How the Dead Live (43 page)
There wasn’t even a chance of getting it out of her, either. The Ice Princess didn’t take to titty feeding. Well, she needed her metabolism for her ownsome
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and her nipples for everyone else. Everyone who had a hundred quid that is. So, it was lumpy, barely dissolved formula for this kiddo. Usually it was the Estate Agent who got it together to feed me. But he’d give it to me boiling, tepid, or plain cold. It’s a wonder I made it to toddlerhood at all. It’s been a craven new world for me, that’s for sure. I can’t, in all honesty, recommend it. Sure, there are video screens by gas pumps now, so they can sell you something else while you’re actually in the process of paying to denude the non-renewable resources, but what’s so special about that?
I can’t say I was surprised when it happened. I may not have been in a position to talk to them these last eighteen months, but I’ve listened. It was the same thing last Christmas – some asshole put a load of strong smack on the market and a fair few of their shooting buddies took a hot shot. They very nearly kissed off then, which, all things considered, would’ve been better for me. If only they’d kept on with the foil fucking hankies, kept on smoking the shit. Very hard to overdose that way. All in all, the demise of the Ice Princess and her consort rather tends to confirm me in my good opinion of smoking. Wouldjew like a B&H? No, I suppose you’re a little young.
They were all cock-a-hoop when he brought the stuff back this year. They hadn’t had any money for days. The trousers were out for Russell, he couldn’t have got tick from the fucking Rothschilds
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even if they’d discovered he was a long-lost son. Then she managed to haul herself up and go
blow someone. Well done, Natasha! That’s my girl! What a snappy little sucker you were. So, she hobbles back with the gelt, and he goes off to score while she makes me the first pot of slop I’ve had in fucking days.
They both fixed up in the kitchenette while I was watching
Teletubbies.
No, I didn’t disdain the entertainments available any more than you would. Then she managed to make it upstairs to their bed, as he lay down in slow stages. Kinduv touching, that, huh? Them heading off like that together, like Romeo and fucking Juliet, except older, more despairing, and devoid of any love for each other. Me, I barely stirred. Truly, I expected it to happen.
I also expected Miles to walk all those miles down to Mile End
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it’s so difficult to get a bus in this, the dead interstice between the years. Yeah, I knew he’d show. He kept in touch with her, always suspecting that I was his, despite the myriad other candidates in the frame. I mean, Russell wasn’t ever a serious proposition for my paternity, I just don’t look Jewish enough. Dear little snub nose and all. Retroussé
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that’s what I’d call it.
Yeah, that’s why I’ve managed such bravado since you cropped up again. Well, now he’s been and he’s gone again, and I’m still fucking here. If only those swine upstairs weren’t belting it out with the karaoke I might’ve heard him before it was too late. As it was, I was up in the bathroom drinking fucking toilet water when I heard the letterbox clack back. I got downstairs as fast as I could, but evidently he’d knocked many times, peered in, seen nothing, and decided to go. That’s it – I’m done for. It’s only – like everything else
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a matter of time.
And to be frank, I haven’t been enjoying your company too much either. I haven’t a fucking clue who your father was, but when you came scampering off their bed three days ago I knew full well who your mother was. I guess you can’t be entirely blamed; after all, her taste in music was never exactly developed. But even so, those ditties you warble, those snatches of idiotic pop songs, they set my teeth on edge. I wish you were the good listener I found when we waited together back at the Palmers Green dentist’s office, in the waiting room between the lives. Still, what can you expect from a lithopedion
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calcified little fossil baby that you are?
Nothing much. No-thing. Except this: forget me. Not.
