Bucket Nut Page 12

  It gave me belly-ache to thank him, but I did. That is mental discipline and Harsh would’ve been proud of me. But the other thing which gave me gut-ache was the fact that someone, probably from Count Suckle’s or Bermuda Smith’s was looking for Goldie. It made sense. Bermuda could be after her because of the CS gas, and Count Suckle because of me. If you are seen in the wrong company when the smelly stuff’s flying you are in bad trouble. I’m used to bad trouble – I didn’t mind. But Goldie might.

  I had to look after her.

  I left the Static. Everything I needed was in an army surplus knapsack. If everyone is gunning for you, really you should do a little more than crawl underground with a few cans of stew for company. But if push comes to shove you should be ready to do that too.

  The only trouble was I wanted to be famous.

  The only trouble was Goldie.

  The only trouble was that when I left the yard and went to find my Cortina I saw two black guys camped out in a white Maestro van just round the corner where they could spy on the gate.

  They did not see me – well maybe they did, but they were looking for Goldie and reading the Racing News.

  They were a bit of a problem because my Cortina was parked just behind them. I ducked out of sight and went the long way round the block coming up on the Cortina from behind.

  All the time, I was wondering if I should stuff a hamburger up their exhaust pipe and lob a breezeblock through their windscreen just to show them who they were dealing with. But by the time I got to the Cortina I decided that if everyone thought I was dead I might as well stay dead till after Sherry-Lee Lewis. After that it wouldn’t matter. After that I’d be a contender too and they’d have to think twice before messing with me. Everyone would know I was alive and kicking.

  I started the motor, U-turned and drove off before they’d had time to pick a winner in the 3.30 at Newmarket. No flies on me – a cloud of dust with the speed of light, hi-ho, Silver – and away I went. Lovely. I’d show Harry Richards how dumb I was! I’d show everyone.

  But when I got to the gym there was nobody there. Not a soul, and I suddenly felt flat and a bit shivery. You can’t show everyone if no one’s there.

  And I had to warn Goldie about the two guys in the Maestro van. I could just see her going home to the yard to find me and those two phlegm-blobs jumping on her from behind. She had to be told, but she wasn’t there.

  I’d never thought about it before, but a gym without any bodies in it is a sad place. It smells of old sweat and all the machines stand idle like a factory gone bust. There’s none of that clanking and thudding and grunting that make it human.

  While I was standing there, wondering which way to turn, Sam came in with a spanner and an oil can, so I said, ‘Where’s everyone gone?’

  He looked at the clock on the wall. It was two-thirty.

  He said, ‘The lunchtime trade came in. Your mob went to the pub.’

  I should have thought of that, except I had been too busy to think about the time. Us professionals don’t mix much with the recreationals. Too many plump office workers spoil the atmosphere so we move over the road to the Prince of Wales for a beer and a meat pie.

  I went straight away.

  The Prince of Wales is a gloomy pub. They don’t waste much money on bright lights and video games. The only extra they have is a snooker table in the back. Otherwise it is just a pub.

  When I went in I couldn’t see anyone and it worried the life out of me. But I went through and found them all in the snooker room.

  Mr Deeds was showing Goldie how to play, dirty old tosser, and he was leaning over her, saying, ‘You’ve got to keep the bridge hand steady, darlin’!’

  Gruff Gordon said, ‘Give it some deep screw, girlie.’ He was nudging Pete and leering like the brainless tub of lard he was.

  ‘I think I’d do better, George, if you didn’t crowd me so much,’ Goldie said. You couldn’t fault her on her manners. I’d’ve nailed his willie to the floor if he’d rubbed it up against me the way he was rubbing up against her.

  The Julios were playing cribbage in a corner and Harsh was sitting by himself reading the Independent.

  Goldie looked up when I came in. She looked up and smiled at me. The snooker lights which hung over the table caught her hair and gave her a halo. She seemed to be glowing – all gold. Even her skin looked like honey.

  She looked up and smiled at me.

  ‘Hello, Eva,’ she said. Just that. My friend. Mine.

