A Little Rain (3 page)

“He had a knife.”  I blink back tears.  My throat
tightens.  I choke a little.  I can’t hold back.  I close my eyes and tears fall
down my cheeks.  I go and kneel with him.  I hug him with my life.  He doesn’t
move.  I cry and little tears from me fall down over his shoulder.  The thought
of losing him!  I hug him like I’ll never let go.  I don’t know how long it
takes before he unhooks my arms from round him as he moves to stand.  His eyes
move back to the middle distance.  He starts moving like a robot.

“Rob?”  I say, but he doesn’t answer, he just walks
towards the car. “ROB?”  I say nearly shouting at this point.  I notice someone
walking on the other side of the street stop and look.  I’m still at the kerb.  Rob’s
getting in the car.  In fact, time is so disjointed now he’s already shut the
door and started the engine too.  The car is now moving slowly.  “Hey…  WAIT!”  I
scream from the pit of my lungs.  He’s not picked up speed yet so I run as fast
as my feet will kick.  My muscles burn with pain as I run like I never have
before in my life.  He can’t do this.  He can’t just leave me here now.  The
car is moving away but I’m catching up and luck has fixed it so the passenger
door is on my side.  I’m fast enough.  I get there.  I hook my fingers in the
door handle and throw myself through the open door while the car is moving.  My
legs are dangling out of the door.  I don’t think he’s slowing and I’m more
scared now than I ever have been.  If I fall I get hurt.  I don’t even want to
think about letting go now.  
Oh God
.  With all the strength in me,
burning pain in my arms, I heave myself through the door and twist round so I’m
seated.  Somehow, I’m oblivious to the all-new terror situation of leaning out
and shutting the car door at a dangerous speed.  “Jesus!” I say with an ounce
of breath I find and manage to put into words.  My pulse is racing from the
adrenalin surging through me.  My mouth is dry, wide open, gasping.  I must
take seven or eight fast deep breaths before I find it in me to talk again.
“You could’ve killed me!”

I think Rob is now going to talk.  He does, but not in
the way I was expecting.  
Nah-uh
.  All new shock waves ripple as all he
says is, “Shut up or get out!” A voice in my head tells me to shut up.  
What
have I done?  
I just sit as we drive.  It seems we’re going home or to
mum’s maybe, though I don’t even want to ask him that.  For the first time in
my life of being with Rob I don’t feel safe.  Something has changed.  Something
is very very wrong.

I’ve always heard voices in my head.  Well not
strictly voices but thoughts.  Loud intrusive thoughts like,
you shouldn’t
be doing this
or y
ou better get a move on
.  Stuff like that.  Other
stuff too sometimes but I just pass it all off as thoughts.

That afternoon, after I nearly died, we drove the
short distance on to mum’s place.  Our beautiful mummy, Marguerite Roman lives
in a boxy block of flats, three storeys high on the third floor.  Rob moved out
when he got too big for the place.  Not long after, I moved out too and went to
live with Rob.  I think the flat got too small and I got sick of my nephews.  Our
dear departed auntie’s thirteen-year-old twins live with mum.  Stupid and
Doofus I call them.  They are the rude boy terrors that slap my face and ping elastic
bands at me every time I walk in or out of the door.  I suppose they’re my relations
but they’re not like my brother Rob.  He’s my real family, like a dad, brother
and soul-click, all in one.

Back at mum’s place, on walking quickly through the
front door, it smells of warm spicy food.  In the living room though it smells strongly
of furniture polish.  The pale blue carpet looks pristine.  I hope there is no
dirt on my shoes.  She asks me how I’m keeping and I say well and don’t breathe
a word of what just happened.  The carriage clock ticks quietly on the
mantelpiece in the silence.  She knows better than to ask about Rob’s cuts.  She
cares, obviously, but doesn’t want to hear the truth.  When she asks after
Ruby, Rob tells her she’s with Marcia.  She says the twins are at school. 
Hmm...
 
Seems some teachers
are
working today.

Looking at mum, she does not look too well, so I make
her a cup of sweet tea and bring her bourbon biscuits on the mint green saucer.
 She tells me again about her sickness.  How she has no energy at all, not even
to go shopping any more.  I tell her the terror twins should shop for her.  “Or
I’ll go shopping for you,” I say.  She smiles at me.  I sit and drink my tea
from my bone china cup with the green and golden brown frogs painted on it,
resting my feet on the floral upholstered footstool, watching TV.  Rob skulks
around for a bit.  I hear him rustling about in the kitchen cupboard.  He lets
the door go bang and quietly curses.  Not long after, like an old man, he can’t
control his tiredness.  He crashes in the twin’s bedroom, like some kind of monster
on the bottom bunk, sprawled on the BMX bedspread, extremities dangling.  He
soon begins to snore.

