With Love and Squalor

 

WITH LOVE AND SQUALOR

by NIGEL BIRD

Contents

An Arm And A Leg

first published in Crimespree Magazine 2010                   

Also published in  Mammoth Best British Crime Stories 8 2011

Fisher Of Men

first published in Voluted Tales Magazine 2011

A Whole Lotta Rosie

first published in the anthology
Pulp Ink
2011

Reaching The Summit

first published in Apollo's Lyre 2011

No Pain No Gain

first published at Crime Facory Magazine

Breakfast TV

first published at A Twist Of Noir 2011

put forward for the Pushcart Prize by Christopher Grant

Suture

first published at PulpMetal Magazine 2010

and Samples

Hoodwinked

first published at All Due Resepect 2011

included in the collection
Beat On The Brat (and other stories)
 

Sea Minor

first published in The Reader Magazine 2009

included in the collection
Dirty Old Town (and other stories)
2011

Chapter 1 of
Smoke
, a novella 2011

An Arm And A Leg

Cold air poured in when they opened the doors. It would soon be over. All Carlo had to do was accept his punishment and they could wake up in the morning and start over.

The ride had been at high speed and in a straight line, so they’d either gone south down the A1 or round the Edinburgh bypass. It wasn’t easy to tell in the dark, but he figured south was the more likely when he factored in the roundabouts.

Rolling round inside the back of the van, he’d been reminded of driving his wife and first-born home from the maternity ward at Little France in the restaurant’s
Berlingo
. Maria had been bumped around as sleeping-policemen and pot-holes took turns to attack the suspension; even with her newly stitched episiotomy, she didn’t utter a noise the whole way. Nor had Chris, the poor child, head bobbing in the seat they’d spent an age working out how to secure.

That was ten years earlier. Since then Maria had given birth to a second child and, when her patience finally wore through, filed for divorce and sent him packing from the family home and business.

If he’d kept away from the booze, he might still have been in line for taking over one of the most successful eateries in the city. He could have been sitting back counting cash and sipping orange juice while his shoulders were rubbed and he watched the Hoops put one past the Jambos or the ‘Gers. Instead he was in some God-forsaken place wondering how they were going to take their revenge.

It wasn’t long before they dropped him to the ground, his head hitting something hard and sharp.

The icy wind from the Forth cut through his jacket and the smell of the salt filled his nostrils. He guessed they were at the cement works - that’s where he’d be doing it if the steel toe caps were on the other foot.

The men standing over him took a moment to spark up cigarettes. Carlo rested his cheek upon the smooth metal rail, so chilled that his tongue might have stuck to it if he’d given it a lick. His fingers identified wooden sleepers with pebbles scattered in between and his legs found the parallel rail exactly where he knew it would be. The bleating of a goat was the last piece he needed to complete his picture. They weren’t at the cement works but the East Lothian Family Park, built to entertain the kiddies.

Sure, what he’d done wouldn’t be winning him an M.B.E., but using trains as weapons should have died out with silent movies.

These guys were animals. Perhaps the farm was the best place for this to end after all.

Tranent needed another chip shop like it needed another teenage pregnancy. When Carlo Salvino impregnated Kylie on the same night that he opened ‘the Golden Fry’, he really managed to hit the bull’s eye.

Belters they were called, the people from the town. Some said it was on account of the tanneries in the area way back when, others that it was because of the way the miners had worn their lamps. As far as Carlo could make out it made more sense that it was because they were likely to settle a disagreement with punches rather than words and that they could hit as hard as anyone he’d ever come across.

If he’d had the money he’d have set up in the city, moved over to Glasgow even, but at least he was within ten miles of his kids, the rates on the High Street were cheap as his chips and with four pubs on the doorstep success seemed a sure thing.

‘The Golden Fry’ opened on Valentine’s Day. Carlo fixed up ribbons and fairy lights, ordered in cases of cheap sparkling wine and sprinkled heart-shaped chocolates along the window seat for the kids.