  ‘Got to talk to you,’ I said. I must’ve sounded a bit croaky because there seemed to be something caught in my throat.

  ‘Something’s come up,’ I said.

  ‘What’s come up?’ Pete asked, elbowing Gruff Gordon.

  ‘Ask George Deeds,’ Gruff said, falling about laughing.

  I think that’s what I hate most about some men – they really do know how to spoil a lovely thing.

  ‘Smutty sods,’ Mr Deeds said, looking flattered.

  Goldie straightened up. She laid the cue down and came round the table to me.

  ‘Somewhere private,’ I said. I did not want to be in the same room as Gruff Gordon, Pete Carver and Mr Deeds.

  We went through to the bar. I bought myself a beer and a vodka and orange for her. We sat at a table in a corner where we couldn’t be overheard.

  I said, ‘Someone has been asking questions about you at the yard. And when I left there were two blokes waiting outside in a van.’

  ‘Who?’ she asked, looking at me, very clear-eyed, very steady.

  ‘I don’t know. Two black guys.’

  She said nothing. She just kept on looking at me.

  I said, ‘They could be from Bermuda Smith, or they could be from Count Suckle.’

  Her eyes widened, just a fraction.

  ‘You know about Count Suckle,’ she said. It was not a question. She sighed. ‘I would have told you. I was going to tell you. But I didn’t know how things stood with you and Bermuda Smith and the Chengs.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘What I thought.’

  ‘But I don’t understand why anyone from Count Suckle’s Club would want to see me. I wasn’t important.’

  ‘Because of me,’ I said. ‘Each of us was all right on our own. But when we teamed up we were trouble. You got me into lumber with the Chengs and Bermuda Smith, and I got you in lumber with Count Suckle. ’Specially now, with the bomb and everything.’

  ‘What bomb?’

  ‘The bomb,’ I said, ‘you know, I told you about an explosion.’

  ‘You said it was a gas main.’ She was staring at me. Her face had gone all white and wooden.

  ‘Yeah … well …’

  ‘A bomb, where?’ she asked. ‘Where, Eva?’

  I couldn’t look at her any more.

  ‘Where?’

  I said, ‘Count Suckle sent CS gas. Mr Cheng sent a bomb.’

  ‘The club?’ she said. ‘You bombed the club?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘What do you mean? You said Mr Cheng sent a bomb.’

  ‘Yes. Mr Cheng sent it.’

  She put her hand on my arm.

  ‘Look at me, Eva,’ she said.

  I looked and saw that she was quite steady again.

  ‘Tell me about it, Eva,’ she said. ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘They were trying to kill me too,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know it was a bomb.’

  ‘You took a bomb to the club?’

  ‘In a Safeway carrier bag. They said it was money for Mr Aycliffe.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mr Aycliffe.’

  She shook her head. She didn’t know the name.

  ‘Who was there?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t supposed to see anyone.’

  ‘Calvin,’ she said. ‘Was Calvin there?’

  ‘I didn’t see.’

  ‘You saw,’ she said. ‘Was he there?’

  ‘I didn’t see. They tried to kill me too.’

  She
stood up.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I grabbed her sleeve.

  She shook me off and went to the bar. The barman pointed to the phone. She went to it and dialled a number.

  I got up and hurried over. I put my hand on the phone to cut her call off.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘Don’t. It’s too late.’

  She hit my hand with the receiver.

  ‘Go away,’ she said, very steady, very clear.

  I backed off.

  ‘Go away!’

  I went to our table and watched from there. She had the receiver to her ear. She didn’t talk. After a bit she dialled another number. Then another. This time she talked.

  She turned her back on me and talked to someone. Then she stopped talking. Her arms hung down by her sides, the receiver was still in her hand.

  I counted to fifty while I watched her. She stood with her arms by her sides and her back to me while I counted up to fifty.

  Then she put the receiver back in its cradle and came over to me.

  ‘I thought you’d like to know,’ she said, very steady, very clear, ‘Calvin is alive. He was crushed, under the rubble for three hours. He has lost one eye, and half of his face, but he is alive. I thought you’d like to know the result of what you did.’

