Our Vinnie (28 page)

Chapter 21

June woke up with a start and she wasn’t happy. That bleeding husband of hers, she thought irritably, as she was jolted into consciousness. When he’d been on a heavy session, his snoring could wake the dead. The dead, the bloomin’ undead, and half of Bradford while he was at it. And now she was awake she knew there was little chance she’d get back to sleep anytime soon.

She pushed him hard enough to make him grunt and then roll over onto his side, but in the ensuing silence – Jock only snored when he was flat on his back – she realised that it might not have been his snoring that had woken her. She could hear something going on downstairs. Vinnie, no doubt, home from his own evening out, and now banging around in the kitchen, probably making toast.

June smiled to herself. And doing a bad job of trying to be quiet, by the sound of it, in that way everyone did when they were bladdered. She sighed contentedly, happy to just lie there and listen, perfectly at ease with her sleeplessness. It was so good to have her boy back. The house felt whole again.

If a lot noisier. ‘What the
fuck
is going on down there?’ Jock growled, his voice in the darkness startling her. He rolled back over towards her, gusting beer fumes in her face.

‘It’s just Vinnie,’ she told him, fanning them away irritably. ‘Stop your bloody mithering.’

‘
Me
stop?’ he railed. ‘Bloody racket going on at this hour! VINCENT?’ he yelled. ‘Shut UP! People are trying to fucking sleep up here, in case you hadn’t noticed! Go to BED, you noisy little bleeder!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ June said. ‘You’ll have our Titch up as well now. Just go to sleep.’

‘What, with that racket going on? Fat chance.’ He poked her in the ribs. ‘Get down there and tell him to shut his bloody noise up.’

‘Me? You’re the one making the bleedin’ fuss about it!’

But even as she was saying it, June was pushing back the covers. She was wide awake now. She was more than happy to go down and see what Vinnie was up to. They could have a nice cup of tea and a natter.

Titch was running up the stairs just as June started going down them. So she’d obviously been woken up as well.

‘What the bleeding hell are you doing up?’ she said, tying up her dressing gown.

‘Oh, Mam …’ Titch began.

‘Oh, Mam what?’ she said, moving aside to let her pass. ‘And are you coming up or going down now? And keep your voice down.’

‘Mam, it’s Vinnie,’ she said, turning round, ‘I was coming up to get you …’

June followed her down the rest of the stairs. ‘What about him? What’s he been up to?’

Probably something and nothing, she thought. Typical of Titch to be over-dramatic. But once down in the hall, with the light spilling out from the kitchen, she could see the panic in her daughter’s stricken face. ‘Oh, Mam, he’s in trouble,’ Titch said, her chin wobbling. ‘
Bad
trouble.’

June felt a stab of anxiety. ‘Trouble?’ she said, following Titch into the kitchen. ‘What kind of trouble? What’s he –’

And then she stopped, because she saw the livid swelling on Vinnie’s head. And then the blood, quickly after it, smeared on his cheek and on his jeans. Then the vivid patch of it on his shirt – one of his few smart shirts, too. That hit her like a slap around the face.

She quickly assessed him. He was sitting on the kitchen stool, staring at her, though she wasn’t convinced he was really seeing, with his elbows on his thighs, and his mouth set in a thin line. His eyes were glazed, but he didn’t seem to be hurt. Well, not bar the red swelling slap-bang in the middle of his forehead. And he didn’t look to be bleeding, not obviously. And his hands, which he held clasped together between his knees, were pale and clean. Must have washed them, she noted distractedly.

‘You been in a ruck, son?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘You could say that, Mam,’ he answered quietly.

She moved towards him. ‘Let me take a look at that head of yours – you been headbutting someone or did you walk into a bleeding wall? Honestly, Vin, when are you ever going to learn? Titch, I think there’s half a bag of peas in the top of the fridge. Grab them for me. And you’d better get that shirt off, so I can put it in to soak,’ she said, gently smoothing his fringe back. ‘Might not work, but –’

‘Leave it, Mam,’ Vinnie said, removing her hand with his own. ‘There’s no point.’

Titch hadn’t moved yet either, June noticed. ‘No point?’ she said, looking from one to the other. ‘You’re just going to go out and buy a new one, are you? What with – fucking shirt buttons? Anyway, what happened? Where’d this kick off? Where’d you go when you left the pub anyway?’

