The White Room (7 page)

‘Fucking whore. Slag. Fucking slag.'

The words long-drawn-out, every syllable enunciated to its twisted maximum.

He lifted his arm, drew it back to strike her. Monica dropped her head, cowered in fear before him. She let out an involuntary whimper.

‘Howay, Brian, man.' Brimson. ‘Divvent hit 'er, man. She'll not do it again.'

Brimson's voice cut the tension in the room, broke the spell. Eddie tried to laugh. Brian turned to him as if seeing him for the first time. The laugh died on Eddie's lips. At that moment Monica became aware of the relationship between the three men. Brian was the boss. Brian was the one the other two feared.

Brian turned back to Monica, blinked.

‘Get to bed.'

Monica just stared at him.

‘Bed.'

Her lower lip trembling, her eyes beginning to moisten, she turned and made for the stairs.

Alone in the bedroom she let it all out.

She was still awake when, hours later, Brian came up to bed. She was on her side staring at the curtains, watching the new day appear, hoping that it would bring with it enough light to illuminate the dark corners.

The bedsprings creaked as Brian slid beneath the blankets and sheets, moved in to her. She felt his erection poking in to her back, his hands roughly working their way between her buttocks, her thighs. His fingers probing her vagina, pulling it open. His penis forcing its way inside her. Skin on flesh; for the first time no rubber between them. The rough friction of his back and forth thrusts. The tremble in his abdomen, his thighs as he came inside her. The instant withdrawal and squeal of bedsprings as he flopped on his back. The tickle between her legs as his semen slowly trickled out of her. She heard his snores as he fell into instant sleep. She sighed. She didn't move.

She lay on her side staring at the curtains.

He had said the word. He had told her he loved her. And even rough love was better than no love at all.

She was watching the new day appear, hoping that it would bring with it enough light to illuminate dark corners.

But doubting it.

They all slept in the next day. Brian woke Monica, told her to get up, make him his breakfast. Fearing what would happen if she refused, she did as she was told.

Downstairs in the cramped kitchen, she cooked him bacon and egg.

Brimson and Eddie didn't stir.

‘I've been thinkin',' said Brian, forking a load of egg into his mouth, sucking the yolk in.

She turned from the sink to face him. Stood expectantly.

‘What you did last night.'

Her stomach turned over.

‘I've been thinkin' you should do that. Make some money.'

He put his knife to a slice of bacon, tore a strip off, pushed it into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, looked up.

‘D'you reckon?'

Monica stared at him.

‘D'you reckon.'

Malice and menace had entered his voice. Not a question this time.

Monica didn't know what to say. She couldn't agree with him, and she didn't dare argue. Instead she heard herself say: ‘You said love.'

Her voice was tiny and frail, like a bird not daring to fly.

‘What?'

She cleared her throat, preparing her wings.

‘Last night. You said love.'

‘So?'

He shrugged, went on eating.

‘Love. It's the first time you've said it to me.'

He finished his breakfast, rimmed the plate with his fried bread to sop up the juices, crammed it into his mouth. Chewed. Swallowed.

Monica remained standing, staring at him.

‘You've never told me you love me.'

Brian took a mouthful of tea, looked up.

‘I've never told you I love you?'

The words sounded foreign, alien to his mouth.

‘No.'

Brian stared at her, blank-faced. Then he smiled. As he did so, his eyes seemed lit by a strange light.

‘So if I tell you I love you, you'll do it?'

Monica stared at him.

He gave a small, snorted laugh, shook his head.

‘I love you.'

He took another slurp of tea, set his mug down.

Monica stared at him, her eyes unreadable.

‘I'll do it, then.'

Then, a couple of months later, the news. The news that she thought would end that part of her life, usher in a new, happier one.

Illuminate the dark corners.

‘I'm gonna have a baby.'

She smiled when she told Brian.

Brian looked at her.

‘So?'

‘So I can stop working.'

Brian shrugged.

‘You won't show for a while. You can keep goin'.'

She felt herself reddening.

‘And then what? What about when I start to show?'

Brian shrugged again.

‘We'll just have to find some punters who like pregnant lasses.'

He shrugged on his drape, checked his quiff in the mirror, walked out of the house.

