Skagboys (37 page)

The former brother-in-law looked down at him. — One thing has fuckin well happened. One thing only. You’ve cost me money, through yir fuckin stupidity.

He’d worked out an unsatisfying contingency plan for this moment. That the plant would eventually uncover their scam had been apparent to him for some time. But while this change in strategy would keep him in the game, it meant a decided demotion. Now he was no longer The Man. All the people he’d been supplying the quality stuff to, through in Glasgow, down in England, with their fucking useless Paki brown shite, stuff the junkies here wouldn’t look at or even know what the fuck it was, now
he
worked for
them
. And who was left working for him? Only the worthless wretch at his feet, the clown whose bitch of a sister he’d been poking a while back. He had a debt to pay off, and he needed reminding of this. — Ye still work for me. Ye fuckin drive. Anywhere ah say. London. Liverpool. Manchester. Hull. Ye pick up stuff. Ye bring it back. Goat that?

Russell Birch looked up at his former brother-in-law, into those impenetrable dark glasses. All he could say was, — Okay, Craig –

— If you ever fucking call me that again, I’ll tear yir stupid heid oaf. Ma name’s Seeker. Say it!

And it was. How could he have been so stupid? It was Seeker. Always
Seeker.
— Sorry … sorry, Seeker, he coughed, feeling like his stomach had been torn open.

— Right, now git the fuck ootay ma sight.

Russell Birch groped for the door handle in the swimming twilight. Fear was working through his pain and he was out of there. Out, out, out.

Seventh Floor

I DON’T MIND
Mark dossing here, he’s a decent geezer, but I ain’t sure about the fella he’s brought with him. Swans around like he owns the place, and that’s when he’s here, which thankfully ain’t that often. Fack knows what he gets up ta.

It all makes things a little tense first thing in the mornings, specially as I ain’t been sleeping too soundly of late. The one big problem with this flat is that we’re next to the rubbish chute. Bottles and all sorts go crashing past me head inside that wall, hurtling down that farking chute into the big garbage bin, and at all hours.

This morning ain’t no exception to the uptight vibe; I get up to find that other cunt, Sick Boy by name and Sick Boy by nature, sitting at the window with a plate of toast. — Good morning, Nicksy, he snaps, then, surveying the manor, with that bleedin look on his boat, — Hackney: not exactly a great part of town, is it? he says, like he was expecting farking Buck House or something.

— You’re welcome ta find another, I tell the cunt.

And he just turns ta me, cocky as ya like, — Rest assured, I’m working on it.

Cheeky fucker. And I heard he’s ruffled a few feathers down the local n all. I ain’t got much time for blokes who think they’re better than anyone else, like they’re the only ones full of big ideas and dodgy scams. And it ain’t like he’s had me up stayin at his Jockland shithole, so a little bit of respect is called for.

And it ain’t so bad on this estate. There’s a lot worse tower blocks round here than Beatrice Webb House. Even up on the seventh floor we get a decent view; right across Queensbridge Road and over to London Fields. And the lifts usually work; well, they did yesterday. The gaff ain’t brilliant, but I’ve dossed in worse. I inherited a gigantic American-style fridge-freezer which takes up half the kitchen, not that there’s ever anything in it. I got my own room, and there’s mattresses in the spare bedroom for the lads to crash on.

At least this Sick Boy cunt actually gets up. Ain’t having a go at Mark,
but
he does a lot of farking kipping; he’s just surfaced now, squinting and rubbing sleep from his eyes, and it’s nearly one o’clock. He picks up a video box from on top of the telly and goes, — Ah prefer Chuck Norris tae Van Damme.

Sick Boy looks at the cunt like he’s farking tapped. — I’m sure you would, Renton. I’m absolutely certain
you
would, he says, now sitting in the kitchen at the table, writing on a series of cards, in a very neat, deliberate hand. He’s got his back turned, so we can’t cop a butcher’s. Not that we give a toss what the cunt’s up ta. Mark flops back on the couch and picks up the Orwell novel he’s been reading:
A Clergyman’s Daughter
. It was the first proper book I read at school, after the dyslexia got diagnosed and I started ta get help. Didn’t matter that it was about five times the size of everybody else’s text and I got the farking piss ripped outta me for being a div, I just loved it. Orwell was the bollocks. Way I see it, the cunt ain’t ever been equalled.

— Apparently there’s still a bit of a drought up the road, skag-wise,

Sick Boy says, absent-mindedly. — I called Matty the other day. He was rattling like a panda in a Chinese takeaway.