  It was worse than I’d ever imagined it would be. There was absolutely nothing in her eyes. It was horrible. It was like looking at a dead animal.

  She stood in front of me with her hands by her sides and said, ‘Marsha’s dead. Val’s dead. Micky’s dead. They were friends of mine. You know that, Eva?’

  I could only shake my head.

  ‘But you did know Calvin,’ she went on, very steady, very clear. ‘You saw him. You saw he was beautiful. You heard him sing. You watched him dance.’

  ‘They tried to kill me too,’ I said uselessly. ‘The bomb was supposed to kill me too.’

  ‘But it didn’t, did it, Eva? You got away with a few scrapes and bruises. Do you think that makes up for Val, Micky and Marsha? Do you think that makes up for Calvin’s eye? You’d have to die several times over to make up for that, Eva.’

  She never even raised her voice. She turned away and walked out of the pub.

  At first I couldn’t move. It felt like she’d kicked the guts out of me. Then I got up and ran after her. Well, I had to try, didn’t I?

  I caught her just as she was going to cross the road. She wasn’t looking right or left.

  ‘Goldie!’ I shouted. ‘You’ll get yourself run over.’

  I grabbed her arm.

  ‘Listen to me,’ I shouted. ‘You’ve got to listen. You know I wouldn’t do what I did on purpose. You must know. We’re friends.’

  She didn’t look at me. She said, ‘I wouldn’t be friends with you if you were the last person on earth.’

  And she set off across the road looking neither right nor left. Cars screeched to a stop, bikes swerved, drivers leaned on their horns. She walked straight across the road and disappeared into the crowd of shoppers on the other side.

  I tried to follow her, but none of the traffic stopped for me so by the time I got to the other side she was gone and I didn’t even know which way she had gone. First I ran one way, and then the other. I searched at the bus stops, I even went down the tube to see if she was catching a train. But London had just opened its great big mouth and swallowed her.

  In the end I went back to Sam’s Gym. Mr Deeds was there, the Julios were there, and another tag-team called the Icemen, but, even though I looked in the showers and the ladies’ lavatories, Goldie was not there.

  By then, I didn’t expect she would be. It was as if something that had happened before was happening again. I knew I wouldn’t find her. Don’t ask me how. I just knew it.

  I had to keep trying. Well, you do, don’t you? But I knew I’d lost her. I was racing my motor. I was scrabbling around like a rat in a trap, but I had to keep going because there was nothing else to do.

  There was nothing for it but to go back to the yard. I thought, maybe she’ll go back there too. Then I thought, of course she’ll go back there. After all, everything she owned was in the Static – all that new clobber she’d bought. For certain she would go back to the yard.

  So I ran out of Sam’s Gym. But I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I had parked the Cortina. While I stood dithering on the pavement I saw Harsh go by, walking towards the tube station and I remembered that I wanted to talk to him. Now more than ever, except I couldn’t quite remember what I wanted to say. So I watched him walk by.

  He walked so easily. He carried his kit in a cricket bag slung across his shoulder. He did not dawdle. He did not hurry. He covered the ground perfectly balanced and ever so graceful. And I thought how astonishing it was that you could tell just what he was like by watching him walk.

  I raced after him.

  ‘Harsh!’ I yelled. ‘Harsh – wait.’

  He stopped and turned back.

  ‘Harsh!’ I said. I was out of breath, sweating. ‘Harsh,’ I said, ‘I’ve lost Goldie. I can’t find her. She’s gone.’

  ‘Yes?’ he said politely. He did not know how much it mattered.

  ‘She’s gone, Harsh, really gone. She won’t forgive me because of the bomb. And there won’t be anyone to look after her. They’ll try to kill her the way they tried to kill me.’

  ‘Eva,’ he said. ‘I do not understand what you are saying. Nor do I understand why you have chosen to say it to me. But if you will listen for a moment and stop jumping up and down, I will tell you something which may help.’