At six the place was buzzing. By half past, the Cava and chocolates gone, the only person left was a girl who’d been giving him the eye since walking in.

They chatted about something, the weather or football or the price of fish. Whatever it was, Carlo couldn’t remember. Nor could he fully recall sharing a quick one against the wall in the Wynd when he walked her home. He had a vague recollection of some fumblings, but they weren’t enough for him to even daydream about while he stood around waiting for customers.

Kylie came in the next day for a poke of onion rings wearing her school sweat shirt. She may have looked at least 18 and he knew nothing illegal had taken place, but if could have run a mile without needing to stop for a rests, he might well have done.

Hers was the only sale that day and the next. The competition had put out word and the Belters were sticking together against the new blow-in on the block with his one eighth Italian blood and fading good looks.

It was Kylie who gave him the idea. If he could lure in the kids from the High School, he’d be quids in.

He took on two extra staff, a couple of older ladies who’d never travelled further than Prestonpans, hand wrote signs and offered food at half the price of anyone else. ‘Credit Crunch Lunch’ he called it and it took off like it was supersonic.

There were still queues of black sweat shirts at the bakeries and the other chippies, but he had the lion’s share, the line of youngsters stretching back to where he and Kylie had had their fun. Hot plates full of fried pizza (Maria’s father would have had a heart attack), burgers, puddings, pies and fish were emptied daily within half an hour, as if a plague of locusts had descended and licked them clean.

They were getting through two hundred polystyrene trays at a sitting, twice that on a Friday when the primary school kids piled in to kick-off their weekend with a healthy fry-up.

After a month of success, Carlo felt that he had finally earned the slice of the luck he’d always deserved.

Things started to change when two lads came in after the rush hour, all swagger and spiky hair with the familiar white line down the middle that always made him think of wobbly skunks.

When they spoke, he just listened until they’d finished and watched them leave without ordering a thing, their mullets bobbing against their designer gear.

Turning to Mrs Edgar, who was wiping grease from the wall tiles, he asked for an interpretation.

They wanted him to put the prices up, she told him, and they wouldn’t be asking so nicely the next time. And, if he didn’t mind her putting in her two shillings worth, the Ramsay boys were nasty pieces of work and it might be worth listening to what they’d said.

Listening? He’d tried that and hadn’t understood a single word.

The wee shites. Who did they think they were telling him how to run his business? They’d have been plankton in Leith if they ever ventured from their tiny pond into those shark-infested waters.

That same afternoon, Kylie told him about the baby. She wasn’t ready to tell her dad and her mum would beat her enough to make sure the kid never saw out the first trimester.

She wanted to keep it, leave school and live with Carlo. She could serve at the counter for six months and after that she’d be a stay at home mum, make a nest they could share, a cosy place that would be a cut above the council scheme she was used to.

Carlo didn’t say anything. Instead, a hug of reassurance, a pat on the behind and a poke of chips “on the house” did their job and she left with a half smile on her lips.

Turning the open sign to closed, he hooked up his apron, left the ladies to get on with things and headed for the Cross Keys. Having a glass in his hand always made life easier to understand.

The landlord, Billy, knew all about the Ramsays. They’d graduated from the Tranent Young Team and had a brief spell with the Hibs Casuals.

Local folklore had it that they used the derelict farm up near the cemetery as their base. There were tales of broken bones, cuttings and even a crucifixion. He’d seen clips of them on You Tube working away on some bloke with a pair of pliers. Their faces were hidden, but everyone in town knew who they were watching.

They were involved in drugs, loan sharking and a bit of dog-fighting every now and then.

Their mother was known to everyone as Nan. Nan was where Carlo and just about everyone else went to get cheap fags. She sold them singly to those that were really hard up or too young to know better, with special deals for the under 9s. The Ramsays were likely to be allied to ‘The Happy Haddock’ given that the older one of them was sleeping with Nan’s half-sister, whose brother owned the joint.