With Love and Squalor (9 page)

Ethel stopped and leant on her mop. “Go and put on some breeks or we won’t be able to help ourselves, will we Bonnie?”

“Aye, it’s been a while since I saw such a fine figure of a man.” Mrs Edgar winked and started over to the counter.

Jimmy was too quick. A hop and a skip and he’d vaulted it like a gymnast.

Upstairs, he rooted around in his wardrobe. Decided on a pair of jeans. Felt better as soon as he’d slipped them on.

Looking into the mirror, he pulled at his skin. The wound was like a new mouth, its lips moving without making a sound.

Sean Mulligan would to have to pay for what he’d done, big time.

He went downstairs where the two ladies were ready with the first aid kit. Laughed their heads off when they dabbed on the antiseptic and he screamed.

***

Next morning was the first since starting High School that Jimmy arrived on time.

Facing up to the kids was like falling off a bike, his dad said. You needed to jump into the saddle straight away or you lost your nerve.

A small group of first-years were looking up.

Flying high over the school for everyone to see, where the Eco flag usually fluttered, Jimmy’s trousers. It was the straw that broke Jimmy’s back.

Didn’t bother going in. Instead he hurried home and waited for the integration team to call.

***

At midnight he got out of bed, already dressed, and crept downstairs.

His dad, as usual, slept in front of the telly.

It was perfect. No need to explain why he was going out with a hammer and Stanley Knife in his bag.

Out on the street were a group of kids. Couldn’t tell who they were on account of the hoods. Jimmy pulled the cord in his own hood tight, blew into his hands and took a detour through the back yards.

Came out on Kennedy Street and took out the piece of paper with the address just to make sure. Number 36 Grinton.

Jimmy crept around the back.

All was quiet.

He tried all the windows and doors. Everything at ground level was locked.

He slung his bag onto his back and gave the drainpipe a test.

Satisfied it was sound, he took hold and pulled himself up.

When he got to the top the pipe’s fixings loosened in the wall, damp, brick dust raining down to the ground. No way he’d be able to leave the way he got in.

He took the biggest screwdriver from his bag, tried it between the window and the frame.

The softwood gave-way under the pressure.

A few quick jabs and he’d exposed the whole rotten mess. Council should be ashamed of themselves letting good property go to seed like that.

Not that Jimmy was complaining.

One small push and it was open.

He slipped in through the window as if it were something he did every night of the week.

The place stank. Like the toilet hadn’t been flushed for a year and the potpourri was rotting vegetable.

With his torch he scanned the room. The shower curtain was covered in mould and fungus grew where the walls met the ceiling.

Jimmy’s body responded to the air. His head itched, his eyes puffed up and his lungs were struggling to work.

He checked the bag for his inhaler.

“Daft sod,” he said. Hadn’t thought about putting it in.

He took slow, deep breaths that wheezed into his chest. Washed out his eyes and took a sip of water until he felt he was back in control. Eased open the door and tiptoed into the hall.

It smelled stale. Body odour and urine like the alley by the bookies.

Wanted to leave right then, but remembered why he was there.

All he had to do was find the room, beat the crap out of Mulligan and get out in one piece.

The layout was the same as his house. Made things easy.

First bedroom on the left Ramie Boyle had told him.

He walked to the top of the stairs, remembered the joke about leaving the landing light on and chuckled.

Then he stopped.

A door opened.

Light spilled onto Jimmy like he was on the stage.

A spectral figure appeared before him.

Beneath a full-length nightie, an old woman’s silhouette was all too clear. The way her tits sagged and her skin drooped was enough to put him off sex for life. Her skinny arms were all wrinkles and sores and her face cream looked like it had been bought for Trick or Treating. And she stood right in the way of Jimmy’s exit.

“Declan. Darling,” she said, her hand reaching out. “I knew you’d be back.”

She touched his cheek. Jimmy freaked.

“Paedo!”

He threw his head forward with all the force he could muster. It connected with the bridge of her nose.

The lady dropped at his feet like he was the Messiah.

“Bloody hell. He knew better than to hurt a woman unless she was attacking him. His dad would kill him if he found out.

Springing over the banister, he saw the door ahead as he came to land.

If the floor hadn’t given beneath him, the foundations hadn’t swallowed his legs, if his ankle hadn’t busted and his head hadn’t caught the joist, he might have got away with it.

***

By half past twelve, Jimmy had usually had enough of being educated.

Double history and French had sapped his patience.

Picking up a burger and chips at the Fry, he ate as he walked to the estate.

Entering his street, he screwed up his chip papers, threw them over a hedge and noticed someone in a wheelchair heading in the opposite direction. Too far away for him to see who it was. Might have been Carlo, might not.

