Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma (16 page)

*

Ma told Doug it definitely wouldn't work. She told him he could have his bachelor pad and see Tiny as often as he liked and that they'd file for divorce for her to be eligible for a place on her own. She waited till they were drunk, and in the middle of the row, Doug came into the bedroom, picked up our portable telly and threw it out the window. To be fair, it didn't hit anyone and he even opened the window first. We'd been there a month, all cooped up. It had got to everyone.

It was the fleas that got to me mostly. They'd come in off the bed that Ma and Doug found in the street though I saw Ma disinfect it myself. At night I felt the fleas jumping all over my legs and tried to kick them off; I'd wake Tiny who would wake up Ma and then none of us could get any sleep for thinking about the fleas. Some nights we just lay under the duvet feeling itchy, scratching our bites and covering the grey sheets with brown flecks of our blood.

‘Aren't fleas supposed to go when the winter comes?' I asked into the dark. I could feel Tiny's toenails scratching at my legs and Ma's sharp shoulder under my chin.

‘Aye, but these are Scottish mutants, they're a hardy breed.'

‘Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?' Tiny whispered from under the covers where she was giving her ankles a good scratch; I could hear the rasping sound.

‘Aye, Tiny.' I pulled up the covers. ‘We're bein' eaten alive by teenage mutant ninja fleas.'

‘They'll probably outlast us, the little fucks,' Ma added and we had a little laugh and scratched until we were too tired to bother.

*

Tiny went to the local Protestant school because it was right next to the Catholic one and Ma said she wouldn't have her kids brainwashed like before by praying a hundred times a day. Doug said, ‘She's my daughter too.' But he didn't really care so Ma got her way.

About a week into school Ma got called in because Tiny had been caught with some boys chucking stones over the fence at the Catholic playground.

Tiny was a tough little bugger. When she was two me and Ma got out a tape measure and measured around her head, waist and hips. We kept doing it over and over, making Tiny stay still, but the measurements stayed the same; head thirteen inches, chest thirteen, waist thirteen. Around that time she used to fall forward onto her head a lot and she even fell into a bed of nettles, but she didn't cry, she just blinked her big blue eyes and staggered off again to investigate an empty Coke can.

Almost five now Tiny hadn't grown out of her stocky body and still had chubby legs with dimples at the knees. She had her da's messy hair, though black not blonde like his, and blue eyes with flecks of yellow. Everyone said she'd be a beauty when she'd lost her puppy fat.

After seeing the head teacher Ma took her home and gave her a hard smack on the arse. Doug didn't even look round, just poured another drink and said, ‘An' yeh were worried about her being brainwashed?'

I went to a high school in town and there weren't that many Syke Side kids there because most of them got on the coaches to St Mary's each morning.

I fell in with a chubby girl called Trudy, who loved Disney, and Rachel, who already had to wear a B cup and had a brown downy moustache.

We didn't have a lot to talk about but no one would hang about with me and it made them look better to have another person, even if that person was me.

The main thing we talked about was Keanu Reeves. We'd sit on the hidden stairs by the Tech Block sucking on crisps to make them last longer, singing Bon Jovi and swapping Keanu Reeves posters from
Just Seventeen
or
Smash Hits
. Most of the time I had none to swap but sometimes Trudy would give me one that was a bit ripped or had a kidney-shaped greasy crisp stain on Keanu's chin.

At the weekends Trudy and Rachel went to a church group in Motherwell. They told me they were ‘saved' but when I asked what that meant they would just share a smile and say, ‘You wouldn't understand, Janie.'

When I told Ma, over turkey burgers and Super Noodles, that my new pals were saved, Doug laughed like he did when he listened to
The Archers
and said, ‘Well, if yeh didnae want them tae be brainwashed sending them to Proddy schools was genius!' and chuckled away for the rest of the dinner while Ma sat stony-faced.

