Ventriloquists (31 page)

‘The truth now, Maggie.’

Maggie displayed her empty palms. ‘I’ve been all about the truth from the very beginning.’

‘Now
that’s
not even true.’

‘You insult me, sir. Well, a bit. I can see your point, I suppose. All I can say is, some of it you’d’ve found harder to swallow than a focken prune stone, so I might’ve smudged some of the lines a little squidge.’

Nodding his head, Yasser suggested: ‘How about you unsmudge them now. I want a full frontal close-up shot, Maggie.’

And the woman laughed – momentarily. ‘You’ve already had one, you greedy bugger.’ Maggie sighed. ‘I’ll sit down – I’ll
need
to sit down.’ Her eyelids closed, and quietly she said, ‘There was a child – there really was. I used to work in the police station in Bedford – ironically enough, you might say. Tea-making was not one of me duties.’ She smirked. ‘Basically, I was there to chop onions and carrots, all that bullshit. You might call it prepping and you might call it donkey work; all I know’s, it was an honest job, and I look back on it fondly because it was the last time I was free…

‘You can probably guess the next bit: I met a bloke – a grocery delivery guy who came to the kitchen. A mouth-breathing shit-eater, it turned out, but at the time I thought the world of him… Anyway. Night followed day, as they say, and then one month I didn’t get me period. So that’s the end of that then, I thought; that’s me life, I thought, over – and me barely in me twenties. Cuz I was pretty bloody certain he wouldn’t stick around – how right I was about
that!
– but I had worse troubles to care for. First one being: the wanker’s name was Ali and came from a strict Muslim family, ho-bloody-ho. The second being, I’m not exactly from the kind of… ancestral stock that puts much faith in chasing irresponsible fathers down via legal channels and bloody paperwork. I was more worried I’d get home one night and find the tips of the bugger’s fingers in a decorative sash… Tommy likes a bit of mutilation if he thinks he’s on the side of the righteous, you know? The point being, how was I gonna pay for a
baby?
There’d have to come a point when I wouldn’t be able to work – and then what?’

Maggie did not answer her own question straight away, which led Yasser to the conclusion that he was expected to participate. ‘And then what,’ he agreed more than questioned.

‘Then my son came along.’ Maggie shrugged, as if to say:
what else?
‘And then one day… he wasn’t here anymore… Well. To say that Tommy suddenly took an interest in me is a bit of an understatement, Yass. The fucker was absolutely
obsessed
. Imagine. Up to then he’d hardly given a damn about the child, one way other to be honest – I didn’t even get the stick I was expecting for the boy being mixed race. Which I suppose was understandable – we were never, you know, really close like some siblings are.’

‘Siblings? You mean Tommy’s your
brother?
’ Yasser asked.

‘Of course he’s my brother. Why else would he take such an interest in you, the over-protective sod?’

‘Well, that’s one way of putting it. But taking dirty pictures of his
sister
. That’s well perverted.’

Maggie chuckled. ‘Oh he’s done a lot worse than that in his time, all in the service of what hangs between his legs.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘No you can’t.’

‘You see, I thought he was your ex.’

‘As I say… he’s done worse than take mucky pictures of me.’

Yasser’s back straightened. ‘Are you serious, Maggie? Hand on heart time.’

Maggie put her right hand on her heart. Her eyes were wide open she fixed Yasser with an earnest stare. ‘But not recently. When we were younger.’

‘Jesus. He should be in prison.’

‘Nice try. Not if your da won’t believe a word you say,’ Maggie answered; ‘or if he believes, doesn’t really give much of a toss. Don’t forget, we have… we have different rules on the land. Different from you.’

‘But it’s incest! It’s a crime!’

‘It doesn’t happen anymore, Yasser.’

‘You’re missing the point.’

‘No I’m not. I’m trying to tell you a story.’

‘Christ,’ Yasser interrupted. ‘Was it your father as well? I mean, if he’s aware of the filming…’

‘
Aware
of it? He
sells
it.’

‘…I feel sick.’

‘That’ll be me tea. Shall I go on?’

Yasser sighed. ‘You’d better, I suppose.’

8.