Mum asks me how college is and I tell her it’s going good.
 We talk about the terror twins raising hell.  I tell her how she should whup
them into line with a kick or a slap.  She tells me they beat each other.  We
talk about Ruby and Marcia a little.  We don’t mention Jamie or Tony, even with
Rob asleep.  I don’t mention any of just now either, although it burns within me
to say.  Instead I make us some lunch.  My tummy has rumbled, telling me it’s
time.  I make a big bowl of pasta for all of us, with lots of tuna and mayonnaise,
ground black pepper, lemon juice from the bottle, cucumber cut into squares, cubes
of fresh green and yellow peppers, half a red onion chopped finely, a few thin slices
of green chilli, just a few, completed with a slosh of mum’s favourite garlic
and chilli oil.  I leave Rob’s food in a blue plastic bowl I cover with some cling
wrap.  We eat off plates on our laps on the sofa.  When we finish, mum sighs,
yawns, closes her eyes, and sleeps.

I make more tea, watch the news on TV and yawn a
little too.  I start looking at a picture on the mantelpiece.  A photo of Ruby,
Rob and Marcia.  The sky is blue.  The sun is shining.  A spreading cloud
behind them like fine, torn lace.  Both girls so pretty, they make Rob look
ugly.  I see the same sparkle in Ruby’s eyes that I see in Rob’s.  There’s no
sparkle in Marcia’s dark eyes even though she’s kind of smiling.  She looks
hardened and cold, very much like Mrs. Diaz today.  Just then, I swear the
picture frame moves but half a second later a fight breaks out in the flat next
door that shakes the wall.

I realise it’s getting late and dark I might be late
for Benny if I don’t get a move on.  I don’t wake Rob.  I will leave him be.  Best
not to disturb him.  He’ll phone me when he’s ready.  I kiss his forehead
goodbye and breathe him deep.  I don’t make a sound.  I go back to mum to say
to call me or text me, if she needs anything.  I hug her, and quietly whisper
goodbye and she softly squeezes my hand as she dozes in her chair.  Back in the
kitchen, I wash up my cup and put the blue plastic bowl in the fridge.  Regretfully,
I leave.

I trip-toe down the dark stairs.  
Bounce bounce,
bounce bounce,
down the thirty two stone steps.  I’m not getting in the lift
again.  It smells like a men’s toilet, although sometimes the stairwell doesn’t
smell too fresh either.  I can tell it is cold outside.  I can see the rain is light
and misty.  I can smell the damp of the concrete walls.  I’m not quite down the
stairs when my phone rings.  It’s Benny.  I answer.  “Hey.  Where you at babe?” 
I’m a little shocked.  He’s in a good mood. 

“Just getting to see you of course.”  He doesn’t ask
me how college was.  He doesn’t care.

“So you coming over?” he says.

“Want to pay for my cab?”  I cheek
.
 I’ve got
money.  He’s richer than me though.  He doesn’t say anything.  It’s raining
harder now and I just know the son of a gun would rather make me walk.

“No chance.”  He says.  So I call a cab anyway.  I
cannot be bothered to get soaked in the rain.  I light up a cigarette while I’m
waiting in the smelly stairwell.  In less than three minutes some dude pulls up
in a silver saloon busting some fat reggae beats that rattle the glass even
before he bibs his horn for me.  I soon realise how he got to pick me up so
fast.  Benny lives about a ten minute drive away from mum.  This cab driver
does it in five.

Rob’s flat is not far from mum.  It is near shops.  Benny
does not live near shops, which is just typical, as Benny is a man who keeps no
food at his home.  Not like my mum, who has a packed fridge-freezer and
cupboards full, packets of crisps burst out of the doors whenever you open them,
tins of beans roll on the floor.  Benny never has food.  I am always hungry.  The
instant coffee and custard creams I hide in the shoe box in the wardrobe are
mine.  I think sometimes he just doesn’t need to eat.  He is one skinny mashup.
 He is very cute and I love the way his skinny hips duck in under his six-pack.
 His jeans have trouble staying up.  I don’t have a problem with that.  He’s
not that tall, five six, seven maybe.  His hair is shaved very short.  When he
grows it, it gets all thick and bushy but he knows I wouldn’t go near him if he
grew stinky dreads.  His skin is the colour of caramel, like sticky toffee
sauce.  Although he’s short and skinny, he has the face of a pretty boy, sharp
edge jaw and cheekbones.  He has yellow-green eyes like a dragon, slit pupils, unblinking.

