Thing is, now I’m grown I wor thinking that …’

‘I hung out wi’ a few rockabilly lads, and sometimes we’d go bowling. It wor a good place to meet girls. One day there wor this new lass waitressing there. She wor somehow different to anyone I’d met before, you know, shy, friendly, just summat about her. She worn’t uppity or brassy like some of them.’

‘Aye. Winter of ’63.’

Mitch’s brow furrowed. ‘Remember the time I took you to see Leeds Utd? The one and only bloody time you ever came to a footie match?’

‘Aye, I know, but what I want to tell you is …’

‘And then afterward – we won 3–0, for pity’s sake – I asked you if you’d had a great time?’

‘You didn’t ask – you
told
me I’d had a great time. Well I hadn’t. It wor boring. I wor ruddy-well frozen. Colder than I am now.’

‘So what do you remember?’

‘It wor yonks ago. I wor eleven. What should I remember? That my feet felt like blocks of ice? That all I could see wor t’ backs of people’s heads?’

‘You don’t remember what you said on t’ way home?’

‘That I hated it and wouldn’t go again?’

‘Aye. Well, that’s when t’ penny dropped, so to speak. When it dawned on me about you.’

‘Which is what?’ I said hoarsely.

‘Family tradition, lad. You broke wi’ three generations of family tradition. Broke it like a spoke on t’ wheel.’

I kicked a loose stone irritably. As usual, Mitch wor fleet-footing his way around t’ subject. We’d started walking again, stepping cautiously over tree roots and trying not to slip. This meant that neither of us had to look at t’other.

‘1963,’ I said. ‘The last winter when everything wor frozen like this. That wor 1963, not ’62.’

‘Why does it matter which ruddy winter it wor?’

‘Cos it does! It matters to me! Wor it really mine to break, this spoke on t’ wheel?’

‘What do you mean?’

But Mitch knew what I meant all right. He rasped, ‘Things wor different back then. I did the right thing by you, taking you on. Damn you, I did the right thing. Brought you up like you wor my own flesh and blood.’

He removed his gloves, took out his penknife and prised a stone from t’ sole of his boot. His fingers wor trembling. Strands of hair blew across his bald patch. He tossed the stone aside and closed the knife. Hearing raised voices, the dog came bounding back. It snuffled around Mitch’s legs protectively. Reassured, it scarpered off again. Snow wor stuck to its back where it had been rolling in t’ drifts.

‘We’ve come to see her,’ Mitch said, his voice almost choking. ‘See t’ tarn all frozen over and walk the dog. So let’s go see t’ tarn.’

We approached the shore, each of us carrying the weight of our own silence. Anger crackled inside me, trapped by Mitch’s refusal to hear me out. Mother had said it often enough for it to stick in my brain: ‘We met during that hard, terrible winter of ’62.’

Except that it worn’t ’62. It wor ’63. Terry had said so, and like as not Terry could tell you what the weather wor like on t’ same day back in 1900, never mind 1962 or ’63. It wor all recorded in his little black weather books. They met
after
I wor born. So maybe I worn’t a freak for hating footie. Maybe I wouldn’t lose my hair. But I needed confirmation. I needed him to look me in t’ face and say it out loud: ‘I am not your real father.’ We squelched through t’ trickle of a small beck and trudged along t’ far bank ’til we wor nearly halfway round. Max came belting back wi’ t’ stick again, so this time I threw it further, launching it in t’ direction of t’ tarn. The stick scythed through t’ air, a dark thing against t’ aching whiteness.

‘No!’ Mitch shouted. ‘Max, no!’

Too late. The dog wor already out on t’ ice, his head up, his eyes fixed on t’ somersaulting stick.

‘Max! Max, come back here!’

Suddenly realising where it wor, the dog’s feet began to slither, its legs splaying.

‘Max!’

The dog blinked at us both as if comprehending its own doom. Then t’ ice beneath parted a little and black, cold water slurped across t’ surface. The ice made a hideous retching sound and started to give. The dog wor scrabbling its paws for some grip as the freezing water began to envelop it. We crouched down at the shoreline, both of us calling the dog’s name. Mitch broke off a long, thin birch branch. I stepped onto a rock that protruded into t’ tarn.

‘Max! Max, boy!’

Mitch prodded the ice wi’ t’ stick, then eased one foot onto t’ surface, keeping t’other on t’ bank. Then he let the ice take his full weight. He kept his legs spread as wide as he could, edging out a little further, using his hands for support. Here, the ice wor thick enough that it held easily, but out there, a few feet beyond, out where t’ dog wor struggling, we both knew it wor dangerous. That dog wor going to drown.

‘Max, Max,’ Mitch called out softly, calming it, encouraging it, cajoling it toward him. He ventured out a tad further. The dog pawed at the ice, whimpering. Mitch flattened himsen and stretched out the stick, trying to hook it through t’ dog’s collar. I looked on from t’ rock.

The tarn just swallowed him. It creaked and complained, then opened its black jaws and Mitch flopped into t’ water. I saw him thrashing to gain control, trying to haul himsen onto t’ ice. Then he slipped under. Moments later he resurfaced, flapping his arms uselessly. His pleading eyes met mine. Then he wor gone.