He turned into his garden and entered the house through the back door and found his sister sitting at the table in tears.

“What the fuck?” He stood and stared at Kylie. Her eye swelled visibly as he watched and he could practically feel the heat from the welt of the handprint throbbing on her cheek.

“Bloody hell, Jimmy, you gave me a fright.”

“What the fuck?” he said again.

“Fell on the stairs.”

Jimmy dropped his bag onto the floor. “Dad’ll kill him and I’ll be cheering him on.”

“Kill who?” She blew her nose and gave her eyes a wipe.

“Wise up sis. Your boyfriend’s a prick.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“If you’re sticking to the stairs story, you’d better get some ice on that face otherwise Dad’ll be dusting for fingerprints.” Jimmy went over to her and put his arms around her shoulders. “Joe sleeping?”

“Just down.”

“You should get some rest.” There was no point pushing it further. If she was going to tell him, she’d have done so straight away.

“No school?”

“Excluded.” It was plausible enough.

“Nobody phoned.”

“Well they would’ve excluded me if I’d stayed. I just saved them the bother.”

Now they were even. It was the way things worked - they either scratched each other’s backs or blackmailed each other into submission.

“You should change,” she told him.

“And you should get some peas from the freezer for that face of yours.”

Kissing her forehead, he headed upstairs taking them two at a time.

***

A sleep and a change of gear revived Jimmy and he was ready for some action.

First off, he needed a smoke, only he was clean out.

He headed over to Nan Ramsay’s. See if he could cut a deal. Might even bump into Kris while he was there, make him feel uncomfortable about hitting Kylie like that.

He chapped on the door and waited.

Jimmy never understood why her house was in such a state. Here they were, on the rob for years, yet their home looked like it was waiting for someone to put it out of its misery.

Kris opened up and stood stripped to the waist, revealing a stretched stomach and the undulations of his ribs. A tattoo of barbed wire started at his shoulders and coiled around his torso until it disappeared beneath his boxer shorts.

Jimmy wasn’t sure what to say. “Out of my way, you lanky fucker,” came to mind. “Nan in?” worked better.

“Back garden,” Kris told him, scratching his armpit.

Jimmy stepped forward to go through and Kris blocked his way. “Password?”

“Give me a break.”

Kris leant out of the way and Jimmy walked through. Got a kick up the arse along the way. He stumbled forward and kept going.

Nan Ramsay was sitting in the middle of the patio in a deck chair.

The garden shed in the corner was missing a roof and a window and weeds grew up between the patio slabs. They weren’t about to win ‘Tranent In Bloom’, that was for sure.

Nan saw Jimmy coming and pulled the oxygen mask from her face.

“I need it more in the summer,” she said. “The rapeseed brings my hay fever on something chronic.” Placing the mask on the table she reached over, took a cigarette from her pack and lit it, ignoring the no-smoking symbols on her machine.

Jimmy was pleased to see she’d put her teeth in.
The last few times he’d been over he’d barely understood a word she’d said.
 

Jimmy took a fag from her packed and lit it with a match. He loved the way the smoke kicked at the back of his throat and made his head feel like it was about to float away.

“Twenty pence,” Nan said.

“Aw, come on. We’re practically family.”

She laughed and coughed. It came from deep inside her chest, a raw, rasping sound that made Jimmy wince. After spitting a lump of brown phlegm onto the floor, she took a tissue and wiped her mouth.

From his pocket he took out his fifty pence and put it in front of her.

Nan took two more fags from the box and passed them over.

Jimmy rolled them back across the table. It may have been the going rate, but having to put up with Kris sniffing round Kylie had to be worth something.

“How do you reckon you deserve more, laddie?”

“Cos I’m special. Cos I’m your favourite customer.”

 Nan took a couple of cigarettes from the packet and added them to the others, took the money and slipped it into the pocket of her tabard. Pulling the elastic strap over her head, she poked the two small tubes back up her nostrils and replaced the mask over her mouth. Negotiations were over.

Picking up the fags, he thanked her and went back indoors.

Kris blocked his way again. This time he was staring into the mirror and squeezing a pluke on his chin. Without looking at Jimmy, he straightened up, took a packet of ten Regal Kings from the ledge and handed them over.

Jimmy held them for a moment as if trying to estimate their weight. As he walked towards the door he reached through the banisters, put the packet on the stairs and left.

***

Walking down through the new houses, Jimmy sensed the curtains twitching on both sides of the street.

The buildings here looked about the same size as the council properties if you didn’t count the double garages and bricked driveways. Jimmy couldn’t see what all the fuss had been about. Sure, none of the windows were smashed or boarded up, but it didn’t make sense that they were worth three times the houses on the other side of the Wynd. The builders hadn’t even put in proper pavements for people to walk on, for god’s sake.