‘I said
leave
it, Mam,’ Vinnie said, standing up and nudging past her so he could get to the back door and open it. ‘I’ve got to think.’ He reached into his jeans pocket, pulled a packet of Woodbines out and calmly lit one.

June spread her hands. ‘Think? Think about what? What’s going on, Vin? What are you
on
about? Is someone after you? You been in a brawl? You expecting trouble?
What
?’ She placed her hands on her hips. ‘Because if there’s one thing –’

‘Vinnie, for God’s sake just
tell
her!’ said Titch. Her voice was an angry rasp of recrimination. ‘Mam, it’s much worse than that. He’s stabbed a lad. Badly.’

June felt something shift in her stomach. ‘You fucking
what
?
Vinnie
!’ she barked at him. ‘Stop standing there staring at the fucking moon for five minutes and tell me what’s going on here!’

‘He got into an argument and stabbed a lad and everyone saw it and everyone knows it was him and –’

‘Shut up a minute, Titch, will you! Vinnie,
who
? Who’d you stab?’ She spread her hands again. ‘
And why
? What the fuck were you
thinking
? You stupid little bleeder!
God
– so where was this?’

Vinnie launched his half-smoked cigarette into the air and turned around to face her.

‘It’s no one you know, Mam,’ he said. He sounded as calm as she felt frantic. ‘It was at a party over on Little Horton Lane.’

‘Little Horton Lane?’ June’s mind was working now. ‘Shit. What about the bizzies? They turn up?’

Vinnie shook his head. ‘We didn’t see any but we legged it. An’, Mam, it wasn’t my fault, okay? I didn’t fucking start it, and I didn’t get the fucking knife out. Someone else did. This wasn’t just me, okay? This was – Jesus. That
cunt
! I could –
fuck
–’

Vinnie trailed off, shaking his head then slammed his fist hard into the masonry beside the back-door jamb. ‘
Fuck
!’ he said again, spitting the word out. ‘
Fuck
!’

He then pulled his fist back, spread his hand and looked at his knuckles, and, before June could stop him, did the same thing again.

Titch let out a sob. ‘
Vinnie
,’ she screamed at him. ‘
Stop it
!’

June threw herself at the space between his fist and the wall. ‘Vinnie, leave it!
Stop
doing that! You’ll break your bloody knuckles in a minute!’

He looked past her, glassy eyed, and for a gut-wrenching moment she thought he was going to cry, but the only sound came from Titch behind her, weeping.

‘Look at the state of your fucking hand!’ she said, pulling his wrist up to inspect it, and wincing to see the blood beginning to ooze out of all the grazes. This time he didn’t try to stop her. She pulled him towards the sink then and turned the tap on. ‘You stupid fucking bleeder – Titch, will you shut up with your bloody wailing! We need to think here! – You think they’ll have called them? You think they’ll be round after you?’

‘Oh they’ll be round, Mam,’ he said as she held his hand under the water. ‘Sooner or fucking later they will. Ouch, that fucking hurts!’

June held Vinnie’s hand under the tap for a full minute then wrapped it in a tea-towel, pressing down hard to stop the flow. What the hell
should
they do? Was there any point in him trying to wriggle out of it? Self-defence, maybe? Her mind was working nine to the dozen now. Yes, that’s what they’d do. She’d have that shirt off him – dump all his clothes in a bin somewhere and clean him up. And then he’d have to lie low for a while – maybe go and stay at one of his uncles … And just deny it. They couldn’t argue with that, not without actual evidence. ‘We’ll just say you weren’t there,’ she said. ‘We’ll get you cleaned up and out of here, and I’ll be your alibi. That’s what we’ll do, Vin.’ She began scrubbing harder at the new blood across his knuckles.

‘Ouch,’ Vinnie yelped. ‘Easy, Mam! That fucking stings, that does.’

‘You’re lucky not to feel the sting of my hand across your stupid chops!’ she retorted. She felt close to tears herself now. The stupid fucking idiot. Putting her through all this stress again.

‘And mine!’ Titch suddenly said, causing them both to turn around. She was standing there, clearly seething, jabbing a finger in her brother’s direction. ‘You couldn’t do it, could you! You couldn’t keep yourself out of trouble for
five fucking minutes
! You come back here – all full of yourself, shouting your mouth off to everyone, being the big hard man, stomping into stuff you had no business stomping into and causing trouble for everyone!’

‘Titch,’ Vinnie started. ‘Titch,
Christ
– you think I
meant
this to happen?’

