Mountains of the Moon (10 page)

“Sit down,” I say.

Techno’s music drills through the floor, my bass backbone. I sit and sit. Hear voices through the noise in my head.

“Kim has been offered witness protection and has declined it. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Why have you declined the offer of police protection?”

“I don’t believe the police can or will protect me.”

“Why should you take all of the blame?”

“I’ll take the blame for my part.”

“What was your part?”

I take Baby Grady to Africa. We has to go the long way around, cross the Mara and over Lowry Lane and down by the ridge and the slope, where the heavy plants go. Can’t do warrior running; Baby Grady is too heavy. Stead he sits on a termite hill and I run circles around him, case lions get him. I give him two sticks and a hollow log cos he bashes good and makes drumming and he don’t stop. Grady looks up in the sky, thinks drumming moves the clouds long. Dance goes backward and sideways, I jump high and run in and out, Grady loves the warrior dance cos my legs go on and on. One time a man came in a yellow elephant said Africa weren’t safe for playing. Grady kept on drumming like the man and the elephant weren’t even there.

“We
int
playing,” I said.

The man still told us bugger off.

Can hear Mum screaming. Bryce is home. He’s got a new car, white Ford Escort Estate. Don’t know how come he’s got a trailer and a racing car as well. Mum’s over his shoulder, laughing so loud as couldn’t care less. He tends to throw her on the sofa, out the winder, on the piana. Her legs is wild doing scissors. Sheba’s barking, doing swirls on the carpet.

“Help!” Mum is upside down tween laughs. “Help me, Lulu!”

Bryce tends to run the bath and throw her in it. Then they go in the bedroom and slam the door. Baby Grady don’t know it’s joking, his face is on the edge of something. Roast potatoes is on fire.

I take Grady out to look at the racing car. The Sandwich Man steps
out on to the road, been in the bushes under the beech trees. He’s got a saw and a hammer, don’t know how come, and a bag of nails. Mr. Baldwin is in his side garden guarding his greenhouse cos kids on the end triangle is playing football, got jumpers for posts. When the football bounces in the road, the Sandwich Man aims careful, kicks it. Surprises me he gets a goal and all the kids go wild.

“Mr. Draper! Mr. Draper!” kids is yelling. “Mr. Draper!” Both teams want the Sandwich Man to play for them. He puts his tools down, plays long enough for a goal both ends, then he waves and goes off home.

Indoors I get the table out full. It was down an alley in Chertsey, me and Mum brung it home on the bus cos it wouldn’t fit in the car. Table legs is barley twist, we done it good as new with sandpaper and hogany varnish. I iron the white tablecloth and set the table nice with buttercups. We int got enough chairs left so I has the piana stool. When they come down Mum is dressed up being somebody else, got perfume and earrings on.

“Hey, son.” Bryce lifts Baby Grady up so he can touch the ceiling.

Bryce makes him high and low, all up and down the hall. Spects I’m too big for flying. Grady flies around the lampshade, lucky cos he likes it. Then Bryce lays him down on the sofa, tickles him with his fat moustache til Baby Grady’s squealing for mercy. I has to baste the potatoes.

When I look they has gone out the front, left the door wide open. Bryce’s hat says Formula One, but the car on the trailer int. TR7, ugly car. He gets in it with Baby Grady on his lap.

“Brummmm, brum.” Grady turns the steering wheel.

Mum’s eyes is bluer than the sky and so is her silky princess dress. Her teefs is perfect when she smiles. All the kids come over to look at the TR7, cept Ellie Smithers. She’s come over to look at Mum. Ellie’s eyes is popped; one time she whispered wet in my ear and arst me if Mum was real. No, I said, she come off the top of a Christmas tree. I stand on the doorstep, has to keep going and checking the dinner. Ellie’s got a new
coat, two colors yellow with a frilly neck, she minds me of a daffodil. Spects if Mum said something Ellie would beam and fall over backward. Stead Mum steps up on the trailer, gets in the TR7 with Bryce and Baby Grady. Lady walks past in black trousers, they got big lumps of Sheba’s hair on.