*

My trousers were getting shorter, so short you could see an inch of grey sock and three inches of greyer skin when I was sat down. At lunchtimes Trudy and Rachel averted their eyes and that, after giving me the occasional Keanu Reeves poster, was probably the nicest thing they ever did.

‘It's just a growth spurt, Janie. What do yeh expect me tae do about it? We're moving an' we've not a tin-opener to our name.' Ma was packing things into our suitcase. There was plenty of room; we'd never had less.

‘It was you who said we'd have everything we needed here. What a fuckin' joke.'

‘Hey! Enough of the language. Just cause yeh come from fishwives doesnae mean yeh need tae speak like one.' She had a bra swinging from her finger. ‘Just be grateful that we've a roof an' four walls of our own an' we can get away from the fuckin' fleas.' Her eyes flooded, she looked down at the bra and added, ‘This isnae how things were meant tae turn out, yeh know.'

It wasn't the tears that softened my hard child's heart, they were an everyday thing, it was the washed-out bra with little holes in the grubby nylon lace and the underwire sticking out. I imagined it jabbing at her while she did the weekly shop, her having to poke it back in all the time. That was what made me go kneel behind Ma, put my arms around her shoulders and lay my head on the top of her back.

‘We'll be fine, Ma. I'm sorry.'

*

‘An' we've a garden that just the four flats share. Imagine that, Tiny, in the winter or even this winter if we're lucky with a bit of snow!'

Doug pinched a fleck of tobacco from his tongue. It was a tight Sunday, he and Ma were splitting fag ends apart and using the scorched, leftover dross inside to make new roll-ups. We'd had spaghetti and marge and tap water for dinner. I was even looking forward to school dinners the next day.

‘Listen, Iris,' Doug spoke quietly, edging around a row, ‘I'm no tryin' tae rain on yer parade but Greenend, it's proper cowboy country. If yer face doesnae fit they just wait till yer getting the shopping an' burn the house out an' it's only if yer lucky they wait till yeh go out.'

Our new home was at the end of the corner-shop wasteland where I'd seen the car burnt out on our first weekend. Whoever had named the estate Greenend had clearly never visited that dog-shite- and crisp-packet-peppered scrub of land.

‘Tsh!' Ma whistled through her teeth. ‘I've been up there myself. It's fine. Now stop scaring the kids.'

‘I'm not scared,' I said, though I was.

‘Me neither,' added Tiny, though she looked like she had just shat herself.

Ma said she was gasping, went to fill the kettle, though there was just powdered milk to have with used tea bags and Ma said it was like drinking baby sick.

Doug looked at me. ‘Listen, Janie. Yer a sensible girl, just make sure yeh keep yer heads down, alright? An try an' keep yer ma's mouth shut fer once.'

I tutted, gave him a slitty-eyed look, stomped to our room and slammed the door because he was probably right, but she was still my ma, mental or not.

We settled into Greenend and time passed with the usual landmarks, Uncle Frankie's anniversary, Christmas rows over spilled drinks and the wrong trainers, the birthdays where all I wanted was cash and a snog at the school disco. At school I kept in with Trudy and Rachel, kept on at them; I could understand, I did want more, I was good enough. I wanted to be in their gang and be like them, smiling secretly, telling other kids they wouldn't get it, that they weren't special enough.

So, I pretended I could talk tongues. I spat the nonsense out, plentiful as gobs of grey chewing gum, fell back into strong arms and said the Holy Spirit had filled me. I swallowed down God and Faith like aspirin; safe in its plain, everyday dullness.

There were ice-skating trips and rock concerts where electric guitars and drum solos blasted out Satan.

‘Satan, sinners, we're literally going to Rock You Out!'

There were picnics with games in the summer and for New Year's there was a party with a proper DJ. They said the Church was our family now, that God was our true Father, though for most of us he was our only Father. And there was always a good-looking older bloke who would sit down and listen to you, really listen, and give you a hug. There was lots of hugging, and he'd never lecture you, he'd just say, ‘Shall we pray about this, Janie?' and we'd bow our heads. At the end he'd tell me I was special and though I knew he meant ‘special in God's eyes' it was still fucking brilliant.