‘It doesn’t matter whether you meant it to happen – it
has
happened! You could have walked away –’ she stepped closer to him, jabbing her finger right in his face – ‘but you didn’t. You never do. You’re so
fucking
full of shit, Vinnie!’

‘Titch, pack that in right now!’ June snapped. ‘We’ve got to get your brother sorted and out of here. And we can’t concentrate with you screaming at him, you hear me?’

‘No, I won’t pack it in!’ she screamed back at June. ‘You’re just a selfish bastard, Vinnie. You don’t think about anybody but yourself and how “cool” you are. Well, you’re not cool. You’re going to get done again, and that’s not cool. That’s just bloody stupid. An’ then you’ll be gone again. Five minutes you’re home, and you just rake everything up again. And you’ll be gone again. And we’re all just supposed to get on with it again! I hate you! You’re the worst brother anyone
ever
had, and I HATE YOU!’

‘Hate who, for fuck’s sake?’ said Jock, who had now appeared in the doorway. ‘And pipe down will you?’ he said, hoicking a thumb back towards the hallway. ‘There’s a cop car just pulled up outside.’

‘Oh, shit,’ June said. ‘
Shit
. Jock, It’s Vin. He’s got himself in a bit of a mess and –’

‘I can see that,’ said Jock, looking his son up and down. ‘What the fuck have you been up to this time, you fucking idiot?’

June watched her son wince at Jock’s words. She wanted to punch Jock in the face. It was already almost too much to take in. The bloody cops outside, now, too, and Vinnie still covered in blood …

‘Been in a fight,’ she said. ‘Stabbed a lad. Yes, been a stupid bloody idiot, but –’

The knock on the door was loud and emphatic. Three strikes, a gap, then three more.

‘Shit,’ said Vinnie, looking at her. Looking more seven than 17 suddenly.

‘Mam!’ Titch demanded. ‘What are we going to
do
?’

‘Do?’ she answered. ‘How am I supposed to know, you dozy mare? Ask your idiot brother. Vin, you think you can make a case for yourself – you know, self-defence?’

Jock rolled his eyes. ‘
Think
? Only bloody option he’s bloody got!’

The door was struck again. ‘So we’ll say you got in, and you were hurt, and you’d been chased, and –’

‘Shut the fuck up, June,’ said Jock. Then he turned around and went to answer the front door.

Titch was becoming hysterical now, sobbing freely, her shoulders shaking, sucking air down in gulps. ‘They’re going to take you back now, I know they are,’ she was saying to Vinnie. ‘They’re going to take you back inside again! Mam – we have to
do something
!’

Vinnie, in the middle of it all, seemed uncharacteristically stuck for words. ‘Titch,’ he kept saying. ‘Titch,
please
– look, I’m sorry, okay?’

‘Jesus Christ!’ June snapped. ‘Will you just pull yourself together, girl! What else d’you think is going to happen? Of course they’re going to take him away, because he’s been a
stupid little bleeder
! There’s nothing to be done, okay?’ she finished, glaring at her daughter, and swallowing hard to stop the sob that was trying to escape from her throat.

She wasn’t going to give the bastards that much.

1974

Chapter 22

March

Vinnie ran his fingers through his hair, and tried to steady his jangling nerves. Today was the day, finally. His day in court. Bradford Magistrates Court.
Again
. Six months it had taken; six interminable months on remand, and his (seriously belated) Christmas present was a brown paper parcel from home, hand delivered by the solicitor who’d come to see him yesterday. His name was Mr Cordingley and he’d been very specific.

‘From your mother,’ he’d said. ‘And she insists that you wear them.’ The ‘them’ being his beloved Crombie, clean and carefully folded, together with a brand new shirt and tie, which he knew she could probably ill-afford. ‘It’s serious, son,’ the lawyer said, passing the already opened package across the visiting-room table to him. ‘You’re almost 18 now, and with your previous, make no mistake – they’ll intend to try you as if you were an adult. And if you mess up and it all goes pear shaped you could be looking at a long stretch.’

‘Thanks a fucking bunch, Mr Cordingley,’ Vinnie replied, grinning. ‘A right barrel of fucking laughs, you are. You fill me with so much hope.
Not
.’

Mr Cordingley shook his head and sighed. ‘Vinnie, lad, even if I tried to give you any hope it would be false. I know I’m good, lad, but Jesus Christ himself couldn’t get you off this charge – and, remember, he walked on fucking water, son!’