Cleaning Up (23 page)

He’d pulled up at the Portakabin after salsa on Thursday, too revved up to just go home and he took a pew in there with Young and Lumb. Tonight, there was just the young couple in the flat, occasionally shouting at each other over the sound of the blaring TV. No sign of Keithy himself, maybe he was out getting the party hats and condoms for this Saturday night.

Darrin pulled the pin about midnight, nodding off at the table whilst reluctantly listening to some dance music shit on Dalton’s sound system. The inconsiderate fuckers had been whooping it up a little bit to the music, the pair not paying much heed to Dalton’s daily instructions for them to keep it down. Dalton must have tolerant neighbours, he thought, they wouldn’t be getting away with that shit next door to his gaff.

Friday and it was plod time around the centre on yet another beautiful warm day. The pubs, inevitably, were doing
a lively trade. Last night there had been another dust up near the precinct, an argument in the kebab shop had escalated out of control and some little fucker had pulled a knife and chivved another customer, a young Asian guy. The shop owners had chased the protagonist off, but Sarge Thomas had stressed again the need to be proactive, ‘nip it in the bud boys and girls - Mount Olympus,’ a theatrical raising of his bushy eyebrows to the heavens, ‘is getting nervous and that means they start giving me shit and that means’ - he sardonically looked around the room, ‘you know the rest.’

Darrin asked Jolika if she fancied some of his overtime and thankfully she stepped in to pick it up. He’d be down the Quays on Saturday and he would be staying there until Dalton’s party wound up and that would make it a very long day. He went over to his folk’s place and let his mum feed him. After the grub, the old man pulled the pin to head off to the gym for a few hours and he sat down with his mum on the sofa watching the box and answering her mildly probing questions with an abridged version of that which constituted his life and his career.

She liked the fact that he was dancing salsa. Back in the day she’d been nifty on her pins herself but the old man had to be put into a half-nelson to get up and shake his stuff. He marvelled at her loyalty to his father, thirty years living in his shadow and the day in day out accommodation of the old man’s restless truculence.

He asked her how she would feel if he was to transfer away.

She gave him her gentle appraisal, ‘thinking of it, are you then Darrin love?’

‘Not yet Mum, let’s see how things pan out first.’

She laughed, ‘always looking to the next thing eh our Darrin? It’s alright love, as long as you still come home and see us.’

And that was that - she was OK with it. Not that it would have made any difference if she wasn’t. In that regard he knew that he was his father’s son.

Friday night he and Junior had heeded Dwayne’s advice and taken a different route to the Barrington, they’d headed down through Leeside this time. Junior had pulled over for a pit stop at the offie on Prince Street. He’d promised his mum he’d pick her up a packet of fags. They would do the drop then run the smokes over to his mum on their way back to Dwayne. The offie was a Paki shop that he and Junior scored cans in from time to time. On making their way back out of the shop they found that this time they had company. An older Asian guy with a fair bit of facial fuzz was sat on Junior’s bike bigging it up to his mates. They were a crew of five or six lads, mid to late teens, all of them would be locals - the Leeside boys never strayed that far apart from the area with its grid of uniform redbrick terraces. Junior took a breath and implacably told the dickhead to get off the bike. The guy smirked at his mates - not for having it was he.

‘Nah, I fancy a ride chap - Az! Grab the other one. Let’s take ‘em for a spin.’

The guy turned the wheel to move off as the tallest of his mates stepped forward to grab Pasquale’s bicycle. Pasquale already had his hands on the handles and frame, no fucking way. As the tall guy came forward, Junior shot out his right arm and caught the ringleader in the shoulder, the blow as fast as fuck. The guy hit the shop wall but just about managed
to stay on board the bike - his cheeks now flush with colour. A ripple of unease ran round the group and they held their positions. Az had backed off about half a step from Pasquale, a little uncertain now. Behind them they heard some bustle followed by a loud bellow from the door of the shop, Mr Shamir, as angry as a wild hog and as loud as a banshee.

‘You little bastards - you bring bloody trouble here, leave these boys alone you bloody bastards.’

Mr Shamir took a surprisingly quick step forward past Pasquale and grabbed hold of Az by a handful of his hair pulling him up onto his toes.

‘And what did I tell you before, that I go and talk to your bloody parents, tell them what little bastards you are.’