They didn't ask for anything back, not even money for the trips; all they wanted was repentance. You might think that with something like repenting or having your soul saved, once would be enough, but maybe every second meeting you had to do it again.

‘Please forgive me, a sinner, Lord. I ask for Your forgiveness.'

You had to pray as well, and hold your hands up and shout ‘Amen' or ‘Praise, we praise You, Father!' during the sermon. I could make myself cry and they said I must be very close to the Spirit.

They were right. I was swilling the spirit down my throat every weekend with my new church pals. Vodka when we could get it, but usually just MD 20/20 or a bottle of cider. The youth outreach workers, ‘the God Squad' they called themselves, and there was nothing tongue in cheek about it, targeted the worst estates in Motherwell, so I fitted in with the other recruits; snug and safe as a lucky upside-down fag in a Benson & Hedges packet, with my own kind.

Soon the older Motherwell girls invited me to be in their gang, the Gees, and the lads were all letting me wear their caps and hoodies because everyone knew no one fancied me.

Trudy and Rachel were rank with jealousy, like dried vomit, I suppose because it was only because of them I was even there, and the crisp eating and poster swaps stopped, and the rumours about me being ‘a using bitch' started. Which might or might not have been true.

Except for the lonely school lunches, when I took myself and 20p down to the phonebox in town and called Ma, just for something to do, I couldn't have cared less.

‘Just fer a natter. Are yeh watching
Neighbours
? What's happening?'

I didn't give a toss about Trudy and Rachel. I might have no mates at my school but I spent every weekend and most nights in Motherwell with my gang and that was enough to keep me going during the week.

Saturday night was ‘Youth Alive!' and then we went on to Paul's, who used to be saved but got kicked out for getting a girl pregnant. We'd have joints with weed or skunk, usually on Paul's credit from the local dealer, and whatever booze we could scrounge up. Once we were tanked enough we'd go out and hang about on the estate's pavements, under the orange lights, at least until the buzz wore off and we started feeling like twats just standing on a street corner with nowhere to go.

The next evening we'd go to Sunday service, fill up on tea and biscuits, soothe our hangover jitters with hugs, and shout, ‘Praise, yes, praise him!' I never had the energy to speak in tongues or repent on Sundays though.

*

‘It's bullshite, Janie. Yeh'll have grown out of it in a few years. I mean, do yeh even really believe in God?'

‘I suppose yeh don't want me tae be happy then? Just cause it means being a Christian? At least I've mates and go out at the weekends.'

Ma pulled a face and turned back to the dishes. She had her own problems; like not having any mates or anywhere to go any day except Asda. Problems like Tiny finding junkies' needles in the garden and bringing one back to the house; like the loan sharks turning up at our neighbour's door in balaclavas and holding pry bars, and Ma having to go out in her nightie and say she was calling the police. Even though she thought Margaret was a stuck-up bitch. Then there was the girl my age who was raped walking to the shop after school and they still hadn't found who'd done it.

There was nothing in Coatbridge for Ma but plenty of worries, time to sleep, and Doug. Sometimes he'd come up for a few drinks but he always tried to get Ma into bed and when she told him to fuck off he'd try and tap her for a fiver for a drink to ‘salve his hurt pride'. Ma knew his game. ‘I'll call his bluff. One time I'm going tae drag him off tae bed, the old bugger.'

‘Ma! I dinnae want tae hear it.'

‘Well, anyway,' she pulled the pink fleecy dressing gown round her, ‘between that an' the hangover, I'm better off by myself.'

School got much worse; Rachel and Trudy told everyone I was a lezzer. I never did work out why they chose that but maybe they were cleverer than they looked because, despite the fat, moustached source, it was juicy enough for everyone to want to believe.