From Holland, Bryce has brung Southern Comfort and Embassy. Sheba don’t like his brown leather jacket cos she growls at it on the sofa. And he’s got a new belt what’s so fat I spects the edges would cut. Good job Pip int here. For dinner we has chicken and it int even Christmas, Mum got up especial to cook it. We sit down at the table and start. Bryce has got bread sauce on his moustache.

“How’s school?” he arsts.

Don’t know what the right answer is. My fingers is churches and steeples, words is dried over words on the winders, buttercups is dropping petals, lucky cos Grady chokes on his stuffing.

Mum and me does the wishbone and I get to wish. I wishes for Big Grin after dinner.

“The fork should be in your left hand,” Bryce says.

They talk about gas pipes in the North Sea cos Bryce does drawings for engineers and that’s how come he works in Holland. He used to work for Bentalls, driving furniture, but Auntie Fi got a three-piece suite and Bryce got pretty larciny. Now he’s doing North Sea Gas. Mum don’t reckon the pipes will meet up, said she’d eat hay with a donkey.

“What’s funny?” Bryce says.

“Baby Grady,” I says.

We all looks at him, lucky his bib is over his face, got the mouth hole sucked right in like a ghost.

I washes up, dries up, cleans the cooker, wipes the cupboards, sweeps the floor, clears the table quick ready for when I arsts to go out.

“Get the Monopoly,” Mum says.

I int going NO where.

“I’ll be the banker—and the Car,” Bryce says.

Pip’s the Iron.

“I’ll be the Boot,” Mum says. “Whoever the shoe shall fit I’ll marry the boot.” She always does Cinderella wrong. Game is good til I get Mayfair and Bryce tips the board over. No one don’t say nothing. Then Baby Grady laughs like a best joke ever and Sheba comes out from under the sofa, does swirls on money and hotels. I try to make polite.

“How long is you home for?” I arsts Bryce.

“How long
are
you home for,” he says.

“She speaks badly on purpose,” Mum says, “just to show me up.”

“I’m amazed she gets to talk at all with you around,” Bryce says.

I take Baby Grady up to bed quick cos Mum int going to leave it at that.

Downstairs words is swarming. I has to stay wake for school case I misses it, cos done the story what I promised Miss Connor. One time she read my story out in class, reckons I got a good way of putting things. I done her a new bit same, bout the Mountins of the Moon. I read it to Baby Grady and he went sleep. Downstairs things get louder and smash. Mum’s screaming. I get out of bed and listen at the top of the stairs. It don’t sound like joking. It int joking cos now she is screaming for me. I run downstairs and push the back-room door.

“Shut it! Shut it! Shut it!” Looks like rabies and his shirt is off, case he gets the blood all on it. He loosens his hands on her throat, to see if she’s learned yet.

“Feel like a man, do y—” Her words get wrung out.

He turns to throw her on the floor. Never seen Sheba’s teefs fore, not proper, nose is wrinkled and fangs is out, she’s brave but scared and comes forward like to bite him. That’s how come he kicks her. She goes up like a terrible pain and down the wall in the corner, lampshade comes down. Sound comes from her, int proper, int proper like her lungs is stabbed. She tries for standing up but only her front legs is working. She
wants to get in the garden, I try to help her out but she growls like she don’t know me.

“Shut your fucking mouth, fucking shut it, shut it!”

Mum smashes over the table and everything is crashing and screaming.

Sheba falls down the back step, drags long the path. Sound from her int proper, like her lungs is stabbed. Underneath the elderberry she tries to do a swirl but falls over like a person dying. I tell her sorry with my eyes, feels like what they done to Jesus. I hears glass smashing in the house, Mum screaming gain.

“Lulu! Lulu! Help! Help me!”