  He was so totally calm that I did stop jumping up and down.

  ‘Eva,’ he said, ‘again you are allowing your emotions to hurt you. You are like a thing blown in the wind. At the moment the wind is blowing you against a wall. The wall is hard. It will not be broken. You will not break the wall. The wall will break you.’

  I knew it was important because he spoke very seriously. But I didn’t understand a single word. Or rather I understood every single word, but I didn’t know what he meant.

  ‘But what about Goldie?’ I asked. ‘I’ve got to find Goldie.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You do not have to find Goldie. What you have to find is peace. When you have found that you will no longer be blown in the wind. Then you will find Goldie or you will not find Goldie. Either way, you will not hurt yourself because trivial things will not matter.’

  Did I ever tell you that Harsh has the thickest, most beautiful black eyelashes in the world? And that sometimes, although he is very dark, he reminds me of an angel? I’m telling you this because just then it seemed as if he was talking from a long way away and very high up.

  He went on down to the tube station and left me standing like a wattock on the pavement. I didn’t know what to think, but I found myself wondering if he talked like that to Soraya. And if he did, how had he lived so long? But maybe Soraya understood him. Sure as eggs I didn’t. I wished I did because I had the feeling that he had said something very helpful, but I didn’t know what.

  Harsh is awfully wise, but there’s not much point being wise if no one understands you.

  Chapter 17

  Back in nineteen eighty-something Simone and I were at a place called Burlington House. It was a short-stay home. Because it was nearly Christmas there was no school, so the girls there spent all day raking leaves, mopping floors and polishing windows. There was a bell to get up with, a bell to tell you it was breakfast and a bell for however the bastards who ran the place decided to break up the day. You said grace before and after every meal. The only time you got out was on a Sunday morning to go to church. You could watch telly for an hour at night if you had been good. If you were bad you were refused privileges, which included telly, margarine on your bread, sugar in your tea, a proper bed.

  Small punishments which added up.

  Somehow, I was never good enough. We’d only been there a couple of months when I was eating dry bread, drinking sugarless tea and sleeping
on the floor in the hall with no telly for comfort. It was a way of life, and it really pissed me off.

  Simone never toed the line any more than I did but she always looked as if she did. It was a talent, a real talent. If it was bottled, I’d spend a fortune trying to buy it.

  But one day, one of the screws found some cigarette butts on the ground outside Simone’s dormitory window. I don’t think it was actually Simone smoking. She always said it wasn’t. She said she always shredded her butts and flushed them down the bog, and I believe her – she wasn’t careless.

  But the other slags in Simone’s dorm fingered her, and she found herself sleeping out in the hall with me. It was very cold that year. In the mornings you found ice formed inside the windows. Simone wasn’t used to it and she was very upset and uncomfortable that night. Even worse, because smoking was such a sin and a crime at Burlington House she was going to get the strap in the morning. It had never happened to her before, and she was scared stiff.

  I told her it wasn’t too bad, but she was shivering and crying so much that I couldn’t comfort her.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ she kept saying. And I felt really bad for her.

  The funny thing was that I was always being fitted up. Well, not even fitted up. If something happened, the screws always looked at me first. I’ll never know why. Probably I’ve just got that sort of face. But anyway I was done as many times for stuff I didn’t do as I was for stuff I did do. It didn’t matter much. Like I say, it was a way of life.

  But Simone was different. She was pretty and delicate. People liked her. She was used to being treated well – or as well as anyone got treated in places like Burlington House. She expected it. I expected it. So it was almost as bad for me as it was for her when she was fingered and made to sleep on the floor knowing she would be strapped in the morning.

  I couldn’t understand why she’d been fingered. As I said, people liked her. So I asked her why. And it turned out that there was this girl called Rosie Price and her special friend was called Sheena. You have to be a bit careful about people with special friends in places like Burlington House. Special friends are rather like married couples. I never had one myself – except for Simone – but a sister doesn’t count. Well, anyway, Sheena liked Simone. Simone liked Sheena. Simone liked nearly everyone and nearly everyone liked her.