Monica sat there alone in the living room. She looked around. The sun streamed in through the windows. Dust motes danced in the light. But there were dark corners the sun couldn't reach.

There would always be dark corners the sun couldn't reach.

She was gasping, panting, as the baby's head began to emerge.

It poked out from between her legs, purple and gnarled, covered in blood.

Blood. It was everywhere. Pouring out from between her thighs, darkening the wooden floor, dripping down between the boards. Covering her hands and arms, making them slippery. She wiped them on her body, left long red streaks.

She pushed, gasping again, groaning through gritted teeth, propped up on her arms. The pain was intense. She had experienced nothing like it before. As if her body was being ripped apart, flesh peeled off the bone like the skin peeled from an orange. Like trying to shit a melon.

She pushed again.

The baby was head and shoulders out now.

She had to stop, to rest. She was exhausted; she could push no more.

She looked down, the baby half in, half out of her body.

Panic again gripped her. She didn't want to go on, but she couldn't stop. She screamed in frustration. Wished for somebody to make it stop, take it all away. Deal with it for her.

She had the sense at that moment of being alone. Not just in the room, on the floor, but in her life. No one there to help her, to reach her. Alone.

Apart from this thing sticking out of her.

She pushed again, sobbing, wanting the ordeal to be over.

The baby moved further out, further then, almost with a pop, slipped fully out and lay there on the floor.

Monica breathed deeply, gasping, relieved as if she'd just run twenty three-minute miles.

The baby moved its arms and legs, its head. Lay there on a bed of blood and boards.

She looked at it, at the cause of all her pain, at the cord that joined her to it.

She felt something else move inside her and gasped again as the red and purple mass of afterbirth appeared.

Monica looked again. At the body lying there. Helpless.

And wondered what Brian would say. What kind of wedge it would drive between them?

She didn't want to, but she knew she would have to pick it up. Hold it.

Then cut that cord as soon as possible.

Brian leaned over the table, stick in hand, one eye closed. He lined up his shot, white on red, drew back the stick, pushed it forward. White rolled heavily into coloured –
clack
– like bone brought down on bone. He liked that sound. Drew comfort from it. He watched, eyes narrowed, lip corners twitching, anticipating the smile signal from his brain. The red rolled to the corner pocket, overhead light reflecting and bouncing from its surface as it travelled, to disappear silently into the black-leather-trimmed string pouch.

Brian allowed a smile to reach his face, but not of joy: one acknowledging natural superiority, offering the pocketed ball as evidence. He straightened up, resisted the temptation to run his comb through his Tony Curtis and lined up the next shot.

Behind him on the far wall, the jukebox was belting out ‘See You Later, Alligator', Bill Haley and the Comets.

Brian heard it through his one good ear. Fat old bloke, thought Brian. Ought to be ashamed of himself cavortin' like a kid at his age.

The song clattered to an end to be replaced by Elvis Presley: ‘Heartbreak Hotel'. Now that bloke knew the score. Brian would have sung along if he were the sort who sang. He would have danced or at least shuffled his feet, but that just wasn't him. Instead he took his smoking Woodbine from the ashtray, dragged deep, replaced it, narrowed his eyes at the table again. Calculated the angles.

Black off left-hand side cushion, in at the right-hand middle pocket; not too much spin, only shave the corner of the coloured ball.

Perfect.

He leaned over, lined up, drew back, pushed forward. Hit. Left side cushion to right-hand middle pocket, shaving the corner of the coloured ball. And in.

He stood up, took a drag. Elvis Presley declared himself so lonely he could cry. Brian blocked the sound from his ear, focused on the table.

Brimson sat at the table keeping score, his cue unused at his side, working his way down a John Player and a pint of beer. Resigned to sitting there a long time.

Brian looked at the table, worked out his next move. He stared at the balls, confident of winning; confident enough to let Presley in, let his thoughts stray towards Monica. Monica, Monica, Monica. Monica without a kid was fine. She serviced the punters. Brought in money. Kept the house clean and tidy. Monica pregnant and swollen was even better. In that state she broadened her appeal to two types of punter: those who wanted her like that, and those who didn't care either way. Of the two, the first type was less plentiful but that was good. They paid more. Brian liked that. Enjoyed selling something rare.