‘You’ll probably notice, there’s not a lot left behind to steal – we were burgled a couple of weeks ago,’ said Chris. And he watched Shyleen carefully, conscious that the comment might be offensive.

Shyleen took it well enough, however. ‘I’m not here to steal anything,’ she told him.

‘I take it, though, you and the Asian lad I spoke to are in it together.’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘So what’s going on then, if you’ll forgive my nosiness? Is he your what? – your boyfriend? Your brother?’

‘Cousin,’ Shyleen answered. ‘Sometimes boyfriend,’ she added. ‘Maybe we should get him in here, assuming he hasn’t gone home.’

‘Yeah why not?’ Chris chuckled. ‘Invite the whole street, why don’t you.’

With the sex tour of house having taken in only the ground floor, the two of them had made it into the lounge for Chris to finish on Shyleen’s face. That had been twenty minutes earlier – since then they’d been talking – and now Chris stood up from the sofa.

‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked.

‘Do you have any Baileys?’

‘No. I’ve got vodka and some grass. A smoke’s always nice with a Bloody Mary.’

‘Sure. What don’t kill you makes you stronger,’ Shyleen told him, and she watched dimples form on his buttocks as he slouched from the room.

What had she hoped to find here? Or more to the point, what had
Yasser
hoped she would find here? As Chris had pointed out, the electrical appliances had been taken from the room; the TV stand seemed naked without its wide screen, the CDs on a rack above the fireplace an almost surreal touch in the absence of a player… Every bit as naked as Chris was, Shyleen crossed the room in her birthday suit, in order to see what music he shared with his absent partner. As she skimread the sides of the boxes – jazz, acid house, Madness, ska – she absentmindedly chipped at a beauty mark of dessicated semen on her left nostril with a painted fingernail.

Chris returned carrying a tray. They sat on the carpet, in the middle of the floor, with Shyleen wondering how late Yasser would wait, and Chris rolling two thin joints with equal measures of tobacco and marijuana.

‘This is French,’ he said. ‘You’ve probably had stronger.’

‘I probably haven’t.’

‘
But it’s a mellow enough smoke for this hour of the morning.’

The lighter flared.

A minute or so later, Shyleen repeated her opinion that Yasser should be present. After what she and Chris had done together, it could not have been fear of the man that made her want this. Indeed, in her new lover’s company she felt assured, confident – she felt good. The fuck had invigorated her mind and cleared her system; but if she’d hoped that he would spill the beans as comprehensively as he’d spilled his sperm, she was out of luck. Orgasm had made the man no more trustful; no more open. Perhaps he had nothing to tell; perhaps he’d been telling Yasser the whole truth when they’d talked at the front door. Perhaps Chris had nothing to do with anything at all.

‘You’ve gone quiet,’ he said.

‘Thinking.’

‘Do you know what
I
think? I’m wondering why you didn’t let him into the house when you had the chance.’

‘And what chance was that?’

‘When I was asleep.’

‘
I didn’t know you
were
asleep. I must’ve fallen asleep myself.’

Chris laughed and exhaled smoke. ‘You occasionally read stories about people like you,’ he said. ‘Burglars who get so pissed in the family’s wine cellar they forget what they’re there for, and then the pigs arrive with the sirens flashing.’

‘I told you: we’re not burglars. So I didn’t let him into the house.’

‘Then what
are
you? Apart from feisty.’

Shyleen sipped her Bloody Mary. During the period of consideration she shifted her position, so that she sat cross-legged, her question mark curling down to her cock-swollen lips. Sensing her agitation, Chris asked if the question had made her uncomfortable; she shook her head. ‘No it’s not that. Angry, is the answer.’

‘Ah! Was that why we…?’

‘Why we what?’

‘Why we – why you were happy for me –‘

‘Spit it out. Don’t be coy.’ And she laughed. ‘You think it was a revenge shag, don’t you?’

Chris had inhaled and was holding it down. Shyleen had to wait for his answer, which she did gladly – she was enjoying the company, the careless guilt-free nudity, the stripped-down room. She was comfortable. Although she remained angry (no sense in denying
that
; why not embrace it? she wondered), she was comfy; she felt at home.

‘The thought had crossed my mind, I must admit,’ said Chris.