Matty: now there’s a top geezer. Wish it was him Rents brought down. Would’ve been like the old days back in Shepherd’s Bush. Good times, they was. Rents briefly turns to eyeball Sick Boy’s hawklike profile, then goes back to the book.

So I’ve been treading water: putting up with Scotch geezers, but thinking of Marsha upstairs.

I catch the bleedin awful pong coming from the kitchen. The flat smells like a farking bear pit, and that’s probably an insult to the ursine race, who seem quite a tidy bunch when all’s said and done. Mark puked in there, chasing too much brown, the cunt, and he ain’t cleaned it up, and him and Sick Boy are arguing about it. — I’ll sort it, he says, but without looking like he’s in any big hurry ta do it. Fucking well turned his nose up at the brown first n all, he did, said it couldn’t be proper skag; went on about how it was white back home. Can’t get enough now though, the cunt.

I’ve had it here; I leave my filthy Jock guests and exit into a cold, crisp, fresh day, filling my lungs with air and instantly feeling better. Heading towards the market, I scans Marsha’s sister, Yvette, a big fat gel, who looks nothing like her, outside the overland station on Kingsland Road. — Alright?

— Yeah, sound.

— How’s Marsha?

— She’s restin, innit. Ain’t been well. Yvette shifts her weight onto one leg and a heavy tit almost seems ready to spill out from her blouse like a slinky.

— Sorry to hear that …

Yvette’s got that Jamaican-London thing going on. — She naht told you, has she? she says, as she makes the reparations to her top, pullin her coat tight.

— Told me wot?

— Nothing … it’s nothing. Just women’s problems.

— She ain’t talkin ta me. I need ta see her. I just wanna know what I done wrong, that’s all.

Yvette shakes her head. — Leave it, Nicksy. If she don wanna know ya, she don wanna know ya. Ya won’t change her, she says, then gives a little chuckle to herself and repeats, — Nah, mon, ya won’t change her.

I shrugs and leaves the fat gel, thinkin that it ain’t as if I’m out for changin anybody, I’m a no-questions-asked sort of geezer normally. After all, I’m still a young man, and she’s a very young gel. Seventeen. Older in some ways, but younger in others. With a two-year-old son, little Leon. Lovely little kid.

I ain’t met the little chap’s old man, and maybe he’s back on the scene; I dunno if he’s got any claims on her. All she would say when I broached the subject was, — Nah, it’s all cool, man.

Cause I know the lie of the land; I certainly ain’t enough of a farking div to step on some big spade’s territory. The white man’s long moved out to the Shires; bar a few pockets like Bermondsey (and them Millwall cunts don’t count), inner London’s pretty much ruled by the spade and the yuppie. It sometimes feels as if the likes of us are just farking guests in our own city. You gotta behave yourself, and besides, wars over skirt: you can forget it.

But I really thought that me and her had something. Then I thought about how a lot of people, black and white, don’t like the idea of a white geezer and a black bird getting it on. One day it won’t matter a fuck; we’ll all be coffee-coloured with a tint of yellow. Till then we got a load of grief ta get through.

Bad Circulation

THANK GOD THAT
wee Maria lassie is safely back at her Uncle Murray’s in Nottingham. I found her a couple ay weeks ago, a total mess, begging up the Bridges, when I was heading back fae work, so I brought her wi me tae Johnny’s. But she freaked when we got tae the stair; said she’d been here before, and was too feart tae go in. So I went up and sorted her oot something, then got her uncle’s number and phoned him. I took her hame wi me – I was shitein it that she’d rob us in the night when I left her on that couch – and the next day we went up tae St Andrew’s Square bus station. I bought her a Nottingham ticket and stuck her on that National Express coach n didnae leave until it pulled away. I called her Uncle Murray the next day, tae make sure she got there, and he telt me he was looking tae line up treatment for her. Murray was really tearing intae Simon, blaming him for Maria being on junk, but I didnae want tae get intae that with him. Sometimes families jist project their shit onto other people. Fair play tae her Uncle Murray but, he sent me up a cheque for the ticket.

The last thing I wanted was tae go oot the night after work. Alexander wis aw funny the day, probably because I’ve no been seeing him, outside the office, as much as he wants. Sometime I catch him watchin me, lookin out from his wee room aw sad-eyed and hopeful, like a dug wi a leash in its mooth. Ah like him but it’s too much right now, and that’s pittin it mildly. Toon’s cauld and mingin: thaire’s been a thaw, n the melting snow and ice has left the city like a giant ashtray ay fag ends, grit and dug shit. I even thought I’d gie it a miss going up tae see Mum the night, but Dad’s left a message on the answerphone, telling me to come up tae the hospital right away, saying he’d telt Mhairi and Calum tae get there n aw. I didnae like his tone. I get changed quick, all jumpy with nerves and head oot.