Aziz was in a lot of pain but was keeping his mouth shut. The other guy quickly hopped off Junior’s bike and held up his hands placatingly to Mr Shamir. Telling him with little conviction that they were just having fun.

Mr Shamir was not a taker.

‘Bullshit and cobblers boy! You, you are a little bastard Mansoor, always the bloody trouble maker round here, better that you get a bloody job, you lazy bastard.’

He threw Aziz into a couple of his mates who stumbled a little as they broke his trajectory. The group took that as their cue to beat it, all of them were going in the same direction now, quickly away from a still pissed off Mr. Shamir.

Mr Shamir huffed and snorted a couple of times, his hands on his hips, glaring after their retreat. The boys took a right into nearby Thomas Street, getting out of his sight as quickly as possible.

Mr Shamir turned his attention to them - becalmed now by the back down.

‘OK boys you can go now, that way.’ He had nodded in the opposite direction to Thomas Street, ‘is probably the best for you.’

Pasquale and Junior voiced their thanks and Mr Shamir went back into his shop. They’d have to get a leg on now, late already, which was not a good habit to get into. Leeside would be avoided in the future though - fuck Dwayne and his alternate routes.

Despite the little dark cloud that was hanging around up north, they had managed to have a good weekend together. Tommy wasn’t sure how she would hit it off with his mates but he needn’t have worried. Donna and Bernie talked their way through most of the Friday and it was all a breeze to Lee, the happily self-contained sod. Another little dark cloud had manifested itself before he had left his work at the Centre. Pauline had announced at the staff meeting that they had only received a quarter of the money they had asked for from the Lottery. So, it meant hours would have to be cut across the board and, in just a couple of month’s time Pauline herself would be going down to four days a week. She was giving those who wanted it the opportunity to reduce their hours on a voluntary basis and then she and the treasurer would sit down and make the necessary adjustments.

But, she promised, nobody will be losing their job. This, she said, with a little pugnacious jut of the jaw and a lift of the head that, perhaps a little ungraciously, put him in mind of a diminutive red headed Mussolini.

Tommy had chatted to Pauline after the meeting, patiently taking his turn behind Helen, the rather comely young manager of the pre-school kid’s service. Helen had been a
narrowly averted near miss. He’d almost made a bid for her affections at a staff piss up some time just before Christmas. They had briefly been left in a one to one moment and she had let it slip that she had a ‘thing’ for older guys. He feigned surprise at the news but his instant tumescence had him feeling fifteen years younger. He still patted himself on the back for having the judgement not to go through with it and now she had a nice young bloke in tow. Word on the street, was that he was a surveyor, working for a city based firm - wedding bells were already being mentioned by the Centre’s cognoscenti.

When Helen finally made tracks, he told Pauline that he was willing to drop a couple of days if that would help her and if that would keep Corrine in her present hours. Pauline looked at him with a gratitude that he found almost frightening in its sincerity. But, he took the plaudits in good faith - this was not the time for him to be a hard arse.

They had blasted their way through the Saturday; Greenwich, Cutty Sark, the market, an early curry then back to the flat so Lee and Bernie could get ready for their gig. The band’s bass player had picked them up in a battered but colourfully decked out transit van and he had ferried the four of them to the gig. Tommy and Lee had sat in the back with the gear - the girls were up the front, riding shotgun with Wendell.

He asked Lee what she thought about Donna. After a couple of beats Lee gave him that shy smile of his.

‘Well, she’s definitely a looker Tommy.’

He waited for a little more but Lee didn’t add to it and Tommy didn’t prompt his friend for any more. He had a distinct sense of faint praise, which puzzled him slightly. He
left it; he’d known Lee for forty years and that was the only maths that mattered.

Wendell was playing some Steel Pulse up front and it looked very much like he and the girls were sharing a spliff, the party had started.

The gig was a blast, the pub was packed, the band had been playing regular gigs there for over a year and they had built up an appreciative following. Two songs in and the front half of the audience was grooving to Lee’s chopping guitar and Wendell’s rumbling bass, with Bernie and a tasty mate funking out on backing vocals. The combo was fronted by a singer with one metre dreads and a voice that, if you closed your eyes….