Girls flinched if I stood next to them and made big scared eyes at their mates and lads would stand behind me in the canteen queue and whisper, ‘Yeh like the taste then?' They'd ripple their hand in front of my face like an undulating fish. ‘What you havin' fer dinner? Furry kebab with a drink from the furry cup?'

‘Fuck up, Adam! Your ma's like an ice-cream van – everyone knows she'll give anyone a lick fer ten pee. Yeh twat.'

I asked Ma if I could change to Motherwell High. ‘I'd be with my mates an' maybe if I was there the council'd give us transfer. A new start, Ma, fer you an' me an' Tiny, away from Greenend.'

I stayed home the next week, watching Richard and Judy and that dick Fred jumping about on the floating map and by Friday I was enrolled at Motherwell High. That was the thing about Ma; when she really wanted to do something, she could get anything sorted.

*

They put me in remedial English for the first week. At Coatbridge being with ‘the rems' was like turning up to school with a period stain on your skirt but at Motherwell the remedials were the hard kids and the cool ones who hardly ever came to school anyway.

On my first day I got sat with a scrawny girl with a hole in her trousers, smoker's cough and yellow-stained fingers. She had huge brown eyes but almost no eyelashes. I never saw her smile.

‘Wha' have yeh done then?'

There was a bit of wheeze to her voice but I knew a challenge when I heard one. ‘In English? Well –'

‘No, yeh fuckwit, I mean, like, Es, hash, jellies, acid?'

‘Oh. Just skunk, but really strong, an' a wee bit of whizz once or twice.'

I didn't know if I had done speed but Kim said she saw the lads put some in our drinks once and I had been a bit hyper that night.

‘Do yeh smoke?'

‘No.' I saw a shadow cross her face and I shrugged, pushed out my chin. ‘I mean, I only want tae smoke if it's getting me wasted. I'd rather spend my money on gear.'

She was drawing big dicks on the top of her worksheet; she was quite an artist, even if the proportion was a little off on the testes.

‘Would yeh ever do smack?'

I thought of cold pale lips and Frankie's dead body lying across old porn in that dark shed. ‘No, I'll try anything but I wouldnae do smack ever.'

She nodded. ‘Good girl, me neither. I've done –' she counted off on her fingers – ‘Es, jellies, uppers, whizz, dope and grass.'

‘I've done grass an' all. Home-grown. My mate Paul grows it.'

She looked annoyed and carried on with her list. ‘An' downers, mushies and acid but I wouldnae do acid again. If yeh want anythin' just go tae the van.'

‘The van?'

‘Aye, the ice-cream one outside at lunchtime. He's got everythin' but he'll make yeh buy some sweets or crisps an' all. What's yer name?'

‘Janie.'

She nodded, her eyes serious. ‘I'm Shona.'

She finished her cock with a tight scribble of pubes and I went back to my fill-in-the-words worksheet, feeling like I'd got 8 out of 10 in my first English class.

The next lesson I salt-and-peppered my essay with commas and they behaved like they'd never seen one before and carted me off, there and then, to the top set. I missed Shona, especially compared to the snotty padded hairband and scrunchie brigade who made up top set.

*

I wasn't sexy skinny; you could count my ribs and I had dirty-blonde hair that stuck up in funny directions from years of cuts with kitchen scissors. I hairsprayed it into a tight ponytail, with a stiff crispy sticking-up wave of a fringe and wore NHS glasses that made my eyes look wide and shocked. For my fourteenth birthday the girls chipped in and got me Collection 2000 make-up and it made me feel a bit better to have the dark-lined eyebrows, eyes and lips.

I'd only kissed one boy and he told everyone it was boring cause I hardly moved my head even though I'd let him feel my tits through my jumper. I didn't need a school uniform on top of it all. Every day I wore my Doctor Martens, fake but you couldn't tell, jeans and my Fruit of the Loom sweatshirt, sometimes a Nike T-shirt, and every day a note got sent home to Ma who couldn't afford the new red jumper for Motherwell High so she just stuffed them down the side of the sofa.