When I get tae the ward my mum looks like she’s sinking intae her bed. Wi her bandages she’s like her ain mummified remains, like she should be in an Egyptian tomb. I’m about tae speak when it hits me in stark horror: this
isnae
my ma. I realise I’m in the wrong room, and I numbly
trot
one down, where my mother looks almost exactly the same as the poor cow next door. It’s as if she’s leaking intae the mattress, like a deflating balloon. My dad’s by her side, his thin shoulders shaking, like he’s fighting tae control his breathing. He’s pale and his pencil moustache has been almost shaved off on one side, like he’s made a real mess of trimming it. I nod to him, and bend over Mum. Her eyes, dead and glassy, like my old teddy bear’s, stare vacantly up the ceiling. What’s left of her is pumped so full of morphine I doubt she even registers me as I bend tae kiss her papery cheek, smelling her fetid breath. She’s rotting away from the inside.

The ward sister comes in and puts her hand on Dad’s shoulder. — She’s going now, Derrick, she says softly.

He locks his hands roond my mother’s scraggy claw, and he’s pleading, — No … no … Susan … no … no little Susie … no ma little Susie … it wisnae supposed tae be like this …

I’m minding how he used tae sometimes sing that song, ‘Wake Up Little Susie, tae her, usually when he brought her breakfast in bed oan a Sunday. I’m doon beside her, saying tae her, — I love you, Mum, over and over again, tae this sack ay skin, bone and tumour, wrapped in bandages across the chest the surgeon’s made flat; hoping and praying for a God I’ve never really thought much about tae suddenly enter those wounds.

My dad rests his heid on her stomach, and I run my fingers through his still thick, spiky black hair, but wi some silver strands in it that look like ghosts, walking among the living. — It’s okay, Daddy, I say stupidly, — it’s okay. I realise I huvnae called him that since I was about ten.

Somewhere in all this, Mum convulses mildly, then stops breathing. I didn’t see her last breath, and I’m glad. We wait there in silence for a bit, my dad making groaning noises, like a small, wounded animal, me feeling guilt at the awful swathes of relief that cascade over me. It wasn’t Mum any more, she could barely recognise us on the drugs they were giving her. Now she’s gone and nothing can hurt her. But no tae see her again, ever, that’s just way too much tae get ma heid roond.

I’m twenty-one years old and I’ve just watched my mother die
.

My wee brother, Calum, and wee sister, Mhairi, come in, both of them destroyed. They’ve got that condemning stare, like they think I’ve stolen something, as Dad rises, himself looking like a man pulling his body oot ay a grave, and hugs both me and Mhairi. After he goes over to Calum and tries tae dae the same to him, but Cal pushes him away and looks tae the bed. — Is that it then, he asks, — is that Ma away?

— She’s at peace now, she didnae suffer … she didnae suffer … my dad keeps repeating.

My brother is shaking his heid, as if to say, ‘She had cancer for four years, a double mastectomy and loads of chemotherapy, of course she fuckin well suffered.’

I’m gripping the cold metal bars at the foot ay the bed. Looking at the oxygen outlet in the wall. The plastic jug on the locker. The two stupid Christmas cards on the shelf by the windae. Focusing on anything but that corpse. I’m thinking about my mum’s morphine stash that I took fae the hoose and is in the bedside table back at mine. For a rainy day. Fucked if they’re getting that back, the hospitals; they owe us that, at least.

I take Mhairi ootside for a fag. — We shouldnae be daein this, I tell her, — no after Ma.

— It’ll happen tae us anyway, Mhairi says, silent tears ruining her eye make-up, faced scrunched in misery. — Tits cut oaf n dyin like that, like a freak! What’s the point?

— You dunno that’ll happen tae you!

— It gits handed doon!

— Ye dinnae ken that! C’mere you, ya dough heid, n ah wrap my arms aroond her. — We’ve got tae look eftir these boys in thaire, you n me, right? That’s what Mum would want. Ye ken how fuckin useless they are. Seen Dad’s tache? Christ almighty! She laughs in a painful explosion, then screws her face up n greets again. Ah kin smell the Coco Chanel on her, that stuff that went missin before ah moved oot, the fuckin wee thief, but it’s no exactly the time tae say anything.