They pulled outside for the interval, taking in the cooling air and the busy streets and Wendell and Bernie had joined them. According to Bernie, Lee was still inside checking out a problem with the keyboard mike. Wendell laughed, ‘man’s a perfectionist,’ he said. Wendell had a quick shufty up and down the street and pulled out a twin of the earlier joint that the girls had shared with him in the van. The four of them passed it around like naughty teenagers. Tommy noticed that there was a half moon slowly rising to the rooftops over in the east and just the faintest twinkling of a few stars up there too. He had the thought that he hadn’t seen the Milky Way ever since he’d been back in England. Donna shook him out of the reverie, nonchalantly nestling her gorgeous backside into his groin and then passing the joint over her shoulder. He took a long hit then turned her chin towards him leaned into her and blew the smoke into her mouth. Wendell laughed at that too, ‘good to share eh man?’

The second half was even better than the first;
Stepping
Razor
, Four Hundred Years, Legalize It
and
Three Little Birds. Get up, Stand Up
finished it off.

They waited while Lee and the singer sorted out the dough with the landlord and Wendell offered them a lift home, but they were all in the mood to kick on a bit.

Tommy woke up early the next day and, as was always the case when he had a hangover, he couldn’t stay in bed. Donna was out of it, silent and still and there was no stirring yet from either Lee or Bernie. He went into the kitchen and made himself a coffee and then another, turning over in his mind about what to do about one of those little black clouds up north. A phone call to Sonny would be all that it would take and then it would be dealing with the aftermath with Donna. He tried out a few permutations but couldn’t seem to make it avoid ending in tears. Tommy mused briefly on what the old man would have done but that would be easy enough to answer, the kid would already be in juvie cooling his heels and looking nervously over at his larger roommates. Lord knows that the two of them had had their darker days together. At the age of sixteen, Mick, after one of their more incendiary dust ups, had bounced him down the road for a year’s enforced sabbatical with family and friends.

Mick, just like Bonnie’s old man, didn’t believe in the softly softly approach. Give them the stick first and, maybe, if they behaved themselves, a bit of carrot down the track. Whatever, he thought. He couldn’t just let it slide on by.

Despite the quiet Friday Darrin was knackered all day Saturday, tired enough to crash in bed for a couple of hours after lunch. The last time he had kipped during the day he’d had a four-day flu, which had absolutely battered him. That was
years ago now; just a few months after he had started working at the warehouse and he hadn’t been sick since.

He was out of the door at five and down the Quays in less than twenty minutes, more than half an hour early for his rostered shift. Lumb was parked up in there, on the headset as always, this time he was partnered up with a youngish DC by the name of Frankie Walker. Frankie was all boy-scout; alert at his post, eagerly scanning the entrance of the flats like a human periscope. A couple of cars had already pulled in and Keithy was busy entertaining in the lounge room, engaging in chit chat and the passing round of the hors d’ouveres.

Dalton left the flat half-fivish and returned just after six. Just about the same time that Young was nestling down into Lumb’s warmed up chair. Darrin had grabbed the camera from Frankie.

Dalton had returned with a couple of late teens in tow, a tall skinny young bloke and a bright young thing who was a sight to behold, a mini dress that was just about warming her arse matched up with a mid-riff top that was struggling to hold back her plentiful boobs.

Dalton dropped the two young ones off then turned the car out into the street and then came back twenty minutes or so later with a car full of revellers. Three more youngsters this time, a girl and two young guys, and a po-faced older guy who was sat ram rod straight in the front passenger seat. He was a handsome looking jasper, late thirties, probably. He exuded money, a proper education and maybe even good breeding, definitely slumming it with the under classes.

At a little past eight o’clock, a souped up shit box announced its oncoming presence with some vibrating bass and a fishtailed turn into the car park. Looky there, he thought,
a known face. A gangly streak of piss, mid-twenties or so, had sprung out of the driving seat as if a firecracker had been dropped down his shorts. The face gestured impatiently for the remaining occupants of the car to get out, pronto. It was the one and only Bazzer Dougan, the half legendary scumbag dealer from the Barrington. Bazzer would make a fair dent in the parties’ collective social standing. With him were two younger males and a couple of brassy young birds who could be heard from a hundred yards away. They spilled out of the car and trailed Bazzer to the lobby, the neighbours duly alerted to their presence by their cacophony. Darrin let Young know that Bazzer had joined the celebrations and a moment later Dalton’s intercom picked up Bazzer’s scally tones.