They roll around on the kitchen floor, fighting and biting and slipping on blood; don’t know whose it is. Mum’s hair is twisted like a long thick rope, that’s how come he swings her around and bashes her head on the corner of the oven door. I get past them, does 999 but no one talks quick enough and Bryce pulls the phone out of the wall. Mum’s eyes say Do Something Quick cos now her hair is around her neck and her face is purple, strangled to death. I jump on his back but he throws me off, like nothing. I smashes into the sink. Mum is half up on her feets but he still has got her hair, strangles her back down to the floor. I look quick for an idea, sees Sheba’s lead on the back door. It’s heavy, got leather and fat choke chain. I jump on Bryce’s back gain, try to get the choke chain over his head but he easy throws me off cos there int nothing to hold on to. That’s how come I stands back, and slams the chain down on his back.

He yelps up.

Bends backward.

Arms go out like on a cross.

Int no air cos it’s all sucked in.

“She didn’t mean it, Bryce,” Mum says.

I stand still. Wonders how he’ll kill me, if he’ll do me like he done Sheba. He grabs me, drags me and carpet burns. Baby Grady fills my ears.

“No, Daddy! No, Daddy! No, Daddy! No, Daddy! No, Daddy! No.”

The choke chain is done around my ankles and I’m hanging upside down from the banisters. Arms int long enough to reach the stairs. Nosebleed has dribbled down cos Bryce swung me gainst the wall; lucky my teefs still in. Baby Grady is looking through the stair gate. His face is snot and stripy with crying and his fingers is stuck as wet knots.

“Oo-oo-oo,” I says. “Oo-oo-oo.” Til gets a wonky smile come.

Chain digs in bad on my ankles; I get one arm up and hang on that. I keep changing arms til I sees Bryce at the front door. His shirt is in his hand, chain has done like a tractor track, cross his shoulder and all down his back. He comes up the first stairs.

“No, Daddy!—No, Daddy!” Baby Grady squeals.

Bryce is upside down to my face.

“Next time,” he whispers, “I’m going to kill you.”

Then he goes back down to the door and closes it gentle nice behind him. We listens for the car. Mum checks in the front room, makes sure he’s proper gone. She holds me on her shoulder so I can get the chain off, can’t stand up cos feets is dead.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she says. Both her eyes is like a boxer and blood is black in her hair. Door knocks.

“Everything all right?” Roger shouts through the door. “Everything OK, Mrs. King?”

Mr. Baldwin must have called the police. Mum talks through the letter box.

“Fine,” she says.

We listen. Radio crackling and calling Roger. They goes way.

Mum goes upstairs to bed. I make the sofa cushions a nest for Baby Grady, sings him lullaby to sleep. Then I pick up chairs and hair and Monopoly money and clean the kitchen floor, sweeps up glass and blood and dog ends. I go upstairs every now and then, check case my mum is died. She’s just laid in bed, staring into no place. Int got nothing to say. I take her up a cup of tea but it int no good cos she needs a straw. Can’t find one so I break a pen. When the mersion water is hot I run Mum a bath and help her get in it. I washes her hair, then combs it out, gentle
nice, sees what the cut on her head is like. Int cut, just bashed in and ouch from all the hair pulled out. Worstist cut is on her eyebrow and it don’t want to stop bleeding. I look downstairs in the kitchen drawer for butterfly stitches Auntie Fi brung us, save going all the time to the hospital. I does Mum’s eye and then dries her hair.

“Sorry about Sheba,” she says.

But I don’t hear her cos the hairdryer’s loud. She stays on the bedroom chair while I make her bed with clean sheets.

“I’m going to get an injunction,” she says. Then she falls sleep.

Downstairs I look in the dictionary see what an injunction is.

I try to lift Sheba. She’s fixed in a swirl, eyes is open gone milky, empty like paper mache and woodlice is underneath. I tie Baby Grady on my back; drag Sheba down the alley and cross the road on a bit of plastic. Then I go back for a shovel. I pull stingers out and start digging, takes ages cos the handle on the shovel is broke. I keep trying Sheba in the hole but it int no where near big enough. I looks up, sees the Sandwich Man, standing with hands on his hips. He nods like he knows me. Next time I look up he’s gone. Baby Grady crawls over and kisses Sheba’s nose, he don’t know how come she int licking. He squashes up the side of her mouth.