Besides, I only went home once a week, on a Monday night, to get my share of the nice beginning-of-the-week food and some clean knicks. I'd shout into Ma and Tiny's room as I left on a Tuesday morning, ‘Ma! If I'm not home fer a few days I'll just be at Kim's!' She didn't reply.

One Monday night she came into the living room during
Neighbours
. ‘Janie, I'm worried about yeh being out at nights so much. Are yeh drinking? In Motherwell, with this new crowd? I know they're Christians but kids are kids.'

I looked at her face; she looked shattered and I couldn't be fucked lying.

‘Aye, Ma, but don't worry, it's just a wee drink of cider. I never get paralytic. An' I'm not smoking or doing any gear or anything stupid.'

Ma nodded and gave a weak smile. What she would have said if I told her I got so pissed I couldn't walk, that we had credit with half the dealers in Motherwell and that Paul had started smoking smack? But I could tell, I knew, that really she didn't want to hear it. She couldn't manage it. I might have told her then I wasn't sure I could either.

‘Well, I'm not a hypocrite, I'll not try an' lay down the law about booze, yer a sensible girl, Janie, but promise me yeh'll tell me if yeh get in any trouble? I'm yer ma.'

‘Aye, course. Do yeh want a cuppa?'

‘Lovely.'

She smiled and her dark bags under her eyes sagged; with the little flecks of grey through her hair she looked like she was turning to dust. I tore myself away from
Neighbours
and filled the kettle. Ma's voice bounced through the door frame; I imagined her tilted back to shout, ‘Yeh know I just miss my wee girl? I miss having a good chat.'

‘I know, Ma.'

*

I came home every Monday and left on Tuesday morning with a tenner in my pocket meant for food that I'd eke out on cider, my share of a quarter and the occasional ice pole or battered sausage.

Then I stopped going to school. I'd just go straight to Paul's or sometimes Kenny's. Paul could usually get some dope but Kenny made me cheese toasties and had MTV.

One day neither was home so I bought a bottle of lemonade and a packet of Bourbon biscuits and went to read
To Kill a Mockingbird
in the woods by the sewer stream. It was Scout sticking up for her da at the courthouse that started me crying. I wasn't crying for my da, I hardly thought about him or listened to Ma's stories any more, not really. I cried because none of us was as good as people in books and because there was nothing but sugar, no dope or booze, to blunt the worry slicing my insides.

*

As though to prove those tears weren't wasted, Doug proved my point that next weekend. He didn't even say goodbye to Tiny, he just left. Ma and Tiny took a walk up to his on the Sunday to see if he had a loan of a few quid and he was gone.

Either he'd left the door wide or it'd been jimmied because someone had shat in the kitchen sink, a thick long curl of a shite, obviously human, and someone else, or maybe the same person, had spray-painted ‘Fuck OFF Pakis' on the living-room wall. Maybe they'd got a bit confused. Ma found two tins of beans and one of rice pudding at the back of cupboard so at least it wasn't a completely wasted journey.

At home Ma gave Tiny, doing squares within miserable squares on her Etch A Sketch, a bowl of rice pudding. ‘He'll be in touch soon, Tiny, honest. You know yer da, he's a rolling stone!'

Ma tried to give a little laugh but Tiny just stared ahead and took a big spoon of rice pudding. I was hungover and pissed off about being stuck at home, painting my toenails on the sofa, thinking that Tiny should get used to it.

‘Aye, at least this time he left us three cans instead of nicking all our money.'

‘Shut up, Janie! My da doesn't steal. At least I've got one.'

Half-chewed flecks of Tiny's rice pudding landed on my foot and she was in front of me now, her face purple, chin wobbling.

‘Aye, an' I've one too. I just don't know where he is. So that makes us the same. Now eat yer rice pudding an' leave me alone.'