‘Well it wasn’t. But you’re right to… to um… to what’s the word I’m, fucking. Christ my
memory
. Where the fuck – something’s stolen my fucking
brain
.’

Chris giggled. His laughter had changed pitch suddenly.

‘I’m not sure I should smoke any more,’ Shyleen slurred.

‘Fair enough, but trust me. The booze and the grass are jibbing. Your cranium is the casserole dish. And you wouldn’t fear a lamb casserole, would you?’

‘No.’

‘Then wait it out. You are either getting,’ Chris taught slowly, ‘or you have already got – high. Let your brain sort it through.’

‘ASSUME!
’
Shyleen shouted, remembering the word that she’d struggled for. ‘You are right to
assume
my kissing cousin has spread his seed.’ She lifted her half-emptied glass. ‘And with a Pikey bird no less! A filthy – fucking – Gypsy Fucking Rose Lee. Beautiful! Oh it makes me feel so
special.
The cunt.’

Chris was nodding his head. The nod said
I understand, I understand.
The nod said
Smoke and drink, sweetheart – I don’t need your war stories.

Or so Shyleen inferred – in her altered psychic state. She handed Chris the remains of the joint; she’d had enough of it, she was starting to feel sick. She did not need to say as much.

What she said instead was more shocking.

‘Besides, I’m dying.’

The words expanded.

‘…How come?’ Chris asked at length, nubbing the joint out on the inside of his glass.

‘Growths. Downstairs,’ Shyleen explained, nodding perfunctorily at her vagina.

‘Nothing catching, I hope.’

‘No. Nothing catching… About inviting Yasser in.’

‘Go on. Call him.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But aren’t you going to dress first?’

Shyleen shrugged. ‘He’s seen me naked.’

‘Well, he hasn’t seen
me
naked,’ Chris said; ‘and blokes don’t show each other their cocks.’

Shyleen grinned. ‘Not even in a threeway?’ she asked.

9.

Together with Max and a handful of vigilantes from the camp, Tommy the Brazilian and Maggie’s father went in search of Ali, the delivery driver who had impregnated Maggie; but as soon as the reluctant father had been informed, he had been on his toes, abandoning his job in the process.

The lynch mob couldn’t find him.

The search was hindered, of course, by the fact that he’d delivered fresh veg and frying oil to a police station: it was not as though anyone could wait in a van outside a cop shop without attracting suspicion; not make enquiries – with or without menace – of the uniforms who worked therein, for that matter. And owing to the Asian lad’s reticence to take Maggie anywhere close to home (what with racism being rich, with so many suits to wear), the paramours romantic entanglements had taken place at The Charity, a nudge-nudge-ask-no-questions flophouse B&B near the A6. (Cash payments encouraged. Rooms available by the hour.) However, the stakeout in The Charity’s car park had not lasted long. While Tommy had expressed confidence that the cunt would be back with another bird to giblet, the bearded fuckpad owner (with his physical resemblance to the wrestler Giant Haystacks) had expressed a similar confidence that the man parked outside for the last three nights in his blue van was peddling pills: and this he expressed to the local constabulary. Max, on watch that night, was lucky to escape, wheels spitting mud from the wrecked path up to the building, without a caution – not so much as a
conversation
.

They couldn’t find him.

But one day they would: this was a pledge that Tommy made at the time, and Tommy was not a man to swear pledges aimlessly: so he proclaimed.

The baby was delivered on the camp by Bridget, Maggie’s cousin – the woman who owned a dog-grooming parlour in Hockliffe. Even at that time, she was already a horny veteran of the washing-up bowl of scalding water, the oven-fresh steaming wet towels. She had already delivered twenty-three babies in the name of family favours, for sixty quid a pop.

‘And then one day… he wasn’t there anymore,’ said Maggie to Yasser.

‘Yes, you’ve said.’

‘No. I mean more than just simply not present physically. I don’t care if this sounds fruit loops, but ever since he went away… I could glimpse him every now and then. Not in dreams – or not only in dreams. I’m talking about a sense of him. A chuckle, a bubble of snot from a nostril, the touch of his fingers, maybe – so much that… I didn’t really think of him as properly gone. Not really. I might’ve been alone n my bed and I could
feel
him, wriggling on me breasts, draining me to
sacks.