We met at school when I was a shy girl.  I hung out
with the trendy kids, but was always the quiet one.  I didn’t think schoolwork
was important.  I failed my exams at 16 and had to retake them all.  I
eventually left school a year later.  My friends had moved on.  They didn’t
wait for me and went their separate ways, getting jobs, doing A-levels and planning
their futures.  When I got kept back a year, so did Benny.  He was one of the
cool crowd too, only before then I was too shy to speak to him.  When we were put
in the same boat we were forced together.  I think he liked that I was a bit
different, that I started going raving and drinking with my brother at 17.  In
fact, I think he was jealous of Rob from the start.  It’s a shame Rob didn’t
like him either, thought he was a waster with no manners and no respect.  When Benny
did leave school he had no plans to do anything but his dad made him get a
job.  His uncle hired him and he works as a mechanic now.  Rob had higher hopes
for me, unrealistic hopes.  I think he wanted my first boyfriend to be a brain
surgeon, or maybe just a hard worker, or at least have ambition.  Benny is like
a tadpole, happy to say in the pond forever.  He never wants to grow legs and become
a frog.  Rob works in security, and is out day and night, up at all hours.  I
know he is not happy with his lot.  He just wants better for me.  When I lost
my school friends and gained a boyfriend, I thought I didn’t need anything
else.  With Benny and my brother, I had everything and nothing, all at the same
time.  I had Benny’s friends too.

I get to Benny’s flat and bound up the stairs and ring
flat number 3
.
 
Bzzzzzz
.  He clicks me in.  I smell his trademark
aftershave and a hint of eau du cannabis.  He’s looking pretty fine today.  Although
he’s thin, his hugs are quite warm.  He doesn’t let go for what feels like three
seconds.  He kisses me with cold lips.  I ask him why.  He’s been out in the
rain he says, fixing his car up again.  It’s broken down right now.

“Why didn’t you do it at work?”  I say.  He doesn’t
answer.  This makes me think he called in sick today.  I look up at him.  He
doesn’t say a word.  He just takes my hand and leads me inside.  In his bedroom,
it’s business as usual.  We’re cuddling afterwards but I’m not comfortable.  Benny’s
holds me, cigarette in hand, ash falling on my shoulder.  I look over at the bedside
table to the clock-radio telling the wrong time.  It says 6:32pm.

Almost as if I asked it to my phone starts ringing.  I
think please God don’t be Rob, not now, though of course I would be happy to
hear from him.  It’s not, it’s the pub.  I work there at least one night a
week, two sometimes.  It’s easy money to make, so if they call me on a weekday,
I’ll skip college and go in as well.  Sometimes I do the Saturday or Sunday
shift, though that’s rare.  It’s an eight-minute run from Rob’s flat, from
Benny’s it’s further.  When I finish late at night and Rob’s not around to pick
me up, he insists I get a cab or wait for a lift home.  Sometimes I brave the
walk, but I would never tell him that.  I think I’m pretty smart.  I can run
most of the way, holding each of my keys between my knuckles, a spiked fist
ready to punch out at anyone who comes too close.  It’s only really dangerous
over the railway bridge, where no one could hear you scream and there are no
doors to knock on.  I don’t run all of the way.  Keep something in reserve,
just in case I need to run for real.  Rob once told me if you ever do get
grabbed, stamp on their foot or kick them hard in the shin if you can.  So when
he grabbed me messing about that same day, I did both.  He almost cried.  Now I
know it works, I’m not scared.  I’ve got eagle eyes, and cheetah feet, booted.

I move to stand up, shaking off Benny’s sticky paw and
head towards the bedroom door. Hannah from the pub says, “Hey Ella.  Can you
work tonight?  Louise’s just called and doesn’t think she can make it in. 
She’s feeling sick.  She’s got a hangover.”  I’m not happy at all right now so
I think a change of scene will do me good so I say, yeah ok.  Now Benny’s not
happy either.  I tell him the usual.  I have stuff to buy and seeing as you
never give me any money and don’t eat, I still have to.