She was due to have the kid soon. A son and heir. That's what it would be. He had heard that babies were hard work, needed a lot of looking after. Made demands, drained energy and money. That wasn't his problem. Monica was the mother. That was her job. His was to bring in money. And once it had arrived and Monica had got used to it, she could carry on working. In fact, he might even get her pregnant again. He liked the extra money.

Contemplating the green baize angles, he became aware of a figure moving quickly towards him in his peripheral vision. He instinctively grabbed the cue, turned, ready.

It was Eddie. Hurrying, sweating, shirt untucked from the waist of his drainpipes, quiff collapsed on one side of his head like a dirty blond wave breaking against the shore of his forehead.

‘Brian …'

He stood breathless, back bent, palms on thighs, mouth clutching at air.

Brian grabbed for his drape, pulled it on. Brimson did the same, struggling his fat frame from the chair, shrugging his jacket over his meaty shoulders. Eddie's condition could mean only one thing, Brian thought. The Bells.

Brian mentally inventoried his pockets: brass knuckles. Sweeney Todd knife. Back-up blade in case he lost Sweeney. Comb, so he looked good while he was working. The tools of his trade.

The Bell brothers and the Mooney brothers went back years. Brian's older brother Nabs, or Noel as he preferred to be called now, and his gang had declared the Bells potential rivals. No real reason: Noel's chief employment was cigarette hijacking, debt collecting and protection strong-arming. The Bells, he said, wanted a piece of all that. The Bell brothers, Kenny and Johnny, were informed. Whether it was true or not, they had been more than ready to fight. So it became a turf war. Pecking order. Respect. This town ain't big enough. All to play for.

‘The Bells?' asked Brian.

Eddie nodded.

‘Where?'

‘Goin' into the Ropemakers. I ran straight here.'

‘Good.' Brian thought, mind flicking through possibilities, seeking UN-like justification for intervention. ‘On our turf. Let's go.'

Brian made for the door, a panting Eddie following. Brimson drained his pint glass and rolled behind them. The three left the snooker hall.

Elvis Presley sang that he'd been so long on Lonely Street he wasn't able to look back.

*

They walked down Raby Street in Byker, all the while looking behind them for a bus that would stop. They were keyed up, tense. Building themselves up for a fight. Brian's intensity was deepest. He moved like he had a sci-fi film force field around him, a plastic bubble; he could see out but he couldn't be touched.

No bus in sight; they had a walk ahead of them. Eddie and Brimson smoked, talked. Pumped themselves up. Brian said nothing. His face gave nothing away: blank, smooth and hard like stones on a beach. But inside, his guts squirmed like a snake pit: serpents of different sizes, weights and aspects, all writhing, biting, fighting for prominence.

Eddie and Brimson left him alone, assumed he was thinking of the impending ruck. But he wasn't. It was Monica again. Impending birth and imminent fatherhood; the two songs on the jukebox. He knew he should dismiss the thoughts: they were dangerous; they'd weigh him down in the fight to come, make him heavy when he should be nimble.

But to dismiss the thoughts he had to confront them. Honestly.

Monica. And his guts churned further. And there were the doubts again. Not just doubts – fears. That she was turning into his mother. That he was turning her into his mother.

A slag. A whore.

Brian had grown up in a house of hate. He hated his father, because of or in spite of the fact that he left them early. His mother had never given him any romantic, embroidered excuses as to his absence: just that he was a bastard who had left them. Brian had speculated for years, the younger he was the more fanciful the explanation: a fighter pilot shot down and taken prisoner during a secret mission after the Second World War, about to walk through the door at any moment. And then, when that didn't happen: not missing, but heroically killed in action. As Brian got older, his heroes changed: maybe his dad was in prison for a daring jewel robbery. Maybe he was an undercover policeman who couldn't reveal his identity. Maybe he was in the secret service, spying in an exotic foreign country. Then with age came gradual realization: he was living with another woman. He didn't care about Brian, Noel or his mother. He was in prison, but not for anything glamorous. He was drunk in a gutter somewhere. Brian didn't know what was worse: knowing or not knowing. It didn't matter. He hated both equally.